Do By Friday
Episode 24 artwork
Episode 24 · May 4, 2017 · 01:11:37

24. White King Screamy Face

This week's challengeHave a drink.
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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, have a drink.

So we're recording from our new studio that, you know, works a little bit, which is very exciting. We're not cramped in a table. Max and I are at a reasonable distance apart from one another. We can actually see our waveforms as we're recording.

MaxEverything mostly works. Like, basically, we've paid a lot of money to get rid of the problems that we had with the old studio and introduce a whole new category of problems. And what's cool, and this is like, you know what it's like, Alex? It's like a bad mobile game where we leveled up, but the monsters also leveled up. So it's like we defeated the easier problems, but now we have new problems that come up, and they're just more expensive to solve. We have more XP, which is money, but now it costs more money to defeat the monsters that arise.

AlexAre you subcasting Clash Royale right now?

MaxI fucking hit legendary. I'm on such a roll in Clash Royale. I hit legendary again. I'm using the... We have one really good dude in our clan called Fubar. Thanks, Fubar. He's like, I don't know, whatever, Grand Wizard. And I just copied his deck, and I was like, fine, I'll learn how to play this. And so they have a Three Musketeers desk that he has. and I'm just on a rampage. I'm just crushing with this deck.

AlexOh, look at you. Look at your... So right now, Merlin, I'm committing time theft and I've opened my IAP mobile game. And so we're part of... Merlin, I know this is your favorite topic.

MerlinYeah, no, I'm very interested in what the Millenniums are doing with games.

AlexMax created a clan in Clash of Clans, which is better than Clash Royale. Is this one of the Screamy Face? It's a Screamy Face. It is a White King Screamy Face. Clash Royale is one of his, like, my favorite game of the past two years. And we have this wonderful clan called the IAP Boys. And I encourage you to join. We should probably cut this out.

MaxNo, listen, we have spots. If you play Clash Royale, join our clan, the IAP Boys. And it's honestly, it's probably the friendliest online community I'm a part of. I mean that without exaggeration. Like, everyone shares stuff with each other and give advice. Like, it's a great clan. And we just randomly have some very good players who are in the clan and kind of give advice to people. So I've been getting better at it. But it's for sure it's my favorite mobile game. It's a great game. I hate that they have the bad free-to-play incentive design in there.

But I like the game. It's very fun.

AlexI mean, over the entire span of this game, I've maybe spent $60 over two years. Which, like, if you think about it, like, Worlds of Warcraft is what, like $12 a month? Like, I don't feel...

MaxI'm probably in about the same boat. I think I've probably bought two of the $50 gem boxes. But that's, again, over many years of playing this.

MerlinYou guys talking about your studio, I've been having the same thought all morning. I just upgraded to the new Hulu live TV. And I think at this point I'm spending about $700 a month in order to be a cord cutter. I have all these different shitty-ass services that kind of work sometimes for some things with mini asterisks. Mini asterisks. And at the end of the day, it's like, why don't you just be a person and just go pay $100 a month for cable?

MaxBecause you want to know. Listen, Merlin, you want to know when the lady comes on Shark Tank and she's selling wine for cats. You want to know right away when that happens. You don't want to wait later.

MerlinYeah, yeah. But unfortunately, somebody from that particular episode was from San Francisco, so it's technically blacked out. That's an MLB term.

Speaker AOh, my God.

MerlinSometimes stuff just won't show up. And you're like, no, not available. Programming not available. Thanks, Sling.

MaxI'm a strong Listen I'm a big strong man And I have a lifestyle clothing That shows your butt muscles I'm here seeking One million dollars For 20% equity In my company Butt Muscle Pants Incorporated That was painful

MerlinThat was very And her witty retort To everything was Yes but I'm popular on Instagram

AlexThat was so bizarre You couldn't help then But go on Instagram And see that she was not that popular

Merlinwell but then and then but she'll just go like but it seemed like a like a mr show bit because no matter what they said she would go yeah i'm popular on instagram and then she turned and would literally show her ass to the camera she just kept turning and doing this pose like one of those like impossible spine bending comic artist like i i don't need to see both your boobs and your butt i don't want to see any of it i don't want to hear you don't you're not allowed to use the word instagram anymore you have to talk about money now

Maxbuzzfeed austin after a grueling 10-day trial a jury has ruled in favor of infowars founder and ceo alex jones's ex-wife kelly in the custody of their three children the jury which deliberated for roughly nine and a half hours, ruled Tuesday night to give Kelly Jones joint custody

with the ability to dictate the residents of the children. Previously, she had joint custody with limited supervised visitation rights with residents dictated by Alex Jones. Testimony from Jones's March 4th deposition revealed that he was unable to recall the names of his children's teachers after eating a big bowl of chili. He admitted to occasionally smoking marijuana nearly yearly to, quote, monitor its strength, which is how law enforcement does it, end quote. And in typical Jonesian fashion, he told the court that he tested the drug because he believes it is now too strong

thanks to billionaire and political donor George Soros, who he claimed in court has, quote, brain damaged a lot of people, end quote. For Jones, the end of the trial means not only a resolution in a heated years-long legal battle, but also the end of an uncharacteristic bit of restraint.

Speaker ADugga-dugga-dugga-dugga, follow up.

AlexOh my God.

MerlinIn a press conference following the end of the trial, Jones says the blustery pitchman also addressed a lawsuit filed against him by Chobani Brand Yogurt, saying he's considering counterswing.

Speaker AWe're thinking of an aggressive corporate strategy to actually go after the New York Federal Reserve and the school lunch program that Chobani's a part of, Jones explained.

MerlinJones later lashed out at reporters for not taking issues on Infowars seriously, including his worries about scientists reportedly injecting human cells into pigs, telling the assembled reporters,

Speaker ADo you have any idea how dangerous these human animal chimeras are?

Merlinbefore telling reporters to Google it. The website founder also fretted about, quote, rhesus monkeys you can buy in hong kong that glow in the dark and are part jellyfish and something he described as something he described as spider goats

Maxcan i just clarify this is outside of the court building after he lost custody of his children yeah that's the context of that press conference why is he battling with the with the good people

Merlinat the chobani yogurt corporation i lost the thread on this one uh so so he says chobani is part Alex Jones Chobani. I think they're part of the whole Soros rhesus monkey chimera. Big yogurt. Yeah.

MaxNo, wait, let me get this right. Is it ISIS? This is the revolving door of our sort of corporate democracy is people, they go into the government, they regulate the yogurt industry. One year later, where are they working? Big yogurt.

MerlinSuit was filed Monday in a district court in Idaho at issue our claims made in a series of reports published by Infowars that allege refugees employed by Chobani have committed sex crimes and caused an uptick in disease in Twin Falls, Idaho, where Chobani is located.

AlexOkay, people think I think I laugh. This is, I get that it's not good to reference idiocracy anymore and it's like chew on the nose, but what the fuck?

Speaker AI know.

MaxWelcome to Walmart, I love you. Hurry up, dumbass! Oh, God. Christ almighty.

AlexThese kids are going to end up in the acid bath. Oh, God.

MaxOh, my goodness. Chimeras. Now the wife has custody.

AlexWell, that's the thing. It's going to be retaliation because he just wants to test it to see the strength of the acid.

MaxMerlin, you're a father. Do you ever have a big bowl of chili and forget critical life information about your children, like their birthdays and the names of their teachers? I have to be honest with you.

MerlinI have to regulate the amount of chili that I eat because it has such a profound effect on what I know about my child. I forget to pick her up. I think she's a boy. It's horrible.

