Bonus: It's not made from an actual horse.

Recording I'm here. You are here. You are muted. You are still muted You are still muted. We're 40 seconds in and you are still muted. Now I know there's gonna be a good reason for this. It's going to be an interesting reason and it will be fun to talk about. But as we come up on one minute. You're still muted. I'm gonna go ahead and get a screen grab so people will know what I'm talking about. And uh So hey everybody. Um this is Do by Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Roland Mann. And this week's challenge is for you know, to d to do the after show, I guess. Um, hi, uh my name is Merlin. Uh it's uh we've been about a minute and a half in and Alex is still muted, so I'll just Uh I'll suck and jive, hi.

Um yeah. Hey the hey hey after show after show Hello? You were muted for a minute and forty-four seconds. Yeah, I I said uh BRB in our super secret text. You did, and then after you said BRB You a couple minutes later, the call connected. And then you were muted for almost two minutes. What was the B are you RB now? I am RB. I'm I'm not RB, I'm just B. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh, this is huge. I I just realized one of my first ever things it took me too long to realize. Uh g one of your first ever? Well, yeah, you know, and do you know what I'm talking about? So it's the thing on rectifs where we talk about Uh like John's one from a million years ago was he didn't realize that Beatles was spelled the way it was spelled because it has the word beat, like a beat in music, right?

Yeah. And mine Uh everybody sing along. Um, if I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me? I didn't realize that was a double entendre as a child. But And now, whilst I have known this fact, the whole point is this was one of the earliest of, oh my god, that's why it's called that. Did you have Arby's? Yeah. When you were a kid. Like with the big tall like it was probably already with the cowboy hat. Yeah. When I was a kid, it was a big tall brown hat. And they were really different and fun. They felt it felt different when you know, this is twenty years before you were born, but they were really, really cool and fun. And my my best friend and my girlfriend both worked at an Arby's.

And boy I know what an Arby smells like. Oh. Um, but but um Arby's and then Arby's has this commercial you see and Arby's it's A R B Y apostrophe S, right? And then they had this commercial. And then you know what the tagline of the commercial is? America's Roast Beef. Yes, sir. And I thought, ooh, wait a minute. That's really c America's roast beef. Yes, sir. is an acronym for Arby's. The acronym for that is Arby's. And I thought, oh, that's so clever. But I still wasn't really getting it. Because what's the name of the restaurant? RBs. And what do they sell? Beef? So what kind of what kind of beef do they serve? Roast? It's America's roast beef. So are bees droast beef sir. The name of the store.

is RB's roast beef. RB is how you pronounce the letters R and the letter B. Yes, yes, yes. So what does that represent? Mmm mmm roast beef. And that's why it's called Arpie's Did you always know that? No. Did you always know it's called RBs because RB is the sound your mouth makes when you pronounce the letters R and B, which represent roast beef? Did you know that? No, no. America's roast beef, yes, sir, is just icing on the cake. Now, this is not something I just learned. This is something I learned when I was pfft oh God, a teenager at least. And I ate the shit out of some Arby's. And I had friends there. We had horsey sauce fights. You know, after clothes. You ever shoot horsey sauce at somebody?

No, I shouldn't have. You would know this, but it's it's horse. It's horse horseradish, which is delicious. It's delicious. It's a creamy horseradish sauce. It's delicious. I mean it's not made from actual horse. It's not it's not called horse bees. America's horse sauce. Oh dear God, why did you start a horse eating store? My bad. Because he's a goat. But um America's roast beef, yes sir, RBs. Are you getting this? Yes, I'm getting it. How are you not blown away by that? I don't know. Did you always know it? I didn't. I'm I'm learning about America's roast. And and and so so so the point the point I'm struggling to make badly is and I it's if you don't know the bit, and it well bit, it's a thing.

