23. Google Saudi Prince Airplane Falcons
2017Show notes
Transcript
Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakesMaxThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and me, Max Temkin.
This week's challenge, use the website next door.
Speaker Awe are we are we are
Alexwhat the hell's wrong with you guys you sound like you sound like somebody stole your dog i mean it's it's very sweaty in this room because we we're redoing the the whole studio oh i'm way
Maxtoo loud now oh my goodness did you turn the game back up from zero yes don't do that all right uh we're redoing the whole Cards Against Humanity podcast studio. It's a big construction project. It's running a little bit behind the anticipated schedule, and we're in the phase where Alex and I, we have emptied out the entire AV closet, and we're organizing every cord and dongle and adapter in the entire office and doing inventory and labeling it.
That sounds joyful. Yeah, so we're doing it together.
Alexhave you heard of a usb3 to micro b cable no i don't micro b sounds like a drug dealer on the wire like yo micro b or a upsetting a very specialized male prostitute also is that a spinner alex i i don't know what that means or a twink uh no no i it's different from a chocolate
Maxbear well i know what a twink is a twink is like an otter but i don't think they have the hair no
AlexNo, no, no. Otters have hair, and they're the little bears. We've gone over this.
MaxIn Vietnam, if you're trying to eat dog, you ask for a little bear. That's what they call it. Can I have some little bear? It's like Rocky Mountain oysters. Okay.
MerlinI'm sorry. I wish I could help.
MaxI mean, if you were here, Merlin. What do you wish you could help? Get your ass on an airplane and come and fucking coil up cables with us.
MerlinThis is not in my portfolio.
MaxListen, how are we going to move? This is in Jared Kushner's portfolio. How are we going to move these powders if we don't have a state-of-the-art studio?
MerlinYou know, money on the table, you know, tables on the table. It's money all the way down. It's sickening how much income you are leaving behind every day that that studio is not operational.
MaxIt truly is because, listen, if people just knew that they could go to Merlin Man Powders and they could get our brain crystals, they could get our energy powders, They could get our protein beverages.
Oh, man, it's been a while. There's been so much that's happened. Use the offer code Blue Apron on checkout.
MerlinIt's a sustainable community of home chefs.
MaxCan I tell you, Merlin, I don't want to spend too much time on our presenting sponsor, which is MerlinManPowders.com. But I do want to say that I've been taking these powders since I was 15 years old, and I've been with over 150 women when I was 15. I'm not proud of it.
MerlinDid you get in fights?
MaxNo, I fought grown men. No, I'm not proud of it. It's just a thing that I did.
MerlinYeah. No, so you really were completely a man by like 15.
MaxNo, just to clarify, I was a man. I'm not proud of it. It is what happened. Do you have a drawing? Do you have maybe like a drawing you can share with me?
MerlinI'm not thinking of my crayons. Hang on. Don't make me get my calipers.
Oh, my goodness. It's been so long. So much has happened.
MaxIt's been a huge... I've lived an entire life since we talked last time. I went to San Francisco. I went to California. I went to a vineyard.
AlexAre those two separate...
MaxNo, I don't know. I just... I made a trip. I went to a vineyard. I drank wine I ate food I came back I got into law school we uncoiled all the cables Alex and I had to google what's a USB micro B yes USB micro B micro B
Alexit just sounds like a lot
Merlina lot happened I also have a French laundry story to share whenever it's appropriate
Alexoh can you explain what the French laundry is in a tweet
Maxyeah yeah I think Max should do this one so we did our I think we've talked about this on the program before. When we do the writing for Cards Against Humanity, the original sort of co-creators, writers, we get together about four or five times a year, and we usually like to take a trip. So, you know, we're not necessarily like, we kind of leave our home lives behind, and we just like hunker down, and we work for like, you know, whatever, like 14 hours a day just like sitting around a table, like working on the writing of the game. And, you know, it's kind of, we get into like a weird headspace
and just really work on like a crazy sprint on it. And for whatever reason, we usually get like some sort of like lake house in Wisconsin or something. So we're just like really far away from stuff. And there's like- Don't you usually just eat a lot of cured meats and fart? Oh, that's 100% what we do. And what we like about that, what's nice about that is these are like sleepy little towns. And there's really not that much to do. Like sometimes we'll get bored and we'll go into town, but there's like three places to have lunch and you have like your fried fish and then you go back to the house and you continue farting. and writing cards and debating whether sleeping in vinegar all night because I am pickle is funnier
than sleeping in vinegar all night because I am a pickle or whether it should be covering myself in chili flakes and Parmesan cheese because I am pizza. Oh, spoilers for the game. Yeah,
MerlinI would leave off. I would leave off the A. I think it's fine. Pickle is funnier.
MaxSleeping all night in vinegar because I am pickle is one of the funniest things that any person has ever written it's an amazing that's the way my wife and i talk about the cat i am pickle yeah it's very funny um but i don't know for whatever reason this trip got planned for napa and i guess the logic was like oh napa it's beautiful and and i don't know like it's like i guess i i don't i really don't know what the thing was some of the josh is is in in um the san francisco in the bay area the rest of the guys are sort of in la so i guess the idea was like maybe we'll you know you consider coming to the midwest we'll go out there whatever it was a wonderful trip it was beautiful
but we didn't get shit done because it's so exciting out there. There's like amazing food. We went to a vineyard and learned how to claim that you taste things in wine. Was it a round, full wine finish? Oh, there was a lot going on in the glass, Merlin. Was it complexity? Did it have legs? Oh, boy, did it ever. Did it have legs out the ass? Legs up to here.
I decided, okay, listen, now I've been doing- Did you swirl it around? Did you hold it at an angle and stuff? Oh, you got to sniff it like a big fancy man. And then you go, there's a lot going on here. And then you wait for other people to say things. Interesting. Here's what you do. You go, ooh, there's a lot going on here. And then you wait for other people to say things and then you agree with them and you like yes and it. So they're like, ooh, I taste raspberries. And you go, mm, yes, and blackberries. Like you just say the same thing they do. Oh, that's good. And to me, what I decided, listen, wine I don't think is very good and now I've been to like,
you know, I've been to vineyards and I did the thing like from the movie where you go drink the wine or whatever and they tell you about it and we walked through the wine caves and saw the barrels and we did the whole fucking thing. And here's my conclusion. I think that all wine basically can be described on a spectrum from grape juice to bug spray. And I like the wines that taste more like grape juice and less like bug spray. But the fancier, the better and more expensive the wine is, the more it tastes like bug spray.
So you're supposed to taste the wine and realize that it tastes like bug spray.
MerlinBut you can't really say that because you sound like kind of a Philistine.
MaxExactly. You can't smell it and be like, oh, it tastes like bug spray. You people probably fucking love this one. You got to go like, ooh, there's a lot going on in this glass. Very interesting, very earthy.
AlexDo you do the thing where you take a sip and then spit?
MaxNo, there was no spitting. We drank it all. And then I got us into, I love fancy foods and there's just restaurants.
MerlinWait a minute, you didn't have like a six month, do they still have the long waits?
