Do By Friday
Episode 18 artwork
Episode 18 · March 9, 2017 · 01:14:07

18. Space Period

This week's challengeCalm down.
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Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakes

AlexThis is Do By Friday, the weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin. This week's challenge. Calm down.

MaxWhat's it? What's going on? Is Alex in Chicago? Is she still traveling?

MerlinI don't know.

MaxHow am I like I'm like tethered to a satellite connection Off the shore of Mexico And I'm here on time

Speaker AHow's it feel buddy It's infuriating Really

MaxSorry about that I mean I'm giving my time off I'm here on time to be here with you people

MerlinOh my god you know what's happening right now I hate to say this time theft

MaxOh my god it's rampant It's rampant time theft It's time theft at sea. I mean, it's international waters. I mean, you know, time piracy is a problem, but you never think it's going to happen to you. You could gamble with a child prostitute while you're having a Mai Tai and nobody can touch you.

MerlinI mean, unless you ask.

MaxWell, let me tell you, on the cruise, you can do the pina colada or you can get a banana pina colada, which is where they will just also blend up a banana in there. You have not lived, my friend.

Speaker AHey, there she is

MaxAlex, aren't you on strike today?

AlexYes, but this isn't work

MaxOh, okay Are you in Chicago? What's happening? Why are we running late? Let's go

AlexI'm here We're ready

MerlinI'm almost done with my booch I gotta get a fresh one

MaxI miss kombucha so much

Speaker AI'm having Max and having three per morning Oh my god

Maxthat's too many microorganisms it's for choice i mean you know there's gotta be a theoretical limit

Merlinuh alex you should explain what's happening here to our audience so uh i just got back into town

Alexnormally max and i record in the same room unlike most real podcasts uh but but the last episode we were all remote and this week max is on a boat enjoying the joeco cruise i have that correct

Maxright enjoying is a strong word

Alexi keep having these fantasies of uh like trump being impeached or like jen and trin starting a revolution and ending up in jail and you just get off the boat and you're like what What's happening? Just the company has collapsed and it's great.

MaxI will put that rebellion down like Javert.

AlexYou guys.

MaxThose little schoolboys will pay.

Speaker AYou've got to stop talking about me.

MaxThey'll wet themselves with blood.

Speaker ASo are you collecting lots of good card ideas from people? um we hey wait a minute you're the guy you're the guy from that dirty card game

Maxthe thing we're doing on the cruise is we have nightly well or semi nightly comedy shows it's the sort of like cards improv format so it's a bunch of like improvisers from Chicago and we did a show with like Tawny Newsome who's been playing with us and Hal Lublin from Thrilling Adventure Hour.

It's basically like whoever's funny on the boat comes and does the show with us. We take card suggestions from the audience and then when we get a good one, we act it out on stage. It's a super fun show. It's super fast-paced.

We've been doing this show for years and years and years. We have a monthly show at the IO Theater in Chicago. The card suggestions always suck. We always sort of fix them on the fly and try and find some way to make them work. To my great astonishment we got a pick two black card that's probably the best card we've ever been pitched in the history of this show which is uh they're uh due to a transporter malfunction blank materialized as blank and it's super it's super funny because um uh it's super funny because it it's a new

relationship between the white cards that's like not represented elsewhere in the game that's like a miracle when that happens so i think we gave that person like a free copy of cards against community. Nice.

MerlinAnd they got, I think just to clarify for our listeners, because you're going to get feedback, it's a ship, not a boat. A boat's something you like carrying in a pickup truck. You're on a ship. You're on a ship. You have Mai Tais, Kaladas. You can have any kind of rum drink as long as it's a rum drink.

MaxIs that right? Well, I grind a banana up right in there.

MerlinAre there any powders on the boat at all, Max? You sent us a photo that was very enticing to me. Could you tell us a little bit about the chemist, as they say in England. It looks like you had access to some powders.

MaxOh, that's right. When we were in Cabo San Lucas, I mean, boy, the pharmacy situation there is much better than the U.S. I mean, you can just go right in there and, I mean, you can get your Cipro or your boner pills or Clarendy, right? Or you just walk in and buy it. Oh, God, Dios mio. And you don't have to show ID or anything. And we want to build a wall.

MerlinIt's sickening.

MaxI know. What's wrong with us? It's a vibrant culture. I mean, I don't understand that. And they can just buy their boner pills and their Claritin D right over the counter. So I don't understand why it's working for them. I mean, the powder selection in Mexico is – it's highly advanced.

MerlinYeah. So you've gone to shore a little bit. See, now, when I was on the cruise, we went to places like Haiti.

MaxOh, that was – we did that when I was there. Like, I was on the cruise, like, I think maybe a couple years or a year before you or something. And that Haiti is just that stop. It's like owned by the cruise line and they bought it in some sort of usurious deal.

MerlinThey bought the little glands of the island. They bought an island piece. They put a fence around it and there's literally people with machine guns by the gates. And, you know, you really haven't tasted the true like magnifique of imperialism until you've arrived in Haiti on a cruise ship and gone to a place where the islanders are not allowed to come through the fence because machine guns.

MaxOh, my God. Have a drink. And there's like shore excursions like, hey, guys, like zipline down the beach. Come on. It's awesome. Yeah, it's really bad. Well, the Mexico trip is a welcome change of pace from the like fake cruise island owned island hopping. But yesterday we went to – so now we're in this tiny little town called Laredo or they did this concert called Joe Coachella. And I went on – Veronica and I went on to shore and you take these little tender boats. You know, the ship can't go in too far because it's a big boat.

It's a big boy. And so you get on these little tender boats, and it's like a little metal, like, capsule that holds, like, 30 people just, like, ass to ass. And so we get on this thing, and, you know, you're in the ocean, and it's just sitting, like, buffeted by the waves, and everyone's, like, kind of white-knuckling their seat, and this thing's just, like, blowing back and forth. It's not, you know, an awesome situation. but we were going with all the with the performers for the joe coachella thing and who is in the back of the boat but uh mr john roderick himself sitting back there with his arms folded and i

was like you know if this thing goes down i feel like half my career goes away but i was like but no but like i feel like roderick would have a plan oh sure he's got a

Merlinsmall backpack my problem is you know as you know i can't accept joy in life i'm very ungracious about people trying to make me happy. And so I feel like Kathy Bates in Titanic, but with not as much will. I just feel like a fancy lady in a hat, in a packet boat. Yes, yes, please.

Speaker ATake me to Haiti. I would like a black man to bring me a drink. Yes, you there, black man.

AlexI just have this image in my mind of all these emancipated children looking at a fence as a bunch of fat Americans It's literally zip lining down there.

Speaker AWhy is it checking so long? Why is the zip line line so long? Where's my drink, black man?

MaxSo there's literally, so there's this thing. I mean, it's a nerd cruise, right? So people built an app called Cruise Monkey. And in the app, there's a thing called Twitter, like Pirate R. And it's like Twitter that runs over the local Wi-Fi. And one of the amazing features of Twitter is the complaints thread, where the passengers complain about things on the boat. And they're like, the two that stick out in my mind are, number one, I am too fat to use the shower and water goes everywhere in my room.

