Good Day Google+ - The Man Show

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to Good Day Google+. We're here for our Friday show and today we have the man show because as usual as it is for us to have all men on the show, you know, I never plan it that way, just kind of how it happens. And today we do, we have a manly group of men. I want to break into the Monty Pythons, men, men, men, men, men. We won't do that. I see Matthew there shaking his head. Alright, so we're going to have a good time today and I see we have a lot of people in the house. I just want to say a quick shout out. I see Roxanne Davenport's in here. How you doing, Roxanne? Dave Pipe is in here. Sheila Strover's here. Candy from Tokyo, how you doing, Candy? Neil Brown, Nazim Beltran from Milano, good to see you there. Cheryl Deuce is in the house. Carmen Mendez is checking in from Spain. And of course, Coach Moore, Christopher Vogelman, and I'm glad that you got a computer to get to us. Even your iPad's fine while Maggie uses your computer. And Eileen is here too. So hi to everyone so far and thanks for coming. If you have any questions that you'd like to ask, please leave them in the comment section or any comments, and I will put them up and get— and say Hi to everyone. So we're going to start off with our manly edition of Good Day Google+. Let me just introduce everyone real quick and then we'll come back and spend a little time with them. So today I have a new friend. I have Tim and Tim, you're going to talk to us a little about what you do later on, but how you doing?

Good, good, you?

I'm happy. Where are you exactly?

You're in Rome, Georgia, north of Atlanta.

Oh, you're not really that far away then from Florida.

No.

Although you've been having a little bit more chilly weather than we have, I think.

It's been cool, yeah.

It's been cool. And you're going to do a couple songs for us today. I'm so happy to see that. I love having musicians on Good Day Google+. I can't wait. Nice way to break up the day a little bit. So I'm so glad you could join us.

Thank you.

And of course, then we have Matthew. Matthew Rappaport. How you doing, buddy?

Hey man, how are you? I just realized I have the dog in the shot, the water and the food, so hopefully that's not a big deal. I'm good, how are you? It's good to be here. Tim Jones in the house, he's going to play some music, and we got Circle Scope and Dennis Littley, and I'm feeling good. And Joey.

Yeah, from Germany. How you doing? I'm doing good. It's been a long time since we got to talk. I'm so glad you could come on today, hear about your new adventures. What's going on?

Yeah, no, I'm excited. I started a new gig about a month ago, techtimes.com. They're a media website focusing on tech, which we all love, science, health, and pop culture, geek, and all that good stuff. And working from home today to be on this Hangout.

I'm very grateful that you could. I'm always happy to have you. So, Las Vegas, I hear you. So we'll come back and you can tell us more about your Tech Times and the different things you're doing with them.

Thanks, Seth, good to be here.

Great, and next to him I got Joey. Joey, how you doing, buddy? It's good to see you, and I see a guitar hanging up behind you too.

Yeah, I will not be taking that down today with another real musician in the house, but I did not shave today to keep with the manly theme to try and get as much—

Ah, cool.

It's Movember. Happy Movember.

Happy Movember. I did see, and there was a thing posted and it said had a picture of a woman and says, "Oh, so you're not going to shave this month? Two of us can play at that." So I've been shaving because of that. I won't even go anymore, but you all can understand where I'm going. So, and you're in Ohio, right?

Oh yeah, just outside of Cleveland.

Great. And I guess winter's hitting you. We were talking about that earlier.

We went right from summer to winter. Yes. Fantastic.

I hate when that happens, I'm telling you.

Couple of times, no.

Yeah. I just—

I drove up the driveway right before I got on this Hangout, so that's the kind of day I'm having.

Well, we're kind of in our fall right now, and hopefully that'll last for a little while. We don't really see winter. Winter for them. People get crazy down here when it gets 50 degrees or 60 degrees, but—

I feel like anybody in warm climates should never even be allowed to talk about the weather. That just should be like a— Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's about 60 in my house right now, that's why I was talking to Mia the other day and she had a hoodie on, a jacket, a scarf, a hat, and a little heater down by her feet. She was inside.

I'm like, oh my God.

That was the day I think it was -3 there, so that's excusable. All right, and then we'll move over to Craig. Craig, it's been so long I've talked to you, and I'm so glad you could come on from sunny New Hampshire, right?

Today I'm up in Maine.

Oh, you're back in Maine?

Yeah.

And it's really not that cold there yet, or no snow?

It's in the 30s, it's not too bad, but no snow, not yet. We've been very close to snow though.

Very close to snow. As close as the TV is good for me right now. Although they are putting the snow out, there's a place called Fun Spot in Florida not too far from here, and they're making snow, and they're asking to go play in it. I'm like, that's as close for me.

Yeah, the mountains up here already have skiing going. They're all making their snow.

Very good. So great, we'll come back to you, and maybe we can talk a little bit about Circuloscope today too. I've been enjoying that and see where you're taking that. Alright, so everyone, I thank you for coming again, and we're gonna kick the show off, and Tim Jones is gonna do a song for us, and he's gonna do one for us in the beginning and then one towards the end of the show. So let's let Tim start with his song for us.

