36. Scaramucci’s Hog

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

Speaker BHello.

AlexHello, Merlin Mann. Hello.

Speaker BHi. Hi.

MaxHey. Now did you read Cory Doctorow's travel post that he did today? Because this motherfucker he travels with his own borax and he's washing his underpants in the hotel sink with borax

Speaker AWhy is borax suddenly a huge theme in my life?

Speaker BOh because it's also in your slime. Yeah

MaxOh yeah, wait, is that what he said? I might have been mixing that up. He travels with some sort of laundry product and he fucking washes his socks in the sink and hangs them up to dry. And I was like, Corey, I said, why don't, I was like, why don't you just have the hotel do the laundry? Like, it's expensive, but if you're traveling for business, A, you can write it off and expense it or whatever, but B, it's like, what about your time? Yeah, what about your life? Yeah, just like the dignity of not having to wash your underpants in the hotel sink and you leave them up for the...

I did a quick search on Cory Doctorow underwear.

MerlinWhere should I go to see his Borax hats?

MaxIt was a boing, boing post. Oh, it's a boing, boing post. And it was this morning. And there was, honestly, there was great travel advice. He travels a lot. Anyway, what he said is he is on a different flight every day. So he flies to a city, does a book event, on to the next flight, on to the next flight. And he's like, at that pace, the hotel can't keep up because the earliest they can bring it to you is like, you know, 9 a.m. the next day. And he already has to be on his flight, so he doesn't have any options.

Speaker Aso do i now have you on record as saying that we can expense laundry to a hotel for like if you're

Maxtraveling for enough days that you so over seven days yeah basically like i i never pack more than like i don't even have a suitcase big enough to hold more than seven outfits so if we go somewhere for longer than a week i always expense the laundry uh the only thing you have to be careful of, I don't know if you've ever explored the world, the exciting world of hotel laundry, but the default thing that they do, if you just shove everything in a bag, is they fucking dry clean it. And then they send you a bill and they're like, $18, we dry clean.

MerlinThat's how they get you. They're fucking you.

MaxYou get fucked so bad. And I don't want to be fucked. They dry clean each individual sock. And they're like, $18 per sock, we dry cleaned it. So you have to specify on the form very clearly, do not dry clean, do not press, simply fold and dry. And then they do it by weight. And it's, you know, It's egregiously expensive, but it's not, you know, it's like as compared to doing it at home or going to the laundry mat. But like, what about your time when you're traveling?

Speaker AYeah, don't worry. For the past three years, I have been indeed, not like socks and underwear, but washing T-shirts in showers of hotels.

MaxNo, you have not.

Speaker AWell, because I can't. It's just too much.

Speaker BCan't you just pack more? Can't you bring more like for days? Well, here's the thing, Merlin.

AlexI do have a giant suitcase, but that's also filled with stuff we can't ship because it's like electronics and stuff like that.

MaxIt's 90% filled with USB-C dongles.

Speaker AYeah. You got all the batteries.

MaxCan you describe your court organizer pouch? Because I've had to go in there, and it's like gazing into the eye of madness. Yeah.

Speaker AI call it the dongle daddy. I have appropriated daddy for this purpose. Nice.

AlexAnd I have literally trained our other members of my team, as well as whenever we work with somebody on a show, like, okay, here is where this is. here is what there's a printed guide of like this is what dongle you need for if you have a pc if you have a mac if you have a 2017 mac that is usbc uh it's quite a system some people do show up with like just an ipad and i'm like okay i guess i gotcha um and like every show you go to there the av setup is completely different and it's 99 percent of the time it's absolutely terrible

Maxyou have dongles though like if someone shows up with like a like a like a tandy you can you can hotwire it into the system.

Speaker AWe had to do it. There was a theater that had VGA cable. And I'm like, all right, glad that I ordered this from Acre.

MaxIt is truly crazy. It's one of those elastic grid organizer things, I think, but it's in like a zippered pouch. Do you know what I'm talking about? Those grids? Oh, yeah. I have one of those with the little rubber bandies. I do not. I know that's like the number one travel dingus organizer. I do not. I own, let me tell you something. I own every brand. I bought one of every travel cord organizer, and they're all pretty bad, but the grid one is especially bad. Because there's no, you know, what I need, here's the issue is like, if I need my micro USB cable or whatever when I'm traveling,

like, I don't want to fucking unzip seven pouches and look through it like a Where's Waldo trying to find the cord that I need. Like, it has to have some sort of system where you can see everything. And those grid, elastic grid things, it's all chaos in there.

AlexI mean, yeah, well, I thought you had the new system now where you just literally bring your desk with you. So you just plop your desk on the hotel. Don't you got it?

MaxOh, I bought. Well, let me tell you, I'm traveling. As soon as I'm leaving, I'm going on a car trip. Like literally the minute we're done with this podcast, I'm off. And I'm taking for a spin, for the inaugural spin, the Merlin Man Red Ox caddy. The organizer caddy. Oh, that's so nice. I hope that works out for you. I got the snaps and everything. Now, I went with a different style than you did. I got the red one. It's like a bright red, like a blood red color. And here's my thinking is the whole point of this, it's your ball work against insanity.

You have it out. You can find all your stuff. I want it high-vis. I want to be able to see it.

MerlinThat's super smart. I use the cautionary yellow, but I think you're going to enjoy that. Listen, I don't know if there's any way we get somebody to sponsor this. I think Corey's basically just showing off in this post, which is fine but I would like to get some kind of a sponsor to buy everything that he's mentioned in here and I want us to wear all of it and I want us to try all of it so you can get these low-rise boxer briefs that Corey Doctro wears you can get his pants that have a discreet thigh pocket for your boarding pass and I really want these Native Jefferson's children's shoes

Maxoh the shoes those are really pretty let's just acknowledge that Corey's not interested in fitting in with the human masses and he's truly has an extreme need for the gear that he buys and he's and he's he doesn't cory's not about like no i i mean i agree actually like listen if i if i was as committed to the sort of like philosophical underpinnings of this lifestyle like have one pair of shoes and it's got to be the best one and last forever

and work in every situation and i don't care about fitting in like i'm not primarily buying them to look cool like that probably is the right pair of shoes to buy but i'm a i'm a cock i don't want anyone to look at me and think that i have the wrong kind of shoes yeah a lot of amazon links

Alexokay hold on we're good i'm gonna backpedal a little bit then uh max you've recently purchased the slipper shoes haven't you slipper shoes slipper shoes now yeah we're toms like every day

Maxi love my i love my toms but i i more or less have to get a new pair every summer because they sort of disintegrate and smell like feet.

AlexWell, that's what I do. Every year, I buy a new pair of Nike Freeze in whatever town we're having a convention in, and then those are my shoes for the year, and then they're disgusting and I throw them away. Nike

MerlinFreeze. Those, like, sugarless? What is a Nike Freeze?

MaxYou know, it's Nike's for men.

MerlinOh, I see. It's diet Nike's, but the male brand. Yeah, it's not about email. Native Jefferson's, you carry Tabasco sauce. and okay. Oh, this is good. This is handy.

AlexHow often do you replace your Crocs, Merlin?

MerlinI don't wear Crocs.

AlexOh, okay. Never mind.

MerlinI was wrong. I recently bought a new pair.

MaxWait a minute. You're making fun of Corey for wearing his Crocs?

MerlinI don't have a blog post with a link to Amazon.

MaxBut you're talking about it right now on the podcast.

MerlinYou're talking about it. It's your words.

MaxNo, you're bragging about it to both of us. I'm sorry.

MerlinI still have the Crocs I was wearing when my daughter was born. I bought a new pair that I was going to keep mostly for inside work. But, yeah, I'm wearing some right now. They're professional Crocs. They're not like those nasty ones you see people wear at the Target. These are professional Crocs. These are like nurse shoes.

They're real bulbous.

AlexWe have a Crocs store in downtown Chicago, and I kept – I had Crocs for gardening when I was a kid, and I just keep thinking, like, you know, no one would see me in my house.

Speaker ANo one would know. No one's going to...

MerlinThey're perfect for wearing around the house. I don't wear them out of the house. I mean, like I'm wearing them today to walk to my office, which is close enough. But no, I don't wear them to places. I don't wear it like these pants that I'm wearing right now. I would never wear these to pick up my daughter. Because it's really... There's like a sartorial holocaust happening on my body right now. Very bad.

AlexNo, Mack Weldon. I'm sorry.

MerlinOh, no, I'm wearing... No, look, right here. No, I got Mack Weldon right up here. Every day. Every day. Every day, long-sleeved Pima, cotton, boom, out the door. Yeah. I think you got to be comfortable and you got to learn. You know what I'm saying? You got to work the list. Did you make a list at all for this trip, Max?

MaxNo. Like I said, I have one of everything that I need to travel, and it lives in my suitcase. So when I – all I need – and I have the – and I have cubes. I have packing cubes. And so when I travel, all I do is I remove the packing cubes. I fill them with the appropriate clothes that go in that cube type. So I have a t-shirt cube and a pants cube and an underpants cube. And then I put the cubes into my Zooka and I zip it up and I leave. And then I have a little dop kit and I have an extra of everything. Yeah, I have a dop-dop kit.

And then I just drop that into the suitcase and I'm good to go.

Speaker BThese off-the-grid pants are actually pretty badass and not very expensive.

MaxOh, see, you're making fun of the Crocs. You're making fun of the off-the-grid pants. let me tell you though negative review from cory he said that they do not hold their color if you

Merlinwatch them in the hotel sink with borax oh that's a little racist a little bit racist um yeah i would get those they don't have my size they don't have my size they don't they must be they must be doing like a closeout final sale no returns or exchanges oh i think these are going out i think they're going oh they got a hammer loop that's handy i'm gonna put my hammer in there you can even do a little yoga in them, Cory Doctoris says. Hmm. Hmm. It's kind of like EFF meets Goop.