AlexOkay, all right.

MaxAnd that's number one. And number two, number two, they didn't say fat. They said wide. I'm filling in the gap now. Number two, and number two, the straws in the drink are too short.

Speaker AOh, my God.

MaxYou there, boy, bring me a longer straw. My fingers are getting cold.

MerlinThe hot dogs are too hot. The hot dogs are too small. It's not funny when it's too hot. Oh, shit. Yeah, I was maybe as much as 18 hours in before I realized it was basically an aggrievement vacation for people. Because no matter what you say, people have to act like it's a serious aggrievement that has to be addressed at an institution.

Speaker Aand they're not about to say no.

MerlinYou're going to go, yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. I think hats trigger me too.

Speaker AHey, everybody. Trigger warning for hats.

MerlinYou guys. Oh, that song with that remix was very problematic. It really misses the spirit of Lindsey Buckingham's playing on the original Rumors album. Could you guys please not play that? It triggers me.

Remixes are inauthentic. You know, there should be a trigger warning for colonialism if you're going to take somebody else's music like a Lindsey Buckingham without asking. Also, don't wear a hat.

MaxOh, man. But all right. Here's what I can report. So I went on the cruise like two years ago. Did not really enjoy myself. I don't know. The cruise, it kind of got to my head. I mean, for all the reasons we're saying, it was a totally bizarre and sort of out-of-body experience. and I did not like the destinations and all that. I don't know. It just was not for me. And it's been just long enough that I forgot how much I didn't like it and I agreed to do it again. But this time the key difference is it's a much smaller ship

and the whole thing is the JoCo cruise. There's no like normal cruise stuff happening. So it's all JoCo. That's so, so different. So that means all the music is playing is good. All the shows are completely 100% programmed, you know, nose to tail. cool stuff that I'm into. So there's like close-up magic and tons of board games. And I'm legitimately having a lot of fun, and it's a very good experience this year. And I'm surprised. No one is more surprised than me that I'm having fun.

MerlinI also want to just give a shout-out to the Paulses and Stormses and all the people who do the work on that. They just non-stop. They are constantly trying to make everybody happy and make everything run. I don't know how they do it, but, I mean, big shout out to that whole team because they work so freaking hard on that thing like one one of the

Maxthings that's kind of cool that happened this year is like so we're in this tiny little um um picturesque uh town in mexico called laredo and everyone takes the tender ships to port and then last night there was this the show that the joe coachella show and it was just like it was just it was unbelievable it's an outdoor stage like festival kind of an atmosphere there's all this like street food out in the square and it's like a legit rock like a an actual outdoor summer rock concert and you have the lineup was amy man ted leo john roderick jonathan colton wow uh gene gray

like how does that not a good night that's a good night and it was it was like and it wasn't like nerd cool like it wasn't like oh here's a bunch of like nerd shit that you like it was cool it was it was song about math song about math it was it was cool cool it was like actually cool like you were actually cool for being there and it was a good high quality cool thing there was like actual good street food, actual good music. People take chances. That is a good experience.

MerlinAt the live shows, I mean, you get a very relaxed Ted Leo who will do some just amazing shit just to play along with what's happening with the vibe. It's really, really fun. Yeah, it was weird. Being on the cruise with, I think we, our group comprised something like, I don't know, a third of the people on the boat or half.

There's so much that is actually really magical about Joko Cruise. We kid, but there are people, for example, who begin transitioning while they're on Joko Cruise. It's a very, very warm and accepting environment, but at the same time, there's a lot of retirees who are staring at your purple hair in the elevator, and it can get pretty weird.

Now, let me just be clear. I want to understand a little bit more about which aspects of your personality should be personally offensive to me.

MaxWhen I was on, I think I passed as normal, so I had a lot of old people ask me, what's a Joko?

MerlinWe got that a lot because we had a kid. And it would frequently happen. It would just be this Soto Voce thing, always in the elevators, where two pairs of retirees getting ready to go to dinner and be like, I'm sorry to bother you. What is happening here?

Well, there's this guy who went to Yale. It's kind of a long story. Welcome. We are back. We are back. We, uh, uh, I, I, you know, this is probably very costly.

MaxYeah, we're not, we're not back. We didn't go anywhere. It's because I'm awesome and figured out how to record this thing on a cruise ship. This is unprecedented.

MerlinAlex, how are you doing? We're not letting you talk this week. I'm sorry about that. Oh no, it's okay. Okay. I got, I got a quick mini challenge. I called your attention. As you know, we, I believe that this is probably, I can't say that we are the most popular anti-Semitic podcast, but I think we're probably the best. We also are, are definitely the preeminent powder podcast. I learned a lot more about powders this week that I wanted to share with you. I want to let you know there's a great interview on Fresh Air this week with a German guy who's written a book about the use of drugs in the Third Reich. And I highly recommend that you listen to this or at least read the transcript.

Because, guys, I'm just here to tell you the Germans were doing a lot with powders.

MaxCan you summarize what you learned? I don't have enough Internet to listen to that.

MerlinSo this guy wrote this book in German a while back, and I've been champing at the bit for this thing to come out in English for a while now. So he's a guy who's a novelist, and he started to write a novel about basically just the myriad ways drugs were used and abused throughout basically, what do you call it, the post-Weimar era. And starting with stuff like they basically gave meth to the soldiers. This was kind of a new thing. It wasn't just go pills for pilots to make it through. They were driving east, like just flying by giving people meth.

All the soldiers were getting meth every 12 hours. and they could literally fight for days until they were essentially just hallucinating from so much speed. And at one point, the French were like, oh, God, zoots allure. We're giving our guys three quarters of a liter of red wine per day, and we're having trouble fighting the people who literally take speed twice a day. What are we going to do about this? All on Z, everybody starts getting the speed. Now, then we get to hit.

MaxBut that's an incredible circumstance because that's playing out nationally in the U.S. now because you've got the sort of coastal elites, and they're drinking one glass of red wine per night for their heart health. And then you've got the opioid and the meth epidemic. And how are we supposed to go up against them? They're super soldiers. They never sleep. They don't feel pain.

MerlinNo, you get a flag or state speedball, they call it. And that's what they were given to Hitler. Now, Hitler, if you haven't heard, was the guy who was in charge back then, and he had a lot of problems. and one of the things was that basically he got this doctor super fascinating doctor who was like his dr nick and would basically give him whatever and he would write it down so there's a record of this so long story short this guy this author breaks this down into these three stages of the first stage where hitler's like i want to be strong like bull give me vitamin injections just

like elvis we'll come back to this then he gets into the thing he now he's on the opioids and guess what? Hitler was addicted to oxy. Hillbilly heroin. The same thing that is blighting our country, that was Hitler. Then, oh boy, around 44, things get crazy. Now he's on the speedballs, and they're giving him the cocaine. And so there's one point, you remember, there's the bombing in 1944 that almost killed him. So a bomb goes off. His generals are killed. He's got a meeting

scheduled with Mussolini the next day. A bomb goes off. His body is riddled with hundreds of tiny splinters. So Hitler was severely injured, but he called Morrell, his doctor, to give him one of these shots that would immediately restore his health and give him function again as the dictator. Morrell administers a shot a few minutes after the devastating bomb had gone off, and Morrell just writes the letter X. So every time he gives him oxy, he makes an X. But then another doctor comes in and takes all the splinters out from Hitler's body and treats the blown eardrums and writes in his report later to the U.S.

