Biscayne: Coming up on "Newsreaders"...
Maxdude magazine's hometown hot bodies from 2005...
Where are they now? Mostly, still in their
hometowns, and a lot of them have kids and are now divorced.
Also, do you have a children's book in you?
No, but you think you do. All that and more, tonight on
"Newsreaders."
Newsreaders - 02x03 The Journey of an iPhone
Newsreaders - 02x03 Restaurant Plague
Unless you have a Samsung Galaxy or a Motorola RAZR that you use
ironically, chances are you have an iPhone.
Did you know that like tomatoes and Canadians, iPhone's come
from somewhere? That's the story Xandra Dent
brings us in tonight's "Xandra's Techzine."
When "Newsreaders" asked me to do an iPhone story, I was
like, "can I dress like a watermelon from Fruit Ninja?"
But when they told me I'd be tracking the journey the phone
takes or whatever, I was like, "with a 'Newsreaders' producer?
No way." I caught one of those rapists
googling pics of my feet. But I decided to do the story
anyway because our camera man hates producers, knows
mixed martial arts, and looks like Vin Diesel.
So how does the iPhone get into your pocket?
It takes tons of worker bees to do that, worker bees like
Corey Firfe. He's one of the nerds who makes
the iPhone tick or twinkle or gong or whatever.
Fyi, I diy my own tones in garageband.
So what do you, like, do all day.
My team codes customization OPS, folder prioritization,
um... oh, you know how when you want
to move an app and it wobbles? That's mine.
- Wait. You did the wobble? - Yeah.
Oh, my F'ing G. I love the wobble.
One time, I wobbled for so long that I lost track of time and
got so dehydrated, I had to go to the E.R.
- Wow. - That's the software.
- But what about the hardware? - Who makes the physical phone?
Well, thousands of outside contractors all over the world
do little tiny things. There's a factory in
grand rapids, Michigan, whose only job is to bevel the
- sim card tray. - I'm not listening to you
anymore. The trip to grand rapids was
bumpy. My producer kept pretending he
was asleep so he could put his head on my shoulder.
Thank God the male flight attendant liked my "Happy Days"
shirt. That meant free chardonn-ayy!
Frostek mobile makes that thingy that goes inside the phone that
chubby-wan Kenobi wouldn't shut up about.
The busy factory was loud, hot, and super-hot.
(Giggles) So what is all this junk?
Well, this is a hot injection molder for sim cards.
- It's hot injection. - (Giggles) Shut up.
- You're such a dork. - It molds high-heat metals
- like silver iodenium number 2. - Right, so where do they take
all the garbage stuff that you make and, like, put it in the phone?
- Most of the manufacturing is done in China. - I love China.
(High-pitched giggle) I have to go to the airport.
We can take my truck. The gear shift's a beer-tap handle.
Boss.
I'm totally gonna have sex with your son.
My journey to trace the iPhone's journey was just beginning.
I went all the way to China to check out one of the ginormous
factories where they make the phones.
I thought Japan was China. Turns out it's macro diff.
My bad. Also they seem to really be mad
- at my iPhone for some reason. - (Grunts)
Then the police freaked the "F" out on me.
They said I caused a riot... No... I'm Xandra Dent from
"Newsreaders." Arrested me for disturbing
the peace, and threw me in jail. The horrible racist stereotypes
that Chinese people are an ancient culture who invented
fireworks and huge walls couldn't be further from the truth.
I found them to be a proud and very hungry people who found me totally adorbs.
Anyone? And I'm proud to call those
slanty-eyed ching-chongs my friends.
(Speaking Chinese) (Laughter)
(Laughs) After spending weeks in a
Chinese jail wiping myself with chopsticks...
Thank you so much. I lost 10 pounds.
It was great. You think I'd go home, but I
still had to find the stuff that makes the stuff that makes the phone.
I'm that rad.
I continued my journey here to Africa where Bono buys all his
t-shirts and where they mine the silver for the iPhone's main
veins that go inside their "don't you want to touch me?" screens.
Hi!
Those tools at the Verizon store could learn a little about
getting the job done from these workers.
Thank you so much for your hard work.
- Do you use garageband? - (Speaking native language)
- He wants to know what this is.
Oh, this is the iPhone he helped make... totally worth the $500 it cost.
He and his co-workers are like kings in my country.
We wouldn't be able to make a phone call or play Candy Crush.
- What's going on? - He's explaining basic
macroeconomy to people who don't see money from their
back-breaking work. (Indistinct conversations)
Oh, cool! This is so "Resident Evil!"
Die, zombie guard! (Gunfire)
Biscayne: Xandra Dent is no a child soldier in Liberia.
For more on that story, you can tune into "Vice TV" on HBO.
But if you want to hear about food, keep it tuned in right
here. America's not only obese with food.
It's obsessed with it.