MaxWell, we used this thing called Talk that is like French Laundry recently switched over. That's your buddy. Your buddy made that. Exactly. Well, it's Nick Kikones, who was on our last podcast together, the Top Chef podcast, and came to talk to us about Restaurant Wars. Probably the best episode of the Top Chef podcast that we did, actually. And so that's Nick's startup. And they recently got French Laundry as a customer. And that actually allowed us to get tickets to get in to eat there. And it was planned fairly far in advance. But that was like – that's like a bucket list meal that I wanted to have in my life.
And the French Laundry is – it's classical French cuisine, sort of married to California farm-to-table. And it's –
MerlinThomas Keller, for at least two years, it was the best restaurant in North America. Probably in the world. Okay. But I mean like, yeah, like one contest and stuff.
MaxNo, it's a – it's a foundational – like a lot of fine dining, especially American fine dining and California cuisine, can be sort of traced back to this one restaurant. So, you know, it's an older place. Thomas Keller is getting a little older. So, like, I always have in the back of my mind if there's, like, a place like that where, boy, like, I would be so sad if French Laundry closed and I never got to experience it. So it was like, I just felt like I better do it on this trip because who knows when the next time I'll be there was. It was incredible.
It was a perfect meal. It was playful. It was fun.
MerlinThey do cute stuff, but it's not too cute. And the service is very gracious. it's not the the one of my experiences there well first i mean as this will factor into my story is i was terrified i went with a bunch of uh pals we had i think three to six months out you call first thing in the morning like the second you can call and my friend lance had been doing this for like weeks trying to get us a reservation we finally did we rented a limo to go there from san francisco this is this guy's night out thing we would do you know every every month or so and yeah it's the only time i've ever been there but it was it's the food is as you say very playful
very, but everybody there is they're paying attention to everything that's happening everyone who works there is very thoughtful it's not that kind of, it's the opposite of that TGI Friday's, hi my name is Skip do you want a refill for your iced tea? yes Skip, I always want a refill for my iced tea and I don't want to talk about it it's like French service meets California, you know what I mean? it's not, you know what I mean? it doesn't feel too stiff but I went into it so fucking scared about going to French Laundry did you get that at all like it's very
it feels like I really want to I don't want to be an idiot here I don't want to
Maxit was interesting in the room we were in you know there's not a lot of people there so in the room we were there there was maybe four other tables and they were all like I assume Russian billionaires they were all speaking in Russian and everyone there was wearing like very nice suits they put you in the oligarch room yeah we were in the oligarch room now I tried to come with my 80 falcons in every seat of the restaurant and they wouldn't accommodate that. They're back on the plane. Yeah, so yeah, I think I did see Zapier,
the Saudi Arabian prince.
AlexI feel like you made up this Falcon.
MaxGoogle Saudi prince airplane Falcons.
AlexI know that's a thing that happened.
MaxYou can see a picture of it. I believe it's Zapier.
MerlinFalcons don't really have a leader because they always follow the arm. But they do have, there's a natural charismatic 18 charisma falcon that will usually rise. There will be one.
AlexHere's what I think happened. Zapier or Zapier. Max kept hearing it on podcasts and thought it was boring. Zapier is the app.
MerlinZapier is the falcon. Yeah, and then just made it into a falcon.
MaxHe's not the falcon. He's the prince. Mr. Zapier is my father. He's a Saudi prince and he has 80 falcons and he travels with them on his airplane. But isn't one of them his familiar? Oh, that could be, but I don't think you would name your familiar the same thing. That's a little bit on the nose. Yeah. You'd name it Chuck or something. It's Tacky.
So you're in the oligarch room. You're at the French one. Oh, no, that was it. And they all looked very magazine. They all looked like, you know, I don't know, how do you say it? They all had a lot of gel in their hair, and their suit jackets all fit. Oh, yeah. I know the type. They had the thing on their suit jacket where you could always see just a little bit of sleeve.
AlexDo you know that?
MaxThat's tough. Do you know what I'm talking about? Here's what I have. It's either the jacket folds over my hand like I'm a child wearing my dad's sport coat, or it's way up by my elbow and I have five inches of sleeve sticking out.
MerlinYou look like Ricky Jay. Nothing up here. Just sitting in a room shuffling cards for 16 hours.
MaxI've never had that thing where you see in magazines where there's like, I don't know what you're supposed to have, like a quarter inch, a half inch of sleeve. Just the foreskin sticking out. Right, yeah, just the tip. Yeah. We don't want to cut too much off because then you feel nothing.
MerlinRight, when you rub it, it turns into a briefcase. You got this guy over here, the Fakak, the Arab. The thing is, they are playful, but it just goes right up to the line where it's like, and for your 16th dessert, it's peanut butter and jelly. and it's some kind of ridiculous play on words and it's actually made out of foam or whatever. But the food is actually really fucking good and the service is amazing, but it is a very intimidating experience.
MaxOh my God, yes. The night before I went on, because I was packing and I went on and I was like, I Googled like, you know, is there a dress code or whatever? Because I was like trying to decide if I bring like a sport coat or not. And it's like for men, it's like you have to have a button down shirt and a sport coat and no blue jeans allowed. And I like frantically-
MerlinAnd just for what it's worth. And in New York, that's not unusual. In California, that is very unusual.
MaxYes. And I frantically texted all the guys and I was like, hey, everyone has to wear a sport coat or they won't let us in this restaurant and shoes. And it was an issue for some of the guys. Like Ben had to bring a sport coat for Eli. I don't think Eli owned one.
MerlinNo, no, no, no jacket, no shoes, no laundry.
Alexall right then i i would like to defend um tgi fridays um because now they have little rip-off ipads on all of the tables so you can you go in there you order your food and then you have almost zero interaction with the waiter uh you do need to bring your own lysol wipes because it's disgusting
Merlinthe idea of an ipad that other people had a tgi fridays i would rather have my dick on a urinal
Alexyeah yeah no it's i'm surprised i haven't gotten pregnant from one of these because you never know
Maxguarantee you that every time you sit down at a tgi fridays the person immediately after the meeting the person who immediately ate at that booth before you they keeled over and died and they breathed their dying breath onto that iPad. And then the coroner came and hauls away the body and then they seat you and they're like, what do you want, the mozzarella sticks?
AlexIf you open up the notes app, you can learn their true name. Sometimes you sit down and it's almost like you can feel the farts from the previous person coming out. It's not pleasant. But, you know, there was a bad situation and I just kind of looked at my food and a nice young man came up and took it and came back with another one. And I just want as little interaction as possible. Like when I go, so the women's dress code for French laundry is business casual. And I still don't know what the fuck that means.
MerlinThat is such a terrible phrase. No one knows what that means.
AlexNobody, Max, what is business casual for you? You often have casual business meetings.
MaxI wear a, I more or less, here's the two things that I own. I own a black t-shirt and blue jeans or I own a blue button down shirt and blue jeans.
