73. Farmville for War

AlexThis is Do Buy Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, do something with plants.

Speaker AHi Merlin.

MaxHey, good morning everybody.

Speaker ADo it by Friday. Challenge your friends.

MaxChallenge. Challenge. so i i ride my skateboard and i was taking my skateboard to work and um uh every day there's like huge construction project on my uh happening on my street that's all ripped apart and every morning now i take my skateboard by the construction guys and they yell something they yell out to me they don't yell like they don't yell like hey what is that thing or uh they don't say like oh hey you look cool or like cat call me or anything what they yell out is how much does that thing cost every time what every time why is that why is that people's first instinct to say hey what does

that thing cost like we've never met before what do you mean what does it cost because they're like

Alexoh what what what is this white dumb boy spending on the skateboard i get the same thing i mean i

Merlinride it every day and sometimes little kids are real into it and i'll like talk to them about it and stuff but most of the time somebody you get kind of one quarter of a that's cool that very quickly segues into how much did that cost which it's just so unusual to see a stranger on the

Alexstreet and ask them how much they spent on something actually i i did not that i disagree but when people in the office come in and comment on my scoot scoot they're like how much did it cost how much did it cost i'm like you can google this like you don't need to i should say that i'm

Maxgonna say that more often to strangers you should do you think it's do you think that maybe they're doing an equation in their head where they're like am i is this what they're they're like i'm trying to decide if I like this thing or not and first I want to know if it's attainable for me to have well yes kind of but it's also but there's that possibility like that's kind of cool you go

Merlinhmm now now if you said to them it costs 25 they would go wow that's pretty cool maybe my kid my nephew jeremy might like that or you go it was five thousand dollars that's you know what I'm Mr. Sink was $5,000.

MaxYeah, yeah. Like the guy in the $5,000 scoot scoot would stop to talk to you on the street.

AlexWith torn jeans and a beanie.

MerlinOh, I got segue troubles. Oh, no. Yeah, I wanted to go faster, and I've been envying yours, the one you guys got. But I went and looked at it, and I think mine's better just because of the knee. uh, turny thing, your knee turny thing doesn't go up very high.

AlexOh,

Merlininteresting. But, so I think I'm going to stick with my, but here's my situation. Since December, I've had a slow leak in the left tire.

AlexOh,

Merlinthat requires adding air about once a week.

Speaker Ayou got to buy a new scoot scoot. Well, see, I've thought about it.

MerlinI've really thought about it. It's like, you can empty the ashtrays. You get a new Cadillac. $5,000.

AlexI've sent something to you, Merlin. Um, you know, just, just, uh, not that they,

Maxokay, So what is this? This is an Indiegogo campaign for the Lumo Mini Transporter meets Robo Sidekick. I get an Instagram ad for this like three times a day.

AlexSo do I.

MaxIt's working. No, I will too.

AlexIt's working.

MaxI got an Instagram ad for this so often that I thought maybe at first that it was like a knockoff thing, that it was like one of those like free watches like the dropshippers sell.

Speaker ARight. I love that story.

AlexI don't understand. It feels weird that they didn't go to Kickstarter. I don't know.

MerlinSo hang on. Okay, so the owner is Segway Robotics. So this is a legit.

MaxYeah, this is the real deal. It's like a new model of the scooter.

MerlinAnd that's an interesting idea. And the robot part of it is.

MaxThe robot part is that it's got a little LCD screen on top. So when it follows you around, the screen sort of rotates so that it's like perpendicular with the wheels. And it has little eyes animated on it. And it follows you around like a little eave. But the problem is...

MerlinIt looks a little bit like, yeah, you know how people say Nintendo Switch looks like a robot or a puppy? It has that Nintendo Switch kind of feeling to it.

MaxYes. But the problem is when you get on it, the screen rotates so that it is vertical, and it goes in between your thighs, and you crush it in between your thighs like the lady from Goldeneye.

AlexOh, so really you're saying it's sexist because it doesn't have a thigh gap. Okay, either that wasn't funny, or neither of you know it. Do you not know what a thigh gap is?

Speaker ADo it again.

AlexSo you need a thigh gap for this one. Oh, God.

MaxGod damn it. Oh, Lady Between My Legs. No, it doesn't. That's like when you ride the tube. Yeah, like in GoldenEye. Mind the thigh gap.

MerlinDon't play a job. It's not fair. Well, okay, let's go to our senior robot correspondent for this. Alex, we're going to be live on the show floor. What's your feeling about the Lumo? You are someone who I'm given to believe enjoys the idea of robots. Only a little. How about the Lumo?

AlexOnly a little bit. Well, it's like all products that are like, we have Alexa integration. And it doesn't really have Alexa integration. But it's kind of cute. And it's only a little bit more expensive than the regular Scoot Scoot. And I just, I mean, it's not. Is it like $500 more?

Oh, you're right. How much does that thing cost?

Speaker AIt's $5,500. You're correct. I cost $5,500. I love you. I have tiny arms. Does this appeal to you, Alex? It's so fucking cute. I don't want to talk about the cost of people that I just met on the street.

MaxI can teach you mathematics.

Speaker AIt's Passover.

MaxMy voice kind of fell apart there at the end.

Speaker AYou wrote it. You wrote it out. It speaks a kind of robot fake Yiddish. I got spookus in my schnittle. Oi, the levels of the boykin in my schminken.

I think two of those were real words. Semitic bot loves me.

AlexMerlin, do you have any front matter or follow-up? I would know this if we had a doc.

MerlinI feel so bad that I don't, I scoured everything. You guys, I love doing this program, and I prepare for this show, and I did not find much good stuff this week that hasn't already been covered somewhere.

MaxWell, that's the – I mean, I really feel like the comedic political landscape, you know, it's like – you know what it reminds me of? It's like one of those remote islands where when the pirates came, they would drop off their pigs, and at first the pigs would multiply because it was nothing but just fields and grass. You would have a population explosion, right? It was like when we started Dubai Friday, we started like the week before the election, right?

And it was nothing but green pastures of depressing comedic news for us to read about Trump's paunch. And then, you know, what happens? Eventually, if you have unlimited grass, the hogs start to grow and multiply.

MerlinYou get a coyotes and rabbits type situation. That's right. Yeah, now the grass has been colonized.

Speaker AOh, you're right. You're so right.

MerlinIt's not funny. I mean, it's not funny.

MaxAnd there's a lot of hogs living on that ecosystem now.

MerlinDid you hear the problematic program we're not supposed to like? Did you hear the Kurt Eichenwald bit with the dummy? I thought it was very funny. Oh, my God. He's so good. I wish they'd get him on a better connection. They've got to get him off his cell phone. That's got to stop. He did a really good Kurt Eichenwald. We won't link to it because the show's problematic.

MaxNo, we don't like it anymore. It's not only that it's problematic. It's also that we don't like it. And in fact, I never thought it was funny.

MerlinOh, that's so funny. I remember telling you that you shouldn't like it because I didn't like it first.

MaxRight.

MerlinBecause I'd heard it and I said, I don't like this show. This show is probably...

MaxWell, that whole time we were talking about it, though, I never... See, that's the thing is I'm actually so woke that I never thought it was... I retroactively never thought that it was funny.

MerlinYou don't see color.

MaxNo.

MerlinHuh. You know who loves it when you say that is black people.

AlexYep. Yep. You don't see color. Backing up. Backing up. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

MerlinThis guy over here. I got no soup. I heard you bought an African-American keyboard, Max. Is that true? Oh, God.

AlexWait, how did you hear that? How did you? Did I?

MerlinYou typed it into the show notes.

MaxPut it in the show notes?

AlexOh, I did. I did last. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I went on.

MaxDid you know we have a dock? There's a dock?

AlexMm-hmm.

MaxWhen they, yeah, Apple released the black keyboard and mouse from the iMac Pro, and they only cost $50 more than the normal keyboard and mouse that I already had that was perfectly functional. and uh so yeah so i i did a little purchase on the apple store and it was available for same day pickup so i just uh drove myself over to that apple store and went and picked it up oh so it's

Merlinlike it's the one that they initially made for the um iMac pro is it like space gray yes oh does it

Alexlook cool oh it looks amazing and you have a black lightning cable is that correct yes i have two

Maxblack lightning cables they each come with a black lightning cable oh it it's a i don't know

Merlinit makes me happy every time i sit down i i always talk about keyboards because i also want to i mean I don't want to cut you off. I also want to hear about that thing Alexandra was trying not to take the sticker off of. I want to know what that was.

AlexDid someone put a video of me or something? Your sleeves rolled up real tight. I don't like when sticky things are on the objects I own. That doesn't seem as weird as paying $50 more for a keyboard with a different color.

MerlinI don't like the whole process of receiving something. I guess I get why. okay so you receive like a uh a medium expensive like consumer device and it's got all this is very true with all the amazon products you get these plastic i guess it's to prevent dents and dings but you got to peel off all this stuff i got a new set of headphones and i had to peel all that off and then i realized i still had a piece i hadn't peeled off and i feel like a rube i i

Maxheard uh i heard i'd uh i don't remember where i might have heard this from a from a professor or something that I had, but there's a kind of fun materialist or post-Marxist reading of that, which is there was some philosopher who wrote about the soccer ball. And so when you buy a soccer ball, it comes in a plastic packaging. And he was thinking about that. It was driving him crazy because he's like, you buy this ball, and it's a thing that you kick through the dirt. So why would it come in a plastic sheath? And the idea is that people are so – they have so much class anxiety,

and they're so alienated from the means of production. It's so uncomfortable to think about the people that made that keyboard or the people who made that soccer ball that the plastic packaging, the sticker that you peel off the face of the iPhone. It's a symbolic birth as though it's coming into the world at the moment that you lay your fingers on it. And it absolves you of any any obligation to think about who might have touched it before or whose fingerprints were on it before who made it or the the the child labor or whatever that went into it.

