38. Uncle Vinegar

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, look into your wallet.

I am sorry I'm late. I came. So our studio right now is kind of a swamp and it's gross. and we're waiting for these because we don't have the cool fans yet. Wasn't that a good idea? That was a very good idea. And I hope that they would come before we recorded. They're not.

MaxIt sounds kind of like sweet, like someone dropped a bottle of perfume outside or something. What is that?

AlexOh, that is probably because I literally just like washed my face with grapefruit face wash and then put on makeup again because I felt so disgusting, which is why I am late and Max was here prepared.

Maxright i came in and i saw alex has two coke zeros and one diet coke no no no no no no there is it's

Alexmore than that i'm not sure there so this is a coke zero and then a coke zero sugar zero calorie soda i i don't know the difference so i was just really excited uh anyway i was like this is making

Maxme looking at alex's like array of beverages set up here i was like this is making me very thirsty for Diet Coke. So I got a Diet Coke.

AlexWhich is definitely going to be superior. Always will be superior.

MaxGuys, I don't feel funny today. Yeah, no. My emotions are that I'm very sad and frustrated. You'll be fine.

MerlinYou'll be fine. This will pick you right up. I have a large ball jar of iced coffee, which I have drunk most of. And I have a Canada Dry original sparkling seltzer water.

MaxNow, how do you make the iced coffee? Did you buy it? I make it myself. Okay. Now, what's your method here? Are you making regular coffee and adding ice to it?

MerlinYeah. That's most of the recipe. What I do is I make coffee. I make coffee in a Melita number four filter single-hit dingus, and I make it pretty strong. Uh-huh. And that makes a large, what you might call a coffee mug. I mean, it's larger than a coffee cup. I mean, if you ever look at an actual cup, that ain't no coffee cup. It's a mug. Then I fill my ball mason jar, my ball jar. I fill it all the way to the top with ice, and then I pour the coffee in. Sometimes, if I'm real thirsty, I'll do it when it's still hot. You put the hot coffee right over the ice.

Yeah, the hot stays hot.

MaxThat's for sure that's the way to go. That's called the Japanese method. You brew the hot coffee right over the ice.

MerlinOh, well, okay. No, no, no, no. I cheat a little bit. I mean, I make it into a coffee cup because I worry about glass breaking. You know, you're asking a lot from a physics standpoint of glass when you put ice and too much hot directly in the same thing. Also, my dingus won't fit because they've changed the Melita filter. It's very upsetting.

MaxHave you seen the guy who have you seen the video of the guy on the Internet? This is an old Internet video, but the guy there's a video of like an old man who inserts a mason jar into his anus and then it shatters.

AlexThat's immediately what my brain went to. Why is that?

MaxBecause Merlin's talking about a glass mason jar full of coffee breaking. How am I not supposed to think of that? And then the video is like 20 minutes long and 18 and a half minutes of it are him pulling huge shards of glass out of his asshole.

MerlinIt shows you that really at the end of the day, the human body is a land of contrast. The rectum will accommodate a ball jar.

MaxOr as the Native Americans called it, his maze hole.

Merlini just came back from new england where there's a thing you do where you have a carnival style game with two uh like like wooden things with holes in it and you throw bean bags and it's unironically

Maxcalled cornholing and it is never seen bros that's like the national sport of bros it's like bro lawn sport olympics you never seen that before alex do you not see this like during the summer you drive out and there's like bros outside of their house like throwing, just like, I mean it's the sport of the truly brain dead. I mean you stand there just like hucking beanbags into these wooden wagers of cheese.

MerlinYou're gonna upset Lil' Rhodey. Don't upset Lil' Rhodey. There's a lot of angry Portuguese there. And so they put it on signs. It says they have lobster rolls and cornholing. Come on in. Bring the family. Have some cornholing. And they don't even laugh about it. They don't think it's funny.

MaxEverybody's laughing and talking and cornholing except for Buster.

AlexYou know what? You know how a lot of people think about what their legacy is going to be and how people remember then on the internet hashtag follow-up.

Merlin, have you seen the game? It's called Ladder Golf, and you throw two balls against a ladder. Am I right? It's the worst.

MerlinThere's only one place I've ever played it, and that would be Rhode Island.

AlexYeah, yeah. And we, I can't confirm this, but I was like, oh, is this, this is like testicle toss. And I, and then my cousin put it on Urban Dictionary and I'm pretty sure that I gave this the name testicle toss and you Google testicle toss and what pops up, but ladder toss. I'm very proud of this. Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah.

MerlinI call it yard nuts, but the, um, with a Z, but the, uh, yeah, no, no, it's, uh, that, that might be a discovering calculus type situation,

Speaker Ayou know,

Alexthat, that is such a, at the same time.

MerlinYeah. That's a thirsty name. A lot of people are going to come up with, with a test,

Speaker Abut it's,

Maxbut you know, do you guys, are you guys still able to, I was thinking about this this morning. Are you guys still able to sort of, I don't know how to put this to like freshly process the idea that Donald Trump is the president in a way where it still is as implausible and ridiculous on its face as it was like, as it would have been like three years ago. Do you know what I mean by that? I get it right when I wake up in the morning and I'm like taking my morning shit and sometimes I think like,

oh my God, Donald Trump, the guy, the fake millionaire from TV with the crazy haircut is the fucking president.

Speaker AI get it repeatedly

Merlinand on different levels of profundity where, I mean, real talk. I mean, yesterday was extremely stressful to me. This whole last few days has been, And I came back from this trip and I was like, this is so great.

MaxFor our listeners, we're recording this on Wednesday. By the time you hear this, you might think Merlin's talking about whatever atrocity happens on Thursday. Oh, yeah, sorry.

AlexPodcasts can't keep up. Which Nazis are we talking about today? The good ones. Oh, gosh.

MerlinIt doesn't matter. But I might have mentioned this to you. But I came back from this trip. I came back a few days early to do podcasts. And I had a whole day set aside. It was like Saturday was going to be my day to catch up on sleep and unplug from the internet and read books. And I made the category error of looking at my phone and then all day long, that's all I did. And it's been really stressful, like super duper stressful. But no, to your point though, Max, honestly, it's shocking how much this still hits me with different levels of profundity.

where there's the baseline, uh-huh, feeling that I have like all, literally all day long. It's my thought keeps coming back to, uh-huh. And then there'll be something like him in the lobby of the building with his name on it, saying what he said yesterday. And it really, really, really hits me. And I'm just like, I can't believe it's been 200 and however many days, and it's still not fully sinking in.

MaxThe human mind has an amazing capacity for sort of acceptance. like there's this great much like the cornhole much like the cornhole i mean it can it can it

Merlincan widen and adapt to ideas of unimaginable girth but eventually it crushes the glass now you're

Maxwell then you spend your whole morning pulling shards of glass out of your mind

Alexwell well that's the thing like if you you have a messed up brain like mine and you go into these irrational thought spirals of anxiety um like i do on a daily basis uh you're used to it but now it's like oh i am stressed and anxious about a reasonable thing like my dark terrible thoughts spirals they make sense now and it's just not even i'm not even personally in that much trouble

Merlinright yeah look at me yeah i i'm like i'm the canonical white guy and it's like holy shit it's just it's just so uh i mean it's i'm tired of thinking this i'm tired of hearing it i'm tired of saying it but every time one of these horrible things happens one of these horrible things is

Speaker Asaid and then a thousand things aren't said there's like a 17 year old black girl who's sitting there and hearing that right or or there's a 70 year old like you know um person from mexico

Merlinor it's a 90 year old holocaust survivor whoever it is or it's just another canonical white guy and you sit there and you and it's it doesn't stop hurting profoundly there's that's stressful

Maxthere's this great george carlin bit that i think about all the time and he uh he said uh wouldn't be weird if the only way people could die was that their heads suddenly exploded without warning if there was simply no other cause of death one day you'd be sitting there having a hot chocolate and suddenly your head would explode you know something i bet people would get used to it and i think about that all the time because if that happened we totally would it would be shocking for one year and then everyone would get used to it and they'd just be like yeah it's the head explosions it happens now and it is such a struggle for me to look around the world or look at the

news and and and get myself into that headspace of like oh my god people's heads are exploding like this sucks either way like like the the millenniums are like oh cassette tapes what's

Merlinthat and you're like uh hey i like cassette tapes are how it used to be it didn't used to be people's heads just blew up that's this is all new to me yeah it's very it's like bracing like when i get

Maxthose moments of like just just sort of remembering the it's so weird like our brains are so wired to understand like status and hierarchy and who's the powerful people in the tribe and who aren't who isn't and it's like trump is he he's such a an arbitrage on that on that system right it's like it's so easy to like see him with all the trappings of the presidency and his like fake gold bullshit and to fall into that pattern of like yes he's like a powerful and wealthy man and and we have

to deal with him as the president and and and it it takes like more and more effort every day to look through that and be like, it's a total fabrication. He doesn't have that much money. He's not that powerful. Oh, God.

MerlinIt's like on top of everything that just happened. I mean, it's fun to watch political Twitter. No, it's not. I watch political Twitter. Thank you, Max. And I've started participating in it a little bit. And that's fun.

MaxMerlin, I saw you get some retweets. I got some retweets. I was reading my political Twitter list. I'm scrolling down. And there's the little, what's that called? the stipple print or whatever with the stipple face with the huge chin and i was like who is that with that huge chin what's that he made a funny funny joke about pound signs um is that

Merlinmatt smith no it's berlin i wish oh chinny um but uh what was i talking about uh oh yeah yeah yeah and everybody everybody likes to you know be a little i think i might need to take a break from political twitter everybody likes to to make a little remark about the really surprising thing about that was i can't believe you might have seen this before and you know the problem is like with with the way that real twitter works is if i'm following people on your list my mutes don't count so there's like a few people there's a few people i've finally had to

people who with whom i am nominally politically aligned on the coast who i just cannot see anymore and so I've had to block them

Maxfrom on a cross. Do you know the expanding brain meme? Small brain is reading your Twitter timeline. Large brain is reading Max's political Twitter list. But universe brain, galaxy brain, that's reading Donald Trump's Twitter timeline. So you guys know there's lists. You can subscribe to a list of Donald Trump's Twitter timeline so you can see Twitter as Donald Trump sees it and that's what I've been reading and that's the good shit. that's galaxy mind because it's like the the the world is exploding there's people on fire

running up and down the streets and there's like nazis marching torches like it's all fucking crazy and you go on it's all like personal personal congratulations on statements of strength yeah there's a lot of that but then there's also like new revelations about benghazi

Merlinthe email more on the email yeah um but but but but in that instance of the whole like wow i'm really interesting about this is several people and i'm somewhat inclined to agree with this is is that the the rotten cherry on top of this whole thing was that terrible terrible thing that had my heart slamming in my chest and then ends with him walking away and he just can't stop he's still taking questions and he feels the need to remark uh several untruths in one but the fact that he felt the need to mention that i think he said he has a house in charlottesville but then he said

he owns a winery in Charlottesville, and it's, I think he says something along the lines of it's one of the most successful wineries in America. Something along those lines. Now, there's several things about that that are inaccurate. It is, at least apparently on the record, owned by thing number two. Instead, it's not him. It's actually Eric, I think, that owns it. My father.