Speaker BHow you guys doing?

MaxOh, what a fucking, this week, this week was too much. The healthcare vote, you had Scaramucci.

Merlinright yeah we recorded uh not long before the vote it was too much the news was i mean this

Maxhas got to be did you read that washington post oral history of the scaramucci era no not yet i highly recommend it it's very very good and it start it's just they just all it's just quotes from people involved in these news stories and news people and whatever kind of talking through the events of the last week and as you read them you're like there was so much shit that happened last week any one of these things would have been like a defining scandal for obama you know getting into a feud with the boy scouts or saying that the white house is a dump or losing

a historic a real dump he's called he was fighting with picked a twitter fight with the attorney general i mean it's it's bonkers and it all happened in one week this isn't even a year of the trump presidency it's a fucking week oh my god did you read the um read the transcript

Alexthe latest transcript the transcript of what the uh maggie haberman interview no the later the more

Merlinrecent one which i guess got leaked to politico full transcript trump's wall street journal interview oh yeah i got through about half and it's really it's got some moments it's really what are the i haven't read this yet what are the well here's how it starts so it's trump sitting down with, oh God, I just used that phrase. It's Trump being interviewed by Gerard Baker. So here's how it begins. Yes, yes, says Baker. Trump, tax, other things. Baker says, yeah, economy, trade, fate of the world, world economy, market. And Trump says, as we speak, Baker,

consumer confidence at a 17-year high. Trump says, what did you say? Baker says, consumer confidence at a 17-year high. Can you believe it? Isn't that nice? There's a good reason for it, and I think we're doing very well in healthcare. We'll see. That's how it starts. That's how it starts.

AlexYeah.

MerlinThe Boy Scout one in here is pretty... It's so strange to me. You just keep thinking... You just keep thinking it's not going to go, and then it goes, and let me find you his Scout remarks. Yeah, that was an incredible crowd. That was an incredible crowd.

MaxI purchased and used a nose hair trimmer this week.

MerlinElectronic?

MaxElectronic. What do you mean? What do you mean? Analog nose hair trimmer? Well, Cory Doctorow's on Etsy buying vintage pajamas.

MerlinI thought maybe you were going out and getting a bespoke gentleman's hair trimmer.

MaxSome sort of hand crank mechanism? How would that even work?

MerlinI don't know. I mean, I guess you'd need a partner.

MaxWell, so I bought it.

MerlinThis one looks like a little dildo and it's got a little plastic cover and it goes...

MaxYeah, it sounds like a cordless... It sounds like a shitty cordless drill. I think I have one here. Let me see. Now, I had a couple of rogue nose hairs that I couldn't sort of extract with my fingers. And I've had this going on for a while. And you get to be 30 and the nose hairs get out of control. Oh, bro, just you wait. And I was at CVS and I saw the ear and nose hair trimmer. And I was like, yeah, I'm going to go for this for eight bucks or whatever. So it took me a while to figure out how to use it. Because it's not intuitive. I'd be happy to tutor you on it.

MerlinThere is a methodology.

MaxWell, okay. So first of all, you look into this thing and it just has like a spinning little blade in there. Yeah. And it does not seem safe to – you don't want to get lacerated. You don't want to tear up the inside of your nostril like ground beef. You don't want that.

MerlinMake sure the battery – get a fresh battery in there. And then what you're going to do – you think it's going to be like mowing a large lawn. It's not like mowing a large lawn. It's like mowing more like a square foot of grass, but the grass is very, very hardy. So you want to kind of gently move it in and out like you're pleasuring a lover.

Maxthat's okay good that's what i figured out i did and then for the ears same deal with the ears no i don't have i don't have any i don't have any ear hairs going on yet so i don't even worry about that but the but eventually what i figured out the nose was sort of a jabbing motion where you go like you go like yeah and that sort of grinds it kind of grinds the little hairs down and then afterwards i blew my nose blew your nose and you get all the bits it was just like gunpowder coming It was just like a cloud of black. But okay, here's the weirdest thing is if I press on my nostril, if I sort of compact my nostril, I can feel the little shards.

No, not a zit, but I have like a stubbly nose hair. You got a stubble nose. Yeah, it's like feeling like after like a three-day shave. I can press it in. I feel the little shards. It's very weird.

AlexAnd what's fun is, well, all right, hold on. Why don't you guys just like get a tweezer in there and just rip everything out?

MaxI've pulled on the previous occasions that I've had a nose hair that was noticeable. I just went in there with my fingers and I got the job done. You do a little pinch. You do a pinch and a pull. Pinch and a pop. You just pull it right out and it's like your eyes water. And it's kind of, I feel. That's like watching Doctor Who. It feels really good. You guys are just big babies. Just get in there and rip them out.

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinWell, I couldn't get to them all. You got a lot. You're very angry about body hair removal, Alex. I just want to say, you and your people. What is it with you and body hair removal? Why don't you just stop doing it?

AlexWell, ew. oh man I should pull up my Tumblr messages about how I'm not a feminist because I don't enjoy being a hairy human

Speaker BI didn't say that I'm not Tumblr I'm your pal

Alexno no no you're not

Speaker Byou're not Tumblr you keep throwing hair in my face you have a lot of body horror and you like pain

Speaker Ano no well there's a lot of there are a lot of procedures and I just you just get a pair of tweezers and rip it out

MaxI couldn't I'm telling you that's mental

Speaker BFor nose hair, that's crazy. No, it's not. Okay, so you're pulling out more than 10 nose hairs.

MerlinAre you talking about the kind where you get out a booger or a clot that's got like 11 hairs in it and it looks like a rat king? You ever get one of those? Because with a tweezer, you can get started on there. I'm talking about marketing at scale. I'm talking about really getting in there.

Speaker AHow does it scale?

MerlinYou've got to scale it up.

Speaker ARight now, I've – so there's this thing where – You've got to build for 10x. Polish ladies have a lot of hair. And so right now, I wouldn't say my nose is uncrewed. This is horrible. No, this is what people tune in for. Yeah. The thing is, though, when you have allergies and then you got that stubble, which is why plucking is superior because you get less stubble.

MaxNo, I'll pluck an eyebrow. I'll pluck an eyebrow any day. I don't even need a reason. I'm telling you, it's different. I don't want to be rooting around in there with the tweezers one by one getting these old nose hairs out.

Speaker BWell, it's like cooking your pasta one strand at a time. It's mental balls. You got to get all the way in there. Gio, Gio, Gio. And if you got a couple little rogues, you go after them. They call it mopping up.

MaxWhat do people want us to talk about on this podcast? Do they want us to do some fucking Scaramucci joke? Like, oh, he sounds like the Queen song. He wears ladies' glasses. Go on Twitter if you want. No, no, don't even look.

MerlinNo. Yeah, can you do the Fandango?

MaxThat's really funny.

MerlinOh, my God.

MaxOh, Scaramucci. I thought you said. I read that as.

AlexScary munchies.

MerlinKatie Turr did that yesterday, and I was so sad. Katie Turr, don't do that. Don't do the I read that as. Don't do that. You're better than that, Katie. Katie Turr.

Speaker BDup, dup, Friday.

AlexDid you hear the... Okay, so I'm not generally fan of podcasts where they interview interviewers, but I forget it. Katie Couric. The show where he talks to Maggie Haberman. Maggie Haberman. Jesse who? I don't know. It's in the Google Doc.

MaxNot familiar.

AlexYeah. Do a lot of people listen to that? I'm not sure. But Maggie Haberman being interviewed and just blowing someone up and being like, no, I'm working. I'm working. Wait, hold on. I'm working. It was just the best thing.

MerlinShe was on long form. She was on long form, too. And she was on her laptop the entire time. It was so great.

Speaker AActually, that's what I'm talking about. Never mind. Never mind. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And it's so good. And she's just like, OK, shut up.

AlexNo, one second. One second. I don't want to talk about that. And it was just so badass. And it wasn't a good interview. It was just really. Oh, it was really telling her personality.

Merlinand you can tell how guarded she has to be about all kinds of things. Well, it's funny because I don't think she was a dick about it. I really respected it. She's one of my favorite journalists. I call her Molly. But she's really, she'll just be like, nope, I can't talk about that. I can't talk about anything apart from what was published. Or I won't talk about sources. But she just does it in this way where she's like, she's had these questions about, I mean,

Speaker Bshit, can you imagine how many times Trump has asked her what her sources are? And she's used I'm sorry I can't talk about that I don't think she even says I'm sorry she just says I can't

Speaker Atalk about that yeah she doesn't need to apologize yeah that's her job we have nice listeners but if you ever wonder like oh man that that lady's really being a bitch on the internet no this is why she like she's been harassed by the leader of the free world for she's a little bit obsessed

Merlinwith her he's a little obsessed with her uh-huh but she plays it off legit you know she's like oh yeah I've had death threats and stuff whatever it's a job you know it's a living I love her

AlexI have quite a crush on this lady

MerlinHaber's gonna Hab

MaxHaber's gonna Hab thank you it's an original joke I just came up with

Merlinit's actually on her Twitter avatar but good job

MaxI've got some Scaramucci news I have a story okay I think I'm gonna break a story on Dubai Friday I think it's possible that no one else. So I've been reading a lot about, there's this weird little sideshow scandal that I've just been in my attention bubble this week. And I think I've put some pieces of this together that it's possible that no one else in the media has fit together. And I want to run this by you guys. And you tell me if I'm crazy or not. So did you guys follow the story of this dude,

Arthur Schwartz? No. Yes. So Arthur Schwartz is, hang on, I dropped my pen. Oh no, my pen. Arthur Schwartz, hang on. You know what I need? This is what I need. I need some Rachel Maddow papers. Hang on.

