51. Soup from a Ball of Light

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, play Clash Royale.

MaxI had a, I was going to say friend, but it's like an acquaintance. It was like a girl who attended high school in my class who I probably said all of six words to in four years we went to high school together. She friended me on she friend requested me on Instagram, my private Instagram, which please do not find it or look it up or ask to follow me because I'm just gets just makes just slows me down. I don't know. You understand how this works, Max.

AlexI don't.

MaxPlease do not. Please. Nobody listening to this. Please do not request to follow my private Instagram. I'm not interested. That's why it's private. I did click on her profile and her Instagram name is something like it's like it's like I'm not saying what it is. It's like it's something like the twin mom. And her whole identity is that she she either has twins or it's possible she babysits for twins. It's I'm not sure. I don't know which is worse. She's constructed an entire identity for herself.

Speaker AShe has a maternal clone.

MaxShe has lots of posts of giving away a double stroller from the Gerber Corporation or something. That's crazy. It's like a whole identity. I was looking at this, and I was like, it's amazing that you can string together a whole identity just on accidentally having had twins.

Do you know what I mean? It's not like an accomplishment. I don't know.

AlexIt's random chance, basically. It's IVF. Where's my parade?

MerlinYeah, it's true. Yeah, yeah. And so without too much bad opsec, do you remember what her profile image is? Is there any chance it's her with babies?

MaxOh, it's 100% it's her with babies. I don't remember the exact configuration. Alex, don't you also get distracted by this? I'm like, while I'm telling my story, I'm also trying to repair a piece of studio equipment that I just noticed. And now Alex is also doing it. You're off mic, though. Alex, I'm a pro. Listen, I have 10,000 hours. I've driven in my car and played iPhone games. 10,000 hours. I'm so... Okay, I can do a podcast and fix this piece of studio equipment, all right? Merlin, it's like... You learn from me, Grasshopper.

AlexMerlin, it's as if one of our microphones, like the four hours are up, and it has gone all limp dick, and it's making me very nervous. Nothing bad would happen.

MerlinYou're saying it's work week is over, and now it's just doing passive income.

AlexYeah.

MerlinOkay.

AlexIt would fall less. It would fall about three centimeters, but it's still...

MerlinOh, you made a penis joke. I thought you made a Tim Ferriss joke. Okay, I understand. It's becoming flaccid.

AlexI pivoted.

MerlinYou did. You took it and you turned it. That was good.

AlexYep. I'm a very funny person, Merlin.

MerlinOh, Merlin, can we talk about your... I have a Lambo here in the Hollywood Hills. That's right.

AlexCan we please talk about your video game joke that I found very, very funny and I was very impressed by?

MerlinMerlin, video game joke. Video game joke.

AlexAll right. Sure, absolutely.

MaxBring it up. I was confused. I was confused by this too because, see, I fixed it. No one even noticed I was gone. I was very confused by this video game joke too because it was a very specific reference, and you don't play those games. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Speaker ANo. No. No. No. No, and actually- Did Syracuse write that joke for you?

MerlinNo. No. Syracuse. Don't get me started on Syracuse. Oh, wait, wait, wait.

AlexPause. I did not- A while ago, I sent you a photograph of myself flipping off you in an Apple store with an ATP shirt on. And I thought you'd send it maybe to Casey, who I'm on a fuck you basis with. But you sent that to John Syracusa. I don't want to say fuck you to John Syracusa.

MerlinOh, he doesn't have human feelings. He's a pod. He's like Kramer. He's a pod. No, don't worry about that. And I do not understand the use of this particular human digit. I mean, finger. What is this? Disrespect for my program. No, he's bad. No, no. It's that, as you know, I consider myself a gamer. I'm not a hardcore gamer anymore. It took me a week to get through the training of an iPhone game. That was fun.

And I'm a hardcore gamer, but I'm very bummed by The Walking Dead. And that's the situation.

MaxHave we talked about The Walking Dead on the show?

MerlinI don't want to retrain her. The joke was, I said something like, they're in their third episode of the season. and I have not finished any of them. I fell asleep. I think I mentioned I fell asleep three times in episode two. And then I got up and ate some clam chowder, QED. So the problem is I said I think it looks like cut scenes from a first-person shooter game for Xbox that was never released. It's just all like, let's have a speech for a little while and then some shooty shoot shoot. And it's just like, I'd be happy to talk about it.

I think the show has lost the thread. I know that they're competent very intelligent show people running it but it's lost the thread for me about what I like about that show

Maxso I've never really watched The Walking Dead I'll say I watched the first four episodes at one point

Merlinthere's some very good seasons whole long seasons that are very very good and get to the heart of what makes that show special

Maxso I mean I did see a chart going around the internet maybe a year ago or so and it basically looked at every state what the top TV shows are. And it's a pretty incredible divide. I mean, like everything else, America is sliced up pretty neatly among Blue Team and Red Team. And you have your shows that we talk about on here, like The Bachelorette and Project Runway and Game of Thrones. Those are going to be your Blue Team shows. And Walking Dead is for sure the number one Red Team show in America.

I mean, Red States fucking love Walking Dead. It dominates. and I think it does play into some there's something really grim and upsetting about it and I think it does really play into some sort of like it's like a combination of like a fetish for violence and a desire to kill without remorse and without consequences and just how neato and how cool it would be to like mow down a crowd of people with a shotgun but you're allowed to fantasize about it because they're zombies so they're in all other ways

human beings but they don't have the one critical piece of consciousness that makes it bad to kill them so that's number one voting rights that's number one but then number i think it's like the fantasy well and this was like on the the the um the uh the the chopper episode that we both liked about the their people's fantasies of oh i wish these anti-fot people would come into my house you know where everyone has has these violent um machinations that they'd never be able to enact so i think that's like one side of it and then the flip side is a sort of paranoia of not being able to trust your neighbors and people turn on

each other at a moment's notice and you have to be sort of fearful about engaging in a society because the constructs of society could collapse at any moment and people are going to loot you for your resources and all of that like I think that sort of twin fantasy makes it very appealing for for red team and plays into like culturally a lot of of what they're feeling about the country right now and it just holds no appeal to me. I find it to be totally grim and hopeless and humorless. There's never a fucking laugh in that show. At least in Game of Thrones, there's moments of levity where it lets a little bit of pressure off.

MerlinI disagree. Well, first of all, I couldn't watch the show for a long time. My wife has watched it for years and I just couldn't take it. Even when the effects weren't that good, it was too much and I just couldn't get into it. I mean, there's a point of view to what you're saying. I think that's I don't doubt that there are people who watch it just because there's lots of killing and whatever. But like any show that one is very familiar with, you feel something different about it. I think the appeal of that show is that it is a hope.

So apocalyptic literature is a thing, right? And the thing that makes apocalyptic literature what it is, is that there is no hope. And you kind of know that going in. So you could look at something like The Road and go, oh, gosh, I hope this has a happy ending. But like you read it anyway, because that's what the book is about. Right. So with this, I mean, I think the core thing of the show is and I mean, this is not a huge spoiler, but at a certain point, they learn not only is whatever caused this. There are people who have turned into walkers and we have to kill them through the brain.

And what we didn't learn for a little while, maybe into the second season, I forget when, is that they is that anybody who dies, anybody who dies reanimates as a walker. That's when the show in some ways really lit up. Because think about that for a minute. I don't know if you got that far in it. But I feel like that was a big turning point for the show. Because in addition to that grimness and the way everybody, every single one of these people, unless they get it through the brain, is going to turn into. Like when your kid just dies of hunger, your kid is going to turn into a walker and you're going to have to kill it or run away.

So there's something, the oppressiveness of that is played against the fact that we care so much about some of these characters.

Speaker AAnd you can turn this to your point of view for sure. We should have done a Last of Us challenge instead of a... I really want to. I got the game. I would love to play it. Boy, are you going to hate the opening of that game?

MerlinYeah, yeah. I've got it on the PS4. but all I was going to say was for this show same reason, I know we don't have time to talk about Top Dress but I have a big beef anytime on a reality show it's one thing to have a Tim Gunn save per season I think that is a great device and it's usually very well deployed even though the person usually gets kicked off the next week for some reason but I don't like it when they go you know what, there's five people and two of you are going home today and then guess what hey, everybody gets to go to the finals

Yay! That's not a game! You just get to go, oh, suddenly my rook is a queen. I have five queens now. That's not a game if you can do that. That's Calvin Ball. And that's one thing this show has done. It has really started shying. When it does kill off characters, it does it in one case at the end of the previous season the most horrible, gruesome way. But then also...

AlexAre you talking about Handsome Batboy?

Speaker AWell, yeah, Handsome Batboy. I'm talking about the comedian. Oh, we're not talking about Top Dress anymore. Well, I'm just saying there should be the stakes that anybody could die. Are they killing people off now? Does Heidi need to feed?

AlexAll right.

MerlinI have concerns.

AlexI would like to share a quick list with you.

MerlinCut all that out, Alex. No, no.

AlexI think you both have good viewpoints on why this show is bad. Mine could be some.

MerlinOkay, so let me just finish the rant then. Here's the rant. Let me finish this. This is really fast. This is really fast. Here's the fucking problem. The problem is you've got to kill off people that you don't want killed off, and you can't suddenly introduce literally thousands of bullets. How does everyone suddenly have thousands of bullets?

Speaker AYou've ruined this game.

MerlinThat does not—

MaxYou want me to ruin Game of Thrones for you? Yes. Now, a character hasn't died in Game of Thrones since, like, season four. What?

Speaker AYeah. What, they're all in the upside down? What? What's happening? You think of it as a show where they kill characters all the time,

Maxand the thing is they've done it a few times to great effect. Did you see the episode with the set? Oh, yeah, that's true. That was a big one.

AlexI was going to say. That's true.

MaxBut none of those were. I'm trying not to spoil it. I know people will get really mad at us if we say spoil it.

Speaker AWhat you can say is Daenerys and Jon are not in huge trouble. I'm talking about main cast characters. You're talking about Daenerys and Jon Snow. They're not going to die.

MaxRight.

Speaker Ayeah they can't let a little bit of tension out of the show because you kind of know that they're not going to die you're absolutely you're absolutely right i don't think jamie is going

Merlinto die anytime soon i i'm sorry we're saying too much but there are tentpole characters on that show that are not going away anytime soon it's like if you build a whole um this is something i really

Maxadmire about breaking bad i mean breaking bad was just such an incredible like taught drama and it was like a lot of the drama of breaking bad came from i mean it was it was actually it worked on a lot of angles but it was like the dual stakes of like waltz like how where like how far is his like moral how far is he going to slide but then also like his life was constantly in peril and you bought it every time like they somehow managed to like ratchet the tension up on when waltz life was threatened every time to where you were just glued to the tv just sweating it out yeah and uh most shows i think it was because it was like a marriage of like personal stakes and then and then

you know sort of big big life-threatening stakes and most shows cannot pull that off and sustain that like certainly like i didn't care in the walking dead because i didn't like any of the characters but uh game of thrones really has this problem of like how many times can you have

Alexcharacters on there my favorite character died last season maybe i didn't watch enough of it

Merlinit well yeah well for two i think it is i mean syracuse and i every time we talk about the walking dead we always talk about this one character who's been in it from the first episode and everybody thought if there's one person apart from rick who's going to make it to the end it's the ultimate survivor it's this one guy is that who you're thinking of oh i'm sorry i was talking

Alexabout Game of Thrones. I kind of hate everybody on The Walking Dead. I've been talking about

MaxTop Dress the whole time. Wait, which one am I? Boy, I like that. I like that Kentaro. I thought maybe he was going to be a ding-a-ling at the beginning of the season. And I really love him. And I think he makes really interesting stuff.