Speaker AMy father transferred me the worst winery assets on the East Coast. My father is changing the way the millenniums order wine. And it's not that successful.

MaxMy father takes a big sniff of the wine and says, wow, there's a lot going on here.

Speaker AMy father found a way to use stems as a renewable energy source, and everyone said it was good. My father doesn't even drink wine, but he's so savvy about money dollars that he knows what land to buy for grape.

MaxMy father uprooted the water tower and drank all the water for the entire town.

Speaker AMy father knows there's at least two Virginias and he knows their names and their secret names. He breathed in the entire ocean and just left the fish behind. My father knows the difference between 3, 4, and 6, 8 time.

MaxMy father found all the plot holes in this week's Game of Thrones and you can't travel by boat across the continent in that little amount of time.

Speaker AMy father knew Cersei wouldn't even need to change her mind if she saw a dead white walker. My father impregnated the queen on the Iron Throne.

My father made the wine that Cersei was drinking before she blew up the sept with the dragon fires.

AlexGuys, people are going to get more mad about theoretically what those spoilers than they ever have about any political.

Speaker AI'll suck my balls. Oh, man. Shut your mouth, America. I love this season. I love it.

MerlinLove it. Love it.

Speaker AOh.

MaxHere's the deal with political Twitter. that I've, this has made it a little less fun to me since I realized like the fundamental trick of political Twitter. And I'm going to tell this to you and it'll make it less fun for you too. So basically, political Twitter operates the sort of-

MerlinIt's like you shit on a plate and then tell me I'm eating it wrong.

MaxWell, you probably are. I mean, there's a lot to consider. You go on fork or chopsticks on that food? One of 16. So, okay, political Twitter operates in one of two modes. Mode number one is that the world is on fire and exploding. and there's nuclear missiles flying through the air, and political Twitter is like a guy in like a twill jacket and he's pushing his glasses up his nose and going, well, actually, if you take a step back and consider it in this context, it means this or that. You know, this sort of academic pedant, like giving you some perspective or making some wry comment

as though he's looking down a microscope at it. That's mode number one. Mode number two is people responding to that and going, you're not taking it seriously enough. It's actually really bad and scary and that's why it's problematic. and then the same person can have both of those modes. So you always have a comment because there's always someone else on political Twitter who's either looking through the microscope or running around flapping their arms in the air. And you can either go, hey, buddy, calm down. Let's have some decorum here. Or you can be like, why would you have decorum at a time like this?

Things are crazy.

MerlinIt's a perfect time to panic.

MaxOkay, and here's my complaint about Game of Thrones. is there are people... Why can't you just bring joy to my life, Matt? Just give me joy. There are seriously people who are very angry. I've made the mistake of going on Reddit after I watched, like the Rick and Morty Reddit and the Game of Thrones Reddit after I watched those programs.

MerlinCould have stopped that sentence at the word Reddit.

MaxBecause I sometimes, you know, the fun thing is like, I like, okay, here's the good version of going on the Game of Thrones Reddit is they point out some cool thing that I missed in the episode, right? Like a little piece of trivia.

MerlinYeah, look, Mastodon was in that episode. I didn't know that. That was Mastodon. So it's like... Do you know about the cameos? There's a lot of cameos, Max.

MaxOh, there was that one singer everyone got mad about?

MerlinYeah, but there's other singers too.

Speaker BThat was pretty bad.

MerlinAlso, Sigur Rós was in one. Yeah. They're the ones at the wedding party. Not the other wedding, but the one with the guys and he throws the coins.

AlexQuick turns out, Maisie Williams apparently really likes Ed Sherman. I don't even know his name. Let's not talk about him. No, no, no. But here, I got less angry because this was like her parting gift. Like the show's ending and she has a big crush on him. And then it made me less angry.

MaxOkay. So I go on Reddit though and people are so fucking upset about the travel times. They're like, they're like Tyrion couldn't have gone this far in that little time. It's like, well, if you could just allow me.

MerlinThey look really good for having been at sea in an open boat for months.

MaxYeah.

MerlinIn an open rowboat.

MaxAnd I agree. I mean, listen, I agree. Yes, that is not plausible. But also like it's a story. It's a made up story. There's dragons and zombies.

Speaker BThey could have ridden on the dragons.

MaxBut, and also, what would you have, I'm just curious, if I could ask these people, what would you have the show be? Would you have them do a whole episode where Tyrion is at sea and nothing happens? It would be like if you actually slept

Merlinfor eight hours in Minecraft.

MaxWhat would it look like on screen?

MerlinAnd you had to be playing the whole time before you were allowed to play again.

MaxHave they thought this through? Because then the other thing is they'll, so that's complaint number one, and complaint number two they make is they say, this is a boring episode, nothing happened. Well, wait a minute. there was too much talking what's wrong with you and the Rick and Morty and I did not know this so I've been watching Rick and Morty and I think we've talked about this on the show but it's for sure it's the best written thing on television it makes me laugh so hard and I watch every episode eight times and catch new things in it every time it's the most it's the most meticulously perfectly

sculpted thing like if I could have like if there's like one media thing that I could make something as good as. I would pick Rick and Morty. Like that's my, for sure, that's my thing right now. And I went on the Rick and Morty Reddit and to see, I don't know why, I don't know why I do this myself. People are, they do not like the season. They're like really mad about the season. And apparently the knock on the season is so they added a bunch of new writers to the show and they added, the writers room used to be all men or almost all men and they added a bunch of women

to the writers room. And now people are like, oh, the SJWs came into Rick and Morty, the women, and they ruined it and it's not good anymore. And there's so much to unpack there because starting with who thinks this season's not good? This is maybe the most solid string of episodes that show has ever done.

AlexEvery moment has been electric. All I can hear

Merlinis my brain trying to process why you do things like this. I see this on Slack. I see this with my friends. It's like you choose to go out and buy a thousand boxes of Rice Krispies and keep searching until you find the one really burned piece of rice and then get sad about it. It's like, quit doing that. Go look. Somebody with seven followers just ruined your day. Really?

Who do you think is going to show up on a place like that? People who are like, I think this season is pretty good. Nobody's ever expressed the opinion, I think this is fine.

Speaker AThat's not anything anyone expresses.

MaxI'm saying that. I'm saying that right now. I don't like anything and I think that this season is perfect. Are you guys caught up on it? I don't want to spoil it. No, Pickle Rick is the best episode they've ever made. I think Pickle Rick may be the highest expression of what that show can be. Was it written by a woman? It was, actually. I have no idea, actually. It was written by someone. Her last name is Gao G.A.O. That's real problematic.

AlexI mean, there are shows like, I really like shows like BoJack Horseman and really cynical. I'm a big fan of the cynical cartoon genre. but like Rick and Morty, I've never left so hard and then completely been torn apart and then kept awake thinking about, oh, yeah, I don't want to spoil it, but the end of Pickle Rick is...

MerlinOkay, should I just jump in with that one?

AlexNo, no, no. Watch the whole season. Okay. No, start from the very beginning. Oh, okay.

MerlinIs there anything else I should watch before I watch this show?

AlexBefore I watch this comedy show about Back to the Future?

MerlinIs there anything else that I should watch first?

MaxWait, hang on. Let me just get my feet on the ground here. I thought you watched Rick and Morty you don't watch it? you did think that

Speaker Bno! okay I'll watch it

Speaker Ait's gonna be Mabim Bam all over again I'm sure I'm gonna love it but I can't watch it with my kid I can't go no well think about it all these shows everybody wants me to watch

Merlinwhat am I gonna do?

Speaker AI'm just not gonna do stuff anymore I'm gonna sit around and watch TV in the afternoon all day like when am I gonna watch this?

Alexwell how about don't take your bath and watch an episode of Rick and Morty you leave my bath out

Speaker Athere's no reason to drag my bath into this

MaxSmall brain is like, don't watch Rick and Morty.

Speaker AI'm not against it.

MaxBig brain is skip your bath and watch Rick and Morty. Galaxy brain is you set your iPad up precariously on the edge of the bathtub and you watch it in the bath. That's galaxy brain.

AlexAnd then you drown yourself because you're so upset.

MaxOkay, hang on. I'm going to Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, our podcast to Pickle Rick. So Pickle Rick was written by Jessica Gao, who's a writer on Bajillion Dollar Properties, starring our friend Tawny Newsome who we perform with on the Jonathan Coulton Cruise.

Speaker BOh.

MerlinI get it. It's a cartoon show. I get it. There's only 25 episodes. I will watch this. You're

Maxgoing to be... This is going to hit you right so deep in your

Merlinbrainstem. Oh my god. The last four times I was lying, but this time I'm serious. I will fucking watch it. I will watch The Rick and Morty.

MaxWill you text me while you're watching it?

MerlinNo. Yes.

Maxokay it is sure probably yes tell me what you're thinking while you watch it i remember watching

Merlinand think it's funny there's this guy who's a little bit a little bit you know a little bit unhinged maybe he's drinking and stuff it seems pretty funny it's like back to the future right

Maxthe mo no no oh god it is it is it started as a back to the future it started with their names used to be doc and marty right yeah and it was like his and it was justin roland's short for channel 101 and it was like and it was always like and it was always like it was so fucking funny doc would always need marty to lick his balls and then they tried to make it into a thing and he tried to call it and then they got in trouble for using the names doc and marty so then he tried to call it like universal studios presents the all new official adventures of doc

Alexand marty from back to the future it's funny and then it got shut down completely different though it's like very a channel 101 thing and just like what does that mean what does channel channel 101 Channel 101 was a, not YouTube, but it was like an internet channel that Dan Harmon made.

MerlinOh, Dan Harmon. Why does Dan Harmon seem so unhappy? He seems unhappy. He's a deeply unhappy alcoholic.

AlexThis is something. Max, have you noticed this at the end of Rick and Morty now? They've got like, you know, the production credits. And it used to be this cute little like, not clay, like a clay model of him, his cats, and his girlfriend. But they've broken up. And so now it's him, the little clay model is him surrounded by beer bottles and his cats alone passed out on the couch. And it, oh God.

MaxDan Harmon's a fascinating character. I don't want to gossip or dwell on it too much. But he wrote probably the most important thing about writing to me in my life ever.

Speaker AThe story embryo technique? I don't know what that is. He calls it the story structure 101, the story circle.

MerlinDoes that we have a storytelling framework?

MaxYes

MerlinIs that what you're talking about?

MaxYeah, yeah, yeah

MerlinWhere the reader starts in his zone of comfort Yeah, yeah

MaxSo he basically has a condensed version of the like Joseph Campbell's hero's journey If you want to read this And I highly recommend it It's a series of very short blog posts Like short like you can read them in five minutes And just Google story structure 101 super basic shit

AlexNo, don't do that Look at our show notes These, okay I know I go crazy on the show notes

MaxWhere can people find the show notes for episode 101 of Dubai Friday?