Speaker AI want chili. Big, big, jabotty chili. Human chimeras.

MaxOne too many servings of chili and you forget her completely. Oh, my God. Memory's very fragile. Dad's gone demented. He had too much chili. He has the chili dementia. Very sad. Very sad. Not good. I don't have the chili dementia, but I'm genetically predisposed to get the chili dementia when I'm older.

MerlinOh, no. Is that because you're part of the tribe?

MaxWell, this is all going to have to be edited out. As we've discussed, Merlin, if you remember, our competitor podcast, The Daily Show, they got in a lot of trouble when it was revealed that one of their – this is America's number one anti-Semitism podcast. It was revealed that one of their co-hosts was in fact married to a Jew. But isn't that, as they say, the exception that proves the rule? Isn't that how that works? I don't want our audience to think that there's any funny business going here because, you know, I don't want that critical anti-Semite demo.

MerlinIf you get that audience, that is a loyal audience. I mean, you know, most other kinds of programs, you make some casual Hitler remarks and all of a sudden, oh, there's a mass exodus, a diaspora, if you like. Suddenly, everybody's leaving your show because they don't like the Jewish talk.

Speaker AThe thing is, if you get anti-Semites as your audience, you can say anything you want.

MaxWell, and they buy a lot of powders is what I'm thinking. I mean, they're not, you know, these people, they don't have a lot of critical thinking skills. So you come on, you say, I take this powder. It's a super brain powder. It makes me smart. I don't need to sleep anymore. They're going to log on to Merlin Man Powders. They're going to buy the Merlin Man brain crystals for $29.99 per serving. And they're going to use the offer code 16 words at checkout.

Is that the right number?

MerlinI didn't have time to Google it. 888HH. did you uh did you see what is the number of words what what is the number is it am i in a

Maxstory what is happening words god damn it what's the listen what is the thing where it's the it's

Alextheir their code name is it the 22 words it's some number i don't look into this information

Merlinright right see i was thinking of the hh and the 8-8 that's another one come on i

Maxwhat is it? I want to know how many words. 14 words. Redo the joke so it says 14 words. We can edit that now with technology.

Washington, D.C., Reuters. More than five months after his victory and two days shy of the 100-day mark of his presidency, the election is still on Trump's mind. Made way through a discussion about the Chinese President Xi Jinping, the President paused to hand out copies of what he said were the latest figures from the 2016 electoral map. Quote, here, you can take that. That's the final map of the numbers. The Republican President said from his desk at the Oval Office, handing out maps of the United States with areas he won marked in

red. Quote, it's pretty good, right? The red is obviously us. He had copies for each of the three Reuters reporters in the room. What a fucking child. Our president is a child.

MerlinSurprised to learn that he had won. Oh, that's why we're in the president's office. He's the president. Okay.

MaxIt's crazy. Do you remember the story from a couple weeks ago where he walked by a gaggle of reporters and there was a photo of the inauguration crowd on the wall and he stopped and tapped on it. He goes, oh, what's this?

Alexwho lives in here success all right i'm gonna start drinking one of my beverage this is

Merlinuh you know this video's gone around a friend of the show john dickerson uh interviewing uh the president in his oval office which has no corners i i have have you seen the full unedited because the version they've been showing is where john you see a lot online is where john asks him, hey, you know, tell me more about this wiretapping. And the president doesn't want to discuss it. John pursues it very gently. And he makes a little kind of childlike noise. He's like, oh, why? And he talks a little more. And they cut off the part where Trump, they stop it at the

point where Trump says, okay, we're done here. Have you watched it to the end to see what happens after that? He takes like, but it's not like he's leaving the room. He just walks away from him. He takes three big boy steps, sits behind his desk, and looks at a pile of what looks like

Speaker Ablank paper. Yeah. And then like rearranges it. It's absolutely insane. It's batty. He just acts like he's not there.

MaxHe doesn't know how to, he has, yeah, it's like he's just, he's just an awkward child. He doesn't have any interpersonal skills. He can't make a fucking, you know, the whole premise of Trump is that, oh, he's like a deal maker, but yet he can't make a deal with the Republican Congress to pass any of his shitty legislation. He's just, he's very uncomfortable.

MerlinThere's a famous thing that was a funny bit on 30 Rock, but it's really, really true. A lot of people, when they have to appear somewhere and they're not behind a desk and they don't have to hold a mic and they don't need anything else, people don't know what to do with their hands. And it's often an indication. A lot of times you just plunge them into your pockets like they tell you not to do in public speaking classes or whatever. but like he just anytime that he any anytime that you can see his knees watch out he is very uncomfortable right he looks like he looks like he's waiting outside the principal's office

and in this case he's got to get behind the desk and get his big boy papers do you ever fantasize

Alexabout his legs like like i just want to know well you can see his legs the no no but the actual leggy legs yeah i i want to see the man in shorts like he must there's videos of him golfing in

Maxshorts oh he's first of all there's a couple of things google trump golfing and there's like some great pictures of him bending over to pick up the golf ball and there's a couple of things first of all he's like a lumpy old man like his thing of talking about how like strong he is and i would knock the hell out of them and like oh i'd like to fight him and like he's like a lumpy misshapen like obese old man like he's not gonna fight anyone he could he needs like he's like 10 minutes away from needing a mobility scooter perhaps perhaps you're not familiar with my

Merlincollection of photos called who wants pie being a collection of all the worst photos of donald trump i regularly curated collection and i do it in apple photo so i can export it as a movie with gentle music the one good thing we can't we can't wait to see what you're going to do with this

Maxthere's a little preview for you um he number two my other observation about watching trump golf in the shorts. He's clearly wearing an adult diaper. I don't know why there's no more conversation about the fact that he's obviously wearing an adult diaper. The President of the United States wears an adult diaper, everyone. I stand by that.

MerlinBoy, his slacks are really cut amply. Boy, you don't have the one of him bending over on the golf course here. I should get that. I really focused on chins and eyes. I love the chins. I got some good butt ones. I got a lot of tie ones. Every picture I could find of him with tape on his tie I have.

Alexoh wow i i really the the one where i i feel like you know the uh the the one that's dark and ominous i feel like this is what he would he he likes his self-portrait yeah the

Merlinkind of bluish blur background one oh my god yeah yeah they well like it's in his uh in his

Alexofficial portrait he looks like he's trying to pass a stone he seems to be a fan of the Zack Snyder lighting, I think.

MerlinI want to mention something about Nextdoor, which was the topic of last week. May I proceed? Please proceed. A couple people have contacted me through various means to say, hey, you guys, are you not aware that Nextdoor has had a proactive effort to try and deal with the kind of things that you guys were making fun of them about. So first of all, are you all aware of this?

MaxWell, obviously, we weren't aware about it because we were complaining about how bad and racist it was. So whatever proactive effort they're making, I assume they didn't start it since our podcast last week.

MerlinWell, I want to address this. And so basically, you'll find this in show notes, you'll find a blog post. So in a night, here's what they say. More recently, we've been testing an entirely new form-based process for how members create crime and safety posts. We are proud to report that the most effective combination of forms reduce posts containing racial—I don't know how you come up with this number—we are proud to report that the most effective combination of forms reduce posts containing racial profiling by 75% in our test markets.

MaxYeah, but that's the thing. Is it now that—

MerlinThat's a Bezos chart.

MaxIs it now that the guy says—it's not that he says, I'm really worried about how many black people are hanging out in the neighborhood. And now they say like, oh, I wish it stayed white out later. You know what I mean? Like in their algorithm is like, oh, we detect 75% less racism. Concerns about weather color. You know, are they like, is that my thing? That's my thing is like, okay, maybe they made everyone change their like Confederate flag avatars, but they're all out there tweeting their 16 words or whatever. You know, it's the code.