MerlinIt's kind of an updated version of the – they don't do this so much anymore. But it used to be when you go into a hotel room, they would have this superfluous paper sash across the commode to prove that nobody had pooped in it ever. Or my favorite, of course, when someone takes the time to fold your toilet paper into a little arrow. Oh, yeah.

AlexThat's the way of saying definitely no one has touched here. No one's touched this before. No, no. This is a totally new role. Yeah.

MaxNow three people have touched it. I know.

Speaker AI go through my mind the last place we stayed had the phone the phone the phone and the cord all neatly and I was like oh man that's just oh I love that

Maxmy brain doesn't need to go like who talks on the toilet I love that bathroom I love that bathroom phone I'll make a lot of calls I'll call up Alex I'll call up Alex we're at a convention and there's a phone in that bathroom I'll call up Alex Alex give me a report on the booth I'm taking a shit

Alexyou can call down

Speaker Athe maintenance Let's be a plumber.

MaxYeah, listen, you're going to have a problem pretty soon. Doug, Doug, Doug, Doug, Doug, Doug. Follow-up. This is from Boing Boing.

Speaker AI already know.

MaxYou know what I'm going to read? This is some big Dr. Don follow-up. A new study in applied and environmental microbiology conducted microbial surveys of the bathrooms at the University of Connecticut, where the study's lead authors are based. to investigate whether hand dryers were sucking in potentially infectious microbes and then spraying them all over everything, as has been observed in earlier studies. They were. The full cycle goes like this. When you flush a toilet that doesn't have a lid, the turbulence of the flush sends fecal particles into the air,

splatter, where they hover in a miasmic cloud. When the dryers switch on, they pull these particles in through their intake, heat them up, and spray them onto your moist hands. and other moist, hospitable surfaces where their bacteria can thrive.

The new study specifically focuses on lower-powered hand dryers.

MerlinYou might as well just rinse your hands in the toilet.

MaxYeah, you should just shit all over your hands and then go about your day. Go to a signing and shake everyone's hands.

Speaker AIt's a miasma? Is that what it is?

MaxIt's a miasma of fecal particles. Earlier studies on hand dryers were tainted by funding from companies that manufactured paper towels, But as far as I can tell, no such conflict exists here.

AlexI've stopped listening to anything that's happening. This is— I don't like anything.

MerlinI think it's the Dyson Blade. I don't like anything about it. Because first of all, even if that room was free of fecal miasma, there's still the basic problem of you're playing a game of Operation, where you've got to try and put your hands into this thing without touching the sides. Because think about it. We've said this before. Think about what a faucet is. A faucet is the one thing in a bathroom you can be goddamn sure has shit on it. Right?

Speaker AThink about it. It's mental. Like, you could go and lick the handle on the door, and it's probably cleaner than the goddamn faucet. Who touches faucets? People who just shat on their hand. Oh, let me get my hands clean.

MaxYou know where this is really bad is the convention center. Because what happens— You're, like, triggering PTSD from last week. What happens at these—we go to these nerd conventions. Like, we were just at C2E2 all weekend. And what happens at these convention centers is you have a bunch of, I don't know what you call them, large Americans.

Large adult convention goers. Large adult convention goers. And they come into the convention center and they eat a bunch of microwave pizza and corn dogs. And then they go to the bathroom and they shit all over their hands. They shit directly under their hands. Oh, they're hopped up on coffee. And they shit all over their hands. and then they go into the bathroom and they spray, they go into their miasma of fecal particles and they spray the warm spores all over their hands. And then they come out and they get in my signing line

and they shake my hand one after another. So I'm incubating a little Michael Crichton hot zone on my hands. And then guess where the next booth they go to? They go to the Oculus Rift booth and they put eyewear. They strap little rubber things to their eyeballs. Strap it onto their face, get on the good and tight. yeah there was one year at pax i don't know if we talked about this on the show before but there was one year at pax where the oculus rift booth was directly adjacent to the men's room and

Alexeverybody at that convention got pink that's apparently a like an urban myth and i'm like

Maxno it's a hundred i was definitely true it's definitely like i was at pax the year that it happened and i know people who got pink eye from the oculus booth i think i think oculus was like

Alexno no no no no no it's only like 300 people got pink eye not 3 000 but you've left out in a very important fact max that these large convention goers often are in um are costume players or they have a utility kilt on so if they're taking a shit that's definitely all over the floor and

Maxthen they're like hugging people taking oh and they've got those rubber toe shoes on too yes

Alexyes and then they're taking photos with everybody no storm trooper doesn't have shit on them in that convention center it's oh my god and just instead of blood on the helmet it's poop you know what

MaxYou know on Queer Eye where they show the guy how to put the cologne on and they're like, you spray, delay, and walk away. You do a little cloud and you walk through it. That's classic. And you just get the little cologne particles clinging to you. That's what happens when you go into one of those convention center bathrooms. And then you're just going into a miasma of fecal particles. And then you spray, delay, and walk away. And then they just fester all over your body. And you have to come out. They should have one of those decontamination things like in Monsters, Inc.

Merlinthrough a zone like a TSA particle splatter you should have to pass through some kind of a zone like an alien type situation where you know that that person has been

Maxeverybody gets sick at these things and they come home and like oh haha I got the what do they call it the con funk or the con crud I got the con crud it's so cute everyone we all got the con crud at this convention

Alexdid not get sick I'm so proud of myself

MaxI haven't gotten sick in years including the fucking cruise The Jonathan Colton Cruz I went on and I didn't get sick.

AlexThat's bravo.

MaxThat's very impressive. I mean, the things that I do, again, I really feel like this is a huge oversight. We really should have Dr. Don on to get us straight on this. I'd be totally into that. We'll have a follow-up next week from Dr. Don on all the- Maybe he could have as a guest to maybe do a challenge. Oh, my God. Would that be fun?

AlexYou're both avoiding a question, which is what do you do in this situation after you have used a toilet or a urinal?

MaxLet me tell you my, I don't know how this, well, this is going to scale to listeners of the show. This may be kind of useless advice for people. But here's my program. Number one, I don't eat food in the conventions. I don't eat anything. Nothing goes into my mouth except bottled, clean, virginal bottled water. When I'm in the convention center or, wait a minute, or in the immediate vicinity of the convention center. The rotating sushi bar directly across from the Seattle Convention Center, do not eat there during the convention.

Do you understand what I'm saying? Yes. Yes. It's the same thing as eating sushi. This is how Legionnaire's disease happens.

MerlinIt gets into the air conditioning. Think about that. You got open air sushi riding around in a boat. You think that water's clean?

MaxYes. Who cleans the sushi water? You might as well be eating that sushi from the men's room at the BCEC. There is no—do not eat that food. Go half a mile away and then you should be okay. So that's number one. Number two, you've got to practice what is called hot hands, meaning have awareness of after you shake 100 people's hands, your hands are hot. You've got a Michael Crichton hot zone on your hands. Your hands, you can't be picking your nose. Do not put them in your eyeballs. When people touch their eyes, it makes me, I get so uncomfortable.

Do not put your hands, do not eat finger food. Do not eat a lot of hors d'oeuvres with your fingers. Do not eat crudités with your fingers. you must wash your hands before they touch your face or your body your hands are hot and then now this is the part of the advice that I unfortunately do not think will scale to normal people but you need to find your little Shangri-La bathroom okay everyone needs a little Shangri-La bathroom now I know where I can go

within the vicinity of

AlexI'm not going to say

Merlinthe strategy is sensible Like an easy one is go to – if there are multiple floors in the building, go at least two floors away from where everybody else is because they're not going to do that.

MaxYes. Okay. I'll tell you some strategies. If you're in a convention center, a lot of times there's this sort of show floor and then there's another area of the convention center where there's like panel rooms and like meeting rooms and things like that. Those bathrooms will be much cleaner and more well-stocked and you're less likely to have diarrhea directly on the faucet than on the show floor. bathrooms. Also, usually if you're in, if you're around, um, uh, convention center, there's hotels, hotel lobby bathrooms are quite nice. And sometimes hotels have more private areas where they have

good bathrooms too. Anyway, what you want is like a bathroom where it's pretty empty and you can, you can sort of wash your hands and what you do, you got to roll your hands up and you scrub down like a surgeon. Like you get all in there, you do multiple rounds with the soap. It should be abrasive like a whole layer of skin should come off in that sink and then you're looking for a paper towel situation now I will sometimes travel with my own little towels in my backpack and then and then um and then yeah you want to scrub down your hands and then you and then I put my hands

Alexup in front of me like I'm going into surgery no I okay there's a couple things wrong with this you don't know where this have you ever smelled the soap in there it does not smell like regular soap it is like this strange it also doesn't look like regular soap it's like orange it's so bad

Maxand then you don't almost i think almost any soap that comes well let me let me again see this is where we need dr don i think that if it comes out of one of those things that foams do you know i'm

Merlintalking about where it's like a sort of antiseptic like one of those automatic foam making foam

MaxI'm dispensing things like I'm pretty, I have a, I feel like that's doing something.

AlexThat's, that is different. I feel like that's doing something.

MerlinI don't think I'm talking about the old fashioned pearlescent jizz stuff. You hit the little,

Alexhit that thing that comes out. Well,

Merlindon't trust the orange pearlescent jizz.

AlexHere's, I, I, I really like Max's idea of bringing your own towels, but, but the, the pile of like, if, if a place gets really busy, you know how they just pile like paper towels by the sink. So then it gets wet.

MaxI'll cut the deck and I'll go straight to that two of hearts.

MerlinYou take one from the middle. Here's another one. Here's another one. Before you go in, be a pill. Go to one of those disgusting food service areas and grab at least five napkins. Yes.

