Episode 40 | Rant & Rave Session

Oh yo yo yo yo. We are back for another episode of the Sticks and Stones CR podcast. The Sticks and Stones podcast. This is where we talk about life. We talk about love. We talk about the business of business and we talk about the brotherhood of the leaf, the fraternal order of the leaf. Well, you know what? from the PCA show. I have met a lot of females, very intelligent, very strong, very charismatic females that are in this world and they all deserve a spot in their own right for sure. I have no meaning or purpose for this podcast. I just wanted to pop on here because it's been a while and been shooting a lot of content for Instagram and building the new um my team and I have been building puff-cast.com which is going to be a website that we stream videos of cigar reviews. That's it. That's all that website is going to do. If you want to see a review of any type of cigar that we do, it's going to be on that. It will not be on Instagram. It will not be on YouTube. It will only be on puff-cast. And it's a site that my team and I are building. You're going to be able to go there and search and filter by country of origin, by ring gauge, size, tobacos, like whatever. And there's also going to be a form for you to fill out and suggest a cigar. So, we've been working on that. That's going to be a really good a new a new friend of the channel is sending us a package. I'm very excited about it. I can't wait to get that which when it comes in I will put that up on an Instagram reel. I just wanted to come on here and rant and rave a little bit. Of course, smoke. So, I am enjoying some coffee. There's like five shots of espresso in here with some Chobani sugarfree salted caramel creamer. And what am I smoking this morning? This is my first cigar of the day. And this is the bunker number 14 from my new friends at the bunker in Santa Fe, Texas. Shout out to Greg and his father. I met them before I left for the PCA. Got to go back there and stock up. New favorite torch. So, there's a lot to rant and rave about in just about everything. First of all, someone dropped my mic. not not not like the the good mic drop. Someone physically dropped my mic and now it's dented. So, probably going to need to replace that mic. I was going to upgrade the equipment anyway for the podcast for the studio, but didn't want to have to do it right now, especially because that's all I've been doing is spending money since prior to the PCA, after the PCA. So, just a quick breakdown of this podcast for those of you who are just joining or just listening in. We talk about everything premium tobaccore related. So we share our experiences on cigars, on smoking experiences, lounges, funny stories, sad stories, love stories, whatever. All that revolve around cigars and cigar experiences and you know tools and whatever is your favorite and you know all that kind of stuff. And then we talk about you know life in the 21st century. you know, what it's like raising a family and what it's like running a business or owning a business. And then specifically, one of the things that I like to do is because I'm a commercial real estate broker and I'm working nationwide in the United States and soon to be worldwide, my expertise is in commercial real estate. And I do I represent buyers, I represent tenants, I represent landlords, I represent sellers. And one of the things that I like to do is I'll go review a cigar shop or a cigar lounge or bar and then I break it down on the business side. So if you ever wonder like why is this cigar lounge so expensive or why do they charge this or why do they charge that and why is there a premium on their cigars when I can just go to Casad Monte Cristo or Cigars International. I can buy that cigar for X amount of dollars. I break things down and I interview the owners or the general manager, the proprietor, whoever is running the place and I get some information from them and uh I basically package it all together and say, "Okay, well this is what it costs these people on a monthly basis, annual basis. You have to make that money back. I mean, in order to to be to run a business, you have to have a return on investment. So this is what they put out per month. This is what they put out per year. This is why they charge what they charge. Sometimes the numbers don't flesh out. Sometimes a lounge or a bar is, you know, gouging customers, but most of the time it's all relative. It all makes sense. So that's what we do here. And then we also have the Puffcast review, which is where we'll take a cigar and we will smoke it completely and give you an honest review of that cigar all on video and it will all be streaming from Puff Dashcast. We have a rating system 0 to 100 similar to some of the cigar publications out there and then after the review we either give it a puff puff or a pass. So if we would recommend it to our friends and family we give it a puff puff and if not we give it a pass. There's a bunch of collaborations that is going to be