Chicken in the Studio

Today, Doug Pike discusses Nando's, tax fraud, and rams.  

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Remember when it was impossible to misplacethe TV remote because you were the TV
remote. Remember when music sounded likethis, Remember when social media was truly
social? Hey John, how's itgoing today? Good? Well, this
show is all about you, onlythe good die. This is fifty plus

(00:25):
with Doug Pike, Helpful information onyour finances, good health, and what
to do for fun. Fifty plusbrought to you by the UT Health Houston
Institute on Aging Informed Decisions for ahealthier, happier life, and by Texas
Indoor Air Quality Specialists because clean airis healthier air. And now fifty plus

(00:48):
with Doug Pike. My Wednesday editionof the program starts right now. I'm
dougies Will and we are Do youget a full belly? Will? I
have a full bell? My god? I we had the people from Nando's.
I don't know if you've ever heardof them. They're fairly new in
the region. They've got stores inseveral states, and now they have one

(01:11):
down in the Post Oak region andthen one out in Katie from best I
could tell with a quick glance attheir website after I had filled my belly
full of delicious chicken and Brussels sprouts. And mashed potatoes and some big old
chunk of garden. Do you haveany of that bread? The bread was

(01:34):
really Oh yeah, yes, itwas yeah, Oh my gosh. Thanks
to Nando's for bringing that in forus today, and hats off to them.
That won't be the last time Igo to that. Well, well,
the next time will be the firstthat I actually go to the restaurant.
But now I will be walking inwith a spring in my step,

(01:55):
knowing exactly what's coming. So welcometo Wednesday. A lot wetter than I
expect this morning when I hauled myson to a six twenty baseball practice,
Thank you very much. It wasn'training. It wasn't real rain, but
there was a very heavy mist inthe air. Nothing crazy on the horizon,
so don't worry too much about that. And that's enough about the weather.

(02:15):
On the brighter side, Oil wasdown this morning early more than a
buck of barrel, and then headedback north a little bit later in the
morning. I haven't looked since then, and Gold. I've had some email
exchanges with Brad Schweiss over at HoustonGold Exchange about this. Gold set another
record high yesterday before sliding back aboutfive bucks it's still north of twenty four

(02:38):
hundred and ounce this morning, andactually was briefly at another new high around
nine point thirty before losing a littlemomentum I don't know, an hour hour
and a half ago. Now toa story that I definitely want to share,
because this type of behavior, sadlyis, is just becoming more and
more frequent, and I truly hopethat we can can correct the course of

(03:04):
this country of ours before this becomesthe rule and not the exception. There's
video on the internet, and withgood reason in many places, of two
guys, two grown men, atLake Mead National Recreational Area, deliberately loosing

(03:24):
and causing to fall very large ancientchunks of red rock that are estimated to
have been formed in the fashion wesee them now about one hundred and forty
million years ago. Some of theserocks are about the size of hay bales,
and they're just they're amazing formations,something to be respected, something to

(03:47):
be revered, and these clowns justkept shoving them loose and watching them fall
and shatter. One of these idiotsbrought his young daughter along, and all
sarcast nominate that Dufus for father ofthe year. What a lesson to teach
his daughter. Huh. If anyof you know anyone who knows anyone who's

(04:09):
been up that way recently and hasa young, long haired daughter looks to
be maybe eight, ten, twelveyears old, I'm not sure. Watch
this video and see if maybe youor somebody you know can figure out who
these clowns are, and that landand those rocks are federally protected by the
way, and these guys when they'recaught, not if they're caught thanks to

(04:30):
the social media these days, theybetter get the book thrown at them.
Then again, in a country whereyou can commit fell in the after fellony
and still get let back onto thestreets if you can scrape up a couple
of bucks, or in some states, in some jurisdictions not even a dime,
they just say, oh, pinky, swear that you won't do that
again. You won't beat up anold lady, or you won't rob a

(04:53):
liquor store. Just promise you won'tdo that, and we'll let you go
back out there for a while.The odds of these two people up at
Lake me getting the punishment they deservedvery low. Find him anyway and Let's
let social media judge them for whatthey are, and I bet them they