Well, I play country, and my uncle once told me, he said, why don't you write a song about you play country? So this is what came out.

I remember when I heard Haggard tell us how his mama tried and The man in black played "Cole'some" for the boys locked up inside. Old George and the Jones boys let us know the race was on. And Waylon and Willie went out law flin' on a stage out in old Tucson. Play me some old-time country, the kind of music that soothes my soul, like we used to hear when we listened to the Grand Ole Opry on AM radio. I miss the sound of them fiddles and the whine of steel guitars. Take me back to when life was simple and let me hear the old-time country stars. There was Roy and Hank and Lefty, Loretta and Patsy Cline. Legends heard at the Ryman have made that place a shrine. Hey, whatever happened to the The golden sounds, they must have slipped away. Hell, I don't hear no country in the stuff they play today. Play me some old-time country, the kind of music that soothes my soul, like we used to hear when we listened to the Grand Ole Opry on AM radio. I miss the sound of them fiddles and the whine of steel guitars. Take me back to when life was simple and let me hear the old-time country stars. Take me back to when life was simple Let me hear the old-time country stars.

Woo-hoo-hoo!

Good stuff.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you very much. I'm with you on that too. I do love my old-time country, and there was a point in my life when I thought it was funny when on the Blues Brothers they said, "We listen to both kinds of music, country and western." Now I can say it with a straight face. So thank you, Tim.

That was great.

I love it. So, Tim, could you tell us a little bit about what else that you do? Because I found some very interesting things on your site when I was looking at it.

He likes memes.

I do TV commercials.

Yeah.

And, you know, in other words, I'm fortunate in that I've been able to do whatever I wanted to do most of my life, and I got paid for it, so it's not been like work.

That's always a good thing when you can get paid for doing something that you're passionate about and have fun doing.

Yeah, and you know, I've been— like, the client I'm working with now, I've been with for 11 years. I've been doing the program that I do for 25 years.

Wow.

And worked with clients all over the Southeast. They say that I've been in probably over 40,000 commercials in the Southeast.

Oh my God, that's pretty cool.

Are you doing that as an actor or as a producer, or what?

What is your role there?

Uh, I actually am on-camera pitchman, and, uh, I negotiate the buy with the TV station and take the 15% agency fee. Yeah, and, uh, that's, that's about it. Once it's in place, it just rolls on. I've had several clients I've had 10 years plus.

Wow, that's really cool.

Can you do us a little bit of your professional pitch voice?

No, I've heard it.

No problem. I'm happy that you sang for us.

And Tim has a new album, right?

Well, we're working on it. All right, it should be out after the first of the year. 14 original songs. And I'm fortunate because I ran into a guy over in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Billy Lawson, who's been in the music business since he was born, I guess. Raised in Muscle Shoals and through the years of the Swampers and all the great music musicians that went through Muscle Shoals. And he's producing the album. And then Glenn Schweitzer, who does the artwork for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill and Rascal Flatts and the band Perry, and is going to do the artwork for the CD.

So that's really cool.

Tickle with that.

So you're going to be doing, when you get all settled, you're going to be doing some live shows on Google+?

Yeah, probably, yeah.

We'll have to let Christine DeGraaff—

Yeah, we will. Once it gets closer to releasing the album, we'll start doing them.

Christine has My Music Hangouts and we kind of swap, like she's given me a lot of acts that are on hers that come on, so she's a good resource to have for Google+. A lot of views. Well, that was really cool. Thank you, thank you so much. And we had a lot of applause set up for you. Heidi, Sheila, Zara, since we don't have the applause on. Elena from England is saying good, that's very music wonderful. So a lot of nice people saying hi and appreciating your music. And here's Maggie saying hi, she's on.

There we go.

And one of the questions Heidi had was how are we handling the copyright? And for the most part, we do only original material that the artist owns. So that's pretty much how I'm doing it. And that and the fact that I'm not monetizing, I think that does have something to do with it. Since I don't— since I'm not making any money from my shows, I don't think they're as concerned most of the time with that. I could be wrong, but so far we've been lucky with it. All right, so let's— and then Nazim joined us. Nazim, thank you so much for popping on.

Hey, thanks for the invite, Chef.

I mean, I didn't know if you'd still be awake and around, so I'm glad that you are.

7 o'clock, which is fine over here in Milan.

Hello to everybody.

I'm having a little bit of beer.

In an interesting glass.

Great to see friends in here.

Absolutely.

Nice to see you.

It's been a while.

Yeah, thanks for the invite. Love it.

My pleasure. Now we have a really good manly—

Oh, it's manly.

Manly. It's manly, but I use it too. Let's jump over. Get to the choppa. Yeah, and Zara's saying, thanks for no applause app. Yeah, no one likes the applause app.