happening from here out. We're going to be working with different people and coming up with different products and it's going to be exciting. It's very very exciting. I'm putting a lot of time and resources into Sticks and Stones Cigars. Sticks and Stones Cigars is the entity and everything falls under that. So, the podcast, the Puffcast reviews, any of the merchandise that's going to come out from here out, any cigars that we blend and or sell eventually, all going to be Sticks and Stone cigars. By the way, I'm going to find out more from Greg about his shop if you could buy these online or if it's only come and grab and go. This is a fantastic stick. It's light. It's creamy. It's It's nothing that's going to kick you in the teeth or the crotch. And I've already turned a friend on to these and he's already buying from the Bunker. So, this is a great stick. And fun fact, The Bunker in Santa Fe, Texas is the only retailer that sells the regimen, which I still have to do a review on it. I have it sitting in my humidor right now. They only they only distribute to 250 retailers nationwide, and The Bunker is the only one in Texas, according to Greg, is the only shop in Texas that will have the regiment. So, ranting and raving, I think. Um, I've become so addicted to coffee and thank God I'm off of the Starbucks train. I used to early 2000s, early to mid 2000s, I was so addicted to Starbucks. It didn't matter where I was in the world. 2010 to 2020, I did a fair amount of international travel. Didn't matter what country, what state I was in. The first thing I looked for was a Starbucks. And now Starbucks just lost their contract with Walt Disney parks. So anywhere there was a Starbucks in I don't know about Disneyland, but in Walt Disney World, the Walt Disney World campus, anywhere there was a Starbucks is now being replaced by Duncan, which I'm not a huge Duncan fan either. I just think that their coffee is a little weak. I like a stronger coffee. I just got a latte from them a couple days ago and it was like flavored water basically. So, I'm not a huge Duncan fan, but the fact that Starbucks hides or Yeah, they basically hide the ingredients they put in their drinks, I think is duping Americans. They don't do it in Europe because in Europe all of the ingredients are natural. Like the one thing that I saw was a congressional hearing where Congress forced a representative of Starbucks to reveal what was in the pumpkin spice latte. And in Europe, to get it that orange color, they use keratene. And in the US, they use chemicals that you could find in an oil and gas refinery. It's crazy. So, I I don't subscribe to Starbucks anymore. I pray that my children will listen to me one day and stop drinking Starbucks, but I have to drink 10 shots of espresso a day. I have to. I mean, I start off with two and then there's probably four or five in here. Don't hate on my cup. So, that's like I'm not saying coffee is a bad thing. I'm just saying that anything in moderation, 10 shots of espresso a day is not moderation, guys. That's that's insanity. Anyh whoer, one of the things that I realized at PCA 2026 in New Orleans, there are so many cigar companies out there and we spent 3 days walking the convention center floor and we didn't get we only scratched the surface. You know, we I think the two small brands that I didn't know about was Drunk Chicken Cigars, which we interviewed, and Bareda Cigars, Don Chico's great-granddaughter, which we also interviewed. Two great companies uh run by both run by women or at least have a majority stakehold uh female operation. And I did I did smoke the drunk chicken mother clucker Maduro which was surprisingly phenomenal. I never got a chance to smoke anything from Bareda cigar. We were supposed to meet the night I interviewed her and go over her five-pack and that didn't happen. She got busy and then we never met up. We are supposed to meet up sometime in the next 2 weeks so I can try those because we are interviewing a few different blenders to blend our own sticks and stones cigar. There goes my ash. So, but the point is there are so many cigars out there and cigar brands out there. I mean individual companies have multiple brands, right? So like AJ Fernandez just did their new brand Amar and then they have New World. They have San Lotano and you know they AJ blends for everybody great phenomenal blender and then you have you know the my father's cigars which you know my father's like AJ Fernandez my father's tatuah all these they're like the figure head but each company has so many brands under it you know you've got the new well not the new but my father's has the Honduran blue now they have a new cigar, which I have to review. They gave me a couple at the show. Alec Bradley cigar has so many brands, you know, like Magic Toast, Gatekeeper, Chunk. One of my favorites is the Alec Bradley Chunk. Drew Estates, they have the whole Deadwood, that's like a whole subset of brands, uh, Big Bottom Betty, and you know, all of those Girl with No