AlexLiterally Literally just in your podcast player, swipe to the right.

MaxNow you go to Dubai Friday. That's D-U-E by Friday.com slash. D-U-B-A-I-F.

AlexI don't know if this is a bit or if you generally.

MaxI thought it was Dobby Friday.

AlexOh, God. I always read it as Dobby Friday. Dobby Friday.fm slash 33. What episode? Anytime USA.

MaxOne, one, one, one, one. So Dan Harmon has this story structure. And what's fascinating is anything he's involved with or writes, it very closely adheres to this story structure. including like an ensemble show like community like part of the reason that show is so brilliant and my love of that show has to do with the fact that every episode every single member of the ensemble goes through the story cycle even if they're in the background even if they have like an extremely minor like d d plot or something including like in one episode abed's not even in the episode but he has a story circle that he goes through silently in the background of other

scenes and you have to know to look for it it's like an insane level of precision and craft that I really admire. And there's a documentary that Dan Harmon did about his Harmontown podcast, where he plays D&D. And it's basically like a road trip documentary. It's like, I don't know, it's a fun, it's fun. It's not like a remarkable documentary in any way. Except for about halfway through the documentary, Dan Harmon realizes, okay, they're making a documentary and he has to force the narrative of the documentary that they're in and he's being filmed for on camera,

like right now into his story structure and he realizes that the dungeon the sort of nerdy dungeon master who's like on his podcast is the actual protagonist and that him dan harman is the antagonist and that spencer has to overcome the darkness of dealing with dan harman and triumph at the end and it's an incredible and i don't know it's an incredible moment of self-awareness and darkness and comedy and I don't know. But also he doesn't-

That's right in your wheelhouse. It's right in my wheelhouse. And he doesn't, but what's amazing is it doesn't stop him from being an asshole to this guy and getting drunk on stage and abusing everyone.

AlexI feel like Max is downplaying this because it does. It starts as the typical, man, I'm doing the panel thing, as Max said. You just want to piggyback on him? I just want to piggyback on Max's thing. I started watching and I'm like, okay, so it's about a comedy writer and then it is one of my favorite documentaries it's so good. What is the documentary called? Harm in Town and I think it's on Netflix Rick and Morty on Hulu man, Hulu's good now

and just it's about toxic masculinity and insecure men and that is in my wheelhouse and also this dungeon master Was that about me just now when you said that, Alex? No, no, no. You're talking about me, aren't you? You're saying I'm insecure.

Speaker AYou're saying I'm insecure?

AlexYou call me paranoid? No, no, no. I'm sorry, Merlin. I'm mean on this show. I'm very mean on this show.

MerlinThere's so many Harmanstown.

AlexIt's a documentary. Okay.

MerlinDocumentary.

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah. 2014. And his face is on the cover, and it's so eye-rolly. And oh, look at all his comedy friends. No, ignore that. Just watch it.

MerlinAll right, I'll watch it too.

AlexI hope John Syracuse doesn't listen to this episode. I'm sorry, John.

MerlinDon't worry. Let's see here. Okay, got that. All right, I got all my viewing lined up. It's going to be Harman's all the way down.

MaxHey, do you guys, when you guys call customer service or whatever, and you need to say your name, Do you have like some words that you say to explain the letters in your name? So like I'll always, because my name has like an M and an N in it. So I'll always go, it's Max Temkin, T-E-M as in Mary, K-I-N as in Nancy. And I don't know when I started saying that, but I just realized the other day how weird it is that the two words that I picked out were Mary and Nancy.

MerlinThat's what I use too.

AlexIsn't that- What do you say?

MerlinNo, if I have to, if I'm over like a bad line and it's important to get the spelling right, I honestly don't care if anybody knows my name or spells it right. But if it's important in terms of matching data, that's exactly the problem that I have, and that's exactly the names that I use to represent the letters.

MaxSo you say M as in Mary, A, N as in Nancy, N as in Nancy.

MerlinWell, yeah. I mean, other people have like a T and D problem. As it happens, I don't want to be ping pong, but in my neighborhood, I have a name that is very difficult to pronounce for lots of people. And so that's one reason I say Bob, is because I always say my name is Bob. There's no reason to ever give any other latte name than Bob because nobody fucking cares what your name is, Brandon. Brandon with N as in Nancy.

AlexBrandon?

MaxWhat do you do? Do you have to spell your name? Do you have to spell your name, Alex?

AlexYeah, you must have to spell Cox, right? Yes. Literally. Well, yeah, now I do. What do you say?

MaxC-O-X as in xanthan gum?

AlexNo, I mean, X, there's no other thing. I have an easy name.

MaxX as in xylophone?

AlexYeah. Yep, yep.

MerlinX as in xylene?

Alexx is in the xylitol island boy begins that was a good one one time i think i literally said x as an x-man because i panic that's pretty good that's pretty good um i i thought that was gonna be a

Merlinmore fruitful topic uh oh i know what's the deal with letters uh you know this is the reason though that you have things like that alpha bravo charlie delta echo foxtrot golf hotel there's a reason that you have that kind of code or why people say, you know, Niner, because they don't want to sound like five.

MaxOh, I've been playing. Oh, my God. I don't want to get too deep into this, but I've been playing this game called PUBG. I've been playing hours a day. This is your chicken dinner. It's my chicken dinner. It's an amazing game. It is such a beautiful, like, elegant game. Basically, like, you play on a server with 100 people, and it's very popular right now, so it just drops you right into a game with 100 people. and there's an island, a huge island that would take maybe if you were running end to end it would take maybe an hour or so and it's the same island every time and all hundred people start off in this airplane

and the airplane takes a random line across flight path across the island and basically you have to pick a point and you bail out in a parachute and you land on the island and then you run around and pick up guns and stuff and you're trying to be the last person to survive. It's just a free for all. And you play in squads of up to four and I've been playing with people and trying to get better and you know it feels amazing to win this game because you know you're one of a hundred people right have you ever won yeah I won last night oh yay but I got zero kills I played with Kate Stark and she just

hard carried me the whole time uh anyway um but uh so I've watched a lot of videos online of like really good people play because there's hard skills and soft skills in this game the hard skills I'm fine at and the hard skills are like aiming your gun and hitting the trigger at the right time and I don't know like knowing the hotkeys and stuff like just basically how to operate the machine right but then there's soft skills and the soft skills are like how to move in formation with other players how to check behind doors or behind you if you're about to run somewhere like

situational awareness those aren't like commands in the game those are just like soft that's like ways of thinking it's thought technologies or like it's you know what I mean it's like yeah And one of the big soft skills is radio communication. And there is a community of people, like you can go on YouTube and find this, of like military people, like actual like military background people who play PUBG together in a squad and they use military radio discipline.

MerlinOh, they're the kind of people who say, what's your 20 and stuff like that.

MaxYes, or they use compass bearings, but they give each other's bearings. They say it's at your 315 or something like that. Right. Which is, it's fucking amazing watching how they communicate with each other. And it's that whole.

MerlinThere's a clarity. There's a clarity to that language that I really, We talked about this on the show with Roderick, but that sounds jargony, but it emphasizes clarity and commonality in a way that I think is really invigorating. It's the way I wish I could talk to cab drivers. I wish I could just say, you know, November tango, and that just means no talk.

MaxSo one of the things with PUBG is you're very squishy. Like if you get a headshot, there are like 15x scopes that you can put on your gun in this game and very powerful rifles. and people can go on some mountaintop and snipe down and find people and kill them. And you can die from one shot to the head and you never even know where that person's going. So your only strategy, you don't get like extra health, right? Like your only strategy is situational awareness and being smart and not putting yourself into that situation where you can get one-shotted in the head.

And at the level of speed and urgency, you know, there's no do-overs, there's no pausing. And at the level of sort of real-time urgency that this game makes you play at, it really matters how you communicate with other people and whether you listen to each other and whether there's extraneous chatter if you give a command to someone or ask a question you better be fucking clear because there's not time to say it twice and it's a that's my favorite thing about this game is trying to communicate everyone's looking at the map and you're all on voice chat and you need to somehow have a develop a common language and understand what everyone's talking

about when they're looking at the map and understanding where you're trying to go i've

Alexfinally become like my full 12 year old boy self in that I love watching people play this game. It's it's my sport at this point. I don't I can't play often because it's on PC. And when I do play it, though, I either last about 30 seconds if I'm like, you know, dropped. I'm not I'm not good at the shooties, Merlin. And then I headshot and I'm dead. But other but I play in like pacifist mode, basically like a horror game like just like sort of hiding and like looking very carefully around

doors and just gathering supply it's also kind of like a resource management game if you play it that way um but like it there's just so many interesting ways to do it and it reminds me a lot it it's like a more defined version of overwatch like it's a new um it's it's a new like communication strategy game and it's not like forget for beginning gamers or like don't don't start with this start with like splatoon or something um oh so good merlene should play

play splatoon with your kid which is another cool thing yeah yeah it's a super you know just spend the 300 for a switch or whatever but that's another thing that i've you play that in the bath uh yeah that's true um but but getting into that you can't nintendo's never going to do good voice chat um but like the way once you you get pretty good or like at a higher level uh i don't know if you played at max but like there's now like sort of a splatoon like communication sort of thing where people it's like okay this person has a certain quote weapon which is like you know

bigger paintbrush and it's like all right this person's clearly gonna cover more ground the the basis of splatoon is you literally just need to cover it's a ground with more paint you know uh No, no. You have to cover. There's a big arena. You need to cover more paint than the opposite team. And just like the unspoken communication with these anonymous players, it's really cool. And I like it. And video games are the only thing that make me happy anymore.

MerlinThat's cool. That sounds like a fun game.

AlexIt is. Also, there's no shooting, which I, well, you shoot each other with paint.

MerlinKids can play Splatoon, right?

AlexYeah. Oh, yeah. No, like, seriously, you can play Splatoon. and the only killing is there's paint on you and then you come back alive in a different spot. That sounds nice.

MaxIt is. It's lovely. Guys, I'm very hungry and I didn't eat today and I think I'm going to order a hamburger.

AlexGo for it.

MaxDo you want a burger?

AlexNo, but I do around my family because then they get happy because I'm eating beef. Oh, I eat small cheval now, which is a heart attack, but that is a good place. Oh, shit dog.

MaxCan we get small cheval delivered somehow? I wonder. Postmates probably.

AlexYou do also have an assistant.

MaxWhat do you want? What do you want? Just a fries?

AlexI'll have a burger from Small Cheval, but no anything on it.

MerlinTell them it's, do what I do, Max. Tell them it's for a kid.

AlexYep, that's what I do when I work around.

MerlinSo you have to do this three different ways for it to take. You have to say, I want a cheeseburger with nothing on it, right? You say that. And then you say, I want just a burger, cheese, and a bun, semicolon.