MerlinHe always mentions that he's a concert penis and that he's a classical penis. Every time he comes on screen, my daughter says, is it true you're a classical penis? I said, yes, I'm a concert penis. Didn't you like his song about the cat?

Speaker AYeah, didn't it great when he played his little song for Tim Gunn. That was such a... Have you seen this, Alex?

AlexNo, the thing is, so Matt's watching it, but I can't watch it because there's no way it can live up to what this season is in my head because of the two of you. So I'm just watching Shark Tank. Oh, yeah. I'm like, you know. Okay, that's cool.

MaxShark Tank's been good this season.

AlexIt has.

MaxI like the rotating shark. Yeah, I do too.

AlexCold bodies, creeper, dead ones, floaters, geek, lame brains, lurkers, monsters, roamers, rotters, skin eaters, And biters and finally walkers. They can't just call them fucking zombies. They don't do it. They won't do it. Not one person. Just one person. Hmm.

MerlinI thought you were doing street names for some kind of new drug. Yeah. That was a nice tea thing. The kids call it couch cushion.

MaxWhat I've been binging lately is a couple years ago, FX re-released a sort of re-edited cut of the entire Dali G show, the series, where he has, you know, it's Ali G, Borat. Peppy Cannon. Yeah. And Bruno. If you haven't seen this, I really think it's one of the most incredible comedy bodies. It's like two seasons of British television. He's so committed. He's so committed. It's unbelievable. And you'd think it would have worn thin

now that the Borat character is so played out. But nope, it's just as good as it ever was. And I was watching the one where he's Ali G and he has a panel of religious hosts. So there's like a priest, an atheist, you know, all different, you know, secular humanists, all these people like, you know, on the couch. And he's doing like he has them in the studio for like a talk show format. And then he just starts accusing. He's like someone didn't flush. And he interrogates each person about who left the floater in the toilet. Holy shit. It's so funny.

MerlinIt's one of those. It's kind of that sense of humor, though, where like so many of us are forced to revisit things we thought of as things we love. that haven't really aged well. This week, if you go back and watch Animal House, it's really not as funny anymore. Maybe it shouldn't have ever been. But the problem is, it's also, it's like Sloan says, it's not the band I hate, it's their fans. And the people who got into the My Wife, just as much as the whole, like, you know, behave.

You miss what was special about that show, which is that it was, that guy's working at a pretty high level. The humor was very silly, but he's playing a whole different game on that show.

MaxIt may be like the all-time best skewering of sort of conservatives. Because I think what the game he figured out as the show progressed was like all three of his characters, he could make Ali G. Well, Bruno is the exception actually. But he could make Ali G and Borat because of their backgrounds as like awful and retrograde as you could possibly imagine.

MerlinIt forces people to explain themselves in a way that is extremely revealing.

MaxRight. But so like Borat goes to a gun club in the south, right? And he says to the gun owner, he goes, in my country, in Kazakhstan, at the gun club, they bring prisoners. And you can execute the prisoners. And the gun club owner, first he's shocked. And then Borat goes, why are you shocked? Why don't you do that? And he goes, you know, it would be pretty awesome. And then he high fives him and he gets them all excited about it. It's just the perfect character. Like he can be as like backwards as possible. and then these people like first they like accept the reality of borat that he's just this this real

guy from kazakhstan and that they never question that it's a bit being done to them which is amazing on its face but then they like agree with him it's all it's unbelievable yeah it's also there's i

Merlinmean the thing that's tough about that though is that like any of us who have tried to lubricate a social situation it gets awkward because sometimes you end up saying things you don't want to say like how many times have you just nodded along with something that a cab driver says just because you don't really want to talk about it anymore you know what i mean and they said something maybe even very offensive or very hateful but you're like yeah people are crazy i'm gonna put my headphones in just you know holler if you need me but like to get into these what are you gonna do i mean there are a lot of people today who would have that argument i tend to not want to have that argument but like if you do try to like find a common ground with somebody you end

up going much further in a direction than you'd want to go you know what i mean that's what makes

Alexit so awkward i have never seen borat really nope it's on my it's on my plex i need to uh you've never seen the movie or the tv show or any of it none of it i think you'd really like it ali g

Merlinali g is a good i mean the ali g show and the ali g character is kind of a good place to start you appreciate i feel like you appreciate borat more when you've seen ali g so on the the difference

Maxthe key difference to me is on the um um on the tv show is made for british television and you know the british do not need a likable protagonist in fact a lot of their comedy is based on not having a likable protagonist like the british office right there's no likable protagonist on that show like like um what's his name of the michael scott character uh david brent i mean david right david brent he's like type up your cv you you absolutely fucking hate him i mean you're just cringing the whole time so much i love it so so much and they tried to recreate that with

the american office with steve carell when he had his like you know thinned out haircut and he was being a real jackass. But eventually the show never found worked until it found its heart, until it made Michael into a likable character. So they stopped trying to recreate the British,

MerlinI mean, the first, I feel like at least the first episode was just a terrible remake of the absolutely classic first episode of The Office, the British, the UK office. And yeah, you're right, they didn't get their feet under them until they decided to like make use of what those different characters, how Dwight, how Dwight is not Gareth. Like those are very different characters.

MaxRight. Americans need a likable protagonist in order to accept a comedy. And Borat, that the movie was made for an American audience. And I'm not saying that he's likable, but he has more, he's more of a, how do I put this? He's like more of a cartoon and he has a backstory. Yeah, but he's like, can't go home and he's trapped. And you do sort of feel for the character and he does walk the line of putting himself in these situations where he's sort of the protagonist.

Or he's like hapless. Whereas like in the British version, you're just free to hate all of these characters. Like they're all awful.

AlexI just realized that British reality TV is the exact opposite. It's so weird. I'm looking at the only show, British show I watch, and I watch a lot of British TV that has a likable protagonist is Doctor Who. Well, I guess it's arguable. Oh, I guess don't, Abby.

MerlinWell, you got the British Bake Off show. I love that show.

AlexExactly, yeah.

MerlinIt's very gentle.

AlexYou think that Mary Berry makes the desserts that she shows when they go,

MerlinWhen she and Johnny Millionaire sit down? No, I do not. That's very disappointing to me. I think we're meant to feel that, what's his name, Johnny Thanksgiving? Somebody fancy has made the one that's the good bake that they're enjoying while the other people are sweating it. He's a bit of a pan man. Oh, he's such a pan man. I've really changed my, you know, I feel bad about everything I said about Guy Fieri. He seems like a very nice man. I think I've been hard on Guy Fieri, the character. when he, you know, he's apparently like a super nice guy and he does lots of nice things for people

and gay marriage and stuff. You know about all that?

AlexSure.

MaxI remember when there was the Smash Mouth eat the eggs meme, he wound up cooking the eggs that Smash Mouth ate.

AlexOh.

MaxAnyway, great story.

I have a video game update. I can update about Destiny, or I also had a performance art story that could tie into the Borat conversation. Choose your fighter.

AlexWell, Doug Digg, do you have any follow-up from last week that you could not get to, or is that after-show material?

MaxYes.

AlexOkay. All right, let's go with art piece.

MaxAll right, New York Post. Her performances may have been timeless feats of endurance, but the millions of Maria Abramovic raised to build her own art center didn't last long. A month after scrapping her plans for the Maria Abramovic Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art, MAI, in Hudson, New York, it seems that the $2.2 million raised towards the project were spent entirely on schematics and a model by star architect Rem Koolhaas, a far cry from the $31 million price tag for the whole project. First of all, you guys know who Maria Abramovic is, right?

Yes. Should we explain it for our listeners?

AlexTweet link.

MaxShe's a very important performance artist who's very famous. She did the famous, probably her most famous piece is The Artist is Present.

AlexAnd there was a house episode based off of her.

MaxOh, there was? Yeah. That's incredible.

MerlinShe does very, but instead of like, you think of performance art as like something from Seinfeld where people throw chocolate on people in the audience. Instead, she makes herself very open and vulnerable in ways that are like incredibly uncomfortable and really make you think.

MaxWell, she did a piece, I'm going to butcher this, but she did a piece where she sat in a gallery and suspended from the ceiling where there were all sorts of things. There were like feather dusters and straps and knives and I think a gun. I'm pretty sure there was a knife, yeah.

AlexYeah, someone did like slice her a bit.

MaxYeah, and she just sat there and the art was what people would do interacting with her in these objects. But so this is not a story. I'm actually not trying to drag Marie Abramovic I think she's very cool and I really like

Merlinher art. Projects are hard

Maxand well I don't know I think she was probably I don't know actually how much she was involved in like a management capacity of this Kickstarter project but anyway I do have a story I do have a reason why I'm bringing this up on Dubai Friday and a place where this is going but A I just think it's funny so they raised 2.2 million dollars on Kickstarter and then they spent it all on schematics and a model like Zoolander What is this, a center for ants? The people can't fit in here.

But it was also funny. About 1.5 million of the funds raised came from private donations, including memorably from Jay-Z, while another $661,000 were raised from 4,765 backers on Kickstarter. However, because the Kickstarter campaign was specifically earmarked for, quote, the design process of MAI, it will not be returned to project backers. So the money has been spent, and they're not building the center. But you may remember this project for two other noteworthy things. Number one, one of the rewards was you could get a hug from Maria Abramovic,

which she did at the Kickstarter office. So I got to see a bunch of my pals at Kickstarter. Did you support it? I did not. I missed it. I mean, it's actually something I probably would have given a couple bucks to, but I did not see it when I was on Kickstarter. Yeah, it feels real that I missed this too. I did see a bunch of our pals at Kickstarter hugging Maria Abramovic, which is pretty fucking crazy, at their office. And then it's also notable, and here's the fun Dubai Friday connection. So the top reward on the project was for $10,000. You could book a spirit dinner, a private spirit dinner with Maria Bramovec.

Now, spirit dinner was a performance art piece that she did, I don't know, let's say in the 70s or 80s. Oh, this is the pizza. This gets the pizza, right? And it's made from, basically she would do recipes that were like intentional gestures that touched on spirituality. and she would make soup from a ball of light. And there were some of the recipes, there was like one of the recipes like has a reference to having like bodily fluids in it. Now, my understanding is that the spirit dinner that was offered on the Kickstarter was specifically that she would teach you how to make a series of traditional soups.

But so there were no, that were like taught to her by a Tibetan monk. So I don't think that there was any bodily fluids involved. But one of the backers at the $10,000 level was prolific New York art collector, Tony Podesta, brother of John Podesta. Now, Tony Podesta emailed John Podesta and said, John, I backed Maria Abramovic's Kickstarter for $10,000. Do you want to come to the dinner? And Podesta, I think, just didn't reply and didn't show up. But then the next day, there was another email. Tony said, oh, we missed you at the dinner.

And Maria said hello. Now, how do we know this? John Podesta's emails were hacked during the 2016 election. Cut to six months later, during the whole Pizzagate controversy, See, people are going through these emails, and they see the two Podesta brothers. They're emailing each other, and they're like, oh, they're talking about the spirit dinner. They are using the – so where they went to is they're doing witchcraft with this witch, Maria Bromovic, and they're eating people, and they're eating bodily fluids as part of their occult spirit dinner practice.