Name. And then you have their LIA line and LIA number nine, the T2, the H99 product which is in the Fereral Flying Pig and they have an H9 a different H99 uh cigar. And then you know the the Dirty Rat, the Ratzilla and all of those are in a subset of brands. And then you have, you know, some outliers like the Black End that was a collaboration with Metallica and Black End whiskey. And you've got Kentucky Fire Cure, which great cigar. I have not smoked in a very long time to be honest. Underground and like so many huge fan of Drew Estates. You can see that in the interview how how big of a fan I am of of Drew Estates. And there's so many brands out there. But that's we're talking about the big boys, right? Arturo Fuente has his own line of Fuentes as well as like the Hemingway series and then the then we get into the Opus X and now there's a bunch of Opus X cigars, you know, there's Purple Rain and all, you know, all this other stuff. So, gather that all together, right? So, there's Padron and all of these big brands. Then you have these smaller brands that I mean just takes it to another. So, basically what I'm saying is there's so many choices that it's it's kind of like New York City restaurants. New York City has so many restaurants in that city that you could spend a lifetime, literally you could spend a lifetime visiting three restaurants a day in New York City. If you wanted to visit a different breakfast restaurant, a different lunch restaurant, and a different dinner restaurant every single day, you could spend a lifetime and never visit all of the New York City restaurants. That's how many restaurants there are in New York City. Part of that is also there are restaurants that go out pretty often if they if they pick a bad location or a bad menu in that location. You could have a restaurant, a great restaurant, go out of business in New York City. But the point is is that you could spend a lifetime visiting restaurants in New York City and never visit all of them. Likewise, the cigar industry. There are so many cigar brands and so many cigar makers, rollers, you know, you name it. You may never smoke them all. I mean, there are so many like EGM, they're a European brand. They make a great cigar. First, this was their first PCA. I believe it was Beda's first PCA as well. So, a lot of first timers had PCA this year. EGM's a great cigar. And if it wasn't for Instagram, I wouldn't know who they were cuz they're like they're social media social media viral. Great cigar. There's some stuff that is out there that I've been wondering about that I have not I didn't see at the show, but then again, you know, the convention center floor is huge. I don't think I saw all of it, but there's like pangas. I've been really interested in seeing what that cigar is all about. The Arya, I think that's how it's pronounced. They seem like a great cigar as well. The other point is with so many brands out there like one of the YouTube comments was someone wanted to see and I believe they wanted to see the I think it's distinctive cigar brand. I always synonymize it with the cigar brand that has the hair scrunchies as the band. It's the it's the only way I can describe it. Not throwing shade at that, but that's that's what it looks like when you look at the band. It's a fabric band that's like woven together and it looks like someone with long hair. They use these scrunchies to keep their hair together, put them in a ponytail or whatever, style their hair or whatever. That's what it looks like. It's a great cigar. I totally forgot about them. They don't do the mass marketing like a lot of these big brands do. You know, the big Dominican, the big Nicaraguan brands. They don't do as much marketing. Not that they need to. I'm not saying that they need to. I'm just saying that they they're not constantly in your face and not throwing shade at anyone, but the cigar shop that I found them in, they were on the very bottom rack. And they had a good selection of their cigars. I don't think they had them all, but they had a very good selection of them. I know there are apps out there that you can keep a running tally or a running trail of what you're smoking, what your favorites are, all that kind of stuff. We may create one. We may partner up with someone to try to give some insight on how to make an app better, but I strongly suggest that you have some kind of tracking system because if you don't, I I I totally forgot about that brand. I totally forgot about it. And it's bad because I know it's a good brand. They make a good cigar, really good cigar. It's important to keep track of this stuff because if you don't like for instance the Adabay brand Adabet made such a splash when they first came out and it's and it's the branding is great. You know, they have that gold band and they did such a good job with the branding and marketing. When they first came out, they actually shipped their cigars and they only made I want to say it's like less than a,000 boxes a year. I want to say it