Oknoe Lieber, he's amazed. Hitler felt no pain whatsoever. He's never seen anything like it. My question, my challenge to you, if you could get, if you knew to a fairly high level of certainty that the personal doctor you got would give you the powders that you needed, how would you feel about having a personal doctor?

AlexThis is a weird, this is weird. You just talked for quite a bit about illegal and illicit drugs. And your question is just, would we like a personal doctor?

MaxDid I stutter? I'm frankly outraged. I'm outraged that I don't have a personal doctor. Because I don't understand. Why does Hitler get one? And I run a successful game company. I should get a guy who gives me whatever powders I want and then puts an X down. Restore the dictator to health. He gives you the ones you want.

MerlinHe gives you the ones he needs to give you. He rewrites down an X. Here's the thing, Alex. I don't know if you know about this Obamacare. I don't like going to the doctor. I'm a man who should probably get his ass checked at least once a year. I don't like going to the doctor. I don't like waiting. I don't like calling people on the phone. I don't like talking about my life. That said, if I had some little, I don't know, some little personal monkey man who had some kind of farcical medical degree but could give me powders on demand, I think I would go to the doctor a lot more.

AlexI mean, yes, if I had a personal doctor who would give me opiates in any time I wanted, I don't know if that's something I would say no to.

MerlinOkay, maybe you want a massage or you want a personal nose blast?

AlexWell, that's the thing, but I have so many doctors that at this point, would it be like a super doctor who takes care of like...

MerlinYou get economies of scale. You get a single personal doctor who follows you around like a little mini-me. Somebody's there. They got a bag. They call it the football. They got the bag that's got all the powders in it. You need a powder. You call on mini-me. They come up. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Of course, there's a little guy. He comes up. He gets on a step stool. He gives you whatever fucking powders you need today. I find that, Max, I'm with you. I'm sickened, sickened that I do not currently have a personal doctor.

MaxI feel like I should be able to ring a bell. I mean, I feel like this is a – honestly. Now, listen. And I, you know, I don't want it. It's not my place, but I because I don't run this cruise line. But if I did own a cruise line, I would have a little bell in the room and you could ring it and you could say, restore the dictator to health. And the little enemy would come in with his powders and vials.

MerlinYou should, you know, get on the Twitter. Get on Twitter and just say, you guys.

MaxCan I give you an example of the kind of thing that I need? I would ask for I would ring the bell for. So on the on the balcony, I'm looking at I'm actually out here right now. On the balcony, I have a little bathtub looking off the side of the balcony so I can relax in a hot bathtub. And this is really a super bath. It's a peak bath technology. And I can lie in this bath and look off the railing. This is outdoors on the exterior of the cruise ship and just look out and observe the ocean and participate in some contemplative sea gazing.

and I was trying to switch the different faucets and nozzles using this sort of metal apparatus to activate the correct nozzles for optimal bath relaxation and I cut my finger on it and it's really bothering me. I have this little, you know, it's like a paper cut thing and, you know, it's like I'm not paying for that.

Speaker AWas it on a seam, Max?

MaxIs it on one of the bendy parts? It's like a metal disc that you rotate to activate the jets.

MerlinIs it a part where you're really feeling it?

MaxOh, yes. It's right. God, it's right in the crease. And, you know, it's like, where's my bell? Restore the dictator to health.

MerlinOh, my God. You know, this is really troubling to me. You know what this is? It's a kind of medical time theft. You're there on that boat. You're being paid good money to be there. And now you have to deal with a cut up finger and there's not a little monkey man there to help you with powders.

MaxI'm fishing around in my banana and my banana pina colada like an animal trying to find the straw.

MerlinStop trying to make my towel into a lobster and fix my fucking finger. Bring the dictator back to health. So I guess that's three yeses.

AlexYeah, yeah. Oh, no, my finger in my bespoke bath by an ocean. Oh, no, my finger.

MaxNow, guys, I don't want to think about, I'm trying not to, you know, I don't want to think about work too much while I'm on vacation here. But, you know, I can't help it. I've got the entrepreneurial mind. You know, I'm much like Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank. I'm always thinking.

Cupcakes and jars.

Speaker ABoom.

MaxNow I'm thinking about our venture, Office Hagrid. And I'm thinking, you know, what do we have here? We have an infrastructure where you have the Hagrid coming to the place of work. Maybe, now we are, and they're very well disciplined because they're going to be wearing the shock bracelets. So I'm thinking maybe they have some sort of, wait, hear me out now. They have some sort of attache case with a bunch of injections, powders, vials.

Speaker ASt. Bernard with a flask.

MaxRight. And they've got, you know, what do you need? A little shot of opioids, a little shot of meth, a little upper, a little downer. And they come in, they make a little X, they give you your shot.

MerlinYou're talking really more here as a Haas. It's a Hagrid as a service.

MaxHe's at the office.

Alexi i have to say i really i really wish we had an office hagrid this uh weekend when uh but both max uh myself and our office manager kevin we were on like opposite sides of the country and at uh 4 a.m my my time uh i get like 10 calls from our alarm company and now we have these security cameras which are great and so i turn them on and go look and there's this poor guy frantically like hitting our uh our alarm system like the little uh pad to disarm it and i was like

either this is a very stressed out uh cleaning employee or someone a really dumb burglar and i was just like hmm hmm and it all it all got worked out but the cameras is just like okay this is a robbery i guess i get to watch it happen that's that's nice the uh the internet i i don't want

Maxto say that I wouldn't go so far as to say that the internet works on this cruise. Like my current connection, I have some sort of crazy Mexican, you know, LTE service that I'm all tethered up through. But like, my theory, I actually think what happened, so here's my theory, this is exciting for all of our listeners. I think here's my theory of what happened with the IT system on the ship. I think that they offer, you know, they have some sort of shipboard satellite Wi-Fi that moves at the pace of a glacier and but it does work sort allegedly um but i think what happened is that

they have some sort of dns system that can only assign dns numbers to so many devices and and this is probably the first time on the cruise that every single passenger has eight devices that connect to the wi-fi and request a uh dhcp address and i think that their switcher just capped oh

Merlinthat's it's like it's like uh it's like a vegan pina colada they got like six of those on board They had no idea that there's going to be so many vegans wanting a pina colada. There's no way. You couldn't even prepare for something like that.

MaxI would say more. Okay, let me take and turn it. It's after you've had 12 banana pina coladas and you go to sit down to do your business on the shipboard toilet. And it's like how much throughput can it really handle?

MerlinOh, you want a bigger pipe.

MaxThis is going to be, you know, you've got, you know.