They don't? I thought they don't like it anymore. It's played out?

I don't think anybody ever really liked it.

I don't like the little yellow guy that pops up.

Oh, that one. Oh, the applause app. I thought you meant the sound effect.

Oh, no. They love that. It's just fine.

Yeah, I don't like that. That makes no sense. I think that was created by an Italian programmer, right? Yes, we get excited!

The same guy that Microsoft did the little dog with the boy. Remember that one?

I think he created Netscape Navigator over there.

Oh boy, there you go.

That was a long time ago. There were some days. It's amazing how far we've come and how far we've yet to go in technology. So Matthew, tell us a little bit about now your Tech Times and the different things you do.

Sure.

So yeah, so I was at HuffPost, which is a major corporate conglomerate. And now I'm at a startup, techtimes.com. And actually, they've been around a year. They also have something called T-Lounge, which is Tech Times Lounge. I didn't make the names, but they're interesting. It's pop culture geek, whereas Tech Times are serious, more serious stories, science, health, news, tech. And it's interesting. We're going to do video. We're hopefully going to go to CES and South By and a couple other, E3. I'm working on it. And I've been there about a month. And I'm doing all the social for them. I'm doing everything from Google+ to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr. Eventually we'll have the other ones. I mean, that's all I can handle right now. But yeah, I'm not sleeping as much, and the circles are growing. But I'm enjoying it. I'm having fun. And it's actually down by Wall Street, which is cool. So I've never— I used to work in the Village, which was downtown. But Wall Street is really downtown. You're right by the ferry, Staten Island. So that's cool. And I'm looking forward to featuring, like what I did with HuffPost Hangouts, and artists, and photographers once we get there. And having people create stories and stuff for us when we eventually, as I get more settled in. But feel free to tag Tech Times on Google+ or Facebook or Twitter, Tech Times News or Tech Times Tea Lounge, and I will see it, and I will +1, I will comment, and probably reshare. And especially any Hangouts, any music, any funny posts, you know, Tim Jones. I know Tim, me and Tim go way back. Tim likes to post the funniest stuff. He finds the most interesting stuff. So, but yeah, I mean, and I've been, last time I was on your show was a while ago. I know we did the Instagram show with Sue, and it seems like yesterday, but that's probably what, like half a year ago already.

Almost, that was in June, so that was quite a while. And I know you were a little quiet on the Plus, not as vocal as you had been. Every now and then you'd pop something up, and I was trying to comment on that. So it's, you know, I'm glad to see you with a new company we can get excited about. About and maybe help you with.

That's fine.

Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, I've always been active on the Plus, but I think it's the algorithm doesn't— the algorithm sinks us down sometimes. Yeah. But I was going to say, the new mentions, hopefully the new mentions thing will help you out. I don't know if it does.

I don't know. We'll see how that works. Google keeps changing all the time, so that's the only thing you got to remember is to roll with it when they do change it and just keep doing what you're doing and have fun.

And drink coffee and stay young.

Drink coffee and stay young. I know. I know. I'm working on that. I went to a naturopathic physician, and she's working on the stay young. She said you'll feel better. And I said, well, my hair start growing again? She says no.

You look very relaxed. You look like you're well rested, and you look good.

I feel much better. I went gluten-free, and I've been gluten-free now for 5 weeks. And I feel a lot better because of it.

How's your tongue doing? My tongue? Your taste buds, I mean.

Oh, I was wondering. No, actually, the food that I've been eating, I found a pasta. Barilla pasta is excellent. It's gluten-free, and that would have been the deal breaker for me.

Yeah, I was wondering about that. I know you're a big pasta fan.

Oh, God, yeah. That's been fine. I've always been a fan of nutty, crunchy breads. My wife hates them, so we don't have them in the house, of course. Now that I'm gluten-free, the bread I have has got that, and it toasts really good.

I really like it.

Bread, pasta, and some of the baking I don't think is as bad as I thought. I'm actually going to a baking class today at 3 o'clock over Coronado Springs. That's if the woman's flying in from Buffalo. She couldn't— she hasn't been able to get out for 2 days, so hopefully she'll be good.

She's in Buffalo?

The woman that's doing the class.

Oh, alright. I thought it was your wife.

Oh no, no. The woman that's doing the class is in Buffalo. Now, if she was in Buffalo, I wouldn't be worried about it as much. Then I'm going to an allergy-free conference tomorrow there as well. I've been doing— I would have never imagined that I could have dealt with gluten-free. There was a comedian, I don't remember if you ever heard of John Pinette, and he would say, "I don't know what gluten is, but evidently it's delicious." That's funny.

Beer is the other thing. I know they have gluten-free beer, but I think that's the big thing. People miss beer.

Yeah, gluten-free beers are kind of eh.