(05:13):
won't care because anybody who would dosomething like that whilst being videoed. Mind
you, it's not like there wasnobody looking. I'm sure the person with
the camera was standing pretty close toget the images he or she got,
and these guys just kept on doingwhat they were doing. That's wrong in

(05:34):
about one hundred different ways. Fromthe proud to be Texan Desk, Governor
Greg Abbott this morning was named tothe Time one hundred list of most influential
people in the world. According toTime, Abbot earned his spot on the
list for his efforts along the Texasborder fighting illegal immigration, despite the perpetual

(05:58):
hurdles being in his way by thefederal government. We are having to do
what the federal government should have beendoing a long time ago but refuses to
do and actually has kind of madeit easier for these bad people to get
in here. There's some good peoplecoming across the border, I'm not questioning
that, but there is overwhelming evidencethat a whole lot of these people have

(06:23):
very bad intentions for what they're goingto do in the great country of ours.
While they're here. State of Texas, by the way, and I
have a long, long list ofbullet points on this, but I'm going
to restrict my speech here to justa few. State of Texas has the
eighth largest economy. If you throwus in with all the countries in the

(06:48):
world, we would be the eighthlargest economy as a country all by ourselves
in the entire world. And theTexas triangle that would it's more or less
a triangle shape includes Dallas, FortWorth, Austin, San Antonio, and
Houston. That's five of the country'slargest, fifteen cities home to twenty one

(07:11):
million people with a GDP of onepoint three trillion dollars. In case you
don't understand how much money that is, that accounts for more than six percent
of the entire US economy in size, that relatively small chunk of Texas that
has all those people and all thatmoney is bigger than thirty other states.

(07:39):
Just that little triangle. Just saying, stick around, stay close. We're
in a very good position here,all right. Rather than run late because
we've got a lot going on,I'll go ahead and go to this break
right now. On the way out, I'll tell you about the internationally acclaimed
fly fishing films from all over theworld that are coming to the MG three

(08:01):
D Theater in Moody Gardens, thelargest screen in Texas, where you will
see two entirely different programs, oneon Saturday April twenty six, and another
set of films all together on SaturdayApril twenty seven. I'm gonna be down
there to MC. It was ablast last year. I couldn't. I

(08:26):
started knocking on there to do Hey, please let me come back and do
this, Please let me come backagain, And they have and I'm gonna
take full advantage. It's gonna bea lot of fun. There are a
lot of vendors come down there withall the latest gear, plenty of fantastic
rap items. You can register inadvance for youth and adult fly fishing lessons
while you're down there. Tickets forthe film fest just fifteen bucks, and

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Moody Gardens has put together one nightand two night hotel packages so that you
can just make a long weekend ofit and maybe play on the beach during
the day, maybe go play golf, I don't know, whatever you want
to do during the day, butbe sure to carve out time for these
films on Friday and Saturday nights.Go to Moodygardens dot org for details on

(09:07):
the tickets and on hotel packages.Moodygardens dot org. Aged to perfection.
This is fifty plus with Dougpike.No welcome back, fifty plus. Thanks

(09:37):
for listening, sir, going todo appreciate it. God, that sounded
so country, didn't it. Inow sing a rodeo or something. I
try not to try to be somewhatneutral, somewhat neutral in my accent,

(09:58):
but it's hard. I was bornand raised here, and especially if I'm
around people who who have heavy Southernaccents, I tend to adopt a little
heavier accent. And similarly, whenI'm in other places, I'll pick up
just a little bit of that dialect. After the first day or so,
I don't know. A linguistic chameleon, perhaps, Now does that sound well?

(10:22):
Does that sound fancy? Sounds veryfancy? Dog. That's That's what
I am. That's what I'll alwaysbe. That's how I want that on
my tombstone. A linguistic chameleon.Nah. All right? From the Science
Climate Green Desk comes news that it'sgot a funny really depending on which story

(10:43):
you read first, and which oneyou believe the most. The Earth is
either spinning a teeny tiny bit fasteror a teeny tiny bit slower. I
can hardly say this without laughing.Then it was a while back, and
we're not even really sure about howlong a while is, because it's been

(11:03):
a lot, not relative to theEarth's history. It's been the blink of
an eye that we could really tellhow fast it's spinning. So both sides
say that if we can't correct theimbalance, either by moving the clock forward
or moving the clock backward within afew years, by one second, then