Okay. Now, let me tell you about Arthur Schwartz. Arthur Schwartz, he's one of these New York finance guys. He's either a paid PR person or a close friend of Scaramucci. Accounts differ.

MerlinImportantly, though, yet another person who seems to be doing a lot of cocaine.

MaxOh, he sits at the cocaine table at Scaramucci's restaurant.

Speaker BHe's another one of these. So cokey.

MaxScaramucci has a restaurant in New York. I think it's called the Fish and Game Club or something like that. And there's a power table where these coked up Steve Bannon, alt-right people like Milo Yiannopoulos and Arthur Schwartz sit and eat overcooked steaks together and do blow. And they all tweet about being at this table together or whatever. And so Arthur Schwartz, he's either a PR person for Scaramucci or just a friend of his. And now he used to own one of these hedge funds that had a ton of money, even though they did worse than a basic index fund.

And now he just does consulting or something like that. But he made a tweet. So he's basically acted as a spokesperson or in affiliation with Scaramucci, but in a kind of gray area, nebulous gray area where it's not clear if he officially represents him or not.

MerlinIt seemed like he was doing very little to distance himself from being a semi-official associate of his.

MaxThat is, that's absolutely correct.

MerlinSo eventually, of course, he changed his bio because he had to. But for a while, it seemed like he was sort of like, it was like his little scrappy-doo Dan Scavino man.

MaxYeah. So basically, as soon as Rance Priebus left, which I think was on the 23rd or the 24th, Arthur Schwartz makes this tweet. Very inflammatory. And he's done this before. He's sort of threatened people on Scaramucci's behalf. But he said to Rance, hey, at Rance45, so tagging him, you're unemployed now. Keep pushing this crap. And by this crap, he's linking to a quoted tweet about some shit that Rance Priebus said or something. Keep pushing this crap, and I'll start dropping oppo, meaning opposition research, on you. And then he says, mistress much? Implying that he has opposition research that shows that Rance Priebus is a mistress.

MerlinWhat a terrible coked-up tweet. Only a coked-up person toots something like that.

MaxThat's insane. And the thing he's linking to, it's saying, saying Priebus warned Trump not to hire Scaramucci, saying Skybridge Capital's buyers overpaid because he promised them special access to Trump, which is, of course, true. So anyway, Arthur Schwartz is basically threatening Rance Priebus and saying, I will make up details about an affair that you had or a mistress that you have and leak them online if you don't stop talking about Scaramucci. Now, then the press picks up on this because that's a really juicy, salacious story.

and that someone from the New York Daily News talked to this dude, Arthur Schwartz, and he said, quote, to the New York Daily News, it's just rumors that have been going on for a while, Schwartz told the New York Daily News, quote, I wasn't expecting anyone to pick up on it. It was a mistake and I regret it and I apologize to Rance because obviously it's bullshit and he can't back it up. Then Arthur Schwartz, then the media continues, and then he also got into a fight with Jake Tapper and Jake Tapper reported on it and Jake Tapper is like a real journalist and then Arthur Schwartz-

MerlinNever get in a fight with somebody who buys electrons by the barrel.

MaxI mean, Jake Tapper, too, is like – he's like the one kind of tough guy, you know, Edward Murrow journalist who will like actually stand up to these Trump people. Like I don't always agree with everything that he says, but like I don't think Jake Tapper is going to like back down from a fight with, you know, some coconut. But he's like – he's one of these people, though.

MerlinHe's like a dire wolf. I mean just keep your hands away from his mouth. You're not going to drop a little bon mot, fucking delete it, and then expect him to just not notice and go, oh, sorry, my bad.

MaxExactly. He's the exact wrong person to do that to. He's not going to threaten easily. So eventually, Arthur Schwartz deletes the tweets. And then he tweeted – this is a tweet from Arthur Schwartz on July 30th. He said, I deleted my tweets regarding at rants and apologized to him. Pretty sure he's not accepting my apology. Can't blame him. I'm ashamed of what I said. Then he tweeted – I don't have this one. and I couldn't find it, but he then tweeted something to the effect of, I believe later that day, Rance Priebus accepted my apology. He's a bigger man than I am, and I'm grateful to have

his forgiveness and be able to move on from this. Something to that effect. And then Jake Tapper tweeted that night, and he says, source close to at Rance said he never spoke to Arthur Schwartz and has neither heard nor accepted any apology from him. And I'm watching this unfold, and it's just one it's not even in the top 20 news stories of this week and nor should it be it's like dumb internal drama among these like you know coked up republican like high-powered business people or whatever but i'm thinking like this is so fucking weird like why would they lie why would they be lying why would he lie about prebis accepting the apology like is it some sort of power move where

he's trying to get prebis to accept the apology without having to humble himself and make it but it's just such a crazy fucking thing to lie about and i was like and for most of america

Speaker BSo the story ends there.

MaxYes. But. And I was like, these people must be insane that they behave like this. And then, sure enough, yesterday, CNN has this unbelievable report. And they say, this is from CNN, a self-described email prankster in the UK fooled a number of White House officials into thinking he was other officials, including an episode where he convinced the White House official tasked with cybersecurity that he was Jared Kushner and received that official's private email address unsolicited.

CNN says, I try to keep it on the humorous side of things, the email prankster told CNN. I'm not trying to get the keys to the vault or anything like that. Now, going on from the CNN story. One such exchange appears to have possibly played a role in the tensions between then-White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who resigned from his job earlier today and since fired White House Chief of Staff Rance Priebus. Masquerading as Priebus, the prankster emailed Scaramucci's official account using a Mail.com account on Saturday, the day after Priebus's resignation was announced.

Quote, I had promised myself I would leave my hands mud-free, wrote the fake Priebus, but after reading your tweet today, which stated how, quote, soon we will learn who in the media has class and who hasn't has pushed me to this. That tweet was breathtakingly hypocritical, even for you. At no stage have you acted in a way that's even remotely classy, yet you believe that's the standard by which everyone should behave towards you. General Kelly will do a fine job. I'll even admit he will do a better job than me. But the way in which that transition has come about has been diabolical and hurtful. I don't respect and apply.

The very real Scaramucci responded, quote, you know what you did. We all do, even today. but rest assured we were prepared a man would apologize fake Priebus wrote back quote I can't believe you are questioning my ethics the so-called mooch who can't even manage his first week in the White House without leaving upset in his wake I have nothing to apologize for and then uh wait a minute and then Scaramucci I don't I didn't write this one down but Scaramucci replied back and said I'm not going to reply to you anymore but you should read Shakespeare especially Othello this

AlexThis is an exchange in YouTube comments about somebody like, oh, you didn't stream this right mod.

MaxThey're all like posturing and putting their hands in their pockets and thrusting their pelvises towards each other. It's very like Alec Baldwin in Death of a Salesman.

Speaker BDo we know if that's real Scaramucci, though? Is there a chance there's a double turns out?

MaxWell, there's always a chance. But CNN says that that was real Scaramucci and that he also was emailing the Trump sons and stuff like that. He emailed John Huntsman and said that they should get – he emailed John Huntsman as Donald Trump Jr. and said we should have – he said my father looks much better than it would – his lumpy suits make it appear and we should have a photo op with him riding shirtless on a horseback like Putin. And Huntsman took it seriously.

MerlinAnd this is different from Rick Perry. That was different. That was Russians.

MaxGo on.

Merlinuh that that that there was a whining wonkish and occasionally obscure conversation about foreign coal exploration natural gas pipelines and pig manure as power source digga digga digga Washington Post but only one of the men on the line energy secretary Rick Perry held sway over his nation's energy policy on the other end of the conversation were Vladimir Volvan Kuznetsov and Alexei Lexis Stolyrov who had just added Perry to their list of high-profile hoax victims secretary Perry is the largest target of two Russian pranksters energy department spokesman spokeswoman Shailene Haines said in an email to the post,

these individuals are known for pranking high-level officials and celebrities. Basically, I think they got him on the phone and he talked for like 20 minutes.

Speaker AWas like Jon Favreau ever pranked? No. This is so weird.

MaxNo, because here's the thing. I thought maybe this prankster, when I was reading about this for the first time, I thought what he was doing, surely, was spoofing his email headers so that it looked like he was sending whitehouse.gov emails and infiltrating their email chain. But he wasn't doing that. He was just using, he made fake mail.com accounts. Like he was like, you know, rants at mail.com or whatever. And so he wasn't even spoofing the headers. He wasn't even hacking or doing anything. He was doing, like I could fucking do this on Gmail. I could become Steve Bannon at gmail.com and just start fucking, you know, emailing people.

And they would take it seriously. I mean, these people, they're truly extremely dumb. They're really, really stupid.

MerlinIt's also, I mean, this is, not to be me here, but like this is another downside of getting a high volume of email. is that if you get a low volume of email, you can afford to actually look at it like a person and figure out what to do about it. If you get a ton of email and a bunch of it is like all kinds of bullshit with like your shitty Windows server and you got to go update this thing and do this thing and you're constantly getting pop-ups and you're like, yes, yes, yes, I just want to get back to masturbating and you just start clicking on whatever fucking pops up. Like that's when things go wrong.

MaxYeah. Merlin, you should go, you should do the inbox zero talk at the White House. That's a good idea. They'll do a huge line of blow and then they'll have a Pomodoro and they'll clear out their inbox.

MerlinOh my God. Process. You hit the tomato and you just work. You work real hard. Pomodoro. Pomodoro.