It's not just a bit, it's a thing. Things it took me too long to realize. Things I could not believe. I didn't realize for so long why something is called something. It could be something as dumb as for your Hitler friends, learning that Volkswagen means people's car. And it was designed not not by Speer, but like by a Hitler person. Anyway, like one of those dumb things where you're like, oh, that's why it's called that. Mm-hmm. Right? Like was all those things where like if there's technology that existed before maybe even a generation or two. This is a really good one actually. If there's a technology that existed a generation or two before you Obviously, you're under no obligation to care about or know or understand it, but then you realize that there's a word that you use every day that has a basis.

in a technology that's neither ancient nor very recent. Do you know what I mean? Oh yeah. You don't seem interested, and I think it's a fa you don't think it's fascinating? No, I d I do. I think I'm trying to podcast every single day. Well, but like I'm trying to have a really good example. But okay, how about this? But there's a pretty famous one of these. I don't know if it's the most famous one, but one of the most famous ones of these is people who have been using Microsoft Office. for through their childhood teen years. You might have used you might have used Microsoft Office for 20, 25 years. And then one day you realize that the save icon, what is the image on a save icon? A floppy disk.

A what? Love it. Wait a minute. I just thought that was a random arbitrary thing they made up. Why why why would that mean save? And can I just say give it 10 years? And people are gonna say, why is that an envelope? Yeah. And you go, oh, you know, because you know like the way you get mail at your house. Uh no, what? So right, or I mean like or like the original, I mean the original, as far as I can remember, OS10 icon for uh the mail app, mail. app was a stamp. Oh yeah. Well when's the last time you you bought stamps? Oh but no but you see the be see the point I'm trying to make That that's where to me those are a lot a lot of those God, I'm just this is so this is crazy because like my whole life is consumed by things like this and I have listen, listen, almost none of them, oddly enough, are coming to mind.

But I think it's so fascinating when when we don't we don't make that connection. That that to me that's some of the clue. Do you have a do you have things it took you too long to realize that you can Think of just I mean just a few weeks ago I uh found out that Python is not named after the snake, but uh Monty Python. Oh yeah. I feel like I knew that and forgot it, but what a great fact. They do use like a serpent icon sometimes though, right? Yeah. Yeah, because it's easier than that. Yeah. If you put a French a taunting French soldier on there, you'd probably have to beef with, you know, John Cleese. We could have done an elder elderberry. That would have been been fun. Only if your mother was a hamster, but I don't want I don't want to be an I don't want to be essentialist.

Um let me go look. T, I always have to do this by hand. T, it took me too long to realize. Uh oh, uh the N Z in split ends, the band? S Split I don't know what I'm sorry, you know that song I got you. That's all I want. You know that song, I don't know. Well, sometime You might need to do a quick video series. Alright. Okay, that's not a good one for you. The reason split ends is spelled the way it is, is because they're from New Zealand Mmm Oh that's cute. Oh this is not a really good one but it's kinda lame but um Paula who I loved On The Walking Dead also played uh the creepy uh little guy. He is the Queens at Saturack in uh Doom, 1984. That's that's that shouldn't count, but Uh, don't treat your kid like a project.

Let's see, John Carlo. Oh, John Carlos Esposito was in trading places. Very small role. Bill Berry from REM is still alive. Um Emily Yoshida was a writer on Shogun. Okay, I'm really abusing it with some of these, but yes, you there. Oh, oh, oh the cover, the cover, the cover of uh of sp of uh of um the the the police album. That's another classic one. What was yours? Go ahead Oh no, I don't remember now, but I do not uh I mean Walking Dead knew that one, but I don't uh Well that's I'm sorry, that's a bad I'm what I what I did was I opened up Drafts. The app I'm using is Drafts Drafts. Because people will ask. And uh I did a s just did a search on the hashtag Things It Took Me Too Long to Realize, which would bring up all the stuff that I'd done as a jokey tweet.

Um, but those are bad examples. What police what's the album I'm thinking of? The one with uh the one I love, my favorite, uh Ghost in the Machine. Now I love this one. I think this one, it's not 50. Okay, remember the remember the dress, right? And like approximately 50% of people approximately saw one or the other, right? Kind of, roughly. It wasn't it was not it was not 90-10. The whole thing that made it interesting is if you ask ten people, there's a pretty good chance six would see it one way and four would see it the other, right? Yes. Yeah. But here's what's interesting. Imagine a phenomenon like that, but it's more like 9010. Because I cannot bel it's it's I I'm thrilled when I share this with people and then and they say, oh my God, I never realized that either.