(11:31):
we're all going to die. Onesecond, they're thinking, is going to
make a difference. And before,frankly, here's the deal. Before we
move anything, I need to seesome some sort of factual evidence that the
Earth's rotation has never varied since thebeginning of time, because I've got a

(11:52):
hunch that up until now, it'smoved a little faster, maybe moved a
little slower, over the course ofmany, many millions of years. And
I would guess also that in itsorbits around the Sun, it has figured
out a way to kind of selfcorrect. They're talking about one second over

(12:15):
several years that we're gonna have toadjust the clock to make up for something
that's been going on. This littledisparity either way, by the way that
both sides are trying to make theircase, this tiny little disparity in the
former speed that the Earth spun aroundon its axis, Show me where there's

(12:39):
evidence of that first, and thenwe'll figure it out. I got a
hunch where if we do correct something, we're just gonna do that to change
something. Then in a few yearswould have corrected itself. It would have
corrected itself if there is indeed someanomaly with the speed at which we're spinning,

(13:01):
hurtling through space and spinning on ouraxis and spinning around the sun.
In Washington, d C. Atpresent, we're still waiting to find out
whether or not the Democrat led Senatehas the courage to allow Department of Homeland
Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorcus to come underthe harsh spotlight of an impeachment trial,

(13:22):
which, by the way, SenateMajority Leader Chuck Schumer is pretty much expected
to just sweep under the rug andtable, which means nothing to see here.
We don't even need to talk aboutthis. We're just not even going
to bring it up anymore. Thisis get another example of the the two
tiered justice system going on in thiscountry right now. This, by the

(13:46):
way, is the only second,only second impeachment of a cabinet member in
American history. The first was inpop quiz will dunt dunt dune in what
year. If you've read a littlebit about this, you may know was
the first impeachment of a cabinet member. And for bonus points, what was
his name of a cabinetman, cabinetmember. I'm gonna say it's hard,

(14:16):
give me a century. It wasin I'm gonna go with in the nineteenth
century, Okay, narrow it downeighteen hundreds, and to say pre Civil
war, so I'll say, ineighteen forty eight you only missed it.

(14:39):
That's not bad. Eighteen seventy six, post Civil war, post Civil War,
Yes, William Bell Knapp impeached bythe House, and then promptly i'd
bet acquitted by the Senate. Kindof a familiar ring as to what's going
on now, huh. I don'teven know that it'll get there. I
gotta hunch that that humor doesn't wantany of this to come to light,

(15:01):
because under questioning and as the evidenceis presented, it will be so plainly
obvious what a train wreck. Thiswhole border situation has been millions, more
than ten million people now in here, and we don't have any idea.
I'm going to tell you some moreabout that. By the way, well

(15:22):
i'll tell you right now. Doyou have a minute, you do?
Okay? Good? Down in Mexicoand NGO, a non governmental group in
Mexico allegedly funded by George Soros,is said to be distributing flyers that encourage
illegal immigrants to vote for Joe Biden. The flyer says they don't have to

(15:43):
be citizens to vote, they justhave to swear that they're eligible, which
in some states, if I'm notif I'm not mistaken, actually is the
standard. Oh we pinky swear,yeah, yeah, we can vote.
I just don't happen to have mypaperwork on me. This person said in
one of a dozen languages. It'samazing. How and if that's going on,

(16:07):
If that's correct, If there actuallyis that flyer in existence, and
somebody can produce it and somebody cantrack its source, how on earth is
that not election tampering? How onEarth is telling people who aren't even in
this country yet and have never evenbeen to it, and are coming here

(16:30):
potentially to come in illegally, howon earth could anybody encourage them to vote
for anybody? That's rightening, Itreally is. And unless we get a
handle on this very quickly and inthe right direction, it's just gonna get
worse. We're not gonna get tovote. If this one goes south,
we may not get to vote again. And that's a legitimate concern. I

(16:56):
think UT Heals Institute on Aging willhelp you through whatever you're going through right
now, and you certainly aren't gonnahave to wait a long time to see
one of these providers. They area collaborative, actually, this UT Health
Institute on Aging of hundreds of medicalproviders all around this great city of ours,
many of them in the medical center, and many of the people who

