46. Hitherto, I Have Demurred

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, send your co-host some gifts from Amazon.

Hello Merlin, how are you? Hey, how's it going? Oh, well, it's going. Oh, what's the matter? Uh, no, I'm very excited.

MaxWe're, we're like, uh, we're in like a Scrooge McDuck, uh, swimming pool of Amazon packages here. You guys got a treasure bath? I'm sorry I'm late guys. I'm the cock of the week. No, it's my fault.

MerlinI'm really sorry you guys. I should have, I should have been here earlier.

MaxI had a, I had an important business meeting and I was meeting with a business person at, um, with a, with a salary man at the, uh, at the bakery. And, uh, I had, I got there early and like did my emails and drank a ton of coffee. And then about halfway through our meeting, I had to take a shit so badly. I was like sweating and my eyes were bulging

Merlinwhat was the toilet situation like?

Maxoh it's an upscale cafe so I'm sure it was good but what happened was I powered through it I cannot get through I'm not going to get up in the middle of a meeting with someone who is an important salary man to take a shit the thing is they're going to be looking at their watch counting the seconds, I'm on the clock it's like a business shit it's a lot of pressure and it just is not tenable. So anyway, I really felt very bad and I just eventually just sat there

and powered through it long enough and now I don't have to take a shit anymore and I'm a little bit scared.

MerlinOh, you lost your windows. What happened?

Speaker AOh, God. I don't know where.

MerlinThere's an acceptable amount of time for a person to be in the bathroom without questions. And I'm going to say, you don't want to be in the bathroom for less than 20 seconds and you don't want to be in the bathroom for more than three to four minutes. For men.

AlexFor men. Okay, thank you. See, that's the thing. I've had men immediately question me. I've been in the bathroom two minutes. Especially when you're wearing a dress with fanciful things.

MaxListen, a single round of Clash Royale is three minutes. Plus, sometimes you go into overtime and that's an additional two minutes. Yeah, that's true. And what are you going to play? Just one round of Clash Royale?

MerlinBut you know the feeling of like, oh, I've been here longer than I expected. So what are you going to do? You're going to pull up, go outside and say, listen, I'm sorry. This shit is going to be a lot more involved than I anticipated. Get another biscotti and I'll be back in service soon.

MaxI do not have enough dude wipes to complete this operation. As you know, Merlin, as you know, I consider myself a special forces operator. You really get in there. I'm like a Navy SEAL. I perform in the land, sea or air as long as I have my tactical men's wipes.

MerlinYou know, when you go into combat, the last thing you want on your mind is, is there a small blueberry-sized dollop of poo waiting under my taint?

Speaker AOh, my God.

MerlinBecause that's going to take you off your game. Because you go like, that could be, you know, for some people like to wipe until they bleed. That could be an excessive dingleberry, or that could be a little bit of hand fruit. You don't know what that is. You want to get that out of there, because you're going to have to get tactical, get out there, talk to Salary Man.

That's why one is none. Number two is poo

MaxI took my First final last night

Speaker AHow'd it go?

MaxI don't know I think it went well It was pretty intense honestly I had to study I had to study so hard for this thing And I really did not enjoy I really didn't like it. I guess that's goes without saying for most people, but I forgot how bad studying was and how much I hate it. And, you know, for most of my life, I just, when I had to study for things, instead of doing that, I just didn't study. And then I am, you know, I don't, I'm pretty good under pressure. Like I will, like, for example, like in a writing, like,

like I was, you know, I've, I've been talking about the final with people and some people are like, you know, I just cannot write under pressure. Like if I'm in that test environment and then I have to like sit down and write an essay question, I just like crumble. Like I can't remember obvious things and it's too much. I stare at the clock and I'm sweating. I'm like, I don't have that problem. I do everything in a last minute panic. I'm a, I'm a very good writer under pressure. Like I can string together a sentence. Like I outline quickly, like I just get the thing done. And that has honestly, that has been a, um, a curse and a blessing because it means that I've never done too much work to prepare for anything. Like my whole life is designed around not wanting

to study in school and then developing coping mechanisms to be good at other things so I didn't need to study. But the thing was, that was an acceptable, I was able to write that off because I didn't want to be there. I resented having to do all the bullshit busy work of my classes. And I felt like I didn't want to be in middle school, I didn't want to be in high school, and I didn't want to be in college, even though I know I could have not gone to college. I really couldn't have. I really had to go to college. But the thing about grad school is I fucking chose to be there i wrote a little essay and i asked for permission to go there and it's so lame and

embarrassing if i like don't study and show up and don't know what i'm doing and bullshit my way through it like i put myself in this position i asked to be there i feel like now i have to try

Merlinyou well it's and like it's easy to assume or like infer that because you've accomplished things as a young man in life it should be a doddle to go back and do the things that were difficult when you were younger. But like for me, one aspect of some combination of my anxiety issues and my ADHD issues is that sometimes it's difficult. I have to get to a certain fever pitch before things happen. I hate that about myself. I hate that I can't just deal with something when it's not a problem yet. Sometimes I don't get the dopamine hit until it's a panic. I don't know if you're like that,

but like sometimes I mean, I, and probably like you, I sailed through a lot of school going like, well, you know, I'll just do it at the last minute and it'll be fine. I'll get to be a hero because I get to say, oh, I didn't even try very hard. You know what I mean? Like Lloyd Lindsay, I didn't even want to get an A. I didn't even want to get a good grade in that class. Right, exactly, exactly. Alex, what do you suffer from?

AlexIt might shock you guys to know that I did try really hard and always did my homework. And that's probably one of my big regrets is because it didn't matter. It didn't matter.

MerlinYou're going to be such a good, wise, old person. And now look at you. You were fucking organized cables

Maxat Cards Against Humanity. gather around children and let me tell you about the unnecessariness of it didn't matter at all did i ever ask to see a fucking report card or did anyone in this position did train or anyone was ever like uh alex let's see your uh honor roll certificate uh want to see my amazing 4.0 gba no i honestly do not know if you graduated college or if you did which college you went to i have

Alexliterally no proof whatsoever because they keep changing the office at which you pick up your diploma so about once a month uh i might have talked about this once a month mel and i go on a date downtown and try to get our diplomas and fail and they're like oh go to this building and

Maxthat building's closed so then we go out to eat i've applied for a lot of jobs because the way you get like staff work on you know if you think of political campaigns like sometimes you only work on the campaign for like four months or nine months or whatever but you have to apply like it's a normal job so i've even though i'm like fairly you know early in my career i've applied for like dozens and dozens of jobs and interviewed for them and gotten many of them. And I have never been asked to produce any academic credential in my entire life. In fact, I've often thought that I should just lie about what college I went to. And if they're like, where'd you go to school?

I should be like, I went to the Harvard, to the Kennedy School of Government or whatever. And the only time I would ever get caught in that lie is if the person interviewing me was like,

Merlinoh, I also went there. What dorm did you stay in? Yeah. Or if you had written a screed about how women's brain size makes them incapable as programmers. That's a really, you know, that's frustrating. That's not a screed. I mean, that's just simple logic. But like there's this, there's also this certain thing of like, hey, this cost, you know, $80,000 and I had to try really hard. It's like, you know, like I had really, I had really sweated not having my password, my passport up to date last time I traveled. And it was really easy going through TSA and I was kind of disappointed. I kind of wanted them to hassle me more

and ask for more documents because I was so overprepared. And you feel like, no, I feel like you got cucked by the system.

MaxThat was my experience a little bit with the final. Like I spent, I spent, I mean, I really, I mean, honestly, I spent four days of my life preparing for this, like almost exclusively. But, you know, I guess I did a lot more work before that. But really the four days are what's, you know, the Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, like literally all day just devoted to like going through these readings and outlining shit and writing down definitions of Latin words and nonsense that I thought I would need. and I didn't need 95% of it on the test.

AlexI miss, I shouldn't, okay. No, I don't miss tests, but the final two years of my college experience, the finals and passing the class was make a movie that doesn't suck, which is a lot harder and a lot worse than writing a nice essay about Alexander Hamilton.

MaxWhat was your movie?

Alexuh i have made like dozens go to my vimeo nobody go to my vimeo page i've seen a lot of your stuff

Maxwhat was the one what were what were your i don't know what were your top ones that you made for

Alexschool i made a dumb puppet sex one that won a bunch of awards that meant nothing and no one cared uh but well well actually like in job interviews for like films they did like even in school you know you just you present your portfolio and you like you make the movie repo man i think i'm on the wrong video you know what you know what um little known fact i did indeed make repo man and the underrated sid and nancy oh you made that that's what the guy from the

Merlinharry potter oh my gosh i didn't know what's your handle on uh what's your handle on vimeo

Alexuh actually do i have slash alex cox he's a l cox i think you cucked him yeah oh yeah no i've been they offered to buy my twitter handle you totally got it you gots it you are alexander

MerlinLook at that. Okay, I'm looking for puppets. Is it felt up?

AlexYeah, it's felt up. Wasn't that clever? I'll put it in notes.

MaxOkay, Alex, I've recently learned that Alex has a very good gift for coming up with funny names for things. Not really. I did not realize this until very recently. Why do you like this, Alex?

MerlinCan you just be quiet and let the men compliment you?

MaxWhat was the first one that we came up with? So there was one, wasn't it something podcast related and you came up with a really good name for it?

AlexI don't remember.

MaxWell, Cox's Cox, obviously. And then we were coming up with a name for our super secret channel. And I was like, we should call it the Pirate Bay 2. And then Alex was like, no, no, we should call it Pirate Bay B-A-E. That was you?

MerlinI thought that was you, Max.

MaxNo, that's Alex. I took the credit for it. Alex, you win. That's so good. Isn't that a good name?

MerlinThat's such a good... I love that. I love seeing it.

MaxCan you change the icon now? Fuck, there was another one. Oh, Jizzoween. Oh, yeah. Jizzoween was an Alex Cox original.

AlexYep.

MaxHmm.

AlexYep.

MaxAnd now Felt Up. It's pretty good.

Merlinno puppet

Maxyou know what I was thinking about when we were doing the test last night the grad student who was administering the test showed, we got fucking oh my god, I think in the after show this week I want to complain about, we're going to read a selection of Northwestern emails that I've received and complain about them we received 20 emails about the procedure for taking this test and maddeningly they gave us every piece of information except anything that would help us prepare for the test in any way Like they completely withheld anything that would help us know the subject material, the type of studying we should do.