MerlinYou should get that new Amazon camera that tells you how you're doing. Oh, the one where it just takes a picture of you in your closet every morning. And says, nice job, Max. That t-shirt is black. Good work. Yeah, I'm going to get that. That's going to happen. Did you see this, Alex? There's the new Amazon camera you put in your bedroom. And it's a camera. And it takes a picture of your outfit and gives you ideas about your outfit.
AlexYeah, they're going to be like, wow, what a great tri-blend t-shirt and old navy jeans. Maybe try this Amazon brand.
MerlinI feel like business casual as a concept kind of came – I first became aware of it in the age of Dockers, like late 80s, early 90s. And the general – in Florida anyway, the general business casual was like khakis with a polo shirt or khakis. Then Tommy Hilfiger shirts were very popular. But like the safest business casual that like an actual business person will do is a very nice like high-end khaki with like seams, like looking good. and usually some kind of like a button-down shirt with like a sports coat.
Because there are men who never go in public without a jacket. That is the safer one. You do not want to wear Madras shorts and hope everything turns out okay.
AlexReal-time follow-up copyright John Syracuse. I had to just Google Dockers. Is that something that a 25-year-old should know what those are? I know khakis. I understand khakis. It's like dengries.
MaxCan we address the John Syracuse thing? because now I feel like there's bad blood because we made jokes about it. Am I going to get to tell my story? What's your story?
MerlinI'll tell it later. Get done with your John St. Accusa thing.
MaxTick it, tick it, tick it. Follow up. Merlin, what's your story?
MerlinCopyright John St. Accusa 2011. First of all, we took a limo from San Francisco. We had like a black car drive us, an African-American car, drive us up to French Laundry. And we had, I think we had a bottle of something, probably wine on the way. And to a person, we all had to pee, but a couple of us had to pee really, really, really bad. So we arrived at French Laundry already in a titter because we were about to pee ourselves. And so that's a nice way to start. So already I feel like I'm back on my heels a little bit. I'll make this short.
We went in. It was fantastic. We were all four of us. These are people you know from the internet. And we were all to a person terrified that we would do something wrong. And we sat. It was like a soup Nazi type situation. We're sitting in our chairs like 11-year-old boys, sitting erect, hoping we don't do something dumb, making the occasional dad joke to try and ingratiate ourselves to the waiter. At one point, the waiter said something about this involved Cretaceous salt, and I said, what's the matter? You don't have any paleocenozoic salt?
And he came back later with a book from the kitchen to show me the different kinds of salt and answer my question. It was delightful. So everything was going great. I think it was pre-fee. I think it was just a multi-course, you know. Is it pre-fee? It's just they have what they're serving tonight, right?
MaxYes. You could make small substitutions.
MerlinBut generally, like, this is what we have tonight.
MaxYes. You weren't ordering, like, a round of buffalo wings for the table. Right. Or a pepperoni pizza.
MerlinYeah. So we're sitting there, like, okay, we're finally starting to relax a little bit. And we're already getting the graciousness. And everybody there is so nice and so professional. And then they come up with the kind of, like, little bread course where they're going to give you a little roll. out of a basket with the tongs. And it's very gracious. And we're sitting there, and my friend Lance, it looks like he's about to pass out. And the bread boy grabs the roll with the tongs. Is that a technical term? And it falls to the floor.
And, of course, we're all blaming ourselves. Like, what have we done wrong? What have we done to make the roll? Because I'm guessing they generally do not want a roll falling to the floor. So they decontaminated. 2319. They decontaminate the entire area. They're moving everything out. Everything's going to be fine. It's okay, mister. They bring up screens like in Brazil. Everything's going to be fine. Please do not worry. Everything's fine. Anyway, but the meal was great. It was fantastic. There were all these desserts. It was so great. And at one point, Lance, who was always our vice president in charge of choosing wine, Lance is really good at this. And he goes down the list and he goes, well, let's start with this bottle.
And then later on, we'll have that bottle. And it was great. We really, really enjoyed it. So right around the time the check arrives, coincidentally, Lance has to go to the men's room. And Jeff Veen picks up the little booklet. And I wish you could see me doing this. He picks up the little booklet. He opens it. He looks at it for about one second, closes it, puts it down on the table, and says to, I think it was Michael and me, says, how much?
And I had a pretty good idea. It's pre-fee, right? I had a pretty good idea what the wine was. We agreed on a certain budget for this. four people, four top. And Jeff goes, how much? And I said, I think I said something like, you know, pre-tip, I'm going to say it's, you know, like $900, something like that. And the other guy guessed. And Jeff goes, $1,400.
$1,400. Did you get the wrong bottle of wine? And so, well, we're not near that point yet. Now we're just at the point of, oh my God, what have we done wrong? And why is this dinner going to cost $1,400? Because I brought more cash than I needed, but that would be all of the cash that I brought. And I mean, I had cards and stuff, but it was like, oh my God. And of course, we're covered with shame because of the role at this point. And Lance comes back from the bathroom and his face goes white.
Because one of the bottles of wine that was on the bill was, I want to say, $700.
Maxoh my god I bet it tasted so much like bug spray oh god oh my god and and so now now we're in a
Merlinreal pickle because we're like Lance is like listen listen guys I'm I swear to god there's no way I ordered a multi multi hundred dollar bottle of wine there's no way but so what's our thing our thinking is we screwed up we did something wrong no way do you call the waiter
Speaker Aover and question your bill at the French laundry do you know I'm saying Max you remember you know
Merlinthis feeling like if you were there would you ever go um actually I don't think we ordered these hot
Maxdogs or whatever like you wouldn't do that well you don't just order a bottle of wine like it's a diet coke from your waiter there's like a sommelier who comes to your table and makes a wine sort of a battle plan you know they get their old chart out and they're drawing x's and o's and you know it's like they're making a whole strategy with you of like let's try the yeah you're gonna want this one with this course and we're gonna move this one over there and it's like and i'm just sitting there nodding my head going there's a lot going on with that wine yeah and uh uh you You know, listen, I didn't really interrogate the sommelier who was at our table, but I've got to imagine that if you're the sommelier at the best restaurant in the best wine area in the world, you probably know a lot about wine.
I think that's a safe bet.
MerlinWell, to make a long story short, we debated this for probably because on the other hand, you don't want to debate too long because it seems weird. You feel like a cheapskate. You feel like a weirdo. You don't want to call the waiter over and go, meh. Finally, we called the waiter over and we went, meh. The waiter comes over and we said, we had a quick question about the check. He opened the booklet and in a shorter time than Jeffine, he looked at it and he said, I'm terribly sorry. And he whisked away and he came back. They, when they keyed it in, had entered the wrong bottle of wine.
MaxWow.
MerlinA technical error. Two unforced errors at the French Laundry. I'm still thinking about that role. Wow. You should leave a nasty Yelp review.
Maxdig a dig a dig a dig a follow-up uh can we address the john syracuse of feud
Alexbefore it becomes a thing real quick why can't i talk about this no real time follow-up the entire time you were telling this story my heart rate was 122 to 100 do you feel me though do you feel
MerlinI know it sounds ridiculous for a middle-aged white man to talk about being intimidated by a restaurant, but you feel me on that situation.