(17:17):
are in the medical center primarily alsocome to the outlying areas, the hospitals,
the clinics, private offices in allquadrants of our little southern end of
the Texas Triangle, so that youand I and any other seniors who need
their help with someone who is speciallytrained in senior medicine can get it be

(17:41):
seen by somebody who understands not onlyophthalmology, for example, if it's about
your eyes, but that of senioreyes. Cardiology beyond play old cardiology,
every day cardiology, which takes alot of study. The cardiologist in the
Institute on Aging have gone through additionaltraining to be fully aware and capable of

(18:06):
treating seniors' hearts. And the listgoes on and on. Therapist trainers.
Everybody who's in there who's a cardcarrying member of this Institute on Aging is
specially trained to help us. Goto the website, look at all the
information there, look at the resourcesavailable to you there, and make that
one of your favorites, and spendfifteen to twenty minutes a day on it

(18:27):
till you can really get a handleon all of the options and the benefits
that are provided to seniors right there. Uth dot edu slash aging, ut
dot edu slash aging. Now,they sure don't make them like they used
to. That's why every few monthswe wash them, check us fluids and

(18:48):
spring on a fresh code O wax. This is fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Welcome back to fifty FLUSS. Thanksfor listening, certainly do appreciate it.
On this Well, we're in thestudio with no windows. What would
you guess is the is going onoutside? Will peaks of little glimpses of

(19:11):
sun, no sun at all,dark clouds. What do you got?
What are you gonna? Says?Exactly like this studio gray, gray,
with a little bit of light,just to let us know it's daytime.
Yeah, the fluorescent you know,the fluorescent sun would be cooler if the

(19:33):
sun. If the sun were fluorescent, will I suspect that we would all
be popsickles. I think if thesun was fluorescent, we would all just
be inside the point no skin cancer, I guess, But there would be
no warmth. But if we haveno warmth, how do we generate energy?

(19:57):
We don't, I think we justyeah, we're done, We're cooked.
We're going to the deep freeze prettyquick. I would guess that.
Well, no, we're getting welloff in the in the weeds here.
All right, Well it's your turn, hey, mister tally Man, all
about perspective or rambo rambo Wall StreetJournal, just journal, not the Diurnal.

(20:26):
I don't even know what that wouldhave been, just to a big
write up on how a lot ofshepherds use what will to prevent male sheep
from fighting, because when their hormonesget going, that's when they start butting
heads and beating each other up andand just wearing themselves down. And the

(20:47):
shepherds don't like that because dead ramsnot worth much to them, frankly,
so they put a fake, afake sheep out there. No, no,
they actually use a particular product tocover the smell of the hormones so

(21:07):
that the rams get along better.What are they using? Just commercials?
Man, it's on commercials. Ihave no idea. I don't watch commercials
have young young men. What's beingpromoted to them to make them smell better?
Oh? Body spray? It startswith an A and it is with
x E oh a. Yeah boythere. They're putting that all over these

(21:32):
rams to keep them from fighting becausethe smell is so strong. You know
what else it prevents from happening.But girls talking to you, Yeah,
that's the truth. That's what theysay. All right, let's go,
Oh here's what I like, AndI'll just I'll just give you the headline
to this one. Well, Iwon't force you to choose because you wouldn't
choose it. Probably this one Iput putting the nut in donut. You're

(21:56):
ready the nut and donuts. Yeah. Thirty five year old guy arrested after
he flew into a rage at aDunkin Donuts location in New York City.
He was mad because he wanted sixpumpkin donuts and they only had five.