Alexit's for a kid yep yep um i also lie and say i'm allergic to pickles because that is i actually

Merlinmight be you know because i love pickles the royal while max is ordering uh just to kill time uh looking at the this is in show notes i'm looking at the nato phonetic alphabet and that's the source of alpha broad with charlie delta echo foxtrot etc but i'm looking at the historic uh antecedents.

Royal Navy, 1914 to 1918. Pretty great. Apples, Butter, Charlie Duff, Edward, Freddie, George, Harry, Inc., Johnny, London. Monkey Nuts, Orange Pudding, Queenie Robert, Sugar, Tommy. Monkey Nuts is not next to each other. Monkey Nuts, Orange Pudding, Queenie Robert, Sugar, Tommy. Uncle Vinegar. Uncle Vinegar.

That's funny. Uncle Vinegar I gotta put on this SPF To keep out the Uncle Vinegar waves Uncle Vinegar Willie Xerxes Yellow Zebra

MaxWhat's the M and the N? Oh Monkey Nuts So my name is It's spelled Temkin T-E-M As in monkey K-I-N As in nuts And what's the X? Monkey Nuts

MerlinXerxes

Speaker BThere you go Alex

Speaker AYeah hell yeah What a nice common one It's ox C-O-X As in Xerxes that's like saying oh it's

Merlinsuper helpful it's like oh it's actually it's Merlin Mann it starts with an M it starts with M-A-N-N N as in mnemonic what? this is a bad episode you guys Did you see Have you seen the news? What he's doing?

MaxWhat? No, what's happening? There's news happening right now?

MerlinEverybody's been Everybody's been quitting His councils Yes So he just disbanded both

MaxHe disbanded both councils?

MerlinYeah Let me find it Rather than putting pressure On the business people of the Manufacturing Council and Strategy and Policy Forum. I am ending both. Thank you all. Kindest regards. Best regards, the management.

MaxThink progress. No one is quite sure what Sebastian Gorka, officially a deputy assistant to President Trump, actually does at the White House. This hasn't stopped him, however, from being a near-constant presence in the media. Wednesday, Gorka appeared on Breitbart News Daily. the radio show of his former employer. Gorka responded to criticism stemming from a previous media appearance on MSNBC, where he said, quote, there is no such thing as a lone wolf attack. The concept, according to Gorka, was, quote, invented by the last administration to make Americans stupid.

The idea of a, quote, lone wolf attack, Gorka says, is a ruse to point blame away from Al-Qaeda and ISIS when, quote, there has never been a serious attack or a serious plot that was unconnected from ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Critics were quick to point out the example of Timothy McVeigh, who was not connected to ISIS or Al-Qaeda, and killed 168 people when he bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. On Wednesday, Gorka lashed out at, quote, the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman and her acolytes in the fake news media, who immediately have a conniption fit, and brought up McVeigh.

He added that, quote, white men and, quote, white supremacists are, quote, not the problem. It's this constant quote, oh, it's the white man. It's the white supremacist. That's the problem. No, it isn't Maggie Haberman. Go to Sinjar. Go to the Middle East and tell me what the real problem is today. Go to Manchester. Did you guys watch that Vice video?

Speaker BYeah, God.

MerlinWasn't that incredible?

MaxI watched it. So well done. As I was watching it, I kept pressing my face closer and closer to the screen. I was magnetized.

MerlinBy the time she got in the van, I was just screaming, what are you doing? Get out of there. You are like raw meat in that van. Get out of there. Can you believe how brave she was? No, no.

Speaker ANot because she's a woman,

Merlinbecause she's a fucking human being, but especially because she's a white woman. Oh my God, that's raw meat to those guys. What are you doing in there? I wouldn't do it. And they're so, look at the way, and there's that whole sense of like, there's that whole like, oh, we have to protect our mother's wives and daughters thing. We're like, you're all basically our tacit property. and like if there's any sense of disloyalty you get the whole Madonna whore thing. It's like, oh my God, can you imagine being in a van full of people who think she's disloyal to the race?

I mean, seriously, was that going through your mind? It was sure going through mine.

MaxI think I guess the thing that was, I mean, so I watch it and I was just like, I was just like magnetized, like pulled into the screen and my heart was racing. Like I was like.

MerlinJust the scenes, the unnarrated scenes of hearing people chanting.

MaxIt felt like I was, I mean, it felt like I was there. Like I just, I was so taken by it. But this was an incredible documentary. But I mean, I think one of the things that was most striking to me is like how sane those people sounded. I mean, not the content of what they were saying, but like they're not vampires, right? No, they're not.

MerlinThey're not Voldemort.

MaxThey're like using-

MerlinThe guy from Canada. The guy from Canada. He just seemed like a mook you'd meet at the mall.

MaxYeah, they're using and they even have like a sort of cadence of like, you know, like those like reasonable like people. like how we talk on this podcast of like, hey, you guys are in on the joke with us, right? I'm just speaking common sense here. They sort of nailed that casual intensity or I don't know what it is. It was very

Merlindisabsorbed. I think about being let's say you're at near peak in-joke. Let's say you're like 17 years old and you and your friends have this really complex

Speaker Ahighly developed patois of how you talk to each other. So if you're at the Taco Bell or you're down in the basement

Merlinyou're going to be talking in this way that is weird and offensive and deliberately over the top. And then imagine that same group has to go to a barbecue where there's a bunch of parents and how they would talk. And that's what it felt like. You could tell, even with the main antagonist guy, the apparently somebody hit a car guy, you could see that he's parsing what he's saying as he's saying it. Because he wants his message of, oh, yeah, yeah, we're going to kill these people. But he also doesn't want to sound crazy. and you can hear him having to reprocess

the way he would say those words for what he knows is an audience that might not agree with him. And it was very weird to watch because it really humanizes him in some ways, I thought.

AlexThat was the most upsetting part for me, honestly. Like, I don't know. It was one of those things where I think you tweeted it and I started watching it on my phone with the, like, oh, I'll just, and then I sat in a corner and watched the entire thing. And then watched it again and showed it to Mel. And it's so, so upsetting. I've been throwing up a lot this week. Oh, man.

Happy Wednesday. Ooh. It's okay.

MerlinYou still thinking about rescinding your status as a super taster? I heard you're thinking about walking away from super tasting.

AlexWait, what's, oh, yes, no, I would definitely get rid of that. I would get rid of my tongue if I could. What a weird, what a weird appendage.

MerlinI like the way Syracuse tried to draw you back into the fold, though.

Speaker ANo, do not turn away from you. Do not turn away from you, super tasty. And you, Max Temkin, never stop doing the Bane voice. Don't let all these interlopers and outsiders and Jews tell you to stop doing Bane. You do Bane. You do you.

Speaker BAlex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex cucked me. She so cucked you.

MaxIt's all right. It's all right. People didn't like that bit anyway. I heard we got very negative feedback whenever we did the Bane voice. I keep doing this in my queue. Wow, Merlin, what are you just going to do? Did you bring this up so you have an excuse to do the voice, huh?

Speaker ANo one's going to hear me do the voice.

MaxIs that a little bit you got there? You will never see me coming. Did you practice that in the mirror this morning?

Speaker BThanks about it, cheats. Okay.

Speaker AWoo! Sebastian Gorka, man.

MerlinWhen I had my three hours of sleep in that hotel room because my flight got canceled, I was sitting there and watching the MSNBC because I'm super smart. And boy, I'll never get over the way that guy talks. His voice is chilling to me.

MaxWhat's going to happen? Have you guys thought about what happens to you if there's a civil war, like how that plays out? I haven't really thought about it. Have you, Alex? Yep. I've been thinking a lot about it this week.

AlexI think that if we were to stay where we are we're fine because we're white and uh you and I

Maxyou and I uh yeah well I think Chicago so I actually think I've been thinking a lot about this and I think Chicago could be like a major conflagration of like a like an actual like like

Merlinif this like turns it would definitely be the target for a lot of things just because Chicago is kind of surrounded on all sides by like red America right right but it's also just that like you are the canonical example of what's wrong with black people murdering each other

Alexexactly and i think that that's the thing i think it would be like hey look at we're doing great

Maxon the other hand all these alt-right people or whatever they're we're not calling them all right we're just calling them nazis now so all these neo-nazis came to charlottesville i mean i bet the ap like said we're not using the phrase all right anymore so i feel like i don't need to dignify it but like yeah so these like neo-nazi groups like converged on charlottesville and they did it at a time when uva wasn't in session because they knew that the students would like basically that the students would kick their ass if they were if they tried to do it during the school year um which is great like i mean uva like if there's one thing that that school should be good for it's like everybody getting drunk and kicking a bunch of neo-nazis asses and like you

know wrecking the school like they basically do that every weekend anyway without the neo-nazis so you know give them an excuse but uh i would love to see them try to do a nazi rally in chicago i mean it would be they would get their asses whooped well that i mean that's essentially what

Alexhappened at uic the trump rally right yeah like uh we're like fuck no yeah i mean they're they're

Maxthey're cowards right because like that was the other i don't know if you god i was so deep into this i don't know that everyone has these like comedy reference points that i do but like were you guys following like baked this guy baked alaska like he's one of the big like he's one of the big like sort of like white supremacist like youtube comedians like he does the supercut

Merlinof his request for how to be framed and reminding people to like and subscribe was awesome.

MaxSo the funny, the most hilarious thing is that he was a big instigator of this like neo-Nazi rally and brought his like YouTube comedy boys. You know, they fashion themselves as comedians. They're like, no, no, it's all a bit. We're being funny. Just having fun. Yeah, just having fun with the boys, getting their balls stiffed and sending some racist comments. And he, him and his boys got, we're going to Charlottesville and they did a video or a live stream from the side of the highway in like Virginia or DC or something where their Uber driver kicked them out of the car for being too racist.

Speaker BAnd it was just this,

Maxand they were trying to like get this black woman who was the Uber driver on camera and saying like, why are you kicking us out of the car? Like we have a right to be driven around or whatever. Why are you kicking us out? And she's just like, I'm terminating your ride. Your ride is over, sir. And just drives away in the middle of the live stream. It was such an incredible self-own. Like the amount of self-awareness that you have to lack to post this video and be like we're like we're we're look at us we're being censored by the like but they're

Merlinlike elites you know and it's just this like okay all right all right here we go tm tm tm here's how we're going to make a lot of money okay um it's it's a new gig economy service called unter and it's the opposite of uber uh-huh and it's a white supremacist ride-sharing service okay and you are not only welcome to come in and be a white nationalist but it's actually you know you come in you get a fist bump, and then we talk about the Untermensch.

MaxYou just drop a pin into the crowd that you want your Unter car to drive into. Right.

AlexNo, no. Oh, God.

MaxThe Unter Alto. I'm sorry. I didn't make that. Merlin made me make that joke

Alexwith that incredible setup. It was there. It was there. Oh, my God.

MaxYeah, you just drop a flag.

AlexAnd then this was the same guy.