I've never been a beer drinker, so that was an easy one. One thing that I've noticed too is since I haven't been eating gluten is I don't have the cravings for sweets at all, and I just don't seem to get as hungry as I used to. That's a side benefit. I felt my head cleared up. I felt like a fog had been lifted over me. My back stopped hurting as much. They said, "Well, your inflammations are going down because you're not eating white flour anymore." I was like, "Yeah." These benefits I didn't even know about.

Wow. That's amazing, huh?

That's been pretty cool. Anyway, Joey, you should be interested in that since you're an insurance man. You want your people healthy, right?

It's funny. I don't think anybody's ever billed me with the 3 things that you did for this show. I don't think it's ever happened before. Insurance guy hangout host and healthy foodie, I don't think those combination of words have ever were put together. But yeah, until now, so I have that to go by. You guys can know me that for. But yeah, I agree. I'm proud to hear that you're gluten-free, although I can't say that I'm gluten-free. So people can ask in the audience if they'd like.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. Those are words that I never thought would have left my mouth either, but you know, stranger things happen.

Although I'll have to get your recommendation on the gluten-free pasta because as you can tell, I have a vowel at the end of my name, which means I was kind of born with a pasta IV.

Oh, I know. As an Italian-style chef, I mean, and we love our pasta, and one way or another, it's maybe 2 times a week at least, sometimes 3. That was the big stumbling block. Barilla makes a gluten-free pasta. I've tried one other brand I wasn't thrilled with, but I figured once the Italians got involved with it, that they'd have to come up with something good.

You felt more comfortable making the leap? Is that what took— is that just you needed to get a couple of Italians on the job?

Yeah, that was it. I was waiting for them. I ordered gluten-free panettone. That's coming. That'll be here next week.

Don't mess with the Italians, man. Serious people.

I found some gluten-free ladyfingers so I could make tiramisu. So I'm a happy camper.

I have to say, Chef, also being on the show, kind of, I have to say about probably about 2 years, maybe 3, you were the first Hangout that I ever watched, like live Hangout. It was you and Ronnie Bincer probably talking about Hangouts. I'm not even sure. So it's kind of a getting up on stage with Miles Davis moment for me. Take the guitar down! I don't know if you consider yourself in that category. We can maybe take it down to maybe a lower tier jazz musician.

Well, I would be honored to be up in that category, but no, I'm probably down with— I don't even know who— Iggy Wood or somebody that we've never heard of. But anyway, I'm glad you feel that way, and I'm honored that you could come on. And I appreciate that first Hangout we did together. I had a good time and you made me realize a lot of things too. There were a lot of people out there interested in what I had to say, so that was a nice leap of faith from you.

Fantastic, I'm glad I could help you out with that.

What's new and exciting in your venue?

In my venue? I did not have a venue, but I guess I'm doing a show, I guess, the Freelancer's Question, that's kind of new, I guess-ish, couple months new. I've been doing insurance for a long time, 5 years now, and so the show's been going well. I talk with a bunch of people, social media, online marketing people, and we kind of try and get them a little uncomfortable is the goal, and ask them kind of questions that they might not normally ask and see how they do with it. It's been fun so far. People seem to like it, so I definitely like being the one asking the questions more than being the one answering them, so we'll see how I do today.

Can you shoot us a question, one of those questions?

Yeah, ask us one of your questions.

Well, actually, I mean, man, on the spot, good luck. Alright, well, here, I'll ask you guys a question that I ask all the guests, and this is what they kind of get after the show, but what fearless question are you most afraid to ask yourself in your life and/or business, and how are you working to answer it?

I was thinking like a no-brainer question.

Well, Matthew, sir, you asked for a hard question. Let's go.

I didn't say hard.

What's the question? Oh my God. The fearless question I always ask myself is, how long am I going to live? And am I going to be able to get everything done by the time before I die? And I don't have an answer for that.

I don't know the first part, but the second part is no.

I choose C. The answer is C. Sí, sí, all of the above. So what was— so the question was what fearless question are we afraid to ask ourselves?

Yeah, what are you— basically what's your biggest fear and how are you working to overcome it is just a very clever way that I put it to tie it in with the show.

Are you happy? I would say basically are you happy with where you currently are at this moment?

And the answer is?

Yeah.

All right, well, Nazim, you're living a good life, my friend.

I'm happy too. I mean, things change. I mean, I'm not— I used to be afraid of change, but I'm not afraid of it anymore. So there's that.

I changed this morning.

Thank you.

Glad to hear. And the pens don't count anymore. Mia's always talking about how we need adult diapers when we interview some people because we get so excited. So I have to hope she changed today too, because she had a lot of excitement on her show.

I am afraid that the internet might go away, and the whole net neutrality, that scares me sometimes, if the internet goes away. Because I can't imagine what would happen to all of us if the internet did go away, or the internet was slowed down to just snail, that we couldn't use it.

That's one of the scariest things that is actually really close to happening, I think. That's what kind of freaks me out a bit.

Yeah.

Well, here in Italy, I don't know, but you know how we tend to copy whatever happens in the state soon enough, 5 years later. So it could be an issue.