I mean, I really worked myself into like I couldn't eat. I had that like knot in my stomach and I was just walking around. And then for a while I had a hard time studying because I was so wound up about it. Like I couldn't even sit down and confront not knowing what to do. So what I would try to do is like play games or like read or like just do things to like distract myself. But they were utterly devoid of pleasure. You know, it was like an old gypsy curse got put on me where it was like, may you eat, but never be full, and drink, but it never slakes your thirst, and may you never be satiated by the pleasurable company of others.

Like, that was me for like a week trying to study for this goddamn test. Terrible. And that's how Donald Trump must walk around all the time. Yeah. I don't know. But anyhow. He's pretty upset about fake news right now. I don't know if you noticed. So they gave us no information about how to study, and it really bugged me.

But then they sent 300 emails about, like, make sure you're in the room by 5.05 p.m. when the test will be handed out, and you'll do this and then that. And then the whole class gets there, and the TA, who was, like, administering the test, fucking showed up 10 minutes late. And we're all sitting there just sweat, beating up. I mean, it's our first class. It's our first class. Everyone was nervous. I was probably the least nervous person there, and I was nervous. and I do not get nervous about tests or care about these things normally and I was surprised by how upsetting it was and how emotional it was and I was thinking there sitting there for that 10

minutes that felt like about three hours while we were waiting for them to come with the test I was like preparing for this test I was like this is probably the hardest I've worked on anything in like 10 years and I told that to Veronica and she says how could that be she said she was like you work hard on everything but it doesn't there's like uh it's like it doesn't feel like this was

Merlinfelt like work. Well, it depends on what it is that you're good at and what you take to. Something that can be super challenging, but it's something you're good at can be very engaging. I feel that way about the DMV. That's one of the most, or jury duty. Those are such stressful days for me because it requires a certain kind of attention and attendance that I'm terrible at. And plus, I'm nervous about how it's going to turn out. And there are things where I would like, I mean, you put me in an improv situation and just throw ideas at me for four hours and I'll be fine. I'll have the time of my life. I'm never happier. Stuff that terrifies other people. I'm fine with that.

But these quotidian kinds of situations where the main factor for success is like, can you be bored and anxious at the same time for hours? It just kills me. I want to talk about these emails too. Maybe we should save it for the after show. But I got a lot of beef right now with large amounts of information from certain institutions that are very low in nutritional value, very high in volume, but have stakes. if you miss the one or two things that are buried somewhere in the motherfucking email.

MaxThat's the university email system, but then what happens is then no one reads their emails and half of the emails are like, panicked. This event is starting and no one's here. Everyone come to the event. It's like, can't you see you're making it worse right now? Because now no one will read about the next one either. Are they going to serve light refreshments? Oh, light refreshments will be served. And there may be networking with the panelists beforehand.

MerlinOh my God, limited networking opportunities. I'm totally in.

MaxHoly shit.

AlexWhere would I ever find light refreshments on my own? Fuck. And it's always lemonade.

MaxLet's open some goddamn... I feel like I earned some treats. I want some... Give me my treats.

AlexCan we just frame the challenge first?

MaxDigga, digga, digga, digga, digga, digga, digga, digga, digga.

AlexChallenge. our nice patrons what? Merlin, give me a ton

Merlinour nice patrones give us enough a lira that we're able to how you say spend the money on sending each other the package from Amazon it's very funny there might be some semen in there so open with careful it's a hot spaghetti for a mama that's a meatball that's gonna roll off the tongue

Speaker AOur challenge

MerlinWe have a Patreon Give us your fucking money Go to patreon.com Here's the thing about the Patreon Is that we want your money Oh we want your fucking money Don't worry about that I know that you've got $5 And I want your $5 You think this is a bit It's not a bit No we really want your money We'll circle back to thanking Jonathan But at some point we have to thank Jonathan Mann For our wonderful jizz song

MaxOh shit dog I forgot that we have to talk about that Thank you Jonathan Mann For our wonderful jizz song thank you for your service I told Jonathan I'd plug some well I told him I'd plug one thing but I want to plug two things because I'm a big Jonathan Mann fan I'm a man head first of all I don't know if people know about his work or not he is a at songadayman on Twitter and he is it is truly incredible the volume and quality of stuff that he puts out it's miraculous so that's his main project

is a songadayman definitely check that out he writes a song every day but Jonathan also asked me to plug his podcast, sort of musical narrative podcast, Song of Knots, which is super fun. You can find it on Overcast. Why do people say this when they're plugging a podcast on something? Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.

AlexYeah, people know where it was.

MaxBut why do they say that? That's not saying anything. Of course it's where it's...

Speaker ANo, it's like saying,

Merlinit's like try potatoes wherever you would find food. No, what they'll say is,

Speaker Athey say, check us out on iTunes or Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts

Merlinbecause they're trying to put you on fucking iTunes because they want you to go in and please like and subscribe and rate and all that bullshit because it really helps people find the show.

MaxBut it's the same as saying nothing. Like don't even say wherever podcasts are available. Of course it's wherever you listen to podcasts.

MerlinI almost always send people to Overcast because it's so much easier than almost everything. If you've never heard a show, I'm putting him in the notes, Song of Knots, putting it in notes right now. Please like and subscribe. But you know the thing is, if you've never heard a show, how the, you know what, I'm getting off topic, But it drives me crazy when people are like, oh, go check out my podcast. And you go and it's a fucking SoundCloud waveform on the page. I'm like, oh, let me just run my finger over this and I'll listen to it.

MaxIs this your idea of a podcast? Is I sit and look at a waveform on a page? It's like the great Adam tweet where he's like, I've been looking this QR code for 20 minutes and nothing's happening.

When does it kick in?

MerlinYou got to unfuzz your eyes. You got to kind of unfocus your eyes a little bit.

Maxis it an old lady is it a duck what is it song and knots it's really fun cards was a sponsor of the first episode uh i i listened to it and fell in love with it it's uh kind of uh kind of retro like really fun songwriting like it has it has a it definitely feels like a kid's cartoon from my childhood it's a lot of fun find it in show notes or wherever you listen to podcasts hey

Can I have a treat? Can I have a treat now?

AlexYeah.

MerlinThis week we got the challenge, which is that. Oh, right. We still have to explain the challenge.

MaxYes. So here's the challenge is we this is a repeat. Well, first of all, it's almost the one year anniversary of when we started doing Dubai Friday. What?

Speaker ANo.

MaxYes. Remember, because we recorded a couple that we never will release before, like the election. and this is about when we started working on it. A couple? A couple. It's approximately the one year anniversary. Oh my God. To mark the occasion, we're going back to one of our early favorite challenges, which was the Amazon challenge, where we each had a budget, which was, what did we decide, 50 bucks? Something like that.

No, I believe it was 15. No, no, well, whatever. The first time, yeah, it was like we had like 15 or $30 or something and you had to find some goofy stuff on Amazon and send it to everyone. And it was very fun and we happened to do that like the week after the election, the Trump election, and we were all very depressed and it was kind of, I don't know, it's just a goofy, cathartic thing that took our minds off the election. So, you know,

MerlinI'd be pretty... Well, we should mention it's almost everybody's, it's not favorite, it's like Cheap Trick, it's everybody's third favorite band. Schrodinger's Gift is on November 18th, it's episode three and you'll find it in show notes at DubaiFriday.com.

MaxSo this week we are repeating the challenge due to us hitting our goal on Patreon. That was sort of our pledge to people, so thank you for giving us your money. And we upped the budget, so we upped the ante, and now we had, what did we have? It was 50 bucks to send each other gifts, and we went on Amazon and went into the bowels of Amazon and found the weirdest things and bought each other gifts. And we also invited all of you to send us weird chachis and gifts. You're welcome. Which I thought was more of a bit,

the notion that people would send us things. But anyway, it was not. So what does it look like?

MerlinI saw a photo yesterday that was kind of chilling. Can you give me a sense of what has arrived at your office?

AlexI took a video. Boy.

MaxWe'll put it in the show notes, but I just took a picture of what it looks like from my station. I'll put it in our super secret channel.

AlexThis morning, I felt like a mom sorting out the gifts. Because there's a lot of, so many things.

MerlinPlease let there be a bra in there.

AlexPlease. I am pretty sure that there's an underbra. You didn't edit that out? Undergarment of some sort. You didn't edit that out? Oh, my God. We talked about jizz for 30 minutes.

Speaker AI can say my bra size. But that's not normal. But jizz is normal. Oh, my God.

MerlinYeah. Women are weird. Oh, gosh. Women always talking about their sizes and the deformities of their underwear. Get a shot. Did you guys like that Dove ad where the black woman took off her dark t-shirt and turned white?

AlexIt was...

Speaker AWhat the fuck?

MerlinI would just like to apologize to anybody who misunderstood what we were trying to do here.

Maxpersonally I thought it was a great ad I was like this soap will get you so clean that you'll change races so I thought it was very I found it very normal and a very persuasive good ad please please please do the

MerlinZuckerberg story at some point it's been such a good week and apologies there's been so many amazing apologies this week I don't want to think about the news the news is bad oh did you read this did you read the link I don't want to take you off your thing here

Maxhonestly I'm in one of my weeks where I'm like too depressed to like really engage with the news it's really bad it's really bad the fucking szechuan sauce oh my god the sauce i don't we

Alexcan't we can't talk about sauce oh god i i don't want to get i don't want to go too deep the sauce

Maxis on it's it's fucking crazy story but what are you talking about this week's this week's chapo trap house if you've not listened to chapo and you've heard me rant and rave about how good it is on this show this week's chapo they have a very special guest pat noswald joins them in la and they talk about the Rick and Morty sauce and they honestly, there's only one thing worth saying about the sauce and they cover it.

MerlinOkay, I'm on it.

MaxIt's very good. They honestly have a very funny and very sad and good discussion about why people get mad about the sauce and what it represents.

MerlinOh God, I hope it's on my side. Okay, all right. We won't talk about Mark Zuckerberg apologizing for appearing in a Facebook. I just don't have, I don't have anything. Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig. We go to Mark Zuckerberg.

MaxDateline. I want a treat though. Can I have a treat? Have a treat. You owe it to yourself.

AlexLet Max open up a treat, and then we'll do Zuckerberg. Oh, wait.