And Hillary also probably partook in the spirit dinners, and because they were eating people and eating human brains, they got a rare brain disease like also from an episode of house i think it's called like you get like prions in your brain from eating human brains and that's why hillary was falling over at non-9-11

Merlinoh see i never put all that together then that totally makes sense i mean if you think about it

Speaker Ayeah i mean is there another plausible explanation i mean it could have been related to uranium one but that's my only other okay all right and what in the clinton foundation oh well they're the

Merlincentral culprits. Are they the ones who stand to benefit? Are they the puppet masters? Is the idea that you eat a brain and have pizza sex with babies so that you can fund your foundation?

MaxIs that it? All of these people are like the episode of Always Sunny where Charlie's working in the mail room. Pepe Sylvia! Pepe Sylvia! All this mail is going to Pepe Sylvia. Who's Pepe Sylvia?

We got to find Pepe Sylvia.

Speaker ADid you see the, was it the representative's chart that was going around yesterday? Holy shit. Well, it was on, Hannity had a crazy wall. Well, Hannity had a crazy wall.

AlexOh, they're back. I missed them.

MerlinWell, he did a little bit of a Glenn Beck last night, but also, God, I wish I could find it. It was going around yesterday. Crooked did a very funny parody of it, but there was one of those, it was one of those big graphics. I think it was during, was it during the, it was during one of the mini hearings yesterday. And this representative puts up this graphic that was so banana balls. And it was one of those, huh? See? Get it? Clinton? Obama? Uranium? Do you see? Are you seeing this, people? Who was that? And let's find that, please. Do we know who that was?

AlexNo, I want to see the crazy wall. I'm trying to find, but all I'm getting is Keurig.

MerlinOh, you're looking for Hannity. Oh, Hannity did like a mind map on a giant graphic. Well, no, no. But I mean, it was done electronically. It's very professional.

AlexOh, I see.

MerlinThat connects all the pieces. But I got to find this. Who was it? Okay. Let go and let go. Representative. A conspiracy.

Speaker AHave you guys ever, Merlin, you don't really do Kickstarters. I've done a few. It generates a lot of email. You know you can turn that.

MaxI mean, like, so you can either do a Gmail filter or you can turn all that stuff off. I've turned it off from the Kickstarter app because I don't want to, I frankly never, I mean, I know, I know part of the fun of a Kickstarter. It's so like, listen, if you, the way that normal human beings engage with Kickstarter is like once a year, something that you really care about, a band that you love makes an album. And you really love getting an email from them and learning about the process of them working on the album.

MerlinYeah, like with Ted Leo and Jonathan Colton are two that I recently supported.

MaxRight, and there you go.

MerlinIt wasn't necessarily Kickstarter, but those are two where I was like, yes, I 100% take my money, Ted.

MaxAnd also, you want Ted Leo's updates because he's going to have interesting things to tell you about the process of working on that album. But if you're sick like me and you back, I back like 10 Kickstarters a week. You're a super backer. I'm a super backer. I can't. I can't and I won't. So I just turn it all off. And I understand I'm missing a big piece of the fun of the Kickstarter. But a lot of it is I'm backing my friend's stuff.

MerlinIf it's anything like the way the Fidget Cube went, I'm happy to miss that fun. Was that your first project? No. My first project was something called Put This On.

MaxOh, wow. I backed that.

MerlinI love that show. And Jesse Thorne did in, I think it was 1972 they did that. And I'm still getting email about it. I'm still getting a reminder that I need to go update my profile to get something from it. I'm glad. I'm glad I did that. I love those guys. But, yeah, the fidget cube was tough for a variety of reasons. It ran really behind, and they were already very quickly getting knocked off on Amazon, like very, very quickly. People saw it and went, oh, you know what? I can ship my own off-brand Chinese version of this for like a tenth of it.

But there were so many emails, and it's like cute release notes, you know, cute release notes. Like if you're really watching an app to fix a bug, and you get the release notes, and they're cute, you just get so fucking angry. In this case, I was like, you know what? I never really wanted this that much in the first place. But now several times a week I get an update with animated GIFs about how it's not going as badly as it seems. And it was so depressing.

MaxWhat else have I done? I will say, in defense of people who run late with their Kickstarters, and I'm sure the Dubai Friday audience probably have some experience backing Kickstarters. I totally feel for it.

MerlinI'm not criticizing.

MaxNo, I know. I know. I mean, what people don't understand is like, so you take your best shot, right? You do all your math and you have your little solver and your Excel spreadsheet and you're like, okay, if all of these factors work out, I will get this thing in hand and ship it out by December. But then what happens is when you do the Kickstarter, people start yelling at you and they're like, I want it in blue. And if enough people are yelling at you and they're like, I want it in blue, like I won't give you my money if it's not in blue, like you would be an idiot not to make it in blue and to make an option for blue. Well, now, guess what?

Now you're not shipping in December. Now you're shipping in March because you have no fucking clue. Once you have these contracts and these deals with manufacturers and everything's got to be come through customs, it's such a fucking ballet. And if one piece of the assembly line is out of whack, then all the other – it's like dominoes, right? At one thing stops and then you lose your date with the next guy and you lose your date with the next guy. And it's like the creator doesn't have any control over that. You're just as mad as the backers. There's nothing you can do. People understand if you're making a game on Kickstarter that you're not actually working on the factory floor assembling it.

You're just on the phone yelling at them the same as anyone could do. Sometimes people say when I've had every single one of my Kickstarters has run late by at least a month because of whatever complications, production issues. I changed it because of what backers wanted. And then people are always like the comment that always drives me nuts is they're like, oh, I saw that Max has time to tweet. or he tweeted, or Max, oh, I see that Max had time. Never meets your heroes. Max had time to do a comedy show, but he didn't have time to ship our game. And it's like, you understand I'm not working

on the factory floor. Like, I'm not, it's not as though, like, it's, I'm logging the man hours of, like, stamping the pieces out of wood. Like, it's a factory, and I'm yelling at them to move as fast as they can, but what can I do? It's like, there's, like, it's taking longer than it should. Like, I don't know what people want. Like that's the, that is the adventure of getting a new product. Like don't back a Kickstarter if you're not comfortable with the ups and downs, including that it may never get made. That's the fun of it. I think that's exciting, but whatever.

MerlinThe problem is like, but then also isn't that slightly, the deal is slightly queered by people like Pebble who are using Kickstarter essentially just as a fulfillment service where they've got this thing and they want people to order it. It's not, it's not fulfilling.

Maxit's a pre-order but i don't think it's i don't think it's bad i mean the only problem there would

Merlinbe the only thing i would have against the idea it's against the idea of like here's this thing we're going to be making you're contributing to this thing as a group to make this happen at all

Maxwell i personally don't agree with that but but and and you know like an example of where this criticism goes is like an example would be zach braff made a film or something on kickstarter and people were like you're a rich celebrity why would you need to do a kickstarter and he was like he was like why aren't i why aren't i allowed to get have people back my art and find out if people want what I'm making like anyone else. And I agree with that. Like Pebble's allowed to do it. The only thing I have to take any issue with at all is sometimes people and Pebble, I don't know Pebble that well, but maybe they may or may not have been guilty of this. Sometimes people frame

their whole project as a preorder where they're like, buy it now. Right. Like, you know, and I do think basically what is happening there is they're setting poor expectations for their backers. They're not managing the expectations of their backers correctly. But I don't think there's no limit of who's allowed to do a Kickstarter. I mean, listen, like, I'm a successful board game designer at this point, but I will still, every project I do will be on Kickstarter. Because even though I've made some successful games, like, I have no fucking clue what people will want or how many to order or if I'm explaining it right.

And Kickstarter is a way to find out. It's a way to put it out there and be like, hey, you people having this?

Alexmy favorite example of this is obi by uh the studio neat guys which was this super smart laser toy for cats that nobody wanted except me right uh and this is documented really well on their podcast with relay but they're like yeah this was a failure and we would have never we would have never known and if we just put this out and you could say studio neat they're one of

Maxthe most successful product design companies on kickstarter they have smash hit products they've probably done i'm assuming they've done quite well i think four things from them i mean i back everything i back everything they did including i bought a case of i like the panel book so much i bought a case i bought a case of them for the office and they know that that's going to be

Alexsuccessful but they don't know how successful but right they learned that's a hard when it's a hard

Merlingood i mean this is the part of the problem with the comics industry setting aside the fact that it's a controlled by one distributing network is you know local comic stores don't know how many have something to buy and they can't return it if if it's you know they you can't if you you make a cat toy or a notebook and you make too many of them like what are you going to do now you're not

Speaker Amaking money anymore i'm i'm just going through the projects that i've backed so i sent you i sent

Alexyou mine in the uh so my uh i pretty much back about half of what max backs uh so i've backed

Maxlet's see on Kickstarter 292 projects. I have five. 109. I've made seven projects.

AlexI've made none. I didn't even make breakfast

Speaker Atoday. Yeah. Ted Leo album. Ted Leo's good. Marshmallow Run. Fidget Cube. This is Fine Dog. Did you hear him on Sound Opinions on NPR this weekend? Yeah. I sure did. He's a hell of a guy. Can you believe how deep his voice is

Maxgiven how he sings? Doesn't that seem strange? I love Ted Leo. And let me tell you a don't meet your heroes story. I met Ted Leo on the Joko Cruise this year, and I'm always a little reluctant to meet any musician that I like, because especially if their music is in addition to being like aesthetically pleasing to me, if I find it meaningful in any way, because musicians are some of the dumbest, least satisfying people as a category on the face of the planet. That's not even counting the drummer. And there's nothing worse. I don't want to perpetuate a stereotype, But there's nothing worse than meeting someone who's worked, if I'm meaningful and they're like real dumb and they can't hold a conversation when you they're not.

MerlinThey're not nice. They're not smart. They're not fun to talk to. And you're like, oh, that's no good.

MaxAnd it really does. I've had this happen where I've for whatever reason, I've met some musicians that I really love and I find them to be like true idiots when we talk. And it does put a slight damper on the music for me. And I really was I was on the Ted Leo played on the Joko Cruz this year. and I was a little bit nervous about getting to meet him because I was like, I really fucking love this music. It's music that's, it is in the meaningful category for me. And I was like, what if Ted Leo's mean or dumb or oh my God, he's the nicest, coolest guy in the world. I was hoping we could leave it a cliffhanger. Oh.

Hey Max, did you guys know? You'll never know, you'll never know what happened.

MerlinWhat an asshole. He's very kind, but he's just ridiculously smart and fast. Oh my God. He's so smart and so fast. And he's funnier than me, and it drives me fucking crazy to talk to him because he's so fast.

Speaker AHe's just one of those guys of I just want to be in his presence. I know. Well, he and Amy were right down.

MerlinThey were like two doors down from us, their cabin, stateroom, whatever. So we would see him in the hallways all the time. And, you know, I think they're both very – Amy, certainly – very introverted. But, like, it was just really cool to just get to walk by and just get to, like, say hi and watch Ted Leo and David Rees, like, do a crossword together. It was like, it was joy.

AlexI'm just going to mention the mashup cover since you've been, right? Since Kelly Clarkson and Maps. Since you've been gone and Maps. So I can put it in the show notes. Look at the show notes, guys. They don't love you like I love you. Wait. Oh, it's so hard. Oh, my God, that song.