AlexOne time Steak and Shake gave us a $300 bill, and I was like, no, no, no. And they had charges for an entire prom night. And like, well, I mean, you've got to say that. Mel and I are like, what do we do?
MerlinCan I please speak with Mr. Shake?
AlexAll right. I'm sorry. I'm talking too much. I'm interrupting Max. Max, please address follow-up. Copyright John Syracuse.
MaxI just want to say my piece and just listen. I listened to the rec diffs that you sent me. I feel bad. I don't have a feud with John Syracuse. Can I just address this for one second and then we can stop. We could just move on.
MerlinOf course. I don't think you need to talk about it at all. I think it's a made-up feud. It's a fake feud. Fake news. Your words.
MaxOkay. But if you want to settle this, settle this.
MerlinFirst of all, I just want to clarify, real-time follow-up. You'll never settle anything with John Syracuse because he can't be helped.
MaxI understand that. He doesn't want to be helped.
MerlinHe doesn't want to be happy.
MaxHe wants to think everything is wrong, and that's what makes him feel alive inside. Okay. Well, then this isn't for John. It's just for our listeners or whatever. I also, there's something, there's like, here's the thing that I feel like you need to say to John that you haven't really said on Rectifs not to do your job for you. But here's the thing.
AlexHe's putting you back in the barrel.
MaxThe format of follow-up, John, first of all, I just want to say, listen, calling a follow-up, that's a small little piece of podcast culture that John Syracuse owns. I think we got to give it up to him. He made that name. However, conceptually, it wasn't a big breakthrough that he came up with. Leading with corrections on a podcast that deals with fact has just sort of always been the format of news and reporting and stuff like that. But also the whole notion that John Syracuse is only going to be remembered for coining the phrase follow-up and that people don't take that seriously, it's on its face, it's laughable.
And I just wanted to give a quick list of things about John Syracuse that I think about that are on my little note card for John Syracuse that I thought it might be nice to read out and just clarify that we're not making fun of him and we are actually big fans of his work and then we can never talk about this again. But number one, John Syracuse's reviews of the updates for Mac OS X got me interested in Apple and I've been reading them since for a very long time and they kind of came with me being interested in learning how computers worked
and taught me in a very gracious way how much there was that I didn't know about computers. Number two, Hypercritical, his podcast on 5x5, unquestionably one of the greatest podcasts of all time, maybe the best tech podcast of all time. It was insightful. It was laugh out loud funny. It sort of defined the genre of like tech podcast. And it just it's going to go down as one of the foundational documents of this whole medium. and specifically the obviously infamous like toaster episode
but also his three-part review of the Steve Jobs book I think is us.
MerlinSteve Jobs book, the Star Wars movies. That is still in my feed and there are still episodes I listen to weekly. What about the game controllers?
MaxOh, see, that's on my list. I mean, you've got to give it up. Whatever agitation people have or whatever, there's no question that is – I mean, maybe you want to say that's like the Velvet Underground or something. I don't know if a ton of people listen to that podcast, but every single one of them has a tech podcast now.
That was Brian Eno that said that. Well, no, it was Max Thompson who said that about John Syracuse, a copyright 2017, bitch. And finally, how are you on ATP, which is the biggest, most influential Apple tech podcast that there is that Apple listens to? The largest company in the world listens to John Syracuse's podcast and adjusts their corporate strategy based on the things he says on that podcast. You're fucking kidding me that coining the word follow-up is the biggest thing.
MerlinHe asked for so little.
MaxAnd John is like, here's the other thing. The final thing I just want to say about John is like, I think he's widely respected by all sort of people in the tech world of being like one of the most technically knowledgeable and precise thinkers about technology in the industry that there is. and that's sort of a given. The thing I think John doesn't get enough credit for is he's extremely funny. He's so fucking funny. The toaster reviews that he did on ATP are honestly one of the best podcast comedy hits.
MerlinFor somebody who's, well, no, of all people, he has, and it sounds like he died when we talk this way, he has some of the best comic timing of anybody I've ever done anything with.
AlexAll right, so real-time follow-up, copyright John Syracuse of 2010. Copyright 2011, Merlin. Um, the, the, I completely disagree with Max. I think that he did coin follow up and he may, he did it in a way that even if you were the, if you, I started maybe five episodes into hypercritical and I was like, holy shit. And it makes you want to listen to previous episodes. It's great. I'm sure ad sponsors like that. Hooray. And, um, I've also mentioned this before about how to get my parents to buy me computer things.
I would make a small slideshow, uh, presenting why I needed these things. Like I needed Panther. So I took all of the notes from Syracuse's review. Also, I would always look at his references. And so that got me into like what I would consider some of my favorite Simpsons episodes. The game controller review he did on Hypercritical. I mean, it ruined most game controllers for me, but it was still one of the best like reviews of design versus like UI versus UX.
And I loved it. The toaster reviews, ordering horrible toasters for him, I'm sorry, John, was one of the most fun things I've ever done.
MerlinThe TiVo? And he's sitting there pressing on the button like an animal.
AlexOkay. Really made me appreciate the longevity of all of my tech stuff. Now I find it harder to throw away my old iPad, so I now repurpose them. So my cats have old iPads. I don't know how you feel about that. uh and he defends i think he in in the best way defend defends video games that like the gamer gator shit on uh perhaps the people who would like listen to atp like journey like games that are cinematic and small and it's like okay this is what do you mean uh walking simulators
for sjw cucks yeah like you know you're just flying around a little gay capey guy uh anyway
Maxand last last even mean why can't there be a straight capey guy do you know what i mean because It's like, what about me, the gamer? Can it be clear that that's a man?
AlexAll right. Anyway, follow my Twitter account, at Straight Gamer. Oh, my boy. But last and certainly not least, he got Chris Latner on his show, ATP. And as Cox's Cucks will know, I really have a thing.
Oh, my God.
MerlinOh, God, that's it. That's it. We got it. Title. I thought it was going to be Powder Nation. But no, it's going to be our fans are going to be Cox's Cucks.
AlexI just want people to know I love my Twitter Cox's Cucks followers who now send me pictures of Elon Musk like clearly Photoshop shirtless. Are we still doing the podcast? Yes. No, we are. Are we? What's a zip line? And so I got to hear my other bad car boy, robot boy, Chris Latner, which was so cool. All right. We're done. Thank you, John.
MerlinYou know, the nice thing is I think this will really, really help. I think he's going to feel a lot better now that you've reminded him of all the things that he doesn't think matter because people don't remember he used two words once.
MaxDoesn't it break your heart? Doesn't it break your heart a little bit? It breaks my heart that it does. It does. It's a little – it's tragic in a way. It's tragic that – It's like I said to you in text.
MerlinIt's like George Washington being mad people don't remember he had fake teeth. It's like you did so many things. How can you possibly?