But I'm blown away with people who are like, I right that I have no idea how you don't see that. Okay, do you have to do that? Yes, I have one right here. Arrow in the FedEx logo, right? Yes. Okay. That's one where your whole life you don't see it. And then somebody says, did you ever realize that the FedEx logo has an arrow in it? And you go, What? Oh shit, shit, fuck. I had one literally last night. Do you know lockpicking lawyer? Do you know that guy? Yes. And he uh obviously if you watch his videos, his big probably this point beyond side hustle um is is something called uh covert instruments. Which is all the lockpicking tools that he sells. I've bought a bunch of them. Um they're really, really good.

His new one is awesome. They're Sherlock Holmes level. So I I don't have my own. They're so satisfying to play with I just bought a bunch of like cheapy locks at the hardware store just to play with. I'm pretty much stuck at lost the Let's Go raking attack. But but anyways, um what was my point? Uh picking a lock on Uh oh my god, the covert instruments logo is so freaking cool. Um hey Google covert instruments, please. Do you mind? Are we okay? Are we okay for time? Instruments. Yeah. Um where Yeah, just click on covert instruments, best in class. Lock pick. I'm uh Okay, I can just send you loading, loading. Oh, it's Uh what's that called? Um that's very cool. Well y so do you see it? I n I never I never noticed.

Yeah I don't know what's called. So would you have noticed what we're looking at here is the name of the company's covert instruments. And their their logotype includes, it's got it written out on one side, and the other side, to my eyes, I'll just give you my the address take. I look at it and I go, oh that it's it oh that's they've done something, but they it says C and I, covert instruments. But I'm mainly reading the the negative, the black space of this as like a sideways like a hinge or something. And then last night I saw the door. Their fucking logo their fucking logo is an open door. I would not have seen it. Isn't that but isn't that brilliant? No, it's amazing. Yeah, yeah. I I b I've mean I've seen I I own this stuff.

Like I'm very I've watched all every video this guy has ever made, luckpicking lawyer. And I've seen this logo a lot, and I did not see it till literally last night. You feel me? Isn't that crazy? I would never have seen it if it was just the white. I'm the first one that popped up was the whole thing. This is like my beef with people who were like, oh I totally understand that magic trick. You know, is like, but would you if you didn't just sign unseen, if you just ran across this, would that instantly jump out as a door to you as well as a clever use of the letters of their name? No, no, no. It's brilliant. The space between the CNR C and the I is the the like the hinge uh the vertical of the where the door is hinged on.

And it's an open door because it's a lock picking company. A lockpicking company, Alex. Did you get that? Yeah. Did you just see a door or did you also make the connection with the open door being what they do? Yes, but I it's not fair because I know what they know, I know, I know. I would have never seen it like the FedEx logo is a good example of like totally it would be like discovering it would be like discovering everywhere in your house that wasn't furniture was an amusement park. It would be like, wait a minute. Oh, I guess if I look at it that way now I can see it. I was just looking at what I thought we were walking through, but that was actually a fun house. Sending you um please let me know when you've received a text.

I'm I've been looking at it and I I don't know uh looking at what? Yep, nope, I still don't know. The I had pulled up the police album and I don't know. You see Ghost in the Machine Yeah. Yeah, this is my favorite police album. Uh I think it came out in eighty-two. And so it's it's got a really it's really cool black cover. Y'all can just go find it. And if you if you know this, that's okay. Um but first of all, did you did you see anything weird about this or unusual? Did you notice anything about this? It looks like a broken clock. It looks like three sevenths Three seven segment LEDs. Like you would see in a million of the videos people like us watch. It's like how what a VCR looked like. It's what um I'm missing a really obvious one.