MerlinAnd listen, I'd fallen asleep taking a nap when that sound opinions came up on my overcast. And all I had to hear was, was it Bottle and Cork? No, it was, you know what it was? It was probably me and Mia. and like it's one of he's one of those guys where all i have to just do is just hear a little bit of one of his songs and that's it i'm done i'm listening to ted leo all day his his shit is so good i recently rediscovered actually from that i've just gone back to brutalist bricks which is do you have that album do you listen to that album um alex yes i think that is very much in

our mutual wheelhouse yes that is a very very good album and i i listened to it when it was out but i don't remember loving it loving it and it's so fucking good oh my god what a good album it was

Alexone of those things where I was like, it's Ted Leo, but then it's something that you just fall in love with deeply over and over and over again. Man. This is boring. Dig Dug, Max, I want more follow-up that we missed last week when we were selfishly talking about I don't even remember what the challenge was.

MaxI started playing Destiny 2 and it's definitely been my de-stressor activity over the last couple weeks, so I put a lot of hours into destiny 2 and so if you mentioned i remember maybe two or three weeks ago i said i was i had like i was literally wearing an item called like refugee rags and i was just getting killed right so i've hit the level cap a max level now oh my god so i got a i got a um a message from a friend of the show matt the other day and he was like hey i i'm just about to get out of class

and i saw on reddit that there's a huge exploit in destiny 2 where if you join one of the there was a special clan event happening and if you join one of the clans there's like a chest that get a loot chest that gives you clan loyalty tokens and you can cause the chest if you just run up and down a hallway back and forth you can cause the chest to respawn and give you new loyalty tokens every time so we both rushed the computer and logged on so we could get the exploit before destiny closed it and i spent like an hour and 45 minutes running up and down a hallway and then

pressing E to open a chest. Then you run to the other end of the hallway, so it resets the state of the chest. You run back up, and you hit E to open it up. I collected like 600 loyalty coins, and then I turned them in for elite gear. What a fun story

Alexfor people who cannot do that anymore. You're not going to have any penalties on your account? They're not going to kick you off? I haven't been kicked off yet, and I

Merlinhave elite gear. What is that? You get better armor things? You get guns? You get cool guns? Is that it?

MaxThe whole enchilada.

MerlinNow, I joined the people of War Queen because I like their colors. All of the noises you just made with your mouth, the net effect of having all those loyalty coins, whatever that is, is you get to what? I'm just asking what that means in terms of the game.

MaxOh, I'm doing a bit based on the fact that I'm just running on a treadmill to get imaginary treats in a computer game. You get better stuff. You get more powerful guns. I deserve a treat. Now, this is my other follow-up from last week. It has now been basically two weeks since I heroically gave my spot up in the line at the Apple store. Amazing. And we're going on week number two of me getting no recognition from the Apple Corporation and no treat. Listen to me, Apple. I am owed a treat, and I did not get a treat, and you need to send me a treat.

1917 North Elston, Chicago, Illinois, 60622. I will not rest until I get my treat for the Apple Corporation for heroically sacrificing my spot in the expedited pickup group to someone who was rightfully in front of me, even though I was put in the wrong place because of my 11.15 pickup time. You know what you did, Apple. Shame.

I am owed a treat. Give me my treat.

AlexHow many hours can you guys go, oh, I can't even, as Marla would say, I'm not great with mouth words today, worse than usual. How many hours of sleep do you need to function as a human being the next day?

MerlinThat's a good question.

MaxIt's a complicated question for me because it's not on any one given night. It's more of a cumulative effect of life.

MerlinThat was going to be my question. Do we assume you assume normal sleep, whatever your normal sleep is, six, seven, eight hours, whatever your normal sleep is. If you have a bad night, what is the minimal amount of sleep in a bad night that can have you mostly OK the next day?

AlexIs that kind of. Yeah, let's assume that you've had a good amount of sleep the rest of the week. You don't have any like sleep debt or anything like that. It's just one rough night for me.

MerlinI mean, five is rough for the minimum for I'm definitely going to need a nap. um but i'm usually around i'm usually around six and a half seven and a half hours a night with and you know again fitbit tells you like you're up for an hour and you didn't know it um but yeah for me like if it's less than four or five i'm in a bad way i uh the sleep researchers

Maxthat i'm friends with have told me that even one night of suboptimal sleep can have an effect on your performance for like two weeks i'm gonna die when i'm 45 so if you so and they were like Luckily you eat right.

AlexYeah, good, good.

MerlinAlex, that's, as the Germans say, prognance, pregnant with meaning. Why do you ask that? What is a bad, did you have a bad night? Last night, is this a personal question?

AlexYeah, this is just an excuse and an apology to everybody because I'm not doing well. But however, somebody, our nice friend who is a barista is in the office today and made me a cappuccino with only water. I think that's what so that I can drink it.

MaxAre you are you lactose intolerant now?

AlexI mean, I'm not. I'm a delicate snowflake. Anything.

Speaker AYou have a delicate system.

AlexBut I guess I'm not.

Speaker AYou're no Griffin McElroy.

AlexStop eating chili. Yeah, I'm not a diarrhea person. Usually if I eat something and it's bad instantly, I get very sick and then I'm and then I'm done. But if I do throw up from this coffee for some reason, I'll keep it in, guys. You're welcome. You're welcome.

MaxKeep it in. I'm amazed that with all of your super tasting situation that you can palate espresso.

AlexWell, that's the thing. I'm just taking big gulps. It's incredibly bitter, but it's like I can appreciate that this is very well made. Also, I like the cup. It's so fucking cute.

MaxAlex, what are the best Kickstarters that you've backed and what are you still waiting on, if anything?

AlexOkay, let me pull this back up.

MaxThis is boring. I'm fascinated by this.

AlexNo, see, I agree. You know what? people get back Kickstarter. It's great. Let me view all the project I've done. You know, I'm a big fan of that Cards Against Humanity game. Did you back it on Kickstarter? I think I gave like, oh no, because you were good guys and you had the original game out. It was print and play for free. I like how I'm explaining what you did to you. So I didn't get it until it came to retail because I was in high school still. um i am still waiting on my vision ar goggles but you know never back my my this is my advice

Maxthis represents my this represents my personal opinion about how to use kickstarter do not take it as any sort of uh anything other than just my own personal opinion but don't you will almost always be disappointed if you back first generation electronics on kickstarter like they're almost i almost would be hard-pressed to find any example of first-generation electronics on Kickstarter where people were really happy with what they got. I think you can get first-generation hardware, meaning like craft items and things that are constructed and manufactured goods, but if it

involves like programming, software, computers, microcontrollers, like you are going to be

Alexdisappointed. It is never going to work in the first generation. The worst project, and I don't want to say the worst, but one of the very few projects that wasn't fulfilled at all was it was really ambitious.

It was 400 sizes of women's jeans, which was really cool. But obviously they were like, wait, wait, no, this is.

Speaker AThat's a lot of skis.

AlexYeah, just a couple.

Speaker AThat's a good scope on that project.

AlexI feel like that'll get done. Yeah, it was fine.

MerlinYeah, but what if somebody comes up with 401 styles of jeans?

AlexMy favorite recent one is the complete Girls with Slingshot. which is a comic that I absolutely loved. Right, yeah. And they're reprinting the entire thing. It was a webcomic, and it's never been available in print. And also The Secret of Mac Gaming. I'm a big book Kickstarter backer,

just because I've always had really good luck with that.

MaxBooks are a great project backing Kickstarter because it's not hard for them to be made in an excellent way. First Kickstarter ever back was a book.

MerlinThe production, I mean, this is very minimizing, but there's a known way to make books. And you make a decision about what kind of binding and what kind of paper and what kind of stuff. Oh, we've got to talk about Liar Town.

And so then it goes all into the production of whatever makes it into InDesign or whatever. But I see what you mean about the electronic stuff. where like even in the best cases, you take a company like the company in Cupertino, I mean, they have buggy stuff in super well-funded hardware and software. And God, imagine having to come up with firmware and make it secure. And like, well, this seems like a terrible time to start just fucking around with internet of things devices if you don't really know what you're doing.

AlexI'm excited about more hardware, but I really like a lot of the apps and games that have come out of Kickstarter. like Dog Sled is this really fun iOS game made here in Chicago and uh friends of the show are making a game or sorry not a game an app called Allo which is uh another one of these like self care apps but I might actually listen to it because it's very cute um yeah and like our uh friend uh who makes Welcome to Macintosh really Mark was really successful with that and indie

micro blogging man this is everyone go to my Kickstarter page because all these are really Like, all of these are really good.

MerlinI got a question for you, documentary girl. Setting aside something like the app documentary everybody's excited about, how do you feel, this is a little bit of a loaded question, how do you feel about the success rate of supporting a documentary, maybe a fan-made documentary, but in whatever case, it's not people you would normally consider professional documentary makers. I guess I'm saying, I feel like the hit rate on that is, the success rate on that is, like, pretty remarkably low. Like, a lot of them just don't get made. Is it just me?

AlexNo, you are absolutely correct. most filmmakers on Kickstarter, especially documentary makers, it's their first film. They don't understand. They always, like, even if you aren't making a documentary for the first time, you will always underestimate how much you need to shoot, how long it's going to take to edit.

MaxThe other thing is, like, you don't know that you have a documentary until it's shot, and you're looking at it, and you're like, okay, there's a movie here.

MerlinOr until you've reached that point in the third act when you know it's really actually all about you.

MaxRight. It's like, how many documentaries the story of how they got made is I started filming this thing and then I filmed it for six years and eventually I realized there was enough footage for a documentary.

MerlinI'm so ready for that genre to be done with. It worked for Sherman's March to huge effect. It worked for Michael or Roger and me. But like, the fucking Paul Williams documentary drove me so effing crazy because of how much it really was about, like, I'm a quirky guy following Paul Williams and I'm really bothering him and it's part of the bit and it's like, it's really it minimizes the the subject you know unless it really goes to what the thing is about in the case of sherman's march like i know that's artifice but like i bought it i absolutely bought

what they were selling with that but that wasn't what 1987 like earlier but like i don't it's weird like i've known people i feel like there's like i can think of i won't say but off the top of my head i feel like i can think of like three different documentaries about bands in particular that just never made it i didn't think the silkworm would ever come out but it did but there's been lots where it's like it just never hardly anything like I got some b-roll and then

Alexit just died this is actually probably the only actual uh piece of advice I have for Kickstarter projects that um have any sort of film component do not ask for any money until you are in post-production and only the only rewards should be the film like people don't like you are going to waste so much of your time with stickers and posters and stuff like that. Like people don't care. They just want to see your movie and they want to see it as soon as possible. And time is always going to be the most expensive thing for a film. It's not going to be the equipment.

It's going to be not just your time, but the people you have to hire. And yeah, I would never.

MerlinThat's really, that's really good advice. So why do you think that is like, or either angle you want like why do people do are people being naive when they go into it or is it or is it as something that comes down to like like sort of like y'all said like you don't know what the magic is until you've captured the magic and you can't like create that sui generis like what causes that

Alexto be such a risk i think a lot of um the naivete has gone away um but also what's gone away is grants for a lot of documentary films um or people don't know that grants exists and they don't know where to go and they just fiction films have more success because you have a better idea of the scope and you can a budget is easier

Maxto stick to. Because fiction films have more success because they're fun to watch because they're invented by people to be fun to watch. Documentaries you have no idea if it's fun to watch until you've shot it. You don't know that you have an exciting ending until you have it. Documentaries are bad.

