Today's Cigar News And Reviews |CHPOD 625
Episode Summary
Episode 625 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast opens with the usual banter as host Mike "BDP" Palmer, co-host Triple G, and engineer Mike Szczepankiewicz work through listener comments from the CH Pod Lounge, including talk of upcoming CHPod challenge coins, the new Ghost smoker and stickers, and the gradual departure of "Phil" (a running bit about their AI/board setup). Palmer's birthday is a recurring theme, along with plenty of chaotic tangents about ER-nurse stories, jealous smart-home assistants, and burnt chicken nuggets.
The news segment digs into business and tech: Brightline's parent Florida rail company potentially seeking Chapter 11 protection over billions in debt, a comparison of U.S. versus European passenger rail, and a lengthy discussion of Meta's new AI agent "Muse" — its ability to shop, manage email, and plan travel, plus Amazon blocking it while Shopify partners with Meta. The hosts also cover TSA's new 3D CT carry-on scanners (and their too-small openings), and a Long Island woman swallowed by a backyard sinkhole on her 47th birthday.
Cigar news is the meat of the episode. The crew breaks down the Perez Carrillo Pledge of Allegiance "Rocket" — a $1,000, 20-count humidor limited edition marking the brand's tribute to the American dream and the U.S. 250th anniversary, with two figurado blends using Connecticut broadleaf and Pennsylvania tobaccos. They cover ELIE BLEU expanding its Casa Cubana line into (eye-wateringly priced) leather goods, and Cigar Kings' first officially sanctioned Oktoberfest "Zigar" made in Nicaragua for the Munich festival. The show closes with a "What's the Score" game predicting Patrick Lagreed's Halfwheel rating for the AJ Fernandez-made Viva La Vida Connecticut Churchill — which lands at 87.
In This Episode
- 01Lounge Comments & CHPod CoinsListener shout-outs, the new Ghost smoker and stickers, and plans for a numbered CHPod challenge coin made by their guy Charles.
- 02Brightline / Florida Rail BankruptcyDiscussion of the Florida rail company possibly filing Chapter 11 over $5.5 billion in debt and why U.S. passenger rail lags Europe.
- 03Meta's Muse AI AgentHow Meta's new AI assistant can shop, manage email, and plan travel, with Amazon blocking it and Shopify partnering with Meta.
- 04TSA 3D CT ScannersNew carry-on CT machines offer 3D bag views but have smaller openings that may reject overstuffed bags, sparking a security debate.
- 05Backyard Sinkhole StoryA Long Island woman falls into an old well/sinkhole on her 47th birthday and is rescued, then serenaded with Happy Birthday.
- 06Perez Carrillo Pledge of Allegiance RocketA $1,000 limited humidor of rocket-shaped figurados using Connecticut broadleaf and Pennsylvania tobaccos, tied to the U.S. 250th.
- 07ELIE BLEU Leather Goods & Oktoberfest CigarELIE BLEU's pricey new Casa Cubana leather accessories and Cigar Kings' first officially sanctioned Oktoberfest cigar from Munich.
- 08What's the Score: Viva La Vida ConnecticutThe crew guesses Patrick Lagreed's Halfwheel rating for the AJ Fernandez-made Viva La Vida Connecticut Churchill, which scores 87.
Brands & Cigars Discussed
Linked items are in our shop. Mentions without a link aren’t currently stocked or couldn’t be matched with confidence.
Transcript
Okay, are you ready? Three, two, one. Welcome to the Cigar Hustler Podcast, premium cigars, unfiltered opinions, and- You don't sound right. What?
Let me know what it's down right. Start over. Oh, it's under my shirt. Yeah.
Did we do 3, 2, 1 again? No, no. No, no, no. We're gonna keep this going.
Do 3, 2, 1 again. Oh, there she is. Okay. Beautiful.
3, 2, 1 again. No, no. It's because my cigar went out and this doesn't work. Oh, the violence.
He just threw that. Three, two, one. Welcome to Cigar Hustler Podcast. How do I know it works?
I did it again as you requested. Welcome to, ah, it's not lit. Welcome to Cigar Hustler Podcast. It's kind of lit.
Premium cigars, unfiltered opinions, and conversations. I am Mike BDP Palmer, your host. host joined by once again my co-host who's picking lint off something on my shoulder i can't escape this joint superstar triple g you can't escape are we going with yeah like this thing that we're doing this is the podcast thing he needs a hat that has three g's on it i don't need a hat that has three g's on them puffy no white puffy largest possible letters like those largest the largest letters i've ever seen on a hat then over at engineering the man we call the king Mike Szczevankewicz. Hi, here I am again, running the board, without a mask.
From cigars, sports, and business, to pop culture, and the wildest headlines, if it's worth this... I'm gonna miss you, Phil. What? I'm gonna miss you, Phil.
If it's worth... I'm gonna miss you, Phil. His brother Tim will be here soon. Worth discussing, we're talking about it, no safe spaces, just real perspectives, big laughs and chaos at any moment.
What is he clicking? Is that a letter he's clicking? It is, yeah. But he didn't throw it.
I'm gonna throw it. I'm completely fine. You're gonna throw it. Settle in and welcome to A Cigar Hustlers Podcast.
Dun, dun, dun. We're gonna need you to bring it. Okay? All right.
Shake it off, shake it off. Come on, shake it off. We're gonna need you to bring it. Mama left yesterday.
You're good. Come on. Mama laughed? Left.
Oh, left. Was that yesterday? Back to having random sex in the house anywhere you want. I don't know.
They're sort of blurring into each individual day. It's not one just long day. Yes. Dun, dun, dun.
I don't know what you're talking about. On today's show, Triple G may have to throw Mama from something else. Oh boy, what does that mean? Uh, yes, Matt, I'd like end a birthday story I don't want to duplicate.
Oh, okay. Then in cigars, we got a rocket of a cigar, what's leather? Um, ooh, that's not even a word, what's leather? That's, I don't, I don't know what I was supposed to say.
Oh boy. Murvg. Murf. What's leather, and after you buy it, you won't need it.
