Welp........................(Unexpected) Change of Plans...We'll explain... In the meantime, give us a hand (if you can).........thanks... https://www.patreon.com/TelehellPodcast
Telehell
It Happens...
So, this is not going to be the usual kind of update, because I have some stuff to tell you that's not exactly on the good side of things. And with that much of a teaser for you, I do have a little bit of a story to tell. And yes, this is indeed another car story, unfortunately. And don't worry, we're not going to throw in the ragtime stuff, because I think people already made their thoughts clear on that. So I'm just going to go ahead and tell you a couple of weeks ago was the final weeks of yard sale season and in the off season, I like to look for videotapes, Betamax and all kinds of other vintage media that I'd either like to flip on my eBay page, or if it's stuff with TV commercials on them, they're the stuff that I send to our sponsors, Dave's Archives, Retro Surk and Keres Nostalgia Corner. And for the most part, it had been a somewhat productive yard sale season, got a lot of things and they got a lot of things in return and also selling a lot of things to make up for all the gas I've been wasting and going to these different locations. A couple weeks ago, during one of those trips, I started noticing something was wrong, especially when driving up a steep hill. I started feeling this sensation, this, I guess you could say a shake or a shutter or just something, because normally this car that I told you about, and I told you that this is a 2013 Kia Soul that I got in a private sale and had also, within 10 days of its purchase, had to have the hood replaced because it flacked into me four times on my way to a funeral. I'll be more than happy to replay that story at a future time. But for the most part, everything was going smoothly, everything was running the way that it should, oil was where it should be, no friction, no other dangers, but all of a sudden, during one of these yard sale trips, I started struggling going up hills and I never used to have that problem in the seven months that I've had this car. So because I'm always a bit of a novice when it comes to being a gearhead, I tried to go through some process of elimination to figure out what it could be. Now, at first, because it was really, really warm for a stretch of time during this fall, and then all of a sudden it started getting cold again and sometimes something that happens is that water vapor gets into your gas tank and it winds up causing your engine to seize up a little bit, or as Joe Nameth once put it on the Simpsons, vapor lock. And no, I'm not going to play a Simpsons clip here because this is actually kind of a serious thing that I'm getting to, and I am getting to it, I promise. So I put in what's known as dry gas, which is basically this additive that you put into your gas tank to remove any moisture that may be left over in your gas to see if that would make a difference. And for about 24 hours, everything started going smoothly. I was able to go up hills again and all that stuff, but 24 hours later, I started experiencing those problems again with the shaking and the shuttering, and if it wasn't the gas or the engine or anything else like that, what else could it possibly be? That's what I soon found out when I took the car to a little place called Amco. And if you know what Amco is famous for, then you're probably a couple steps ahead of me, but I'll just say it anyway, that there was something going on with a transmission, but they weren't exactly sure what, so they had their diagnostic tools, and they took a look at things, and there's this transmission, any car transmission I've learned has more than one moving part. In fact, it's got many moving parts, otherwise you wouldn't be able to move your car, period, and this is also not my first experience with a bad car transmission, because in all the years I've been driving, I've had transmission problems on at least two other cars, probably because of some leprechaun or gypsy I hit in the middle of the night some time, but whatever. Anyway, they go through their diagnostic, and they mentioned something about this part called the Torque Converter Clutch, which is what essentially makes you gear up as you speed up. If you look at, I guess you could say your speedometer and your odometer, you got your RPM meter, which shows you, you know, 1/1000 RPM as you speed up and all that stuff. Like, again, not a gear head, I'm just spitballing. Normally, whenever I am able to speed up, I can get it to as high as the three and four points on a good clip of about 65 miles an hour, and lately I've been hovering somewhere around one to two and maybe two and a half if I try to speed up, and, you know, for every uphill there is going to be a downhill, I can't actually, you know, do fine going downhill and all that stuff. But it's because of this Torque Converter Clutch that you're able to do that. And apparently, something that I did not know from the previous owner was that it had never been serviced for anything involving transmissions. So on a possible hunch, I kind of had a feeling that maybe the fluid had never been changed. And it's weird on a Kia Soul because, especially the 2013 models, because it's got this unusual design flaw where you can't check the fluids unless you take the, you know, all the drainage bolts apart and drain the fluid that way and all that stuff. But normally a car's transmission has a red dipstick and you check the oil just like you would check the engine crankcase oil, but that's a yellow dipstick. Anyway. So, just on a hunch, I decided to go for a fluid change and it's like a couple hundred bucks, no big deal. So just to see if anything would happen there because they also threw in an additive that would hopefully repair the Torque Converter Clutch. So they do this fluid change and again for like maybe, well, this time it lasted about three days instead of 24 hours and they say you got to drive it for a couple hundred miles to see if anything takes effect yet. So you'll still feel some shaking and shuttering. So I drive for about a week or so and not only do the shutters not go away, but it also gets more pronounced. They get heavier. They get, well, long story short, it gets a little bit too dangerous to do any driving. Now, that's one part of the story. The other part is the fact that I'm a very frugal person. I'm very thrifty. I try not to be cheap or anything, but I do like a good bargain