Merlini've been thinking a lot i've been thinking a lot about this keeps coming up just because maybe because i'm thinking about it but also it just comes up what was i listening to today that i gotta learn the name of this goddamn podcast uh it's one of the ringer podcasts it's the one about media i just tutored about it today greatest superhero movies of all time anyway and listen to podcast and and but it was what was neat about it was they were talking about the way that they

rated it it was based on some things having to do with box office having to do with reviews but the question that they ask all the people who participated inside the company was um the two questions were like i think one to ten like uh how much would this be improved by being made remade today but the really big one was like how rewatchable was this and i just been thinking about this a lot we talked about this on back to work yesterday i've been thinking about this a lot with the music stuff we do. It's so interesting and seemingly random what makes something rewatchable or re-listenable.

Do you know what I mean? It's like there isn't one thing that you can point to, and particularly, I guess, with documentaries. Isn't it strange that there are some documentaries you would never in a million years watch more than once? Because you know how it goes. But then there are some stuff like, God, I'm trying to get Syracuse to watch this thing on Netflix about this crazy marathon called the Barkley Marathon, I think it's called, where I could watch that over and over because the characters in it are so interesting. Obviously, something like Grey Gardens. There's these certain kinds of documentaries

that have such high rewatchability, Civil War, obviously. But do you ever feel that? It's hard to know whether something's going to be good. And once you've watched it, isn't it strange how some things bear such rewatching and other things just don't?

AlexYeah. Do you have the feeling, like a lot of times I'll walk out of a film and actually know like, oh, this is something I'm going to revisit over and over and over again. Like Dear Zachary, which I don't want to say anything about except that everybody.

MaxI've seen that movie so many times. That's rough.

AlexYeah, it's so good. But I'm looking at this list. And obviously the first one, let's just say The Dark Knight. I've seen this movie maybe a dozen times. And I don't know if that's because it's set in Chicago. I don't know if it's because I love Batman. man, it's harder for me to articulate why I enjoy watching fiction films, I guess.

Like, other than being, yeah, that's Giggly, and I like the characters. Whereas, like, a movie like Drive, I have no idea why I come back to that over and over again.

MerlinI love that movie. I know, I feel the same way. As soon as that music starts playing, I'm so drawn into that movie.

Speaker AI don't know why. I haven't seen it. It's okay. I mean, it's you I have it on the plex and I don't know when's the right time to watch drive. I don't know if it's you.

MaxI don't know if it's a you movie to be. Sometimes I'm in a social situation where people ask, what's your favorite movie? And I know that what I'm supposed to say in the situation is like a classically good movie. So, like, you know, the cool, the coolest person in the room. If you if you're in, listen, you're hanging out with Ted Leo, right? And everyone goes around like, hey, let's all I know what we'll do. Let's all go around and say our favorite movie. And it comes around to Ted Leo and he's going to say, you know, fucking raging bull, you know? And it's going to come around to me and I'm going to be like, uh, the Avengers. Like, I don't like I don't know.

I always think of the lamest movies pop into my head. Like, I don't I don't have a favorite movie that's on my little note card that I can rattle off. That sounds cool. That's genuinely my favorite film.

MerlinLike that's not that's not how that stuff gets encoded. It's encoded. I feel like at a much more emotional level. And again, I talked about this with Dan yesterday, but like with kids movies, some are so much more imminently rewatchable than you remember. And like you don't think of watching that movie.

MaxBut once it's on, you're like, fucking A, I love this movie. What do you say when someone asks your favorite movie, what do you say versus what is actually your favorite movie? Alex, what do you say is your favorite movie?

AlexI say Totoro, and it is true.

MaxInteresting. It's a really good movie. That's a very good cool guy pick. Yep, it is. You know what's great is it's a universally beloved movie with artistic merit, and it doesn't seem like you're trying too hard.

AlexYep, it's perfect. I have an easy out with this one. It's not like a pedant's choice.

Speaker AIt's not a pedant's choice. It's a cool choice. Not much happens in it.

AlexAnd when people ask what my favorite documentary is, I say Grey Gardens.

Speaker AWhy Totoro instead of Spirited Away? Kiki.

AlexKiki is the best movie, but it's not my favorite. Yes. Kiki is a very close second. I would fudge it a little bit. And some days Kiki is my favorite. But Totoro is something that absolutely everybody can watch at any age and enjoy it. And if not, they're a monster. like you can be bored by it but if you don't enjoy like if you can't get a kernel of joy out of that movie you are a monster and you make me sad uh but you know my wife my wife does an amazing

Merlinimpression of the mother it's shocking i'm going to get better and come home to you is that maize corn i love maize corn so much oh my god i love that movie so fucking much that's a good question Max do you have an answer because I'm still working on mine

MaxI think what I would say if someone asked me if I'm hanging out with Ted Leo and we all go around and say what our favorite movie is Christ I think what I would say is something like hang on I'm like looking at my movie collection to see what I would what sort of smart movie I would pick

Speaker AI mean for me the easy one that is true but is not interesting as Godfather 2.

MerlinGodfather 2.

MaxUnquestionably. There's a movie where one second of it is on a screen. Yeah, you're done. Yeah.

AlexAnd that's kind of

Merlinwhat's ironic or funny is that that's kind of what happened to me with The Big Lebowski, which is one of my favorite movies, where I had seen The Big Lebowski it used to kind of just show up on like USA or whatever. It used to just show up on cable back in the 90s early 2000s when I had cable. It was one of those where I watched it and I watched it again and it just got funnier and funnier every time I watched it. But you can't just say to somebody, go watch The Big Lebowski 30 times and you'll think it's funny. I mean, that's stupid. Other ones like that.

MaxI think if someone asked me my favorite film, what I would probably tell them the answer is would be, I think I would probably go with a Coen Brothers movie and I would say, I might say, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? I think that's really I think it's just like the most watchable film I think it has like the coolest

Speaker Amusic it's funny it's got so many good set pieces it's got what's his name Delmar what's that guy

Maxyeah it's so far every scene is just just exciting or maybe the dark night but I think the answer as to like what my favorite movie is is probably uh the uh Barry Levinson comedy wag the dog which I think I think I've never seen that I think it's my favorite film I it just has like the best script it's like light i don't know it's just it doesn't and that's and that's kind of

Merlinabout a clinton era thing of like creating a diversion from a scandal yeah it's these political

Maxoperatives who make a fake war to cover up that the president uh uh did a little uh roy moore action that's a perfect cool guy it's really not it's really not it's a really like it's like not a cool movie like i i couldn't say that to ted leo and and everyone would be like what like that's not a favorite movie you know but object objectively it is it is probably the movie i've seen the most

Merlinbut here's another one like this is not one of those you're not going to say to ted leo but like when harry met sally i think that is a very very good movie i don't think about it i have not seen it well i don't i don't think about it very much but when i do i'm like i'm just i'm delighted by that and then there are some movies that i consider my favorite movies that i don't actually like that much anymore like i like princess bride but i think i don't like princess bride as much as i think i do oh man i love oh i've been well i've been watching it for a very I've been watching it for a very very very long time and my daughter loves it so that makes it fun

but you know my main thing is I just watch it and go like oh my god the budget for this was like $16 and they did such a good job with it just the talent in that movie anybody want a peanut? so good laughter

Speaker Blaughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter

Merlinhave fun storm in the castle

Alexfor as long as I've been alive Since before I saw Princess Bride, my family just now says, have fun storming the castle. Whatever. We leave. We don't say I like it.

MerlinAnd the expressions and the waving. It's so silly.

MaxI wasn't going to laugh at that, and then you got the one line for that movie.

MerlinAnybody want the peanut? Anybody want the peanut?

MaxI never know what to say. I feel like it's a very hard question. You know, picking your favorite album, I feel like you get, as long as you don't pick a lame band, you get broad latitude to pick an album and people are sort of like cool with, you know, like whatever emotionally resonates with you. But movies are like, man, I do not want to be judged for having the wrong favorite movie.

MerlinAnd too many angles. I was about to say like, okay, well, what about genres? Let's go to a genre. But even if you come up with a genre, like you say fantasy sci-fi space opera like a lot of people are going to go oh Solaris the original it's like oh okay I get it like you know and actually that is a guy I need to watch more of that guy's movies to be honest because he's constantly being name checked in like YouTube videos and I've seen part of Solaris and that is it. Wait who Danny Boyle? No what's his name he's the I think he's from Poland I want to say he's that really famous wackadoo director. Isn't Solaris

Speaker Aby Danny Boyle?

Merlinis that the Marksner movie Andre Tarkovsky

Alexoh yes yes yes

Merlinhe made lots of wackadoo movies that I need to see I thought that was a Danny Boyle movie

Alexyou're thinking of Sunshine Sunshine

Maxoh eternal sunshine now there's a contender for favorite movie

AlexSunshine and Moon didn't this come out in the same year no because Moon is also no Moon is the guy

Merlinwho did David Bowie David Bowie. What? Moon. Moon is the guy from the Gong Show movie who's in Iron Man 2. Sam Rockwell.

AlexDo you guys just have... You drink coffee all day, right, Max? Do you just have this taste in your mouth all day?

MaxDuncan Jones. Yeah.

AlexDuncan Jones. Lord, he made a movie called Metro.

MaxHe's David Bowie's son. Oh.

AlexI think he's kind of like Stephen King's son, where he tried to hide that for a while, and it lasted a good 15 minutes.

MaxHe made the Warcraft movie, which I saw with Trin. And I was a little bit too high to follow the plot, but I don't think it made a lot of sense. Certainly didn't look good. I think Sunshine, you guys, I think that might be my pick. No one would make fun of me for saying that Sunshine is my favorite movie, and it really truly is up there.

AlexTed Leo would give you a knowing nod and be like, hmm.

MaxThat's a cool guy movie to like, right? And it's a little bit goofy.

Speaker AIt's a genre film, so it doesn't feel like I'm trying too hard. I don't know anything about this movie

MerlinI'm so excited

MaxI'm totally in in my opinion it's a perfect film it does have a bit of a divisive third act where it's sort of a love it or hate it thing and I'm in the love it camp but you'll love it it's so fucking cool do not watch it with your daughter

Merlinrespected on both sides wonder they're gonna butcher that movie looks butchered wonder I'm just looking at my movie selectinator oh Justice League

Alexoh that's gonna be rough

MerlinLady Bird. I want to see Lady Bird. I'm going to see that movie.

MaxThat looks, oh, is that the LBJ movie that's out now?

MerlinYes.

MaxThat looks great.

MerlinNo.

Speaker ANo? Yes.

MaxThere's an LBJ movie out.

Speaker AIt looks really good. Robert Caro. With Woody Harrelson, also in Wag the Dog. Wag the Dog, right. He's Woody from Toy Story. Yep. The bartender. Okay. All right. Do you want to hear something crazy?

MaxDid you hear that the, I was reading an article about Pixar's rendering capabilities recently, and it mentioned offhand in the article that their rendering capabilities now could render Toy Story, the original Toy Story, in real time.

Can you think about that?

AlexThat's bananas. I mean, honestly, it doesn't surprise me. It worries me about the future of Pixar and the remastering of digital.

MaxYou think that the temptation to futz with it is going to be so high?

AlexI don't think the leadership at Pixar now would do that, but it just makes me think of like, oh, if we can just throw this on our new iMac Pro and get it out there, why not? That would make me sad.