Isn't that basically everything? No, it's made out of leather, you buy it, but then once you buy it, you won't need it anymore. Anything you buy, you will no longer need. Well, this particular item.
Ah. Yes. Then we have something to go with that bratwurst you've always wanted. Yay!
Then we end the show with a what's the score, but before we get started... Mikey, what's all the gossip and in which places can we find it? com for all your chpod swag where we currently have the ghost smoker and the ghost stickers are our newest items shout out to my boy michael z for purchasing the ghost the ghost ghost ghost and he placed the order online so he's the man mike mike mike mike mike mike it's michael though he goes by michael Michael, Michael, Michael, Michael, Michael. He might not like Mike.
Like Mr. Rosales? Yeah, exactly. Or Skip Martin?
Yes. Some comments. He said their name now. Tell them to listen.
From the CH Pod Lounge. Let us see here. @CW6383 says, "Oh sick boys, try being married to an ER nurse. " I imagine that would definitely be the case.
She's like, whatever, dude. I doubt she gets many hugs from sick patients. You get this nipple? Look, it's gone today, so I fought it off in one day.
There you go. No, but you can't describe to your wife, who was an ER nurse, the pain you're in when earlier that day she removed a watermelon from somebody's rectum, you know what I mean? You know, it's everything you don't. Exactly.
The anus conversations. Are amazing. Every nurse I talk to, I love hearing them. Unbelievable.
That's unbelievable. You're a nurse? Oh, what's the weirdest thing you took out of somebody's ass? Right, that's the first thing I say.
And they always say that it always starts the same way. So I was in the shower and I fell. Fell. Oh, I fell.
On a spatula. What was a spatula in the shower? I was using it to scrape the tines. Oh, there you go.
That's actually reasonable. It could be. Relatively reasonable? I mean, I don't think it's reasonable.
Could be. It could be scraping. Scraping the soap scum off the glass. @CW6383 says, Palmer, you forgot to add the video yesterday.
Yeah, he just said that we got it out there. Oh, Greg, you have ash all over your shirt? Oh, thank you. So, here's what I did.
I added a prompt to the back end of the site for Palmer, and it reminds him. And what it says is, this is amazing. It makes me so happy. I sent you a picture.
Yeah, I know. Let me look it up real quick. It says, "Did you add the clip? Take your time.
" And then it asks if he prompts the video or not. Do you have to hit yes or no? If I hit no, I assume, what does it do if I hit no? I don't know.
Somebody comes on and yells at you. Probably. You get a video of my brother yelling at you. Shaking his finger.
Now he's able to yell at you without actually having to be there. Oh, now he gets the robot to yell at me. Yeah. There actually should be a third bubble that says, you know, no clip needed.
Yeah, it's, is there a clip or not a clip? It says, yes, a clip was needed and it's in the video, no clip needed for this episode, then there should be, yes, I need a clip, and yes, I forgot. You know? Yeah.
That's, I mean, so yeah, I love it. You, you got a good chuckle out of it. I did, it was funny. Yeah.
I'll change it eventually. No, I'll leave it. I mean, it's a good reminder. Oh, I'll keep the reminder, but I'll keep.
I mean, you know, sometimes we shoot the show early and I don't go to edit till late in the afternoon. Yeah. But I can always dumb it down. So it just says, did you have the clip?
I'll leave it. What the hell? Okay. And iHeart Triple G says, ah, finally, the lineup, the, the way nature intended.
intended this is it right all hail triple g triple g i cannot i can't do this every day yes you can no i can't yes you can yes you can i can't yes you can yes you can the people want it there's i have other people i need to do i can't do it every day so you do less spinning in your chair in your office yeah because that's all i do is spin in my chair no you no we didn't say that you do stuff too but you also spin in your chair i don't i don't spin you need to cut down on the spinning no that's all Right. A little less spinny spin. You know? Yeah.
Don't eat anymore. Skip lunch. Skip lunch. Yeah.
There are days that I skip lunch. I know. Okay. And then there's days you're down here going, and it's gone in 30 seconds.
That's because I don't have time to eat. I understand. Skip drinking the fancy water. We can save you all sorts of time.
Brother Ra from the CH Pod Lounge says, Triple G has some gangsta rings, LOL. lol yes yes we like to call him maximum accessory man maximum accessory because he has so many accessories now that he got married the the left hand's just down to the one used to be a lot on both no no no wasn't there there was no rings on this hand oh yeah was that getting ready for the wedding no i mean back when i was a teenager i wore them on both hands but once i hit like 20 something i stopped wearing them on this hand only this one does your hand hurt at night no no wait Frank Silletto sent me a video of a guy who was talking about cigar stuff and he had a bunch of rings on and stuff. He goes, is this Greg's brother or something like that? Doppelganger?
Doppelganger. Well, there is that one guy that used to be at Small Batch that had a lot of rings, too. Mikey. He was a Mikey.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a nice guy. Brother Raw also says, "Have you guys ever done a pod or segment of a pod where listeners send in questions for you guys to answer? " We have, I think, but if they would like to send questions, we'll answer.
Technically, aren't we doing it right now? Yeah, we kind of are. He just asked a question, and we're answering the question. Honestly, if you guys have questions, put them in the comments section.
The odds of me reading them prior to are highly unlikely, so you're going to get a raw response. Yeah, that's true. It's the best place. If they just send them somewhere, we'll forget to look.
Yeah, that's true. It will be a, like, from the hip answer. Yeah, it's gonna, right, it'll be honest, and I'm sure I'll get some emails and phone calls, and maybe we got another, you know, account closed on us or something, we'll see. It's amazing, only after eight years, there's only one.
Fuck me, there's one. Lance says, the coin gonna be awesome. Tell Triple G it will be okay, and more stickers. More stickers.
Yeah, the coin looks pretty badass at Rooks Coatings is going to bring it to me either today or tomorrow to kind of look over and maybe we'll post it up and get people's thoughts on it. I don't know. Or maybe we just roll with the first one then we can always do another one later or something. But it looks pretty good.
Should they be numbered? I'm sure it's, I mean, it's more work for him. It's actually very minimal. More work for him.