was like 300 or 500. And they shipped in porcelain vases, like a vase with a lid, a box, a porcelain box, whatever you want to call it. That's all they that's all they shipped in. And it was a very very highline product. And the cigar was one of the best in the world. And from what I remember, it was Cuban seed, Cuban leaf, but rolled in Costa Rica, which enabled them to ship directly to America, directly to the United States. So the cigar was like everybody and their brother wanted it. Cigar shops couldn't get it. You had to be some of the big ones to get the Adabay line. I remember shooting a bucket of balls. That's when I was, you know, like heavily into golf. And I shot a bucket of balls. And if anyone is in the golf game knows that it takes a decent amount of time to shoot a bucket of balls on one light. I lit up an Adabay and I smoked that entire thing throughout an entire bucket of balls and it never died. And the draw was phenomenal. The taste was great. The flavor, I mean, they just got everything right. And it went from very select amount of boxes per year to now if you go into any cigar shop, you'll see Adabay and there's just a whole lineup of them. So many sticks, so many different boxes. You know, they're mass- prodducing these things now. And as far as I'm concerned, the thing that I remember the most was the lasting quality of the burn of that cigar. It was a slow burning tobacco and it stayed lit. It didn't die. and it had a great draw. And everything I loved about the original Adabbe, I smoked two of them. And Ada is a $25 plus cigar. They've got cigars in the $50 range. The two that I smoked after seeing the cuz when I saw the huge volume of boxes that were in the shop, I was like, "Oh my god, this is awesome. Great. Amazing." And then I smoked two and it was such a letown that I have not purchased an adabetay since. So that's a bad experience. But then you have good experiences of cigars that were great and you forgot about them because the company doesn't mass market. So you kind of forget that they exist and it is what it is, right? Not saying it's good, bad or indifferent. I'm just saying it's a fact of life. Sometimes if you don't keep front of mind, and this is like business in general, this is marketing and advertising 101. If you don't stay front of mind of your target customers, they're going to forget about you. That's in any business that you're in. And I've I've gone through it myself. Real estate is huge in that. You'll hear a lot of agents or brokers say, you know, I helped these people out and I bought them a building and it took a year and a half and I bent over backwards and I was there for their inspections and I did all this and I, you know, used my network to get them all topend professionals to get the deal done and a year later they bought another building and they used another broker. If you don't stay top of mind, they're going to forget about you. Same thing with cigars. Same thing with any line of business. If you don't stay front of mind with these people, they will forget your brand exists. You know, the New World cigars, you know, the Artur Fuente Dominican Republic cigars, the Padron, they are so established and they're so cemented in people's brains that it's very hard to forget those people. Now you have new cigars like EGM and Pangia and Arya Drunk Chicken. Bareda is not new, but they're new in that they're creating their own brand and selling their own cigars versus they're a blending house. They blend cigars for a lot of people and they roll for a lot of people. So now they've got their own line of cigars and they're selling their own cigars. So you have to stay top of mind. There's like another new one, like a viral uh cigar. I saw their booth, but didn't have a chance to interview them or check them out. Uh they're called Outcast, and I don't know much about the brand or the cigars that they roll, but that's one that they're making a splash. You know, they they've had a lot of entertainment. Espazito is another one. You know, they had some celebrities out there. I didn't get to meet Sensei Crease from Cobra Kai and The Karate Kid, but he was there on Sunday at PCA. So, there's a lot of interesting stuff going on in the industry of cigars and there's a lot of brands. You know, Foundation Cigars is a great company. They had a small booth for what I I thought that they were going to come with, but they also had the very first booth that you saw when you walked into the exhibit hall. So, there's something to that. There's so many brands out there now and there's so many people doing so many different things. And there's also like you have the conglomerates, right? STG, Scandinavian Tobacco Group, and you know, they own General Cigar who owns Cohiba, the Dominican Cohiba, CEO, Alec Bradley, like all of these huge brands are now conglomerated into a handful of companies. And there's just so much out there. There's so much to consume and I'm a big fan of of every cigar out there. Let's just put that out