MerlinThat's super interesting. When you think about when people are always trying to figure out, oh, what's the Disney influence on all these different properties? I could see a risk coming, as you say, as more of the original leadership ages out and you get more of, let's say for the sake of argument, Pixar gets to a point where they're not getting an extremely good movie every year or two. And there's the pressure to go back and do the equivalent of what Disney did with direct-to-DVD at one point, where you'd want to go back and- The vaults.

Maxbeloved characters well disney's disney's new bullshit is that they have to do a live action i assume this is i don't actually know this but i've always assumed that has to do with intellectual

Alexproperty reasons uh i don't think it is the case anymore they kind of just rewrite why are they doing a live action lion king uh because the jungle book was really successful and um not john lasseter uh john favreau has a lot of money and the tech is there i don't know for him i mean

MaxI'm excited. I thought the cast picture was cool. And they are doing, I mean, listen, it's the fucking Lion King. I'm probably not more nostalgic for any media property than the original animated Lion King. I mean, of course I'm going to go see it. But like, I just, it just, does that need to exist?

AlexWell, does the Justice League need to exist?

MaxI said that about Finding Dory. I said that to a friend of mine who works at Pixar. And when they announced that Finding Dory was coming out, I said, you know, I said, I said this to someone who works at Pixar, but I'm sure had didn't really have a lot of creative input on whether this movie got made or not. But I anyway, I said, you know, I saw that they're doing this fighting Nemo sequel. And that's probably one of the greatest movies ever made. It's a perfect film. Like you shouldn't you couldn't change one frame of that film.

AlexI did not know we shared this opinion.

MaxI'm very excited. It is a perfect, perfect, perfect film. And I was like, this is not a story that I feel like could possibly be improved on by revisiting it. All you're going to do is sort of bastardize it and rehash it and make it into tropes and revisit it.

MerlinAnd just drag it through the nostalgia machine.

MaxIt's like, oh, we've got to see the shark again. And we've got to see this guy again and that guy again. And I was so skeptical. And I was so worried about it. And I thought Finding Dory was a really delightful movie. And I thought that it did not tarnish Finding Nemo at all. And it built its own wonderful thing.

MerlinI loved it. I thought it was good. I thought it was fine. I think when it went off the rails, it got even better. When it got very, very silly at the end, that's when I finally kind of bought in, when it got so ridiculous with the big plan for how... That's right. Oh, my God. That was so funny. Because, I mean, it's so unusual to get into the third act of a movie, and it gets stupid in a way that's good. It got so... You know what I mean? I mean that as a compliment, but they made an animation movie, and instead of making everything work like the real world,

animated well, they made a cartoon.

Speaker AAnd it was really fun.

MaxI thought it was a total fucking delight, including the ending and the way they handled the characters. Very good. Let's see. We should probably get into the challenge in just a second because I do think we're going to have a lot to talk about. But let me throw out one other topic for everyone. So I'm on my iPhone X. As you know, I think we've discussed this. Every time I get a new iPhone, I reset my phone up from scratch. So I go set up this new device. and I reconfigure everything, and I evaluate individually, do I need this app or not?

And one of my big changes I've made on this phone is I usually go through and delete almost all the Apple apps, but what I did was I kept, on this phone, I kept the news application. Oh, God. Do you guys use the news application? I delete it from everything.

MerlinYou don't? Neither of you use it? I hate accidentally hitting a link and launching that godforsaken app.

MaxI was going to say, I don't know, maybe they've had a new version or something.

MerlinI have not spent a lot of time with it again. It just, you know, it really feels like one of the classic Apple shitty island. But like I'm open to the idea that it could get better. Are you enjoying it?

MaxYes, it's quite good now. That's so cool. It is quite good now. And I was going to recommend if you, I played with it when it first launched. I opened it up for 10 minutes and I was like, this is not for me and I deleted it. But if you haven't looked at it since then, it may be worth opening up and just peeking through because I actually, it actually has started to, slowly replace Twitter for me in terms of a place where I got one of my first places to go for news.

MerlinBecause it gets good at learning?

MaxWell, I don't know. I just opened it up, and on the front page, one of the top stories is The Hill, Cards Against Humanity buying plot of land on border to stop Trump's wall. Oh, that's a good app.

MerlinThat's a really good app.

MaxOh, and it has my YouTube video in there. That's nice.

AlexOh, nice. Oh, it's...

Speaker AWhat's the video about, Max? Anyway, play with that news app.

MaxI'm curious what your thoughts are. All right. Hold up.

AlexChallenge. Alex. what no no edit that whole section out this is what this is Alex with Espresso

MerlinI mean I gotta say

Alexmy headache has gone away I feel a little perky I wonder if the circles under my eyes are gone what a day are you vibrating do you feel like you're vibrating I think we finally figured out what the buzz is It's Alex's heart.

Last week, we had a bunch of boring opinions about the iPhone, but I have discovered something about myself with Face ID. I use my phone too much. You know, like in bed and you wake up, and my face will not be recognized because my eyes are twitching. I cannot open them wide enough for the phone to recognize it. Oh, no.

MaxI get that right when I wake up in the morning, when your whole face is like a lump of clay that someone sat on, and you try and open up the phone, and it's like, I do not know who this sewer mutant is.

MerlinChug.

AlexWell, recently this year, I've made a big change in my life in that I finally use my phone in the bathroom. Poops are much more exciting. Clash Royale, perfect time for that. But Max, have you done this thing where you're looking down, and it's like your face is a mush, and there's just no chin. Yeah, my face won't be recognized when I am taking a shit. So two times, you know, gotta put those digits in.

MerlinYou should file a radar on that.

AlexThat'd be fun. I'll try. Face ID poop doesn't work.

Dug-a-dig-dug challenge. My challenge this week was to play the iOS game Clash Royale. And this was specifically for Merlin because Max and I have been fans of this game for a really long time. And that was pretty much it. We left it open-ended. I requested that you join our clan, the IAP boys, because that kind of, you know, it's sort of fun. you can share cards and we can talk about some of the game mechanics and max is better explaining

that stuff uh but merlin just right off the bat did you enjoy this video game that we had you play

Maxum i don't know should we play it together well we can we we can i think that could be a fun a fun content but so here's what i'm curious about so i downloaded this game you're not actually curious what i think about this no i am hang on so i downloaded this game the day that it came out and I just saw it. It was promoted heavily in the App Store and I was like, oh, I got to see what this is about. I follow the gaming market on mobile very closely and I played the, you know, at the time it had a pretty quick tutorial and I got into it and I was like, this is really fresh and interesting

like what they're doing here. It's very simple and there's not a lot, you know, you don't have to like learn a ton but it's so deep. Like the strategy goes like so, so, so, so, so deep on this game and I got hooked on it and I played it probably every single day since for, I don't know, how long has this game been, like two years or something like that.

AlexPerfect poop game.

MaxI'm curious, now you just picked it up, and some of the changes that have happened since between when I started playing it and when you started playing it are there's like three times as many cards, so you have to learn three times as much shit because you have to know what all the little units are, and I assume there's probably more onboarding and tutorializing and things like that. Can you talk about what was the tutorial like? What is the game? Can you sort of set it up for us as the person who just opened it for the first time? Yeah, sure.

MerlinI don't play video games really at all. And I was very confused about what this even is. And I was confused about how anything I did with my finger had an actual impact on what was happening with the little people. Yeah. You go through this little like a five-step. Like here's learn how to do this thing. Here's how to move a thing to there. And then like how to attack and how to defend and how to defeat a bigger enemy. and I moved a giant and a fireball and I made the arrow girls run around

and it's deeply, deeply, completely not understandable to me.

MaxFor our listeners who might not have played the game, Clash Royale is a MOBA. I didn't know it was a card game, I guess. Well, it's sort of a card game. So it's a MOBA. So there's two lanes and at each lane there's a castle and you're trying to destroy your enemy's castles and they're trying to destroy yours. and the way you destroy castles is you have a deck of cards that you pre-build like magic cards before the game, and then your deck gets shuffled up and you get a random hand of cards, and you drag the cards down and drop them onto the field, and it spawns units on the field. And once they're on the field, you can't interact with them at all.

So what's interesting is each unit has its own sort of AI that it behaves according to, so it'll take different pathfinding and it'll react to buildings and creatures in different ways. Sometimes it'll fight, sometimes it'll run, you know, and you learn all that stuff. and it lets you build basically almost like you can almost think of it as programming right you're like programming these incredible strategies because you're like i'm going to drop this guy here and then he'll do this sequence of events and then i'll drop this guy there and there's also a chess element or a boxing element where you're like if i do this i know my opponent is going to respond like that and i can anticipate that and get out in front of it with this and it's very

the mind game is really intense so you play for three minutes against another person or until you destroy all their towers uh it's i i don't know i find this i think this is probably the most

Merlinthat seems like a good good explanation and so the fun comes from learning which combinations and kinds of so you anticipate certain kinds of behaviors and you learn which combinations are

Maxeffective against different kinds of things yeah so as with any sort of deck builder game there's two games there's the game and the meta game the game is the little tactical decisions you make in any given match against a player and then there's the meta game which is you try to understand And in the ecosystem of this game, all the millions of people playing it, what is the right deck for me to build to beat most players? How do I have the right count? You have to know what are most people going to throw at me, how do I counter it, and how do I win? So there's the metagame of building your deck, and then there's the microgame of the game game of playing your guys on the field.

And where a lot of these games fall apart for me, so Hearthstone Magic, is like I really enjoy the metagame. I think that's so smart and compelling, but I find them deeply boring to play. Like, I burnt out so hard on Hearthstone. I think it's so fucking boring to play Magic the Gathering or Hearthstone. I just do not find the gameplay to be compelling. I don't think you have decisions that are that interesting. Clash Royale, the exact opposite. That game is so fucking fun and juicy to play. It just feels great. I love playing it.

AlexIf you're listening to this and you are very confused, one of my favorite things about this game is, well, actually, what got me into it is I'm a big fan of tower defense games, which are typically like you have a thing that you somehow have to defend with whatever if it's like weapons or little soldiers uh there was a game called field runners that was like one of the first ios games that was just so good and and it they usually have like really simple mechanics um and so if you're into that this is a game for you but also there are different uh arenas in

clash royale which kind of correlate with your would you call it like your skill level max so So you can jump in and play people who don't really know the metagame yet. And as you progress and get to these higher arenas or levels, more cards are accessible. So really, you start off with 10 cards, and everybody has the same card. So the learning curve is the same for everybody. So if you started playing today, it's not like Overwatch or StarCraft or whatever,

where you need to get into Reddit and figure stuff out.

MaxGuys, I think, I'm sorry, I don't want to cut off at all, but I think we should probably send out our secret signal to our Patreon backers, and we can start the calls coming in. We can keep talking. Okay, so are we doing tippy-tail lemon tree? No, no, kilojoules.

AlexOh, kilojoules. Which I need to learn how to spell.

MerlinKilojoules!

Speaker ASo, guys, let's... Wait, no, don't hit it until you hit it. Have you hit it? Oh, I sent.

Merlinfuck me gently god damn it this is not how this works max okay so uh guys i think we should uh

Maxwe're gonna we're gonna light we're gonna open up the phone lines now we're gonna send out our super secret signal um so here's the deal with this uh uh due by friday if you're enjoying the show we actually put out a whole second episode every week it's available only to our patreon backers you can give us your fucking money and get the second episode you go to give us your fucking money.com you sign up for five dollars a month and you get a second episode every week We also are adding a couple of other fun surprises and benefits for people all the time. Lately, we have been experimenting in the after show with having people call in and tell us about their experiences doing the challenge.