Well, he would just have to change it every time. No, because when you run them, you run multiple. So what you would do is you would just copy and paste all the image and then change the number on each one and then run it. It would be more work, but not a tremendous amount of more work.
Yeah, we could do that. I'll look into it. I'll ask Charles about that. I mean, realistically, but I'd only probably make like 20 coins.
Yeah, I would make a lot at first. And then when they go out, they're going out probably in number order. You know what I mean? Or just randomly, I don't know.
- No, I'd send them out in order. - Yeah? - You know, like, maybe we have one, two, and three, and then-- - So how is this gonna work? - I just, well, first of all, I just went, I'm not keeping anything.
- Oh, you don't want one? - No. - Oh. - No, I don't want anything.
How's what gonna work? - Well, isn't, like, the whole purpose of it, like, a challenge coin, so they have the ability to challenge you, whether or not you have it or not on you? Like, I thought that was-- - I guess they're gonna challenge each other. - Okay.
- We're above the challenge. - We're above the challenge? - Well, Palmer, you can carry one, I don't know. I'm with 0-0-0, though, man.
Here's the deal, Palmer. I don't want to do this, right? Right. So you're going to do this.
You carry the coin. Were they going to find me on the football field? They could. I mean, what happens if I don't have it?
Like push-ups or something? No, you got to give them a cigar. Oh. Okay.
So if you don't always have the coin, you'll always have a cigar in your pocket. No problem. One or the other. No problem.
So people are going to acquire them how? You buy them on the CHPod site. Oh, okay. To purchase.
Got it. Yeah. And then we'll make other ones. At Rooks Coding says, "For the scam techs, I do the same thing.
" All right. I like that. It's a good move. Yeah.
At Charles Goff, from the CH Pod Lounge, says, "Long time fan, first time lounge dweller. AI will be taking over soon. " It's true. It is.
I love it, dude. I'm a fan. I'm a fan, too. Absolutely.
I told Alexa something to do the other night, and then Adrian said something from the other room, and he said, "Whose voice is that? " Oh my lord. Because she never talks to it. I always do all this stuff.
There's one in the kitchen I use for cooking. Did you tell her mind her business going back to playing the music? Nothing. Nothing to see here.
Oh my god. Whose voice is that? I don't recognize the voice. A jealous robot.
Oh my. And there's a woman's voice in the kitchen. Of course it is. Right.
'Cause like, you know, I have three chicken breasts at this amount of weight, how long do I put them in the air fryer? And it'll tell me how long, you know. " Right, yeah. " So Adrian decided to cook dinner.
I got home last night, and I, you know, didn't feel well, and I was starting to find something for dinner. " And I go, "Do you not like me? " She goes, "Go sit down. " So she made dinner.
It was chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese. She burned the chicken nuggets. That happens. Yeah, but I mean, just because she doesn't check the time, she'll put in like, whatever, when you start it up, there's a time on the machine.
Yeah. She cooks it for that and then checks it. You're saying that she's... She can't cook.
" Got it. So I had a bowl of cereal last night. You didn't even eat the burnt nuggets? And burnt nuggets?
I ate three of them, and I'm like, "I'm not eating burnt nuggets. " So I found the leftover chicken nuggets in the macaroni and cheese plastic dish that was in the microwave, all of it shoved into the refrigerator. So I just threw it away this morning. Well, she's very intelligent and very attractive.
She's a very smart lady, very pretty girl. What she lacks in culinary skills, she makes up in other categories. She makes great French toast, but that's where it stops. Okay.
Well, you should have had French toast for dinner. There you go. Yeah, exactly. You should have had a great idea.
I should have asked for French toast. You should have opted in for that. That's it. Dummy.
I was sick. What do you want? I eat cereal. Make the proper request, even when you're ill.
That's what I want. I should have thought of that. I almost stopped and picked some up on the way home. " I love it.
Love it. I'm not angry. Yeah, you are. You're angry.
At Ruckus Unchained. Sharon, you made it home safely. Says, I have all bears and SBCs. I'm disappointed you doubt me, son.
Oh, look at you. I didn't doubt him. I just said that it would be her. I just said it would be unlikely.
Unless there's something going on with your mother we're not aware of. That someone has all of those. Like when you said that you had all of them, I'm like, wow, that's pretty impressive. I was put back by that, that's pretty cool.
I don't have all the bears, though. I think I have three of them. I can't wait till he dies so I can smoke them all. Right, he'll get them when I die.
That's in my will. Wow. He gets my humidor. Okay.
Hell yeah. When we put in there, did you get the SPC 24? No, he gets nothing. You should smoke them.
Then I won't have all five. Like, cigars are meant to be smoked. I know, but there's only five. I used to have a lot more special, but my 50th birthday, I started just going through it.
Started smoking. And here we are approaching 60. And I have six left. Speaking of birthday, is that guy coming today to do that thing that we talked about?
Monday. Monday. Monday. Okay.
What guy doing what thing? I'm paying for something to be done for Palmer for his birthday. Oh, yeah? His birthday present.
Tattoo? Yeah. He's finally going to get the pee on the left-hand side of his face. What is it, Palmer?
On the cheek. What are you getting done? Apparently, he doesn't want to mention it, so. Well, it's not necessary to mention it.
Why don't you want to mention it? It's just not necessary to mention. But we're on a podcast. They want to know.
The mystique of it. It's far more... The viewers want to know. I got it.
Well, when they ask the question for the next round, off the hip, we can answer it. And then we'll be completely disappointed. Moving on. Not that big of a deal.
Not that big of a deal. " What do you want? The P? Yeah, he wants the sign.
We can, well, I'll talk to David and we'll figure that out. The envelope? He hasn't chimed in lately. I don't know where he's at.
I think he made a comment. Did he? I thought I saw one. Oh, let me look.
Maybe you wish me a happy birthday. There's a lot going on today. " But there's nobody named Boots on the show. Yeah, there is no Boots.
There's no Boots on the show. There's only Phil. Yeah, there's only Phil. I don't know who this Boots person is you're talking about.