MerlinYou want the bowel movement equivalent of like a T3. Something that can really seriously move some data

MaxI mean and they thought That they had it engineered on this Ship you know to really move that data But you've got people who are too wide for their showers

Speaker AWhy is there so much gravy Okay we should start this Challenge challenge max max was the issuer of the challenge this week which i have simply phrased as calm down

Merlinthe challenge this week was to calm down what's your challenge max tell us about it

Maxuh well we investigated a variety of challenges and uh ultimately i decided that the only challenge i was able to uh to plausibly take on this week was just uh just relax man yeah relax just relax

Merlinhow'd you how'd you do with it alex you feeling you feeling super you like you limber you're like

Alexlike a like a warm rubber band how you feeling oh yeah i feel great yeah uh definitely getting on a plane and flying it was it was great everything was fine and i felt completely relaxed um didn't have my apple watch panicking because my heart rate was super high uh you know and last night I came home and I haven't seen Mel for a week. And I'm like, I definitely want to hang out. But first, I need to relax for my podcast.

And I tried meditating.

Speaker AFor your work. Yeah.

AlexNo, I'm on strike. And then that Headspace app, I don't know. I just don't like that guy's voice. He's a little smug. yeah he's like all right feet on the floor and I'm like oh fuck you um and then I ended up just dicking around on my phone and really that was great I I was like I don't have anything to do until tomorrow um I could answer these emails and I could be on Twitter but I'm I'm just gonna dick

around and read a book and play some mindless games and so yeah I guess I I did relax and it It was more, I think, out of pure exhaustion because I ended up falling asleep. And I guess I took an unintentional nap, which is a challenge I know, which is a challenge I did not previously do. And then I woke up around like, well, I woke up at like 10 p.m. So then I was up until like 4 in the morning. But still, at that time, I did feel very relaxed.

How about you, Merlin?

MerlinWow. Well, I'm super impressed. I think one of the problems with relaxing is I have to relax in stages. Like I need to relax before I can relax. It's hard for me to actually relax without pre-relaxing. So first I have to like look at my phone for a long time or something before I can really relax. It takes me like three days.

MaxFor me, I got to be 100% sure that the president's not going to tweet.

MerlinOh, God. Yes. He's like – well, I shouldn't say. But he's like somebody who has a monthly bowel movement where you're like, oh, boy, when that happens, it's really going to blow. It's like a Walter Hudson. You get somebody and you're like, he's been eating four Big Macs, four double cheeseburgers, eight large orders of fries and a quart of Coke every day. That's just for lunch. When he does have that BM, that's really going to go. And so you're like, I want to wait. And just after he is going to test the T3, after he's blown the bandwidth, I know I'm good for an hour or two maybe.

Now it's all going to be just Twitter for iPhone for a little while, pound sign, thank you, Senator. That's all going to be okay. I can move on to stage two of relaxing, which is where I try to relax. So I'm terrible at that. And also, basically, I live in Gitmo. My daughter is the greatest thing that's ever happened in my life, and she makes it impossible to do almost everything. And so I try to take a nap, and I say, okay, well, I'm going to go take a nap now. And she's like, whatever. And then she comes in because she's folded a piece of paper and wakes me up.

And it's not exactly like Gitmo, but it's hard to get fully into the relaxation. I should get on Twitter. I should let people know. And like Max, Max said this. Max put an idea virus in my head weeks ago, and I can't get it out. You didn't exactly say this. It's more what I interpreted. But you were talking about how hard it is for you to relax and how it stresses you out sometimes to not be stressed out. And I started to realize that I'm like that. like meditating makes me very not even just like relaxation meditation not even honest to god hard

meditation i'm not talking about like sitting on rice i'm talking about like just laying there going like okay you need to calm the fuck down it stresses me out i start following my breath and i practically have a panic attack because i associate with trying to relax and it's like no this is this is wrong i've i've like i've room 101 myself into this and now like i i think of relaxation is pain.

MaxCan I ask you an Andrea Fella question from our Buddhism podcast that we like?

MerlinAre you giving a bottle of ibuprofen a small bath?

MaxNo, I'm sitting on the bathtub in the balcony. I was like, a bath

Alexis happening, a powder is happening, or a lot of opiates are just spilling into the tub. And possibly all three.

MaxI'm not going to sit here recording a podcast, looking at the ocean in front of a bathtub and not take a bath no no be time stuff andrew follow question here's the question are is it that when you meditate you become anxious or is it that you're always pretty anxious and when you sit to meditate you it becomes it comes

Alexto the front of your mind like every time i meditate it's like okay uh life is suffering and this is the epitome of suffering. And usually my meditation session ends with an OmniFocus review and me just puking out everything that is on my mind. So I don't know.

MerlinYou should try Todoist. I am so with you, Alex. Here's the other thing. Why do we not like emergency rooms?

MaxYou got to pay. You pay. You upgrade. You upgrade to the tag system, and then you get to tag mindfulness session 2017. It's called a label, Max. And everybody likes to do it with us.

MerlinBoo. Boo do by Friday.

Speaker AYou guys, Twitter.

MerlinFuck me gently.

Speaker AHere's the problem.

AlexPeople who are like, oh, they're in a feud with Cortex.

Speaker AThis is going to, I really can't wait to hear the podcast. CGP Grey doesn't know who we are. I like Bam Review.

MaxListen, I'm not 100% sure what Cortex is, but I challenge him to a fight. I'll kick your ass. Come here.

Speaker AI can't wait to hear the review. I like the review of this on Cortex, but I can't wait to hear the review of this application. I really want to hear them go head to head, toe to toe, one on one in the octagon.

MaxWho is Cortex? How dare they? They sound like a bunch of cocks. We could take them. I'm also assuming that they will not listen to this and fight us because I will curl up into a ball if they do.

AlexI will run away. Well, I was just thinking, if there was a Dubai Friday versus Cortex showdown, it would all end with us just sitting down slowly and looking at each other. And then eventually we all just look at our phones and that's it.

MaxJust being very uncomfortable. I would definitely make a lot of threatening tweets but then not show up because I don't want to experience any confrontation.

MerlinThat's okay. I think the only person who's more deeply troubled and introverted than you is probably CGP Grey. I think he would go into the closet inside the closet pretty quickly.

Okay, so here's the thing. Why do we not like emergency rooms? Oh, gosh, emergency rooms. they're so well lit and they have water fountains. No, you have a bad feeling about emergency rooms because you're never there when things are going well. And that's me with meditation. I'm a dick. I'm an idiot. I'm the asshole. I don't meditate when things are going great. I meditate when I'm on the verge of losing my mind. And so I associate that entire process of thinking about it, procrastinating about it, eventually kind of doing it and then like freaking out. It's bad on me because I only relax at times when I really, really, really need to relax or I only focus

when I really need to focus. So to me, it's like a trigger warning for hats. Like, you know, warn me about this. And that's my problem.

AlexMerlin, do you take vacations? Like the stereotypical, what is depicted on television type of vacation?

MerlinYes, and I've gotten way, way better at it than I used to be. Back when I used to be Merlin Mann and had a website, I would, I mean, there are some very funny stories about me trying to find internet in places that don't have internet because I thought I had to go look at the comments on my site and stuff. And I just never could turn off. And I've gotten a much better clutch now about saying, okay, let go and let God. I'm going to go and I'm just going to, you know, and also like not to be, you know, me, but like I need to be there for my family. I mean, this needs to be fun for my family and I need to step up for that instead of just being like a sad tomato.