MerlinYeah, we don't need to go into it. I mean, I have a prepared remark. We don't have to go into this. All I'm trying to say is this. Yes, I am aware of that. I understand like things like, and here's what they're saying. They want to, God, this is so much corporate bullshit. One of the things they do is they've got like trigger words that are like, okay, obviously, if you say darky or something, that's going to get flagged. Their main thing, though, is they're saying, hey, stop, take a minute. Are you sure that this is a thing that you want to post? You know, would you be reporting this? Is this mainly because of this person? So I think the, I applaud the desire to reduce racial profiling.

I think racial profiling is a knock-on effect of something much more fundamental, which is why people go to this goddamn thing at all. And racial profiling may be a result of that, but I don't think you can address the deeper reason that this is where people go because change is scary and you need a posse. And I think that that's my feeling on this. You don't have to say – I mean it's about xenophobia. It's about change. It's about confirming your suspicions about where the world is going and finding people who can give you more evidence to support that claim.

So that could become about racial profiling. I think it's just a more general problem that the folks who are going to be using this app and site a lot are people who are fundamentally, primarily there to find allies about how change is scary.

MaxMerlin, are you sort of aware? I'm sure you've heard Ev Williams speak about technology. Are you sort of familiar with, like, I always think of it as, like, the Ev Williams, like, theory of technology and human nature, which is—

MerlinI don't know. Share it with our listeners.

MaxSo Ev has this thing he says, which I'm kind of paraphrasing here, but it's that techno-utopian, you know, techno-utopists and Silicon Valley people, they often think that if you just build the right technology, it will kind of change how people act, right? Like, if you just change people's incentives, it'll change how they behave. And his thing is, human nature is actually much more powerful than technology. And technology is just, it just amplifies human nature. So it just takes the way people are and makes them more that way. So if people are petty and dumb and talk over each other and partisan and, you know, bicker all the time,

and you build Twitter, it's not going to make everyone listen to each other and come to a consensus. It's just going to amplify their ability to be petty and shitty to each other. And if people are already racist and patrolling their neighborhood to keep certain people in and certain other groups out, and they're thinking oppositionally about their neighbors and being sort of xenophobic and territorial and small-minded and provincial in their thinking about what their community is and what their neighborhood is, next door, having an open forum for people to talk about that, it won't solve those problems.

It will just let them do it at scale, right? It just gives them a megaphone to be xenophobic but louder.

MerlinThat absolutely makes sense to me. One thing, though, when we use these words, I mean, I am circumspect about a bunch of words, not just because they are fraught or charged or problematic. But the word homophobia is not meaningful to me because I know that's now meant to mean lots of different things. But I think we should be careful about how we use that word. I think racism is a word to be really careful about because let's, okay, well, we're calling it racism, but that's not a one-bit thing. It isn't like you're racist or not.

And that's, I mean, I'm a woke Twitter ally, so I feel qualified to discuss these things. But, like, for example, like, okay, so there's a bunch of people acting a certain way about a certain other group of people. What are the primary performance characteristics of that group? I think it's important to clarify, to really listen to what the people are saying and realize that at an extreme end, it is hate. There is something called hate. And hate is that I am all in on the fact that these people shouldn't even exist in some cases, right?

But then you've also, you've got hate. Below hate, you've got things like anger. Like, I don't like the way that these people get treatment different from me. I don't think that's fair, et cetera, et cetera. So you've got to go from hate, you go down to anger. Somewhere further down the line, though, you've got fear. And fear is super complicated. So I think just saying that you hate gay people is not the same as you fear gay people because maybe you just fear change. And I think to understand how America is going the way it's going, we need better words for this. So in this case, when I look at next door what I'm trying to say, I don't see hate.

I don't really that often even see anger. I see fear. I see total abject fear. I see fear of a loss of allies, fear of a loss of dependability, and fear that you are up to date on what is happening in your world and that there is now an encroachment. That can turn to anger and hate. But I think it's important to distinguish when we're watching people being fearful versus being hateful because it can feel the same. And I know it's politically expedient to say they're the same, but they're really not the same.

AlexI mean, I would love it if more people were afraid of me. Not going to lie.

Speaker Ayou gotta move the needle

MaxI'll just say like at this point I'm in maybe a fairly cynical phase here, I don't think that the project is to go out and change everyone's mind who says all the people out there who regardless of what's in their heart, they say racist things or homophobic things online, right? They say

fearful, hateful things online. Not really in the business personally. I don't feel that there's a lot to be gained by trying to change their minds. I actually think there's plenty of research that shows that, like, let's say someone says something really, really homophobic, and then you call them out on Twitter and you said, hey, the thing you said is really homophobic and it makes me feel this way and etc etc there's actually a lot of research that shows that that will actually cause them to double down on their homophobia because it's called this thing called the backfire effect you can go read someone should do a cartoon about that yeah that's right there was that there was

that oatmeal cartoon about it but it's a it is a real thing right and he just just to be clear he

Merlinlearned about it from the the very good you are not so smart podcast where they did a series on the backfire effect that i can highly recommend and i will put in show notes uh it's a it's a real

Maxproblem like i first became aware of this it's true for everybody it's not just dummies and

Merlinding-a-lings, because we're the dummies and ding-a-lings, is true for everybody. You will double down on a belief if somebody, even if somebody very convincingly gives you a very rational explanation for something, that will cause you to believe what you believe even more.

MaxThere's, you know, liberals are not, liberalism, our side is not without its share of sort of crazy a priori things that are not supported by any evidence or data that people cling to. And I would point towards the health, the alleged health benefits of supplements and organic foods and things like that is like one particularly like wacko area of sort of like liberal ideology that does not hold up to any scientific scrutiny. But the more you sort of want to argue that with people, the more they double down on that they're keeping the toxins out of their body or whatever.

But all of this aside, like, you know, like I first became aware of this with the vaccine debate because there was all this research where people were – or projects where people were like, let's take the people who don't believe vaccines are safe. And what's the correct data to show them so that they change their mind? And they were like, what if we show them pictures of really sick kids who didn't get the vaccine and then got sick? What if we show them the clinical trials that show that the vaccines are safe? And it turns out it doesn't matter what you show them. Anything you show them that argues your point that vaccines are safe makes them retrench more firmly in their position that vaccines are unsafe because they're thinking emotionally, not logically.

So just to back up to the issue of like someone's online, someone's on next door or whatever, and they're saying a homophobic thing, they're saying a racist thing. And I don't, I'm at a point of maybe this is cynicism or whatever, where there's not a lot to be done to like go in and argue with them and have a debate and be like, ah, my friend, you've committed the, you know, you've committed a ad hominem attack, my good sir. You know, and like, and have like a reporte with them. Like, it's not, it's not going to, that's not going to happen. All you can do is sort of design, if you're in a position of sort of influence or power, just design a space where they can't say the racist or homophobic thing.

That's basic. And, like, draw a line of good taste and say you just have to be on this side of the line of good taste. That's what I'm aware of, of what I can do. I'm sort of post-wanting to, like, you know, like, find a conservative who doesn't think gay marriage should be legal and, like, engage them in a war of ideas.

MerlinBecause now you're getting involved in your own false equivalency program.