there. Let's just, you know, preface that. I am a fan of all that [ __ ] If it is tobacco and it burns, I'll smoke it. I'm bougie in a lot of [ __ ] but tobacco, no. I'll smoke a $1 cigar. I'll smoke a $1,000 cigar. I don't care. And I am very passionate about this industry, and I'm very passionate about the product. And I am interested in learning and and trying and consuming and smoking all of this stuff. You know, CAO came out with a a product they called the Stoke and it was part tobacco, cigar tobacco, part pipe tobacco, which was a great concept. It just didn't execute well. A lot of people didn't like it. I tried it. I wasn't a huge fan, but I'm willing. at the CEO booth. I interviewed Cody there and let's just say this, he couldn't confirm or deny anything. That product line is not dead. I think they're working out some stuff right now. So, probably a new Stoke going to come out as from CEO. That's that's all part of the trial and error. And cigars are very much trial and error. You know, that's because that's the one thing that I took away from talking to all these different people at PCA. From the smallest brand to the largest multinational, global brands, no one really knows what's going to happen until it's rolled and you got you have it under a flame. No one really knows what's going to happen. You have some brands have an idea like, okay, we know we're going to use this and this and this. we're going to use the the Leho from this crop and the seco from this crop and but until they roll it up and until they dance it around the flame they don't know how that's going to end up and one run of boxes could be phenomenal another run of boxes may not be that great like so that's the one thing I gathered from the show everyone some of the larger companies they have a very good design they have a very good structure on how they blend their cigars and they know how things are going to come out and they can kind of execute very quickly and you know things like that. Some of the smaller companies, you know, have an idea and they don't really know until they get to the blending house where they're rolling different things and trying different things and then it's just like once they hit that sweet spot, they're like, "Okay, that's that's what we were looking for and now we're going to name that and we're going to roll that and this is how many boxes we're going to produce and you know, all that kind of stuff." This year has been a very weird year for the global economy. Let's just put it that way. You know, we've got, to quote the good book, we've got wars happening, rumors of wars happening. You know, Bitcoin and crypto and all this. So, like everything is super crazy right now. But the one thing that I have noticed is cigars are not stopping. You know, there's new brands coming out. There's new I will say that methods of distribution are changing. You know, there's a lot more online sales happening. People selling directly from their own websites and shipping directly. Uh I see that happening more. I I believe EGM is one of those brands that you can go to their website and purchase boxes of cigars or five packs or whatever. A lot of things are changing, but and and I'll I'll say this as well. Anytime I go into any cigar shop, it's not like any other store. You can go to some different stores and you'll have a bunch of customers. I was in HomeGoods yesterday. HomeGoods, TJ Maxx, it was like a mashup of of different brands for under that one company. Tons of people. Tons of people. Which if you've ever been into a HomeGoods, you know what I'm talking about. If you have not ever been into a HomeGoods, don't do it because you will be addicted to that store. I'm just telling you. That's a warning. That's a warning for me. Tons of people in Homegoods. It doesn't matter what cigar shop you go into. It's not going to be overrun with people. You're not going to see people lining up. However, you will see people buying. I go into all kinds of cigar shops and I'm always buying cigars. Always. I have one of those refrigerator humidor things and right now it's it's almost at capacity. I think I could pack it a little bit better and get more cigars in there, but I have a full box of Andelusian bowls and I've got a whole two two or three bundles of the budget cigars. And then I've got just a random crop of all kinds of stuff. uh from the, you know, mid-range to the $35 plus per stick cigars. So, what am I saying? I'm I'm saying most cigar shops are never overrun with customers where, you know, they've got a line forming or gathering and, you know, they're they're making $6 million a day. But when you do go into a cigar shop, you may be the only one in there. You're there to buy stuff for sure, but there may be two people. There may be four people. Like I I went into Casad Monte Cristo. Shout out to my boy Bernardo. My boy hooked me up with a bunch of good [ __ ] I mean, there was maybe 10 people in the cigar shop. A ton of people in the lounge, but maybe 10 people uh