MaxThat's what I mean about bringing my own. Yes. I also travel. Let me give you one other hot travel tip. I carry in my backpack. I can find these on Amazon. I carry in my backpack a small resealable pouch of Lysol antiseptic wipes. Now, when I sit down on an airplane, I'll bust out a lemon Lysol wipe, and I will go to town on that airplane seat. You got to get the armrest. You get the tray table. You get the whole area. And everyone looks at me like I'm a lunatic. But guess what? I'm not getting sick.

There's nothing filthier than that tray table.

AlexThe great thing about doing the armrest, I always try to get that before the person sits down. And then they're like, is this wet? Is this wet? And hopefully I have already put away the Lysol wipes. But one time I got caught and they're like, did you wipe this down? And I said no. And we didn't talk about some of the flight.

MerlinDugga, dugga, dugga. Follow up. Time Magazine, August 7, 2017. Five of the filthiest places to avoid on airplanes. Number one, airplane tray tables. The potentially grimiest place on an airplane unfolds right into your lap. Your lap, you guys. Alarmingly, a 2015 study by TravelMath that tested samples from hard surfaces and planes found that tray table surfaces had more than eight times the amount of bacteria per square inch than the lavatory flush buttons.

The trays had 2,155 colony-forming units of bacteria per square inch. High amount of bacteria is likely linked to plane cleaning crews not having enough time between flights. Oh, yeah, I'm sure they're super careful when they're cleaning those. Let me put my diaper baby on here for a minute. That's a good boy.

AlexA friend of mine recently lost her laptop on a plane, and I was like, wait wait wait so your laptop was like open and you know with the new macbook keyboards and it was like yeah yeah i'm i'm trying to get it back i'm like i don't know if you want to like i know

Merlinit's like jerry seinfeld's belt like nope that laptop belongs to the plane now we'll be taking that back uh yeah yeah yeah i mean it's you gotta you gotta make you know game time decisions you're probably gonna be fine but at the same time you may not be you know don't touch the doors on the lavatories always crawl in under the space below so you don't have to actually touch anything that

Alexthat's one thing yep yep oh very important not just for a gross convention place always always always have hand sanitizer on and then completely cover your arm like i i do the um not to toot my own horn but you know what i will oh i didn't get enough of that um but the bathroom right next to like our room at the convention was uh like it was like overrun so they just had a permanent bathroom lady? I don't know. And so I would just steal a bunch of towels

from on top of that after I left.

MerlinBathroom lady, wow.

AlexIs that a no-no? Is that ping pong? I'm sorry.

MerlinI think you could say restroom attendant, but I'm sure her grandchildren would be very happy to know that Neymar is a bathroom lady.

AlexBut you must always basically have like a Polish shower of, I'm allowed to say that. What?

Speaker AA Polish shower? Yeah, you've never heard of that? I thought it was the recipe. Nope, nope.

MaxAlex, I'm ordering some sort of food situation. Do you want anything?

AlexOh, no, because you know what? I've got my RX bar right here.

MerlinWhat flavor? Peanut butter?

AlexYeah, peanut butter. I'm ordering like a juice.

MerlinYou didn't do this challenge?

MaxIs this a bit?

MerlinWhat?

MaxNo, it's my peanut butter bar.

MerlinWe'll have one, too. You guys are both into these RX bars, huh? You got three egg whites, six almonds, four cashews, two dates, no BS. I mean, a date is a kind of plant, right? Alex, have you made your peace with the mouthfeel? Oh, yeah. Okay.

AlexYeah. Because the taste is fine. You know, it's like a treat all day.

MerlinAll I ever get is the chocolate sea salt.

MaxOh, my God. The descriptions of these juices are insane. What? These are very funny. What juices? If apple, beets, carrot, ginger, and lemon, quote, got it on, this would be their love child. And said child would relieve stress, allowing you to live a long, fulfilling life, both in and out of bed.

AlexOkay. Where are you?

MaxI'm ordering a healthy lunch from this juice place, but their juice descriptions are very funny to me. This wacky combo of matcha, almond milk, chua, chlorophyll, and mint keeps you youthful with the boundless energy of a wisecracking, freckle-faced 12-year-old. Oh, my God. This one says, these are insane. This one says, a gorgeous blend of almonds, hazelnut, honey, and sea salt. with its abundance of antioxidants, your skin will look as soft and healthy as a beautiful Asian-American actress slash model.

No. Oh my goodness. What is happening? Am I going insane? Can you see this too, Alex?

AlexWhat is, okay, what's the juice place?

MaxIt's called, you're gonna have to beep this out. It's called the, I don't want to compromise their OPSEC. Blame the juice.

MerlinMeemaw. See, you know what? I was wrong. I thought you were going to talk about the boing boing story about the shower curtain that accommodates electronic devices.

MaxWhoa. Go on. I would love to know about this. Please read that, Merlin. That sounds very relevant to my interests.

MerlinThis is on Boing Boing. It's in the super secret text channel. Clean shower, the clear shower curtain with device pockets called the screen holder. Watch, play with, watch, play with, no Oxford comma. Guys, can we get some Oxford commas in here? Watch, play with, or listen to your phone or tablet in the shower. 100% waterproof. Even use your camera. Oh, hard pass. Features multiple phone and tablet-sized pockets on outside to hold your device. Different height levels for everyone from tall adults to children. Touch interactions from the inside of the shower or bath. Change songs.

Play games. Scroll through the news. You can play games in the shower, you guys.

MaxThat's good. I've theorized.

MerlinMax, give me a use case. Where would you find yourself? You've got a 12-inch iPad in there? Is that what this lady has?

MaxSo now I feel like, for me, this problem has been solved by waterproof Bluetooth speakers. speakers so i have like a i have one called like the ue roll in my shower and it's fun it's great um but back in the day when i i always wanted a way to use my phone in the shower safely

Alexand it didn't exist i answer emails in the shower every single morning on your phone yeah you just

Maxtake it in there with you yeah yeah you do a coffee sound like you're on the leading edge

Merlinhere give me a sense yeah of how much you have deliberately or consciously tested the limits of the water resistance of your Apple devices. I still am scared to touch them even while my hands are up.

AlexWell, this was before. I haven't tried this with the 10X. I don't remember. With the 7, I used to take it underwater all the time. And I took a gamble in the ocean. I feel like they said don't. Wait, hang on.

Speaker AYour actual phone?

AlexYeah, yeah. I really like the ocean. I don't know. You can just leave your phone on the beach? No, this was not for email purposes. This was purely for taking video underwater. So that's a double thing. It worked out really well, and it was fine. I don't know. And then every morning, I answer emails in the shower because I'm a busy business lady. On your phone? Yeah. Why not?

MerlinTake your phone. No, no, no. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to shame you. I mean, you can. It's really bad. No, no, no, no. No, hang on. Hang on. I just want to clarify this because I'm the weirdo. Like I've got a series three watch that I'm scared to get wet. I like make sure my fingers are dry before I touch it. I mean, and I've, I've gone swimming with it. I've done the whole like spitting thing, make it spit out the water. I've done the whole nine. But so you're, you fearlessly, you take your, you got a, well, you got a podcast going on there while you're in there. Yes. You got a podcast going, you're, you're, you're washing your Polish lady body and then you're going to answer some emails with your fingers.

AlexYes. I saw you use, you use voice to text.

MerlinOh, wow.

MaxYou should be a commercial. I saw an article. This is one of the earliest articles I read about intense mobile gaming. It's from 2013 in the New York Times. It's called Master of His Virtual Domain, and it profiles a guy who's considered one of the best Clash of Clans players in the world. His name is-

AlexIt's not even a cool game.

MaxIt's very popular. where his name is... Is that the game we played?

AlexNo, it's not cool.

MaxHis name is George Yao. So basically, to grasp the extent of Mr. Yao's immersion in the game, you have to understand a little more about the strategy of Clash. In order to keep your trophy count high, a premier player has to avoid being attacked by other top contenders. You can do this either by staying constantly online or by the protection of a shield that usually lasts for 12 hours. You automatically get a shield when an attacker destroys 40% of your village or town hall. On weekends, Mr. Yao could inoculate himself against attacks by staying online.

That meant ordering in meals when he ate it all and taking the iPad with him into the bathroom. But come Monday, he needed a shield so he could get to work. So he would rise before dawn and spend hours trying to get the game's server to pit him against other elite players in his clan, who could then attack his village just enough to trigger a shield, which assuming he had timed everything right would last just long enough to get him through the workday without being attacked.

MerlinIt's like Farmville for war?

MaxYes, exactly. Exactly. After a while, it felt like more of a job than anything else, Mr. Yao told me. It really took the fun out of the game. And now here's where it gets good. That's a lot of self-awareness.

Speaker AHere's where it gets good. I gotta be honest, it's not as fun as it used to be. It sounds so stressful.

MaxIt's a hell of an eel. In time, he found another, simpler way to shield himself. When a member of North 44 would quit the game, Mr. Yao would take over his account. Then Mr. Yao would use one of his multiple accounts to attack himself when he needed a shield. In order to pull this off, though, he had to keep all of these other accounts highly ranked, which meant playing as many as five accounts at the same time around the clock. Another wealthy clan member in the United Arab Emirates bought Mr. Yao three iPads to make this feasible. But even then, it was only feasible in the technical sense. At one point, he was bringing five iPads into the shower with him,

each wrapped in an individual plastic bag so that none of his accounts would go inactive.

AlexOh, my God. I'm not going to lie. I'm pretty impressed. This is good. Good job, Mr. Yao. Oh, man. I've sent you guys a purchase that I'm about to make because this is a whole, oh, man. Actually, no. I'm nervous about this. Let's just say that I keep my phone in a way that, like, if Facebook was spying on me, it would not be a problem. Whereas this, oh, I just put a little dingus over the camera. Okay.