MaxI did have one thing I wanted to talk about.

AlexYou cucked me.

Speaker AYou son of a bitch. Oh, my God.

MaxI just wrote down. I opened up my little note, and I thought I didn't have anything, but all I wrote down is, boy, that Eminem video is really embarrassing. Did you guys see the Eminem video that everyone's like, he's the leader of the resistance now?

MerlinI turned it off. It was so bad. I guess it got really good at the end. It's all anybody could talk about. I had to turn it off.

MaxOh, that's it. He got crowned. Everyone loves the hive mind decided that this video is really woke and cool. And it's humiliating to me. It's embarrassing. I have those mirror neurons. And I haven't even made it through the whole thing. I turn away in shame. It's awful.

MerlinIt's so embarrassing.

MaxIt's every fucking bromide and cliche and dumb, marginal, stupid trivia argument about Trump and the piss and he's orange. And it's like, Jesus Christ, people. Like, this is not a... And then he put these black people in the background watching him rap, and then sometimes it cuts to their face, and they're just nodding, like, mm-hmm. Can you guys please bring in my blacks? He made them be there. They're not just... You understand this isn't a thing that's just happening?

MerlinLike, he put them there to nod. You guys, you guys, come on down to the garage. Eminem is about to rap a little, kind of. Sweet. He calls Trump, like, the Cheeto man. Oh, burn. This is the resistance. We're going to take back the country. Oh my God. He's so upset. He can't even freestyle. He has to take a little break and stop and gather himself.

Speaker AIt's so weak.

MaxAnd also he looks 60. It's really depressing. He's out of breath. He's out of breath. And Trump, more like a Cheeto bitch. Fuck it.

Speaker AFuck it. Fuck it.

MerlinFuck it. Mark Zuckerberg apologizes for promoting Facebook VR with a virtual trip to Hurricane Ravage Puerto Rico. Mark Zuckerberg made a surprise visit to Hurricane Ravage Puerto Rico on Monday. Sort of. The Facebook CEO led a video tour through Puerto Rico's flooded streets. Puerto Rico.

Speaker BWe also love Puerto Rico.

MerlinIn a video broadcast on Facebook Live in an attempt to promote the company's new virtual reality feature. Things quickly turned awkward, however, as Zuckerberg stumbled through a conversation. Which, I'm sorry, people may not

Maxknow what to picture here. Can I, if you've seen the picture, the Facebook's VR thing, you're like a disembodied torso. You look like a cutout. You sort of look like this little goblin, this little cartoon goblin, like floating through a Google Maps view. It looks awful.

AlexThey look like Second Life characters.

MaxIt looks like 1994 CGI.

MerlinOh my gosh. Things quickly turned awkward, however, as Zuckerberg stumbled through a conversation with Facebook VR team member Rachel Franklin calling Puerto Rico, still fighting to recover three weeks after Hurricane Maria, a tough place to get to, and spending a few minutes touting Facebook's own relief efforts. Comments on Zuckerberg's Facebook Live video called out his perceived insensitivity, saying the clip was everything from tone deaf to the height of tastelessness. I love this so much. On Tuesday, Zuckerberg responded to a comment saying his goal was to, quote, show how VR can raise awareness and help us see what's happening in different parts of the world, unquote.

He added that, quote, one of the most powerful features of VR is empathy. I realized this wasn't clear, and I'm sorry to anyone that this offended me. Well, certainly not the graphics. No. No, he's sorry if you were offended by this, but he's helping. You know, there is such a dearth of gratitude for white men right now. There's so little gratitude for the excellent work that white men are doing right now. There's so much.

MaxThis is the whole thing. I don't know if people know the whole, I don't want to get too deep into it, because I know people always put the podcast on 2X when I pop off on one of my famous people. But I don't know. I don't want to get too deep into it, but people should know the whole history of VR and Palmer Luckey, this supremely creepy, he's this 20-year-old billionaire who made Oculus and sold it to Zuckerberg at Facebook,

and now he's a big Trump guy, and he does all these Trump billboards, and he does the meme magic stuff that he thinks made Trump president. And his whole thing was that VR was going to be like, people's lives will continue to be so bad in the third world, and people's lives will get so bad in America that they'll need an escape, and they'll put on their VR headsets, and they'll be able to go into nature because they won't actually have any real nature to look at. So that's sort of the whole ideological premise

of Oculus and of a lot of the VR stuff. These people sort of know that the reckoning is coming and that there's going to be this huge group of the population that's left behind. And then their best thing is you'll put on the little goggles and you'll be a little goblin floating through like a Google Street View of a national park. And it'll remind you of what it was like to look at trees.

MerlinYeah. Sometimes we need a heuristic to help us out. There was a funny thing going around yesterday. I think it was a Medium post talking about like if you're really just confused, if you're really flustered with how to – If you're a man who doesn't know how to treat women at work and you're just super confused because the lines keep changing, act like every woman you work with is rock the Dwayne Johnson. And so here's what you do. From now on, before you do any—it was a very funny post, and I thought it was very good. The idea is like, oh, so you're thinking about going up and putting your arm around this person and saying how good they look today.

Would you do that to rock the Dwayne Johnson? No, you wouldn't. You're thinking about demanding. They get in a closet with you. No, don't do that. The rock would just hurt your throat. You think about like kind of tassily demanding that they come out to dinner with you. You know, you're not going to make Rock the Dwayne Johnson go out to dinner with you. Don't do that.

MaxDid I earn a treat yet?

MerlinBut let's have treats. Let's have treats.

MaxLet's have treats. Okay. First package. First blood. This one is to ship to Max Temkin for DBF. That would be me. That sounds like probably a Merlin. This is a padded Amazon envelope. It is small, like an 8 1⁄2 by 11 piece of paper. I'm going to – I'm opening up the top.

Okay. Inside, small packet. It is like Amazon Basics packaging. It's some sort of white packets. Let me get my little knife and open this. I don't know what this is.

It looks like medical supplies or wipes or some sort of... Oh, here we go. Yes. Yes. Okay, it's got a little instruction booklet. Human semen rapid test cassette stain. A rapid test for the qualitative detection of PSA for assessing the presence of human semen in vaginal fluid or other areas for forensic use only.

Speaker AIs this for you, Merlin?

MerlinDon't use it for entertainment purposes. Is this for you, Merlin? Yes. Thank you.

MaxThank you.

MerlinYou know, go and be well. Go find some semen where you didn't expect it. Well, this is only the cassette.

MaxYou do need the machine to put the cassette in to read the results. Oh, are you sure?

MerlinIs it my douche all over again

Maxwhere I was confused about the nozzle being inside? No, it pretty clearly shows a machine where it has a little slot that says human semen over it.

MerlinI can't do it all for you. I'm not going to give you a human semen machine. We had a very limited budget for this. Oh, no, wait. No, I could be wrong. It's mainly, I just wanted you, I mainly wanted to get your head in the space where I want you thinking more about semen being places you didn't expect.

MaxWow, thank you, Merlin. You're welcome, buddy. I'm going to open one up. Yeah, let's do it. I'm going to open one up. Let's see, because there's like six of them in here. Alex, do you mind watching him? You know what? I actually think I'm wrong. I think I'm wrong. This is the whole thing. It's got the reagent and everything? It's got everything in here. So it's a little, what do you do? It's a little eye dropper. And I guess you...

AlexWait, are you supposed to acquire the semen via the eye dropper?

MerlinWell, somehow it's got to get in there. So I think... No, really? So you take a liquid and decide if it's semen? That seems a little...

MaxSo you make a soaking solution.

MerlinI'm imagining you going and surprising an employee that you don't like very much and making them stand up. And then you start squirting on their chair to see if there might be something there.

AlexExcuse me, Dwayne The Rock Johnson. I need to shake her chair.

MaxSo you take the stain and you make up what they call a soaking solution of the uncertain stain. And then you soak up. That sounds like a goth album. And then you soak up, you sort of soak up the soaking solution into the little eyedropper and then you drop it into the cassette. And each one is individually packaged with a little silica gel packet. Oh, nice. Yeah. Wow. Thank you, Merlin. You're welcome.

MerlinHappy jizzling.

MaxThis is great. I'm going to take this to the hotel. I'm going to New York this weekend. I'll take this with me and test the hotel. Wouldn't that be fun if I went down to the front desk?

Speaker AExcuse me, I found some semen in the carpet.

MerlinI imagine you wearing infrared goggles in a bathrobe.

Speaker AI've got a section of the bedspread

Maxthat's been rather problematic One of those little dad headlights

Merlinlike I'm a minor Sir, could you please turn off your headlamp? Fullness of time Should I get a goodie?

MaxYeah, Merlin, open up a treat

MerlinThere were some big ones

MaxI think that might have been for me I sent some big ones to you

MerlinI had to walk down my street carrying a box that was taller than my daughter today I brought in, I got a blue Ikea bag because I rolled blue Ikea bag I was able to get most of the medium-sized things here last night.

MaxCan you just buy that bag? Oh, shit, dog. Oh, God, you buy multiples of them. They're not good bags. They're great bags. They're such good bags. They're like no structure.

MerlinThere's no structure. No, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, hang on. Side rail. No. Here's what you do. Side bar? Side rail. Side rail, you go, you keep it folded up, you stick it in your suitcase. You know what you always need when you're on the road? A bag. A bag. And it folds up real small. but if you need to go to the beach or something that will hold so much stuff it holds an improbable we use it for recycling it's really good they're not waterproof but they're pretty good okay i use

Alexthem for moving i didn't realize that you use this was your go-to like beach bag like you're on vacation just walking around town with an ikea but they're great for everything you can buy them

Merlinin multiples on amazon for really cheap and they're awesome okay i got a couple i got a couple padded uh envelopes from the amazon company here let's see i got one here these are both to merlin man at Dubai Friday. Should I just open one? Yeah. Okay, here we go.

Oh, God. It's such a fire hazard in here right now. It's going to get so much worse. Cutting. I'm ripping. And, oh, my God! I got body parts in four spooky styles. Who's this from?

MaxI think that's from me. I don't remember what I

Merlinsaid to everyone. Oh, me neither. I was in a few state. Please describe it. You got a bloody ear, bloody fingers with the joints sticking out and an awesome bloody eyeball. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is awesome. Thank you. I'm going to scar my daughter with this. Oh, this is spooky. Thank you. I love my body parts.