MaxYou drop a little Nazi flag and it just aims toward that. This was the same guy who got... You'll come in, Unter. during the actual battle or whatever, which was not even a battle. It was just a bunch of chest beating and then a bunch of Nazis getting their asses whooped. But he just starts, he goes on his stream and he's just crying, he's like, milk, give me the milk. I got maced. Just crying and then he's like, keep the stream going, keep the stream going. What did the comments say? No, give me the milk. What do I do?

I don't like to call other people this because I am a huge pussy, but that guy's a pussy.

Alexthat guy's such a pussy he's as big of a pussy as i am i mean well a nazi pussy so you can be both you can be both no exactly like i don't think you should group yourself with with this guy yeah

Maxlook at me i have a whole podcast where i make fun of these people and get to feel smart and superior to them but if they ever confronted me i would like i would like push you down and run away yeah take that one take that one

AlexThis is the worst episode we've ever done, guys. It really is.

MaxYou know what would cap this episode off is we should do one of those late night monologues where the music stops and it just fades. It's like, hi, I'm Julie Fallon, and I want to make some comments now.

AlexI watch my kids play at night.

MaxThese racist attacks are unacceptable to all Americans. This is not what we stand for. I hate those late night

Speaker AI hate those late night days 1924 Calvin Coolidge running for president they need a democratic candidate what are they gonna go to they go he's the governor of New York but the the other candidate had a secret weapon and that was the KKK

Speaker Bthere was a march

Speaker Athere was a march in Queens that week. Arrested at that march?

Donald Trump's father.

MaxAnd what did the president say? That's right.

Speaker ANothing. When we come back?

MaxWe'll have LL Cool J.I. Talk about the Charlottesville March.

Speaker BRock the bells.

Speaker AThank you, Mr. J. Did you know he's getting a Kennedy Award? Is that what he's getting? Isn't he getting some kind of major award? Isn't he? Hang on. LL, cool, J. I think it's a Kennedy.

MaxBob Dylan got the Nobel Prize in Poetry. That's true. You know what? I've never heard you and John Roderick. I've heard you and John Roderick talk about your wrong Beatles opinions for probably 15 hours of my life. Easy, easy. All put together. I don't think I've heard one word about Bob Dylan on your program. I mean, I'm familiar with this work.

Speaker AYou're not a big Dylan fan? LL Cool J is hard as battle anybody I don't care who you.

MerlinI used to love LL Cool J.

MaxLL Cool J is great. But Bob Dylan, no comments?

Speaker AI mean, what do you say?

MerlinYeah, I really, really like Bob Dylan. Acoustic or electric? Well, if you were a real Roderick on the Line fan, you know that we have talked about this. And this was actually the topic of a semi-famous episode where John, I think, first laid out his I am not a fan theory. Where he is talking about, and I'm kind of exploring in the little bit that I do, and John is very much like, no, I'm not a fan of things. Like, yeah.

Speaker ABut, you know, I do enjoy him.

MerlinThere was a really good podcast where they broke down Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll. And I wish I could find it because it is such a good podcast.

MaxI love that. I love acoustic Bob Dylan. And I've always really struggled to get into electric Bob Dylan because I recognize that everybody with good taste in music thinks that's when he truly sort of flexed his muscles as a songwriter and did his best work, like Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks and all that. I just can't do it. I don't know. There's no hook for me. I can't get into it. Interesting. I've tried. I've listened to those albums many times and they're just like, it's not bad or anything. I just can't.

MerlinIt doesn't push my buttons. I have a lame and non-satisfying, non-excuse, which is that there are certain things, I believe, that I don't want to have to be there. But there are things where, and the Beatles, I think, are a good example. The Beatles in 1964, 65 are a good example of this, where there's not really any way to appreciate what that phenomenon meant. Maybe, you know, Elvis 56, same kind of thing, where it's difficult to really appreciate it because we can only look at that through this telescope of, you know, from a long way away.

And shit dog, everything we know about music has been affected by those people. You know, all these three artists, groups of artists that we're talking about, you got Dylan, you got Elvis, you got the Beatles. So it's really difficult to, and I think that's a big thing with Dylan, is that you have to enjoy it on this almost tertiary level where it's always going to be a little abstract because you weren't there when it happened. And when it happened, like it was very weird to people. And I don't know, maybe that shouldn't matter, but I think it does. It's just another guy playing a guitar to a lot of people.

MaxI hear like Hard Rain's Gonna Fall or Blowing in the Wind or Masters of War. And I get like chills. And that's those are very, you know, I don't know. That's like, how is that not part of the.

MerlinWell, Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll might be up there for me, at least with the acoustic songs is one of my favorites. I mean, that that song, I just put a link in. No, I didn't. I just put it in Reconcilable Differences. Let's try again. he breaks down basically all kinds of stuff about that song and the words that he chose and the repetitions right you know she cleans up the table and da da da da da da yeah that's such a good album yeah every song

Maxon that album is incredible looking up Bob Dylan

Alexhonestly kind of like the mason jar on the ass as soon as we started talking about Bob Dylan I can't get the sequence from the beginning of Watchmen out of my head where they go through like

MerlinOh, that's a good sequence. Best part of the movie.

AlexYeah.

MaxI like seeing Dr. Manhattan's hog.

AlexMm-hmm. People gasped in the theater when that happened.

MaxWere you going to not show us hogs?

AlexI mean. No. Show me the hog. Oh, follow up. Copyright John Syracuse. Oh, I'm sorry, Marco. Trademark John Syracuse.

I can't say his name. The Mooch, whatever. He followed like a thousand people. Did he follow a lot of gay? I don't know. He like followed a thousand people on Twitter. I'm like, oh, okay. What's the weird strategy behind that? I don't understand people who follow thousands. I don't know.

MaxMy friend Brian Brushwood is like a magician and he's on TV a lot. He does a show like Scam School. And that fucking guy follows like millions of people. He literally follows like millions of people on Twitter. and it's to the point where like anytime I click on someone's Twitter name and I'm like trying to figure out what their deal is it's always like followed by Brian Brushwood what I don't know how does he use Twitter it doesn't make any sense to me he does he obviously doesn't he's probably

Alexlike one of those tweet deck people who's a muter uh I mean I like that the he doesn't follow me come on uh I don't know why it's never anyway uh I do like that the president follows me I don't know I mean the good wait can you dm oh Obama yeah I guess I guess I guess I guess I could

MaxIf Trump followed you and you could DM him, I would have you DM Trump all day.

AlexWell, I mean.

MaxOh, I'm still mad at Glenn Fleischman.

AlexWhy?

MaxNo, because Glenn got retweeted by Donald Trump Jr. or something like that. And I was like, Glenn, change your Twitter display name to Don Jr. drinks piss. And he didn't do it.

MerlinNo, he wouldn't. You kept asking.

MaxWhat a wasted opportunity. I would love to get retweeted by Don Jr. And then I would change my name to Donald Trump Jr. drinks piss. That'll get him. Follow up. Playboy. Are boobs on the outs? This seems to be the case for millennials. At least in regards to their porn viewing habits. Fake news. New data released by Pornhub has revealed a rather distinct generational trend regarding our cultural fondness for breasts. Their data revealed that the younger the generation, the less interested they are in women's mammaries. The data exhibits young adults ages 18 to 24 are almost 20% less likely to search for breast-related content on the site, whereas those 55 to 64 were 17% more likely.

The age groups are in between ascend as viewers' age increases. Don't get me wrong. This is by no means to suggest that breasts are not popular. Quote, Big Natural Boobs ranks fourth in overall searches on the site, and daily breast searches exceed millions. the figure just may not be as popular as you would assume on average only 1.5 percent of the

Alexdaily searches on Pornhub are boob related you're gonna have to send me this for show notes because

Maxi'm just finding a lot of i don't know that 1.5 percent is only 0.89 search for large breasts 0.29 percent search for natural breasts and 0.09 percent search for small breasts oh okay

AlexI have a lot of porn tabs open right now.

MerlinIt must be, are you having a challenge looking for a news story by searching for Playboy breasts?

AlexYeah, I don't know what the problem is.

MerlinThey don't show breasts anymore.

AlexThat's an SEO problem. Pornhub statistics. It's all ball jars. Yeah, this is not working out. Anyway. Yeah, the kids can't get off to breasts anymore.

MaxThey need to watch a ball jar exploding in a minute. Watch a ball jar in a minute. Oh, look at that. It's got kind of a social share icon that's a little bit lewd. I'm sorry for that.

MerlinYeah, that came up on Twitter this morning as I was laying in bed next to my wife. And it's got a little picture of a lady holding her boobie.

MaxSorry, I did not know it was going to expand that picture when I put it in our channel.

AlexNo, she just looks like she's giving herself a self-breast exam. That's not...

MaxWhy are millennials ruining breasts? And Applebee's.

MerlinYeah, we can't air this episode. It's got to go right in the chucker.

MaxOh, my God. No. Should we just go over our head or, I don't know, what's in your wallet? We haven't even gotten our burgers yet.

MerlinOh, you know, we might as well stick with it. Challenge this week falls to me, and for a number of logistical and OPSEC reasons, we needed to make it an easy one. It was suggested by Max, but approved by me. The challenge is very simple. You're supposed to be prepared today to bring in the wallet that you carry, whatever you use as a wallet, and to be prepared to discuss the contents of your wallet, what is and is not in your wallet. And I would personally like to hear about your history with wallets and what you hope for in a wallet of the future. And that's this week's challenge.

MaxYou know, I know a lot of people are watching the news and they're worried, they're anxious, and I'm just glad that we can provide this kind of penetrating coverage that's going to make people, you know, really give them an opportunity to reflect on.

Speaker AThis is an important personal story because your wallet. I'm eating some ice. Your wallet reflects a lot. You're eating ice? Yeah. Why? Are you giving birth? What's happening? Do you have pica?

MerlinI can't get the ball jar into my ass until I get all of the liquid and ice nuggets out. Got to have my nugs. Challenge. No. Okay. Yes. Yes, yes. Start out small. Little ball jar.

Speaker BLittle ball jar. I didn't just think about it.

MerlinDo they have training ball jars? Like little rubber ones, like a dog toy you can practice with?

Speaker BNo.

MerlinOr it's just like an ambitious butt plug?

Speaker BOh, God.

MerlinI love that band. Your wallet says a lot about you. You know, it's like they say in The Incredibles. You can tell a lot about a woman by what she carries in her purse. Now, the thing about your wallet is it reveals your hopes and dreams, your concerns and priorities.

AlexHold on.

MerlinI need to go to the phone taps.

AlexOkay, hold on. Hold on. Oh, no. All right, I'm ready for Wallet Talk.

MaxThis is for sure the worst episode. Max, is she looking at it? People should be paying us for this podcast.

MerlinIs she looking at it in an educational way, or is it prurient? Is what? Her boob looking.

MaxOh, I can't see it.

AlexWe're across the table from each other. Actually, last week when we had our fantastic guests, Zoe and Trin on.

Speaker AYay, that was such a great episode.