Yeah, it's very weird. And look, we're not saying goodbye to him. to him he's saying goodbye to us there's no you know like and what's funny is like he can't he can't break up excuse me he has to like slowly dissolve right so like he's been fading out slowly over the past few weeks oh i'm sorry man just really busy and then eventually he's just kind of disappears just you know just doesn't come in anymore so uh we'll see what happens he was here We were here this morning in the hopes to be able to do a show bright and early, but there were other things going on in the space. No, you missed that.
The text was, I can, oh, I'll make it work, but I can only be there for 50 minutes. Meaning, like, start to finish. Yeah. Well, the show runs between 45 to an hour.
Yeah. The setup is about 10:15, even with all the light stuff, you want to make sure the lighting's right. Yeah. Right?
So, it was an unrealistic statement. Yeah. We can't do the show in 50 minutes. Yeah.
It's just not possible. That'd probably be like half. You just get up and walk out. Yeah.
Oh, I gotta go. I'm gotta go. Sorry. Ben Roland from the CH Pod Lounge says, "If you run into problems, let me know.
There are quite a few that make high-quality coins for military groups that I could shoot your way. " All right, well, we'll figure it out. To do what? Coins.
Make military-grade coins. Yeah. Well, here's the deal. We'd like to take care of our own, and Charles is our guy, and I think Charles is gonna get it done.
Yeah. I mean, I have no dog in this fight nor say a vote in the, 'cause it's pretty much the two of you at this point. Perfect, shut up. Yeah.
I'm just kidding. I mean, I don't have anything to say, but nice for you to offer, but I think my brother makes a valid point. Like, you know, there are people that we've been doing business with, and they do business with us, and we like to keep it that way. We take care of our guys.
and our guys take care of us yeah you know but thank you very much ben uh we love the fact that you're thinking of us michael's any coins what is a military grade coin is the other can you fight with it that's correct yes okay i have one in my bag you can load into a slingshot that's correct you could yes yep and it's got bluetooth ah bluetooth coin right michael z already been mentioned today as well michael z you could use claude as your replacement for phil at least it It won't tell you that Minnesota is in the Bible, fellas. It won't. Could we use Claude to do that over there? I mean, we probably could, but I feel like one of the awesome things about Phil is the fact that he screws up so many things, you know?
Well, couldn't we have Claude say stupid things? No, yeah, you could program the robot to push the button, all you need is fingers, three of them, right? Then you could also tell the robot to use it as reference to look stuff up fast, and you could also tell that at least 15 times within the show, Make a silly comment. It has to be wrong.
It has to be wrong at least 15 times. Right, it has to be incorrect. Yeah. It has to give out bad information.
This is awesome. Okay. 0 says, might have to 3D print the gauntlet. The gauntlet's not going away.
Just so you know. Oh, him? Obviously. Does he have the ability to do that too?
That's a David Hassel. No, he's saying we're going to have to do it. It sounds like maybe he could. and finally at epicaren smoke says happy birthday senior palmer thank you mikey nice job with the lounge i see the youtube comments populating there thank you wasn't it wasn't easy but i think that we're things are going well here so if you want to hear your comment right a lot on the show simply comment below on the youtube page episode of this one or on this episode on our ch pod lounge and if If you have any questions for us, we don't care, you can just comment below and we'll do our best to answer them.
com, Oscar has a podcast where we're going to have a giveaway every month. Boom. Are we at 30 minutes again? 20.
20. Now on with the show. All right, now the news, the Florida Rail Company could seek Chapter 11 protection as soon as this week. Uh-oh.
You gotta find a new way to get mama here. Florida Rail Company? Yeah. So Florida Rail Company owns Brightline and the other one?
I thought that's not government ran? No. No, really? 5 billion dollars.
That's a big number, I just did the math. Looking to restructure part of it. I feel like this was a plan all along. According to the reporting, is there enough demand to support privately run passenger rail services at this scale?
Apparently not. Americans are so odd. Why would I like? Somebody made the comparison about, you know, how many railways there are in the United States, and you go over to Europe, and it's just like a spider web, and then you look at the entirety of our nation, and it's like seven, realistically, that go across to everything, right?
So, it just doesn't make sense. And the public transportation over in Europe, it works well. We like our freedom here. We like cars.
We like cars. We like cars is what it is. We have more roads. Yeah.
Where we're going, we won't need roads. Okay. Go ahead. The other thing that you're not considering here, I can't smoke on the train.
Well, you could. Espinosa does that event where they take a trip somewhere and you can smoke on the train. The train smoking? Yeah, that's cool.
It's a train ride thing. Okay. There's an open compartment train here. It's Thomas the Train.
I did it when my kids were younger. Do you think that there's like a fine for smoking on the train? Because if like there's a fine, then that doesn't mean that it's illegal. I mean, it just means that it's legal, but for a price.
Good point. Right? Right. Like hitting the cranes.
I don't know. You don't do any jail time to run over a crane, but there is a fine. Right. Not illegal, just legal for a dollar amount.
Right. Yeah. Huh. What if they did all crimes that way?
I like it. I like it. Try a new thing? I mean, there's got to be like a certain...
I got news for you guys, that's kind of how it works. Yeah, green is the color of justice in this country, for sure, unfortunately. Just not as obvious. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right. Yeah, the lady with the scale is blind for a reason, you know? I don't want to see who's giving me the money, who's giving me the money. Just stick my hand out here, put it on the scale.
Put it on the scale, make sure it evens over here. Let's see, he's on this side, all right, you are not guilty! All right, it would give Brightline a way to reorganize his finances while tries to keep operating. If you already have a ticket, okay, some people buy tickets in advance.
Do you think those tickets are going to be good when they go, chapter 11? No. Yeah, they'll be, yeah, they'll still work. As long as the train keeps running.
Well, yeah, if it keeps running, but it sounds like they're going to wind up being solvent. No, they're not. Well, they want chapter 11, so it protects them from all their, all the money they owe money to, all the people, sorry, all the money they owe money, all the people they owe money to. All the money they owe money to.
5 billion. Okay. So then they probably stick around. Yeah, I think they'd keep running.