MaxHere's what's tragic. When Alex was saying her list and she was like, oh, Syracuse ruined video game controllers. You know what's interesting about that is he didn't ruin video game controllers. Video game controllers were always like that. They've been like that for 30 years. John Syracuse showed you a new way to look at them where when you understood things from his perspective, when you could take a critical perspective, you never saw the world the same way again. That is one of the greatest gifts that one person can give to another person. He has taught so many people to look at the world in that critical way.
MerlinAnd to look at something you think of yourself as being surpassingly familiar with and maybe even being an expert at and going, oh, I never noticed that before. Now I see this entire ecosystem differently.
MaxAnd also, it's okay to say, I don't, like, this kind of sucks or it should be better. Like, that's actually good. That is a healthy mindset to go through life. People should constantly be examining the systems in their life, the things that they use, the tools, the technology in their life, and seeing the ways in which they're failing them, they're taking advantage of them, they're not generous from a design point of view, and looking for ways to improve them. That's one of the special things that humans can do in the world. So anyway, that's the thing that's tragic to me is that John doesn't see,
he doesn't necessarily, it seems, like, emotionally understand the connection he has with his listeners where they feel that about him and that it's like, oh, well, he's not going to get credit for the small shit. Even though he is getting credit for the small shit, like, we all know that John Syracuse coined follow-up, copyright John Syracuse 2011. All right, anyway, that's enough of that.
AlexAnd he taught my wife to make pasta the right way. He might appreciate that. All right.
MerlinShould be like seawater.
AlexDugga, dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga.
MaxAll right. Should we keep going on follow-up? Should we talk about the challenge? What do you want to do here? Did you have anything you wanted to say about Sebastian Gorka? I mean, what more is there to say? It's the same shit that we already knew about.
AlexCan you explain to me in a tweet what his job is?
MaxYeah, he's the National Security Advisor for Counterterrorism for the President of the United States.
AlexOkay, I'm going to pretend I know what all of those mean.
MaxAnd what does the lowercase V in his name mean?
AlexHuh?
MerlinYou know about his lowercase V.
MaxYeah, you get that if you're a Nazi youth. That's right. What is it? He's like a Siberian Nazi youth. It's like the asshole marriage badge. I don't remember all the details. Yeah. Yeah. He's a wonderful guy. Part of the Dubai Friday canon. Yeah, he looks like fat Steven Seagal. He just came running into the scene. Fat Steven Seagal looks like he's wearing a disguise from a Disneyland magic store.
Speaker AAll right.
MerlinLet's do this.
MaxNo, I expect you to die, Mr. Bond.
AlexJust one second.
MaxJust one second. All right. Dug it.
AlexSomeone dug it. We're ready to dug it. All right, I don't know.
MaxThe challenge this week, Merlin, we were supposed to go on, what was it, Nextdoor? The challenge this week was...
MerlinDoor boys? The challenge? What's that? Poor boys? Door man? Hmm? Go ahead. The challenge this week was from me. It was to use the website called Nextdoor. You were to sign up for nextdoor.com in your neighborhood. I wanted you to look at it a few times every day, two or three, and be prepared to discuss how the experience affected you. in particular. Did you have any favorite posters or topics? What did you learn from your time with Nextdoor? Max, you sent me a URL of where you signed up for an account today so I'm guessing you maybe did it
starting today? No, I did it last night.
MaxI took a bath and I went on and signed up but it wouldn't let me in until I invited a neighbor and I was like, you have to text a neighbor and invite them before you can click continue or maybe there was some way to X out of it but I couldn't find it so I was just like, fuck you Merlin, I'm I'm sending this to you, so I just texted you their required invite thing.
AlexYeah, or you can use Facebook to sign in. They really want to fuck you.
MerlinYeah, I don't want to get fucked.
AlexAll right.
MerlinSo let me just briefly give a little bit of prologue here. This is pretty quick. I can't remember how I first found out about Nextdoor. What I can tell you is I was very fascinated by a product service that was available for a while called Everyblock. and EveryBlock, I think it was one of the minor boys, like maybe Wilson Miner, somebody came up with EveryBlock and EveryBlock was this amazing service.
MaxEveryBlock was founded by Adrian Holovaty who made the Django. Oh, there you go. He made Django, which is like the environment for Python that's used by like lots of newspapers and that's kind of what I learned to program in.
MerlinHad you ever been on EveryBlock?
MaxYeah, sure. I used the bejesus out of EveryBlock. It was a big deal in Chicago.
MerlinYeah, and it was a big deal here too where unfortunately no longer is. But every block was really useful and sane. And I mean, tell me if I'm getting this wrong, but my sense was what they'd done was there, I guess they were using some combination of APIs and scrapers to gather lots of publicly available information about wherever you lived. And that could be stuff like crime data, police reports, like very detailed stuff, like what the police were called for and what the resolution was, stuff like sidewalk, broken sidewalks. There's all kinds of stuff that was actually genuinely useful.
to thinking about where you were living, what you were doing, how things were going. And over time, they contracted, and it looks like they're still in Chicago, but they're not in San Francisco. So, I mean, I missed Every Block. I didn't use it constantly, but for example, I could find times when I had complained about a neighbor's loud party when his parents were out of town. I could see where I had done stuff. It was really cool. Fast forward, Every Block was not around anymore. I don't remember exactly how I found out about Nextdoor, but I feel like it was maybe through Andre Torres, who at the time was living with his family in Noe Valley.
And it was a funny thing that Andre, who is a non-Caucasian man, had seen himself discussed several times on Nextdoor. Hey, has anybody seen the Mexican in the neighborhood? What's he doing here? Two different times people have wondered on Nextdoor if he was delivering food.
He was seen using a key to enter his own home on one occasion, and that caused a lot of suspicion. And so I became aware of that key. Exactly.
MaxExactly. I mean, the more you think about it, the more disturbing it becomes, really. Do the whites that own the property know that you're there?
AlexHow does he afford that rent? Is he illegal? Who's to say?
MerlinIs anybody else seeing this? So anyway, that's just my prologue. And I ended up going there and registering kind of darkly. And as usual, I used a fake name. I highly recommend using a fake name when you sign up for these things. And I feel like maybe they nailed me something to verify. Merlin, hey, thanks for that hot tip now after the challenge when we signed up for it under our real names. Thank you.
MaxExcuse me.
MerlinVery timely. Point of information. Third bullet under challenge, behindthename.com slash random. I sent you a link to a motherfucking website for getting a cool – you can get a fairy name. You can get a dragon name. What are you talking about third bullet? Did you know we have a Google Doc? There's a what?
Try behindthename.com slash random. It's a lot of fun. So anyway, and I'll say no more. I want to hear what Alex has to say. But it is a fascinating it's a fascinating portal into what your neighbors are thinking about. That's all I'm going to say for now. But I want to hear hear your responses. Alex, what did you think? Had you been on Nextdoor before this?
AlexApparently, because it had me it was like an account with this email address has already been created. And so then I signed in via Facebook and there there was my account. I had not previously done anything with it. And immediately I noticed that most of what was on there were, okay, a lot of people have garbage they want to get rid of to be picked up that the city won't pick up.