shopping around for cigars. Undoubtedly, all 10 people bought something. Right. That's the one thing that I can say about the cigar world. people who are addicted to these things, they're going to continue to shop. They're going to continue to buy. They're going to continue to be consumers of the product. And I think that's I think that's one thing across the board is loyalty. You have people loyal to specific brands. You have people loyal to specific cigars. I have a friend that only smokes the Haimei Garcia. That's it. And it's the double Gordo. I think it's one specific size, one specific cigar. It's all he smokes. He buys boxes of the damn thing and he will not smoke anything else. If you gave him a a Girka Royal Cortisan over $1 million for that one cigar, he wouldn't he wouldn't smoke it. So, you have a lot of loyalty in this crazy band of people, which I don't think you get in a lot of different industries and in consumer products. You know, people jump ship and they don't have loyalty at all. And I know a lot of people that slowed down, if not stopped cigar smoking because of health issues. I know somebody who has slowed down because of health issues, but still smokes, just not as often as he used to. You don't get that very often. You don't get that in a lot of different industries. So, what does that tell me? That tells me that people really love this [ __ ] right? They love cigars. I know I do. I know I'm very passionate about it. Anytime anytime I speak to anyone about cigars, whether it's a an afficionado, which I don't consider myself an afficionado, where whether it's a a rookie, you know, a greenhorn, a noob, I talk to people about cigars and about a bunch of different brands and I recommend a lot of stuff and anyone can see that I'm very, very passionate about cigars and premium tobacco, as is a lot of people. And the community is only growing. You know, I'm making so many friends on Instagram, which I, you know, we meet at meetups and stuff like that. And that is the one thing about the tobacco world and the cigar world. You can meet so many different people from so many different walks of life. and you all meet up at a lounge and you're sitting in a nice chair and you have a nice drink and you light up a beautiful cigar and you guys are all kicking it and sharing life experiences and laughing and joking and you know maybe talking serious maybe doing a deal you know maybe some business is being transacted over it you know you just met this stranger and now you found you know a a product or a service and a customer for that product is you know anything could be happening it's different walks of It's people of all kind with one common bond, the love of cigars and premium tobacco. So in a world that's so crazy right now in a world and in a world that's so crazy right now with the economy and you know wars all over the place which is spiking everything in our daily life from gasoline to you know the whole egg gate where eggs were $20 a dozen whatever. The world is really crazy right now, but I see hustlers in the cigar industry like none other. These are people that are rolling cigars, blending cigars, producing cigars, selling cigars, but also have like, you know, for the and I've said this before on on the Instagram uh channel, people that don't have a huge brand like Tatwah, my father's, Arturo Fuente, Padron, Oz Family Cigars, Crown Heads. These are all brands that have been around a long time. They've been selling cigars for 10 plus years. That is their business. That is their main thing. That's their two. That's how they take home the bacon to their family. There's a lot of people out there that are hustling cigars, blending cigars, coming out with new products, you know, delivering cigars to your door, and they have a 9 to-ive job. That that's how they bring home the bacon to their family. A lot of people don't get that. A lot of people don't get that these people are putting everything they have. You know, they've their energy stores and their resources and their brain power for their 9 to5 job and then after 5:00 they're giving whatever they have left in the tank, all the reserves left to the cigar business that they're trying to get off the ground. I don't think enough people get that. And I don't think enough people respect that. These people are doing what they're doing because they're passionate about it. They love the cigar business. They love cigars in general, but they're also giving everything they have left each day to bring you a product that you could appreciate, you can enjoy, and you could smoke with your friends, family, or strangers. Just to name a few, Noble Cigar, Elizabeth Santos. that woman is all over the map promoting her cigars, promoting other people's cigars, but she has a 9 to-ive job that, you know, she's helping to support her family and whatever she has left in the tank, she's giving it to Noble Cigars. If you don't respect that, then there's something wrong with you. And there's so many countless brands out