whenever I see one and I've always done things involving like coupon apps, you know, stuff like I bought a Rakuten swag bucks and all those things. And I wind up pocketing a little extra just for finding a receipt on the sidewalk. So I'm good with saving money and I have been good with saving money for a long time. And what this all adds up to here is the fact that I had to get my transmission replaced on a car that I've only spent seven months driving so far and have also taken out alone with which to pay for this car. And now in the process of paying down for the next four and a half years, and also the year before I had taken out a debt consolidation loan to pay off all my credit cards because let's face it, no matter how good people say the economy is going to be, it's never going to be good for any one person at a time because your mileage, no pun intended, may vary. So I've been trying to keep all my costs down, but now because of this, there were two options. There was either go to a key dealership and get a brand new transmission put in for an obscene amount of money or have Amco do it for half the obscenity, I guess you could say. And there was really only one way I could be able to get this done. That is by using a credit card that I've already consolidated the debt on to get a new lease on life on my still relatively new ish pre-owned car that's closing in on 11 years old. So the whole reason why I'm telling you all of this is because this shit cost money. It wound up costing me a lot of money. In fact, it cost me a lot of unexpected money. So much so that I had to start thinking about, you know, the short term of things, long term of things, and maybe just have like a small dash of hope that some kind of surprise would happen somewhere along the way. And I say all this now here in the very last days of October as I'm recording this. And I say this also with supposedly two months to go until we're supposed to kick off our new season of shows. Now, unfortunately, I took this previous update down called the past the present in the future because I did have plans for the future involving season seven of the show and now because of all of this happening, we're going to have to make some serious readjustments to those plans and for those who don't remember, the plan was that for next year, I really wanted it to be more of an acted show. Like I wanted to have situations where it'd be more like radio plays, radio dramas. I've always been a big fan of all those things. And I mean, I still hear a lot of newer podcasts out there that are fiction shows and I've always been envious of those shows and I wanted to try to sort of do like a hybrid between TV review with storyline stuff and the big storyline that I was going to do involved the finale episode that we did just this past July where I'm placed inside this device that my boss, the devil came up with called the genre mat where he was pretty much going to put me in different moods and situations that reflect whatever it was I was going to review. So like one week it could have been done in the style of a cheesy sitcom, another week it could have been done in the style of a detective story, another week it could have been done in the style of a game show and all that stuff. That was what I wanted to do for this upcoming season because I've been doing this now for five years and I don't want to be too repetitive and I also don't want to run myself into the ground creatively because you know it's one thing you know I'm not knocking people that have stuck to their formula for many many years because they're obviously big successes and I'm far from it and I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm far from successful so you know if it works for them then great it works for them but I just wanted to see how far things could go creatively. Unfortunately this would have required hiring voice actors and also taking a little extra time to put things together just to make it sound like such a damn good show and I really wanted to put on a damn good show for all of you guys but unfortunately because of all that's happened with my car at the present moment and again who knows what tomorrow will bring and I mean this could be a completely invalid message by the time this winds up circulating but this means that unfortunately we can't proceed with our original plans. Now this does not mean by any means whatsoever that there won't be a season seven of telehealth it's just going to mean that we're not going to go whole hog on the plans that we wanted to do and you know plans change certain things do change all the time and the one thing that I think is the most important is just being honest with all of you out there because I've always been honest with all of you. I'd like to think I've been honest with all of you and letting you know what's happening right now is just it's just therapy for me. At the same time though that's just like a short term thing we again something could happen that winds up negating all of this and we may go back to normal or whatever semblance of normal there is but as far as things go right now it's just going to be what we've been doing just regular review stuff will throw in whatever jokes will consider funny here whatever clips we consider funny and all that stuff but as of this moment we can't really go ahead with this grand design partly because not only do I need to pay off this new transmission but I have to take up a second job now in order to do that and I know that this is the time of the year when most people are doing their hiring for the holidays so anything that's open I can take it you know I've always been able to pay my bills. This thing with a transmission though I'm just going to have to work just a little extra more than I should to make sure that I don't go completely under and especially with Christmas coming up and all that it's it's it's been a little draining on me and so much so that I have been in one hell of a state of depression for the past few weeks now and this is not my first time dealing with this kind of stuff I've I mean I'm pretty sure that if you've ever listened to an episode of the show and noticed how self-deprecating I can be sometimes with my own life it should not come as a surprise to anybody and I'm not even gonna pause for gasps of shock because this is how unshocking what I'm about to tell you is but it should not come as a surprise to anybody that I've been suffering from depression since I was 18 years old and I have