What about you? Are you good at vacations?

AlexRemember when I took a staycation a few months back? I think that answers your question.

MaxIt was a staycation where you came into the office and worked occasionally. You had to use up that time.

AlexI have to use up those vacation days, which then I found out transferred over and I still have.

Speaker AYou've got to use up all your staycation days.

AlexSee, this makes me sound like a hard worker, which I would debate. It just makes me anxious to be away from the office.

MerlinI know. It's like waiting for the president to poop. You can't really move on.

Alexyeah uh one one nice thing i tried like my my family's been trying to get me to go to uh florida for for the past few months i know i know a place that you hold a very very very dearly in your heart merlin um yeah and i was like you know what i'm gonna do it i'm gonna book a vacation and i'm just going to sit by the dolphins and read about robots for five days and then i i i kind of pussied out and just was like no no i'm no the studio is being rebuilt now no uh i can look at

videos of dolphins on youtube it's great i which i did last night and it helped relax dolphins are so majestic okay max how did you how was your relaxation well i mean you're in a bath right now

Merlinare you eating anything max did you get some food did you bring a sandwich or anything

MaxWell, now I realize suddenly that I don't have any to eat.

Speaker ABlack man, bring me a hoagie.

MaxWhere's my ship Hagrid? I don't know. I'm as relaxed as I ever am, which is like not very. But, you know, I don't think it's like, well, I don't know. Where do we even begin here? I don't think it's like a place. I don't think that being relaxed or being happy is a place that you go. You know, people talk about this with writing all the time. They're like, oh, well, in order to write, it's like I have to be in a wooden cabin in the middle of the woods, and then there can't be too much furniture, and the right music has to be playing, and it can't be raining, and I have to have my favorite pen.

And it's like, well, you're not really a writer then. I mean, you know, it's like those are all excuses that you can come up with to not write. And the same is sort of true of relaxing. It's like, well, or, you know, the other one people talk about is like, oh, well, like, I love, I'm not happy unless I'm like in nature. And it's like, well, nature is, nature, we're nature. Like, nature is whatever. So nature, you know, appreciating your environment, being able to look out and see the beauty in your environment, it's like, I mean, that's a city or a whatever.

It's like there's, A, there's nowhere left on the planet that's like a quote unquote natural place. Like, we've kind of fucked it all up already. But, B, like, the things that we do aren't unnatural. Like they're extremely, you know, we build out of natural materials.

MerlinIt's a weirdly provincial thing to say, to act like, I mean, forget my saying, but like to keep constantly going on about, oh, I need to be in nature. Like nature is some kind of destination in the wild. Like you're this, you know, some kind of Rousseau character that's going to go wander around in the ferns. And it's like, no, you can really, I've taken walks in places that really you shouldn't be taking a walk. Just get outside. Just get in the sun. but you've got to get past this idea that everything has to be a certain way. And I think that's part of a good vacation.

I mean, just my one tip about a vacation is, well, you've got to not – first of all, in your case, Max, working vacations are weird. I know it sounds weird and privileged to say that, but you have to be on. When you go to dinner, you don't just go to dinner. You have to be a little bit on. I mean, that's the – I felt that pressure a lot.

MaxAnd so you have to – Hey, listen, I'm on right now. I'm on right now. I'm hilarious. You guys, what's the deal with the president? He says weird stuff. His hair is weird. His hair is weird. It looks like a dead animal.

MerlinOh, my God. The tape.

MaxThat's a joke.

MerlinOh, my God. And the other one is you've got to learn what.

MaxRemember when he pissed on those ladies? Oh, my God.

MerlinI totally remember that. The dossier. They got a picture of Steele. Have you seen the picture of him? He's younger than I expected. The dossier EA. I don't know what the French would be for a dossier maker.

MaxI don't know what the fuck is happening with the news this week. I read a little bit about the health care bill, and I was like, I really can't do anything about this. So I don't know.

MerlinHere's what I learned. I learned this. This took me so long to learn. You have got to really adjust your expectations about what's going to happen in the way you expect it when you go on vacation. Otherwise, it will be worse than work. Because when you go to work, at least the environment is understandable in the way you want. One time I had a beloved sister-in-law. she would do things like freak out because she couldn't get a Vogue magazine when she was in Belize. And that's the thing is learn what that place is good at. One time I went to the Dominican Republic, and we learned,

here, you know what? Don't get the free room service with pizza. That's a bad idea. Dominican Republic pizza is not good pizza. You know what you do? You go and lay on one of those beds by the beach, and you drink sugary drinks, and you play in the water. It took me three days to figure out that obvious thing. In your case, you know what? Go by the pool and have some soft serve. Whatever it is, but you have to find what that place is good at that you will enjoy, accept it on its own terms rather than going, why isn't this the place that I'm used to? Because that's what even a cruise vacation is, is take it on its terms and get into it.

MaxYeah, but similarly, the thing that you're describing, I think I and most people experience their everyday life, which is assuming that you need some sort of external conditions to relax or be happy. is usually like a recipe for being extremely unhappy all of the time because it's a moving goal post it's like you're what you're doing is like you're like back solving it you're like post you're like rationalizing after the fact like why you're not happy and it's like oh well because i i'm not in this environment or i don't have this thing or it's something external to

myself and you're never going to solve all those problems like there's always going to be something like what's the scenario it's like you know it's like there's always the straw is always going to

Alexbe too short we put out we put out all this wicker just for you well what about i mean this is all fantastic and and i completely agree with you guys but what about if it's not you know vogue magazine what if you know your your kid is really unhappy or your wife's really unhappy or just you know you're at the airport and everybody's really uh stressed out and people

Maxare shouting like how i mean i've got two i've got two good ones number one that are from this cruise that i'm realizing like these are things that are they're they trigger me number one trigger number one uh when you're too wide for the shower very bad the water goes everywhere she's gonna have to cut all this out max no no no we can say it's i was i was posted semi-publicly all right no no uh trigger number one i don't like doing the same thing that everyone else is doing so i If everyone moves in a highly bovine fashion to the same location, I do not like being one.

Speaker ACustoms just to get on the boat.

MaxOr I'm talking about when everyone starts mooing and filing into the dining hall. I do not like to be in that line. I feel very bad about society and myself. And the black lady gives you hand sanitizer?

Well, that's a sanitizer, Hagrid. I don't like being moving in a bovine fashion in the same direction as everyone else. It makes me very uncomfortable. I feel like we're heading towards the showers. Jesus Christ. That's number one. Trigger number two, I spent a considerable amount of time in the weeks before getting on the cruise, sort of like lining up all my technology so that it would work. So it was like, you know, it was like picking the right recording equipment to do this podcast, bringing just the right cables so that I could charge all of the devices and like loading books onto my Kindle so that I, in case there wasn't internet, I had books to read.