MaxBetter make sure that's not a live photo, Alex.

AlexYeah. Okay. It's my cat. Suddenly, my testicles are just on screen. Alex, we're learning something new. Now, what razor? Nice balls.

MerlinThe four gigabytes on this model are... So you should explain to our listeners what we're looking at.

AlexHow about you? Because I just took a big bite of my RX bar.

Speaker AThis is the Asus Chromebook, ruggedized and water-resistant design with 180 degree. That's very well phrased.

MerlinGood job, guys.

Speaker AIntel Celeron 4GB, 16GB EMC, dark blue, comma, silver.

Merlinokay this appears to be a laptop with a screen that can go all the way flat

Maxand it's you own this no i'm about to though why um because it because it's water resistant it's water resistant but not what you can take in the shower well we'll find out what are you gonna do with this you're gonna have a whole laptop in the shower and then i mean you can play overcast through the browser why don't you just take a bath and you put the and you take your your good laptop and you put it on a little shower and you put it on a little bath bench.

AlexI don't have a bath.

MaxYou put your chili. I have a little desk. I have a whole desk set up in my bath. I've got like a beverage and a laptop.

MerlinCan I ask a slightly dark question? Do you ever worry about how you'll be found dead? Oh, I know how I'll be found dead. Okay. All right. Well, Alex, do you? It sounds like you don't.

AlexOh, no, I do. Okay.

MerlinAll right. Because you're going to be a naked Polish lady in a bathtub. Oh, my God.

Maxall right max you first well i know i'm gonna be you're really getting in there i know i'm gonna be found dead which is i had not only did i when i had the bathtub made at my house i had a little secret illegal electrical outlet installed on the side of the bathtub because because the thing is is i you know here's the problem now i'm using the laptop in the bath right but i'm taking a bath for so long it drains laptop battery now what do you do you need an outlet you need an outlet right there now for obvious reasons this is absolutely not up to building code in the city

Merlinof chicago codes have a rule about how i believe about how close an outlet could be well merlin

Maxthe code they don't know what they're doing that's all corrupt i mean it's all written by they're just trying to juice up they're just trying to juice up the bills for the electrician they don't know what they're talking about i know better but so i had a little covert outlet installed behind a secret hatch and it sits flush with the wall and you tap on the wall and those little door swings out and then you have an outlet oh my god and so when the inspector came in to to pass us he wasn't like why is this outlet six inches from the bathtub he was like nothing to see here so that's all i'm gonna be found is just just soaking that's i'll go peacefully just soaking in

the bathtub and then there'll just be a train electrical cord trailing into into the bathtub into the laptop now sometimes i don't and sometimes i don't even now here's the other thing sometimes i don't even have my little desk sometimes i'm just sort of no oh yeah sometimes i'm just sort of leaning the laptop precariously on the side of the bathtub with my hand and i'll and I'll start to drift off because it's right before I go to bed and I'll start to nod off and the laptop will just slowly start to slide into the bathtub and then I'll, I'll wake up and I'll, and I'll fix it. And I'll do that,

you know, eight or nine times. And then eventually I'm like, I should probably go to bed now.

MerlinOh my God. This is like Alex getting hit in the face with the Kindle.

AlexWell, it's waterproof now. So I will say in hotels when occasionally there is a bath, I'm like, Oh, Oh, I get, I get the, the salty. What are they? Epsom, Epsom salt. I don't know. And I,

Maxyour bath salts,

MerlinYou're doing bath salts. Light up some salt family.

AlexOh, I didn't know what bath salts were until last year.

MerlinSo I just sent you a couple links. Look at the second of the two.

AlexI think Max has this, but like an actual bespoke Japanese version, but it looks very nice.

MerlinBut I want to know more about the life of the person who owns the Comfysure Expandable Bamboo Bathtub Caddy Adjustable Wooden Serving Train Organizer for Any Size Bathtub Water Resistant.

MaxI think this is the exact one that I own.

Speaker AIt's very nice.

MaxIt is the exact one that I own.

Speaker AI just enjoyed the lifestyle of this person for a minute.

MaxIs that an entire block of Parmesan cheese?

MerlinThey have a block of what appears to be Parmesan Reggiano cheese, a blush wine, two oranges, an empty coffee cup.

MaxThat wine glass is filled all the way up to the rim like someone who's never had a glass of wine before.

MerlinIt's 100 the right amount.

MaxThey filled it like a glass of water. It's like brimming with wine.

Merlinand they've got what appears to be an iPad mini which they're looking at and they've got a Samsung smartphone with somebody riding a horse propped up plus a nice napkin.

AlexOh, who's zooming in on the picture now? Oh, come on.

MerlinI'm investigating, Alex. I'm investigating.

AlexWhy is the cup empty?

MerlinSo they drank the coffee first.

MaxAnd then if you go into the product shoots, there's a lot of women who look vaguely distressed who are soaking in this bathtub and they're wearing a full bathing suit.

Speaker AShe's got a candle. She's got what she's eating. She's eating like slices of a baked potato. She's got like a baked potato and a giant glass of white wine, some nail polish and a candle.

MaxAnd there's an orchid there.

Speaker AUh-huh. Can I get out now?

MaxKeep relaxing.

Speaker AOh, look at that.

MerlinIt's got a little way. Look at that. You can jam your wine glass. It's got a little divot for you to put your wine glass in so it doesn't tip over.

MaxThat's so nice. Oh, you get a couple glasses of wine. You're relaxing the bath. That wine glass is getting tipped over.

AlexOh, no, it's not going to get tipped over. In the final picture, it has a little, like, oh, what would you say? Yeah, a little protective. Yeah, yeah. You have a regular cup holder, but then there's a little slide over so that the wine glass doesn't tip when you're drunk in the bathtub.

MerlinThe one above that, which Amazon claims is the number one bestseller, is Royal Craftwood Luxury Bathtub Caddy Tray, One or Two Person Bath and Bed Tray, Bonus Free Soap Holder,

MaxNatural Bamboo Color. That's when you get someone else in the bath, you share a whole block of cheese together. Both bath cheese.

Speaker AOr your anime pillow.

MaxDon't you guys hate when you're taking a bath with your bath tray and the construction guy walks the guy and goes, hey, how much does that thing cost? How many times has this happened to you?

Merlinmerlin how are you gonna die uh i don't know i mean i feel like i'm gonna die some way absurd oh absolutely cranking my hog but i think i'm more likely to just fall down somewhere

Maxyou get a little david caradine you don't you don't want that well no you got to make sure

Merlinthat's what the notches in the belt are for um anyways i'll probably die in public um i don't think I'm important enough to be assassinated yet. I think I'll probably just fall down at Walgreens and pop an artery or something. Nice.

Speaker AOh no, my nuts.

MaxThat's a great... That's for sure that's a contender of how I'll die is I'll be in a confusing aisle of the grocery store and I'll have an aneurysm. You just get so upset. What kind of almond butter do I purchase? Sir, these coupons have expired I don't understand the difference between the raspberry jams

Speaker AThey're too similar Is that jelly? Is it jam?

AlexIf anyone would like to make illustrations of this, I wouldn't be I wouldn't be opposed

Speaker AWhy would you encourage death images of you?

Maxwhy would you did you even yeah don't make don't make don't make alex cox snuff our fan

Merlinif you got some ideas about how i'd look dead please go ahead and create those and send them

Maxalong in public here's how i look dead i'm a huge fan alex is this your thing are you trying to get

Alexpeople to make this art have we finally stumbled upon it oh have i found my fetish perhaps oh okay this is very exciting this is a big day are you trying to

Maxare you like this is like there's a great scene in Always Sunny where someone tells Mac that there was like revenge porn posted of them online he's like that is that is awful that is terrible it is so awful I mean which site did this to you I mean because there's so many of them but specifically which one I mean it's just terrible who

Speaker Adid this to you it's on Revenge Hub oh goodness uh well you kind of do like a reverse barbara streisand i have no idea what this means

Merlinokay go on well you know the streisand effect right yeah uh years ago go just google it years ago barbara streisand did something about the streisand effect basically it's a way of saying

Speaker Ayou guys on these mean forums and channels stop paying attention to me

MerlinStreisand effect is a phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely.

AlexOh, it's like the reverse docs. I see. It's a reverse, reverse Streisand.

MerlinAnyway, don't encourage people to show you dead.

AlexYou know what? No, here's what I want. I know how I'm going to die. Hopefully it's not recently, but pretty much every night I go on my scoot-scoot and race around the office, and there's a lot of sharp edges. and I have given people full permission to immediately start laughing about this. Like, everyone, please come to my funeral. Otherwise, my family will be sad. I would like them to think that I have friends. I'm gonna come dressed as a pig.

MerlinI love you.

AlexThey would get so excited. They'd be like, can we keep that bar?

MerlinI tried to find your family's, I'm sorry, I'm interrupting you. I tried to find your family's pig company And is it a pun on Comiskey Park? Is that the idea?

AlexNo, no. That's just the name.

MerlinSo it's just namespace pollution.

MaxMerlin, not every foreign name is a pun on another foreign name. That's so problematic. I don't see polls. Wow. That's so problematic. You know, I'll be honest. I never found Merlin funny.

Speaker AThey watched the recipe.

MaxI was saying this years ago. I never thought Merlin was funny.

MerlinIt's always been problematic. D, so you – okay, so – or for example, like you're – I don't want no spoilers, but let's say for the sake of argument, you are the personal physician to some kind of a guru. And you think somebody's giving you a hug.

MaxOkay, you're the little mini-me. You've got your briefcase full of vials and powders. Yeah, exactly.