And this week, we asked people to play Clash Royale with us and give us a call in and tell us about their experience with the game. So you may see on Twitter that while we're recording, we tweet out our special code word, and that's out. and maybe we'll take a couple calls from listeners as we go.

All right. Anything else we want? Before we get the listeners on, did anyone else have any thoughts on Clash Royale? Well, you and Alex can play and I can spectate.

AlexOh, interesting. Oh, I have a really embarrassing deck, but maybe...

MerlinI don't even know what I have. All I know is I keep dragging people until I'm dead. That's been a good strategy so far. All right, I'm opening. Yeah. I've never... Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. I don't understand how Pokemon works. I don't understand how Magic the Gathering works. I played D&D up until about 1983, and I have not played a game since then. I played Atari. I played Atari. I have a Wii. Just so you know, when you guys say things like, oh, it's like this, it's like that, I don't even understand how Pokemon works. I assume it's like marbles, but with electric boys, and then you steal other people's cards.

MaxI mean, as with anything, like a new band or an art or whatever, there's like a learning curve and it's not fun

Merlinuntil you get over the learning curve. I'm not complaining. I'm just saying like I'm not trying to be all Marco on this. Is that something I have to have a PC to understand? Like I honestly this is actually completely baffling to me.

AlexI click on these icons. I don't know what they are. So are you in the app right now?

MaxYou and Alex set up a game. I'm going to bring a caller on. Hello. Hi. Who's calling? Hello. Hi. Hello. My name is Nick.

Speaker BI'm from Portland. I'm currently in Philadelphia.

MaxHi Nick from Portland. Currently in Philadelphia. Wait a minute. Are you in Philadelphia for PAX Unplugged, where I will be when this episode comes out? Yeah. Oh, I'll see you there. Yeah.

Speaker BI'll see you on Saturday night.

AlexOh, yeah.

Speaker BProbably.

AlexWait, wait, wait. What's Saturday night? What's the cool thing I'm missing?

MaxYeah, I actually don't know either.

AlexAll right. Never mind.

MaxIs it a Saturday night? Well, Max is in two panels. Uh-oh. They're not at the same time, are they? No. They're right after each other, but you know. And what are they? I mean, I obviously know what they are, but could you say for our listeners?

Speaker BWell, yeah. So the first one is 404ing it, breaking down the Internet. And the second one is Celebrity Secret Hitler.

MaxOh, very fun. Those are going to be good. Celebrity Secret Hitler is going to be very good this year. Let me ask you this. Have you been to Philly before?

Speaker BI have not.

MaxOkay. Here's what you're going to do today. Do you have time today? Are you getting into the city and all that today?

Speaker BOh, yeah.

MaxHere's what you're going to do. You're going to go to Reading Terminal Market. You're going to go to... Do you have a pen? Yep. Okay, you're going to go to Reading Terminal Market. You're going to find D-N-I-C-S. I think it's spelled D-E, D-N-I-C-S.

MerlinIs that D-N-I-C-S or original D-N-I-C-S?

MaxNo, it's D-I-N-I-C.

Speaker BD-I-N-I-C?

MaxYeah. And you're going to get the original pork sandwich with broccoli, Rob.

Speaker BOriginal pork sandwich with broccoli?

MaxThis is the, it may be the best sandwich I've ever had in my life.

Speaker BAll right. I look forward to it.

MaxIt's an unbelievable, it's an unbelievable sandwich. It's a perfect, perfect food. All right. Sweet. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. All right. Now, did you do the challenge this week? Did you play Clash Royale? I did. Have you played it? Had you played it before?

Speaker BI had not. I was familiar with, like, Clash of Clans and all that in college and, like, absolutely loathed the format of most mobile games. And this one I actually really enjoyed, surprisingly.

And probably my biggest frustration was how pay-to-win it is. But at the same time, the time gates were not terrible.

And the pay-to-win aspect was cheap. And I totally caved and spent like $7 so far. But I'm like top three in the fan clan right now. and been enjoying it.

MaxWhoa, there's a fan clan?

Speaker BYes.

MaxShout out to the Powder Nation on Clash of Clans. Or no, what is it? Clash Royale. Very cool. Now, I'm curious about this. So you mentioned the time gate. So this is like a really sleazy thing that free-to-play games do where they're basically like, you can't, there's a timer ticking down and you can't plant more soybeans until the timer is done. And it basically prohibits you from playing until you either buy coins to speed it up or wait. and so Clash Royale does have a time gate in that every time you play, if you win, you get a chest,

and the chests take hours to unlock, and you can either pay to speed them up, or you can just wait for them to unlock.

Speaker AHowever, what I like about it is... And if you don't unlock them, you will get notifications on your phone

Merlinwhile you're trying to put your daughter to bed, reminding you that there's a chest somewhere that you have not dealt with on your phone.

Speaker AYou don't turn the notifications off?

MerlinWell, I want the full experience of the game. If I'm going to be screwed, I really want to know when it's happening.

MaxI mean, if you leave those notifications on, Merlin, Someone's getting fucked, and it's not going to be the app.

MerlinOh, no, this is going to be, before we're done with the members episode, this is going to be off my everything. It'll be off in no time, believe me. Completely eradicated. I'm going to burn this entire thing with fire once we're done.

MaxIt's a fun game.

MerlinIt's got a pay-to-play aspect, too.

MaxBut I do like that the time gate in Clash Royale, it doesn't stop you from playing. You don't earn a new chest if you win, but you can just keep playing, which is great because sometimes I take a shit for two hours and play 300 games.

MerlinExactly. Is that 40 games? Is my math right on that, Alex? Is that he plays 40 games while he poops for two hours?

AlexThat seems all right.

MerlinI mean, if you account for stopping and you get wiped until you bleed, 36 games. How's it going? How's Philadelphia?

MaxAre you glad you called in? All right. Well, listen, when this episode goes out on Friday, any members of the Powder Nation that want to do a little meetup at PAX Unplugged, hit me up on Twitter and maybe we can go meet up for coffee or something one morning while I'm in town. I'd love to say hi to all our Philly fanatics out there.

AlexOh.

MaxAw.

AlexWe're not going to let any of you. Thanks for calling in. Nope.

MaxThanks for calling in. Thanks for calling in. Thanks for doing the challenge.

Speaker AMeron, you're going to want to install this app immediately? Me?

MerlinOh, yeah. No, no. What I do in the morning is I turn on all of my devices. I update everything. I check for updates. As soon as I get home, I'm going to go home. I'll probably eat some ham. And then I'll delete everything.

Speaker AAll of it. Just gone. If you're not playing little free-to-play mobile games, what do you do when you take a shit? What do I do when I take a shit?

MerlinI don't shit as much as I probably should. When I do, I will sometimes read something. One problem is that I'm a very, very efficient shitter. And I have a lot of purposefulness and focus. I'm just, yeah. And there's no stress to it at all. I make perfect poo very quickly, and I wash my hands, and I'm off and out in less than two minutes. You're an efficient shitter. It's really a gift. Well, I eat a lot of protein. I don't bog myself down with a lot of carbohydrates.

That's my time. I know. I know. See, now, for me, that's the shower. Now, when I'm in the shower, that's when I listen to a podcast. I'll listen to a John Dickerson. Yeah.

Speaker AI've built a whole little civilization in the shower for myself.

MaxI've got my shower notepad and my shower pen, and I do the Aquanotes brand shower notepad. I've got a special speaker. You're in there making a salad like Kramer. I've got a special speaker, a special Bluetooth speaker in the shower that has a little button I can press to activate Siri. So if I think of something, I need to interact with my phone or whatever, I can press the little button and be like, Siri, remind me to eat at Danix when I'm in Philly. Right.

AlexWhen I was, I got a story that's better than a Tesla. Okay. When I was younger, I just, my parents, it's not that they discouraged reading. They're just like, hmm, that kid does a lot of sitting around, much like I do as an adult. But they thought that I had a stomach problem because I would spend a lot of time in the bathroom. But what I would do is just hide a book underneath the sink and then just sit in the corner of the bathroom.

MerlinI am so perplexed. Why did they not, did they want you to go outside and play soccer or something? Why would they not want you to read?

AlexNo, it was like, man, you really should go outside in the summer. But it's the suburbs. It's hot. And we had a patio that slightly tilted so you would fall down on your Razor scooter. I had a tough childhood.

MerlinI have so many updates on the gift your family sent.

Speaker AShall I save it for the after show?

AlexSure, sure. Do we have another caller, Max?

Speaker AYeah, yeah. We have tons of callers. Should we talk to someone else? Yeah, go.

MaxCall. Call. Call. Call. Hello. You're on with Dubai Friday. It's Alex and Merlin in the morning. Who's calling? Hello. Who's calling? Hey, how's it going? Hey, it's great. Who's calling? Who is this? This is Kellen calling in from Indianapolis. Hey, Kellen from Indianapolis.

AlexOh, how do you like living in Indy?

MaxIt's cheap. It's cheap.

AlexThat is correct, sir. I'm not going to say anything else.

MaxKellen, you ever go to Harry and Izzy's?

AlexOh, my God.

MaxHere's what you do. You know, you ever go to St. Elmo's or Harry and Izzy's? you get that shrimp cocktail?

AlexKellen, get a pencil.

Speaker BYeah, that shrimp cocktail is pretty good. It's like $45. Yeah, it's like $45 for a shrimp cocktail, which is crazy.

MaxI think it's a little cheaper at Harry and Izzy's. It's the same cocktail sauce. You're 70.

Speaker AMax is 70. Why? I'm proud of myself that I know a little food item.

MerlinListen, I'm making small talk. Before we get to your question, I'd like to talk about food I ate once.

Speaker AThe collars.

MerlinI remember.

MaxThe callers, they're calling in. They want to have a personal interaction.

MerlinThey want to know what you ate one time. Wow, thank you for giving us your book.

MaxThe callers, they want to call in. They want to have a personal interaction with the host. Here's what you're going to do. Listen, I'm making small talk with them. I'm meeting them halfway here.

AlexSo, Kellen, would you describe your town? Hey, Kellen, what's your favorite movie?

MerlinDon't overthink it. Don't overthink it. Just say it. What is it?

Speaker BThat's a hard question for me. I lived a weird childhood where I wasn't allowed to watch movies.

AlexDon't give the cool guy answer. Give the real answer. What's your favorite movie?

Speaker BI don't know. Mulan is the first thing that comes to mind.

MerlinOh, nice.

Speaker BGood answer.

MerlinLet's get down to business. That's such a good movie. And it upset Indiana and Mike Pence. So nothing wrong with that. You know, he was very upset by Mulan. Did you ever read that article? Yeah, he's not very happy about it. No, he's not very happy about Mulan at all. Mother.

MaxNow, did you do the challenge this week? Did you play the Clash Royale?

Speaker BI did, actually. And I was not expecting to enjoy it at all. I have never enjoyed a mobile game before. Also, I don't even play normal video games, sheltered, whatever.

AlexThis is insane.

Speaker BBut I really enjoyed it, and yeah.

MaxThat's great. I feel so vindicated when people like something that I like on the podcast. It's like... You're like a real boy. Yeah, I feel like I won something. Now, Kellan, do you ever go to Shapiro's Deli?

Speaker BOh, my God. Yeah, they have good corned beef.