there that are doing the exact same thing. So, if anything, if I'm saying anything right now, cuz like I this is a rant and rave session. Therapy is very expensive these days. If I'm saying anything, it's this industry has a lot of passionate people and people that are willing to give what they can't give. Time, resources, money, creative juices to this industry to bring you a product that you can enjoy. Just show that a little love. That's all I'm saying. If you have a friend who's trying to get a brand off the ground, give them some support. Doesn't have to be cigars. Just, you know, if you see someone is giving a lot of energy, a lot of resources, putting all they have into something, a business, a brand, a product, give it some love. That's all I'm saying. Because you never know. You never know the day that you might be doing the exact same thing. You might be passionate about something. You're trying to get something off the ground. You are putting nights, weekends, burning midnight oil, burning the candle at both ends. That happens a lot. You know, you're going to put blood, sweat, tears, a lot of tears into something. You're going to want your friends, family, associates, colleagues to show you love. Just saying. You don't know what it's like until you go through it. You don't know what it's like until you put everything you have into something and it gets no love. You don't know how defeating that feels, how much of a failure you feel like if if and when that happens to you. And I'm not I'm not saying everybody's financial situation is different. You don't have to buy their service or product. It'd be great if you did. It'd be great if you could, but show them some love. Give them a shout out. You know, maybe take a video of what they're doing and post it on your socials. post it on your digital channels and see if you can create a buzz for your friend, for your family, for your cousin, for your colleague, for your co-orker. Support is support, guys. That's that's what I'm getting at. Support is support. No matter what you call it, it's support. When you are in the trenches with that person and you are trying to help them push that boulder up that mountain, it's support. Whether that's talking about it, whether that's purchasing it, like putting your money where your mouth is, whatever that is, it is support. If it's talking good about somebody, it may not even be talking about their product or service. You might just say, "Hey, I've known Ben for a long time, and he is just a model person." That's support. There are people out there that have friends that are trying to do something, trying to create something, trying to put out a product or a service or something and their friends won't even they won't say [ __ ] about them. Like they won't even give him a shout out. They won't even say, "Hey, my buddy Tom is just started a landscaping business. You know, I've known him for since we were in grade school together and he's always had a love for cutting grass, you know, whatever. I I don't know what the [ __ ] I just coming up with [ __ ] That's support. And if you can't support people that you know, love, trust, been around for a long time, even a short period of time. I mean, what are we doing, guys? Really, it's could be a few seconds. It could be a few minutes of your life that could potentially change someone else's life. You're not going to know what that feels like until you're in that position. Just saying. People of the world today are in a completely different boat situation that our parents were in at our age. When our parents were growing a you know raising a family, growing older, trying to get a business off the ground, trying to do something, create a product or service was so much more difficult in their time. Today, you can do that [ __ ] with an Instagram channel. You open an Instagram page and you start putting your your stuff out there, you have a brand, you have a company, you have a product or a service, easy. So, if you ever get that idea to do something like that, highly encourage it. But just keep in mind, there are people out there that need support. And you're not going to know what that feels like when you get no support for your product or service. There are entrepreneurs out there who are hustling every single day. And I just pray for all my brothers and sisters out there who are in the field of entrepreneurialship that you get the support you need. And if it's something that we can do, if it's something that Sticks and Stone Cigars and Sticks and Stones CR podcast or the Puffcast review can do, I'm all about it. I would love to hear your story. I would love to see your product and give you the support that you may need, whatever that means to you. Now, I I will say this, my and our support may come in a lot of different shades. It may come in a lot of different forms. If I won't shout out a product or a cigar or any kind of a thing or service, if a I haven't tried it, b I don't believe in it. But where our support may