AlexCan you drop that in our super secret text channel?

MaxPhotograph?

AlexYeah.

MaxYeah, sure. Yeah, I was impressed by the variety. You had like a whole, like an eyeball in there, I think. It's a really good looking eyeball.

MerlinLet me get a photo here.

AlexNow, I have a question because these are labeled in many different ways. Max and Merlin DBF is me I think I was Alex Cox

MaxDubai Friday

AlexAre you tearing this open like a caveman? That's right I've got my fancy knife that I've been playing with the entire time Alex has been playing the knife game

Maxover here while we're recording

AlexWhat's that scary game that kids supposedly play?

MerlinMumbly Pig? I've got my Kershaw thumb knife Oh my God, Alex.

AlexWhat?

MerlinAway from yourself.

AlexI did this with the one. Is she exercising bad knife hygiene, Max? I'm sorry.

MerlinIs that how the rock would open the box? Ask yourself, how would rock the Dwayne Johnson do it?

AlexOh, no. Oh, ooh. Oh my.

MaxWait, just do one.

AlexI think that's all of my gifts. Fucking Amazon.

MaxHow do you make them make it?

AlexGod damn it, Amazon. One got slightly spoiled. So first of all, we have.

MaxCocked by Amazon here. Fucking cocked hard.

Alexfor her

Maxyes

AlexBic for her these are the feminine pens that Bic put out a while ago

Maxyou know Alex how you've always wanted to write with a pen

Speaker Ait's so hard

Maxnow we have one that'll work for you

Speaker Ahi

MerlinI'm Alex Cox have you ever wanted to write something down but suffered from the fact that you're a woman well Bic has a solution for you it's a lady pen it's the same pen but it costs more.

AlexYeah. The buttons are on the other side.

MerlinAm I right?

AlexYou know what? And the sad part is I think I'm going to need a man to open this. Oh, I'm so excited to love my pens and their curvy grips. I love my curvy pen. it's pink and purple. Look at that. Oh my God. I'm so excited. Thank you, Max.

MaxThis one is to Alex Cox Dubai Friday. So I shouldn't have it. Unless you want me to open this one for some reason.

AlexI don't know.

MaxThat one's in an Amazon NFL football box. I don't know if anyone has... I've gotten that.

AlexIt was very upsetting. Streaming. Oh, I don't know.

MaxThis is just two Max Temkin CO do by Friday.

AlexThat's me. Okay, that's an Alex.

MaxI feel like this could be a big multi-box too, so I'm going to be careful about... Oh, yeah.

MerlinHang on, just real quick. I think I've got the code. I've got it figured out. If it's DBF, for DBF, it's me. If it's do by Friday, it's Max. If it's care of do by Friday, it's Alex.

Maxcorrect okay that's convenient that we all did it differently okay so first i'm opening i'm puncturing my little um my little uh air packets that you get from amazon the little air pouches because i don't want these to become lodged in the trachea of a river otter in the next hour

Alexum let's see first up i have chicago famous river otter well i don't know whatever is in there

Maxmutants people uh the homeless person the walking thank you oh wow alex this is great this is uh the water of life by john armstrong a treatise on urine therapy oh rejoice wow in this revolutionary treatise john w armstrong puts the compelling case that all diseases except those caused by traumatism or structural disorders can be cured by one simple means therapy is an entirely drugless system of healing that treats the body as a whole well that's just common that just sounds like common sense yeah moreover the only ingredient needed is a substance manufactured in the body

itself okay i'm with you rich in mineral salts what you're telling me i already have this hormones and other vital substances what this sounds great namely human urine you know what they got me nodding i'm still going yep it may be seem strange to take back into the body something that it is apparently discarding oh wait now that you bring it up that does sound strange yet the The theory is similar to the natural practice of organic composting. Fallen leaves, when dug back into the soil, provide valuable mineral salts to nourish new plant life.

Well, when they put it like that, the same principle holds true for the human body. The water of life includes intriguing case studies that show how urine therapy has been successfully used to treat cases of the common cold, rheumatism, arthritis, mucus colitis, obesity, prostate trouble, papyriurea, I don't know what that is, and many other disorders and diseases. Well, I mean, that is how you pick a medical treatment is case studies. I mean, that's how we determine if something is successful.

MerlinHoney, what are you doing in there? Treating my obesity? Slug, slug, slug. And you would lose your appetite, I guess. You sure would. You get minerals. Jesus Christ. Good for you, Max. Will you let us know how that goes? Challenge. I mean, that's what I'd say.

AlexMerlin, you're up.

MerlinWe have fun, don't we? Let's see. Now I've got to open an owl.

MaxOh, my God. Can I read the foreword? I want to read a couple sentences from the foreword of this book. It's really good. This is by John W. Armstrong. By those many people who have derived and are still deriving benefit from urine therapy, I have repeatedly been asked to write a book, but hitherto I have demurred. First, because the necessary leisure has been lacking. And secondly, because I am adverse to any form of self-advertisement. However, realizing that a thing which is put off too long may never be accomplished at all, I have finally decided to yield to persuasions. and this treatise is largely compiled

from notes, case sheets, and letters.

AlexThanks, Mr. Armstrong.

MaxAlso, I live in the 1700s. He double spaces after periods and also randomly capitalizes words. That's how you know that he's a serious medical professional.

AlexWe'll put all of these in, not in show notes because we don't want to spoil them, but we'll have a link to everything that's been purchased and this is on Kindle Unlimited so you could read this for free if you have Amazon Prime.

MaxThey're just giving it away for free?

AlexYeah, I mean, Mr. Armstrong is very generous.

MaxAlex, I'll be honest. This is one of the best gifts I've gotten in years.

AlexThank you. You're welcome.

MerlinI'm really delighted. I'm glad they were able to talk him into it. He's obviously not into self-advertisement. I got something here. I think it's from Alex, and it feels like a square Frisbee made of macaroni art. I'm opening my knife. Ready?

Speaker AOoh.

MerlinYeah, it's a thumb knife. It's like a switchblade.

MaxIs that legal? in, let's say, I don't want to compromise your opsec, but let's say you lived in San Francisco. Would that be legal? Try and take it away from me.

MerlinOh, what the fuck? What? No. No, what is this? Adult unisex anime cosplay pajamas.

Speaker ABut, but, just... Hold on,

Maxstay with me. Oh my god. Alex is playing a little real world dream daddy here

AlexStay with me Did you see what animal I have gifted you with

MerlinI'm going to send you a photograph of what it looks like Because it is eldritch horror Will you put it on for us and take a selfie Yes

Speaker AOh look at that

MerlinOh look at that precious angel What a sweetie pie

Speaker AOh what a sweet face

MerlinI should explain the reason it felt like macaroni art Is it's vacuum sealed So it's horribly disfigured looking Oh it's so sweet You're going to want this to be your iPhone art from now on

AlexWell Merlin you've often said That corgis that are mixed breed Look like they're just wearing A costume of another dog Am I a corgi?

Speaker AYeah you're a corgi I'm a corgi now

MaxThat's so cute

MerlinLook at that sweet face I think you just got your show art Look at that precious angel Here's what it sounds like

MaxOh my god! It looks like... It looks like a deflated sex doll. I love you.

Let me lick your balls! Why did you...

Speaker AI'm fan fiction!

MaxYay! Why have you programmed me to feel pain?

AlexMarlon's not smart enough. Marlon doesn't have a high enough IQ for that show. I am shipping!

Speaker ADon't FOMO. Let me lick your balls. Hee hee. Huff, huff, huff, huff. I like anime.

MaxWhat if when your daughter came home from school, you were just, you know, normally hanging around the house like you normally do, but you were also wearing that.

MerlinI like that. I like that. I also like it if I appear very angry for some uncertain reason. Daddy, why are you an orange corgi? Oh, boy. You've been very bad. Thank you, Alex. I love my broad, wide corgi. This is the best jizzween ever. Listen to this knife, Max. Ready?

Listen to this. Isn't that nice?

AlexHere, I got something from Merlin right here. It's, here we go. It's white. It does not look like it has the typical Amazon packaging. Oh, look at this. So, oh my goodness. The original all-natural cat wine. and it's called the White Kittendale.

MaxNo, from Shark Tank. Our friends at Shark Tank. Oh, boy, Shark Tank is back. Are you guys watching it?

MerlinOh, it's so bad. It's so bad.

MaxIt's been a very good season.

MerlinBranson, Branson, man. He's bringing the thunder. Yeah.

AlexOh, and this is, so now do I share this with my cat? Yes.

MerlinI think it's wine you can share. I'm pretty sure. If it's good for your cat,

Alexit's good for you. That's science. What is it?

MaxIt's like a flavored water that your cat can drink.

AlexYes, pour one bottle into saucer.

MerlinFor both of you, you get matching saucers and you have all night in together. Let's watch Rachel Maddow.

AlexWe got some pet themes going. All right, Max, you're up.

MaxAll right, this one, this is just sent to the Powder Nation at our office.

Speaker AAnd let's see, this is something called Wall Monkey and it's in a little poster too.

MaxOkay, hang on, I'm going to need an implement here. It's called Wall Monkey. I'm going to open this up, and it's a little mini poster tube. Okay, there's like, it's a poster.

Yes, it is a poster of an Asian man's face. Do we know this person? Is it a professional StarCraft player?

AlexI don't I have no

MerlinDo a Google image Take a photo and do a Google image

MaxOh yeah Alright Merlin you go I'll start

MerlinWait isn't it Alex's turn? I just got my cat wine

AlexLet's see

MerlinThis one's I think from Max

MaxWill you open this up so I can take a picture of it

MerlinI'm snapping the Kershaw Part of the blade is just a regular half of it is an edge and half of it is serrated. It's a very, very good knife. I'm secretly kind of a knife guy. I don't talk about it.

MaxWill you send me some links?

MerlinYes.

MaxWe should have a feature.

MerlinLet's do a knife challenge. You know, one that I'm really loving right now is the idea of the Victorinox Swiss Army knife, the red knife with, you know, classic Swiss Army knife. You know what's nice? The actual Swiss Army knife. Not the little red one you get in your stocking, but an actual Swiss army knife, the one they issue to people in the army, it's fucking great. It's different. It's not red. Turns out.

Speaker AOkay, I'm opening. Oh, Jiminy Criss.