MerlinRestore the dictator. Yeah, and then you get a little – oh, what was that?

MaxRestore the OSHA to health.

Merlinbut that could be you Alex except you just you you hit your hip on the corner of a desk and you

Alexget sepsis yeah yeah and then you're out yeah I mean I'd like to go right away no okay so it's like 50 degrees outside today today might be the day I did also ride it in the snow but I fell down and it hurt too much so yeah it was a bad idea

MaxBreaking news live on the podcast. I guess there's more Zuckerberg testimony happening today. Yeah, there's two days of it. Oh, I did not understand that. Okay. Well, so A, number one, he does not have his little booster seat today, because I think because he got made fun of by John Gruber. And then B, breaking news from the hearing. I mean, I know we've all been waiting for some news.

I guess basically his strategy was just to be so boring that no news could come out of this. But there is something interesting that just happened. This is from Twitter. Breaking. Zuckerberg brought a small bottle of juice with him today. He just made a move to open it and shake it up, but he had to put it down before having a sip to answer a question.

MerlinWow.

MaxOh, and now here's an update. That's from 15 minutes ago, but here's one from eight minutes ago. Update. The cap is off the bottle, but I have not seen him take a sip yet.

MerlinOh. Max, question from the floor for the spray pool from the praise pool what kind of juice is it?

MaxI'm going to ask I'm going to reply to this reporter and I'm going to say I wonder if he's trying to get soft Asian skin

MerlinWow, I never thought Alex was funny What kind of juice

Maxare we talking about here? It's by Dustin Volz

Speaker AOh, it's tiny Did you see how little it is? look how tiny it is it's like something you get at soccer practice

Maxwhere do you see Zuckerberg juice

AlexI'm trying to Zuck juice there's nothing

Maxare you searching on Twitter Merlin

Merlinis that real Zuckerberg just sipped from a tiny juice bottle it's so cute oh it's so little he's got a water and a coffee he's a multi beverage man look at that

Alexthere's no way

Maxdo you remember the documentary shit was it Enron's smartest guys in the room I think it was where there was congressional testimony with Skilling was giving testimony. And then as part of a product placement deal, they digitally inserted a Diet Coke can onto the testimony stand.

AlexI did not know that. Alex Skimney wouldn't do that.

MaxI believe he did. Let me look it up. I mean, to be fair, I would do that. Smartest guys in the room. Diet Coke. I believe that they digitally. Yes, they did. Oh, my God.

AlexThat's so funny.

MaxYes, they did. So good. This is from a blog called Ad Rants. Enron, the smartest guys in the room, had a noted Coke product placement he thought was quite odd. During many scenes of Jeffrey Skilling testifying before Congress, they digitally edited a Diet Coke can with the logo prominently facing the camera into the shot. Now, because of how they cropped the scene, the Coke can was almost the size of his head. I watch a lot of C-SPAN, and I don't remember a time when I saw anything other than glasses and pictures of water on the table of those testifying.

Why would Coca-Cola pay good money to have their product next to the bad guy?

AlexYeah, and I also don't remember anything looking strange. Was this just for broadcast, maybe?

MaxI don't know. It's entirely possible. I remember seeing it recently, and it just screamed at me from the screen. It was not a good effect.

MerlinCNN commentators, contemporaneous. Yes, during the Senate hearings, Jeffrey Sillings was testifying most of the time. Yes, I was watching a little bit. Yes, he had that Diet Coke right in front of him. Exactly. Diet Coke must have been really happy. I wonder if he was getting some money for that, to have that advertising.

MaxNow, someone said that was on C-SPAN he had the Diet Coke?

MerlinThis is a CNN transcript from 2002.

MaxOh, so I guess it wasn't added for the documentary. Well, I apologize to Alex Gibney for accusing him of that. I never thought I was funny. I never thought he was funny.

MerlinIt's too many Alex's. It's really confusing. So wait, you got Alex Gibney, Alex Garland. Is there an Alex Bloomberg?

AlexYes, yes, there is.

MerlinOh, shit, dog. Did you watch the TV show?

AlexNo.

MaxI am watching it. No, I can't. Oh, my God. Here's the thing. I like that character. I can't. I like the way they wrote the character of his wife.

AlexAnd changed her name to be more white.

MaxYeah, his uninspired, Luddite nag of a wife who's always like, don't go start a podcast. It's never going to work.

MerlinOh, God. Oh, yeah. By the way, I spent our 401k. That's okay. Follow your dreams. Ba-da-ba-ba-da-ba. Okay. It's not good. I mean, he's charming, but that show is not good.

AlexNo, there's no way. Like, there's no way that Alex Bloomberg knows who I am, but I feel like somehow it would get back to one of my friends at Gimlet how much I hated the show and how much I would make. Here's what would happen. I would get high and just, like, do the thread of all threads of not funny jokes that were just mean about how stupid the show is and how they hate podcasts and it's terrible, and then I would maybe just be done.

MerlinIt's just there's a kind of brutal irony to it, though, of, you know, like, so people like me, like, we're the bad sports, like, like, you know, all these carpetbaggers come in and want to do these dumb things with podcasts. And you're like, oh, yeah, well, yeah, I'm sure these guys really, really love podcasts. I mean, it would be a little bit like you're a motorcycle enthusiast. And so you start Happy Days starring Fonzie. Like, it's like, you know, I don't want to be that particular guy. But Chris Saka was in it. That was fun.

AlexOh, yeah. He's like wearing his shirt.

Maxhave you met him in real life merlin right does he always wear that shirt

Alexno no no this is not me making fun of him like i i am a everyday shirt wearer typically and i just i think that is an interesting choice and i wonder i think it's kind of his bit but yeah

Merlinit's interesting you know they have podcasts that come out almost every two weeks at this point so

Alexthey what i like is they made a somewhat self-aware site that it's is there a new reply all this week.com that always says no.

MerlinUm, yeah. You know, it's fun though. Go to, I had to do this. I didn't want to do manual counting. So I go to Gimlet. I go to about, I go to option command you. And what is the ID tag for an employee?

AlexWhat's option command you?

MerlinOh, in Chrome that gets you the source code.

Speaker AOh, right.

MerlinOkay, so, I mean, this is not an official count, but I went to the source code for their About page, and using the div class equals bio, it's not an ID, it's a class. Which means that's, well, tell me what that means. That means that that is a biography on the page. So, just, I did a quick count, just using CSS, 104 employees, it appears.

104 named employees.

AlexI mean, there's nothing, I don't want to be.

MerlinIt's hard to put out a podcast. You need lots of time.

AlexI don't want to. Producers and. I don't want to yuck on their yuck.

MaxI feel like we're making a lot of fun at Gimlet, but we have a producer working on our podcast. We have two producers working on our podcast. We've got Alex and producer Chris.

MerlinYou know what it is? I'm sore. I'm sore about podcasts. It makes me mad. And this is not envy. It's sadness. It's just I feel like there are a lot of people who've arrived in this space who just don't really fucking care. They want radio they can monetize. And they have all these goofy models about how you can abuse your listeners and your consumers by doing all this nonsense and jazz. I don't think most of these people genuinely love podcasting for what it is. I think they love it for what they think they can turn it into, and that makes me sad. And I don't feel like a karma suck for saying,

all these people starting these terrible apps, they want to go stalk how you're using it. I don't think those people care about the RSS format of podcasts. I think they want a way to monetize something in a way that they can pay back their ridiculously large investment people have made in them.

MaxAnd it makes me sad. Zach Braff had a he did like a like a whole like he gave a talk at a conference a few weeks ago and it it sounded like a like a like the monologue from like a Bond villain or it sounded like it sounded like Ra's al Ghul from the first Batman movie where he was like he was like he was like soon we will we will destroy the MP3 and bring order to this wicked

Speaker Acivilization

Maxlike from the ashes new smart ad aware content targeting will arise and finally we will have you to die yeah You were merely adopted ad analytics. I was born in them, molded by them.

Speaker ANo one cared about me until I destroyed the MP3.

AlexDick Doug, real-time update. I believe Max has received his juice. Oh, shit dog.

MaxI got my juice.

AlexThank you. I'm very excited. It looks like a box. It's a bot. Why is, oh, okay.

MaxOh, I ordered a variety. I've never ordered from this place before. And so I got a variety. Oh, did you get a flight? I got a variety of items because I wanted a safety in case they were all gross. So there's something in here I can eat.

AlexOh, that's a pleasant color. That's a Casey Neistat juice, I think.

MaxIt's a pear, cucumber, lemon, and spinach. It's described as a Tommy gun of hydration for my mouth.

AlexOh, God.

MaxI never thought they were funny.

AlexIt sounded fine until that point. Oh, my goodness.

MaxLet me try this. Let me try this. What do we got here? Pear, cucumber, lemon. lemon mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm Hydration. Was that the Tommy gun just now?

Wow, that's hydrating as fuck. Oh, my God.

AlexI don't know what that noise was a reference to, but for some reason I enjoyed it. It was a Tommy gun. I don't know what that means. Oh, okay. All right. Got it. My drink contains carbonated water, sugar, glucose, citric acid, natural flavors, taurine, sodium citrate, color added, panics, ginseng extract, L-cartine. I'm just going to edit this out later, so I'm going to stop. Otherwise, I'll have to edit more. Is it Red Bull? No, it is Monster Energy.

Jesus Christ. You know what? They gave me a whole pack for free. I'm not going to deny some monster.

MaxWhat, Jeffrey's going so you put it in front of the camera?

AlexActually, that's interesting.

MaxDid they know you were going to talk about it on the podcast?

AlexNo, I don't think they knew who I was. I just looked really sad and desperate. And they're like, oh, what are you doing? Who gave this to you? Who are they? Who's they? The people who had the monster energy little tents at C2E2. Alex, mouth words.