Well, let's hope the internet doesn't go away for a while yet anyway.

Actually, basically the pipe's getting a little bit—

Ingested.

Yeah.

If it goes away, then I'm investing in the porn magazines.

Paper's going to come back. And I'm not talking about the break the internet paper either.

Oh no.

Well, in that case, I think maybe I'll invest in Kleenex then.

All right. Oh, it's a manly show. What can I say?

Tissues for your issues.

Anyway, all right, Craig, since you brought that up, why don't you tell us about some of the things you've been going on in your life with Circuloscope or anything else you'd like to talk about?

Circuloscope is just moving forward. It's, it's doing pretty well. It's doing really well, and the support on Google+ has been incredible, so that's great. And, you know, we have a few new features in the works that I can't quite discuss yet, but those will come out soon, so we're pretty excited about that. We're also looking to do some form of training, probably via Hangouts, to just take through, you know, new users and people that want to know how to use Circlescope a little bit better. So that's it really on the Circlescope front. Oh, no, one big development was we're actually an official company now. We formed our LLC, and so now we're officially partners, which is pretty cool. Congratulations.

Thanks.

That's great news. Kudos.

Yeah.

It feels good to be legal.

No, but you got— it's, you know—

That's what she said.

Oh, Lord.

And beyond that, did a bunch of renovations on the house up here. Tore out all the windows in the front, put in new sliders, and you know, the ones right behind me. So that's— past couple weeks, that's been my focus, is making sure they're doing all that right.

Circle windows, or—?

No, no, no.

Sliding door windows. All right. I was hoping you would make, like, circle windows.

No, I can't help you with that if you need to.

Those are a lot more expensive.

So, question about Circuloscope. Yeah. I— people are saying how good it works with Node-X. Well, you know, I tried using Node-X a couple times and I really get a bad headache because I'm just not that technical. Is there any way to— I mean, you guys may be thinking of it. Isn't there any way to build in something where we can see more of what our scope of reach is, like NodeX does?

Not without— no, not without making it a much more extensive product. NodeX has access to the API and has access to all of the Google+ data that they provide. We don't have access to that. So with CircleScope, it's not really feasible.

I was going to ask, I don't know if I— Google, you do great stuff. CircleScope is great. But what would you like to see Google+ do natively for Circles and Circle management that they should, even though CircleScope exists? Or do you not want them to do anything?

I think the biggest thing is I just think they should understand that people tend to go a little crazy with their Circles. And so they should make— they should provide some features that we have that allow you to clean up your Circles a lot easier. So to get rid of bluehead people or inactive people, that type of thing I think would make Circle management a lot better experience. I've always wanted suggestions.

I feel like they should be able to be better suggestions than they do for what we should do with our Circles titles and names. Definitely.

And I could see them doing much better with suggested users. If I've been friends with Chef for a really long time, they know who Chef's talking I'm talking to so they can suggest those people to me all the time. That would be handy.

That's one of the problems I have with them because when I get suggestions, a lot of the people they suggest aren't even on Google+ anymore.

Yeah, I'm not really sure how that algorithm works, but it seems like it has a lot to do with your contact, like your Gmail contact, which doesn't make a lot of sense a lot of times.

Craig, let me ask you this question. Are you guys getting feedback from Google on the product per se, or do they look at what you guys do and give you back feedback?

No. No, I don't even know if they know we exist.

No. OK. No, I think they know you exist. You and Circle Counter are, I think, the two big ones, right?

Yeah, we're the biggest tool that does what we do, so I'm sure they know we exist. But no, we haven't had any communication with them aside from asking to get access to the API, which I hasn't happened yet.

Craig, let me ask you since he missed out on the fearless question rant, I got to ask, what makes somebody say to themselves, these things, these little groups of people that we put people in on Google+, I want to fix that? What makes somebody say that?

Well, being a marketer at heart, once you start using a tool like Google+, the first thing you think about is how do I grow my following? And once you start trying to do that with Well, once you start looking around for tools and they don't exist, it's pretty obvious that, hey, someone needs to build them. Why don't we? And for me, it's really a no-brainer because my whole career has been building web marketing tools. So basically, once I get ingrained— and this was really Essin's brainchild, but it was the same for him. Once he started using Google+, he just noticed that, jeez, it's really hard to find the people that are engaging with you. Or really difficult to follow the people that are engaging with you. And it's really difficult to clean your circles up once you make a mess of them. So he just started making the tool, and here we are today. Did you have like a bad circle experience yourself? Not really bad, because I'm kind of aggressive with stuff, so I don't mind just deleting everybody. But as far as fine-tuning, yeah, it gets crazy if 'Cause back in the day, a year or two ago, everyone was doing the shared circles. So within a few minutes of grabbing a few shared circles or a couple days, next thing you know you're at 5,000 and now what do you do? And to a lot of people they get stuck at that limit and they don't even realize that half the people they followed aren't relevant or aren't active and that type of thing.