MerlinWe should mention it's got sections. It's got sections for like I'm looking for a service. I have something to sell. It has my favorite, of course, crime and safety. But it's supposed to be kind of like a bulletin board for the neighborhood in its ideal state, right?
AlexHere's the thing, though. I would go to those sections and nobody follows those rules. For example, someone every single day in crime and safety puts an urgent alert. Have you seen those? It's in bright red.
MerlinYeah, I've had a bunch of urgent alerts. One time it was for a missing dog.
AlexWell, okay, I can understand that. But every day, looking for reduced rent in exchange for groundskeeping and basic maintenance. Every day.
MerlinUrgent. That's urgent?
AlexYep, yep. Every day. Every day, Merlin.
MerlinUrgent generates an email from me, which does not make Daddy happy.
AlexI was not a fan. Also, someone every day puts up their door for sale that is $50 and has a glass crack down the middle. There's a lot of not—I should say—
MerlinYou're literal. You're literal next door.
AlexI really hate my neighbor or I shouldn't say like I don't hate the people in my building but I hate my neighbors. None of us interact with one another which is which is honestly what I like. But there are a lot of people who don't they love walking their dogs but they don't use a leash and they let that dog walk three blocks three blocks ahead of them. And it makes me so fucking nervous because it's a giant dog. And I like dogs, but not ones that don't have a collar or a leash.
MerlinThere are people. I mean, maybe this is virtue signaling, but there are people who are really fucking terrified of dogs.
AlexWell, there's little kids running around and I don't know.
MerlinAnd there's little kids and like, you know, it only needs to happen once. And now for the rest of your life, you're going to become somebody who's terrified of dogs because some idiot let their dog run up and jump all over you and bite you. It's crazy.
MaxIn my old condo building, there was a lady on our floor, and she had a huge upsetting, I think, some sort of blab or mutt, or I don't know. It wasn't, like, a great dog. This dog, this lady was, like, always, like, wine drunk, and she would, like, take this dog out for walks, and the dog was so fucking poorly behaved. It was on, like, one of those, like, long, long, extended, extendable, like, leashes, so it could just sort of go where the fuck it wanted. and whenever it would see you the dog would just jump up on you and like lick you and slobber and
like it would just be all up on you and the lady instead of sort of a preventing it from happening in the first place by like restraining the dog or b once he was on you like pulling him off she would sort of like very in like a sort of a stoned way she'd be like hey uh don't don't do that please you know and the dog would just continue going like it had no reaction to her sort of scolding it at all and you know whatever it only happened to me a few times it was no big deal but veronica like every morning when she would get up to go to work she would be going out at the same time this lady was walking the dog and like every morning she'd run into this
dog in the elevator and the whole elevator ride the dog would just be all jumping up on her and like like just you know all knocking her shit out of her hands and like i mean it's a big animal like and you know like like veronica aren't like tall so a big dog jumping on you it's like a lot of it's like a lot of slobbery dog fur in your face. So at one point, Veronica, like after, you know, I'm sure a year of this happening said to the woman, excuse me, but could you restrain your dog so that he doesn't jump on me every morning?
It's, it's kind of, you know, not, no, I don't like it when that happens. And the lady very passive aggressive was like, like, Oh, well, I can't believe you had asked me to do that or whatever. And then took the dog away. And then, and then like every subsequent morning where she ran into Veronica, the dog would come running up to Veronica and try to jump on her and then the lady would sort of half-heartedly hold the dog back while the dog still jumped on her. Oh, God. Man, I'm trying. But then the lady would go, oh, that's the mean lady who doesn't like dogs.
AlexTo the dog, she would say that. To the dog. Oh.
MerlinWell, that would be a perfect pose for Nextdoor.
AlexNot perfect, but quite good. Yeah, right. That's one thing I noticed there. There were not any photographs any photographs of people doing anything. However, there is, um, there was a man who also every day in crime and safety, um, his name is Charlie. He, he puts the Chicago police department, like comp stat, the actual PDF of it. Um, and he, he reposts it every day. New neighbors, uh, Charles beep, uh, beat facilitator for beat 1931. Um, Oh, is that where I live? Oh no, that's,
that's half of Chicago, explains what a beat facilitator is and then has this ominous sentence at the very end, I look forward to helping our neighbors deal with whatever crime issues arise, dot, dot, dot.
MerlinOh, God, sounds like he's masturbating when he says that.
AlexYeah, yeah. Also, some free picnic tables, some free dog food. There's a lot of free stuff.
MerlinYou get free, there's a lot of free stuff. There's a lot of, this is, I mean, this is all window dressing. This is not what Nextdoor is really for. Because that is mostly stuff where people are just talking into the air. They're like, I need to find, like, my nanny's really good. If anybody wants to hire her. Does anybody want to buy my set of eight bamboo chairs? There's all that stuff. But really, let's be honest, everything that's happening that's really interesting is in crime and safety. Yeah. But it's also, you know, the other thing is there's, you know, I was telling you about, you know, we have this, we mentioned this idea for our new breakout Dubai Friday character, Gary the Privacy Concern Clown.
there are there are there are various kinds of concern clowns on on next door and it really is a type and there are people who feel like it's their duty to all i guess like anywhere on the internet always their duty to come in and remind you about something that they have a concern about
Maxyeah like so an example an example would be like you post a picture of some of uh you know of something on your twitter feed and you're like hey look at this like here's a cute cat picture and then and then gary the privacy clown he chimes in publicly he replied he maybe he quote retweets you, right? So it's public. And he goes, oh, hey Merlin, did you know that you can see the reflection of your address in the window? And if I reverse it out in Photoshop, I can pinpoint exactly where you live.
MerlinAnd that screenshot,
MaxI can tell what kind of operating system you're using.
MerlinThat makes you vulnerable. Thanks, Gary.
MaxThank you. Thanks, Gary. Fucking vulnerable to you,
Merlinyou fucking creep. Yeah. I went into Google Maps and was able to find the green space where you were. You know,
Alexanybody could do that i have concerns for your privacy oh all right max i don't know if you got this or merlin is so our gun every day also the only thing in crime and safety would be hey did someone hear gunshots and then be like oh that's it that's a huge a huge one is confirm my reckon
Merlinwell that's that's like my second favorite is confirm my reckon and confirm my reckon is Did anybody else hear that last night? What was going on? I heard guns and dogs. Yeah, I heard that too. And then thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks. Because thanks is the like of Nextdoor. It's like, oh, you know, there's a guy rubbing his privates on people on the train.
Speaker AThanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks.
MerlinAnd I've sent you a bunch of, I probably deluged you guys with too many of some of my favorites recently.
AlexA lot of peeing happening on the streets.
MerlinA lot of peeing, but there's also in terms of the wrecking confirmations, a popular one is, That there's somebody in the neighborhood who looks like they might be doing a certain thing. And I called the company that I think they might be supposed to be from. And they said nobody's supposed to be in the area.