I feel like this was the design from the jump. Oh, we can't afford that. Oh, state of Florida restructures it and takes on the loan. But claiming bankruptcy isn't like what it used to be 20 years ago.
These days, there's like, you must list your assets and they take your stuff. If you owe a million and you've only got like $200,000 worth of stuff, you lose the $200,000 worth of stuff. Okay. Wait a second.
I mean, I'm not an accountant, but what if it was a C Corp? We'll wait. Operating as its own entity? Yeah.
That entity must have assets. If you are creative, you would move those assets away from your possession in non-arms-length transactions. Trains belong to my cousin Phil. Yeah, I guess.
But I mean, there'd be paper trails for all of that. Did they pay to use the railroads, you think? The tracks? I thought they owned them.
Yeah. No, the tracks were already there. Oh, were they? They didn't put in new tracks.
Hmm, I don't know about that. I think the tracks were there. I don't know about that. I don't know about this either.
I don't know anything about this. I have no idea. All right, moving on. All right.
All right, there's a new meta thing called Muse. Ooh. It's an AI assistant. It's an agent, huh?
It's an agent. So, I mean, I've seen it on my phone. It keeps popping up on my phone. And since Facebook uses it, they give you ads and they want you to use it.
They can book appointments for you. I thought there were things in place that stopped AI from executing things in the real interweb. Well, Amazon has put a block on Muse cannot buy from Amazon. Right.
But it doesn't mean they can't buy from Target. But, like, isn't this dangerous? " Well, maybe this is a new thing. I don't know.
Meta says Muse can help manage email, plan travel, shop, and work through long-term goals. Can you confirm goals? So what's going to happen is, I'm not, again, I'm not an expert here, but with my knowledge of AI, here's what I would assume would happen. In order for the shop to make a purchase, you would have to go in and manually confirm as soon as the charge happened.
" And look at the cart. Right. Well, like Alexa will say, you know, something is something that you bought six months ago is on sale at a cheaper price. Would you like me to add it?
Yeah, it says, would you like me to add it to your cart? And then I have to go approve the order in my cart. Something that you already bought a month ago? Yeah, something like I buy on a recurring basis.
I buy antacids every time I run out. There's a hundred, so like in a hundred days. Yeah, you have magical antacid. That's true.
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. The company has announced plans to bring news to its AI glasses.
That's cool. So when Michael's running around with the glasses, he can be ordering stuff. He can just buy that, buy that, but no, this is very bad. He didn't have deterrence.
This is very bad. No, this is great. And I gotta be honest, I think that their Meta's glasses, AI glasses need updates, because man, there are times where I'm just like, no idiot, that's not what you're supposed to do. Oh, it's not doing things correctly.
Yeah, I mean, there are times when I'm like, hey, what's your battery life? It's like, I'm sorry, I'm Meta AI, I'm not your sunglasses, idiot. " Because you say glasses. Yeah.
" Mm-hmm. Because you are in my sunglasses. In the sunglasses. Yeah.
Or... Is it just called Meta? Is that what you're supposed to call it? " Yeah.
But because you said glasses, it's smart enough. Well, I'm not Meta. I mean, well, I'm not your glasses. I don't ever run out.
Oh, this is nice, so it's talking back. Arguing. I like that. Now he's getting angry.
" I'm like, that's not what I asked for. I didn't ask for my playlist. I asked for this specific song. Is that song on her playlist?
It doesn't matter. It's in Spotify. You do it right. You know?
You do what I said. You do it right. So if this Muse scenario, this agent will solidify some of that, I think that's great, that's good progress. So they're also going to be testing a human, I can't say the word, concierge?
Concierge. Concierge. Where a contractor handles some calls through Muse. So you could say, "Muse, answer that call," and then they'll get a voice.
Like if Greg's calling and you don't want to talk to him, he'll say, "Yes, hello, are you calling Michael Stepankiewicz? He's busy right now. " - Yeah, I have my phone set to do that. - Oh, I need to do that.
- Do you really? - Yep. - What's it do? - And he's got an old phone, so that means I can do it.
- So, it doesn't ring if it's a contact that's not in my contacts. " Then there's a little prompt that comes up with whatever it is that they said. But here's the problem. Most people don't understand what just happened.
" Like that's all you get. Like you don't, the person doesn't state their business at all. So then you push the button and find out if it's important. Then you find out it's somebody trying to sell you tree service.
You try to sell them cigars, you know, it's just full circle. I just have all silence calls that are unknown. Well, you can't do that though, because you're in business. What if there's a new, you know, contact that's reaching out to you?
They leave a message. Yeah, shoot me a text, bro. What are we doing? Well, some people don't do that.
And I disagree with it. If I don't get an answer from somebody, I immediately follow up with a text message. Then they're missing out. You know what I mean?
That's their problem. Not my problem. The only problem is Muse would need access to your email, your calendar, your shopping accounts, and your personal details. Doesn't sound like a problem to me.
Doesn't really. I'm trying to figure out how to give it more access. Exactly. The more it can do for me, the better off I am.
Sure. That's 100% true. Amazon has reportedly blocked Muse from making purchases on its site while Shopify is partnering with Meta. Bring it on, they say.
Yeah, that's because Amazon doesn't own Meta. Right. They could turn AI shopping into a fight over who controls the sale. Yeah, exactly.
This is great. Good for competition. You could have Claude do your spreadsheets and stuff. I know.
I've been thinking about all of that, but the first step was to get him to allow me to have access to it, to start working on the POS, once we got over that. Have you worked on a POS? Yeah. And then once we got...
That's not happening. Why not? I have a better... Because we have a POS up there now that you couldn't figure out, so we have to have another one.
That's not true. I have a better understanding of how that thing works than he does. It would make sense for me to do it, if not at least be extremely involved in it. Okay, so I'm going to give you an example.
First of all, I encourage you to get on Claude. Just go buy it, right? Do it. We don't have the group Claude like Skip does?
No, it doesn't. No, I can't. And I can't unwind it. So I'm not about to.
Okay. And I've explained that to you already, right? Yeah. Okay.