done a lot of things to try to keep the worst of it at bay everybody from psychologists to medication to meditation to anything involving just self-healing and get your mind out of the gut or I don't mean that I of course mean food anyway just it's just been kind of a struggle for me for a little while and for all the times that I think I have it under control something usually comes in once every couple years that just knocks me out of my ass and I just got to find a way to pull myself together from all this stuff and if it means just throwing myself into a lot more work then that's essentially going to be what it is I'm going to have to do even if it means sacrificing all the free time that I have right now because it is through all that free time that I'm even able to do a podcast period so I know I'm just rambling because that's kind of what I do but I'm also really just saying this just so I can hear myself say it but also to unburden myself to all of you cuz I know everybody out there listens to the show and I appreciate every god damn last one of you who do and I wasn't expecting to be this personal today but I kind of needed to just to let everybody know what the situation is both with the show with life with everything else and all that stuff and I'm not alone in this not this specific situation but I'm not the only person in the world who goes through depression there's millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of people out there who have gone through far worse than what I am currently going through right now or have gone through in some 23 years but I do know that there are always people to talk to about stuff and you know whether it be fans of the show or people just in my own personal life or people that I mean through social media or all that stuff I know I'm gonna be okay because they tell me I'm gonna be okay and not in like a passive aggressive way it's like you know sometimes people just say hey get the hell over it or something like it's not as easy as saying get over it sometimes you gotta put a lot of things into perspective so I appreciate everybody who has listened to this show for five years in counting and we are gonna keep counting I promise but I got a lot to deal with I've got a lot to figure out just in terms of time and finance and just overall sanity in general but I don't want you to worry too much about me because I have been through stuff like this before it's just the anticipation of when it gets better is always going to be the hard part because it eventually does but sometimes it comes a lot longer than you would ever want it to be and that's kind of what I have to deal with right now so my apologies if this got a little too heavy but again I just wanted to say all this stuff just to hear myself say it but also to say it to all of you guys because especially those who have been with us since day one and I'm not even talking about the show anymore I'm talking about just in general those who have been with me since day one I I really appreciate everything that all of you have done and don't think that it has gone unnoticed because I know sometimes I can be a little monosyllabic and unresponsive and just wanting to brush things off that I assure you everything that you say is it's meaningful it's very meaningful and I can't thank you enough for all of that now that is just the mental stuff and I really didn't want to talk too much about that stuff right now because again I try not to be exploitative even if it's at my own expense I try not to do any of that stuff but again just wanted to get it all out there now as far as the show's future goes yes we're still proceeding with season seven and like I said we're just gonna have to dump the genre mat for now we will do it again we will do it at some point but it would just seem a little impossible to do just knowing that I have a financial albatross around my neck right now that I have to pay off because thirty percent interest rates suck they suck big time especially when you pay thirty six hundred dollars for a refurbished transmission at a thirty percent interest rate good Lord I anyway that's besides the point the point is don't be surprised if next year things are gonna be done a lot cheaper than they have been it could just be just what we've been doing but just not so much now that does mean a lot of belt tightening and that also means a couple changes to the show I just mentioned the big one that we're not gonna be proceeding with the genre mat in January with just gonna be regular shows but also for our patrons at telehealth podcast patreon.com/telehealthpodcast this is gonna mean some changes for you guys too because especially on the higher levels we've had this level for a while now called media of the damned and we still do intend to keep it but because of this we need to cut back as much as we possibly can here so if you join our media of the damned here at our patreon from this point forward and until possibly the end of time all the media that we're gonna be sending to you is going to be digital only and we're doing this because I've come to realize that post office shipping rates are expensive very expensive especially when you send things out media mail but you know you kind of want to guarantee that things get there so that's one change there and I got to think of some other things I got to do to make sure that I don't go completely broke by Christmas and eventually we're going to figure some things out and again forgive me if this just seems like total egotism gone amok just like this is something I was not really expecting it my age quite honestly I expected to have a better handle on things but you know it happens shit happens and it happens to millions of people out there all the time I'm not alone in this I'm sure there's somebody out there listening right now who's not alone in this and just I really thank you all for indulging me and I just hope that things do look up for the better but win or lose we are still going to be doing our Thanksgiving clip show on Thanksgiving the origin story that I promised I think is going to also have to be delayed along with the genre Matt so I don't know what the hell we're going to do for December but we will be back in January with season 7 whether I'm completely sane or not I don't know just just thank you for indulging me and who knows if there is a light at the end of the tunnel I just hope it's not coming from an oncoming train thank you very much we'll talk soon bye [BLANK_AUDIO]