MaxRight. It's like I don't – it's like what can I say that's going to – they have a – we don't agree on enough sort of groundwork. ground floor principles that would allow us to reach a conclusion together right no well they

Merlinalso have a uh a secret disintegrating uh naval disintegration beam remember if somebody comes in

Maxthe yard oh that's oh scary man well it's well you're gonna get some spider goats and you want

Alexto be prepared i mean like seriously the the the i think safe spaces are made fun of a lot but it's like i i'm just not gonna invite racists into my house and i'm not gonna like have mean people in my Slack channel. And we talked a while ago about feeling like Twitter was kind of being like gentrified by angry white men. And that's just what it feels like. There's no fun, nice place on the internet. And I don't think there's a way to create it,

but I don't know.

MerlinNo, I think you're right. I mean, it's-

AlexThere's all weirdos with lasers all the way down.

MerlinThat's how I used to feel about comments where I, you know, comments, people run comments because it increases site traffic. That's why people have comments. No one cares what you think. That's why people do comments. It means three clicks instead of one, at least. So let's just get that out of the way. No one really wants comments. But think about how bad comment threads had to get before people would give away that much traffic because it was so gross, so unmanageable, so off-putting to advertisers.

It's so amazing to me that that's what it took for people to take down comments was this was too costly to maintain or we were losing sponsors. Whereas I always felt like, you know, I eventually turned them off on my site because I felt like a little bit like I had this giant living room or this series of, at any given time, 35 living rooms that I have to police to make sure that nobody's in there shitting on the couch when I'm not around. And, you know, I agree with you. And safe space is, again, such a fraught word. But, like, I don't think there's anything weak or incorrect or sad

about not wanting to be forced to be confronted with people who are horrible. Like, why is that such a terrible thing, you know?

AlexI don't understand why, like, the outrage whenever a site would turn off their comments. Like, that was like a story for a week when The Verge turned off comments. Like, you don't have a right to comment about the new Samsung phone.

MerlinI think that's because we don't think like most commenters, or at least I don't. I think of myself in a very fancy way as somebody who makes stuff and shares it with people. and publishes, right? That I'm a primary publisher of stuff in one way or another, which is kind of a fancy old school idea. I think what took me, I feel for myself, what took me a long time to understand is that there are a lot of people who think commenting is what the internet is for, that it is an art form all its own. Whether you're a troll or an explainiac or whatever you are, you have a thing that you need to do on the internet.

And it's, I'm not saying this, I'm not taking the piss. I mean, I honestly think there are people who think as soon as you shut down the ability for me to leave my mark on your content, I have absolutely no interest in your content anymore. It would be like having a Twitter account that you couldn't follow, right? I mean, what's the point if I can't see and then respond to anything you say regardless, which is a different personality type? I don't think that way. That would be really weird and intrusive from my point of view, but I think that's a thing, don't you?

MaxYeah, we're just in like, we're also in just this like crazy Copernican revolution of like everybody in the world thinking of themselves as the pundit or the publisher. Where it's like nobody, very few people I think go on to like a site like Twitter or Facebook to like consume the news. You're going on to be like, all right, everybody buckle up. Like here's the Temkin report. And we're on today. You know, it's like everybody, everybody's the fucking wolf blitzer of their own situation room.

No, you're in the situation room. No, you are. That's, that's the weird, uh, uh, that, that there is like, that is the one area where they're like, you know, they're like horseshoe theory where they're like far left and the far right, like start to converge politically. it's total bullshit because there really isn't any ideological convergence except there's a few areas where there are some funny things in common and one of them is the people on the far left and the people on the far right they all think posting is warfare they all think that you're like putting on a helmet and riding into battle

when you make comments on Twitter suit up guys we gotta post some big memes today welcome to the culture war

Alexwe need like I don't know if this character exists but we just need a Jon Stewart of the internet to talk to people the way he did, the way he talked to the guys on Crossfire and just be like, okay, stop, calm down, everyone be nice.

MaxYeah, I don't know about that. Okay, I have a long rambling story that I promise connects back to this. Can I tell it? Please do. Okay, so when we did our California trip, we talked about this last week, we had the cards retreat in like Napa or somewhere up there where the wine is. and we were looking for like some stuff to do. Like, you know, every day we want to like take a little bit of a break, go do something, have an experience, and then come back and make some jokes about it. And we looked at the idea of doing a hot air balloon ride and I was too scared so that got scrapped and also it took like six hours or whatever.

That's a hell of a way to die. I don't want to die in a hot air balloon, like slowly drifting out to sea, you know, you have no control. But how do you poop? That's a great, that is a great question.

AlexYou can't have kombucha on that trip.

MaxThat's a great question. I assume they have some sort of—

MerlinI'm not going to go into any experience where at any point someone could say to me, you can't poop while we're doing this.

MaxI mean, I guess they set it down and they have some sort of paint can that you diarrhea into. I don't know. So we were Googling stuff to do, and there's this thing called Safari West. Are you aware of Safari West? No. Merlin?

MerlinNever heard of it.

MaxOh, boy. Never heard of it. This is going to be your next family vacation. All right, so this is a place. It is a huge, huge tract of land where they, in Napa, I believe, where they raise antelopes, rare and endangered antelopes of all different species. So it basically, as I understand, it started with this guy who I think his dad made a bunch of money in Hollywood or something. and he started raising show cattle, like exotic cattle,

not even to eat, just to show and to have them because they were cool. And he was raising this African cattle called wetusi, which are these things with the huge horns coming out of their head. And then eventually he got into antelope because when you're importing a bunch of animals from the African grasslands, like why not get some antelope? And then he became one of the largest keepers of antelope in the world and had all these endangered antelope species and was breeding them in interesting ways and all that. And eventually he got a bunch of land and moved up to like Sonoma or wherever.

And by being a bunch of land, we went in a safari car in one of those like Jurassic Park cars, and we drove around for two hours and never saw the border of it. I'm looking at the site.

MerlinThis is so bananas.

MaxIt's right in your backyard. You really should go. So the tour that we did was called the – we did this thing called the Nerd Tour, and we actually had a zoologist. She studies bones, basically.

And she took us around and gave us all the sort of science and all the behavioralism behind the animals. It was quite in-depth. Now it's become a big tourist attraction. And they have a bird sanctuary and they have giraffes and elephants.

MerlinGiraffes and zebras and gnoos.

MaxThey have all kinds of stuff, primarily just because they make their living, I think, with tourism now. um and there were a couple of great things that i learned on this trip like so one of them is like we were in this one area and they have to trim we were like we were in this like forest and all the forest looked bizarre because what they do is they trim it's all oak trees because you're in northern california and they trim the oak trees six feet up so there's no oak leaves and the reason is the oak is poisonous to all the animals if they eat the oak leaves they could die from it So just call this metaphor town.

So they so you're you're in you're in a very northern California like environment, you know, an oak forest. And there's like squirrels like North American ground squirrels running around and like, you know, Canada geese and things like just very it's like very familiar. And then all of a sudden a herd of buffalo comes by or like antelope or whatever. And at one point they were explaining like, oh, right. So they trim these oak trees six feet up and they were like, oh, that's also why we have to keep the giraffes on the other side of the park. because if they got out here, they could eat the oak trees

like all the way up above the six feet. And a giraffe can eat like 40 pounds of leaves a day. And Josh, without having any restraint, he immediately says to our guide, the zoologist, you should let the giraffes out and let them eat the oak trees and see who dies first.