MaxHell yeah, hell yeah. Hell yeah. That's one of the great Jewish delis in the country. Now, I'm a big fan of the pastrami as well.

AlexNow, Kellan, have you ever been to the Steak and Shake in Indianapolis?

Speaker BYeah, yeah.

AlexHave you ever been to the TJ Maxx? How about that Panera? They're all great. Whatever.

Speaker AWe all know places in Indianapolis. Lots of good places to buy a newspaper.

MaxShapiro's is really good, though. That's my pick of the week. What is that one? If you're in Indianapolis, you go to Shapiro's.

MerlinIt's quite good. I've had it before. You ever go to that mall with the good seating?

AlexGet in there.

MerlinIt's real comfortable.

AlexIndianapolis is like a combination of one giant strip mall, Harry and Izzy's, and then beautiful parks.

MaxIt's a convention town. Like the entire economy is just based on having conventions for things, which are mostly sports. And it's crazy. Like any sort of like corporate expense account restaurant chain is within, is like just in the, it's like all clustered around the convention center there. Like you've got, you've got fucking Dick's Last Resort and, and, and Benihana's and everything. It's all right there.

AlexI think there's a Champs.

MaxIt's great. It's all right there.

Speaker BWe very into Hooters.

MaxYep.

AlexI'm always really embarrassed. About once a year, we go to Indianapolis for Gen Con, and I'm always really embarrassed to send over my receipts because they're all sports bars or steak and shake, and here's the 50 energy drinks I bought at TJ Maxx. Kellen, okay, so actual, I'm really interested in that you liked this game, and you not only don't play mobile games, but no video games. What made you like this?

Speaker BWell, I like playing board games, so it felt a lot like a video game.

AlexInteresting.

MaxI really like the, like I mentioned this earlier, but it has like a real chess-like element to me of like you have this real one-on-one, like you're trying to anticipate their actions and get in front of them and has a lot of like economy management. It really does have a sort of a systems thinking like board game-y feel to me.

Speaker BYeah, definitely.

MaxIs this the first Dubai Friday challenge that you've done alongside the hosts?

Speaker BI feel like I've done one before, but I don't remember what it was. My brother is also my roommate, and he's also a big fan.

MaxOh.

AlexOh, thank you for your money.

MaxThank you for giving us your fucking money. Thank you so much. It would have been really easy for you and your brother to pirate our RSS feed, and you save that money up, you get a shrimp cocktail at Harry and Izzy's, but I appreciate that you both subscribed. That's very nice. well come say hi to Alex and I next year at Gen Con we're usually in town every year and when is that in July

Alexyou can find me at Steak and Shake around 2am

Maxboy that Steak and Shake that Steak and Shake gets really overrun by the nerds you try and get out of the convention center and get away from it and there's like a fucking Darth Vader trying to like order a hamburger with no meat in it or something like that in front of you

Speaker Ain line alright thanks Colin Isn't that nice people calling in? It is nice. I like the energy of it.

AlexWait, okay. So on air, I do want to play Merlin in Clash Royale. I'm setting my screen to record.

MaxOkay. So we'll post a link to this video in the show notes. So Merlin, boot the app up. I'll take a call. I'll take a call. We'll talk about food while you guys are setting this up. Hello, you're on with Max in the morning. Do it by Friday. Challenge yourself. Challenge your friends. Hello, who's this?

Speaker Bthis is Andrew

Maxhi Andrew

Speaker Bwhere are you calling from Columbus, Ohio

MaxColumbus, Ohio I don't even know what kind of food they have there a rest stop on the highway I think that's the only place I've eaten in Ohio now did you play Clash Royale Alex and Merlin are just setting up a game together

AlexMerlin I'm waiting for a friendly battle from you

Speaker Aoh she's looking for a 1v1 battle close your challenge first closing my challenge god this is fun I can see why you guys love this hey spectate

AlexI'm going to commentate.

MaxI'm going to commentate.

AlexGreat, great.

MaxOkay, so we've got Merlin on the top. Now, Merlin, did you use your random name generator to come up with this name, Torsey? Interesting. All right, Merlin's on the top. He's sending a knight down the right channel, and we've got a strong counter push from Alex. She's got a witch advancing up that right channel. Merlin sent a bomber skeleton.

AlexYou're just going to keep throwing stuff on the main tower.

MaxMerlin sent a bomber skeleton right at the tower with no protection. It got killed immediately. Yep, yep. And then he sent arrows at the main tower. Merlin's activated the main tower.

MerlinI don't know what a Pekka does.

MaxOh, Alex has a minion horde. Tower down on the right channel, and she's got a rushing knight right into the king tower. Here comes the hog. This is going to be ugly.

MerlinOh, my God. This is funny, guys. I can see why you like this.

Speaker AOkay. Merlin, that was a very bad game. I'm happy you beat Torsey, bitch. Oh, poor Torsey. Torsey's down. Torsey's down.

AlexOh.

MerlinAll right. I want to play Alex. Poor Torsey.

AlexNo, Max, you're going to kill me. I'm still... I want to play Alex. I don't want to play Alex. 1v1 battle. Refusted.

MaxAll right, Merlin, you're going to hit spectate, and then you can commentate on it. You can commentate on what's going on.

AlexOh, spectate. I'm like 500. Spectate. See, now you know my deck that I'm playing. Fuck. Oh, God.

MerlinOkay, I'm spectating. I'm still here, guys.

AlexYou know what? You know what? Calm down.

MerlinCalm down, buddy. There's a river, and it's like Missile Command with white guys, and now there's nines running around,

Speaker Aand somebody's shooting arrows and no one knows why. Wow, I really baited that fireball, huh?

AlexOh, God damn it.

Speaker AYou're just dropping that fireball right down on my tower. There's lots of question marks.

MerlinAnd now the bars are moving. Sevens. Here comes sevens. Sevens are attacking with their bugles or megaphones. And they don't like that guy on the left. He's got a 2305 on his bar. Uh-oh. Look out. Here comes the flying nines and a big four boy. Here comes big four boy. Big four boy's angry. 2534 shoots a cone at him. We're not sure why.

AlexI've already lost this. I'm already done. Oh, no. there's a spinning crown and that went to the other side. I think we're trading.

Speaker AI think we're trading towers, but I've got your man. He's got a beer keg and he's shooting tennis balls at the nines.

MerlinAnd now the seven boys got their megaphones again.

AlexThat was ugly. That was brutal. That was ugly. You let my three musketeers right in there. Yeah.

MaxWe're going to stop those at all.

AlexLady tears just got right.

Speaker AThat's fun.

AlexI want, I want Max to play Merlin now. Why? I don't know. Okay. Sure. Why not?

MaxThat's fun. All right. All right, Alex, you're going to have to commentate.

AlexI will, I will.

MaxDo we have any questions? A caller from Ohio, I already forgot your name. I'm sorry.

Speaker BAll right, I'm just listening. I'm Andrew.

MaxHi, Andrew. Hi, Andrew. Did you play the game?

Speaker BI did, I did. All right. What did you think? Tell us what you thought. It was crazy addictive.

AlexOh, good.

Speaker BIt's like they've got it down to a science now of how to make it the most addicting game of all time.

AlexDo you play video games typically?

Speaker BYeah, I got a PlayStation. I play a little bit. I don't consider myself much of a gamer, but it was a lot of fun.

AlexAndrew, are you in our clan or are you in the Powder Nation clan? I'm in IAP Boys.

Speaker BYeah, I'm in the Powder Nation clan.

AlexOh, okay.

MaxNow, I'm not in the Powder Nation clan, but what's going on in there? How many members? How many clan trophies? Who's the best?

Speaker BOh, goodness. You're asking me too many questions I don't know the answer to. There's like 30-some people in there, I think.

MaxOh, jeez. That's pretty good, actually.

Speaker BThey're generous people. They've been giving me my cards and stuff.

Speaker AOh, that's nice. All right. Thank you, Ohio caller, whose name I forgot. Andrew? I want to say Andrew. Andrew. It could be Andrew. Andrew, thank you so much for calling in. Thank you for calling. Andrew, you have a lovely city. Torcy loves you. Thanks, guys.

MaxThank you. Bye. All right. Let's get one more. We'll get one more caller. We've got to wrap this thing up.

Speaker AI'm going to hit the jug soon.

MaxAll right.

Speaker ALet's see.

MaxOh, Christ.

AlexWe do have an after show.

MaxYou have a perfect activity to do while you hit that jug. Yeah. All right. Hello. You're on Dubai Friday. Challenge your friends. Challenge yourself. Do it by Friday.

Speaker BHello.

MaxHello. Hi again.

Speaker BHi.

MaxHi.

Speaker BYeah. No, I'm listening to you guys for like five minutes, I think. I've been listening. Apparently, I was on already. My name's Lucas. I live in SF, but I'm from Brazil.

MerlinSorry, I'm just using the jug, so I'm going to mute for a minute.

MaxWait, Merlin, you're peeing right now?

AlexHe's muted. No, not while we're recording, no. No, no.

Speaker BHe would never do that. Yeah, so I've played it before. I was actually in the IAP Boys for maybe a day, but I was kicked out because I was not a good player, basically. And my game has been Clash of Clans for a while now because you can automate it and use a bot to win the games for you and you can just play it as a farmer simulator. Yeah. That's basically what I've been doing for maybe two, three years now.

AlexThat seems boring. Why don't you get on like Stardew Valley?

Speaker BNo, but I play other games and this is just like on the background and giving me money so that I can build whatever I want. It's dumb. It's just so that I don't need to play it because it's annoying to play. I prefer playing real games like Mario.

AlexSo really you just came on to trash our favorite video game. Thank you.

Speaker BNo, but this is Clash of Clans, not Clash Royale. Quest for All is the whole other thing. And I'm not good at it.

Speaker AAll right. Thank you for calling. Thank you for calling. Jesus, I'm winded. All right. Let's take a little break. We'll regroup.

MaxWe've got to do a real fun after show for people. A lot of energy. A lot of laughs. The fun continues on the after show. You go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com. You're going to get that second episode. We're going to regroup. It's going to be really funny.

Alex, is there something you wanted me to talk about in the after show?

AlexOh, I want to know how you got to last episode.

MaxOh, yeah. I've been walking to work a lot. We can talk about that. And then, yeah, yeah. And so I'll explain why I'm walking to work. And then, oh, and then we pick our challenge. We got to pick our challenge.

AlexI've thought about this like every day since last week. All right.

MerlinBye. Also, presidents, I'll report back on the presents that Alex and her family sent to my daughter very sweetly.

MaxAll right. All right. Do we actually want to take a pee break?

MerlinOh, I just peed. I got to empty the jug. I've got a full jug now.

Speaker AThis is so upsetting. Do you really pee into a jug while you're recording podcasts? No, I'm a grown man. Max, why would I do that?

AlexOh, my God. You're doing a bit, but it's very upsetting if you do that.

Speaker ANo, I would never do that. Max, don't worry.

AlexDoes your daughter come in?

Speaker AI can't tell if this is a bit or not. No, no. I'm just kidding. Oh, my God. I've been in that office. Do you want to hear a slosh around? Yes. Oh, my God. Give it a little slosh.

AlexNo, no, no.

Speaker AAll right, I'm going to go pee like an adult. It usually makes more noise, except it's full.

MaxOh, my God. Oh, my God. That's our ending.

51. Soup from a Ball of Light

Show notes

Transcript

51. Soup from a Ball of Light

Show notes

Transcript

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