Um well it's what like most stereos displays look like and it's what digital watches looks like. Yeah, it's what all digital watches and clocks looked like until the mid eighties at least. Which is black background, red areas, and so do but those four that does read to you as a broken seven-segment display, right? Yeah. And the name of the record is Ghost in the Machine. So you're like, oh, okay. They're probably talking about like broken technology, right? Yeah Okay. So do you you haven't seen anything else weird yet? I'm trying, I'm like a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit If you had this d do you know what sting do you know what that singer sting looks like Uh I'm not sure.

If you had to pick one of these three that was Sting, which would it be? Maybe the one with the spiky hair in the middle? These are caricatures of the three members of the band I need to take a look at the Alex. It's it's they are it is a very broken seven segment display with way more than seven segments. Which you don't notice at first because you don't know what a seven-segment display is. But look, if you look at this, you'll notice that each of the three glyphs is a very abstract character. If you blur blur your eyes a little bit, you can even see the one on the right, I think, is Stewart. Are these supposed to be full body look at okay, so so the one at the bottom, like that would be the one at the bottom, like the bottom of a three, the horizontal with the bottom, that's a chin.

And they're yeah, yeah. The segment near the top is the top of their head. The thing going left in middle is a nose. And underneath that, it's a mouth, and Stings has spiky hair. What distinguishes the uh My my brain breaks after the like um ridge like where the eyes are Well, I mean one one okay, hmm, boy. Sorry. You know what? I've never said this out loud. It will sound insane. You ready for some context? Context is anybody who first of all, everybody knew who the police were at this point, pretty much. But especially a young person who listened to the radio. absolutely knew what who the police were. Like probably liked at least one of their songs. Like it could be Roxanne or it could be Message in a Bottle or it could be um uh to do do do da da da da maybe.

Right? So this is their fourth album in since nineteen seventy eight. Seven seventy eight. So Here's the thing though, it's also MTV. Everybody knows exactly what the police looks like. And one of the funny things about the police, kind of like the Beatles, is at first you're not sure who is who. Like, this was true for my kid forever. For the longest time, my kid could only identify one beetle at a time and had no idea who the other three were. Which makes sense, because I mean Paul and Ringo kind of looked a lot alike for a while. You know what I mean? But the three guys in the police also kind of looked alike. And if you Well w the one that everybody could always pick out though was the singer and bass player.

His name was Sting, and he had spiky hair. And that's him in the middle. The context is kind of adorable now. Well, I I I'm not persuaded you're seeing it. I no, I am I am seeing like it is it's I listened to this album for thirty years. Before someone had to tell me, well, you never knew that, that those are and I was like, I never I never knew that, I didn't see it, I couldn't see it, and now I'll never unsee it. It's one of those for me. Again, the FedEx logo. Oh UPS, you do you know the Yupe the Paul Rand's old UPS logo? That's It's also a tied up parcel, like a beautifully tied parcel. Love shit like that. Don't I just don't know how people can't see it. The do you know the LG logo? It's still the current logo, right?

Yep. Uh that the little face on it Yeah. Right, right, right, right, right. Just like the like the almost impossibly minimal amount of information to read as face. Yeah. I thought I I apparently that's a quote hidden l logo. Um I know what you mean. There's some where you're like And then this is why I say the dress is such a good example. I mean, I don't know, you don't seem to have my back on this, but I mean one the thing that made it most fascinating. No, I do. I think it's saying is all is like literally First of all, literally everybody had a very clear opinion. B, it tended to break down wildly close to 50-50. And most fascinatingly of all. You would change your mind. One would change your mind.

If you saw it on a phone versus uh uh you know what I mean? And that was the trick I think that the way we say, Oh try it with this background or that background, and you'll it'll instantly make sense that your brain is fooling you. It's a it's an MC esher. style illusion. Yeah. But wasn't that the crazy part though was like the 50-50 breakdown. Whereas in the wild, there's a lot more of like, you've told me what this thing is and I still don't see it. Versus some people who are like, I don't know how you could live your life not knowing what that what that is. That's the my entire context for that is this. Mm-hmm. There's a really good well a friend of the m my life, uh Jamie Loftus, has a sh a podcast called 16th minute of Fame specifically about internet phenomena.