MerlinOh, no. This is upsetting. Oh, what is... Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, God, this does not smell good. Oh, no. Oh, shit. It's wolf urine. You sent me wolf urine. Oh, yeah, that was for me. Oh, my God. That's for you, Merlin. No, no, no, no. It smells really bad. What does it smell like? It smells like pee. Did it open up?

MaxDid they not? They were supposed to, it should come with a little thing of desiccant in there.

MerlinIt's very lightly sealed, but then the little rooster-shaped dingus you do squirt-squirt with has kind of broken through. It's, see, oh God. What do you think? Do you think it's possible that a male wolf like attacked the package? I think there's no other plausible explanation or maybe somebody, a homeless person has been sleeping in here.

MaxIt's really bad. I don't know what the, I don't know what the sort of on-label use for wolf urine is because I haven't read, I haven't really gotten through much of the water of life yet. But I assume that it has medical benefits. But I thought... What if I drink a wolf's urine? Well, I just searched for... I think I just searched for urine on Amazon. And then I was like, you know, who would love this wolf urine is Merlin.

MerlinWell, it's a nice combination. It's about... I'm going to say it's about... What does it smell like? 25% pee and 75% skunk. It's real skunky. Oh, but also included in here, Catrageous. Cat toys to delight, engage, and entertain your feline pet. and it's a lot of tiny mice in a package.

MaxThat was also for me. I just thought that one looked funny. Oh, it's sweet. Oh, my God.

MerlinIt was like 500 little hairy mice for like a dollar. Have you guys seen a theme unintentionally coming out of this? What, urine and cats? It's stuff that comes out of a dick and pets.

MaxWell, that could be the name of our show.

Speaker AAll right.

MaxHere I have, oh, boy. Wow. It's a library edition.

AlexOh, wait, no, that's mine. Shit. Well, now it's not.

MaxNow it's mine. It's a library edition of Steve Jobs and the Next Big Thing by Randall E. Strauss. A book about Steve Jobs I've never heard of. And it's a library binding with the plastic still on it. Alex, this has to stop. It's got to end. It is stamped discarded. And it's from 1993. It's a 1990. You know, that's when I think of Steve Jobs. Yeah, we really had the story in 1993. That's a good time to read a biography of the man.

MerlinLet's go to press.

MaxEverything useful written about Steve Jobs we know from 1993. He's already been fired. Thank you, Alex. This is a really considerate gift. You know that I'll really enjoy this. Oh, look. It has a library card from the Schenectady County Public Library.

AlexOh, God. I would have rather sent Max like a box of tampons than him realizing that I'm still buying. Wow, thank you, Alex.

MaxNice. This is really special. I'm going to treasure it. All right. Here, take your awful book. It's from Alex's- I'm going to just say that I cannot believe that you're going to spend your time reading this. It's for edible time. It's for her edible reading. Well, now I don't know what's for me and what's not. Here I'm opening- Okay, I'm going to do another one because I want a treat. I didn't get a treat. I want a treat.

AlexThis is a treat. Oh, this is great.

MaxThis is a tube of cream. It's a NADS for Men hair removal cream with soothing aloe vera. Is this- Now, is this also for me or was this one all for you? I want NADS.

AlexNo, it is a male facial or undercarriage hair removal. Really anywhere. Yeah.

MaxI'm not going to use this.

AlexI mean, why not?

MaxTry it on half your body.

AlexJust put some on your arm and see what happens.

MaxDo it on the left half of your body. What is it? It burns you and makes the hair come off?

AlexBasically, it is the NER. It's basically the NER family of products, but for men.

MaxAw. Nads Nads Nara Nads I can't believe they call it It says Keep out of reach of children Do not swallow Corrosive Avoid contact with eyes And then it says Avoid contact with skin

MerlinWhat? Huh? It seems like you Probably want to get a little On your skin If you take a hair off

MaxAnd then it says Use may harm eyes and skin Okay Do not leave on skin For longer than 10 minutes Prolonged use may cause burns Do not use on sunburnt Broken inflamed or irritated skin. Oh, no, thank you.

AlexPerfect for all testicles.

MerlinOh, well, I had a long day in the sun. I burned my balls pretty bad, but I really want this hair off.

AlexUh-huh. Oh, my God.

MerlinI should wait till the wounds close.

AlexOh, that's nice, Alex.

MerlinYou're a good friend. Who's up? We got to start moving fast. What's going on here?

AlexWell, okay. So I also got a 20 assorted fun pack for my cat from Max. And honestly.

MaxShake it in front of the microphone. They're going to lose their shit. So here's what I want. Here's my dream. I didn't get one of these for myself, but I might. But here's my dream is wait until your cat's in a playful mood and then just bust the bag open and let the toys go everywhere. Like a bucket.

Speaker AJust drop them on them. Have you ever seen the dog with the tennis ball machine? Oh, God.

MerlinThat's what I want. There's that one. It's like a retriever, and they drop in hundreds of tennis balls, and the dog loses its mind. Oh, happy jizzling.

AlexAll right, Merlin, you're up. Okay.

MerlinOh, so now I'm going to go for a max. I open the Kershaw.

Oh, dear.

Speaker AOh, no. What is this?

MerlinOh, my God. It's a Minion Stewart adult costume. My boy. Oh, it's fan included. It's got a fan to inflate it.

MaxThis is really, really. Merlin, I thought, you know, you're probably going to take your daughter trick-or-treating. Uh-huh. She's of that age. Wait until Daddy gets his minion on. And what's Dad going to wear? Yes. Dad's going to wear an inflatable life-size minion suit.

MerlinOh, that's so sweet. It includes full-body inflatable jumpsuit with battery-operated fan. Oh, thank you so much, man. This is really beautiful.

MaxYou're welcome.

MerlinIt's fully licensed.

MaxIt's fully. It's the official inflatable suit of minions. I really sincerely hope that you wear this trick-or-treating. Nothing would make me happier.

MerlinYeah. I think I'll just be wearing this around the house. Maybe I'll get into my anime corgi outfit, then put this on. And so the fun reveal will be that I'm in a costume in a costume.

MaxIt's really not appropriate for you to be at the parent-teacher conference wearing your inflatable minion costume. Oh, no problem. I'll just take that off. Heel it off.

Speaker AWhat's underneath?

MerlinI'm the dog now, man.

Speaker AOh, God.

MaxAll right, Max, you're up. All right, what do we have here? This is from my final Alex package. Gigantic keyboard playmate. No, it's the keyboard from Big. You got me the keyboard from Big? Holy fucking shit.

AlexI don't think it is quite as large because unfortunately, FAO Schwartz has gone out of business. Oh my God. We do need to learn how to play a musical instrument. Thank you. I wonder if I'm going to learn any,

Maxany, um, life lessons.

AlexUh, yeah. You just got to get an adult who owns a toy store and dance together and do heart and

Merlinsoul. That would be so sweet if you guys would do heart and soul together.

MaxOh my God. All right, here we go. This is one from, um, for DBF. Is that Merlin?

MerlinThat is me. Sorry. I was getting a seltzer.

MaxAll right. I got caught. Let's see. I'll do this one. I'll do the small box. There's a small heavy box.

MerlinIt's ensconced in cardboard.

MaxIt's like an Amazon thing.

MerlinI bet it's going to be one of those spoilery ones with more than one thing in it. Yeah, it is. But I'm not looking. I'm not spoiling myself.

MaxFull media blackout. Trademark Todd Vazieri. All right, let's see. Inside the box. Bubble wrap. Opening it up. Is that someone's ASMR that I'm doing? It's a... Someone just came

Speaker AIt's a mug

MaxIt's a mug that says

Speaker AWorld's okayest boss Oh man

MaxThat and the drinking your own piss book Are really gonna make quite a pair on my desk Hey everybody Don't use this cup Oh god

MerlinThat's Max's special cup Oh god

Speaker AOh All right, Merlin. Very good.

MerlinOh, I'm up. Okay. Here I'm opening a Dubai Friday, which is, I think, a max. At some point, I'm going to have to conquer this very large box that I couldn't fit into my regular office part. And I'm opening, and I've got, oh, shit dog, the handy head massager with a sexy lady on it. I love these. We had one of these. It got bent. We couldn't use it anymore, and I was sad. This is one of those things. It's a handle with wires on it, and it makes your head scratchy thing. It's so fucking fun I love those

I'm going to send you a photo of this You have to have someone else do it to you though

MaxIt's like tickling yourself It's not the same if you do it to yourself Oh god you sent me the Asian boy The what? Can someone put the Asian boy Into the Google image search I did Is he a famous Magically Gathering tournament player Or something?

AlexI will send you the results in our super secret chat it came back with person. So there's that. And not only that, a white lady who looks a little bit like a Scarlett Johansson robot.

So I don't know. Someone please tell us why we got this picture.

MaxAll right, I'm doing another one. This is from my Merlin box here, taking out the next one. And this is a, it's from Brookstone. This is a Brookstone. Every day is a day at the beach. sandbox. Thank you, Merlin. I was thinking of getting into a Eugene Landy situation, and I think this is really gonna...

MerlinSpoiler alert, Alex. You get one, too. Yes. You both get them. This is so good. This is great. I think this is really gonna help me finish Pet Sounds. I've only got one good ear, and you're ruining it with your yelling.

AlexAll right. I've got another... Oh, Brookstone is still around, huh? Oh, yeah. Here it is. The handy head massager. Who the fuck?

MaxSand is sold separately? Oh, fuck me gently. Are you even kidding me?

MerlinFucking A.

MaxThis is the worst gizzer wean ever. Hang on. I have to investigate this.

AlexWow. So I've put the head scratcher on my head.

MaxThis is very pleasing. It comes with sort of wooden implements.

MerlinIt's like a little zen garden. Zen like chocolate. There's no sand. Fuck me. I should read things.

MaxIs it like an ant farm where you have to send away for the sand?

MerlinYes, you see monkeys.

MaxWait, here's what it says. Listen, look at this tricky shit. It shows, this is some tricky shit that they're doing. In the picture, they show you the sand, and then it says, and then it has features listed, like for a bullet point, it has like bullet point. Sand never dries out, so you can keep it on the table in the sandbox. But what it says is, and then it says a little title, like off to the side, the perfect play area for fun with Brookstone trademark, Sand, registered copyright.