Which was a great moment. but the okay so here's the here's the thing that remind that this reminded me of so when we they have some white rhinos and uh the white rhinos are pretty cool i've certainly never seen one before and i learned an amazing thing about white rhinos which is the rhinos in nature so so okay so here's the situation they've got one man rhino and one lady rhino in a pen together and they're trying to get them to fuck and they won't do it and it's been years and the rhinos won't fuck so what they did is they take another sort of virile young male rhino and they don't put him in the enclosure

with the rhinos that they want to fuck they put them next to it and the idea is that his smell his sounds and his pheromones and his presence will sort of spur the other male into being like we better fuck now so and i think it's actually they've had some success with it but one of the fascinating things i learned is that these two rhinos have sort of like a i don't know territorialism or whatever, is rhinos have this thing that they form called a dung pile. So basically they're very neat animals. They all poo in one big tower, and this thing is called the dung pile, and it can get like, I don't know, six, seven feet tall, quite tall.

And that's sort of how they mark their territory is with a big dung pile. And when the other rhino wants to come in to challenge the alpha rhino's territory and cock him and take his woman. Take his wives and chattel. Yeah, and say, hey, listen, it's been seven years, and you're not fucking, and I'm going to get in here. He comes in, and he knocks the other rhino's dung pile over. He uses his horn and knocks it to the ground and scatters the dung around and starts his own dung pile and says, Oh, no, my dung.

Oh, no, my dung. And he says, hey, bitch, this is my dung pile now. Now look at this. And that's how he establishes dominance. It's the gorilla mindset. It is the gorilla mindset. And this is what I was thinking is that this is really Twitter as we're describing it. Everybody works all year. You work all year to build your little dung pile up. And then someone else comes along and they're like, hey, bitch, this is my dung pile now. And they scatter your dung and they start piling up their dung pile until they have a bigger dung pile until someone else is like comes and gets them and scatters their dung pile.

And it's just this like all these gorillas just beating each other into submission. but at the end if you could just step back and like look at objectively what's happening everyone's just fighting over a pile of shit it's not good there's no objective quality to it like i don't want a big pile of rhino rhino turds i need another beverage after that

MerlinI think that's everything. Are we done with the follow-up copyright John Syracuse 2010?

Alex2011. I think so. This was Max's challenge.

MerlinChallenge. This week the challenge comes from Max. What was our challenge, Max?

MaxOkay. Challenge time. So let me give the whole, can I give a backstory to this challenge and then I'll talk about what it was? Yes. Sure. So I have a little bit of beverage drama occurring in my life that I want to address publicly and see if I can. Do you want to share out, Max? Yeah, I want to share out. I want to put this out onto the feed. And I want to come to the Powder Nation and rally them to my side. And I want to see if I can get any relief for the affliction, for my beverage affliction that's been occurring in my life. Okay.

Story begin. So there's a coffee place in my neighborhood called Buzz Killer Espresso. And it's a very cute, sort of delightful neighborhood coffee shop. At Buzz, since I've lived here and been going there several times a week, I've discovered the magic and the delight of the cappuccino. This is sort of a new coffee drink for me. Like, I'm kind of a, I always just ordered a latte because I conceptually understand that a latte is milk and coffee. And I don't, as it turns out, I don't really like a latte.

I just sort of drink it because it, I don't know, it's just sort of a hot milky drink. But I don't really want a hot milky drink. What I want, now that I've discovered that it exists, is a cappuccino. And the cappuccino, as they make it at their neighborhood place called Buzzkiller Espresso by my house, is a small, tiny little cup. It's got, I think, two shots of espresso and then sort of milk foam and maybe just a little bit of milk. And the overall experience of drinking this is it's a strong coffee beverage with a sort of a delightful, foamy, light, toasted texture.

It is not a big, tall glass of hot milk with some coffee in it. It's not that. It's its own foamy, delicious thing.

MerlinAnd as somebody who thought you wanted in previous times, you thought your drink was the big foamy milk thing. This is a new, it's a revelation for you. It's a revelation. This is a whole new thought technology.

MaxExactly. And I'm like, holy shit, I've been spending years of my life getting a latte and I don't like a latte. A latte is a big, listen, no grown man should drink a big tall glass of milk, a hot milk. Nobody should guzzle a hot glass of milk. That's like an exquisitely weird food for a grown man to have every morning. So I'm very, listen, now I've seen the light. I want the cappuccino. But I have this problem of like if I go to any other coffee shop, I don't know how to get what I want. So if I go to, let me just start with a Starbucks.

If I go to a Starbucks and I order a cappuccino, what I get is a small latte. It's like a shot or two of espresso and then they fill the cup all the way to the top with hot milk. And I'm still drinking a hot glass of milk with a little bit of coffee in it. And then I had an experience when we went to NerdCon Stories, and there was that really good, I think it was like a Pete's Coffee, but it was like the convention center owned and operated. You know, it was like they had a good staff.

AlexOh, yeah.

MaxIn the convention center.

AlexThe only time this has ever happened in the history of conventions.

MaxYes, it was like an excellent coffee shop in the convention center. And, you know, I was in there five times a day or whatever, and I got to know the people, and I eventually said, listen, like I don't want to be an asshole or picky, but I have this drink I love that's like a it's like a thick foamy like cappuccino without a lot of milk it's just sort of like I think it's like mostly foam and espresso and that's what I want I just want that I don't want a big tall glass of milk and the cashier who's taking my order goes oh she goes you want a real cappuccino and I was like yes a real cappuccino that's what I want a

real cappuccino and she goes got it and she turns to the barista and goes one real cappuccino please and the barista goes, a real cappuccino. Got it, coming up. Wow. And I'm like, thank you. I was like, I've been waiting. I've been literally, it's been like a year, I've been trying to decipher how to sort of order what I want. And I've never heard the phrase a real cappuccino. And I'm so grateful to know this. So I pay, I go to get the drink, I get it. And it's a fucking tall glass of hot milk with espresso in it. It's not any different. It's the same thing. You got fucked, Max.

I got fucked. I think they put it in a smaller cup or something. Honestly, I don't know what the hell was going on. so now there's a new coffee shop right by our office called Werewolf Coffee have you been here? yes it's awesome it's so cool it has so much cool hipster shit there's little succulents everywhere and it's all built inside of a stationary indoor like food truck kind of apparatus it's so cool I love this place but I don't again I go in there I order my cappuccino and it's a tall glass of milk with espresso in it so I'm at wit's end

I don't know how to order the drink I want from Werewolf Coffee which is the place right next to our office. I just want to go over there and get my cappuccino and I don't know how to do it. So I asked Ben, my co-creator of Cards, who owns a coffee shop in LA. And I said, Ben, I want this drink. How do I order it? And he said, well, Americans don't really like that drink. So most places, you can't really get it. And I said, there must be something I can tell people where they'll make this for me. Like, I'm actually asking for less milk. I want to pay the same amount and have less milk, which is the most expensive ingredient.

So just give me what I... And you don't want to talk about it. But I don't want to make a special request. So Ben said, well, go in and try ordering a dry cappuccino, because people will know that that means less milk. So I went in, and I was like to Werewolf last week, and I was like, can I get a dry cappuccino? And they fucking laughed at me. They could tell they were giggling. Oh, and the other thing was, so she rings it up and then says to the barista, can I have a dry cappuccino? And the barista turns around and goes, what? And then she had to lean in and be like, it's a cappuccino, but with less milk. and I watched this whole thing go down

and I was like, I'm humiliated. I just cucked myself. I can't stay in here and order a special drink. Do you know what I mean?