Speaker AWho are you talking about?

AlexI am talking about the people who had the monster energy food. Pretend that Merlin and I don't already know this story and describe it from the beginning. I guess this is going in the show.

MerlinYou've got monster something now and someone gave that to you for reasons.

AlexSo I had some lovely people helping at C2E2 and I was like, please just go get me any sort of energy drink. Because I was trapped in our room all day and I'm like, just any energy drink. So they went throughout the convention center.

MaxIs this your little Dumbledore's army of young queer kids who do podcasts?

AlexYes, yes. They are the gay Dungeons and Dragons podcast.

MaxDungeons and Dice and everything nice. They all have a little coin, and they're like, oh, Alex is in distress. And then they come scurrying, and they bring her energy drinks.

AlexNot going to like.

MaxDo you compensate them, Alex?

AlexYes. We pay the people.

MerlinYeah. I mean, do you pay them with money, or do you pay them with monster drinks? Well, it's exposure, really. Do you pay them with gay dice? Are you compensating? Are these interns? Are they externs?

AlexNo. They are young adults who are fantastic audio engineers.

MaxYou're mainly doing it for the exposure, though.

AlexAnd then, yes, yes. Sure, it's great exposure. But then I gave them some packs of cards, like our little cards against humanity, secret packs. And I was like, just give this to somebody. And then the monster folks-

MerlinWell, you're telling me this makes you look really good.

AlexI know, right? Yep, yep. And so I was like, do whatever you can do. I had not just them, but all of my friends, anything. I will just do it. but then I ended up with a pack of Monster Monster Soda which is kind of like Pepsi Volts and then some other energy drink that I did not know so I didn't drink it but I know Monster that was a really good story

MaxI'm getting the whole theater was very intimidating because anytime you came in there was like a whole there was like a whole platoon of like queer like Oompa Loompas like scurrying about they all had cables and undercuts.

MerlinHow do you find people like that, Alex? Do you have like a BBS or something? How do you get your minions to find you? Do you have like a newsletter? I think they could sense that Alex was in distress. Oh, they're empathic. So high constitution.

AlexMy partner knows them and would every hour text them and be like make sure she's drinking something and then I would just get a bottle of water. Now I know why Max employs people. I had no idea that you had this kind of following

Merlinthis is fascinating

AlexI don't have minions Dig Dug it was challenge week for Max we gotta plug their podcast

MaxPlug it

AlexDungeons and Dice and Everything Nice is a wonderful real play Dungeons and Dragons I don't know but it's way better they did their first live episode at the convention C2E2 in Chicago it's a very good podcast you know how there's all these people

Maxother than the McElroys who do these long-running comedic Dungeons & Dragons campaigns and they're bad and embarrassing. This isn't it. This is a group of comedians. They're all women. They do this podcast together. It is legitimately very friendly and pleasant and extremely funny and everyone should check it out. It's called Dungeons & Dice and Everything Nice. I'm in. And they fucking sold out that panel.

AlexThat was insane. I mean, that was great. Oh, my God. That was the first standing room only. The fire marshal had to be called because there were too many people on the panel. And they didn't expect it. I was like, fuck you guys. All right. Anyway. Dig Dug. It was Max's challenge this week.

MaxOh, right. There's a show I like called Love Your Garden on Netflix. There's one season on Netflix. One series, as we say. As Mike Curley would say. and the challenge was to watch a little bit of this series called Love Your Garden, which is just a very pleasant man named Alan Titcombe, and he goes into people's gardens. He finds a disabled veteran and fixes his garden, and everyone cries at the end.

Yeah, it was just to watch the program Love Your Garden. It's just a very pleasant thing. I like to think of the garden. What is the garden to me? The garden is a place that I go to in my mind palace when it becomes apparent that there are no civilian planes flying over Syria for some reason, as though the airspace was cleared. In those times, where do you go? I like to go into my garden.

MerlinAnd so I watched one episode. It appears that each episode is, I don't say this from a place of malice or smarminess, smarminess but like they go in and they provide this really cool over the top what we in the united states would call a yard but they call a garden like your your backyard or something but a beautiful garden for somebody who couldn't do themselves do it themselves or who like deserves it like maybe in some cases because of money but in many cases because of health yeah and so i'm

given to believe that each episode is as heartwarming legitimately heartwarming as the first one yes i loved it i i didn't want to love it but i loved it i almost watched the front line about Donald Trump last night, and then I was like, oh shit, I gotta watch this show. And like five minutes in, I was already crying.

MaxWait, is there a new front line about Trump, or is this one I've already seen? New.

MerlinOh. What's the-

MaxIt's about how he transformed the GOP.

AlexOkay.

MerlinGreat.

AlexI'm looking forward to a nice night. There are no gardens,

Merlinas far as I know.

AlexYeah. Sounds like I'll-

MerlinSounds like the kind of thing I would watch, and then retreat to my garden. This show is very, very English. First of all, I learned that there's such a thing as garden shows in England. It's fab. This guy, Alan Titmouse, is the head of gardens there. Like, he does many garden things. It's very British. It's very corny.

MaxAs far as I can tell, when I looked him up, all he does is TV shows about gardening. And yet, when he shows up at all these people's houses, he shows up at the disabled veteran's house, and the guy immediately starts crying and hugs him, and it recognizes him. It would be like if Mr. Rogers showed up to my house. I'd be like, oh, my God, Mr. Rogers.

MerlinIf Steve Harvey came and made a game show for you. Right.

MaxLike, it's crazy. It's like all these people know Alan Titcom? It must be like a thing.

AlexI've been losing my mind trying to remember, what was that show in America where that guy with frosted tips showed up at someone's house?

MaxTy Paddington.

AlexYeah, and they would just redo a house, and then it turned out there was all this drama.

MaxHe took his shirt off every episode of that show. That was the main thing that I remember was seeing Ty Paddington's nipples every single episode of that show.

AlexAnd there was like a move that bus moment where they would see like, look at how nice your house is now. But then it turned out, turns out, turns out, like none of them could pay taxes on it. And like there was no, they could not do any sort of upkeep because there was all this like bespoke furniture. And what I liked about Love Your Garden is they take into account like some of these people have wheelchairs. Some of these people can't water their plants every day. And so they build that into the construction of the garden. Like, I really like that.

They don't like bullshit and you don't need to, you know, pay taxes on your nice yard.

MerlinI didn't like Gordon Ramsay coming in and completely changing your menu and making it completely boring. Like, I don't know. I mean, who knows? It's a TV thing. My wife knows way more about plants and gardening than I do. She's a learned garden person. She's like, it's a little colorful for me. But I was like, you know, it's England. But in the first episode I watched, the first episode, it's about a guy with, they didn't call it ALS, but he's got some kind of a motor neuron disease that has very rapidly deteriorated over like two years. He's a guy like in his 40s. Not good.

Not good, as our president would say.

MaxNot good.

MerlinIt's really, it's really, they milk it a little bit, but you feel the emotions.

MaxYou know if Trump met that guy, he'd go, hmm, not good. And then he'd extend his hand out for a handshake.

AlexHe would like tap him on the head. He left me hanging.

MerlinAnd he is in a wheelchair. He's got what's called the thing where you're able to speak. Eyeboard. Diving bell on the butterfly. And so basically he used to be very active, according to the show. And so the idea is the interesting, I thought this was handled well, is like, okay, they've had to move into this smaller cottage because of accessibility issues. And so it's the man with this motor neuron problem and his wife and their son and their dog, Freddy, who's really cute. But the idea is he loves the garden, but they have a ramp to get him out there,

but he can't get around. It's got a slope to it. It's got all these problems. And I was into it. It was probably a little overlong. It could have been 10 minutes shorter. But I thought it was really well done. I like when they went to other gardens for inspiration or whatever.

MaxThat was great. Now, I don't agree with you about the overlong thing. I think the amount that it lingers and the way that they show you every dilemma of like, how are we going to get this pot into the space that's too small? That is part of the peacefulness. How even would we get the top onto this gazebo treehouse?

AlexHow about a ladder?

Speaker AYou could get a ladder or you could put it on your head as a hat and walk around.

AlexOh, that was good. There was one moment where it felt a little, the, uh, Todd, Todd. The hijinks? There was some hijinks.

What's his name? Alan is like, so what would you say to people who, let's say, this man, your husband, doesn't quite have a lot of time left.

MerlinWhy would we build a garden when the time is so short? It's like, oh my God, Alan.

AlexHold up, hold up. And that kind of happens in every, I watched four episodes and that sort of happens every time. And I'm like, oh, okay.

MerlinThat was one of the moments that rang a little sour for me where I was like, yeah, don't make the lady cry.

AlexYeah. Don't do that. The producer like pulling on their collar is like, oh, okay.