MerlinOkay. Real quick, give me your zip, and I'll have some kinetic sand sent today. What's your zip?

MaxWhat is it?

MerlinI'll prime now some kinetic sand to you. My zip? Your zip code for receiving things? I'm doing prime now.

Max60642. Yeah, it says includes a sand. They put a little, because I'm sure they couldn't trademark the name, like, sand, obviously.

Speaker AYeah.

MaxSo what they did was they put a little umlaut over it. So it's like, sand, sand. Give me a break. A little umlaut. The Brookstone Sond box. You guys don't have Connecticut. Get to Sond. You don't have kinetic sand deliverable. It includes the Sond box, the cylindrical mold, and the shaping tool.

MerlinWould you share some kinetic sand with your friend Max, Alex? I'm sure you've got some.

AlexI don't know. I do not. What?

MerlinAre you kidding? You don't have kinetic sand? I thought you were all into this shit. What are you talking about?

AlexI'm all into watching that shit on Instagram.

MerlinOh my God. You're so missing out by not having kinetic sand. You need this in your life. It's so fun.

MaxI've actually never touched kinetic sand. I'm going to keep this thing moving. I'm doing one more. Next one. Cat butt magnets from Derriere de Chat. Wow, this is cute. They're little cat butts. It's half a cat. If it's the ones that we've got, one of them has an anus.

MerlinLook for the one with an anus.

MaxOh, good. Oh, they all have little anuses in here. Oh, everybody poops. It's the first thing you do when you see a doll's. You've got to check to see if it has an anus. Just like in the Bob Seger song. It's half a cat. It's kind of horrific. It's half a cat. It's a cat that's been bisected hamburger style. And then it has a magnet in the middle, and you just stick it to your fridge. I'm sure when it's on the fridge, it looks cute. But right now, it just looks kind of horrifying. It looks like some sort of sociopathic child got into the garden and bicycled. What happened to the front half?

Okay, chop chop.

MerlinWho's next? You're up, Alex, right?

MaxIt's like the only thing finding worse than finding a worm in your apple. Holy shit! It's finding the back half of the cat.

AlexHoly shit! All right, I've got a pause cat tunnel. Oh my God. Oh, I think this was from me. This was from the Big Mac's box. So Merlin.

Speaker AYes.

AlexOh, you're not on the Instagram. So you've never seen my cat in his tunnel, which he loves more than anything and is destroying. But this thing.

MaxThat's the number one tunnel on Amazon.

AlexThis is like going to go. Oh, my God. Tonight is going to be a party in the Cox household. Going to get some nip on the cats. Going to take a happy pill.

MaxYou're going to give him some wine and open up the tunnel.

AlexIt's going to be a very romantic evening. down uh you're up merlin oh shit okay uh okay i got a big one i got a big one

Maxi want us we're not 50 done with the packages that we have here okay we're less than 50 done okay kershaw

Merlinoh what oh alex you sent me a pop-up hot dog toaster

Speaker AI didn't eat. It's a pop-up hot dog toaster.

MerlinIt's a pop-up hot dog toaster. You put in two wieners and two buns, and then you push the plunger down. Set the timer, put the pieces in place. I know exactly which toaster this is,

Maxbecause we thought about sending it to Syracuse, and we were like, no, that's too cruel. It fits thicker hot dogs that plump, says the box. Oh, this is great. Thank you. Now, is this approved by the Vienna Beef people, Max? No, you don't fucking toast a hot dog.

MerlinNo.

MaxIt's a retro cereal. If you have a natural casing hot dog, a beautiful natural casing Vienna beef, 100% beef, all beef, all kosher hot dog, and you put that sucker in a toaster, the casing is going to pop. Let me ask you a question.

MerlinI usually roll Hebrew National. Should I be getting Vienna beef instead?

MaxI am no longer doing a bit. I truly believe Vienna beef are the best hot dog, and they taste way better. Well, Hebrew National in particular, I don't think they're good. Really? A little smoky. I was like, I just don't like the flavor of them.

MerlinOkay, I'm going to order some right now. Thank you so much, Alex. I'm going to go make myself a treat. Oh, it's got a QR code.

MaxNow, Merlin, let me give you my Vienna beef power tip. Here's the thing. Your Vienna beef power tip. Here's the thing, everybody. I also got NADS. I got NADS. You got a thing. Are you going to put it on?

MerlinYes. While my hot dogs are cooking. Where are you going to apply it? I'm going to take a nap. I'm going to draw a bath, cook some hot dogs, and exfoliate my balls. You're going right for the taint, huh? Mm-hmm. Really get in there. I might find a blueberry. Give me your power tip for wieners, your power tip.

MaxWell, this is specifically for the Vienna beef family of products. Everybody should get a Polish sausage. And I know people have a lot of misconceptions about what a Polish sausage is. Do they? Yes, because it used to be a Polish used to have pork in it. It used to be a blended pork and beef sausage. It is not anymore all. It's 100% kosher, all beef hot dog with natural casing, the same as the Vienna beef hot dog that you know and love. But it's bigger. You get more meat, and it's tastier. and I think it has more spices. It's like a little bit of garlic, a little more salt.

It's just more flavorful,

Merlinbetter overall. This is Polish sausage, correct? You're saying?

MaxVienna beef, Polish sausage.

MerlinOkay.

MaxIf you like a Vienna beef hot dog, try the Polish sausage. You will not be disappointed. I guarantee you. You'll never go back. All it is is a hot dog for adults. It's a hot dog for adults.

MerlinIt tastes better. Oh, look at that jumbo beef. They got jumbo beef franks. Do a jumbo or regular beef? Probably for regular, right? I like the jumbo.

MaxI'll do like a six to one. Okay. I like a big hot dog.

AlexAlso, Merlin, this is also a gift for your daughter, who I know is a fan of the life hacks where you grill hot dog buns, but I thought I'd help streamline the box. That's exactly what I thought.

MerlinYes, now we want to make one out of a Russian Coke can.

AlexYeah, exactly.

MerlinAll right, next, what you got there?

MaxHey, opening.

MerlinThis is a big boy.

MaxThis is the biggest box I have. Opening it up, it seems like it's mainly full of air. A lot of air in there.

Speaker AOkay, this is from, which one is this from? this is a

Maxthis is a CO Alex Cox and Max oh this is from a fan okay

Speaker Athank you fan let's see if there's a note

Maxthis says hi Alex and Max since you both have cats you might have to do a split custody of the catnip from at Brian Kelly thank you Brian

Speaker Aoh thank you Brian Kelly

Maxoh shit it's a living catnip plant

Speaker Aoh my god oh my god

Maxholy shit that's so cool

Merlincan I just reiterate to anybody who ever sends anybody anything if you're sending somebody something that's alive tell them to open it

Speaker Aoh what's this?

Maxa wickedly prime sweet and cheesy popcorn mix a wicked medley of aged cheddar and sweet caramel corn popcorn

Alexwicked medley

Maxthis may make me have to shit again but I'm going to try it

AlexI thought you had it yet

Maxyou lost your window

Alexwe'll see

Speaker Anow I'm playing Russian roulette

Maxevery minute that we're in the studio is Russian roulette do you understand?

AlexThis is, oh god damn it I think that Max also got me Wait, what's this? No Inflatable costume Congratulations on your inflatable costume There's a lot of instructions Not what it is Is this also a minion?

MerlinWhat's the costume of? Mine has a very clear minion on the front Alex, put it on Put it on

AlexPut it on Wait, what is it? Is it a cat? Is it a clown?

MaxAlex.

AlexIs this a clown?

MaxAlex, it's a dinosaur that you ride.

Speaker AIt's a ride. It's a ride. Alright.

MerlinCome on, baby. Ride that dinosaur. Do it. Get it. Put it on.

AlexAll right, Merlin, I'm going to try to inflate this. Why don't you open another one?

MerlinOkay, I'll go get a potted plant. What? I'll do. Let's see what I got here.

AlexI think I've done everything but the large.

Speaker AI like this. Oh, wait.

MaxI got one more. I got one more from... Is Wickedly Prime like an Amazon brand? Is this like a nice brand, but for Amazon?

Speaker ANice!

MaxI've got, I think, a Max here. Kershaw? It is. It's like an Amazon brand. That's so weird. This is pretty good popcorn. If I'm being honest, it's not as good as the creators.

MerlinOh, okay. It's got paper. And it is a fan? Oh, it's a mini USB fan. I can use this. It's not mini USB. It says mini USB.

MaxOh, it's an iPhone fan.

MerlinOh, shit, dog. Look at that.

MaxYou get a hot day? You get a microclimate? Oh, you kidding me? Plug your fan in?

MerlinIf I'm having hot flashes, hot flashes. You're going to be the coolest dad at the barbecue. Yeah, it's not mini USB. It's totally lightning. That's weird. Okay, well, I'm going to plug it in. I'm going to put it in here. It's pink in color. I'm attaching it to my iPhone 7 Plus. Come on, here you've got a new iPhone. Let's see. Ooh, ooh.

Yes. Oh, my God.

Speaker AThat's some Tesla coils there?

MerlinWhat the fuck? That's my new fan. Oh, God, it will turn off. Dear God. Okay, I'm unplugging it. This is dangerous. Oh, God. Oh, I love it. Thank you. Now, that's deceiving because I think they're using old bags. It says mini USB, but it's actually lightning. Thank you so much. This is a great use of my phone. Oh, my God, it's just so hot.

AlexOkay. Max has got some more from fans that we're going to get into.

MerlinNow wait, should I open my big box? Are you putting on your costume?

AlexHave you inflated it yet? Should I get a house plant? Max's assistant, Renee, is in our engineering booth. And I think this is an abuse of power. But could you please bring us some AA batteries for the after show? Thank you.

MerlinOh, dear. Oh, dear. I'm going to call HR. I'm going to need some batteries for this.

AlexAll right. I got Max's final gift. And I think I know what it is. and I'm already mad.

MaxWhat is that? What is that?

AlexThis is the Zihu? Zihu? Oh, is this the? Yeah. Yep. Yep. Well, for all of the times that I want to pretend to pee like out of a dick, a cis man urethra, I have the Zihu Wow.

MerlinHostile.