MerlinI feel your pain because what you're describing is something I suffer from this with burgers. I suffer from this with haircuts. I suffer from this with so many things where I think what I want seems so straightforward to me. I know there must be a name. You can be one of those idiots who's like, I always order off the secret menu. It's like, oh, fuck you. but like there is there's got to be a name for the thing that i want so like one time i got a haircut i liked and i wrote down the exact i said i said judy tell me in exact words what to ask for to get this again

so i have a file called haircut.md and it's all it says is two and a half on the sides finger length on top okay okay so here's the thing though so i have learned i have learned to make this work for me i've learned to do what you did you go to somebody who does this a lot, who has done this for years, and you say, look, please wait to tell me if what I want is weird, but I want to describe to you exactly what I want, and then I want you to tell me if there is a name for that that I should know, or if there's special coded language that I should use that's a

term of art that this person would understand. I cannot believe you have not found this yet. There's got to be a name for what you want. I don't even know how to Google it.

MaxI just look for how to order a cappuccino. But when I would, when I tried it and I'm like, or cappuccino with less milk, good cappuccino, real cappuccino. I tried it. I can't fucking figure it out. And here's the thing is even if, I'll be honest, even if someone does tell me what to order and it's like, okay, here's what you're going to do. You're going to ask them for the 12 ounce cup. You're going to say you're going to put in half the milk and steam it this way. Like, can you imagine going up to the counter in a coffee shop and unfolding? You like fucking, you break the seal on a scroll and you like, it's a parchment roll. You open your scroll up and you're like, I've got a lot of instructions here.

In fact, let me just come back there and make it myself, if you don't mind. It's like, I'm not, that can't be my life. I can't be that guy.

MerlinThe terms wet and dry are used to describe the amount of foam that a drink has. Dry means lots of thick, pillowy foam. Wet means less foam. Tell me how that makes sense.

MaxWet, well, because the foam is sort of, it does make sense. The foam is the texture. What I want is, I basically think, I think what I want is foam and espresso. and maybe a small amount of milk. Okay. And so what's a latte? A latte is hot milk and coffee. Or espresso, right? And cappuccino is foam and coffee? Well, as far as I can tell, a cappuccino is just, it's the same thing as a latte, but less of it.

MerlinI got a feeling these are all the same drink.

MaxThey really are. That's what's so frustrating.

MerlinWhat's a macchiato? Has a macchiato got a caramel in it? What's a macchiato?

MaxI've never ordered that. I don't know. I know. It's like I...

MerlinOh, for the love of God. Macchiato. It's espresso with a tiny amount of steamed milk Oh, maybe that is what I want That might be what you want You might want a macchiato You get a cortado Also known as the Gibraltar You can get a dirty There's a new thing called a flat white You can get a donkey punch Do you know what the flat white is? Flat white, very popular If memory serves, that was very popular in New Zealand when I was there

MaxFlat white, it's what the KKK says It's their secret code to indicate their 16 worth I thought that was when you made an okay with your fingers, Max

Merlinmake an okay.

MaxYou know, Germans count to three like this. Black White is an espresso-based coffee beverage. The beverage is prepared by pouring micro-foam, steamed milk consisting of small, fine bowls.

MerlinOh, you're talking about that thing that's somewhat similar to the traditional 140-milliliter cafe latte, the smaller in volume and less micro-foam? Is that the one you're talking about?

MaxI am, yes. But therefore, it has a higher proportion of coffee to milk. Well, it doesn't have a higher or lower proportion

Merlinof coffee to milk. Okay, all right. What about the consistency? How's the consistency? Is it more or less velvety, would you say?

MaxWell, I would say it allows the espresso to dominate the flavor while being supported by the milk. Ported by the milk, yes. You know what? I'm reading this and maybe I want a flat white.

MerlinIs that possible? They all sound like the same drink to me. I'm sorry. I know I sound hopelessly provincial. These all sound like coffee plus dairy.

AlexThese all sound like disgusting bodily functions to me. And I'm not looking forward to everybody on Twitter correcting us.

MaxHoly shit. Maybe I want a flat white. You might want a flat white.

MerlinAlex, you should do that. You should walk in and start asking for bodily functions. Can I get a hot fisher? Can I get a... Do you guys do a good stoma?

MaxOkay, wait, can I... How about a stent? How are your stents? Hang on, hang on, hang on. I'm scrolling down to similar beverages on the flat white. Tell me if this makes any... I'm so confused. That's essentially the opposite of a dry... It's the opposite of a dry cappuccino. No! No, I thought I had it figured out. Okay, it says the flat white is essentially the opposite of a dry cappuccino, which has dry, frothy foam, but no liquid milk. A flat white has milk or microfoam, but no froth. What the fuck is a microphone if not froth? How could the froth and the microphone be different things?

The milk should be velvety rather than fluffy, therefore, quote-unquote, stronger, which requires a shorter or restresso run to avoid harsh flavors. Okay, wait a minute. Do I want a velvety milk or a fluffy milk?

MerlinYou might want a cafe con leche, which is a scalded milk.

MaxNo, no, no. Oh, no. What do I want? Do I want a velvety or a fluffy milk? Well, just make sure you know what you're asking for. dry as wet and wet as dry. Are there people who go to a coffee shot and they're like, I want a Restresso, give me the Restresso shot with a velvety microphone. Is that a thing that people talk to each other about? You know, you know people do that. I'm sure people do.

MerlinHoly shit.

MaxOkay, listen to me. Okay, so listen, this is my cry for help to our listeners. Oh God, no, don't ask for help. Don't do it. No, no, no. Listen, I want you to tell me what to order at Werewolf Coffee so that I can get the drink I want. And I just want to give one final – I know that people are not going to listen to this, and they're going to tweet me the wrong fucking advice. So let me be very clear about what I want. The drink I want, it has a small volume. It is not a big volume. One of the ways that a cappuccino goes horribly awry is when it comes in a huge glass full of hot milk.

I do not want a huge glass full of hot milk. I do not want that. I just want to repeat one more time. Do not tell me to order something that yields me getting a large quantity of hot milk. I don't want to drink that. What I want is a small little glass that I carry around like a dainty Italian man. And he has tiny round glasses and talks about fonts. I want a tiny little cup. I want a tiny little cup. And I want it to be sort of – I have a thick, hearty consistency where it's like a toasty, delicious, foamy treat for my mouth.

I do not want a brown hot milk that slightly tastes like coffee. You don't want a soup bowl of milk art. I do not want that. Do not tell me to order. Sounds like you want a cappuccino. I will block you from the podcast. If you tell me to order a huge bowl of hot milk, I don't want that. Oh, my God.

AlexI would say that we're a part of annoying coffee tech Twitter, and I can't believe – like, someone has to know what's happening here. Oh, God.

MerlinNo, you're going to get a lot of responses. I just don't know how you're even going to know which one even might be correct. You're going to go through 20.

MaxTrial and error. I'll try anything that's plausible. I'll try ordering it. listen i might write them all down on a piece of paper and go in and be like make me one of all of

Merlinthese that's that is exactly that is exactly what i think you have to do you need to record it every single one of these let's say the first 20 that you get you i think your pledge the max temp can pledge is you will go in and you will order all of those exactly however they say and then you

Maxwill try each all at once okay yeah i'm into it listen i will probably do that if you send me a plausible drink that I can order. Also, I want to put one other caveat on this, which is don't make me say more than one word. I mean, seriously, like I'm not going to fucking go in there and order up velvety foam with a this and that. Just I just tell me what to ask for. Look, I know that this drink exists. Just tell me what to order. Okay, one. And here's another one other thing is tell me about this plan. I have also thought in when I was really frustrated about this, that maybe what

I would do is get a little cappuccino from Buzz, right? The good one that I like. Walk it over to Werewolf Coffee. Maybe I bring it over in like a temperature container cooler like I'm transporting, like a kidney. Bring it in there. Open it up and say, I'll give you $100 if you can make this. And then tell me what it is. What is this? The prestige. Yeah. And that's a good idea. They could 3D print it.