MaxI disagree with you I disagree with you I think that is the question that everyone is I think he's I think it's a good question to ask it makes it more sentimental it's more real it's the kind of thing that British people can talk about and Americans can't because we have big dumb hearts and we can't stand anything bad to happen to the protagonists of our entertainment I thought that was a fine question I mean I agree it was you would never ask someone that in American culture like why build this garden for someone who doesn't have a lot of time left would be just so rude and it's just it's just wrong but i i assume that that's a more normal question to ask

Alexin britain and i love that absolutely no sense to me are you still gonna enjoy enjoy your backyard

Speaker Aafter your husband dies oh good you understand that because of the nature of his disease he's very ill god he's very ill he doesn't move very well he's confined to a wheelchair oh i i have

Alexto say i really like people hate that don't say you're confined to a wheelchair i well

Merlinlike saying you're speaking through a translator don't do that that's not what's happening don't do that he's not confined to a wheelchair he's able to move around because of a wheelchair

Alexit was i i agree with max like there's definitely a different cadence amongst uh even just how the gardeners talk and and stuff like that and the landscapers they're also like very aware of like their social status and that that like um you know alan adam yeah alan is like the the guy who doesn't have to get his hands dirty and i just thought that was like yeah he comes back and he yells at him where's all the goddamn plants yeah it's just i don't know i thought it was pleasant

Merlinand he's like but also alex did you love the part where they kept talking about what she'd be able

Speaker Ato see from the kitchen i like yes when you look out from the kitchen where you work I love that she said preparing his gruel in the kitchen as a woman she said that she's like

Alexno no no she said I would like to look at something they ask like what would you what would be good for your garden

Speaker Awhen you're dressed as a scullery maid scrubbing the floors you'd be able to look up and see a multi-leveled garden and a place for Freddy oh I did cry the cricket bat made me cry

Alexoh okay that was sweet can you remind

Maxwas this the one with the big tree with the big Roman trees that they brought in or is that a different episode

Alexno that was the olive garden in the Mediterranean that was my favorite the Mediterranean garden

Maxthat was such a fun moment when they brought those in and they had the crazy music it was so

Alexwell also there were 100 year old olive trees I'm like holy heck

Maxthat's probably one of the I think that's one of the best gardens they ever did

Alexthat was my favorite And they had the little watering balls and, oh, it was really good. It is the second episode.

MaxI think it might be the next one.

AlexYes.

MaxOkay. They all blur together to me a little bit. One thing I don't like in this season is, so there's a gimmick in every episode where they're like, well, while the women are doing the work of planting, I thought I'd give you a peek of my vision. And then it cuts to like a plan of the garden.

In past and future seasons, in every season, they have a different way of showing you what the garden will look like. my favorite version is when it's like a hand-drawn like sort of sketch. Oh, cool.

MerlinOh, they have like a 3D walkthrough. Yeah, but in this one

Maxthey do a Google SketchUp like fly through and every time it comes on Veronica and I would like recoil like, ugh, like that's horrifying. Like it does not look inviting.

AlexYeah. Everyone looks like a very upsetting playground with sharp edges. Yeah, it all looks like GoldenEye 64. Yes.

Speaker AAnd here's where you'll be crushed between our legs.

AlexWell, okay. Question. I thought the challenge was do something with plants.

MaxOh, yeah. Sure. That, too. Okay. But first, I thought we'd talk about the show. What else was funny about that? The other thing that's funny, so I've seen about 100 episodes of this now. And the other funny thing about the show is, oh, I went, I, you know, like I said, it's my, my little mind palace that I can retreat to. But the other thing I like is sometimes they'll interview the family and the husband's got some sort of, you know, he's got like Monty Python syndrome where his like body parts are falling off one after another. And he's got 72 hours to live. And they're like, and they're like, and they're like, and they're like, what, tell us about your life.

And they'll be like, oh, well, one time we took a vacation to the seaside. And he's like, stop right there. I know what we're doing. And they construct a whole nautical-themed garden with a pirate ship in it and a canopy.

Speaker AYou said you like soccer, so we made soccer flowers.

MaxYeah. No, it's not. And then the family comes back, and the family comes back, and there's the unveiling. And they open their eyes, and they're like, oh, my God, a whole nautical-themed garden. We certainly weren't expecting that, Alan.

Merlinand they have to kind of explain in the one i watched they have to kind of explain the symbolism

Alexwhat they call they call it a memory area oh uh like a memory place yes like there's little stones

Merlinuh where they if you read roman numerals you know this is when your son was born

Alexyeah and i don't um your husband can't lean over because he's confined but you can he's so confined you know that they left a stone for what the day he dies like i don't know why does anyone have a

Maxtheory why is the the theme why is the garden and mortality they also do a lot of gardens for people who had like their mom died right or something like that you know like there's like a loss in the family like a very sad or surprising loss and the gardens like in their memory or something like that like why is that so what why what is that connection there of like dying to me it's kind

Merlinof morose i mean it's one thing to say this is where the beagle is buried yeah and it's another thing to make everything about the past and like uh this kind of lacrimose fuzzy sadness about the past that's because a little bit off-putting but but mainly they got a cool garden with levels

Maxlike it's got terraces and stuff i thought that was do you think it's to it's something to do with the idea of of legacy of like you know if you if you get sick young in life and it's like well you didn't really get to leave behind what you what you hope to in the gardens the thing you can leave behind for your family when you die. And then they can go out there and think about you. I think it's really just a peg for making

Merlina show about plants more emotional. Let's be honest. If you just had a show about plants,

Maxyou had a show about plants. Okay, it could be that. Or it could be that. It could be the symbolism of the flowers on the grave.

AlexFlowers in the attic. Here was one thing that was very strange, and I've never seen in another feel-good reality show.

MaxThey do have some Flowers for Algernon episodes in this season.

AlexThey do?

MaxNice.

AlexOkay, okay. Back to this. Did you notice? I don't know if this is just in the- I never thought that was funny. I never thought that was funny. Oh, my God. What a book. Or novella. At the end of each show, they show off like, oh, this is the piece of furniture. Here are the things. And they put the price of everything next to it. What is that?

MaxBut they always say the price in just enough of a confusing British way where I have no fucking clue how much it costs. They're like, they're like, they're like a gazebo from, from Farthington's 72,000 quid. What's a quid? Is that a pence? What's a tuppence?

MerlinThen how many shillings is that? How many shillings are in a sleeper? Yeah. You know, the one thing was like, I thought it was kind of strange. A couple of strange design decisions in the, in the, the one that I watched was like, I I was so, I was, as you Millennium say, I was here for this. I thought it looked really cool. And then they put what they call them sleepers, which are big beams, like at least six by six, eight by eight beams. And it looked like a fucking graveyard. Do you know what I'm talking about?

AlexYeah, it looked like Stonehenge.

Speaker AAnd then of course they go, oh, these deadly sleeper beams. That'll be 4,999 pounds. It looked like Johnny Ives' grave.

AlexIt was very weird.

Speaker ASheffington's shillings pets. Yeah.

MaxEnglish money's stupid. Funereal wrought iron gate 60 tuppence from Barnaby's

Speaker AGiven how badly confined To the wheelchair your husband is How do you imagine you'll remember him In the garden after he's died from his confinement What if we pre-paved the stones What if we had the date of his death On a leaderboard up here Provided by a Sheffington shillings fence

MaxFor more on how we built this tombstone You can go to itv.com Slash allen

Speaker ADo you imagine it'll be sad when his confinement ends? Will there be sorrow in the garden? Or will it be the ultimate liberation? As he sloughs off this mortal coil. Will you still visit the mine palace when you're a widow?

MerlinHow long do you think it will be till you're a widow?

Speaker AWe've created what's called a widow's walk. You won't need it yet. We're going to build a widow's walk, but there will not be steps up to it until his confinement has ended. And it's such a success. It's provided by Sheffington's on Tuppence Face. 4,999 shillings.

AlexOne of us is going to die after this episode and I'm going to be very, very excited.

Speaker AI'm going to leave you my confinement.

MaxMaybe all three of us will die. Maybe Merlin will autoerotic asphyxiate himself. Alex will fall over on the scoot scoot and I'll electrocute myself in the bath.

Alexjazz jazz um so what did you guys do to do something with plants the actual planty plants I think Max is eating a salad of some sort.

MaxYeah, that's what I did with plants. I ate one. No, I went to, there's a place on Damon called Sprout. It's very like Dwell Magazine, kind of a twee air plant shop. You can go get little geometric pods with flowers growing in them. and I got a little bonsai, a little sort of, a little small mini tree looking thing and I put it in the shower. So we have like a shower tree now.

MerlinOh, nice. Okay. If I could ask Max without harming your opsec, how big is your shower?

MaxIt's a sort of shower, it's an open shower so it's a sort of shower area. Oh, okay. And it goes on like a counter. So somebody can clone it and make their own. And it has a, there's like a counter area and then the little tree is on the counter area.

MerlinOh, wow.

MaxAnd there's a window in there.

MerlinThat's nice. So you bought a plant.

MaxYeah, and it gets sunlight from the shower window. Oh, the shower? You got a window in your shower? Yeah. Oh.

AlexWait, what? All right. I need to make some card jokes. I'm moving more.

MerlinJesus Christ. You got like a shower room that you can put plants in? Yeah. Jesus. Wow. That's really sobering for me. I feel very confined right now. okay i envy your success um i did things now alex uh you sent me in we have a cat it product at our house uh tell us about this cat it product you've uh you sent uh well there's this is um

Alexcat product 2.0 uh initially i got this which is i i just bought some cat grass that were in these adorable little mugs and um and they broke both mugs the first day and how did they break uh by hitting them off of the little mantelpiece that has like the, the cat knocked it off. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I forget that your cat is somewhat confined. She's a nerd. She's confined. Yeah. They like to knock, they like to knock shit over.

MerlinLike, like in like an animated gifs. What? They knock things off. That doesn't go here. And they hit it and it knocks off. Your cat does that. Yeah. Yes. Oh, that's so cute. Does your cat do that max?

MaxNot really. No.

MerlinBut like, she'll like, we'll knock a water bottle off and you put it back and she knocks it down again. That doesn't happen.

MaxNo, I don't think she's into making stuff fall over. Our cat stays very near the floor and is very still.

AlexI envy both of you. But then we got this low to the floor. This is supposed to come tomorrow. It's kind of a much lower cat grass planter. So I will be growing this cat grass myself. And it comes with three types of seeds.

One's the basic ass grass. and then one that's like specific catty cat grass. And then there's nip grass, which I'm very excited about slash nervous about. So we'll see how long this lasts. Oh, this looks cool. There's a little grate so that the demon cat, Francis, can't eat the dirt. He really enjoyed eating the dirt and then having diarrhea. Turns out, I guess dirt gives you diarrhea. I don't know. I'm kind of excited. This looks fun.