(22:17):
Lost it. He went berserk,he lost it and he's been con well,
he hasn't been convicted yet, butif he has found guilty of the
crime for which he is charged,he could do seven years in the big
house. Wow. But he wouldn'teven see a pumpkin donut in there in

(22:40):
New York. Looks like, dothey sell Boston creams in New York or
do you think they just they justhate Boston. Really, that's a good
point. I wonder if they'd beatyou up if they saw you eating a
Boston cream filled donut. Perhaps.I think if I was a New York
and I was going to Dunkin Donutsand I saw somebody maybe in a in

(23:03):
a Red Sox hat or something andknock it off his head, No,
I think I would scream at him, though, be like, this guy's
getting a Boston Cream. You know, get yourself beat up for a lotles
in that state. Amazing. Theyhave to keep the National Guard now in
the subway platforms on the subway platformsto keep the peace down there, and

(23:26):
mayor and mayor telling everybody how safeit is. It's gonna be okay.
We've got plenty of people to takecare of this. Moving on from the
dumb idea desk, which is stackedpretty high these days, comes a story
from Justice Morning about the mayor ofLos Angeles, a woman named Karen Bass
Democrat. Imagine that asking the mostfortunate people in her city to buy housing

(23:52):
for the least fortunate in her city, which number about forty thousand at present.
So even if you were to somehowmanage to convince some of the city's
wealthiest people that they need to buya house for these homeless people, what
are you gonna need at least tenthousand homes? Oh, you got to

(24:15):
find ten thousand people with so muchmoney that they're happy to buy somebody a
house and just walk away and handlethe keys. Not gonna happen. This
is so she patted herself on theback for actually finding a way to move
twenty one thousand homeless people into temporaryshelters and believes that this somehow will lead

(24:36):
with big help from the private sector, if only everybody will chip in.
Just buy them a house. That'sall you gotta do, Just buy them
a house. Calling on the privatesector speed up the purchase of places where
homeless folks can live in a programthat's unapologetically dependent on private citizens to foot

(24:59):
the bill for a problem caused bythat city's government. They wouldn't stop it
when it started, just like SanDiego, just like San Francisco. They
let it get out of control,and now they don't know what to do.
States already spent since twenty two,twenty two, I believe it is,
they've spent twenty four billion dollars onthis program, on this situation,

(25:23):
the homelessness situation, twenty four billiondollars, and it's getting worse, not
better. So I guess they figure, you know, eh, might as
well quit spending our own money.Let's let somebody else pay for this.
Let somebody else pay for it.No benefit whatsoever to the people who might
get suckered into buying a house forsomebody like that, or no long term

(25:44):
benefit for sure. I know bythe way she's signed an emergency decoration that
gives her additional power to get thisdone. I saw photos from just an
hour ago of an entire city ofhomeless encampments along LA Freeways. Fairly elaborate
structure's actually made from discarded this andunwanted that. It's actually some pretty clever

(26:06):
DIY stuff in some of these structures, too, enough so that I would
bet that at least some of thepeople who live this way likely could get
and hold down construction jobs or evenbe quickly trained as tradesmen and women if
they wanted that. But you've gotto want the help before the help can

(26:26):
do you any good, and you'vegot to want to contribute to Just sticking
your hand out and saying give mea dollar is not going to get you
out of the position you're in.A Primo Doors, that's the sound that
people are gonna hear when they knockon my new front door when it gets
installed in I don't know, gosh, it can't be more than three or

(26:48):
four weeks tops. It's in thefinishing department right now over at Primo Doors
out behind the showroom there on NorthPost Oak, very close to where I
am now and my wife and Iare quite aided, believe me, to
get this door. Primo Doors hasbeen around for twenty well, they've been
in the door business in Houston fortwenty something years. Primo Door's been around
more than a decade now, familyowned company, very competitive pricing on more

(27:14):
than ten thousand different choices of doorsand hardware and finish options. Wood door,
fiberglass door, iron door. Ifyou really need the safety and if
you're just in an area where it'snot likely that you'll get any problems,
you can put a kickplate on thatdoor, something I learned about when I
was in there talking to my wifeand I were there talking to Jason about

(27:36):
what options we had for security,and we're getting a wood door. It's
gonna have that kickplate to keep problemsfrom happening up there. And honestly,
I can't wait. It's a beautifuldoor. I'm thrilled to death. If
you have a tax refund, oryou don't, or for whatever reason,
you just want to change the lookof your front of your house. Maybe

(27:59):
that's been in the sun for along time, too long, not been
finished in a while, Maybe there'ssome damage to it, Maybe you just
want a new look, a freshlook. Go to the website, look
at the before and after pictures premodorsdot com, and then that'll get you
all jazzed up. You make anappointment, you go to the showroom,
You bring a picture to the frontof your house, and in a relatively
short time, the person who helpsyou will be able to wheel it down