Isn't I love it. So good. Um please tell them I think that's a very good name. They probably don't need it, but I I think that's a very good name. I was just watching the OJ thing on Netflix and I'm like, Oh, it's so brutal to go back. Isn't that like the kind of example that jumps to mind though? I mean, sure. Like Monica Lewinsky, but for me it would be like people who were like just civilians that just ended up Bernard Getz, the subway stabber guy. Like there's just these names, suddenly everybody knows out of nowhere, and then that person has to just go back to having a life. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The well uh there there's an entire episode about the the dress, including the women who posted the the dress.

But until and you know, they talked talk about Magic Eye and Optical Illusions and how it looked different on the OLEDs and all that stuff. But uh it wasn't until that episode that I and I sh I sent it to a few people and uh all of them, four people asked me, why is it called sixteenth minute of fame? And I I was like, wait, really? Really? Like they weren't dingling. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But but the but it didn't, it didn't the ref the reference No, didn't it wasn't it? I think the original the original I think the thing Andrew Warhol originally is qu attributed as saying is in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. Isn't that the original? I believe it's something like that.

In the future everybody will it's sort of like Brian Eno uh and the Velvet Underground, like the about how 10,000, only 10,000 people bought this album, but every one of them started a band. That gets misattributed to all these different all differ different albums by all different people, but I think that's what he said. And then but the phrase The meme for the last f 50 years is fifteen minutes of fame. Like when you like when you like you would give you could even say fifteen minutes of And somebody would go football, but almost everybody would go fame. 15 minutes of fame. That's like how you complete that phrase. You'd have to have in the same way that you would need to have that earlier context of what this kind of thing is to understand why why that icon looks like that.

I think it's kind of a similar thing. I mean if you haven't had like constant exposure to what the police look like, you wouldn't have a chance with this. No, not at all. The covert instruments one is boiling my brain. At how I mean first of all, just at how as somebody who has struggled to try and make logos for companies for since the mid 80s, like it's so much harder than it seems. Like it's really, really hard. So especially back in the day when the logos I designed, I mean one of my innovations was, hey, this should look good over a fax machine. Like because okay, so like I started that job at that company at a time when faxes were on the ascent. This is this would be this is the Mm, early nineties, so I guess they're actually pretty pretty entrenched at that point.

But where they're becoming like there is a scene in the OJ thing on Netflix where Um Alan, uh who's the who's the pervert guy? Uh or you know what I mean. Alan's the perfect guy. No, the pervert guy. The OJ lawyer who's a creep now. The Epstein guy. Anyway, he faxes something a one senten he faxes one sentence to Johnny Cochrane's aide, who hands it to him in the courtroom. So boss. Imagine getting a fax in a courtroom. Oh my God. That stuff was all in the ascent, but we we still think about when people used to design logos for offset printing. It had to look good in that kind of I'm sorry, never mind. I don't I won't go on a on a D Rail all the because it absolutely fascinates me. But you you think about the intricate curly cues and like Rococo of the Victorian stuff, which you could expect to be printed with offset printing and maybe a spot color, maybe, That gives you one set of opportunities and constraints.

Then you get further and further down the line. Obviously you get in line of types, you get all these different kinds of things. But if you watch an episode of the Twilight Zone on a big TV, it looks terrible. Yeah. Because it looks like there's one some of my favorite episodes. It doesn't make me like them less, but it's actually makes it kind of sweet. Makes you appreciate, oh my god, Rod Serling wrote hundreds of episodes of this show. Then made them happen. But uh you oh my god, it looks like everything in this set is just made out of cardboard boxes. Because it was never meant to be seen at that resolution. You know? So the way you think about, you know, how you're gonna be using this, think about the changes probably from, oh, we need to make stuff that looks really good on billboards, jumbotrons.

and NASCAR versus oh a few years later people are now seeing our logo at sometimes all the way down to that ten by ten pixels. Like, can our logo read in every one of those situations where we don't control size, we don't control color, we don't control orientation? You know, your brand guide's out the window on the web. So how do you make a if you like a responsive logo. Something you know what I mean? Something that is graphically fixed but can look good anywhere. And that's why my brain is boiling about this incredible covert instrument. Especially especially the graphic. You know, the s the CI graphic is just I'm really impressed. I uh keep getting frustrated with current dise this would be Sorry, this would be a good uh uh tattoo, but mm and any way the uh the thing that I love about the covert design is it embraces sort of the uh m modern aesthetic of logos that I don't really enjoy.