You know, all that shit that you have to do to get everything ready. And there's not really internet here and nothing fucking works. Nothing works without the internet. It's all shit without the internet. Everything you own, all of your technology, all of your tips and hacks. I'm sitting here like a caveman rubbing two sticks together Trying to read a book or listen to music Everything is fucking broken I can't hear the songs I want It's all garbage It has made me very I sit there three times a day And think about how fragile and brittle

Our entire civilization is Because I can't listen to a song Because it's not downloaded on one account It's only on the other It's a fucking disaster Nothing works

AlexYou know if only you had a travel checklist like Merlin and I do that you so lovingly mocked.

MaxIt's not even that I have no, it's not even that I have no internet. It's that I have not enough internet and everything is broke. I can't do anything in my life.

MerlinThat's the worst kind of internet that, I've mentioned this anecdote before, but one time when I was on vacation with my family in the 43 folders days and I had my laptop and I, have I told you guys this story?

AlexNo, I don't think so.

MerlinI discovered that the house across the street from the house that we were renting, if you stood in a very particular place, mostly in the yard or on a couch, and you held your MacBook Pro, your 17-inch MacBook Pro, if you held it up in the air at a certain angle, you could get internet.

And so my family was wandering around going, hey, let's get seashells. And I'm like, hang on, I got to check my comments. And I'm standing on this like a chaise lounge with my laptop in the air, like a salutation to the sun. And then I got an even better idea, which is like, I'm going to be back in a while. And of course, this house across the street is a vacation house uninhabited at the time. I go and I sit next to their house so that I can get the internet.

And that worked pretty well. But then something happened and their internet wasn't working. And I had a thought. I checked the sliding door and it was open. So I went inside and I cycled the router. and then I went back and sat outside again.

It wasn't good internet, you know, but... You guys, you guys, go ahead. You guys, you guys go clamming. I gotta go break into a house and fix the fucking lynxes. No, it's good. Daddy's happy. Yay.

MaxThis is like when you hear a story about when you're watching a movie where everyone's in an AA meeting and they're talking about how they broke into the neighbor's house to steal their pills. And they're like, yeah, I was just on vacation and it just seemed like a good idea at the time and the door was open and I just let myself in and took the pills. You know, I had to restore the dictator to health.

MerlinNo one else would let me in, but this priest let me in. I came in, I stole his candlesticks and I cycled his router. Take his candlesticks and my router and you may go...

Speaker Ayeah so little internet it's a dangerous thing

Alexuh you know that you know that louise ck bit that was on conan forever ago about like oh just calm down if the internet doesn't work on a plane but i you're in a chair you're in a chair yeah it's magic just calm down but after you've paid 30 for your internet and it just stops where i

i was almost that guy i was almost the guy who's like excuse me what i i just is it coming back and i i didn't and i i i held back i held back but it was like oh man and the but you're right the worst is when it starts a little bit and like my twitter timeline loads but none of the pictures are showing so someone's clearly making a reference to some you know cool dank memes that the kids are they're always supposed to they're always

Maxsupposed to comment like like look at this crazy shit and then it's just a gray square and what is the crazy shit i need to know what the crazy shit is thread and then it's like trump's at it

Merlinagain oh my god or how about this this is welcome to uh brady's news segment privilege corner privilege corner so i pay for the upgrade to be into upgrade to be in the the fancy row on virgin america and then the the in-seat linux device doesn't work and you're like yo i paid

Speaker Aextra for free movies and drinks and this isn't working or like you pay to be in the fancy linux

Merlinrow and then somebody some some dude bro comes and like sidles in you got an extra somehow got an extra seat an open seat and somebody sidles in next to you and you're like i want to narc this guy out so bad it's like you don't understand i pay i i paid to be here and you're in the seat

Speaker Athat shouldn't be filled.

MerlinGet out of my Linux row.

MaxIt's 2018 is going to be the year of Linux working on airplanes. All right, so I've paid, so I paid my cellular provider, AT&T, about $100. I think it was like $120 or something for international roaming data. And I get one gigabyte, that $100 buys me. It's like a, okay, so here's what it is. It's like a subprime loan. It's like a subprime adjustable mortgage where I have, I get one gig of data for $120. And then every megabyte is like $30 after that.

MerlinRight. I went through this in New Zealand. A gig is not what it used to be. You know what I mean? Even just running in the background. I'm not talking about YouTube. I'm not talking about Spotify. It'll blow your shit to realize just what a background. Oh, you know what? Feels like a good time to update your Dropbox and your contacts. And then you wake up the next morning and you get nasty grand pop-ups from AT&T. So how long did it take? for you to go through it.

MaxWell, I haven't looked, but how much do you think this podcast is costing me?

Alex$300 probably.

MerlinWe're going to have to kick your Patreon fund for this. This is ridiculous. I didn't know you were doing that. Oh, so you couldn't, the ship, it just wouldn't do anything probably.

MaxThe ship Wi-Fi is, it's congested. I mean, there's too many people drinking too many banana pina coladas and congesting the pipes.

MerlinThe showers are too narrow and the toilets

Maxare too small. You can only flush so many gravies and pina coladas before it all just collapses.

Speaker AI folded your towel.

AlexI bet there's at least 200 people on that boat trying to update their Nintendo Switches so they actually function and that's just killing.

MerlinOh, right.

AlexYep, yep.

MaxOkay, so here's the other funny thing about the cruise. We were in this Slack group of all of our friends who are going on the cruise, and everyone's making all their plans, including me. And it was like my plans for the cruise were I got to switch. So my plan was I was going to play Zelda Breath of the Wild on the cruise. I brought a box of magic cards. I was going to do a magic draft with my friends. I was going to playtest a new game that I'm working on with some game designers. I was going to complete my application to this law program, And I was going to catch up on my inbox and try and get my inbox up to date so that when I got back to work, I was in a good place on email.

And I was like, plus do the shows every night and do all the nonsense I have to do on the cruise. And I was like, this is a good conservative target of things that I can accomplish in the week on the cruise ship. And there's three days left on the cruise, and I haven't done any of those things.

MerlinYou got to let go and let gravy.

MaxYeah. Yeah. The only thing I the other funny thing was like I tried to sit down and just like look at my email. And I the first thing that happens when I connected my phone was I got 300 notifications going like voicemails and texts and apps going. There was motion detected in your office. There was a fat hockey goalie in the office.