(28:22):
to get you specific choices that willmake your selection process a lot easier.
Drop my name you get a freehandle set. That's something that Jason has
offered for quite some time now andonly to my listeners. Primodors dot com
is the website. Go there,look around, and then buy. All
means please go by that showroom andlet them show you around. Let them

(28:45):
show you what a beautiful new doorlook like on your house. Primodors dot
com. Old guys rule, andof course women never get old. If
you want to avoid sleeping on thecouch, okayler, I think that sounds
like a good plan. Fifty pluscontinues here's more with doug By. Welcome

(29:19):
back, fifty plus. Thanks forlistening. Certainly to appreciate it. Going
through a couple of emails here tryingto figure it out by the way,
I'm going to remind all of youthat if there is something you need to
share with me, something and youcan't remember my email, you can't remember
this, you can't remember that,well, by all means, then do

(29:41):
use pound two fifty and you cansend me a brief voicemail that I will
respond to very quickly. It popsup. If you use pound two to
fifty and say fifty plus, you'llyou'll have fifteen seconds sleeve a voicemail and
then I will get a notification thatit's there and can just op in that
and read it, open it andread it. Speaking of let me see

(30:04):
where I want to go here?Oh, something that's coming up this weekend
up in the Woodlands. The firstcalendar major on the LPGA Tour gets underway
with a pro am today actually atthe club at Carlton Woods. This is
the Chevron Championship, second time ina row now it's been at Carlton Woods.
I got a sneak peek at thecourse a few weeks ago. Eighteen

(30:26):
absolutely gorgeous holes, always have beengorgeous place. Eighteen fantastic calls. They
tweaked them a little bit immediately afterthe twenty twenty three version of the tournament,
which was won by Lily Avoo,who finished at ten under par.
I took a look at the field. They have kind of a who's who
and women's golf. It's the firstmajor of the year and they all want

(30:49):
to get that one under their belts. Great field on tap. I can't
stress how well these women play thegame of golf. I'm hoping to get
up there this weekend, but evenif I can't make it all the way
there, I'll certainly watch a lotof it on television. The purse is
a solid five million dollars. It'svery good to see these women getting rewarded

(31:10):
for all the work they put in. And as a golfer myself, who
who frankly physically can't relate to threehundred yard drives, can't relate to hitting
eight iron two hundred yards little thingslike that, it's refreshing to watch these
women and watch how they manage thegolf course because they do so at a

(31:34):
level of distance and ball control thatis far more relatable to most golfers than
is that of the PGA Tour guysand the live golf guys, and the
highest of the highest tier players inthe men's side of the sport. In

(31:55):
something I called not so fast,mister President, by a vote of fifty
three forty seven, the Senate struckdown a Biden administration regulation that would have
forced states to monitor vehicle emissions alongUS highways in an effort to establish future
emissions targets. That's just that's oneby one it started. It's finally starting

(32:16):
to turn. It's starting to happenslowly, but with an optimistic calling for
that. It's gathering momentum, slowlygetting rid of the disasters that are emission
regulation and green energy mandates and climatecontrol. That if we really take a

(32:36):
hard look at at CO two andrealize that it's a fraction of a fraction
of a fraction of the atmosphere,and if we were to bring it down
even just a little bit more,we might start killing the plants that make
oxygen. All of this stuff.It's just finally being debated a little more

(32:57):
openly, and at least enough soin some cases to expose the fallacy and
fantasy that goes on in the nameof what else, in the name of
spending money our government government doesn't havewithout restriction on things we don't need It's
just as simple as that, allright, Well, less than a minute,

(33:19):
magic man, or don't lean back? Magic man? Magic Man guy
in in New York City a taxpreparer known as the Magician Boy. He
was saving a lot of people money. Well. He was arrested by IRS
agents and is charged with being allegedlypart of a one hundred million dollar tax

(33:49):
ripoff scheme. I don't know howyou did. I guess you have to
be a magician, right, will? Are you a magician on a good
day? Five seconds from now?You're gonna make sup here, aren't you?
All right? I gotta go,Thanks for listening. We'll see tomorrow. Audios.