And I I don't generally like this hyper male industrial look personally. Uh not just but not just not just my read. That's I mean like to me this very much reads as like this is like tactical baby carrier shit. Unless you're Ben Stiller and Tropic Thunder, you don't need a baby carrier that's that Tactical. It's happening again. Okay. Yes. It's the best movie. It is. I rewatch I re-watched it again over the weekend and it still bangs from the very first frame. It's unbelievably good. The thing you like about the covert instruments is not a style you usually like. No, and I'm I uh I'm not talking how it's about how it's typeset because that I never that that's the like too tactical part of for me.

But the the way that we've sort of we uh corporations have typically flattened their logos. This isn't anything new, but you know, the the thing like Apple but just like two like a plane. There's no there's no sense of is it that there's I'm not even like bevels, but there's no sense of depth. There's no sense of like yeah yeah yeah. Uh-huh. You could draw it on a chalkboard with Polygons. And it would have been great on a fax machine. It would have worked uh awesome, but the uh The uh um lack of any sort of depth, and cable sasser talks about this a lot, is like the absolute inverse of what we have We have a capability to do yeah and just the the transmit truck alone. I don't know what it is.

It just makes me happy. It's always made me happy. I mean, I moved from Fetch, uh, which no one will remember. I moved from Fetch from Fetch to Transmit. And although I've used FTP and other apps, that's the app oh you know what? I did use the Peter Lewis app also for a while, back in the early uh days, but it eventually That little truck has been with me for so long and it still makes me happy. There's just something about the colors of it and uh everything about it. It's satisfyingly boxy. You want to put it in your mouth. I'm sure you're not going to be able to do that. And I wanted well I should do I'm sorry sh more context. I wanted to do anything in my tummy sooner. So I got helped to kind of get around, oh I got caught on a tooth.

My soft palate is starting to activate. Oh I said. But you can hear it because I had a coffee cake being pushed into my mouth, which is like trying to drink out of a glass as if Fall down. Just one more. Just one more I m I almost tried to Dammit Cyril. I love that show. Um can you do that? Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello He is uh uh the actor is so fucking funny in everything he does He's f he's very funny Chris. Chris Parnell is he's funny in the he's funny in the cupcake thing. He's funny. He's so fucking funny in the Bad Doctor sketch, my my all-time favorite SNL sketch. Hmm, lest we make another one Alamino They're beautiful Old Chester At least his at least his wife has a big enough ass on her for a good roll in the day.

But I can do the robot. That'll be $5,000. I I just sent you a uh X Everything link, which you probably think. This is like this is like a Zelda, like a link. This is like a link A history of what Link looked like. Yeah, yeah. So if you can't see that I just got the photo of um photo the uh the history of uh panics uh booha excuse me yeah transmit hold on yeah hey this is after show everybody mm I want I want David Lanham my mouth is dry icon I want the lower lower left one and I want it in my mouth right now R right. Lower left is my favorite. That's the one I want to do. I want to lick the top legend. Why wouldn't you just put the whole thing? The pixels? Well, I don't want the whole all the pickles the the pickles the math.

I see skies of books pick them in my mouth. I'm gonna lick this truck and then head south. What a beautiful design I used to be Pretty soon I was I was uh I was Armstrong, you know, Armstrong first name Louis. But then I realized I was Tom Waits in about 1976 And then it got a little older and it got a little more grouchy and it turned into Groover. I was trying to mind of the book monster you are. You're the monster, mmm. You will be. You will be. Oh uh uh right below this of the icon fellow. Still Gorgeous. It's perf it well, this is I think a perfect example of the just progression of design and how the work control they they were able to have of the world. And to understand that all visual all vi everything visual.