Speaker BYeah, but you know, it's hyper-normalization. You know,

Merlinit's getting difficult to know. I don't know. You know what? I don't know. I don't know. I think it's all very strange. I think you're right. I mean, I don't like to piss from the high ground about this stuff because I don't think I have the best opsec in the world. But like, you know, a bunch of people are talking about this now. or inside of organizations, it's becoming pretty SOP to test out your employees and send out these kinds of messages to avoid the John Podesta type situation. You're testing out people, seeing what they'll click.

MaxOh, you're saying I should be emailing some cards employees, and I should say, hey, guys, it's Max. Does anyone want to get a couple of hot pizzas, pepperoni pizzas delivered to the office? Fresh, steaming, fresh, hot, tight pizzas. and then I see what they say. And if they're, and if they, you know, it's a test. And if they're like, yes, I do want some pizzas. We should get, we should get, we should get three pizzas delivered to the office. Wink, wink. Now I know.

MerlinUh-huh. It's like picking a Dalai Lama. Yes. You, you, you, you dangle some deep dish, see how they respond. And then, and then you go and you cuck them. And you come up and you're wearing like a cop hat and you walk up and you go bad on you. And then you stick a sticker on them. I'm a bad boy.

MaxDo you know about, the situation with the Dalai Lama? Probably not. You mean how he's chosen? No, so... I've seen King of the Hill.

MerlinI know how it works.

MaxSo the chosen Dalai Lama was like, I hope I'm getting the details of this approximately correct, but he was kidnapped by the Chinese and they replaced him with another one, with a different one. I had not heard that. And because only the chosen Lama can pick the next Lama, the current Dalai Lama will be the last Dalai Lama. You're saying it's Lama's all the way down. Yeah. Wow. How is this not like... You guys talk about those hairs or things you thought sounded like other things on Twitter, and I'll look up this Dolly Lama news.

AlexI cannot say skirk... Earlier in a meeting today, it's kind of like button. They're just words I can't say. What's button? The thing that you use to close your shirt up or... It works now because you can call them pins most of the time, and I don't wear buttons. Buttons. Buttons, butt, butt, butt. Anyway. Button, button, button. I was in a meeting earlier and we were talking about scare munchy jokes

and I tried to say it and they're like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, do you have problems with mouth words sometimes?

Speaker AYes. Well, people think I'm just bad at podcasting, which I am. However, I have a pretty prominent stammer, which I've come to think people see as and do.

MerlinI think that's a bit. Fake news. I think that's a bit. You're doing a bit.

AlexPeople do. Button, button, button. Button, button. I also come from a town called Wheaton, and I can't, it comes out as like Wheaton most of the time. How are you doing, Merlin? Oh, I've got some follow-up on Smalt that Max won't care about. The centerpiece, the Bluetooth salt shaker.

Speaker BOh, the centerpiece Smalt. This is the Bluetooth-enabled salt shaker that she uses as a centerpiece, because centerpieces have been part of our culture since Roman times.

Speaker AMm-hmm. And I reached out to them a while.

Speaker BWe all know the importance of the centerpiece.

Speaker AYeah, yeah. And of course, they're in Indiegogo. They're in a wealth and elegance. Not that I have any professional reason to not like Indiegogo at all. But the video really is something. They've got like, they just put it in front of a sunset. Like two people are on beach chairs looking at a sunset

Alexand there's no food. They move it from the table where they are eating food and just put it next to them in their wine glasses. This is so Tim and Eric. I love it. It's so good.

Speaker BAmbience light. It's so good. Bluetooth speaker.

Speaker AI almost got like, oh, cool. Like it has-

Speaker BSmart salt dispenser with an app.

Speaker AIt's got the lady in the tube API, which I'm like, okay, that's pretty cool. Like I want one tablespoon of salt, But then it like poops out a little like tampons worth of salt. And it's just super weird.

Speaker BOh, this video is great. Oh, man. Why are you salting your eggs the old-fashioned way? Track, monitor, and control your salt. Oh, my God. This is incredible, Alex. Is this real?

Speaker AYes. Yeah. And you can track how much sodium. It goes into Apple Health. Yeah. Which I'm trying. I wonder, how do you know? Because if it's a centerpiece, everybody's using it. How do you monitor your exact sodium intake?

Speaker BOh, my God. This is the greatest video of all time. Oh, my God. I'm putting it in the doc.

AlexThere's nothing funnier than the Trump family and the Smoltz. And I think it's going to be a family of products. Like Smeper, I'm sure, is going to be a thing. Smemsg. I'm very excited.

Speaker AAnd then they can talk to each other because they're smart.

Speaker BI love you. Do you ever feel lonely, Smipper? No. I have you, Smalt. Do you ever think about sodium? I mean, really think about sodium? I know, right? It's a great source of iodine, which is radioactive.

MaxWhat is my purpose? You pour salt. Oh, my God.

Speaker BOh, no. health conditions are causing less use of smalt smalt sad all right i'm i've talked enough for

Maxthis episode max are you prepared what i've discovered um i've been frantically googling the situation with the dalai lama and the panchon llama and what i've discovered is that it's actually more complicated than i uh understood from listening to two minutes on a podcast about it and i'll try and learn something about it and explain it later okay okay We had a goat.

We had a whole goat crisis this weekend. Somebody stole your goat, right?

AlexOh, Merlin. It goes much deeper.

MaxI'll tell you who stole our goddamn goats. It's the fucking Wicker Park Chamber of Commerce. Are we allowed to talk about this? Yeah, come on Dubai Friday, bitches. I challenge you to a goat debate. All right. Sorry, I'm not allowed to guess without prior approval.

MerlinJust so you know, Max, you're allowed to do that two more times.

AlexOkay, okay.

MerlinThat's the new rule.

AlexLet's put this in context.

MaxDoes that count as one of them or is there only one remaining?

AlexI'm tired of being gracious. Calm down. Everyone calm down. This week in Chicago, or this weekend, Wicker Park Fest happened. It's this lovely little street festival. And so Cards Against Humanity, we were selling some cards, and we also brought our goat friends. It was Cards Against Humanity and goats. But apparently, and we had these lovely urban farmers who showed us the link.

Speaker BAnd they had great signage. You guys were so good at this. You're so good at productizing weird.

AlexYeah, I have nothing to do with this, and it's all my very talented colleagues. But we were really passionate about these goats, and they'd given us the permits. They do this all the time, show off their urban goats. And so, but then this man who had a DJI backpack on, so he was wearing his drone on his backpack. He has this like policeman walkie talkie, comes up and is like, you can't have the goats. You can't have the goats. And so the plan was that I would play stupid. I'm like, I don't, what, you have to talk to my supervisor.

So we kept making up supervisors until Max actually got there and started yelling at people. Oh no, really?

Speaker AYeah, Max, what was the situation?

MaxWell, I didn't yell at them. Well, you should have yelled at them. Basically, when I got there, you know, an hour or two after the thing opened and the Wicker Park Chamber of Commerce, which sort of puts on this festival, they had come to us and there was some lady and, you know, she was just doing her job. But she was like. She was very nice. She was fine. And she was like, you can't have these goats. She said to me, what's the plan for removing the goats? And like, listen, my advice, like anytime you deal with any sort of middle management authority figure or like call center or Comcast or anything is just say the opposite of what they say.

Because it just discombobulates them. Like they don't know how to recover from that. So she said, well, I need to know the plan for removing the goats. And I said, there's no plan for removing the goats. And then she was like, okay, I'll be back. And then it was like, and then she came back 20 minutes later or whatever. And she's like, well, she's like, you need to remove the goats. I was like, well, why do they need to go? And she's like, well, you don't have the right permits for the goats. And I said, well, what permits do you need for the goats? Because we had Googled this and talked to some lawyers and stuff. And, you know, you don't need any permits to have goats for a couple hours at a street festival or whatever.

And she's like, well, she's like, you need a goat permit. And I was like, I don't. And I'm thinking to myself, I don't think there's such a thing as a goat permit. She's like, you need a goat exhibition permit or something like that. And I was like, and I'm thinking to myself, I'm pretty sure that's a permit that does not exist. That sounds like a shutdown. and i said and i said to her and i'm like well she's just making up a permit that that we don't have and you know that she's positing the existence of this permit so i was like no no we have that it's on file with the city because i my my thought is if she can make up a permit then i can make up that we have the permit and that's just by your logic dear chicago officials listening the permit

Speaker AIt was indeed filed by the city, by these urban goat farmers. Like it did exist.

MaxOh, right. That's the thing. So, right. That's the thing that's important to note here is that we didn't, these weren't just some street goats that were scraped off of the gutter. There was a goat farm that had all of their documentation and permits. And these were like healthy goats with the correct documentation. So then she came back and she's like, the city of Chicago needs you to have these health inspection permits and stuff. And she showed, you know, she pulled up something and I was, and I pulled it up and looked at it and I was like, nope, this is for a zoo. And I was like, we're not operating a commercial zoo here, so we don't need this. So we went back and forth, and I bought us a couple of hours.

And then every time they'd come back and say, we need some permit, I was like, no, no, we have that permit. Because I was like, what are they going to – it's a Saturday. What are they going to call the records department? Just out of curiosity, how long was the event?

MerlinHow long did you need to buy? Two days. Two days. Oh, gosh. Okay.

AlexWell, but what we did is – so they saw the goats at 10 a.m., which is when this opened. And we had the goats – we stalled them until about 4 p.m. And I kept sending Tom, our events manager, just go away. And every time they come, I'll say you'll be back in five minutes. And so that helped for a while. But Max, can you get to the scary man who came?

MaxThe scary man? Was I there for that?