MaxOh, well, that's a classic. I mean, let me tell you, that's a classic thing. Like almost all home burglaries start with a team of like an A team of, you know, like X-Men A team. And it's like one of them, okay, she's like the hot woman and she's going to distract any passersby. But then you've also got –
MerlinAnd then you've got the computer guy. You've got the English guy with the bomb and the briefcase.
MaxAnd now you've got the disguise guy. He's the master of disguise. Now, he dresses up like the UPS guy. He smashes into your house. Nobody suspects a thing. Of course the UPS guy is smashing into your house.
MerlinThat's how they get you every time. Oh, yeah. When a guy shows up in a PG&E truck wearing a PG&E, Pacific Gas and Electric, PG&E uniform with PG&E gear and PG&E equipment, that is almost definitely a burglar.
Speaker AYeah.
MerlinBut the thing is, Max, you can call PG&E and say, should there be anybody in the area? And I imagine there's someone there whose job it is to say, no, no one is supposed to be in the area. Why would there be a gas and electric person in an area with gas and electric? That's so strange.
MaxYou can't explain that.
MerlinYou can't. You can't. Has anybody seen this guy from AT&T?
MaxShould he even be here? Here's the thing. These people have seen, their only reference for the world is watching, you know, fucking Chris Nolan Batman movies in Ocean's Eleven. So they assume that all crime is so convoluted and it involves, you know, George Clooney or like the Joker and they have like a series of accomplices and there's like ruses and counter ruses and it's like a home burglary is going to start with like you get a call that your daughter is kidnapped but it's actually she's double it's a double reverse she's not
actually kidnapped but you go racing off but then they kidnap her that's how they get you that's how they get you and you know listen i've been burgled i'm a guy who's been burgled you know many times and here's what happens here's how it actually goes down a guy in a hoodie uh kicks in your door takes whatever is immediately available and runs away and no technology will save you no door will prevent this the cops will always show up three hours later you know donut hanging out of their mouth and tell you feel like the suspect yes and they're never going to catch him and even if you
have ten thousand dollars of like dale gribble security cameras in your house all it's going to tell you is oh it was a guy in a black hoodie guy in a hoodie we got him we got him creepy car
Merlindriving slowly in the sunset. As I was coming home from school at around 325 today, a dark green four-door smallish car drove slowly past me, then turned around and drove back along the same street. The driver was a middle-aged Caucasian man, bald and I think was wearing glasses. Oh, okay. And she provides a photo of the creepy car. That could be anything. Now you've got a suspicious red truck. Suspicious. A suspicious dark red truck stopping and driving at intersection driven by mail mid-30s dark hair glasses seven thanks thanks thanks so my
Maxneighborhood the action is not actually on um next door there is some but it's almost all people asking for services like hey does anyone know a plumber does anyone know this like there's even the crime and safety is very uh sparsely populated um but the reason is in my neighborhood there's like a closed Facebook group called Neighborhood Watch. The Illuminati.
AlexYes. Wow.
MaxAnd there's 3,962 members, and they post very actively every day. Every crime, every police report is discussed. There's like one guy who's the ringleader who he's always fucking, I think his full-time job, honest to God, I think his full-time job is running this Facebook group, and all he does is meet with the alderman. I'm meeting with the alderman. And he knows all the homeless guys who live under the bridge who he can go to. And they're his sources. And people are fucking— They're like his Baker Street irregulars.
Yeah, exactly.
MerlinHis dark army of the night that he can call out.
MaxYes. Yeah, he goes down into the sewer.
MerlinGo fly my pretties.
MaxYeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy. These people, everything's a crime. Every fucking guy walking down the street—
MerlinBut everything is a potential crime. and eventually you're going to get credit for being the one who figured out that it was the guy in the green reflective vest that had been stealing all along and there's a lot of like
Maxthe other thing is there's a lot of like um advice that amounts to like the illusion of control over your life like living in a city where it's like it's like a big meme going around the group like over the over the winter was that like there was like garage break-ins and people were like oh the way they get in is they cut away the rubber seal that like connects the garage door when it meets the floor so like every day you got to check the seal and make sure that it hasn't been cut because that's how they like that's how they like scope you out for burglary and it's like you're they're gonna listen if someone wants to get into your garage they're gonna kick in the door and come
in like no you're not nothing's people don't understand this locks are locks cameras it's all those these are social that's to make you feel better well they're they're a social convention When a door is locked, it works because people agree to follow the rules of what that means. A lock does not fit. Unless it's a fucking bank vault, a lock does not physically prevent anyone from getting in. You still have windows. What's that? You still have windows. Right. Yes. Someone will get in. Listen, if they want to get in, they're getting in.
And you accept some risk of that by living in a city. That's just life. You get so many benefits from living in a city of having culture, food, diverse people to live with, whatever. all the you know cult arts theater like all this amazing stuff like right at your fingertips and you accept that there's like a 10 chance that your garage gets broken into and someone steals your cordless drill or something like you know it's like i don't know it's like like how much of your life do you want to devote to like countermeasures and you have a fucking shotgun with twine tied around the trigger you know what i mean it's like so the other thing is
i really believe if you spend your life in these paranoid dale gribble facebook conspiracy groups Let me give you an example of a post. April 24th, 11.59 a.m., Chicago, Illinois.
Okay, so what I see here, it's a photo of a house. This is for not quite my neighborhood. This is a neighborhood called Lincoln Park where very rich people live in Chicago. And it's a, okay, what I'm looking at here is a picture of a brown wooden fence. It looks like kind of an expensive, you know, sort of crafty, like, backyard fence, quite tall. Okay. I see in chalk in a sort of child's handwriting a circle, a big circle, about as wide as my arm span.
And then inside someone wrote Wolf for Congress. Wolf, the number for Congress. And this is, I think, a reference to the sheep all voting. And then the guy is like there's like a wolf holding up a sign that says Wolf for Congress. And the sheep are like, oh, there's just something I like about him. Have you seen this comic?
MerlinOh, it's terrific. I like he says what he thinks.
AlexOh.
MerlinYes.
AlexIt's a New Yorker. Isn't it a New Yorker? It's a New Yorker cartoon. Christ, what an asshole. Yeah.
MaxOkay. So that's my understanding of this joke. And it's circled. It says, Wolf Fork Congress. Pretty funny. Written in chalk on the fence. Now, here's the comment. There's a photo of this. Now, comment. Looks like they're just, quote unquote, tagging the four plus million dollar homes. Granted, it's only chalk. but if I catch anybody scribbling anything on my property, they would be vaporized with my top-secret Navy vaporizing gun.
MerlinI hope the miscreants are reading the Facebook group and know to avoid that particular vaporizer.
MaxThat'll show them. A couple of things about this. First of all, they say, looks like they're tagging the four-plus-million-dollar homes. Who's they? Do they think this is like the Crips? It's one of the urban tagging rings. Do you know what I'm saying? Do they think this is some sort of drug cartel marking their territory with a New Yorker cartoon in chalk? Well, it's like those shoes up in the wires. You throw a pair of shoes up in the wires to advertise drugs. But do you understand? They're joking about a New Yorker cartoon with chalk
in a children's handwriting.