AlexPee easy travel urinal. So what happens here is they've got a little diagram to help you out. if you're confused so so you just pee into it and then you have a lovely little uh spout so you

Maxknow this is like if you're at a conference and you want to use the men's room for some reason

Alexbecause i've definitely never done that um but also this can help me um you know it's really hard to deposit that fresh morning pee for um you know the the for drinking right away really should have thought of that we really did a gift of the magi here yeah this is wonderful i got you

MaxI did the pee funnel that you need to collect the urine, and you got me the book to know how to medically apply the urine.

AlexExactly. But what's great is it also comes with little Japanese wipeys, I believe, and they're called Kiss Your Skin.

MerlinIn the Japanese style.

AlexAnd little cartoons that are licking the wipes and one that is puckering its lips.

MaxNo. Okay, this one is from Dubai Friday, friend of the show, Cassandra. and this is, she says, are you no longer a huge cat in the eyes of your cat or are you more of a huge cat? And it is a baby pet magic mask sheet soothing cat. It's a fucking Korean K-Beauty face mask that looks like a cat. Look how cute it is. It kind of looks like Frances too.

Speaker AOh my God.

MaxSweet precious angel. What if Frances is playing in her tube? Daddy's a cat now. Daddy's a cat. And you're wearing this K-Beauty cat mask. I love you. Oh, my God. It's a whole pack of... I was going to say you should take it, but there's many of them in here.

AlexOh, hooray. We'll get some sent to Merlin.

MerlinPlease emerge from the room with you guys both in costume wearing cat face masks.

AlexYes. I'll be riding your dinosaur with a cat face. I'll take one for me and one for Veronica.

MerlinI need this for my work.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinAlex, I think you might have one more from me somewhere.

AlexAll right.

MerlinOh, I know you have more from me, Alex.

AlexI also know that because I mislabeled one as Steve Jobs, Max has one more from me. This is from Maybe myself Care of Dubai Friday Did I fuck it up again?

MerlinIs that self care? Is that what that's called?

AlexOh no well this is I did not send this to myself but this is a bra Yay At least one hooray Oh is this I think this is a nice bra

MerlinIs it in your size?

AlexLook at that yes because I did Because you announced it on the show It might be a little big You know what I am only a size I'm a size smaller than the average American woman. Thank you, everybody. Oh, so no side effects collection. Underwire Warners.

MerlinOh, Warners is a fancy brand, isn't it?

AlexYeah. Extra side cover panels for smooth sleevage. Our word for underarm bulge. Smooth sleevage? Smooth sleevage. So you don't get like muffin topping from your bra. So you don't get a little punching bag. Yes, exactly. Oh, this is lovely. And they sent it, and I did not say that my preferred color was black. And they, indeed, I don't know who this is from. Thank you so much.

MaxDo not sous vide it.

AlexI'm not going to ruin this one.

MaxSmooth sleevage.

AlexAh, thank you, whoever that was.

MaxAll right, here we go. Here's another one. Alex and Max for the Dubai Friday Amazon Challenge. No note, but thank you to whoever sent this. And this is a... God damn it. It's an OXO Good Grips 3-in-1 avocado slicer.

What are the three? Split. It splits. It pits. It slices. Thank you, listener.

AlexIs this a joke?

MaxIt's because you guys are Millenniums. It's an all-in-one tool that splits, pits, and slices avocados safely and effectively. Pitter removes pit with a safe and easy twisting motion. Slicer removes fruit from the skin in perfect even slices. Rejoice.

AlexWell, Max did cut off his finger one time with a mandolin. So this is comforting.

MerlinThat's one of those things like people realizing reindeers are real at Christmas time. We look at Twitter and just go the mandolin injuries. It's kind of an affliction, isn't it, Max? Everybody eventually cuts off their finger.

MaxIf you own a mandolin, you will mangle your hand on it. Guaranteed. It's so horrible. Oh, I hate thinking about it. And when I went to the ER to get stitches, the nurse that did the intake was like, oh, yeah, I cut my hand on a mandolin. Shit. And then the hand surgeon that came to look at my hand and ultimately told me everything was fine, he was like, oh, yeah, I've also cut myself on one of those mandolins. He was like, those things are real death traps.

AlexOh, Lord.

MerlinHave you seen the thing where people realize reindeers are real at Christmas?

AlexWell, quick, quick quiz about your co-host. How old do you think that Alex Cox was when she realized that reindeers were real?

MaxI think she realized just now when Merlin said it

AlexNo 16 22 And it's because I saw one at a zoo And here's the thing Adults If your children are listening to this Fuck you I literally never believed in Santa In my life But apparently thought that reindeers Were also a fictional creature That they were made up

MerlinIf it's any consolation, I'm 50, and I found out this summer that narwhals are real.

AlexOh, yeah.

Speaker AAren't they cool? You haven't known that narwhals are real? They're so cool.

MerlinNo fake surprise. I thought we agreed to this. Yes, I did not know. I thought it was a made-up thing. Narwhal bacon's at midnight.

AlexThey're super cool.

MerlinDid you guys get my daughter's amazing emoji arithmetic?

AlexYes, that was so funny. That was brilliant.

MerlinShe's riding home with my wife from Apple Country, and I get this message from my daughter that is unicorn emoji minus umbrella equals horse emoji. And I was like, this might be the greatest text I've ever received.

AlexOh, my God. And that was just unprompted. She was just like, oh, hey.

MerlinShe's just shooting the shit on the road. She just messes with my wife's bit emoji and keeps sending me garbage from the road. It's a delight. Should I go get my big box?

MaxYeah, yeah. I think so. I'll do one more fan one. Oh, my God. So this one is just to Dubai Friday. So it's a gray cloth bag. Oh, I see. It's like an Amazon gift packaging. it says hi alex melinda max good luck with this week's challenge from ryan powder nation thanks ryan well i'll hang on i don't want to say thank you too soon yeah let me open this up okay there's some sort of oh what a pretty bag sort of box inside of here it's a okay oh it says bomb bag

Speaker AUh-oh.

MaxWhat is this? It's got a soldier on the front.

MerlinOh, no.

MaxIt looks like something Cable would post on his fireworks roundup. This does not look safe at all.

AlexThat does not look safe.

MaxYou can get this on Amazon. What is this? It says Joker full display of 72 exploding noisemakers bomb bags.

MerlinOh, that'd be a good thing for you to take outside now.

MaxBust tape. Well, I'm going to cut it open.

Speaker AOh, yeah.

MaxUse that sharp knife to... Yeah. I don't know. It came from Amazon. You get my wolf urine. And it's like... Okay, it's like little packets, and it says bomb bags. Bomb bag.

Cause of death, bomb bag. I don't get it.

MerlinI'm going to step away from the microphone for 30 seconds to go bring this giant box into my firetrop.

MaxAll right, throw me one of these other ones. Let's catch up while Merlin's gone. This is shipped to Alex and Max for the Dubai Friday Amazon Challenge. I'm going to open this with my 3-in-1 OXO Good Grips Avocado Peeler. You know, they should really have an endorsement deal with my main man, David Avocado Wolf. Mm-hmm. All right. We have two items from a fam. We have, oh, my God, that's cute. A little wolf. It's a little stuffed animal, baby plush beanbag wolf. That is fucking, that's cute as hell.

AlexOh, it's because you talked about Wolf Uren on Twitter.

MaxI did? Yeah. Oh, interesting. Did I talk about Wolf Uren on Twitter?

AlexI believe so.

MaxSo I did order a breeding pair of Madagascar hissing cockroaches to Merlin's house. It takes a month. But the problem is, yeah, it takes up to 28 days to deliver.

MerlinAre they going to be okay after all that? Is it that it takes a long time to get them into breeding condition, or have they already shipped them, as you say?

MaxWell, I don't know, Merlin. I mean, as you know, the cockroach is a very hardy animal, so I think they'll be okay.

MerlinHmm. They're shipping.

MaxBut they are single and ready to mingle If you know what I mean Welcome home honey Alright and here's another sort of nondescript

MerlinYou still have one from me Alex

MaxIt's not that big a deal but there is one from me somewhere You have some from me too

MerlinHour 19 guys

AlexAlright uh I have got

MaxAll the novelty has worn off at this point I'm just scared of what we get And I'm trying to figure out like how do I incorporate this

MerlinThis is like 10.30am every Christmas Jesus another sweater Thank you thank you for thinking on me

MaxThis is from the same fan and I just want to finish opening this. It's some sort of foam cylinder, and I'm opening it up, and it's, oh, oh, my God. It's like a 3D-printed statue of David. Wow, look at his little dingus. Oh!

AlexThat's awesome!

MaxDoes he have a little hog? Yeah, he does. You can see his little hog. He's perfectly formed hog.

MerlinHe's got a piglet.

MaxWow, truly the Renaissance man. I mean, you know, they said that when I was looking at this little statue that I'd be impressed by it, and I was like, well, I don't really need to look at it then.

MerlinThey call it the David's hog effect. It's like Jerusalem syndrome. Yeah.

AlexAll right. This is my last gift from Max, and I've got the lightning-powered mini fan.

MaxThat's not the last one for me. There's more. Oh, did you see it swivels? I just realized it swivels.

AlexUnlock the intelligent lock. What is... Okay, so this is a phone case, and whoa.

MaxYou know, Alex, I know how you're always looking for the best phone case for your phone. So I found you the last fun case you'll ever need.

AlexThis is a cigarette lighter. Push the button continuously. Okay, this is push the button continuously quickly three times to unlock the cigarette lighter. Oh, nice. Yeah. That sounds very safe. And especially because I don't smoke cigarettes. Yet. Oh, I guess I could use this for other purposes. oh look at that it fits quite nicely I wonder how soon this will start a fire

in my home or your pants or the oh and and this is my favorite so far I have received temporary dental temporary dental crowns so just basically a big box of teeth and as my teeth teeth teeth teeth teeth teeth teeth teeth teeth teeth teeth teeth

Speaker Ayou love teeth I love teeth

AlexI fucking love teeth Alright Max let's do another Bad one as I pick up the teeth

MerlinCan we fucking stick to the program here And finish the ones we got from each other I want to open my large adult box

AlexAlright

Speaker ABig box I'm buying you guys a Kershaw

MerlinOkay this is very fucking large Is this a cat tunnel Oh my god Oh shit Oh shit

Speaker AYou okay there Merlin? Oh you guys

MerlinYou remember when Max sent me the giant army man? I do indeed I sent you a troop Thank you for your service You know what I got here? A life-size stand-up of Donald Trump That you can put your face in

Speaker AOh no That's for you and your family

MerlinI'm kind of tempted to Demo this right now

MaxPlease do Merlin, it's so important to remember our troops And remember our commander-in-chief And I got you these gifts No one's troopier than the commander-in-chief So you can keep them in the dark When you turn your smart home appliances on It'll just always look like there's something But there's a fat hockey goalie robbing you.