AlexThey just kept calling. Even after I said, no, no, no, everything's fine. They just kept calling. hey you know what there's uh tons of things you can't do anything about want to hear all of them and there's a different person every time and you need to say the code and no oh well i'm glad you're having a good time max that's that's shocking yeah how was your trip how's your trip you also you also did a good trip i did we were in seattle for a week uh and

cards had a booth at emerald city comic-con and we sold out well sold out is a strong phrase uh we had a pay what you want booth for um the the first day of emerald city comic-con and so we had cards against humanity for sale but we and we were really excited because we saw all of these people like lining up to put money in our money pile and and it was like oh wow look at how look at how great and decent all of these lovely humans are they're not just taking stacks and stacks of games

and running off and then these guys in blue hoodies started taking stacks and stacks of games and running off and we realized that they were resellers just stealing our games and and we were able to stop some of them but it was like oh god fuck you um but then the rest of that is so gross uh yeah that was the well yes it's disgusting and horrible but the fact that the majority of people actually paid uh and and we could tell that they were paying what we suggest what the

game's worth 25 because there would be like a 20 wrapped in a five and it was like oh that makes me really happy uh but then the rest of the weekend we shared our booth with other uh like artists who couldn't afford space and then the last day uh we helped people write letters to congress and there were a few people who were thought that we wanted them to write their representatives about cards against humanity for some reason so that's something just had that off

Maxtell your congressman it's a hilarious game for all ages and a few people were like what do you

Alexhave available now cards against humanity.com like this very angry man came up and he's like everything needs to be politically correct for you people and i was and he just like it costed me for about 30 seconds i'm like no i work for cards against humanity here would you like to fill out a letter to your senator there were a couple a couple like that but um overwhelmingly like all these teachers and uh librarians came up to us and was like there's like no resources for this and i don't want to be that person but it felt really good it felt really nice and that

was one of my favorite days uh actually talking to convention goers because usually it's people who are like suggesting cards and then that's nice too but i don't really have anything to do with that but uh yeah it was it was it was really fun and it was nice my voice is kind of gone but

Merlinthat's okay all right the end alex is on talking and you uh also you uh you edited the uh the show

Alexyou did a lot i did wow the uh as soon as the if we had recorded it was really my fault if i had finished editing uh wednesday the night that we recorded like i would have had no problem uploading it but as soon as uh even though the place like where we stay in seattle it's it's there's a convention center it is built for conventions it's it's built for thousands and thousands of people to have devices but no like the the entire like city's internet just dies the hotel had no

internet i found an obscure coffee shop that the wi-fi they offered was tethering to someone's phone and that's how the episode got up so oh my god thanks for listening everybody that was fun

Merlinwhen are we going to put some money into this infrastructure my goodness because you think about like a wwdc historically where they'll be you know there's there's all kinds of nerves with their phones in town and everybody wants to get the developer versions of things so they're either They're sitting in their hotel room with crummy hotel Wi-Fi. They're on the Wi-Fi at Moscone, or they're doing it over their phone. You can just feel the entire city of San Francisco.

It just groans to a halt. The internet just doesn't work anymore. It's almost like you're going to have to see two major technologies, not one major jump. You're not going to go from fast to a little faster or slow to less slow. I feel like in order to even just begin to keep up with the pace of how people use devices, there's going to be like two giant leaps in how this stuff works.

MaxOne of the hilarious notifications I got as soon as I reconnected to the internet, I'm currently on what am I connected to? Telcel. The wonderful Mexican self-overrider. It does have LTE. I have a couple bars of LTE, but I'm like offshore right? I'm sitting on this boat half a mile offshore. So it's like it's kind of amazing that it works at all. But one of the great notifications, I get like a thousand notifications

that I can't do anything about, including like... Or like, for example, if a phone you can't answer,

Merlinthat kind of thing?

MaxYeah, like 72 hours ago, there was a burglar at the office and they want the code. But here's one of the great ones that I got. Dear Max Temkin, thank you for your recent purchase of, colon, Ziploc sandwich bags, pack of 150, six by five by 5.875 inch. We received your order on 02-25-17 and shipped it to you immediately to ensure fastest possible service. For information regarding expected delivery time frame, please refer to the order summary page in your Amazon account. We are committed to your bold, complete satisfaction.

Space period. We will do everything possible to meet your expectations, such as providing a partial refund, full refund, or a replacement copy. In case of a problem, we would appreciate the chance to hear from you first, so please contact us. If you're happy with your purchase of Ziploc Sandwich Bags Pack of 150, 6.5 by 5.875 inch, your positive feedback will be greatly appreciated. Please keep in mind that sellers are rated based on the number of quote-unquote positive four or five star feedback received.

received anything anything less with four stars will hurt our business you know that is so good i just want to say i just want to say that is so considerate of the reseller on amazon that provided me with the ziploc sandwich bags pack of 150 6.5 by 5.875

Merlinyou might not have known the impact that you're having on small business though you the impact you're having on ziploc sandwich bag resellers across the u.s you don't know how you'd be harming the economy by not giving a four or five star review it's well i mean that is really

Maxexceptional customer service that they care so much about me that they're willing to send me a personal email to make sure that my pack of ziploc sandwich bags pack of 150 6.5 by 5.875 how many times how many times do you get your pack of sandwich bags and you're not a set you're not a bold, completely satisfied customer space period.

Speaker AWell,

Merlinto me they seem more like 6.5 by 5.775 inches.

MaxLet me get my calipers out.

Speaker ADon't make Max get his calipers.

MaxI mean, I'm not completely satisfied. I'm never completely satisfied. The sandwich that I put in the bag wasn't good. Do I get a refund for that?

AlexYou're acting like this is so well, you're both good at computers. Have you never gotten a one of these reseller follow up emails before? I get about 14. I get about 14 a week.

MerlinYeah. I contacted Amazon and I said, Amazon, I don't want to receive these anymore. And they said, no problem. And they I stopped getting them for a while. And then they just start back up again because reasons. I'm going to try that. All right. It's you can also tell Amazon, remind Amazon that the United States Postal System, is human shit. Please don't send me things with USPS anymore. Supposedly, there's a secret menu. It's like when you, yeah, like when you order a baby in and out, like you can go in and get whatever you want. You call up, you call them up and you say, USPS is human shit.

Please use the UPS for me. And apparently, that might work for a while too. Your mileage may vary. Your motorcycle's up to 3 p.m.

AlexLook at Merlin Mann is here. Look at these life hacks. Look at me. Hey, look at me.

Speaker AI'm talking into my shoe.

MaxOne of my moments of exquisite relaxation on the cruise, Veronica and I went to, there's this thing called the Hydro Spa, or no, it's called the Hydro Pool, which really all pools are hydro pools, but this is a premium service.

Speaker AWhat is the deal?

Maxwhat's the deal uh with the hydro pool it it's this a premium thing it's basically the spa and it's just like a huge it's the closest thing i can describe it to is like an onsen like you'd find in japan where it's like a big communal hot tub that like 40 people could go in but it has this sort of like built in how do i just oh it's it's wonderful we were the only people there we went yesterday while i was on shore it was unbelievable it was unbelievable we were like the only people in this, like, heated swimming pool. And there's, like, this, like, recline.

How do I describe it? There's this, like, metal exoskeleton up against the edge of this pool. It's, like, three feet deep, and then there's, like, a metal exoskeleton. And you can sort of recline into this metal exoskeleton, and it's sort of, like, the shape of, it's like a lounge chair almost. And you can, like, lie there above the water, just, like, soaking in this, like, bubbling hot bath.

MerlinIt sounds like the big alien in a chair, an alien. Like, you're in the big alien chair?

MaxIt's more like you're driving the exosuit of the hop tub.

MerlinOh, nice.