So here's what I'm going to tell you. And I'm going to give you a perfect case example. We were talking about wholesale site development yesterday, and you said, hey, samples that we send out should show the pricing, right, and then have a discount on the invoice so that they offset, so that when we send somebody something that you can show the value of it, right, for bookkeeping and all these other things. For accounting purposes, yeah.
Yeah. okay, so I know that's a problem, right? So then I say, but I know what you want, right? So then I go back to Claude and I say, hey, listen, this is exactly what Greg is asking for.
I think that you tell me if it's flawed or not. The way that I'm thinking is they should show evaluation of the product, but it should never hit the invoicing and then have it develop a report for all of these things. And it said, you're right. If we tied into the invoicing with discount, You're touching four or five different components and there's a significant chance that something else would jam up.
This is totally clean and will do everything that Greg is asking for. So perfect. So does that make sense? - Yeah, but now there's another report that Britt's gonna have to pull to put into the line item of product given away.
- Yeah, and it's one number and it's very easy. - As long as, like there are systems in place with people currently That look at all of those things to make sure that there aren't errors made. This would eliminate that opportunity. As long as it runs flawlessly, sure, that's fine.
- You could still look, it still exists on the timeline of products. If you wanted to go back in and check on the invoices, it still exists, but it just doesn't touch the actual pricing on the invoice. Does that make sense? - Yeah, no, I know exactly what you're saying.
- But you just said that she wouldn't be able to look it up. You could still look all of those things up if you wanted to. And it shows you what they're worth, right there on that invoice. On the invoice.
Correct. But it doesn't touch the actual math of the invoice. So as the layout occurs, you've got item A, B, and C, right? Yeah.
And C is on there, and C has a value, even though you're not actually collecting dollars for it. Right. It says complimentary cigar valued at $8 or something. And that's part of the line item system over here.
And then when it goes... It doesn't reach the line item. It's in the invoice of showing the value. Just shows value.
Correct. Sure. Right. So you could still do that as well.
You see what I'm saying? So like, again, I encourage you to do these things and get involved in it. And I want you to. And if you want to mess with the point of sale, that's fine.
Like, go ahead and do that. Just know that I'm going to have to, I'll show you all the things that you're kind of, Mike Barrett: That you're gonna jam up in order to make the system actually work the most efficiently. Mike Szczec: Well, there's also a learning curve there. Eventually, that gets to be a point where I understand it as well.
Mike Barrett: I don't entirely agree with that statement, but I do think that you... I'm gonna say again, you should do it. I'm telling you, you should do it. Okay.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Use it up. 34 minutes. TSA is rolling out new CT machines that will give officers a 3D view inside your carry-on bag. Doesn't it already kind of do that?
I guess because you roll it through. Well, this is a better view than the current system that's in place. Okay. But the problem is they made the opening too small.
- You can't fit the bag in. - Can't fit the bag in, so your carry-on bag might be too big and they're going to tell you you can't carry it on because it won't fit through the scanner. - Who thought of this? - Somebody diabolically thought of this for a reason.
This didn't accidentally happen. I don't think so, at least. - So it says some of the new machines have smaller openings, a larger overstuffed carry-on that went through the older scanner may not fit through the CT scanner. So there was like a margin of error on the other scanner where, let's say the bag's got to be 12 inches, because you overstuffed it, maybe it's 12 and a half or 13, and even though it'll fit in the overhead compartment, that's not the dimensions they let you know.
Yeah, no, I don't like this, and I'll give you the exact scenario where this is extremely bad. We have arrived to the airport slightly less than one hour of departure to check luggage, and the idiot behind the counter says, "Well, you can't check this luggage. " Well, you have to be here at least an hour beforehand in order to check it. The plane's still here, you put on the belt, the belt takes it out to the plane, gets put on the plane, what's the issue?
You can't do that. Okay, no problem. Give us our boarding passes. Take the boarding passes, massive pieces of luggage, huge, all the way to the gate, go to the gate, I'd like to check this, no problem, sir.
And they just put it on the plane. So how are you going to be able to get that large piece of luggage through security now? You're going to have to go back. You can't.
Not going to fit. That's a good point. You're going to have to get there earlier. That's not going to happen.
Not the way that, no. Well, I don't think the entire industry of airline travel is going to accommodate your wife's need to show up later and possibly miss the flight. She hates standing in line. I hate standing in line, too, but still, I get there in time to do stuff.
This is a wild concept. It is so wild. Isn't it? I had to completely adjust the way that I approached.
You're looking at 15 minutes one way or the other. Yeah, I know. That's all you gotta do. No, yeah.
Wants to walk right on the plane. I think that they're trying to figure out ways to combat the carry-on, is what I think. Yeah, of course. Well, airlines are already doing it with that, like, stupid cube, that you look at the cube and you're like, there's no way, Mike.
It is way smaller than that overhead. I couldn't fit my wallet into that cube. What are you talking about? That makes no sense.
So when we travel, I have this very, very large black backpack, but there's like, you know, four shirts, a pair of pants, some underwear in it, so it's like this big, but there's like five items in it, and they stop me every time, they're like, that's not gonna fit, I'm like, oh yeah, well, bring the cube, and just, it all fits in the cube, no problem, because there's really nothing in it. Oh, because it just collapses down. Yeah. Yeah, you'd think they would have made it the size of the carrying, because it says the airlines have one dimension, and this machine is a different dimension.
They do, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. sense they should they should they would have just went somebody should have done it right somebody should have checked they did do it right they did this way on purpose uh it's a 3d image now instead of a 2d so they can turn it yeah they can minority report it right right helps officers inspect bags and travelers using those lanes can generally leave laptops and travel liquid size packages inside before you fly the measured package bag including wheels and handles leave expansion zippers closed and allow extra time so now they're including the wheels too waste of money You have a false sense of security. Get rid of the TSA. Why don't you get rid of the TSA?
It's because it's silly. They flew planes into a building. I get it. Because we didn't have TSA.
I get it. 45. I guess it must have been in there when I arrived from Florida. " It's a lawless swamp, dude.