MerlinThat also encapsulates a lot of what's going on in Nextdoor, which is that there are a lot of people who are telegraphing a very understandable amount of urban and suburban anxiety about things that are difficult to understand and change that is weird and looking for using the human ability to detect small changes in ways that are not fruitful. And then so, again, this is one of the jobs of Gary the Concerned Clown is to come up and remind people what they should and shouldn't be worried about. And there's people who just always say, did you call the police?
There's like a guy who just shows up on every thread to go, so did you call the police? because he's got a whole thing about how people don't call the police enough. There needs to be a record for all of these. Oh, well, this is a meeting and you can you can.
MaxAnd Gary shows up at the meeting. Well, there's some there's a next level version of that on on this Facebook group because there's semi professional, you know, fucking snoops and gossips in this thing. And they don't say, did you call the police? They know that people are calling the police. What they say is, I can you can I have the police report for my record? The case, the case number, the case number for my records.
AlexWait, how are people getting into this Facebook? How are people confirming? Well, I just applied to join.
MaxI think you're supposed to be invited, but I sort of heard about it, and I just applied to join, and they let me in.
AlexBut how did they know?
MaxAnd then when I joined, I looked at it, and it's the fucking, it's all these conspiracy theories. It's like, oh my God, like, oh, this car's parked on the side of the street. It's been there for two nights. What do you think it is? Is this like a drug car? Like, is it somehow related to crime? It's probably a drug car.
MerlinYeah.
MaxAnd they also post every, you know, every assault in the city, and they're just like, could happen to us? Like, I don't know why.
MerlinAnd then you have a Talmudic debate about what it means. Front gate tampered with an attempt to take it off its hinge. Today, between 11 and 2, our front gate was tampered with, so it would not close properly. End of post. Tampered. Five thanks, two replies.
MaxSo I get into this group, and the first thing I do is, this is right after I moved, and I posted in the group, and I said, hey, everybody, my name is Max. I just moved into this house, and I'm really excited to be a part of the neighborhood. It's great to meet you, and please let me know if you ever need to borrow a cup of sugar or if I can do anything as a good neighbor. And immediately I get called out by one of these detectives who is the ringleader of this group. He's like, please keep this on topic. It's for discussion of crime and safety only.
Makes you feel welcome.
AlexI don't understand. About once a month I'll get Postmates or DoorDash delivered. And I assume that these people are doing the same thing. You are letting a stranger open your door and hand you something you there's you can get murdered so easily here's okay here's another
Maxhilarious one this is another theme on our group is people complaining about police strategy um so there's basically someone posted an article showing that the neighborhood so like this is my neighborhood but a little bit wider so like i whatever fuck it i don't care i live in wicker park in which is sort of a a nice-ish hipster neighborhood in chicago and this is also for parts of um lincoln park which is like very bourgeois like rich but that really is like multi-million dollar homes and very suburban and there's a thing on the post saying like oh my
goodness like lincoln park has the lowest amount of police per capita of any neighborhood in chicago yeah of course it does because there's no crime because it's very safe to live there there and then they said there's only 40 officers per square mile in lincoln park which is crazy
AlexSee, that's way too many officers.
MaxAnd then here's another one. This guy posts tags like our alderman and the fucking detective ringleader of this group, and he goes, at all of these folks, how do you suggest we get the mayor's attention regarding crime in Lincoln Park? Call 311, email his office, organize a march on the 606 trail. We need to find a way to be a thorn in his sight. What fucking crime? Amazon package theft? That's the number one crime that's reported on this thing. is an old man was casing houses to steal the Amazon packages. Oh, I hope he doesn't get my fucking
HDMI cable and socks.
MerlinThat's a huge one here. As you guys saw from what I've been dropping into our private text group, there's a lot of stuff captured on cameras. You know, it's like, oh, Amazon package, Steve. Stole my one-year-old son's gift. I ordered a Fabergé egg from Amazon
Maxand an old man stole it off my stoop. Why can't a man live in Lincoln Park and enjoy his Fabergé egg? I was out of town for three months, summering in Venice, and the UPS driver carelessly left my Amazon delivery of a Fabergé egg right on the stoop.
MerlinI think one of my favorites, and then, of course, as I say, this is really in some ways about area of grievances. I sent you one of those my favorites. There are, of course, if anybody poops or pees somewhere, in other parts of San Francisco, that would be pointless because there's pee and poop everywhere. One of my favorites I sent you the other day. Disgusting behavior, subject line. And there's a picture of the floor of the ground outside somebody's garage door. You see a pair of white shoes. You see blue jeans and part of a black shirt. Someone just peed our garage entrance.
This is so disgusting. Our camera caught part of this person, black jacket, jeans, and white shoes. Watch out, this guy. Nailed him. We got him. Run that down. Six, six, six, thanks.
MaxThanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks. Three African-American youngsters just robbed Vintage Charm. What voice is that? Why are they calling? Who's, like, old enough to call them youngsters but, like, woke enough to say?
MerlinAfrican-American. African-American. That's a woke. You know what that is, Max? That's your new woke Facebook ally.
AlexAlso to be able to understand an iPhone.
MaxAnd then a top comment. 43 comments. Top comment. Thank God. It just so happens that the known offenders of retail theft in our area are a group of young black males, at least one wearing a hoodie, acting suspicious, or exiting from a car.
That's all black people.
MerlinYou've got to watch out for these crusty jugglers. Most young people wear a hoodie.
MaxI wear a hoodie every day of the year.
MerlinI am wearing one as we speak.
MaxAnd people frequently exit from a car, so what's left is it's a black person.
MerlinRight. Well, you know, not necessarily. no I mean no they're just being specific Max they just want to it involves clothing automobiles and the fact that they're black people
Maxyeah well if you see a black person wearing a hoodie and getting out of a car watch out because that's a known retail thief in our area
AlexI wonder like I because I do really weird suspicious things in my neighborhood like I park in weird spots I stand
Merlindon't you walk your cat on a leash Alex?
AlexI have a cat on a leash and you know sometimes I'll climb fences to like film things and like I do weird shit and I kind of hoped I'm like I wonder if I'll be on here because a lot of times you know I'm chilly and I will put up my hoodie and I'm carrying a you know a big scary camera or worse just nothing it's my phone but what would they say like a Caucasian dude or gay lady like climbing fences I don't know
Merlincan I suggest I mean this is just an idea why don't you try it in blackface. Do yourself up in blackface and wear a proper black man's hoodie. Like, not something cute. Like, I'm wearing this Mack Weldon thing that costs $400. You should get a proper black person's hoodie and wear some blackface and then go out and skulk like this.
MaxAs you know, I wouldn't rob a store in blackface because that's a very problematic stereotype that I wouldn't engage in. That's a good point. But I would go in there and I would tell them that I've had over 150 women and that I'm not proud of it. It's just a thing that I've done. And I might get my crayon out and draw a picture of it to demonstrate.
AlexYou should bring your falcon, too. Zapier, attack! Grab the jewels! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Speaker AAh! Ah!