I think it's also Google didn't expect, or even now maybe don't expect people to use Google+ the way a lot of us actively use it. And maybe they expected people to use it more in a smaller way. Oh, I add my family and my friends and 20 people. And then if I add one shared circle, I'm good. Why do I need 5,000? So I think that they haven't thought—

Yeah, I definitely think in terms of building a social network, they are a little bit naive. Times for things like that.

Especially if they're pushing their suggested users list the way they are too, you know, when you first come on. That's where I get a lot of— I mean, I'm on the list I think most of the time, or I have been for the last few months, and that's where I get a lot of the extra people I get. Sometimes just when they join, they follow the whole cooking circle, which kind of— it's kind of cool when you're in there with Martha Stewart and Anthony Bourdain and things like that, but Then you got to work to keep them, and those people aren't even really on. So I mean, I understand why they need people like that on the list just to draw, but you know, they really need, I think like you said, to start looking at more engagers. There's a lot of people out there that are really good engagers that benefit by being on that list, so you know, more people would find them and they could engage with them. Absolutely.

Is the list a blessing or a curse, Jeff?

Well, both, yeah. You really don't gain as much as people might think. It's just part of it's an ego thing that you have that number. It really doesn't mean anything unless you actively use Google+ and you really engage and reach out and put yourself out there. The numbers mean nothing. Quality over quantity, always. Absolutely. I tell people, if you had 1,000 followers, you could do as much or more than me if they were all good followers and they all engaged. Even 100 followers would make you rock big time.

Does it make it harder to find those 1,000 for you?

It's harder to really find the people to engage, the new people to engage with. I've got people that I've grown up with on Google+ that I engage with, but then to reach out, like Tim is a new person for for me to meet and finding, getting the time to find somebody like him that I'm interested in or that I want to follow or that will even find me accidentally, you know, and then we start engaging. A lot of times you don't even get notifications of who follows you or there's so many you can't go through them. So it makes it really difficult. Like if I get 800 followers today, there's no way I'm ever going to go through them.

I'm actually kind of surprised that you're only meeting Tim now, because I know you, Shep, and Tim a long time. And I think that Google+ should be better at being able to figure out, hey, Matthew's connected to X, Y, and Z. I just assume everyone knows everybody. I mean, I think Joey's the only person I don't really know that well. And if I did know you that well, I'm sorry, Joey. No, it's all right.

You don't know me, so— OK.

Sometimes you're like, you don't know me? What are you talking about?

Well, the interesting thing for me recently when they started showing the views, because for example Rodney Pike and I are good friends. Rodney's got 2.6 million followers. I've got 32,000. Rodney's had 95 million views of his page and I've had 90 million.

Wow. Well, it's because of quality over— that's it. I mean Yeah, but it's just—

I mean, that— that we were talking about the numbers, that was a really eye-opener.

And I think that's why they did the views, to show people that it wasn't just the count. You know, in retrospect, I have 21 million views, so I don't have anywhere near what you have. You know, and a lot of it comes from the fact of the things that I think you're doing too on YouTube now. All your music really helps get you more attention. Yeah. But you can be a rock star in your own world, it's just a matter of the following, I guess, isn't as important as the engagement level. But I think a lot of the following also comes through from bloggers. So if you've got a Blogspot blog, a lot of that will follow you because I've seen some food bloggers that have like 500 followers that have 40 million views. But again, they're really strong bloggers but they do nothing on Google+. So I think you have to just follow them, too.

I would just add one more thing about Circles. I don't even know if this is true. I think it is, but maybe Craig can help me out. But the more Circles you have one person in, the more likely you're going to see their content. Is that— do you think— is that true?

I'm not sure on that one, actually.

I don't know that to be true, but— I always wondered if Google+ deemed you thinking someone's more important by adding them to more circles.

I don't really know. Because I would see a lot of the same people all the time. Because my circles are actually a mess because I'm always testing. So I have some people in like 30 different circles over and over and over again. I haven't seen any— I haven't noticed that, no.

Carmen just asked a question. She wants to know— Where is it? I want that to come up. Well, it's not working for me today. But anyway, she wants to know if Betty Crocker is in my circles. And no, Carmen, she is not. I think her sister Betty Boop is though. Okay, thanks. For some reason that's not working for me today though. The joys of Google. You know, on any given day anything can go wrong and you just kind of have to roll with it.

All right.

I just thought, you're going to have a gluten-free Thanksgiving? That's going to be tricky.