So nobody caught it going out. No one out, so like, false sense of security, and obviously I know you're not supposed to bring any addition, it's one bullet, it's one bullet, it's true, but like there are things that you shouldn't bring on a plane, that would be one of them if you ask me, as far as your carry-on, you can check them without a problem, throw it at somebody, I don't know, you're missing the point, but my point is, their systems don't work already, give them all the expensive equipment you want, they're still not gonna work, it's just false sense of security, that's all it is. Greg chose violence today. Greg chose violence today.
He's upset. We believe in you. I believe in you, TSA. I would like them to keep TSA in, please.
Yes. I like to feel safe. Yes. I like my false sense of security.
Yes. It's a lock on a screen door, right? It is totally a lock on a screen door. And yet, the lock seems to be working.
Keeps them not, yeah, nobody else flown another plane. No more planes in the building. No more planes in the building. We've eliminated that problem.
Well, there's also, you know, face recognition these days that people on lists don't get put on planes. They also gather people that aren't supposed to be in this country as they're getting on planes as well. They just grab 'em. It's because of the scanners.
Yeah. Wrap 'em up. There's a guy with a middle initial different than mine that's on the no-fly list. Have you been pulled?
I've been stopped once and the guy, uh-oh, there's an R. " And I'm not wearing my glasses, it kinda looks like a D. Right. Could be.
Get him, here he is! Gonna need you to take off your pants, sir. Oh, what, again? Mm-hmm.
All right, Daniela Timon was walking through her backyard in Bohemia, Long Island on her 47th birthday when the ground gave way underneath her and she was swallowed up into a sinkhole. Oh, no. Tell me she survived. That's horrible.
She fell eight feet with water and mud and crumbling stone around her. She couldn't climb out. She estimated she was trapped for roughly 30 minutes. They show a picture of the hole in her shoe next to the hole.
Nice. It was an old well that was in her backyard. Two neighbors heard her screaming but couldn't see her at first. They initially thought she was hiding in her shed before spotting the hole and calling 9-1-1.
Rescuers got her out with a ladder. She survived with whiplash and pulled muscles. She's very lucky. Yes.
Then in a birthday twist, the first responders all sang happy birthday to her as she stood there. What a nice ending. Oh, it was on her birthday? It was on her birthday, yeah.
She walked out in the backyard and all of a sudden the hole opened up and swallowed her in. Earth tried to eat me on my birthday. I would freak out. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Because the walls were all stoned and slippery, she couldn't climb out. They stuck a ladder down into the hole as you climbed out. Well, I don't know if you remember, it was either a year, year and a half, maybe two years ago, over in Orange City, a major portion of the road had a sinkhole in it.
Oh, yeah, I remember. And it was massive. Like, imagine you're just driving down the road one day and then all of a sudden you're in a hole. Right.
Wild. Didn't it swallow a part of a car dealership and they never found, A couple of the expensive cars that went into the hall? It's possible, I don't know. That was in Winter Park.
Is that Winter Park? Where did he say his was, I was reading. The one that I was talking about was in Orange City. Oh, in Orange City?
Not far from here at all. Oh crap, that's where I live. Yeah. Yeah, in Winter Park, that's actually the park that the kids play football at.
Oh, is it really? Yeah. And supposedly there are cars still in there. Still in the hall, right?
In the lake. Yeah, that was kind of developed. Hmm. All right, on to Cigar News!
Yes! Let's go. Teresa Carrillo is lighting the fuse on the latest limited release, the Perez Carrillo Pledge of Allegiance Rocket. Uh-oh.
Schedules a ship to retailers Monday. Inside each humidor are two different six and three-eighths by five-eighths figurados. The red foot band marks a Connecticut broadleaf wrapper over a Pennsylvania 41 binder. Is Fratello okay with this?
Yeah, I don't know. Wasn't his more like a moon landing thing that he did? I don't know, he's the rocket guy. Well, he was an accountant.
He wasn't really a rocket. Yeah, but he still goes by the rocket guy. You know what I mean? Like, he's the rocket guy.
Right. He has a group of cigars that are in a rocket. Yeah, he walks around in an astronaut outfit, allegedly. I have to be a big one.
He's very tall. Very tall. Very tall. So, like, he's the rocket guy, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, and he has the rocket man playing as he walks around. Yeah, exactly. So these are individual cigars made to look like rockets. Maybe it's slightly different.
Rockin' man. The Blue Foot Band marks the Pennsylvania Broadleaf Wrapper over a Connecticut Havana Seed Binder. Both use Connecticut and Pennsylvania tobaccos in the filler, and both are described as full strength. It's a rocket, so, of course.
If I'm Omar, I want a piece. You get 10 of each blend in a 20-count humidor. The price is $1,000. American?
Yes, or 50 bucks a cigar, and Casa Carrillo is making 250 humidors. Is this the most expensive cigar that they've ever made? Casa Carrillo? Casa Carrillo.
I feel this is probably the most expensive cigar they've ever made. The rolled out of the company's factory in the Dominican Republic, this follows the first Pledge of Allegiance release earlier this year, Ernesto Perez Carrillo, says the line is a tribute to the American dream as the company marks 250th anniversary. Oh, okay, so it's a celebration for the 250, just a little bit late, but still very cool. Could be an older story, sometimes you gotta look for, no, no, this was just on Half Wheel today.
It's probably shipping now. It is just shipping now. That's what this, that's what's the first line of the story. I don't listen when you talk.
E. Blue is expanding into leather goods. You're gonna need it one time? Is this what you're talking about?
Yeah. E. Blue, the French, well, it's so expensive you can't afford to put anything in it. Oh.
E. Blue, the French company best known for its humanors, is introducing a new collection of leather goods. Some designed for cigars, others for other things. Last week's enter to back 2026 trade fair in Dortmund, Germany.
The company previewed the new collection, which is part of the Casa Cubana series. Casa Cubana is a decade-old series that started as humidors decorated to look like some of the iconic buildings of Havana. They have these little cartoon things on the leather goods. Nice.
Let's see. They have things designed to look like tobacco bars as well as matching lighters, cutters, ashtrays, cigar cases. Some of the cigars have been leather. So some of the cigars have been leather, but now Ellie Blue is entering the leather goods category in a much more meaningful way.