Everything visual is evocative. It evokes something else. Something else, for example, here's a real dumb one. You know what one thing it evokes is three dimensions. Because if when you're looking at something, it's not really technically that deep. That is that one the the the the why is not going to be very deep if it's a painting. unless it's, you know, Van Gogh. But it evokes, right? And but you it isn't just when you look at that most basic design with the least pixels, you then you get how much this evokes something. Every pixel is doing something important in this. It's so fucking beautiful. The very first time I'm going to be a little bit more. Is there anything I'm missing about this logo, by the way?

Are you gonna is this a is this a trap? Are you about to trap me by pointing out something I never noticed on the logo before? Well, I was going to say on the earlier versions, uh on the fourth one it goes uh away, but the uh it it's the first one is a file icon or a new document. Yeah, and that's I didn't figure that out for like the first Oh oh oh oh with the little like dog ear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. For me that was okay. Alex, thank you. You just saved the entire week Yes, that's that is exactly No no I lit us with I feel like my silence and choking on my dry mouth. Well it's the perfect example where you Who uses computers more than almost anybody I can think of didn't clock that as a document icon, in this case a blank document icon.

It's not a specific that is the if you're I don't know if you do know this. That's the dot that is the icon, I believe, that you get if it's an unknown document. Yes. So they probably had different ones of these for different kinds of documents. Yeah. And the only reason I know this is because you know that's not a Microsoft Word document. For sure. Right. Yes. Because it's not a n it's not a dot on it. It has no dot. No, no, no. It's well yeah, but it doesn't it's just it doesn't have the Microsoft Word logo on it that would identify it. As a document identifier, yeah. The uh the the other part that I'm convinced is something, but I want to ask I I should ask uh Louis or Cable. Why is there a a period after the P in the U.

? You're right, you're right, 'cause it's gotta no, there's gotta be a reason. Yeah. Knowing them. Oh, that's a really you know what? That's really good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really good. I'll figure it out. I'll fight. But that negative, I think, you know, I keep almost using the phrase negative capability. I and I barely catch percent. I don't wait, I don't know what that means. Negative. Is is because when I'm saying that, I'm using it incorrectly. Negative capability is something Keats talks about as a concept in literary criticism. It's that I'm what there's a different phrase that I'm completely spacing on, and maybe you can help me. What negative Space? Negative space. Yeah. Is it negative space?

Yes. But I well I'm in terms of like But if you divide a negative space by a negative space, it makes a positive space. Do you feel like this is a positive space? Yes. Are you having a period right now of any kind? Yes. No no no not menstrual, not menstrual necessarily. I'm sorry, let me put it differently. Are you having an era? Is that what you say? An era? Do you say you're having an era? You're in right now you're in your lickable era? Oh what do you say? Sure. Is that cringe? Is it cringe era? Uh uh mmm Sigma. Is it Sigma? Is it Sigma? I uh jaw maxing. Again, it's C No that's mu mewing. Is that the the sigma gesture? Is it where you do pink gliding? And you're saying you're rewing is muing is a synonym for jaw maxing Yes.

And that's where I make my tongue go against the roof of my mouth so that I look like a Chad man. Yes. Has anybody ever flirt? Has anyone ever double checked whether that works? Because it seems like a little bit of a stretch. As somebody with I you know, I have a lot of uh just genetic things in my appearance that a lot of people wish they had. Like I for for whatever reason I have hair. For whatever reason I have a chin and a jaw. You know, I have a mouth. And yet I cannot and yet I cannot scream. That's kind of funny. But um but you know, in the same way that I tend to not trust productivity experts who are really productive. Or housekeeping people or you know what I mean, tidy up the house people who are already tidy.

I don't think those people have much to teach normal people. You know. But as as somebody with a large jaw, it seems to me I could become very influential by claiming that I got this. through whatever my technique. Maybe a prostate. Maybe I I push Oh. No, no, I push on my butt my buttholder. I see. It's called a butt holder and you you push on that and your jaw gets bigger. That's how I did this. Two months ago, I literally could not eat food. I didn't have a job. I had a vestigiousophagus that did not help at all. And and because of my family background it had been circumcised. So I had the esophagus hanging out like a Colombian necktie. And then we got this guy over here. He didn't even see the arrow in the logo.