Yes. Well, really, the only thing is, and I tested the stuffing yesterday, and it came out pretty good. I just have to adapt, do a little bit more tweaking on it. But for the most part, for the turkey, other than the stuffing and the pies— The two best parts, the stuffing and the pies. Yeah. I will miss my potato bread stuffing. That is my favorite to make, but this is— You can't just have a tiny spoonful? I've had something— there is no tiny spoonful with stuffing. Once you go down the dark path—

Thanksgiving's the day to do it, right? It's kind of like— I guess it's like—

I don't know. You know what the difference is? I've had some gluten- accidentally, and I think it has reacted to my system in a way that I bloat, and it's not a pretty sight afterwards. It can get painful a little bit, too. I see the reaction to it, and I just don't feel good. That's what keeps you from straying down the dark path. As for pies, I made an apple pie. An apple cranberry pie with a streusel topping the other day on my show. The only thing I did wrong with it was the streusel topping was really sweet. I think mixing in with the gluten-free flour didn't quite— it changed it in a way that wasn't necessary. It looked good. It ate well. It was just really sweet. I have to work on that. You don't always eat the crust anyway. Half the time, it's wet and soggy.

I can live with it.

But yeah, that'll be, although I am working on a gluten-free cannoli recipe because I can't go without cannolis for Christmas. We'll see how that works out.

I need some good football games too, finally. Oh yeah.

Well, you know, the Eagles are playing Dallas on Thanksgiving and we don't do well on Thanksgiving, so it could be ugly.

Except that this is the first year I remember Detroit being pretty, pretty freaking good too.

Well, no, Detroit's not playing Dallas. The Eagles are playing them.

No, I just meant Detroit and Dallas always play. Just that. Yeah, yeah.

I don't even know if Detroit is playing. And actually Buffalo is playing in Detroit on Monday night. They moved the game there. Wow.

Detroit always used to play on Thanksgiving.

They always do. Yeah, Detroit and Dallas.

The Dolphins never. Dolphins are playing well this year.

Don't get his hopes up. They're playing well, they're not going to win. Come on. I know.

Well, at least they're not like the Jets.

Geez. I know, they're terrible. I'm a Giants fan.

They're bad too. What's wrong with the Jets?

You're suffering this year. I don't know. I don't understand Eli Manning. He's a Super Bowl champion. They can't win. I don't know.

I love the Giants and I love the Dolphins. Those are my two teams.

Eli, let's go.

You're not allowed to complain about being a New York sports fan. Again, I'm from Cleveland. I own the team. Stop this right here. We were talking about the weather earlier. You can't say that the Giants are bad. Like, you won a Super Bowl, what, 3, 4 years ago? That's it.

Oh, I'm not saying— no, I'm not upset. The Giants are probably the only team that I'm a fan of that actually has won. The Knicks, the Mets, the Islanders haven't won in forever, so.

At least you got that going for you.

I do. I got the Giants. Yeah, but the Cleveland— I mean, you got LeBron back, right? Is that— oh, I haven't heard from a Cleveland—

someone in Cleveland about Kung Fu Panda.

Is this the wrong time to ask about how he feels about the LeBron thing?

And what Cleveland— No, I mean, what it— like him coming back, like the reaction on the streets, like from the people, like—

Like what it was like he left and then he came back, that whole drama.

I tell you what, it was— I hated the guy just as much as everybody else, but that weekend, that whole week that it was going on, like I didn't stop listening to sports talk radio. I was compelled. I was captured by it like nothing I've ever imagined. So I'm guilty, and it's been fantastic, and I'm enjoying every second of it because it will probably never happen again. I just— the only regret is my son is too little to even understand what's happening right now. But yeah, it's fun. And the Browns are actually decent too, so I don't have much to complain about right now.

The Browns have been playing good football lately. Yeah. Oh, don't get your hopes up too much, you know.

We're just always waiting. I was talking with somebody that said, how can this possibly go wrong, or how can you not be excited about about LeBron coming back and getting Kevin Love and all that stuff. And I was like, listen, I've been here a long time. All I'm thinking of is LeBron's going to all of a sudden be 30 and be like a really bad 30, and Kevin Love's going to break his leg. And I mean, so many terrible things go through your head. Maybe that's just my nature. But— Shit.

Gotta love it. And you have— wait, you have Major League.

You have that. You have Charlie Sheen movies to love forever and ever.

Yeah. Charlie Sheen. Yes, we see a couple Charlie Sheen, Rick Vaughn jerseys walking around at Indians games occasionally, so I guess if you want to count that as something to hold up on that Throwback Flashback Friday.

Now my favorite on there though was the big black guy that ended up being the president on 24 when he was doing the voodoo and they brought him a bucket of chicken to sacrifice because they couldn't get a live chicken. I remember that, yeah, with the—

Isn't he the Allstate spokesperson?

Yeah, he's also David Palmer on 24 if we're going to do his IMDb listing.

He was a good president. I would have rather had him instead of Barack. I'm sorry.

Whoa, just a bit outside.

Actually, I'd like Morgan Freeman because he's got such a great president.

Yes, he would sleep, definitely. And he'd rain too. Oh, it's Josh Hanks' 20th anniversary. Speaking of Morgan Freeman, happy 20. 20? 20 years.

That doesn't make me feel old at all. No, not at all.

Oh well. Gotta love it. Well, Tim, since we're all nostalgic here and feeling old, how about singing us another country song to cheer us up? OK, let's see.