We've got this thing. So I just sent you this picture of their whole habit trail of cat bullshit. Yes. I did also buy the right most product. That's like a little cat massager.

MerlinWe got that for our cat for Christmas. And she's such a dick. She hasn't gone anywhere near it. We filled it full of catnip.

AlexShe has absolutely no interest in it. Aw.

MerlinDoes your cat do it? Does your cat rub on it like a sweet precious angel?

AlexOh, no. I just purchased it. So we'll see. I'm pretty sure that they're just going to rip off the rubber parts of it. And then it'll be fun for a half hour. So that's how most cat toys go.

MerlinOh, you did good on this challenge.

AlexThat's good. Yes, I purchased two items.

MaxI sent you a link of an Instagram picture of my bathroom. It is a very pretty bath. That's sort of the shelf where the little tree is on, and that's the bathtub.

Speaker AOh, wow. Jiminy Christmas.

MaxSo that's the bathtub, and then there's the showers. It just comes out of the wall across from that.

AlexI remember seeing this. Did this take a while to install?

MerlinYeah, it was hard to get it. Is that uncomfortable to sit in?

MaxNo, it's very comfortable to sit in. So what we're looking at is when I was designing the house, I happened to go to Japan, and then we went to an onsen, and I sat in the big wooden Japanese bathtub, and it was like the greatest thing in the world. And then I was like, well, I can't – now that I know that this exists, I can't in good conscience build a house without this. So I had this tub made, this giant wooden Japanese soaking tub made. No, it's very comfortable.

Because you remember you're almost submerged in water. Oh, right.

MerlinIt's more of a bath box. It's like a bath casket, a bath stick. A bath stick.

AlexNow they've been in this castle and seen this throne. Basket.

Speaker ACasket.

AlexOh, I did one more plant thing. I'm very excited about this. I'm still upset with Max because he thought that I brought drugs to work. I did not bring drugs to work. I brought Cranom Cranom Cranom I don't let me send you a link Cranom Cranom do you know what this is

MaxIs that Crocodile?

AlexNo no no no Cranom Cranom It's It's a leaf that is used To help folks Like with opiate addictions And there's like a bunch of different strains And it's This thing that you can buy legally And There's you can get it in either Oh, let's see. Oh, look, I have powder form. And then there's also Max, are you sure you don't want these?

This is the white Mang Da, and it is for pain relief and energy because it's a hybrid. Look at all these. Look at this lovely powder. Look at this lovely powder. Alex, you're taking some sort of

Maxside effects, FYI. You're taking some sort of Narcan? No, no, no.

AlexThat helps people not do opiates? Are you chasing the dragon, Alex? No, I'm not No. Is this the challenge? Get hooked on opiates? No, no. It causes liver toxicity. No, it doesn't. Wait, hold on, hold on. Well, everything causes respiratory depression.

Yeah, I'm fine. Everything's fine. That's the one. That's the one. What's the one called? The Kraken?

MaxWhat's it called? She's taking three of them. Oh, my God.

AlexNo, you're supposed to take 10. Okay.

MerlinMake sure you wash that down with the monster drink that your minion's brought in.

AlexThat's exactly what I'm doing. They taste, it does taste like actually, the first time I had this, it was as a tea. And it tastes like really bad matcha tea that you would get like a whole foods. Alex, stop taking them. I'm not taking, it's fine. You just took two. Stop taking them. No, that's not. She's supposed to take 20. Oh my God. You're supposed to take 10. You're huge. You're supposed to take 10. No, that's because look. They're giant horse pills. They're filled with powder. Alex, Alex, you can't have a tissue.

MerlinAddiction, psychosis, nausea, vomiting, constipation.

AlexIt's fine. Everything's fine No Alex

MaxStop taking them Stop It's too many Oh my god

AlexI'm

MaxWhat the fuck is this It's called Kratom Kratom K-R-A

AlexKratom

MaxPain Toxicity Death Let's see Intestinal problems Muscle pains Coughing Diarrhea

AlexNo

MaxYeah Also withdrawal You'll get withdrawal

AlexYou'll get withdrawal symptoms Well that's like Hmm

MerlinHmm

AlexGoodness

MerlinNo but if you have it with a monster drink

MaxIt can elicit pain relief and euphoria Yeah

AlexOh that's good I'm just going to be high during all of work Sure sure

MaxThe full pharmacological properties That's cool The full pharmacological properties of Kratom Are not properly understood That's nice And there remains a great deal of debate Over the safety of the drug Detection in body In fact the National Institute of Drug Abuse has identified Kratom as an emerging drug of abuse.

How many take? You take 10, Alex? This is due in large to...

AlexNo, I take four.

MaxAlex just took at least six that I just saw.

AlexI took four. I'm not... This is due in a good way. Was she drinking a Monster Energy drink when she took a Kratom?

MaxYes, she's literally... She's washing it down with a Monster Energy drink. This is due in large part to numerous studies having found that Kratom use is associated with psychosis, seizures, and even death.

MerlinYeah. You get high heart rate and blood pressure, trouble sleeping, and liver

Alextoxicity. Well, if I'm found seizing on my scoot-scoot, you know

Merlinwhat happens? You should alert your minions about this. If you cast a saving throw,

Maxwill Alex be okay? Yeah, get the dictator in here. Restore the dictator to health. Get your sannyasins. Is that what you call him?

MerlinYour gay

MaxRPGers? If you or a loved one is struggling with Kratom abuse or addiction, please give us a call today at 1-888- 744-0069. Nice. To speak with one of our treatment support specialists. I think we should call them.

AlexNo, I'm just Googling. You know what happened? You probably Googled Craton. I can't. The Drug Enforcement Agency. It sounds like button, and I can't say button, button.

MaxTake more. The DEA has confirmed that Cratom was involved in 15 deaths from 2014 to 2016.

AlexOh, yeah, and they just happened to also be on heroin and Xanax and be drunk. Oh. the DEA and the what is it the drug and food administration the one

Maxyou know the drug and food administration that we all know and love wow wow

Merlinway to throw the white working class under the bus Alex this is very Rick Perry of you go on keep going please

Maxplease proceed governor yeah

Alexall right every nobody nobody peanut butter wait merlin what did you i did um um well i mean i have three three plant related things uh just like me i had three plant related things this is a plant all right i'm sorry i'm sorry for interrupting oh look at that classic sign of um

Maxwhat is she what is she doing what's happening agitation or irritability classic sign of

MerlinKratom abuse. Yeah. She's had too many chitons.

MaxAt a low dose, Kratom produces increased energy, heightened alertness, talkativeness, and social behavior.

MerlinDoes she seem at all psychotic right now? I don't know. That's every day. She sounds like she's breathing really hard.

MaxLonger term use is associated with insomnia, dry mouth, frequent urination, and constipation. Do you have constipation, Alex?

AlexNo. I'm very... I have a lot of fiber.

MaxFrequent urination and constipation as a pair. That's a hell of a pairing.

Alexthat's everybody's period ever though so really one report of a case uh there's one case a report

Maxof a person who went to the emergency room for seizing and falling into a coma following kratom use oh my god after using also using marijuana and antidepressants yeah oh yeah the antidepressant yeah that's so alex as long as you're taking kratom but you don't also use marijuana and antidepressants you should be fine okay fair okay so you know i take it back i take it back about my concerned about your use of this because it would only be a problem if you were also smoking weed and taking antidepressants but you know but if you're just no i'm not saying you are i'm saying it's good news no i'm saying this is good it might be kind of a conservative number maybe you should

take 50 or 60 yeah i'm saying that it's good news because you don't do those things that the cratom is fine so you know i was really worried that you were going to have a seizure and fall into a coma but now i'm not concerned about it oh that's good because because it does say that it that there are extreme dangers of mixing it with other drugs because it's quite unpredictable.

MerlinYeah, according to this rehab site, it says here that the chitins may be abused as a legal way of getting high and may therefore appeal to individuals who deem it quote-unquote safer than illicit drugs. That's like saying Benadryl makes you high.

AlexI could take Benadryl right now and be delighted all day.

MerlinBars may sell chitin, is that what it's called? In powdered form or mixed into a drink. Oh, it's also known by slang names like Tom, Keetum, Bayak, Kakum, and Thang. Oh, Kakum. Street names for chitons. That's actually funny. It may not be detectable on drug tests, relatively new on the recreational drug scene.

AlexIt's not a drug. It's a lovely plant.

MaxThere's literally no unsafe dose.

AlexHuh.

MerlinAnd they have a section here on when abuse becomes addiction. Oh, look at this. They're closely related, but not the same thing.

MaxCheck out the section on withdrawal. That sounds fun. Oh, no.

MerlinOh, no. You can have changes in physical appearance. You can have weight loss and decreased interest in personal hygiene. Runny nose, jerky movements, hostility, irritability. frequently max mood swings mood swings from excitability and euphoria when taking chitins to depression aggression irritability even potentially oh dear uh increased risk taking behaviors like taking lots of chitins irresponsibility unfilled obligations and declining grades or work performance this is time theft oh i need a performance review really

Alexfinancial strain and legal trouble now as i buy a computer that's in the shower it's not a wikipedia

MerlinThis is a place called American Addiction Centers, and they're here to help.

MaxAlex, the good news here, here's the good news, is that you can choose from an inpatient treatment or an outpatient treatment on this website. I would say start with the inpatient, and then we'll see how it goes. Yeah, now that's only 30 to 90 days.

Speaker AIs this going to cost your insurance anything, Max?

MaxI'm not supposed to know that, am I?

Speaker AI just want you to get help. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Show notes

Transcript

73. Farmville for War

Show notes

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