All right, you guys, want to guess some of the prices? Let's just hit some of the highlight things. $2,500. There's a three-case Tatero National for three cigars.
$2,500. Greg? That's what I said, $2,500. You said $3,000.
25. How much? 25. Seems very affordable for that brand.
$500. There is a business card holder. Oh, boy. $250?
$50 bucks. 75? Son of a bitch. 75?
$250, right? 75. 75. 75.
Yes, for your business card holder. What an odd number. I like that they do that. That's cool.
the luggage tag and then we'll do one more after the luggage tag a buck and a half 45 dollars 195 50. american dollars yes for a luggage tag this is the one i like the best this is the ellie blue uh coin holder like a coin purse yeah a little coin purse yeah three three fifty Who even walks around with coins anymore? Like, everything's gonna be a- Well, I want you to buy this. You ain't gonna have no coins.
Everything's gonna be a credit card. You ain't gonna have coins when you buy this. Uh, buck oh five. 50.
Oh yeah, there you go, there you go. That makes sense. That's a lot of quarters. Oh, there's one more, a keychain, Ellie Blue Keychain Fumador Del Malecon.
50. Fumador Del what? Malecon. M-A-L-E-C-O Umlaut-N.
Maleconi. That's what we're going with. How much is a keychain? How much is a keychain?
Oh, God. How much is a keychain? This is the most reasonable thing they have. A buck and a half, 150.
$90. 25. Oh, very reasonable. Very reasonable.
Alright, if you're heading to Oktoberfest in Munich this year, you can add a cigar to the beer and brunch. Cigar to the beer and broad. Cigar Kings has made an official Oktoberfest cigar. It's called the Oktoberfest Zigar with a Z.
Ah, Zigar. Yes. A 5x50 Rebuso with an Ecuadorian wrapper and Nicaraguan binder and filler. Cigar Kings is based in Munich, but cigar is made in Nicaragua.
Here's what makes it unusual. Cigar Kings CEO Philip Kugler says, "This is the first official Oktoberfest cigar produced with the City of Munich's permission. That means the band can carry the official Oktoberfest logo, it will be sold at stands around the festival, which runs from September. You can't see on the box, because the box says the big...
Yeah, you can't see this. Yeah. Tobacco bad. Tobacco bad says on it, right.
No price or production number was included in the announcement, so the question for anyone going is whether these are easy to find or become souvenir everybody's hunting for. Yay. Hunting. Yay.
All right, it's time for the industry's favorite game: What's the score? Think you can't predict a cigar's half-wheel rating before the final score is revealed? We'll give you clues, you lock in your guess. Then as we review, as the review unfolds, we move closer and closer to the answer, or do we?
The player with the closest... I don't have my fireworks. Yeah, you do? No, I don't.
You don't have the remote? I don't have my fireworks. Oh, they're not behind you? No.
Oh, they're behind you? Well, they're behind me. I'll take the ball. Because at the time, Phil was still going to be on the show.
Sorry about that. All right. The player with the closest guest takes the win. I don't even get to push the button.
Light up, lock in, let's play, what's the score? Today's cigar, Viva La Vida, Connecticut Churchill. Review date September 23rd, 2026. The reviewer is Patrick LaGreed.
90. 88. J. Fernandez, and they smoked three cigars.
Ninety, eighty-eight. First clue, excellent construction, smooth draw, even burn, abundant smoke, and no need for multiple re-lights across the three cigars. Ninety. 89.
Each cigar took him through the same distinct shifts between creaminess, pepper, and toasted, or dried popcorn flavors. Dried popcorn. 90. 89.
The peppery and dried popcorn portions didn't impress him as much as the creamy portions. He wanted more overlap and complexity between those flavors. 90. 88.
Final Thought, Lagride found the cigar unusually consistent. All three samples followed nearly the same flavor path, with fairly quick turns from one profile to the next. The cream forward stretches were the highlight for his palate. He appreciated how reliable his cigar smoked, but felt the drier, sharper stretches held the overall experience back.
Someone who enjoys cream, pepper, and toasted flavors as separate, clearly defined phases may like it more than he did. Hmm. Eighty-nine. Hmm.
Eighty-eight. You went the right way. Eighty-seven. Oh.
Button push. No fireworks. Sweet! You have to do the thing with the hands like boots.
There you go. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Play the drum. All right.
Anything else to add, Mr. Palmer? Yes. m.
Eastern Standard Time. I'm going to be on the Smoking Text Podcast. Oh, right. In October.
Mm-hmm. Very nice. Looking forward to having you on there. Should be a good time.
That's nice. Oh, just so you guys know, I haven't built a media page yet, but a couple of you guys reached out to me. Thank you very much. If you're a media person and you listen to the show, let me know and we'll work on linking you up to the sites.
I guess that's it. So thank you very much for everybody for listening. We hope we provide a great edutainment for you today. Mr.
Palmer, I know this is going to air tomorrow, but happy birthday again. Thank you very much. Yep. Thank you.
com for all your chpod swag. com, a cigar host podcast for reviews and more inside baseball in the cigar industry. Like and subscribe wherever you're viewing and listening to the show. And thank you again.
All right. All right. If I haven't thanked you, thank you to everybody who is sending me birthday wishes today. I appreciate it.
Thank you. There you go. Bye.
Show Notes
On this episode of the Cigar Hustlers Podcast, the crew reviews and discusses the latest from E.P. Carrillo and Pledge.
A full cigar-industry news discussion — reviews, interviews, and commentary, plus the week's wildest headlines.
In episode 625 of the Cigar Hustlers Podcast, host Mike BDP runs from the news desk to the humidor — reacting to the week's headlines before digging into cigar news and reviews featuring E.P. Carrillo and Pledge. Honest conversation and industry commentary, new episodes every weekday.
CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold open & welcome
3:21 Show merch & where to find CHPOD
41:53 Cigar News
43:36 This follows the first Pledge of Allegiance release earlier…
48:09 "What's the Score?" game
51:32 Wrap-up & thanks