I can get over to Studio.

Uh, this song— song— I don't have no accent.

This, uh, Mom and Dad died in '80—

in 2009.

And so last year at Thanksgiving, and I was writing, so I came up with this one. It's not It's not exactly true to life, but it kind of fit the bill.

The kids aren't coming by today. The weatherman says snow, maybe next week. And if they do, they say they'll let us know. So girl, it looks like you and me, maybe chicken from the KFC, a parade and a football game. No, the holiday won't be the same. Remember all the time it took For you to clean the house and cook. The years drop like the leaves of fall. I don't know how you did it all. Just rest, no need to shed a tear. Just know I've got this one this year. I'll find some food before the game. No, the holiday won't be the same. But I'm thankful for so many things, like sacred vows and golden rings, a moment in the shining sun. Peaceful rest when it's all done. So many things that I've left out, so many memories for me to count, but one thing I know is true, I'm thankful there was me and you. In the autumn of a life divine, I'm thankful, girl, that you were mine.

Very, very nice. And it's, uh, And men do have feelings too, ladies, so just remember that.

Hey, I thought it was a manly show.

It is a manly show.

It was touch and go there for a little bit with all the gluten talk and all that stuff.

Alright, we will. The real man comes in from Cleveland.

There you go. We need to get Craig to show us how to cut the cheese.

Oh yeah. Whoa. I almost forgot all about that.

I remember that. That still lives vividly. That was a great picture. Good job with that. Thank you. Well, guys, this has been a lot of fun, and, you know, we've had a very nice manly show, and I'm very happy for that. And it's good to see— there you go. And I just want to run through everyone real quick, and if you have any calls to action or anything you'd like to like to tell us about anything you're doing, now's the time to do it. So Tim, is there anything we should know about or anything you'd like to share with us or any last words you'd like to leave us with?

Uh, balladeermusic.com.

Thank you. Very good.

And feel free to leave that in the comment section if you'd like. If you'd like to leave links, guys, please leave them in. Show us where— tell us where we can go and follow you or where we can find you and we'll have people people hopefully following you. And Nazim, thank you so much for jumping in at the last minute. I hope you've got some Casa Chiese coming up soon.

Got some Casa Chiese coming up. I want to invite everybody to check out the website. Me and my wife, we basically talk about the Italian lifestyle from the point of view of a couple living here, an American who left Miami in '92 and has been living in Italy ever since.

I'm loving it. Very good. Sounds good. We'll follow up then. I hope we see some Christmas shows from you or something. Working on that, Chef.

We're working on that.

Okay. And Matthew, any— anything you'd like to leave us with?

Tim Jones, you're awesome. You're a chef. Joey, Craig, Nazim, you're all awesome. And a happy belated birthday to Nazim, right? It wasn't that long ago, right? He had a birthday. Oh. And Yeah, no, actually I made a Vine while Tim was singing. I made a Vine. So there you go. Oh, dang. Cool. Little social media. If you want to check— so I'm going to do some Hangouts too with Tech Times. You're all invited as soon as I get that off the ground. And techtimes.com, @TechTimesNews, @TechTimesTLounge on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram. Find us and like us and share and support me so I can support you, and we'll keep rocking. Thanks for having me on the show.

My pleasure. We'll have to have you back on again. That was way too long in between shows.

Way too long. Happy Thanksgiving in advance, and please don't kill anyone Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Please.

I'm not going out. I'll be in. And Joe, anything you'd like to leave us with? I know you got shows coming up.

Yeah, well, I just wanted to thank you for calling me up to the big leagues, Chef. I appreciate it. Gentlemen, it was a spirited conversation as always. And we'll be Fearlessly Questioning Thanksgiving dinner this Tuesday if anybody wants to come see what that's about. But fearlesslyquestioning.com is your place to go for all the Fearless Questions, so feel free to check that out.

Very cool. Thank you so much. And Craig, thank you for being with us. Anything you'd like to leave us with before we go, or—

Well, thanks very much for having me, Chef. It's been a while, it was a good time, nice to meet and hang with all you guys. Aside from that, CircleScope.com, manage your circles like the pros do.

That's right, and like we do too, although I'm not a pro, so— but I use it and I like it, and it took me a little while to figure it out because I'm a little slow, but once I did, I got it down pat now. Awesome, good to go. And thank you so much for coming today, and just to give you a heads up on it, Aslan Bloor and I will be doing a series on Christmas dishes starting in December. It's going to run on Tuesdays through the month of December, and we'll be calling on our friends from all over the world to help share their holiday traditions and foods with us. So look for that coming up. And as always, you can find me here on Good Day Google+, and you can also find me on Around the Kitchen Table.. So I'm out there. I'm a little bit of an HOA ho, so I am out there quite a bit. Thank you so much for coming. Have a wonderful week and get ready for Thanksgiving. I won't see you until next Friday before that, so Happy Thanksgiving. Cheers.

Ciao. Happy Movember.