AlexTrin was like, you looked very upset while we were recording this, but you were laughing. And I forgot to mention that I make no eye contact with anybody when I'm recording because I'm a weirdo and I can't. And I look for any social situation in which I don't have to make eye contact with people. So it looks like I'm scowling. But no, I just...

MaxWell, podcasts are great because you get to have the sort of... Resting introvert face. Yeah. You get to sort of have the facade of human connection but without having to make eye contact. You get to sort of perform a conversation for an imagined audience. and it's very safe and controlled. It has like an end time and an objective. Like you can sort of, it's, oh my God, I fucking love podcasts.

MerlinBoy, being in your head sounds like a real joy ride. It sounds like a lot of fun, just a lot of joy minute to minute. But your wallet, here's the thing, is your wallet says a lot about you. It says a lot about your priorities and your concerns. And it says, when I say priorities, I just mean that in the true sense of like, there's all kinds of stuff I can't have, but if there are things that I must have, these will be with me. My gut is that the wallet today is not nearly as important to people as it used to be a few years ago for a variety of reasons.

Speaker AAnd I think that's culturally very interesting.

MerlinLike, Max, don't you roll with, like, a super minimalist setup?

MaxWell, am I going first?

MerlinWell, we do whatever you want. I just wanted to frame the challenge in general. We can go any way you want to go with it.

MaxYeah. I mean, so I would say, so to dive into my whole pocket hierarchy and my whole system, I mean, I have the iPhone 7 Plus, so the big boy iPhone. And that's the bulk of what I want in my pocket because I go with the big iPhone. I put it in my front pocket, my front right pocket. And I can't really bear to have a lot of other stuff in my pocket.

AlexScreen facing in or out?

MaxScreen in. Screen in. And then button up. Correct answer. so I can sort of holster I can sort of draw that's me too

MerlinI'm screen in top down

Maxyeah because then what's nice is I can sort of draw it like a holster and like unlock it with my thumb

Speaker Aand just like quick draw like pa-pow

Maxfire off a few tweets

Speaker Athe change in the headphone jack

Maxlet me tell you I'm a tough guy I'm a pretty tough guy if I see a Nazi coming down the street I'm gonna draw that iPhone pa-pow make some big posts I'm gonna own him on social media keep streaming give me the milk give me the milk give me the milk so I got my pocket all full of iPhone 7 plus and that has sort of kicked off. I mean, I've always not wanted a lot of shit in my pockets, but I especially am very sensitive, now that I have the big iPhone, very sensitive to having stuff in my pocket. So I've kind of been exploring the world of minimalist wallets

and I'm sure you guys know we're in like a minimalist wallet revolution right now. So like the three main places, you can get minimalist wallets in stores and you'll see them like, I went to like Patagonia the other day and Patagonia has like minimalist adventure wallets now that they're selling. You can find minimalist wallets at like farmer's markets and like craft fairs and things like that, any place where there's like makers like selling their stuff and there's usually like, you know, cut out of a single piece of leather or something like that. And then of course, there's the thriving ecosystem of minimalist wallets on Kickstarter

and those usually have some sort of hook, like a built-in tile tracker or RFID blocking or, you know, some sort of gimmick or something.

Speaker BRight, right, right.

MaxSo I've kind of gone through a bunch of these. I will say in recent, just to use like the last five years or whatever, mainly what I've done is I've taken the smallest amount of credit cards I can bear to carry, or cards in general I can bear to carry around with me, like a couple of $20 bills, and I rubber band them together with like 10 rubber bands and sort of loop the rubber bands really tight and then just put that whole thing in my pocket. And that's good for about a month or two until the rubber bands start to degrade, and then I just swap out for new bands. and what's nice about that is there is zero obviously zero added thickness like all you

Merlinhave is the thickness of the cards um i used to roll that way in college when i was in college i had my driver's license my atm card and my student id and because i had long hair i'd wrap that in a ponytail holder and that's just it was just the way to roll everywhere it's that's really that's

Maxkind of all you need until you need more yeah well the wallet a wallet a wallet wants to be

Merlinfilled the wallets of my childhood when you'd get them and they were often passed down to me i'd get my dad's old wallet or what have you but you'll remember or you may not that when you bought a wallet in the store it was all about the features i mean this thing was like a like a big mac and it would have all the windows to put photos in they'd have photos in there as serving suggestions there were supposed to be ways like you put there's a wallets i frequently had had a key area where you could put a spare key like it used to be i don't love the word minimalism but they used to be more if you like maximalist where it was more like a day runner for it was a feature wallet feature wallet yeah right smart wallet yeah i like too where there's like multiple compartments

Maxfor cash so it's like oh you can like sort your cash like the cashier's box i do that i do that in the one i've got uh so i still like cash the product i'm rocking right now i'm i'm actually it's so i switched to having a wallet and the reason was i was getting made fun of a lot for having the rubber bands oh fuck them and i constantly was getting made fun of i don't want to name names but it may be my domestic partner that i live with who was making fun of

AlexVeronica.

MaxAnd I now have, which is big, you know.

AlexWait, I'm sorry I said fuck you, Veronica. You're very smart and nice, but I like rubber bands. Anyway.

MaxShe carries around like a fucking caddy. Like the thing she keeps her cards and stuff in, it can have fucking wheels on it. She could drive it around like a little scoot scoot.

AlexAre there little rocks in there?

MaxOh my God, it's full. It's like, there's like papers and receipts and parking tickets. That's what Syracuse does.

MerlinSyracuse's wallet is like that. It is comical.

MaxI mean, she's got a total George Costanza wallet going on. But the product I've got now, I found it online. I think I found it on one of those frightening everyday carry websites where people post their guns and knives. Here's my other knife.

Speaker BYeah. Here's the tactical flashlight I carry with me.

Speaker ADaily carry.

MaxSo I have this product called the Krabby Wallet. And I got the smallest one. And basically what it is, it's just a piece of stretchy nylon. and you sort of put your, it's very thin. There's almost nothing to it. And you sort of put your cards in there. And then on the back, it's got a little cord of an inch long and you can hook a single key on the cord and then sort of loop the key into the wallet. And this is cool because I have largely eliminated

the need to carry any keys around. I just have one single key, which is the key to my house and it lives in my wallet. And I do not have a key chain or any other keys.

MerlinThat is living. Now imagine once you get your implant. Oh, brother.

MaxWell, that's what I'm interested in with the implant is I really could get rid of the whole wallet. And then I can get into exactly what's in my wallet. But I'm curious what your guys' setup is.

Speaker BAlex, what do you have?

AlexAll right. So first I would like to share my very first wallet to give some context. And you know how you've got those like the T-shirt regret, Merlin, that you hate that you threw T-shirts away? Absolutely. I am so sad that I threw this wallet away. for some reason I still have an emotional wait those are socks or maybe they're not click on that link I think it is it's like this puffy plastic wallet and

Merlinlook at that you got a Karapi is that his name?

AlexKarapi I believe I used to have a Bad Bats Maru wallet oh yeah man I love those guys when I was little and there were multiple little

Speaker AI loved them when I was 38

Alexnever mind no one knows how old What's his deal?

MerlinWhat's this character's deal? Oh, they all have backstories.

MaxYeah, when I was in Japan, the big one was Gautama. It was like the egg, the cranky egg, and his deal is that he's always sleepy.

MerlinI remember Peckle the Duck had bad balance and wanted to be a lifeguard.

AlexThis guy was just dumb. He was always hanging around. I think he occasionally would try to cheer up Batsmaru, actually. And he was cool because he was the emo penguin. But I would fill this wallet with like fake cards for stuff. And like my eventually I got a grammar school ID and it had a little change pouch. And it was like, OK, if you have things in your wallet, then that means that you have some worth because these are like where you put your important papers.

MerlinI did the exact. I practically cut up newspapers and put it in there. Like anything to have in there. And I would go and find photos to stick in the little windows. And yeah, we want to like outfit your wallet.

AlexI'd like a picture of my favorite dolphins.

MaxKirapi Hasunoay is a frog character with large eyes and a V-shaped mouth. Kirapi loves adventure, and his bubbly personality makes him popular around a donut pond. Is that where they live? He has a brother called Korapi. That must be confusing. And a sister called Peaky. Oh, I didn't know that. Most often he is seen with his little snail friend, Den-Den. Aw. Always tagging along a little behind. Kirapi is a fantastic swimmer and singer, but not at the same time. That's a good joke. on Wikipedia. Karapi has appeared in video games.

I don't need his IMDB credits here. His hometown is Donut Pond and he lives in the Karo Karo house. Some of Karapi's friends include Karoline, Noberun, Kairosuke, Ganta, and Karope, Denden, and Tero Tero. All the ones that we know and love. His mom named Karoma owns a small restaurant and cooks Karapi's favorite food, rice balls. This is adorable.

AlexActually, I have a lot in common with this little guy.

MaxKero means frogs croak, and Honsue means on a lily pad.

AlexYeah, I feel like he's one of the lesser known. I don't think he got to spend a lot of time with Hello Kitty, who's kind of one of the sea characters. But yeah, that was like, okay, this is my status. This is who I am. Here's the pictures of my favorite dolphins and manatees. Totally normal. um but eventually you know there were some people who wrote about like those 42 folders and and minimalism and cleaning your credit cards uh i love that one i love cleaning your debit card

that was great eventually um what kind of sucks in college is they they give you like 40 cards and and you kind of need them all the time like when you're traveling to like very like okay this is um your card for the diner hall and this is the card to get into this specific building and here's your student id um uh so then i think this was actually a kickstarter project uh but it was i i think like one of the first like slim wallets where you could fit you could still fit a million

things in there um which which i kind of had to do but it fit in like you could fold it a like four times um and it held all my crap uh and eventually it literally fell apart because i used it for like six years and now this is what i am sporting and it is the first time i've uh other than the frog wallet i have not had a black wallet um and let me let me see uh and i recently

switched from my back right pocket to my back left.

MaxOh, Bellroy.

AlexYeah. I had a Bellroy wallet. Yeah. And so it's not quite.

MaxThis was a great wallet.

AlexYeah. This is pretty. It's awesome. Oh, it's expensive. Well, okay. I haven't bought a wallet in six years. I feel like it, I mean, it's lasted now.

MaxNo, I didn't have this. I had a small, I hadn't even smaller one. Oh, it's so little. Look at that.

AlexWell, here, I needed a little bit of a larger wallet. I keep in here a slim tile in case I lose it.

MerlinThat's what I have, the larger width and height one?

AlexYes, yes.

Speaker AYeah, I've got one too. Can I ask you a question about the tile quickly?

AlexYes.

MaxListen, in concept, I would love to have this in my wallet because then if I misplace my wallet, I hit the thing on my phone and it goes. In practice, my experience is that it doesn't work that well and it drains the battery on my phone because the only way for tile to work is to always have GPS on. It was like one of those apps on my phone. You know how there's some apps that just maddeningly? Yeah. And I don't understand why. Like, I don't know why they have to have that.