MerlinMy daughter is going to love this so much. Because, you know, you understand, first we had Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow. Then we had the Soldier Man. And it's a regular game in our house to put it somewhere where the other person will discover it and be completely freaked out. The shower is a great place.

Okay, you guys talk about yourself for a minute. I'm going to get a selfie going.

AlexHere's Alex Cox, Care of Cards Against Humanity. Who knows? This could not be a deal. Yeah, I think that's just cables.

MaxThat's just HDMI cables for the studio.

AlexOh, Merlin also sent me some sand, an empty sandbox.

MaxWow, thanks, Merlin. Thank you. What a wonderful gift. Very thoughtful.

AlexAnd then one more that I'm going to open super safely.

MaxOh, boy, you know what? I'm not going to do this because, you know, it should only be used for food. but I bet it'd be very satisfying you get that sand in there with the three-in-one Oxo Good Grips avocado peeler.

AlexOh. I've got a companion mug to Max's world's okayest employee.

Speaker AThank you, Martin. This is an accurate mug.

MaxThat's very funny. I should get that for everyone for Christmas.

AlexI think that'd be good for morale. All right. Merlin, are you all set up there?

MerlinYeah. I mean, the hole is really big and it's kind of resistant to selfie-ing, but I'll send you. Oh my God. It's not good. But this absolutely will be a very welcome addition to our home. That's a very large hole.

AlexMax has another fan sent one, I believe.

MaxAll right, this is to Cards Against Humanity HQ, Dubai Friday. I like how every address on it, you'd think that there's really only one way to do it, but every single one is like a special, unique snowflake. Oh, my God, it's another stuffed animal. Oh, it looks kind of grotesque. It's kind of horrifying. It's crunched up into this little plastic shrink wrap, and it kind of looks horrifying.

AlexIt's another little rancho.

MaxWhat is it? Did you get a rancho?

AlexYeah.

MaxOh, someone sent us a goat. Oh, my God, that is what it is. fucking adorable. I'm getting a little popcorn powder on it now. Uh-oh.

AlexShould've used a spoon on the goat. Yes. Goat spoon.

MerlinDid you guys see that on Top Dress?

AlexDid you see it on Top Dress? Yes, I did. Oh, yeah.

MaxThank you, everybody. Guys, the Top Dress season is fucking popping off. That shit is lit. It got so good. The fucking King Solomon with the twins, holy shit, that was so good. You're caught up on that? You're caught up? Oh, my God. I'm off. And now, I can't even wait for this week. I'm like, every day, I go sit in front of the TV and I'm like, oh, shit dog, did the new top dress come out? I don't even know, the drama.

AlexMax, do you want to open another one?

MaxI really enjoy that there's a goat and a wolf.

AlexThat's half of my company, Goat, Wolf, and Cabbage. I was going to say, I bet there's a cabbage in there.

MaxThe company we made that does Secret Hitler is Goat, Wolf, and Cabbage Incorporated. Oh, that's good. We're almost there. That's it. Am I done with everything? I don't know.

MerlinYou still have one from me, Alex. My wife, my wife, watching this show. she's somehow going out a hero when actually she obviously sucks totally agreed she quit she quit she didn't she she phrased that in a way that was very gracious to herself what she didn't say was i give up and quit because i suck well the one thing about those

Maxtwins that i think we can say is that they have a lot of self-awareness and that they're come off that they're really good at portraying themselves well on camera indeed and also right and you know i think the way they went out is just emblematic of the way that they're very conscious of how they come off to other people.

MerlinThank you, Ponga.

MaxA gift for you. Friends, please enjoy this flute. Uh-oh. Feel free to play it on air or forward it to your local elementary school, yours in Christ, Richards. Now, I would never put this flute to my lips unless there was some way to test whether it was covered in semen or not.

MerlinBut that such technology would be... You should also get a control flute.

MaxBecause such technology, it's a Yamaha Soprano Discante, recorder German YRS 23. That's a good one. I mean, I'm going to have to take a sample of the flute. Yeah.

AlexThis is very exciting.

MaxDid it come with a little booklet of how to play Old Grey Goose?

AlexOkay.

MerlinWe've got to stop soon. I'm fucking exhausted. We haven't even done the after show yet, and I'm ready to go to sleep.

AlexOkay, this is a big boy.

MerlinMy office is so dangerous right now. You have no idea how dangerous my office is.

MaxWhy is it dangerous? Because I've got a car.

AlexNo. No. What a pretty little tune.

MaxWhat am I not going to play it?

Speaker AIt ain't me.

MerlinOh, that's very Raga. That's baleful.

AlexAll right. I'm shutting this down. We have another gift from some fans.

MerlinJesus Christ, Alex. You have one more from me.

AlexI'm trying to find it. And once it came with me. This is never ending, is it?

MerlinI'm not going to get my morning nap, am I?

AlexIt says, kill for me. Yes. And then, lol, please look at the product text slash images for this on Amazon. What is it? Um, we've got way too cool, which is a sports towel to cool you off. Um, nano sponge. Oh, cleans with only water. And there's another thing. Um, oak.

Electo electric fly swatter.

MaxOh, handy.

AlexOh, God. Do you have you guys ever played with one of these? No.

MaxWhat is it? Is it one of those tennis racket ones?

AlexI think so we're gonna find out yep yep yep yes it is one of these things that my brothers harassed me with as a youth yes what did they do what electrocutes

Merlinyou with a tennis racket oh yeah

Alexoh my god

Merlinwhat were the instructions go on the image I'm going to look for them now I looked up way too cool towel and it looks like it's a towel and a tube that keeps you cool

Maxsend me that towel Send me that towel I'm gonna cool off

MerlinAt some point this became a death march Oh I'm winded I need another beverage

AlexNano sponge

MaxThat's funny because I was talking to my gardener the other day And I was like boy working on this garden Is really like a death march isn't it I was like funny you should Bring that up

MerlinIf I ever find my family From Bataan I will share this with them They will find it very humorous.

MaxRoderick always, his ability to tell a story out of nothing is, I mean, it's a superpower. It's his Marvel X-Men mutant superpower.

AlexI sent in our super secret channel, super nano deal. And it's just a woman jumping through a field. She's very excited.

Speaker AMerlin, did you send me a MeUndies package?

AlexNope. Okay. Well, I've got a MeUndies package here. Don't say the name. I can't.

MaxThey're not paying us for that.

AlexYeah. An underwear company. And it says Boo on it.

MaxThey should pay us $5 a month if they want us to.

AlexHey, MeUndies, I'll wear whatever's in this for $5.

MaxDon't promote them for free.

AlexI'm not going to.

MaxMerlin, I think we opened all the mail.

AlexOh, my. I've got some lovely sports bras in here. I'm not going to say that I have also own some of these. Look at that. I mean, don't look at it. But look at that. That's a good. I'm not talking to the mic. I'm sorry, everybody. Merlin, these are quality sports bras. I would be happy if you had sent these to me. But I don't think. So what is this?

MaxYou just, instead of shopping now, you just say the products you want on the podcast and everyone buys you underwear?

AlexI guess so. I guess so. It worked out well.

MaxUm, boy, uh, hey, uh, Dubai Friday Powder Nation, I really need someone to, uh, clean the gutters in my house after, uh, the leaves stop falling. You know, she's saying it would sure be nice.

AlexOh, and there's one where you can adjust the, the straps so that you won't, oh my goodness.

MerlinI have one thing that was delivered yesterday and signed for by Kevin, someone called Kevin.

AlexOh, Kevin. I know Kevin.

MerlinAnd then there's another thing that'll arrive by eight tonight.

AlexOh, all right. Well, that's not, hasn't happened yet.

MerlinYeah, but where's Kevin? What's his deal, buh boy?

AlexI mean, I'll check. But we have good follow-up for next week, then.

MaxHang on. If I touch this, it's electrified?

AlexYes, it is going to hurt. I promise you it will hurt. It will hurt more than the Pavlok that you made us wear.

MaxI'm going to separate this from the bomb bag.

AlexI think that's it. I have a request for whoever sent us the picture. I mean if it was a picture of himself wouldn't it show up in Google

Maxmaybe that's a fetish just having people roughly describe his picture that he sends them on a podcast well thank you everyone for sending these incredible gifts thank you Merlin thank you Alex thank you everyone I love all of these incredible gifts and delights that you've provided to me

Alexthis is the best jizzling ever oh this man he is a sticker did you notice that man his face peels off

MaxAnd then we can put him in our office.

AlexOh, great.

Oh, that's kind of fancy. Oh, listen to that. Oh, this fan is wonderful. There you go. Look at that.

MaxHappy Jizzoween.

Speaker BIt's an October semen explosion, enough semen to fill an ocean. A semen in the trees, semen in the air, everywhere you look there's semen there. That's because it's jizz-a-jizz-a-jizz away. The new holiday you didn't know you needed. So much jizz in the news of the jizz in your pockets, filling up your shoes. Is the jizz in your coffee? Have you checked?

Cause the jizz is showing up where you least expect Oh jizz, oh jizz, oh ween

46. Hitherto, I Have Demurred

Show notes

Transcript

46. Hitherto, I Have Demurred

Show notes

Transcript

0:00

0:22

0:31

0:40

0:42

1:03

1:05

1:35

1:38

1:40

1:42

1:57

2:08

2:18

2:35

2:52

2:59

3:00

3:20

3:24

3:40

3:41

4:15

4:49

5:20

5:29

6:01

6:21

6:30

6:34

6:58

7:13

7:46

7:54

8:25

8:30

9:03

9:25

9:25

9:31

9:35

10:01

10:06

10:19

10:24

10:28

10:39

10:41

10:49

10:50

11:02

11:04

11:07

11:09

11:15

11:16

11:16

11:16

11:19

11:20

11:55

12:30

12:51

13:25

13:43

14:13

14:44

15:06

15:08

15:09

15:27

15:32

15:34

15:37

15:42

16:04

16:08