come in is we may give you feedback and say, "Hey, the idea is great. The product could be better or the service could be better if in our opinion you did x, y, and z." To me, that's support because you're getting you're getting case study information, you're getting focus group information for free. But if I have tried your product and believe in your product or service, I'll shout it out. I have no problem doing that whatsoever. But I'm not going to support something that I don't believe in. Let's just say I'm not going to support your your product or service or channel if I think it it doesn't in my opinion it doesn't have a purpose or it's misleading or whatever it may be. If it's going to affect someone negatively, I'm not going to throw my support your way. But if I believe that it serves a purpose and it's going to help people or it's going to bring people enjoyment or, you know, it's be going to be positive in any way, I will support it until the cows come home. You know, just another rant and rave thing. I switched wireless services from AT&T to Verizon because when I signed up with AT&T, my wireless services were x amount of dollars, whatever. And it it was it was a little higher than I wanted it to be, but I was originally with Verizon Wireless. So, it was higher than I wanted it to be, but it was lower than Verizon. And I'll say this, guys, cell phone service is what it is across the board. It doesn't matter which brand you're with. They're all going to have ups and downs. They're all going to have good and bad service. They're all going to have billing issues, like whatever. But AT&T rapidly kept I'm not saying creeping. I'm saying jumped in price per month. So when I reached out to AT&T to say, "Hey, what the [ __ ] is going on with your billing and why is my bill keep jumping up like crazy?" Uh, I got you can you can get service on our website. Go to our website or our app and figure out your billing situation. Yeah, I I wasn't about that. You I'm very I'm very much a techsavvy person. progressive absolutely in a lot of different ways. But when I want to talk to somebody, I want to talk to somebody. I want to listen. I want to talk to a human being and listen back and and come up with solutions and pick one. Immediately went back to Verizon. Ended up getting a better deal, a much better deal, and I switched to Verizon Wireless. Fast forward couple of days ago, construction is going on in my neighborhood. They're breaking open the street. One of these contractors cut my fiber line, which I have AT&T fiber services. I kept calling AT&T. They did come out and obviously I'm broadcasting to you guys, so they fixed it. It took about a day to run a new fiber line and all that, which is that's kept hearing, well, you know, if you bundle your services, if you have AT&T wireless, we can give you a better deal on your internet and blah blah. And I'm like, but you had my wireless service. And when I tried to figure out what was going on with the damn bill, you kept saying, "Go to our website." I called the phone number and it kept saying, "Go to our website or download our app and talk with someone." No, I didn't want that. You had all of my business and it didn't mean enough to you to provide support. So, I went elsewhere and now you want my business back. No, it's not happening. And I also found that Verizon FiOS is actually cheaper than what I'm paying for my fiber internet right now. So, I may be going Verizon with that as well. So, that's just a rant. Support means everything, guys. And I've been smoking this bunker number 14 this whole podcast. And it's so enjoyable. It's an easy peasy lemon squeezy. The design, actually, there's like a a hashed design in the tobacco. I mean, if you're seeing this from from YouTube, you can you can see it cuz it's in the camera, but if you're just listening in, it's a design that I've never seen before. It looks like hounds tooth suiting material in tobacco. In tobacco. It's crazy. So, seeing a cigar that looked like hounds tooth sport coat grabbed my attention immediately. That was like, wow. And smoking it is very enjoyable. This is very much a morning or first stick of the day kind of cigar. I will find out more about this shop because it is their house stick. I will find out more about these guys and find out where you can buy it if it's just in their shop or they will ship nationwide or worldwide. But this entire podcast, this thing has been great draw, even burn, beautiful ash, smoke output's great, and it won't break the bank. It won't. I've already I've already given this cigar, the the Rabuto, I believe, different VLA, to a friend of mine. He's he's already he's already purchased. It's pretty good stuff. So that's all I got for this rant and rave session. Like I said guys, therapy is very expensive these days. With that, ending this rant and rave session. Pray that all of you have a blessed day and a blessed week ahead. Funday Sunday funday. And above all else, keep it rolling, baby. for sticks and stones.