AlexI don't know if you were. There was this man who, you know what? I can punch down this guy. He had bigger boobs than me. And he was wearing his fucking drone backpack. And he just came up. He's like, I'm not interested in having this conversation. The goats need to go. And he was actively yelling at us. And I'm just standing in the corner looking at these permits and still trying to see if we can find a loophole out of this. And our goat people are great. And like, well, we just can't take them out.

It's a safety issue. And actually, there's a permit that you need to permit.

MaxYeah, do you have your permit to remove our goats?

AlexWe need a permit to walk them down a public Chicago street. That actually is something you can't do. And so then I asked him, because he had his drone backpack on, I'm like, excuse me, do you have an FDA license to fly that drone? I'm just curious. And then he ignored me and walked away.

I'm very salty about that. And so eventually the goats had to go. but then this amazing toy store in Chicago I call them and say excuse me do you have a life size stuffed goat I could buy and without a beat yeah want to come pick it up ran a mile I haven't run a mile since the like presidential fitness test in high school got a stuffed goat it was adorable I will put the pictures in the show now brought it back an hour later it was stolen and oh my god I'm very

upset about it

Speaker Byou're trying you're trying to do something nice for the people you know i mean eventually they

Maxfigured out the correct tactic to defeat us which was they came in and they said this is our festival and you can't have goats here you have to make the goats leave like trying to deflect the problem was everyone kept coming up and saying like no no like we're cool we love the goats but the city they say you can't have the goats and like don't just take responsibility for it if you want to ruin everyone's fun.

Very funny, real-time Dan Scavino, or I'm sorry, Anthony Scaramucci follow-up. He just did an interview. This is on Death and Taxes. And it says, so what are you going to do next, I asked him. Quote, I am now going to go dark, he said. And then, quote, I will reemerge, he paused, as me.

This guy, he's fucking like, so he also, I don't know if you know this, he also has like strep throat right now. Oh no. So like all in the course of like one week, basically, he sold his company to be able to work at the White House. And then he was told he couldn't work at the White House. And then he wound up getting the job, but he missed the birth of his child. His wife divorced him. and he got and then his throat sucks

Merlinthat is no fun to have

Maxand his first one of his like main functions while he was there he forced out Rance Priebus as chief of staff and then John Kelly comes in as chief of staff and his first thing he pushes out Scaramucci he fucked himself that must be the most thing that drives him the most insane is that he brought in the guy who fired him

Merlinhe loves that guy he loves him

Maxyeah someone made that great tweet before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

MerlinMm-hmm. Hmm. Right, two letters.

Speaker AI'm kind of stuck. I am now going to go dark. Then I will reemerge. I'm stuck on that. Stuck on that line. Like, is he going to go buy some eyeliner and go to Hot Topic? And then just like...

Speaker BI'm not okay. I'm not a fucking K. I was born in the darkness.

MaxI was morbid by it. I didn't know the light.

Speaker BI was born there. There's been some tachyon interference. It makes it difficult for me to see the future.

Speaker AHe is.

Speaker BHe's Dr. Manhattan. He's going to be an emo Dr. Manhattan. He's going to come out of this whole thing with this big blue dick. You're saying we're going to see his dong. Look what happened with Lori. Look what happened with Lori. Lori had to go see Dan because she was so sad about Dr. Manhattan. He's the new Dr. Manhattan. I would love to see Scaramucci's hog.

MaxI would love it if that was the next development was we saw Scaramucci's hog. Oh, you know he's got a wide boy. you're saying he's got a

Alexgirth not length is that how I'm not familiar

Merlinyeah he's driving a taxi down the chode road you know

Maxhe's got a wide leg he has a coke one

Merlinyes for men he's got a grower and a show and a blower

MaxI feel like we should at least mention that he said that Steve Bannon oh yeah

MerlinWell, he's making fun of him because obviously Steve Bannon has a very long, useless cock that he can self-pillate. Whereas Scaramucci, the Mooch has something much broader going on. He's got something more like a can of beans.

MaxBut Bannon, but Scaramucci said that Bannon, he's got the self-suck going on. Yeah, but it's that little skinny thing. He's the Ouroboros. He's the snake that sucks his own dick.

MerlinExactly. But it's like the size of a child's husky pencil. Like big compared to a pencil, but not compared to a can of beans.

MaxYou're saying that when Bannon does the Ouroboros it's like one of those pencils where you turn the tip and it comes out. Oh like a mechanical

Merlinpencil. Uh huh. Literal pencil dick. Could be. Could be. I mean he knows more about this than I do. But I don't think you could make a remark like that about somebody else's self-fellation unless you were very very confident in your own beans.

Speaker AI don't understand why it's an insult. Like isn't that like I feel like if I had a penis and I could blow myself I would do that like once a day

AlexWhy not? Why is that a bad thing? It's not bad. I don't understand penises, guys. It's very confusing. Me neither.

MaxI heard that Steve Bannon had one of his ribs removed.

MerlinI heard he had to go to the hospital, and they had to pump his stomach because he had fucking four gallons of cum, and that there's spider eggs and bubblegum.

MaxAnd the gerbo in his asshole.

MerlinI heard one time Steve Bannon said, these cookies are really good. You have the recipe. and they billed this card for $7,000. 9-11.

MaxListen, whom among us hasn't done a huge pile of blow?

Speaker BAnd impugned a bunch of strangers and colleagues.

MaxYeah, just, yeah, you know, just done the old self-suck for 72 hours. You hole up in a hotel room, you fill a hot tub full of acid.

Speaker AWe got an iTunes review that's like,

Maxwhat? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, shit, Doc, there's iTunes reviews? No, no, no. Oh, my goodness.

Speaker ALet me get in here. This is a very vulgar comedy podcast. I'm like, it's okay. It's not a comedy podcast. It's not a political podcast. It's not vulgar.

MaxNo, this is serious commentary. We stand by everything we say. I'm sorry, Merlin. I have to download the podcast app.

Speaker ANope, nope, nope. Rebranded, Apple Podcasts.

MerlinPlease don't. Such a dead end. Please don't.

AlexDig dug. Dig dug. Oh, wow. We have good reviews. We have a 4.5 out of 5. No one reviews us. I don't want anyone to review us. I don't. I don't. I don't. No. No. It really helps, guys.

Speaker BIt really helps. Like and subscribe. Leave a comment and review. It really helps other people find out about the show.

MaxFive stars. Five stars. Max is funny. They've got a good thing going here.

Speaker BFuck me. Gently. Stop it. Don't do this. I don't look at those. I do not hear those.

Merlinand I don't want to encourage anyone to even know that they exist. No one should leave reviews and ratings ever. Unless it's about a security camera. And how hard would it be to make it so a security camera could be upside down from the ceiling and you'd be able to still get the images and you'd be able to flip it? How hard is that, really?

AlexI mean, honestly, I do read the reviews because I hope that I grow a dick so long that I can suck myself because people say that I'm funny on this. So in the musical version of this, that'll be your I Want song.

MaxThree stars. Problematic. They talk about poo for 45 minutes.

Speaker BI wish I had a cock that could reach my mouth. I pull the hairs with tiny tweezer hands. Oh, why? Oh, why? Oh, why can't I get this can of beans into my mouth? Why'd you take my goat away?

MaxDo you know what it bothers me? I've been doing a lot of little panels and discussion. This is sort of a trend. I don't know if you've seen this too. Tiny panels? Yeah, when I go to conferences or just even events at spaces or whatever, and they're like, it's not a panel or a talk. It's just a conversation.

And it's like a group of, like, it's like, you know, five business leaders from Chicago will, like, lead a conversation on creativity or something like that. So I've been doing a ton of these because that's kind of the format that people ask for. And, you know, whatever, it's fine. It's no better or worse than a panel, I guess. But the funny thing I've been noticing is, like, all of these, like, I don't know how to put it, like, these, like, filler phrases that people say to begin their statements to the group. So they'll say things like, well, I just want to piggyback. I just really want to add to what Max is saying, and I just want to piggyback on that comment.

And another one that people say that's good is, well, I just want to tie everything together that everyone's been saying. And then they'll go off and say their comment that's not really related to it. Like, well, I really think when it comes to – I want to tie together what everyone's been saying, which is it really comes down to confidence or something like that. And it's like, who appointed you the fucking writing the epilogue of this book?

MerlinThis is the kind of horseshit advice that when you go in, like you're a ding-a-ling who doesn't know how to talk to the media. you go and you get a half-day course from somebody about how to do this. And the first thing they teach you, I think, is to not move your head around too much and don't wear stripes. But then they'll say things like, you know, whenever you're asked a question, instantly find a way to turn it into the thing that you would prefer to talk about and deflect it. And that's where we got, so, because nobody ever really needs to begin a sentence with.

Speaker BSo, no, for millennia, we used to begin sentences by just saying things.

MerlinBut now by saying, so you get the chance to stop the conversation cold in its tracks. Then you drop in a little bit of Conway and you do a little bit of like, well, no, this is really actually all about this other thing. And then you deflect to whatever the fuck you want to talk about. But it's these little bridging statements that feel like social lubricant, but are really about constantly derailing the conversation into like the thing that you actually wanted to talk about.

MaxWell, and it's clear. It's also clear when people do those comments that they're not they're not in the moment at all in the conversation. Well, listen, listen, listen. They've been stewing on this comment for 20 minutes, waiting for a moment of silence to jump in. Study for the wrong test, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then they're jumping in. They're like, well, I just want to pivot for a moment to talk about this other topic. What about this unrelated thing? It's like, well, how long have you had that in the can? What about what everyone else was saying?

MerlinCan we circle back to something Max mentioned a little bit earlier?