MerlinI was so confused by this challenge because the initial challenge was something like think of a beverage that you like and then get it from someplace else was the original and then your thing was just go get a drink you like. I just, that was the challenge.

MaxI reverse engineered this whole thing so that the Powder Nation would tell me what kind of coffee to order a werewolf coffee. Cox's Cox. Cox's Cox, get on the case.

Alexall right merlin what was your did you just pick up a beverage then are you just enjoying i did i

Merlinsent you a uh i sent you an iphone photo of my beverage uh one of my favorite non-alcoholic beverages is a nice coffee and i don't get it too often because i like any person who's being honest

Maxdid you know that in the background of this photo you can see the coffee Oh my god, Gary, what do you see? You should be pretty careful while posting this online.

Speaker AI can tell it's daylight out. I have concerns about your privacy. Oh, you want to be in the Northern Hemisphere? I'm sending you a link about something called EXIF data. Were you aware? You can uncrop a photo. Did you know that? I drew your dick on this. Anybody could do that.

MaxI'm just trying to help you. And if you zoom into the beads of water on the side of this coffee glass, I could see your reflection in them.

Speaker AI got your fingerprints off the cup. Anyone could do that. I'm just concerned about your privacy.

MaxMarlon, I've taken the picture of your keys and 3D printed a key to your house. I'm just worried about your personal safety. It's just a nice concept.

MerlinAnd there's 16 more clowns in his car. They're all very concerned. Oh, Gary. I remember one of the first times having iced coffee. I was talking to my friend Dave Morris, better known on the Internet as Hardy White. And he was talking about how he had had relationships end just on the basis of iced coffee.

And I found that this can be true. Iced coffee, you can drink so much iced coffee so fast. And I'm just telling you, buddy, all I do, I get coffee on ice. That's it. I don't put any sugar. I don't do any half and half. It's a delicious treat that I only usually let myself have as a little reward or if I'm traveling or something just because this might be my meth. Like I cannot have too much of this or I get super duper weird. And also I didn't understand the challenge, so I went and got something I like.

But that's mine. It's a special. I don't get it too often. And, you know, once you're somebody who doesn't care that that much, I care some about coffee. I mean, I get OK, good coffee. I don't you know, I even get ground coffee. I don't care. We got a good burr grinder. Don't at me. But I would just assume we just want to drink coffee and get on with our lives.

AlexJust coffee on ice. It's the best. Does the temperature of coffee change like the chemical makeup? How does it differ? Are you a daily coffee drinker?

MaxYeah.

AlexWhy does the cold, why does ice coffee make you weird?

MaxWhy are you parking in a driveway and driving a parkway?

Speaker AWhat's up with that? I don't know. Everything on an airplane. Everything on an airplane is small. They got tiny bottles, tiny seats.

AlexI hate coffee. I don't really understand coffee. When I go to Starbucks, I'm like, can I have, and I'm like ordering something for Mel. I'm like, can I have a small, something like you mean tall? I'm like, yeah, I don't know the words. Like, what is it about iced coffee?

MerlinWell, you know, coffee, when you make fresh coffee, and it's the sooner you drink it after it's made, the tastier it is. It loses some of its, I'm not going to, I don't even care about the technology or science behind this, but coffee is better when it's very fresh. And, but also then there's a slight kind of, you don't want to get mouth meat. You can't drink a hot coffee super fast. You could slam it when it's cooling off, but there's a natural kind of rhythm to drinking a cup of coffee over a certain amount of time. You don't get that at all with an iced coffee. Because first of all, you get an iced coffee often when it's hot out, you get it when you're really thirsty, and it's really easy to slam one and then want another.

Because it's like, oh, this is nothing. But then 20 minutes later, you're just like, you know, your skin is crawling and you're, you know, trying to climb the walls. But no, I don't know if it changes the taste that fundamentally. It can be quite delicious to put a little bit of half and half in. But I've greatly, for no particular reason, I've greatly curtailed my dairy in the last probably six months or so. So I just, you know, it's one less thing to buy, one less thing to go bad. So I generally drink black coffee now. But you don't like it at all.

You like those Millennium energy drinks, right?

AlexA little.

MerlinMax? I've never had an energy drink in my life. No, no. I want you to vet Alex's noise.

MaxOh, you're asking me to die. I've almost never seen Alex not drinking an energy drink, to be honest. Thank you. That's what I thought.

AlexSo my beverage of choice, I really enjoy artificially sweetened things. Like I don't enjoy regular soda. Like I think it's gross. However, I do like sugar-free things that have like the phenyl, what is it? Phenylenoline? Phenylenoline?

I'm putting it in our super secret chat. So this morning I went and bought about $20 worth of fake sugary things. and and so have you ever had a an energy drink merlin of any sort yes yes okay well so some of

Merlinsome of my favorites that i've had i've had i've had red bulls back when red bull was popular

Maxoh it's still popular here's one right now this is the fucking fourth one that you've had during

Alexthis podcast no no i'm not i i have not okay during the show i've had various uh various energy drinks uh red bull is still popular my go-to when i'm desperate is sugar-free red bull which tastes like piss i'm led to believe um however when i'm when i'm not like i i don't need to stay up super late i just enjoy regular diet coke not diet pepsi because they took the aspartame out of there and i'm aware that it's cancer water um but it's delicious cancer water uh but i

I actually met Max's girlfriend, Veronica. I was like, okay, what, what can I drink that won't kill me? And this is a, see how it even sounds different when I open it. It's a Zevia, which is zero calorie soda, no sugar, no artificial sweeteners, but it has Stevia in it. And I want it. Let me see. Can I have one of these? Mm-hmm. Please, please do. Over. Wow. That's disgusting. Okay.

MaxThey're not cold.

AlexThis is going to be a problem for me. Well, we've been talking a while. I actually also picked up, I cheated a bit. My new favorite beverage is a frozen Coke from McDonald's. Okay.

MaxI have a number of problems with this. Do you have any tasting notes, Max? I have a number of problems with this. Number one, it's clear. It's in a dark blue can with a red logo. It looks very much like an off-brand Coca-Cola, but it's clear, which is very disconcerting. Number two, the bubble-to-flavor ratio is a little bit weird.

AlexIt's just off.

MaxIt tastes like the bubble-aider machine.

AlexSoda Stream.

MaxIt tastes like a Soda Stream where you fart it a few too many times, and you're like, I'm really exceeding the same. Oh, you're saying it's over-carbonated under taste. That is correct. But also, like, and it doesn't have very much flavor at all when you first drink it. It's almost just sort of a sugary carbonated. It tastes like sugar flavor. But there's no sugar. But the aftertaste, it just fucking lingers. It's like a sucrose. It's just, oh, it tastes like I'm sucking on a sweet and low packet. Well, you're sucking on the stevia packet. And it's still going.

It's just a saccharin, an upsetting saccharin flavor just all up in my mouth. All right. Do you not taste that on your tongue?

AlexOh, no, I do. It's terrible. It's disgusting.

MaxIt's still going.

AlexIt's like I did pour a small packet of stevia into water and then drink it. So we've gone through my typical favorite beverage, which is a Diet Coke. If we want to get high level, it's a Diet Coke from McDonald's. Because what they do is right when they get it, they mix it with carbonated water and they put it on ice. which is not what most fast food, whatever, chains are. Wherever they have the mixed, you know, like the syrup mix.

Speaker ARight, right, right.

AlexThe typical millennial drink, energy drink, is Monster. And this is, my favorite is Monster Energy Ultra Sunrise. This is such engaging content. Oh, I broke the tip. Okay.