MaxAnd when the ship is rocking, it all sort of sloshes around in a pleasant way. It's very nice. And I was in there, and I was reading my book about capitalism. I finished it. And I got to the most incredible – and I had just been dealing with all my emails and stuff because we got the internet. We were at shore. And I was thinking about that Ziploc email, and it just got under my skin and bothered me. And I got to the most amazing thing in this book about it's talking about how in capitalism there's this whole cult of like the individual has to be responsible, like individual responsibility.

So it's like it's your responsibility to protect the environment and deal with global warming and like buy the right products and buy product red or whatever. But corporations like evade all of this responsibility and they're just sort of designed all of these big systems of capital are sort of designed to be centerless. There's nothing that could be responsible. And there's this great thing about the customer support line, like calling for help on the phone. So this is Mark Fisher writes, The closest that most of us come to a direct experience of the centralistness of capitalism is an encounter with the call center.

As a consumer in late capitalism, you increasingly exist in two distinct realities, the one in which the services are provided without hitch, and another reality entirely, the crazed Kafkaesque labyrinth of call centers, a world without memory, where cause and effect connect together in mysterious, unfathomable ways, where it is a miracle that anything ever happens, and you lose hope of ever passing back over to the other side, where things seem to function smoothly. What exemplifies the failure of the neoliberal world to live up to its own PR better than the call center. Even so, the universality of bad experiences with call

centers does nothing to unsettle the operating assumption that capitalism is inherently efficient, as if the problems with call centers weren't the systemic consequences of a logic of capital, which, page turn, means organizations are so fixated on making profits that they can't actually sell you anything. The call center experience distills the political phenomenology of late capitalism, the boredom and frustration punctuated by cheerily piped PR, the repeating of the same dreary details many times to differently poorly trained and badly informed operatives,

the building rage that must remain impotent because it can have no legitimate object since, as it is very quickly clear to the caller, there is no one who knows and no one who could do anything even if they did. Anger can only be a matter of venting. it is aggression in a vacuum directed at someone who is a fellow victim of the system but within but with whom there is no possibility of communality just as your anger has no proper object it will have no effect i was very relaxed while i was reading that you were reading this on

a luxury cruise ship in an empty gigantic bathtub yeah i was like this is i was like this is so true

AlexThis is great. You know, I found myself really enjoying gambling, I think. And I made a bet with Mel. She's like, Max isn't going to read a, I bet Max is not going to read anything and have anything prepared for the podcast. I'm like, no, no, no. I bet he will have at least a page worth of something to share with Merlin and I. And I think I've definitely won that bet. So thank you.

MerlinThank you. Really, really, really make you think.

AlexAnd there was a page turn. So I know I'm definitely right.

MaxNone of my shit syncs up, so I couldn't even, I had to go get the device with it on it because I couldn't even sync my notes.

MerlinOh my God.

MaxIt's so hard to read about late capitalism in Mexico. Caveman. I mean, it's the, it's the, how brittle the system is, man. Nothing syncs up. It's sick on so many levels.

MerlinYou got to throw yourself upon El Machine. Upon El Levers. No, when I get back, I'm on vacation. Los Toto Operatus. Wow.

AlexI also just can't stop thinking about Max kept saying space period and, you know, the Sally, what's her name?

MaxWould 100 be the right number? That would not be the right number. No data.

Speaker AFor your period of bleeding time, what is appropriate number of things to staunch flow?

Alexso uh for people who don't know sally ride was an astronaut and um she before this was like hours before she was uh set to take off and um some nasa engineers was like we've given you a hundred tampons is that the correct number she's like no that is not the correct number but there's no like the thing that kills me is there's no follow-up quotes for this story and i'm like how did that how did that conversation end like did she teach so it's a

Maxstory it's a story from it's a story from prospect.org they wrote about the um experience that sally ride had being the the uh the the first uh woman astronaut and they said nasa had to make some adjustments to accommodate the women in rides astronaut class and later as it prepared to send her to space it added a women's locker room which astronaut judy resnick who later died in the Challenger explosion festooned with a Tom Selleck poster. Rather than force astronauts to use urine-catching devices that resembled condoms, NASA added commodes to space vessels.

Tampons were packed with their strings connecting them like a strip of sausages so they wouldn't float away. Engineers asked Ride, quote, is 100 the right number? She would be left in space for a week. That would not be the right number, she told them. At every turn, her difference was made clear to her. When it was announced that Ride had been named to a spaceflight mission, her shuttle commander, Bob Crippen, who became a lifelong friend and colleague, introduced her as, quote, undoubtedly the prettiest member of the crew. At another press event, a reporter asked Ride how she would react to a problem on the shuttle.

Do you weep?

MerlinThat's my favorite part. Oh, my God. These are engineers, so they must have had meetings. Oh, God. They must have had meetings and discussions. They got a blackboard. They have to present a number to astronaut Sully Ride. Will it be five million?

Speaker AThat seems too high.

MerlinOne? One seems too low. Let's suggest 100.

Speaker AShould we ask another female of the human species?

MerlinThat would not be appropriate. Suggest 100. Try 100.

AlexOh, man. Well, now I'm looking. If people, you know what? I bet a lot of people don't know. it's international women's strike day and a lot of people at our office aren't really doing that because none of us are union and also i i don't know it's tricky like i i but i am looking up a a brief history of menstruating in space and i have to tell you popular science i love that book uh this is really great this is this is just real real great

Merlinoh wow how different it would be if stephen hawking had written that first

Alexyou know you can tell that this was definitely written by a dude first and then they brought on i mean it's the byline is amy amy shira tight title um but like a dude definitely wrote the first pass of this and she was like no no no no no uh to bleed or not to bleed oh my god oh uh you you've written things on the uh internet merlin is is does that sound like a a header for a paragraph that someone wrote or an editor wrote?

MerlinOh, it's usually the editors. This is something that lots of writers like to mention where people will say like, hey, you know what? I really liked your article, but man, who's doing those headlines? Like, yeah, I had nothing to do with it. And, you know, I'm not like a professional card writer or something, but space period or what was it? What was your what was the actual to bleed or not to bleed?

AlexSo the to to to wire or sorry, to popular science credit, The article is a brief history of menstruating in space, which, you know, not the best. Whatever. That's fine. But some of the headers, women not in space, to bleed or not to bleed, blood in space. And that's it. Oh, God.

MerlinYeah, I would give some of those a second pass. Ticket, ticket, ticket, ticket. Challenge.

AlexChallenge.

MaxAll right. I'm paying $300 a minute for this podcast. and every second that we record, it's going to make it more and more impossible for me to actually upload the file. So we got to do this quick. Okay, quick. Your turn, Alex. Alex, it is your week.

AlexPick a challenge now. Oh, Jesus Christ. Meditate every day starting this evening. Yeah, starting this evening. And just so we can stay on brand and on message, you're going to have to use an app or a book to assist you and share your findings next week. All right. I'm in. All right.

MaxThis is a good one.

AlexOh, it's going to be terrible. I don't know why I'm doing this to myself. I'm sorry, Merlin. I'm sorry.

MerlinAll good. All good. Ride, Sally. Ride.

ok ok

ok ok Let's get started.

Speaker AWe'll be right back.

lol

lol

Speaker Alol So, let's go.

Thank you.

18. Space Period 0:00 / 01:14:07