MaxListen. You know what? The thing that drives me crazy about the, well, I just want to tie all these ideas together. is like, who fucking appointed you the narrator of Lord of the Rings? Where you're like, you know, and it sure was a grave journey by all of these hobbits. And in the end, it truly was a fellowship of the rings. No one asked you to be, no one made you the narrator of the conversation. Right, right, right.

MerlinAnd there's like certain internet personalities who I will not mention, but who really thrive. They really treasure their position as the really smart peacemaker who comes in at the last minute and goes, guys, and then you bring it all together.

MaxGuys, there's a lot of points of view here, and the important thing is that we all treat each other respectfully and all voices are heard.

MerlinWe're really a land of contrast.

AlexAll right, hold on. I've got to get a Kleenex because I've been constantly very aware of my nose hair.

Speaker BHow's the Kleenex come into that?

MaxI'm watching this with great anticipation. Alex is retrieving the box of Kleenex. She's returning to the microphone.

Speaker BIs it because she needs a place to put her dirty hair?

Speaker AIt's like, I feel like, I know I don't have boogers.

MaxDid you extract a nose hair?

Speaker ANo, I did not pluck nose hair.

MaxAre you going to edit that out like the time you threw up on the podcast? I did not throw up on the podcast. Yeah, that's a goddamn shame.

AlexI left the room and then threw up. Listen, guys.

MaxThat's worse than the time that I made fun of fat people at Gen Con and it got edited out.

Speaker AOkay, I've been thinking about this.

Alexbecause of a lot of reasons I'm like slowly been losing weight and I'm like at what point am I not allowed to make fat jokes anymore because that's really all I have

Speaker Alesbian jokes and fat jokes yeah I know

Maxyou should try being a skinny white guy a straight fit white guy I can't say anything they're one of the most discriminated against groups you can't make any jokes

Merlindo you know how hard it is for white people to get into college now

Maxdid you see the thing on Twitter that I, this blew my mind that, that picture of the interns. Did you see that? Oh, go on. Please go on.

Speaker BHave you seen the picture of the White House interns?

Speaker AYeah.

MaxYeah. Let me get a lot of white dudes. Well, it's not just that they're white dudes.

Speaker AIt's that they all look like vampires.

MaxThey're all, my father. They're all, wait, they're all greasy.

Speaker AIt's like Eric Trump.

MaxThey all have a lot of like, they all have a lot of like, like creams on their face. Why are all these white people so moist? They have a lot of like, they have like tonics in their hair.

AlexIt's, It really is like at least one Trump family member just like bit them and then they just like lost a ton of blood.

Speaker AAnd they grew the grease and they like learned how to comb their hair in the red. It's just.

Did anyone do the challenge this week?

MerlinI did the challenge. I didn't do it very well but I did it

Maxcan you say what the challenge was and I'll say my if I did it and how much

Speaker AI'm like OJ

Maxit's not that I did it if I did it here's how I would have done it

Merlinit's all about typesetting with you

Speaker Athe challenge was to download the app Streaks which I can't

Alexstop thinking that it has something to do with poop but it is one of those habit forming apps and you were to pick at least one habit.

MaxSiri, set a reminder in Streaks to wash my underwear in the hotel sink with the Borax. Nice.

AlexChoose at least one habit and try to complete it every day for a week. It was very loose. And one thing I like about Streaks is they updated it to have bad habits. Yes.

MerlinLots more icon plus bad habits.

AlexYeah, yeah. And so you say there's a very pleasing circle. You hit it when you have completed your habit or task for the day. But if you have broken one of your bad, if you've done one of your bad habits, you have to select that as well. So I have one that's eat shit snacks. And as I let you guys know, last night or very early this morning, I had a little bit of ego depletion going on and had some Pringles and Reese's Pieces, at about one or two this morning.

That's how my brain says it too. Greasey's pieces. And then I was looking closer at that picture and if you notice, I left the top of the Prinkle can on, you know how you peel it back? And that is so I could hide it and put the cover back on so Mel wouldn't know that I ate a half can of Prinkle in the middle of the night. Yeah. She doesn't listen to the show.

Speaker BI can see what kind of iPad you have. If I zoom in, I can see your address on your birth control.

Speaker AThat's probably true.

AlexYeah, so how did you do in this challenge, Merlin? Do you have any thoughts and feelings? Does the Merlin man have any thoughts and feelings on habits?

MerlinThanks, Alex. I've been a user of Streaks for a while. For what it does, it's pretty good. What was I using it for? I've been using it to remind me to, I hate this fucking word so much, work out for 20 minutes, which is such a dumb way to put it, but basically go move for a few minutes every day. And then I added other ones. I added floss your teeth. I'll send you a screen grab. I added floss your teeth, record heart rate stand, and one called don't die. And every day that I don't die, I'm allowed to click on that. Oh, good. Yes. My workout. I just love clicking

on stuff. I know. I know, right? No, I missed a couple flosses. The heart rate's automatic, so that's a no-brainer. I always hit my stand goal. Those are cheats. I haven't died. But I I think this is, I'll tell you what I think is handy about this is that you, I don't mean to drag this on, but I think it is, I think it's useful to be able to say, here's the thing I want to change. We talked about this actually just this week. I'm back to work. I think it's really useful to say, this is the thing that I want to change. And I'm going to, I'm so into doing that.

I might have thought about this for 15 years, but I'm finally going to type letters and pick a picture for it. And I'm going to say, this is the thing in this app. I think that actually makes a pretty big difference to write it down or type it in this case. But then second, I think it can be very handy that it reminds you. It'll say like usually in the afternoon, if I haven't taken a walk, I'll get a little pop up. And it's annoying. But like that is one of the annoyances that I have deliberately brought on myself. I want it to bug me about this. But then finally, even if I don't get it, that doesn't mean I delete the app, right?

Even if I missed it today and I've broken my streak, that doesn't mean I don't do it anymore. and I have several apps like this. The other one that I like a lot, to be honest, is David underscore Smith's Activity++, which does some nice things on top of your rings for your Apple Watch. But yeah, I did it. I didn't succeed, but I think it's a good challenge. How'd you do?

AlexI'm sending you some screenshots now. I actually listened to Back to Work and these are sort of, I find Streak sort of like a gamification type thing. Like I have one that says wake up on time, but I always, it's kind of cheap because I always do wake up on time. But then if I have to hit it and I know that I have only gotten like three hours of sleep, I'm like, that's not great. And catch a Pokemon is really just leave the fucking house. Alex, go somewhere outside and be outside for a little bit.

Speaker BOh, look at that.

AlexI see. Okay. Yeah, because I'm still one of the 20 people in the world who play Pokemon Go. and there's a lot of cool places in the city that have little gyms and shit.

MaxIt's the same guy who makes Health Face? I love Health Face.

AlexYeah, and the walk thing is automatic.

MaxThey're probably one of the best Apple developers. They're very good. Like I used to iOS developers.

AlexYeah, and oh, I really like the, now all of this integrates with, to bring it back to a Merlin set, it integrates with HealthKit. so it'll let me know um if i'm using what do i use i i don't know i have a water tracking app and that's really to make sure that i don't drink diet coke all day can you explain what the black screen does the black screen is bad habits and you can customize that in any way you want and it's like don't do the bad habit yeah so i had to uh knock off one because last last today or this

morning i ate a bunch of shitty snacks um i don't know how i feel about that but but it's it is much

Merlinharder it is i'll be merlin man for a minute it is much harder to do this kind of thing with a bad habit because either either of the options is not very savory one of the options is when i'm a bad boy i have to smash the button and the other option is if you if you invert it is that at 12 01 a.m i'm allowed to tick the box that says i was a good boy today which means your whole day that's like hanging over your head you know what i mean if you're really like desperately trying not to smoke or pick boogers like that's kind of hanging over your head all day it is much less fraught to introduce a new habit than it is to just strictly stop a bad one. Unless you just

say, look, I'm never doing this again. I'm throwing this pack of cigarettes against the wall. I will never touch these ever again. And some people do that. They can do that. It's just that if you've failed at doing that or have not succeeded in the way you would like in the past, it gets you, you know, it eats at you that like, you know, I've never, I've never beaten this game.

AlexI mean, well, and that's what I like. Like I like going into the little calendar and like, Yeah, it was so good. For a while, I had it where I was like, don't order Postmates. And then it's like, oh, wow. I've spent a month not ordering Postmates at 3 a.m. And, like, also what's, and again, this is silly. This is my own gamification. Like, I know I'm never going to have a streak of, like, 300 days of not eating bad food. I want it to make me feel bad.

there's another app I really like called it's by the guy who makes Carrot Weather which people are pretty jazzed about right now but it's like Carrot Workout which is this like it has a like a character of an AI that basically yells at you to work out and it shames you if you don't and I just find that enjoyable and that's what motivates me because I don't want to disappoint my fake robot friend I like the Carrot

MerlinBot you can now change You can change how aggressive the carrot, the weather bot is with you. It's pretty funny. Have you poked the eye?

AlexOh, oh, I've stopped poking the eye. It's not fun anymore. She gets real mad.

MaxI have such a hard time with this. I have installed and uninstalled this app a hundred times on my phone. Yeah, because it always seems like a good idea. And it always seems like there's so many little things in the day. Flossing is actually one of my big ones. Like I, I never, it's so hard for me to fucking make myself take the time to floss. And it's not, I don't know. We've talked about it. It's like not even that unpleasant. Like there's no reason. And it just sucks. I don't know. I don't want to take the time. I'm a busy man. I'd rather be playing video games.

But, uh, uh, flossing is one, like getting my meditation in there is one. And I do a pretty good job meditating every day, but it's nice to have a little reminder. But inevitably, like the thing is like once I ignore one, filling one circle and streaks, the whole thing just crumbles to shit. Then it's just some icon sitting on my home screen, people blurping at me, beeping and blurping all day. And I'm just like, no, fuck this. I'm already, this thing's not my boss. Like I already defeated it.