And that's why to this day we feel that the arrow in the logo is love. Because Cupid and Valentine's Day is very important. It's also important. Thank you to everybody for helping us make this very impuls. thing that we've made. I want to stop talking now so that I can edit this and put it I had fun. I I enjoyed the ad I enjoyed Can you listen to the words Or did you I'm sorry you just read are you just reading off something you you prepared earlier? No, it's very important. Stay strong. Here's a YouTube video about how everything you think you think is wrong. Oh cool, thanks. I'll watch it tonight. Yeah, I don't know. I just think people talk ah there's another YouTube video on how you're wrong.

Oh, sorry, that was just me impersonating uh a lot of my life with one of my best friends. Hmm. G get you a man who can m g make you gaslight yourself. That's you ever gaslight yourself? You ever do that? Don't need a dedicated van in Czechoslovakia for that. Um did you want to do a challenge? I w yeah, what is your pencil uh challenge? You keep uh teasing this. It's like a So I told you um I'm uh uh I really enjoy Blackwing pencils. The company seems cool. Like I like the way they package things. I like just their design. But the pencils are, I don't know. They I really they appeal to me. There's just some things about 'em, like they smell really good. I like that they're all they always like just look good.

They feel they feel good. It's just it's in this it's in fairly in the end an inexpensive way to have a little bit of luxury to do something that I do a lot. And so in the one I don't know, there's a million ways all these pencils are different, but the thing that I mainly focus on is uh if it helps if it's a color I like, because I'm weird, but mainly it's how soft or hard the lead is. And I did some research Um including both ChatGPT and testing every pencil I have. And I found that my favorite is actually the softest lead pencil. Which I just want to tell people it's called the Black Blackwing Matt, M-A-T-T-E. On the other end, you can get the John Dickerson pencil, which is like the lightest one.

If you want to like do sketchy things, hmm. If you want to do sketch line type things. It took me a second. Maybe I am slow today. Well, there's things that might have taken you too long to realize. I think you're gonna see this police thing in a few years and it's gonna be very upsetting for you. See it. I don't know. You like me when people show me those those uh secret eye things in the nineties where you're supposed to like unfuzz you fuzz up your eye. Everybody's grandparents have one of these in their basement You like you fuzz up your eyes and you can see us I love 'em, yes. Did you see it? I could never see it. Some people are so fast and I was like, you're all It would totally depend.

It it's like the dress, like the dress. Oh I Some people just didn't see And I wonder I was not spending 35 minutes doing this because I didn't want to see it. That's you know, I wasn't doing anything to try and get in my own way. Wait, what were we talking about? Uh challenge. And so um oh no, this is gay. But uh the idea was um uh get a pencil you like. However you like your pencils. Get a pencil that you like and um Look at it, however you like it, whatever pencil and however you like it sharpened, and and look at the tip of your sharpened pencil, and then see that little, you know, where it turns into the little barrel part there. And say to yourself There's a secret in there somewhere. And I'm gonna allow myself, let's say, a quarter of an inch to find the best secret I can find in that quarter inch of a pencil.

Isn't that an interesting idea? It's kinda like kind of like writing so hard you cry, but in this case It's how much of this fucking pencil can I get away with? How much I want so much of this pencil to be gone because the more I make it move and sharpen it, uh the closer I get to finding a a secret. I know I don't This is really good. Oh, is it uncle it doesn't it could also just be like learn to draw or something? No, I'd like this. No. I'm I'm looking at my Blackwing mat right now, actually I don't think we say that anymore. God! Find a secret find the secret Oh no. It's 'cause I mean, really that's so close to blackface, Matt. No, it's not. No, it's not. A black ring. You could get that printed on a pencil.

It would say it would say blackface blackface Matt Cox on pencils. And you would sell those to people. This this is for my husband. His name is Blackface Cox and I love him very much. Wanna buy a pencil? I need a nap. My leader died. Alright, go, go, go. That was fun. raw transcript