And as Amir Larussa reports, when it comes to eating out,
there's one thing Americans love to eat in... theme restaurants.
These days, theme restaurants are popping up everywhere.
From scantily-clad waitresses serving wings to scantily-clad
waitresses wearing wings serving wings, America loves its grub
with a gimmick.
George Dillard of Lewton,
Florida, thought his medieval-themed restaurant,
Catapults, would be a huge success.
But there were almost no customers for his knights and
- wenches to serve. - The only people who showed up
were fat guys in ponytails or people who thought they could
watch "Game of Thrones" on Sundays.
- I didn't have HBO in my package. - Just when Catapults was about
to close its doors forever, George Dillard caught a lucky break.
Someone got stabbed.
Jim Ray Hawkins, a 46-year-old truck driver, was accidentally
impaled while sir Lancelot was cleaning his sword.
With that stabbing, George Dillard realized something.
- People were drawn to the authenticity. - It turned out, what people
wanted was a new kind of medieval restaurant.
So he decided to simulate what living conditions were actually
like in the middle ages. He created a fully-authentic
fifth-century dining experience, complete with syphilis-infected
waiters, open fires, and historically-accurate
amusements. Dillard even insisted that his
employees not wash their hands. And he changed the name of the
restaurant from "Catapults" to "Plague."
And Plague quickly became the place to be...
A celebrity hang-out for stars, ranging from destiny's child's
Michelle Williams to "Brokeback Mountain's" Michelle Williams.
We had to turn people away.
- Because you were booked up. - Well, no.
Mostly because they were Jews. 'Cause they couldn't come into a
place like this in the middle ages.
We wanted to be historically accurate.
You know they didn't have restaurants at all in the middle ages?
Oh.
You just assumed like, "oh, Jews probably weren't allowed in places."
Probably not. Yeah.
You know who else probably wouldn't have been allowed in restaurants?
Mm-hmm.
- Dogs. - Despite all of its success,
Plague wasn't without its critics.
A patron lost a foot in the boiling cheese moat?
So what? I mean, half the staff here lost
- feet to gout. - A former chef claimed that he
almost lost a thumb being attacked by a pack of wild dogs.
A careless chef, huh? A careless chef got his hand too
close to the canine garbage disposal system.
Canine garbage disposal? Sounds like "Flintstones" a
- little bit. No. - But it's not "the Flintstones."
- These animals don't talk. - Well, I don't think there
were any talking dinosaurs in "the Flintstones."
The elephant shower didn't talk. The bird remote control didn't talk.
Oh, yes, it did.
- "It's a living." - That's right.
- "I'm sick of doing this." - My bad.
- "When's my break?" - I haven't seen it in a while.
See, but that's prehistoric times.
- Yeah. - When you get to medieval
- times, animals stopped talking. - Business at Plague was
booming, and then the thinkable happened.
Well, one of our patrons was decapitated while waiting for
- the ox-drawn dessert cart. - By your guillotine.
And that turned an average tourist photo into an awesome
- tourist photo. - It's not fault then that he
- didn't read the warning signs. - Well, the warning sign
said... I do a lot of stories, so
there's a lot of notes. Should figure out a better way
to get to the pages that I need to get to.
The warning sign said, "monitio: Haec auferam
- caput tuum." - It's not my fault he didn't
know Latin. All right, it's on our money,
- for chrissakes. - George had no choice but to
- shut Plague down. - People just stopped coming.
- I couldn't stay open. - Because of the frequent
- deaths? - No. People love that.
A TGI-Obgyn opened up across the street.
The restaurant with the stirrup chairs?
Yeah. I can't compete with that.
- Sex sells. - They have an item on their
menu called "HPVLT." It's a VD-themed restaurant.
A lot of places, that'll sell.
- That's super-disgusting. - Disgusting sells, too.
Biscayne: Finally tonight, a few thoughts from skip reming.
Only two things scare me in this world, and that's twins.
Personally, I can think of exactly three uses for people
who look exactly alike. One, meat sauce.
Two, voter fraud. Three, I forgot 'cause I thought
about twins again, and I got distracted.
They say the Devil has a forked tongue.
Well, twins are like the Devil, but with a forked everything.
They're two entire forked people.
And twins and forks are the Devil's playthings.
That is why I insist on mashing all my food into a soup that I
can eat with a godly spoon. That's right.
Not because I wear dentures... I don't.
It's because I don't trust two of anything.
Biscayne: Next week on "Newsreaders," why is this man
wearing no pants? The answer will surprise you.
He is wearing pants. They're called "scrotes," and
we'll tell you why they're the talk of the fashion world,
also, people who have no business using the word "y'all."
Finally tonight, a correction. Last week on this program, I
said, "I'm Louis Lafonda. Goodnight."
We've fixed the teleprompter and apologize for the mistake.
I'm Louis Lafonda. Goodnight.
Come on.
sync and correction by solfieri www.addic7ed.com