MerlinLook at, so I sent you the activity plus plus. And one reason I sent that is you'll see a nice feature of this. So this is David underscore Smith's app, like all of his plus plus apps. Activity plus plus. On the face of it, it's not doing that much apart from what you get inside the health app with the rings. But notice, for example, Sunday the 30th. Did you see where I didn't reach my red goal? And so you see, I don't know if you see in little letters, it says Z, Z, Z, Z, Z. If you miss one of your days in a week, you still get to keep your streak. So as long as you do it for seven days in a row, I think that's what it is.

But anyway, if you do it for N number of days, you get back on the horse, you get to keep your streak. So like, you know, there's like one day where I updated my watch. I was putting a new, you know, updated OS on there and it was on the stand longer than usual. I lost my stand goal. I'm like, I never lose my stand goal. Like you can see here, I got 219 days of red. 190 days of blue hardly ever hit green but um but you know that that's that's uh i mean that's a little bit dispiriting we were like hey no fair like you should give me that one you know what i

Alexmean uh if well if if you want to i actually did this for it was a similar thing because i didn't have my watch on one day um and for some reason the uh what was it um i don't know like the pedometers. I turned it off. So you can edit it to be like, okay, this is actually a day that I did complete this habit, which is nice. And I think it's new. Along with, you can change all the icons and colors. It's very exciting. I love it. I spent so much time on the icons.

MerlinOh, yeah. Check out the link I just sent you. This is a kind of interesting new addition. I've had a little fun with Exist. I've mentioned Exist.io and talked about how in some ways it's really amazing. In some ways it's very silly. Long story short, it's that app that you basically hook it up to a bunch of your dinguses and services, and it finds over 30 to 90 days, it starts to find patterns that emerge.

MaxOh, it's like, push alert, you're more tired on days when you don't sleep a lot.

MerlinRight, right. You get more steps when you work out longer. Thanks, buddy. What was the one you weigh more when you're in Washington, D.C., or it's windier when you're in Washington, D.C., or something? But check out that link. I think this is a very interesting idea. Oh, I see. Just a nice little hack where now you can go in and they have what's called custom tracking. And it's really just as simple as you tick on – like if there's a thing that you're following. In this case, in this example, you'll see, did I drink coffee today? Did I play football today?

I watched football? I don't know. Sneezing? Vivid dream. So like you can just – when you wake up, you just hit a button that said vivid dream. And in 90 days or so, it might be able to tell you something interesting. Like when you have – I do wish it existed more with sleep analysis. It doesn't, it's pretty basic with sleep analysis in a way Fitbit really tries to give you stuff about REM versus deep versus light versus awake. But anyway, I think this is a really interesting idea where if whatever your deal is, where you're like, you could just have one called anxious morning and you go like, I had an anxious morning today.

And you know what? In 30, 90 days, maybe it's going to tell you something. Oh, you know what? You have a lot of anxious mornings when you have evening coffee or whatever.

MaxThat's very interesting. So I could be at the end of the day, I could be like, I feel like garbage. and then in a few weeks it'll be like, oh, you ate a zesty sandwich from KFC.

Speaker BYeah, you could make a tag like tired PM, for example.

MaxAnd you could be like, oh, on days when you eat more than one zinger, you feel very bad at night.

MerlinYou get a zinger bomb. But I think things like that are super interesting. And again, it's just a question of finding the solution that fits your problem rather than trying to do the opposite, like just trying to figure out what are 50 solutions to a problem I may or may not have. And in this case, if you're interested in this stuff, I think the tools are out there for doing it. And if you've got the motivation to stick with it, these have gotten a lot more lightweight and mobile.

MaxDid either of you learn anything from using the Streaks app? Did you find a good thing to put in Streaks or some sort of, I don't know. I'm searching for some sort of way to get back into this or make it work for me. But I don't know. Did you have any surprising journeys of self-discovery?

AlexWell, I've actually been using this a really long time. And there was a while. I have this thing where if I have a streak for 30 days, then I just take it off because I think that's the amount of time my brain gets it in. This is just part of your day where it was like, read on a Kindle, specifically on my Kindle for one hour every day because I know that if I'm on my phone or my iPad, which I do, I read a ton on those, but I get a funny tweet.

MerlinIt's easy to forget about a Kindle for months. It's so easy if you're not doing it regularly. and then I go in there and I have to manually delete like 60 days of Instapaper posts. It's like, it's so stupid.

AlexYeah. And so now that that worked for me. And it was also, I had a reminder to play video games on the weekends because this is, I know this is silly, but like I'll be, I would make plans to play video games or board games with my friends. And I just know that I'm happier if I have that tiny amount of human interaction. Not too much. Good Lord. Too much. No. um so that's that's also something that helped uh i failed on the whole meditation thing it's uh i know i know this is like very merlin man but it's there are some things where i eventually just

took it off because like okay right now this is not working for me for whatever reason and

Merlinyeah and it's just it's just it's just you're grinding your own nose into that pile of poop like you're doing it over and over i have to tell you that like i if if meditation apps work for you and I work for a lot of people, I say good on you. I think meditation might be one of those kinds of things for me where I've got to want this a lot more and an app's just going to annoy me. So, I mean, I think there's different things for different people. You've got to find like what that thing is. But, you know, if there's something that gets you over the hump of the first day, the first three days, the first week, or there's the now widely discredited,

it takes three weeks to build a habit, whatever. You got your own sense of that. I agree with you. 30 days, if you're doing it for 30 days, you're probably pretty good. but like for max i mean like what are the what are the kinds of things is what are you talking about health or behavior or thoughts like what are the kinds of things that you're thinking about

Maxeverything no seriously like i i'm not i don't i don't i'm not don't do any of this stuff and i'm not good at any of it and yet sometimes i surprise myself because i set my mind to something and then i do it and i'm like and then when i'm done i'm like i can't believe that happened where did that

Merlincome from oh it happens to me all the time like i mean it happens often enough that it's disturbing to me where i'm like i've been worrying about this for two years and then i spent 15 minutes today or spent eight minutes today and it was remarkably easy to take care of yes but like i'm like let's

Maxsee i look back and i'm like where did that willpower what how where did that come from why can't i summon that whenever i want and just be a fucking grown-up and handle my my business Why was I so scared to sort my receipts for the year? I know.

MerlinI think a lot of it's chemistry. I think some of it really has to do with chemistry. For me, I'm sure there's a role of, on the one hand, whatever's happening with my anxiety, and then on the other hand, my dopamine issues.

So sometimes, you know what? I have a surprisingly good morning, by which I mean I manage to do something that ordinary fucking people do 20 times a day. but I just happened to do it this one day out of two years and I really just put some points on the board and it's startling it's really startling because you realize at least for myself like I realize like it's it's so embarrassing it's so shameful but then like when you actually do it you're like you do get a little blast you know I mean they're they're I don't know just I think

Alexit's it is chemistry in a lot of ways I don't know if this is a healthy thing to do and I don't know if I would suggest other people do this but I have you know I've got like my bipolar hypomanic So I have a, just in my to-do list app, I have a list that I've labeled odds and ends. And whenever I'm like, you know, just have a week where it's just crazy productive and at the end of the day I do have time and I'm like, ah, I am going to go in and turn off all of my Twitter, like get rid of all my Twitter services or organize all of these Dropbox files and stuff like that.

And it's just, I don't know, channeling that stuff or channeling all of what is unhealthy energy into stuff that like, oh, yeah, I could have done this a year ago. But now I feel so much better. Like if I had done it a year ago, I would have been like, oh, that was exhausting. And now I'm sad.

MerlinAnd that could be a day where you do four. Then suddenly that's a day where you do four of those things. And you're like, what the fuck is happening? Why can't I do this at least one day a month? Why can't there be one day a month where I have utter executive control?

MaxWhy are we all like this?

MerlinI have. Well, I do think it's chemistry. And there's this thing that just hides in plain sight for me every moment of my day. I am entirely aware of this. I talk about this on podcasts. I talk about this with my daughter. But like there, I'm just going to say it because I thought about it as recently as this morning a lot, which is like it's one thing to feel bad about something. And then it's another thing to feel bad about how you feel. and I think that is a giant force that I need to keep in mind a lot more often

which is that I don't have I have some control over the things that happen to me but like I put myself through such ridiculous amounts of anxiety and torture and fear and doubt over things that are not in evidence and I don't know why and it could be chemistry but what I'm telling you is like if you just take a minute to pop this stack and you say to yourself whatever I'm feeling right now I can find a temporary respite from that to be able to step away from thinking that I am that emotion or I am that physical sensation.

I can just experience that and look at it without judgment. This does not have to be meditation. But just take that step away. And if you just do that for fucking five seconds, you feel so different. You really can feel so different and go, you know what? I think today I'm tired of making myself feel bad about things. And I'm just going to take a little bit of a step back. And like it's really weird. It's almost like an out-of-body experience. I think it's virtually impossible to do all the time, especially with my chemistry. But Jesus fucking Christ, is it handy to remember that sometimes.

MaxSomething you said back when you were Merlin Mann on your productivity podcast, Back to Work with Dan Benjamin. My favorite episode of the podcast is called Giant Beholder Dinosaur, and it's about cleaning. It's sort of about organizing and cleaning and collecting things, and it's sort of in that vein. and you had a great riff on that episode that I think about all the time which is you can get yourself into a place where like if you don't clean your refrigerator for a long time you now become scared of your refrigerator and now it's like not now not only is the refrigerator messy

but you're like scared to deal with the messiness and you you work yourself into this like anxiety about even confronting the problem and I think about that all the time about being scared of my mailbox, being scared of my refrigerator, being scared of my office supply drawer. And that's literally what it is. It's like I literally can't even begin to solve the problem because I've let it get so bad that it's intimidating. And sometimes I'll find that willpower to be like, okay, today's the day I deal with this and open up that freezer drawer and throw stuff out or whatever.