AlexI don't think that's how it works anymore.

MaxIt always has to have location.

AlexCheck on your phone.

MerlinNo, that's not true. Because I don't think that's true because it has to catch up when you open it. After traveling, I'm frequently doing a lot of tile finding. I'm a huge tile user. I have many, many tiles. Let me go look at battery usage and see. But yeah, also it's not GPS, it's Bluetooth. I wish it had GPS.

MaxNo, no, no, no, no. It uses, what I'm saying is the app, the Tile app uses location services always on or the app doesn't work.

Speaker AOh, that's probably true.

MerlinAnyway, I have found the Tile useful and I have done experiments with the Tile, which drives my daughter a little bit crazy. But I've used Tiles. I've bought some Tiles just to use for an experiment and expect to lose. So an interesting experiment, if you've got a little extra dough, is to buy one tile you plan to lose. I wrap mine in a Ziploc bag because I love Ziploc bags with a note in there that says, this is not anything scary. This is just an experiment. And then I'll leave it.

AlexYeah, I would not be worried if I saw that.

MerlinBecause I wanted to find out. Because, I mean, here's the thing. When do you test this? You test this after you've fucking lost something. I want to find out what would happen if I lost something somewhere I'm likely to use it. so I wanted to put it inside the Walgreens. My daughter didn't want to do that because she said we'd get in trouble. So I did it by the library, but it's pretty fun because if you go and wrap it up and put it somewhere and then identify it as lost, it's interesting to see how soon it shows up. Cause what it does is essentially, and I do this all the time with suitcases at an airport and it works very well

for suitcases. Basically every bag we've got has a tile in it. And, and so you want to identify it just for our listeners. When you identify it as lost, what happens is it starts seeking out tile apps nearby. So that's probably why that thing's always on. And you say, it's lost. Please help use the crowdsourcing to help find it. And it will. Basically, eventually, somebody's tile will light up and say, okay, it's near this location. So, I mean, it's not perfect, but it's better than nothing. And if it comes to your backpack, your wallet, like you really want to be able to find that thing.

AlexYeah, I also have one in my backpack and one that's like as roaming. and I put it in like our when we travel I usually travel with a really big camera that we have to check because it's just ginormous and I put a tile in there because always always always it's like taken from the gate to like the you know when they have where they have like the lost luggage place oh our burgers are here Kara come in but every time I have like a heart attack

because I'm like this incredibly expensive camera. Like, did someone walk away with it? It has a hard case. It's clearly a nice camera. But then it gives me a little bit of sanity.

And what else? I've got some other boring stuff in here. Driver's license, debit card, my Cards Against Humanity credit card, and my two insurance cards. I don't know why we have two, but I always need one or the other and I can't figure out why.

MaxWhichever one you have is the wrong one. I don't carry either of those. When I go to the doctor, I have a little note in my phone. Oh no, you know what I do? Is like in 1Password, there's a category called like IDs and you can just put pictures of your IDs. That's a good idea to do.

MerlinI just did that with a couple new cards.

MaxSo hey, listen, all of our listeners should do, if you're not using 1Password, you're a fucking idiot. Stop listening to the show. I don't want you as part of our audience. Yeah, yeah.

MerlinWell, there's an even more basic one you can do, which I think might have been a boing-boing thing. I definitely mentioned it on 42 Folders. But one good idea that you're going to need someday, if you just want the absolute minimal way, put all your wallet contents into your scanner and scan them. Oh, I have that too. I have a redundant wallet and one password. Well, a lot of people don't know this. A lot of people don't know this. And once you go like, oh, why would I know what this thing is, flip it over and do the back and keep that around. But no, I really leverage one password for this stuff. It's so great.

MaxI back up all my IDs on 1Password. It's great. It does the front and the back of the card. It's like text searchable because you can fill in all the fields in text. Oh, I've never photographed, and that's a good idea.

Speaker AOh, you've got to put the picture in.

MaxFor sure. Because sometimes there's little pieces of information. Wait a minute.

MerlinAre you doing that from the iOS app?

Speaker AYeah.

MaxYeah.

Speaker AOh, that's a really good idea.

MaxI should do that. Now, here's the deal. Here's the thing. You've got to do the picture because sometimes there's a little piece of information you don't know until you need it, like the number to call if something goes wrong. Totally. Right? Because like you never remember to write that down. But then when you need it, you need it. And this is how I get away with carrying around like three cards. It's like everything's in my thing. And listen, I go to the doctor whenever I go. And I'm like, listen, I don't carry my insurance card, but here's a picture. And they just work off of that. That's fine. It's never an issue.

AlexYeah, I'm just kind of an edge case. But yeah, the thing is I'm paranoid. And I realize that this is like it all is completely redundant in one password. And I also have a motivation to keep my wallet small because with Lady Jeans, you know, I just have this thing jutting out from my ass. And it's clearly my wallet.

But I also keep a lot of stuff in the Apple Wallet app. What's in here? And I'm like way less precious.

MaxGuys, I've been using Apple Wallet all the time.

AlexI love it.

MaxSometime between when it came out and now, I realized that everywhere takes Apple Pay.

AlexExcept fucking Target. Oh.

MerlinTarget doesn't. Yeah, we're getting there, though. It's definitely getting better. I can't believe how many bodega-style places take it and don't know it to this day.

MaxYeah. I get a little thrill every time I get on the L and I just tap my phone to the thing. It's fucking awesome. And you know what? Another card you don't have to carry. Got rid of my Venture card. I just touch my phone and get on the L.

AlexYep. I've got a ton of my Starbucks bullshit, AMC Stubs Premier, which gets me 50 cents. off the $300.

MaxYou know what bothers me about Apple Wallet?

AlexWhat?

MaxWhen I go to Arclight. So the Arclight. Do you use the Arclight app to get tickets? It's pretty good.

AlexI think I have. Do I have it on here?

MaxThat's like the rich people movie theater that I try

Alexto go to. No, it's actually not. Okay, the snacks are like super rich, but the tickets are actually cheaper than like AMC. It costs $80 to get

Maxa bottle of water. And then it's one of those like European bottles

Alexwhere it's like really slim. One time they were out of flat water and they're like, oh, we just have sparkling water. Like, can I have a cup for the water pump?

MaxIt's one of those rich people theaters with reserved seats. So it's like you pick your seat when you get your tickets. But what I like about it is it's walking distance from my house. And I don't want to compromise my OPSEC. Nope. But it is. And I can reserve seats for a large group so we all sit together. And then we just show up like two seconds before the trailers are over and we're good to go.

Speaker ACan I ask a question?

MaxHang on, let me get through my gripe first. So what's cool about it is it puts your tickets into Apple Wallet, and then the QR code can be scanned by the boy at the gate.

Speaker BYeah.

MaxGate boy. But if I don't go in and manually clear those tickets out of Apple Wallet, a year later they're still in there. Why? Why isn't a piece of the metadata of something being added to Apple Wallet expires? You don't need a fucking picture of a fake movie ticket a year later.

AlexI actually think, so my, this is annoying, my boarding passes never go away. Yeah, it's the same thing for me. It's, I always thought that annoying, was annoying until one time I had like a weird delay and transfer and it was actually helpful and I was glad that it was still there. But I think, I think most movie, movie things expire, but I've got like.

MerlinMine don't. I had the one with Rey was in there until I removed it like a month ago. Which I kind of kept around just out of like. It's also like. Which one is that? Force Awakens? I had the Force Awakens in there. I had two baby drivers. I got two Spider-Mans, Homecoming, Spider-Mans. Yeah. For the AMC ones, you have to delete it yourself for sure.

AlexOh, see, I think this might be because I am an AMC Stubbs premiere member. Stubbs premiere. Yeah.

Speaker BStubbs.

Alexso the like big turns out of this is i very very rarely actually take out my wallet because um most of the time watch the well uh i the i have the siri or the um the the siri zero so it's kind of spotty for me um i usually just pay with my phone and now i don't know when they did this but now like whenever you open your wallet even if you've got your brightness really low it it's

Merlinglows and if you swipe from left to right it opens it up and makes a total brightness i love that it's

Alexit's just really really great and i did you ever work with the little the little hacky things where you can make your own cards for it oh mine actually uh immediately oh so do you do you mean like

Merlinthere's like websites that there's websites i'm probably apps but there's websites where you can go and generate um your own cards of different kinds whether that's for well let's find out about this apple wallet card and it's pretty cool i've done it like if you want to make a safeway card or something like that you can you can make a lot of them yourself yeah yeah oh yeah

Alexyeah i've done that with uh walgreens and also now um wait what the you can make your own loyalty

Merlincards and put them into the yeah yeah i deleted walgreens because it kept going off every time i got near a walgreens but you're right yeah but there's like different types and these sites will walk here we go past source is that one formerly past book do you ever get into that loop where

Maxsomething's happening and you're trying to unlock your phone and you're like, fuck, I need to make a call. And you're a little too eager and you hit your phone button and you're trying to make it go and it's like, did you want your Apple wallet? And you're like, no, fuck, no! And you hit the home button but then it goes back to Apple wallet and you get caught in a loop and you can't get out of it. It makes me want to throw my phone down on the concrete.

MerlinAnd then I lose all my notifications. And some notifications hang around after you unlock and other notifications go away. The Google Voice notifications go away once you unlock the screen. It's like,

MaxI just broke three things trying to answer a phone call. I get cucked so hard by trying to unlock my phone and getting caught in a loop of Apple Wallet.

Speaker BYou can just turn that off.

MaxYeah, but then it's convenient. But then the other thing is if you're in the line, you have your shit at the Walgreens, you're about to get up to the counter, you want to get ready. It's like, I don't want to fucking, listen, that's why I keep my phone screen in, button up, I quick drop, popow. Double tap.

AlexFair enough.

MaxCard up to the thing. I'm in and out. I don't want anyone. Because here's the thing. If you fumble that, you look like a fucking idiot. You look like the nutty professor, right? Because everyone's like, oh, look at this fucking dingus trying to get his phone to tap on the thing.

MerlinOh, it's the worst. You get it right on the – get it on the first try and you're a cool guy. Get it wrong by the fifth try or the dweeb. Oh, my God. You look like – Just a minute. I believe I could bring up the credentials on my phone watch if you could just –

Speaker AI'm sorry, everyone behind me waiting to buy their medicines and whatnot. I just have to do a swipe from the left to the right. Should bring it up quite nicely. I'm having problems. Apparently I'm trying to log in and I've lost my Google voice notification.