MaxJust a tip. Ouch, your hands are shaking.

AlexNo, they're not. It's just hard to open. I'm fine. Everything's fine. You have a tremor. I think I can hear your heartbeat through the mic, through the headphones.

MerlinI just heard you open like four drinks.

AlexI'm not finishing them all.

Speaker AThere's eight drinks in front of Alex right now. Okay. Sounds pretty defensive.

MaxOh, God, it's sweet.

AlexAnd this one is described as unleashing the ultra beast. And this is what people used to mix with drinks. It tried to be four loco, but it tastes like orange. Do you remember Tang? It tastes like Tang. So it's like, if you're exhausted and sad, this is the drink you want to relive your childhood and get an unhealthy dose of caffeine.

MerlinThey're just going to have to run with that. That's good. If you're exhausted. This is Alex. This.

AlexOkay. Sorry.

MaxThis Zevia drink that you brought in. It's one of the worst things I've ever tasted in my life. I'm, it's like, I can't stop burping these like sweet burps.

AlexAll right.

MaxHave you ever eaten like an entire container of like baba ganoush and then you have a burp? And then like 10 minutes later you have a burp and just like the paint starts peeling off the wall where you like, you just, it's like the whole lunch's worth of odor comes up. Do you know what I'm talking about Merlin?

MerlinI do. I have very mimetic burps and I, apparently I am immune to how much my burps smell. Because my daughter could be on the other side of the room. Oh, wow. And she makes a face and she like walks out of the room.

MaxIt's disgusting.

MerlinI'm like, that's the salami talking.

MaxIt's one of the most disgusting things in the world. And the thing is, it smells exactly like the baba ganoush. You're like, there's the baba ganoush. It's back. I remember that exactly. And the same thing is happening with this soda, except it has no flavor. It's just sweet.

AlexI mean, it's not soda. It's naturally flavored. What does it say?

MaxWhat does it say?

AlexI lied.

MaxWhat does it say on the can?

AlexYes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I want to know how right I am. Can you read what it says on the can? Turns out Zevia Zero Calorie Soda.

MaxThank you. Thank you.

AlexAll right. Well, I got you another drink, Max. What is this? This is... God, I have so many drinks on this.

MaxIt's got like a red blood drop coming off.

AlexSo this is Refresh-ay? Refresh-ay? I don't know. Refresh-y. It's Refresh with an extra E at the end. And it's like a rip-off.

MerlinThat's Safeway Seltzer.

AlexOh, so we have in Chicago, we have Jewel Osco and Mariano's as our local... food chain. And so as I was going to three different... Hey, let's toast. Yeah, refreshy. So I've never tried this.

Oh, that's terrible. No, no, no, no.

MerlinOh, boy. Are you having a soda? Like a pop?

AlexRight now, we're having soda pop, pop soda, that is the generic Diet Coke. And this is way worse. Oh, that's no good. No, this is much worse than the Zevia. Oh, oh.

MaxIt has the same, it suffers from the same problem of it's way too sweet for how much flavor it has. Is this also the same sweetener?

AlexI don't know if it has aspartame in it, but yes, it has the same. No, it does. This is aspartame. I mean, this tastes, this is fine.

MaxIt tastes like a bad Diet Coke. It tastes like, do you ever go to a restaurant and their Diet Coke mix is all wrong? It's way too, like.

AlexMcDonald's is the only one that does it right. All right, this is a Coke. Have you ever had Coke Zero, Merlin?

MaxIt's the Zevia.

MerlinYeah. John Scalzi drinks that stuff. And I admired how much he was able to drink of Coke Zero. And I tried it. And I almost was ready to try to become a Coke Zero person. Didn't quite take. I definitely like it better than Diet Coke.

AlexI hate this.

MaxThis Zevia, I cannot get it out of my mouth.

AlexI'm so sorry, Max. I can't tell by the ingredients what is different in Diet Coke and Coke Zero. But I hate Coke Zero. Coke Zero is for men. It's disgusting. Of course you don't like it. it's diet coke for men.

MerlinThat's true. It's true. It's not for you.

AlexIt's not for you. Alright, and so I'm going to move on to a wild card, which is a Diet Dr. Pepper. This looks

Maxcrazy. The sort of tableau in front of me.

MerlinCould you, if you don't mind, hey, I can see your drinks in the background. Could you take a photo and send it to me, please?

AlexMy new favorite beverage that I'm going to recommend to people is Red Bull, the purple edition, which is also sugar free. And it's a acai, acai, whatever flavor.

MerlinI have never met anyone who knows how to pronounce it. It drives my wife crazy because she hates mispronouncing things. She got an acai bowl and she didn't want to say what it was. She felt so bad.

AlexHow do you say it? Is it acai? I don't know how to pronounce anything. Um, but, uh, oh, now I'm burpy. Uh, uh, Red Bull gives you wings.

MaxI'm telling you it's the Zevia. It's coming back for you to haunt you.

AlexUh, uh, Red Bull is appreciated worldwide by top athletes, busy professionals. That's me. College students and travelers on long journeys. It's a low calorie product. Oh, wait, fuck this. This is 15 calories. I'm sorry. I'm, I'm, I'm un-recommending the purple edition of Red Bull.

Merlinbut it's so good. This is a lot more complicated than I expected.

AlexOh yeah. There's, and you know what I've never understood? Red Bull, it has... I like the ones where you talk. I've been so much caffeine. You think?

If you look at the top of a Red Bull can, like it's clearly supposed to be a bull, but if you know that it's a bull, but really it looks like a little elephant. All right, I'm done. This is done. but I don't understand like what's the 15 calories in this because there's no sugar I don't know but yeah my favorite beverage in conclusion is artificially artificially sweetened and carbonated drinks this is why I don't talk on this show

MerlinI wasn't too long ago you know when you're kids you make a suicide you know you go and you mix all of them but i've i've become a real connoisseur but what what happened no i don't know

Maxalex is all hopped up on goofballs she's she has she has 30 energy she's been drinking them all show she's already put down two of them and now we just drank another six oh this is irresponsible

Alexoh yeah i'm looking at the photo oh my goodness every single one of these cans also says uh not to be not recommended for children pregnant or nursing women and persons sensitive to caffeine so i think i might be in the last group uh but yeah anyway uh i feel those are all of my beverages i was going to bring i was going to do whiskey but that would be a much more expensive uh endeavor

Merlinanyway that should be another show i try to limit my soft drink intake i try to just limit my amount of sugar in general. Who cares? But I will occasionally have something I discovered a few years ago, which is one third, it's probably a name for this. See, I don't even know what to order. One third, mostly one third Dr. Pepper, two thirds Coke, lots of ice, top it off with a little bit of seltzer. That's a very refreshing drink.

AlexBut Merlin, these don't have any sugar in them. That's the point. It's just, it's got cancerous chemicals, but there's no sugar. It's great.

MerlinIsn't that like moving on to vaping?

Alexaren't you just a different kind of weirdo now yeah yeah but but you're gonna get you're gonna get a different kind of cancer like you're gonna get a different you're not gonna get lung cancer but you're probably gonna get mouth cancer i'm a snowflake i'm a snowflake i want different

Merlincancer i want to get a fisher get a stent get a stoma there's so much taurine in this

Alexrebel gives you wings there's also a lot of salt i was unaware of wow 150 milligrams that can't be good that's like twice the amount of salt wow that's a lot of salt yeah that's a lot of salt oh this is such it's such a great episode i'm ready for a nap uh i'm not here you go there's your end

24. White King Screamy Face 0:00 / 01:11:37