But I don't know where that comes from.

MerlinIt's just a fucking freezer. but now think about also I mean let's take it to this logical conclusion which is that okay at a certain point now time has passed and now that is about so much more than your refrigerator in at least two ways in a very important primary way that is now you, you are that refrigerator now you are that broken thing that you don't want to deal with and that is very, that is way different from having old celery but the second thing on a practical level is now that can have knock on effects in the way that you think, behave, decide

do perceive. So, like, okay, on the one hand, maybe you want to eat healthier. I don't want to buy, like, fucking $300 in groceries because I've got to open that refrigerator. I'm not going to have a party. I'm not going to have people over to my house, right? Like, these things are real. This will start, and now as you're turning it over in your mind, and it's just this, like, big bubblegum and hair wah, just, like, rolling through your life, you know, Katamari-ing up all the decent stuff in your life and turning it into shit.

because that's what will happen. I did that yesterday. I cleaned out a refrigerator in our freezer yesterday. It took about eight minutes. The hardest part was walking it down to the trash. But I like our refrigerator. It sounds dumb. Like, well, white guy problems. I like our refrigerator so much more now that I got rid of some fish sticks, half a box of fish sticks, I felt bad about throwing away six months ago.

AlexDo you have one? For me, it's like one thing is laundry because I'm bad at folding laundry. And then you're right. I become the giant pile of clean laundry that slowly becomes dusty and gross.

MaxTell me about your laundry procedure.

Speaker AOh, God. Well, the procedure that I try ideally,

Alexbecause I wear the same clothes every week. Like you said, I've got the A game of clothes. And then once a week, every Sunday, I clean it or I do, I'm so lucky. I have a washing machine in my house now. Do the laundry. And then I'm like, okay, this is my three hours gonna do the laundry gonna listen to podcasts and then it's done um but then something i get distracted and someone's like come do a thing or my cats are being cute and then the entire week uh every night i'm picking out what i'm going to wear

the next day from the laundry basket uh and that happens at least three times a month so even when

Maxi in my last apartment like even when i had a washing machine i but i i lived alone i would often just take all my laundry to a laundromat and you can just pay them by the pound to like wash and fold because you know what because honestly oh shit because honestly and i would do it on the way to work or whatever because honestly it was i didn't i i i was doing the same thing and i was like i i should not be wearing dirty clothes out of the laundry for weeks at a time because i cannot find two or three hours to do the laundry okay to be clear

Speaker Ai'm not wearing dirty laundry guys it's just the laundry it's clean laundry and the laundry is you

AlexI'm the and you know what I'm going to go and just bite the bullet and do the like seven pounds of laundry

Maxyou can also there's like startups and they'll you can have an office Hagrid come to your house oh I tried that it was weird it was super weird gig economy surf and then they all have so weird they all have some gimmick like they bring you a fucking cookie when you're done yeah it's so weird

Alexthey brought me a mint Max I'm like what

Merlinam I supposed to do

Maxthey all have a gimmick And then there was a great – all right. I'll put it in the show notes. There's an incredible article about a startup, which I think already went under, called Washio. Yep, that was it. And it was like – and basically, like, it was their struggle. And it was their struggle to –

MerlinWell, they were bad.

MaxI hear.

MerlinI hear they lost laundry a lot.

MaxYeah, yeah.

MerlinNo, they lost it, like, a lot.

Maxbasically their struggle was like just trying to define themselves in a world of like of like exact of every bro in silicon valley feeling like the biggest problem in the world was that their mom wasn't around to fold their laundry so there were like a hundred identical companies and they were like one company started offering a cookie when they dropped the laundry off so then the next one had to offer an organic juice and the next one had like an organic juice but it was made from local vegetables and it was like it was just a hilarious like game of of stupid one-ups

manship of like all these people who couldn't think of a single better problem to solve than

Merlinhaving your laundry full i think it's an excellent problem to solve but if i were saying for the sake of argument another problem would be that it turns out there's one startup that's a wash startup and

Speaker Bthey utilize a different gig economy startup to do the delivery and they can't do things like coordinate doing two bags instead of one because guess what they always lose a second bag i'm just

Merlinsaying uh you got to build up for scale i think what you can do in that case is find a reliable place like is it mostly clothes are we talking about towels and sheets no well see and that's

Alexthe thing we always have tons of clean towels and sheets because that's an easy that's just uh you know that's easy and it's uh wash it on hot dry it on hot all good to go um and honestly most

Speaker Aof my clothes are that way it's just i can't fold t-shirts i can't uh but then washio lost my mystery

Alexshow t-shirt and i'm never gonna get that bet i know it was the jake gyllenhaal one it was real

Maxgood anyway my washing machine broke and the guy and uh so the guy said yesterday that veronica and were pretty sure that it was like a broken gasket or something because water was going everywhere and um so the guy so the guy was supposed to call me yesterday between 9 and 11 and i was supposed to be at city hall at 11 so i or he was supposed to be between 8 and 11 and i was supposed to be at City Hall at 11 and I sort of rolled the dice and I was like, you know what? I'm going to put it all on black and guess that he comes within the early part of that window and I'll be able

to leave early enough to get to City Hall. Well, sure enough, it's 8, 8.30, 9, 9.30, no call, no call, no call, no call. I didn't hear from him. And it's starting to creep up towards 11. So I called and pushed back my thing to 11.30 and pushed it back to noon again. And then eventually 11 came and went and he hadn't called. So I just left and went to City Hall doing my business, doing battle with the clerk at business affairs at city hall engaged in some sort of you know verbal fencing match where we're pushing paperwork back and forth at each other and i'm trying to to to win the day with a with a with a witty remark and my phone rings and it's the guy and he's like

i'm here where are you i'm here to fix your washing machine and there's i can't deal with this i'm in city hall like yelling like like like uh exchanging uh bon mots with the with the the clerk at the business affairs desk. So I called Kara and I was like, Kara, I need you to run to my house and take a key and like let the washing machine guy in. And she's like, okay, I'll, I'll do it. So then he calls me back five minutes later and he's like, you're not here. I have, I'm going to leave. And I was like, would you fucking, you're hours late. Would you fucking wait there for my assistant to come in and let you in? So Kara lets him in.

And then I wind up, I want to back at the office. Like, I want to say like 20 minutes after this all goes down. So like not long afterwards and Kara's already back. And I'm like, Oh, If he stayed and fixed my washing machine, she would not be back at the office by now. And basically what happened was Kara was like, yeah, the guy took one look at your washing machine and said it's way more broken than a gasket. It's probably going to be cheaper to get a new washing machine than to try and fix this one. And also he said he really liked your art.

I was like, oh, that was nice.

Speaker AWell, it's little things.

MaxDon't comment on the art if you go into some things.

MerlinNo. Don't give me a cookie. Don't give me a juice. I don't want to talk about laundry.

MaxHey, Alex, would you get a chip?

Speaker AWould I get a chip?

MaxA chip, a microchip. You know how some companies are giving their employees microchips?

Speaker AOh, yes, 100%.

MaxYou would get one? 100%. I saw that story, and I was like, I don't think this would go over well in our company, except Alex would probably be into it.

Speaker AI am so down with it. I immediately saw that. Well, and you were also talking about how you wanted to,

Alexyou were upset because the Roombas now are going to map people's houses and sell them. Oh, very creepy. One, I don't think it's going to happen. But two, since I rent, all of that information is on Zillow anyway. Don't be creepy, please. But it really doesn't matter.

But yeah, Merlin, did you see this? You put a little microchip in, and then you can buy stuff. Man, think about how much Nick would love that, how easy expenses would be. Oh, it'd be great.

MaxIf there was a microchip implant I could get that would do the, what do you call it? The thing, what opens the doors? What is that? Is that a...

Speaker ALike a little fob type thing?

MaxYeah, but what technology is that?

Speaker AOh.

MaxOh, near field communication? Is that what it is? It's a little... NFC? It's a dongle and you push it up to the door thing and it goes boop and it opens the door. If I could get a little NFC chip in my arm that would open the doors in the office so I didn't have to carry a key card around and I never forgot it at my desk, I would strongly consider it. Yeah.

Merlinstrongly consider it. I feel better about using my iPhone than my body. Anything biometric bugs me just because if anything ever goes wrong, it's like the whole thing with using faces and eyes and all of that. Like you can't get new faces and eyes yet. Like that's kind of weird. Exactly.

MaxWell, what I've heard, what I've heard is like, um, from, from security people is, um, you know, they finish wringing out their underwear on the sink and then they say, actually biometrics should be used as the username, not the password. Yeah. Well, well you just, you put a chip. Cory Doctor a lot on this podcast, although I agree with him on almost all of these things.

AlexThat's the thing. I would rather have a chip in my arm than use my fingerprint or my iris or whatever, because then you just cut out the chip if you're in a... You bite

Speaker Ait out of your arm if you're in a bad situation.

MaxOh, like a... You don't think I've thought about this, Marlon? Like a William Gibson thing. Yeah.

MerlinOr like a cyanide tooth, right? Like if you're a Nazi and you've got to kill yourself when you get captured, you just bite down on your tooth. except you just film with the mouth every time a

Alexjoke happens got your giant

Merlinbean can cock

Show notes

Transcript

36. Scaramucci’s Hog

Show notes

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