AlexOkay. Our argument. So in, in term, here's, here's my reason why it's way, it's way better to use Apple wallet now because everyone has finally has a chip card. Like everybody's fumbling, everything's making terrible noises. So really you're most of the time you just put your phone there and then the cashier doesn't even get like, Oh, Oh, it's done. And it's almost like there's a little glint of relief in their eyes because they don't have to hear and oh god being stuck behind

Merlina millennium who's buying like a pack of sugar-free gum with a chip card it's like can't you just have five dollars in your wallet like why do we have to wait for this it drives me crazy oh i do not

Alexcarry cash in my oh oh actually no i carry a single hundred dollar bill in case i get locked out of my apartment and need to get a shady locksmith to come which has happened oh shady

Maxlocksmith at your service yeah 101 chip card adoption is very bad i would say like 60 of the places i go there's a little slot on the thing for chip cards but then a piece of like duct tape over it and it says like we don't take chip cards yet coming soon do not do not use this yeah joanna

Merlinsterns did a great uh video on that and and then they're slowly fixing the whole problem but it's still real like you walk into safeway which i do now about twice a year thanks oh what do you mean

Maxwhere it sets off a fucking alarm

Merlinbecause you successfully paid. It's like, you successfully issued your payment. 20 seconds to comply.

AlexIt's like the bitchiest robot duck. Oh, God.

MaxHow's the burgers? I'm just, I'm going to town on these fries. They're so good.

MerlinI sent you, you guys go hog wild on the burgers. I sent you some of mine. I sent you my favorite that I, there's other ways to do this. Still the easiest way to write on uni and Bart is to use what's called a clipper card, which is just one of these refillable credit size cards. And you can refill it online with just cash. And so, but you can see my daughter and I modded our cards probably five years ago. Yeah. So she's Cap and I'm Iron Man. And we both made our own cards. and yeah I got a credit card so what did I send you so there's my tile there's my in case my

daughter goes missing card and there's a note that she wrote

Alexthat is one adorable and is your tongue sticking out do you got a little blip there or is it just

Maxwhat's that for that note

Alexthat's real darn cute

MerlinI don't have legs she didn't grant me legs

AlexI'm stick boy

MaxI'm looking at this note. Can you explain what I'm looking at here?

AlexDoes this need a little child? Okay, I'm sorry.

MaxI don't own a child, so I don't know all of the accessories that come with it. It's some sort of ID card.

AlexWell, I do have a question about that.

MaxAnd it says, if your child goes missing.

AlexI am curious about this. Like, what does this? I'm trying not to make fun of this. This seems like a really important thing. What does this do? Yeah.

MerlinWell, if your child is missing and you're losing your mind, you hand it to the cop and they say, this is the one that's missing. And then they have a picture and they have information and they can use the codes on there to go look up stuff to get identifying information in case they, you know, kind of find it.

AlexOh, okay. Got it. So there's two codes.

MaxThere's an A code and a B code. What do those do? It pulls up some sort of file?

MerlinA code calls up available information in B code. We're not even allowed to know what it does.

MaxOh. Oh.

MerlinI don't know. I have no idea. They gave it to us with their fucking photos. So I put it in my wallet.

MaxWhere did this card come from? The school?

MerlinThe school sanctioned photos persons. And some sort of thing they sell.

MaxOh, my God.

AlexAll right. I have a question. So actual question for both of you. Do you not carry any sort of identification of like if I'm in a car accident? If I'm.

MerlinI need to. You know what? I need to do that. My wife got something for her Apple Watch and I'll find out if you want it. She runs a lot. So she got this really cool thing. She slides onto the band of her Apple Watch and it's got all that info on it. Like in case she like trips on a trail and gets hit by a trailer.

MaxSay more about this.

MerlinIs this if I get abducted?

AlexWell, I mean, like my thing is like, you know, if you're in a car crash, it's the whole like ice thing, which now cops and like firemen or fire people. I don't know. Firefighters are trained to like look for that on your phone.

MerlinI think they're called fire Americans.

AlexI don't want to steal valor from the fire people.

Speaker ALike those goddamn neo-Nazis. You're not in the SS, you piece of shit. How dare you wear that?

MaxNo, I've actually got this David Clark enamel pin of the everything is fine dog. So that means I'm a firefighter.

Speaker AYou're not become addicted to enamel.

AlexAnd anyway, hot life hack from overly medicated Alex Cox. You can put a medical ID in Apple Health. And it's super, I think it's super helpful. I've done that.

MaxWhat does this do for you?

AlexIt has all of your medications, allergies, emergency contacts, and if you're like an organ donor.

Speaker AI got blood type, blood type, weight.

AlexOoh, my weight has changed. You can put in your weight, and it actually, a lot of times, if people have on their license organ donor, lots of states won't, they can't honor that because of some law, whereas this one has like, okay you are registered with the donate life organ registry so yeah take take my eyeballs that's good

Merlinto know i gotta do i've got that on my on my uh id but i don't have it uh in apple i'm also gonna

Maxsee i've got inside of my wallet i've got in my wallet illinois driver's license i normally carry around my illinois uh fire owners firearm owners id my foid card which is a valid form of it's a secondary valid form of like hard government issued ID. And you can, most States you can get a void card, whether you own a firearm or not for like $5 from the sheriff's office.

I have my cards against humanity American express card. I have my credit card that I got under duress basically, because I had to have a credit card and I got a chase Sapphire preferred card. I have my debit card for my bank. I have a square cash card. Oh, you got one. Do you guys get that shit?

AlexYeah, I just have it on my Apple Watch, though.

MaxSo the deal with this is if you use the Cash app, put in Pod Save America to save $5, and you sign up for the Cash app.

Speaker BDo do do do do do do. Ba ba ba ba ba ba dee ba dee a pa.

MaxI don't like when I can discernibly recognize on podcast music that it's a garage band loop. But basically on the Cash app, you can just get a free debit card tied to your Cash app. so what's cool about this is I got this because when I buy something from a sketchy website where I don't 100% trust it like let's say some sort of I don't know some sort of provider for a hypothetical file sharing protocol or something like that something that's a little bit sketchy

I know I wouldn't be into that but that's an example

Merlinthe HFSP hypothetical file sharing protocol

MaxI don't do any of that but if I did the way I would pay for it is on my cash card because, listen, right now I can see I have $48 in my cash account. So it's like if that card is compromised or whatever, it's like big whoop, it's $48.

Then I've got my

MerlinThis is square, not stripe, but square, correct?

AlexYes. And also he got it because Alex told him to. Oh shit, I dropped it in my burger. Look at the little picture on the card. Oh my god. Alright, we're going to compromise Max's security and he has a little picture of Captain Jane. Oh, God, that's so...

MerlinOh, how cute is that?

AlexI just have my dumb signature that I practiced for a half hour. That's if my cat... If my cat goes missing,

MaxI simply pull this card out of my wallet and I swipe it to purchase a new cat. And then I have my AAA card in case I ever need to... If I get into an accident and there's an emergency, you call AAA to wait for two hours and then maybe or maybe not, they'll send a tow truck. And then... It happens. Push that car around. And then I have my card, my key, my fob that gets me into the office. because that's it. Pretty light. Nice.

AlexI don't think we have time for this, but I think a future challenge is the key challenge. Listen to this. It's a disaster. I got nothing. I know. I don't have any keys. It wouldn't be a good challenge. It would be Alex complaining that she has to have too many keys.

MerlinAlex, I'm totally in on that. I have two keys. Did you see my tape pens?

AlexYour what?

MerlinThe inside of my wallet I sent you.

AlexOh, yes.

MerlinEvery time my daughter starts a new roll of tape, she gives me the tape pen.

AlexThat's really... Okay, well, that's adorable. If it was not your daughter, I would be very concerned about the hoarder activities.

MaxGirls, why is your daughter opening this many rolls of tape? You don't have a kid. Crafs.

MerlinWhy would I explain it to you? Do you have any idea how much tape a child uses? How many rolls a child loses? How many rolls a child uses? How many rolls a child loses?

Speaker AAnd the ends go in my wallet by my ass.

AlexTwo questions. Why do you carry cash? And what is this little bunny on the inside of a wallet?

MerlinGod, you guys are so freaking weird. I feel no need to answer this. Because things cost money, and it is a nuisance to use cards for everything. So I generally keep a couple hundred dollars in 20s, and I keep a 10, a 5, and a 1 to the extent possible.

AlexHow do you refill? Do you make regular trips to the ATM? Hopsec. Okay, gotcha. I have this problem.

MaxI like having a little cash. I usually like to carry like 220s on me.

MerlinIt's ignorant not to have some cash with you.

MaxNo, I keep in the book. When you go to a bar or something, it sucks to tip on the card. You know what I mean? You just want to slide a couple of bucks to the bartender like a cool guy.

MerlinYeah. Tips are actually a really good use case. If there's an open bar, you just drop a five.

MaxYeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly what I'm talking about. But I never get cash. It's so inconvenient for me to get cash.

MerlinThis is going to have to be one of those agreeing on cheese things, because I think it's creepy how much we depend on electronics for even small purchases.

MaxNo, I agree with that. I would like to use more cash. All I'm saying is it's inconvenient to get cash.

AlexMillennial life hack. If you're at a bar and there's an open bar and then you feel really guilty because you don't have any cash, you can ask your weird cash friends to tip for you and then square cash or Venmo them money, which I do a lot.

MerlinThat's a hell of a way to live.

AlexYep, yep.

Speaker ADid we cover the wallet stuff pretty well?

AlexI think so I think you guys have to say something Oh no, I want to know about the bunny It's so cute Oh yeah, why is there a little puffy bunny sticker?

Speaker AMy daughter gave me a sticker

AlexI needed a place to put it She's real good at gifts

MaxShe's a good, good little kid Now this wallet says embroidered And the inside it says One world, one wallet Rejoice, it's a living beverage Why does it say that?

I'll file a bug there's your ending Alex if you zoom in real close right in the middle you can see my reflection in the grommet if you zoom in really close right in the middle in between where it says one world one wallet there's the sort of cross stitching of the yellow and then real small beneath that what does it say

Speaker BI never realized this it says wallet

Speaker Await a minute I never realized that's a logo

Alexthat's a logo

Speaker Ait says taxi I never realized it until right now

AlexOh, taxi wallets. Oh, I get it.

Speaker AIt says taxi wallet.

AlexOkay, cool. All right. And you also, what kind of snap is that? I didn't know adults had snap wallets. I'm not making a judgment. So that's the person who doesn't carry cash.

MaxI just have my friend's tip for me. You know, Merlin, this kind of looks like the clamshell tricorder from Star Trek Next Generation. Like you could talk into this like a cell phone.

MerlinWell, this is if you've ever seen that phone guy. You know, this is it.

AlexWait, this is the phone guy? This is the wallet?

MerlinWell, yeah, it might be a replacement for that particular one, but this is the style. If you want an actual, if you want a feature wallet,

Speaker Athis is what you got to use.

MerlinI'm sorry, I got to take this. I got to hang on just one second.

Speaker AYeah. No. No. A bunch of fucking dipshits. No. She.

MerlinNo. That's the other one. No. The other one. No. Shorter. No.

Speaker ANo. No rack. No rack. She. Will. I like to run the motor on that one. Run the motor.

MerlinI literally can't hear anything you're saying. Hello?

AlexWelcome back.

MaxAll my fanfic is coming true.

Show notes

Transcript

38. Uncle Vinegar

Show notes

Transcript

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