Do By Friday
Episode 78 artwork
Episode 78 · May 10, 2018 · 01:01:14

78. Snot Yoga

This week's challengeLearn some rules of thumb.
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Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakes

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, learn some rules of thumb.

MerlinHello!

AlexMan, the studio is so empty. I can't figure out what's happening. oh that's right Max isn't here yet he has an appointment at a secret location and we'll be

Merlincalling in maybe we'll see I don't know interesting will we eventually be able to reveal what what Max

Alexis doing I don't know well can't say can't say yeah yeah yeah I was really psyched to start exactly on time but then I just forgot because I'm sitting here like all right good to go oh oh wait that's right max max isn't here should we hello challenge right away i think it's gonna

Merlinbe difficult for max to participate in the challenge if he's in his undisclosed location so i don't think it would harm us we might as well talk about the challenge and then we can

Alexshuck and jive about uh oh boy oh there are some things that i would love that you've put in to the doc that i'm very excited for are you yeah we can acknowledge that there's a doc there is indeed a

Merlinduck. There's a duck. Let's go straight to the challenge. This week, the challenge comes from

AlexAlex. Alex, what's the challenge this week? The challenge this week was to read the book Rules of Thumb that a few weeks ago Merlin turned Max and I onto. And there were three parts of this challenge. One, pick a challenge. Wow, I'm so good at podcasts. From this book, Rules of Thumb by a life manual by Tom Parker, pick one of the rules that you thought was particularly interesting or has helped you. Two, find one that you thought was bullshit. And three, make up a

rule of thumb of your own.

MerlinJust one.

AlexJust one.

MerlinOkay, marker. Max is Skyping me. Have you heard from Alex? She's not responding to me.

AlexWell, that's because I'm doing a show.

MerlinTake out the marker. Boom.

AlexYep. Is this Max from an undisclosed location?

MaxI'm in City Hall.

AlexOh, we can see that. Hey, it's Max! Oh, wow.

MaxI thought we had a whole plan, and you were going to call me when we started the show.

AlexNo, the plan was you were going to call when we started the show. You hang up first. Yeah, although I probably should have put on Do Not Disturb.

MaxAren't you in an expensive studio with an engineer and like three computers and you tech it every week and dial in all the people?

AlexWe even are going to have Max on his own track, even if you don't have a recorder. You sound very good. Wow.

MaxYeah, modern cell phones. I got summoned to City Hall and now it looks like my meeting is canceled. Oh, nice. So there was an Alderman wanted to meet me, and then he canceled on me about five minutes ago. So I'm waiting for two minutes. That is a fucking power move, dude.

MerlinFight back. Fight back.

AlexRule of thumb.

MaxYep. That's just how it goes. So I think I'm going to hang out for a few minutes and see if I catch him coming out of council chambers, and then I'll head back in.

AlexOoh, chase him down.

MerlinCouncil chambers. Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise. That's what I say. Dale Carnegie. I learned that from Justin McElroy.

AlexHe's a funny one. Max, are you tired or are you being quiet because you're in City Hall or are you just angry at the man?

MaxIt's all three.

AlexOh.

MaxOh. Yeah, it's all three. Yeah.

MerlinMax, we're talking about rules of thumb. We're talking about the challenge this week, which is that Alex wanted us to read a book that I like.

MaxOkay. Well, you're in it. I didn't realize that you were just allowing us to get just completely owned by you when we were reading a book for our challenge. I cut you so hard. Page 333, bitch. And then all of a sudden, I'm sitting there on the bathtub reading the book on my Kindle, and all of a sudden, there's a rule of thumb from Merlin on there. I didn't realize what I was getting myself into.

MerlinYeah, I know. I love this book. Can I give context for this book? Oh, please do. This is a book that I discovered when I was in college, and it was a larger form factor, thinner page length book. The one you get now is what I would almost call a diary. It's a very cheap, not a trade paperback, but like the other kind of paperback that's really cheap. But anyway, Rules of Thumb is this book by a guy whose name I never remember named Tom Parker. And basically he's compiled a bunch of rules of thumb from people in different trades, different backgrounds.

He doesn't know it, but a friend of the show, Kevin Kelly, is in here. There's lots of just good advice that he's gleaned over time and collected. And he has some kind of phony baloney board, which I think is probably just mostly him. But he just basically puts together a lot of like one to three sentence tips about life.

MaxThe board is the rules of thumb website where you can go on and submit them and people vote them up and stuff. But it's all powered on WordPress. And as of the time when I read the book, like last week, he had a SQL injection attack on his WordPress site. So now all of the rules of thumb from the board, they are selling powders and boner pills and stuff like that.

MerlinShell companies.

AlexShell companies.

MerlinShell companies. But it's got lots of, I'm just picking very randomly from the book. When making potato salad, figure on one and a half medium potatoes and one egg per person. Little tips about life. African, oh, I love this one. The African elephant has ears shaped like Africa. The Indian elephant has ears shaped like India. So first of all, learn what places are shaped like, and now you'll know elephants.

MaxThere's a lot of contingencies that apply to that one, though. Define meat.

MerlinLet's see. If heads or tails resuscitation, one cup of laundry detergent per gallon of water makes spectacular soap for blowing bubbles. And it's just it's very all very slight. This is a great toilet book. But there are so many things that I learned from this book. Oh, God, what? That would be 30 years ago that I still think about a lot. And I have to say it's books like this, books like almanacs, all these kinds of like, you know, famous first facts. All the books that I read as a nerdy kid, nerdy high school kid, nerdy college kid had a huge impact on my interest in what came to be called life hacks.

Like little tricks for life, little heuristics that may not be right 100% of the time, but are right often enough. It also goes into that whole thing of like, you know, when you're doing customer support, don't tell somebody to restart the computer. Tell them to blow the dust out of the plug. All these little tricks for doing stuff in a way that people have learned is efficient over time and gets you – it's a swag. It gets you close enough for a lot of stuff. And I love this book in college. I was thrilled to see that it's still around and I've been talking about it and apparently you were interested in reading it, too.

AlexI was past tense.

MaxLet me ask you this. Are you do you employ any of these rules of thumb in your life?

MerlinOh, wow. I didn't like that tone. No, no, I would never take anything I learned from a book. It's ridiculous.

MaxI mean, is the point of this to pick up little tricks that you can use in your life or is the point something else?

MerlinI think so. Yes, counselor.

Maxwell what are some ones that you've used in your life oh come on you're calling me on the carpet

Merlinyou know you're part of call-out culture is your problem okay okay i'll jump straight to you so part of the challenge was to come up with the ones we thought were good i did some preparation i spent most of my time creating my own rules of thumb uh that's where most of my effort went but for example i love these some of these even early in the book which is where i started reading pausing to think page seven when asked an important question always pause for at least a silent count of three before answering you will appear to be more thoughtful and intelligent i think that's

Alexempirically true i i feel like neither of you have ever done that on this that one's pretty good

Merlinbut of course not that's why it's a rule of thumb you have to employ it i'm not employing oh fair fair uh but then some of them get real real real clever and interesting so you think You're saying to yourself, like, am I even seeing a ghost? You can determine whether a ghost is real by crossing your eyes. If the image doubles, the ghost is there. If not, it's all in your mind. Or a ghost.

AlexYou don't find that useful? One that's real, real helpful, an iPod can hold 1,000 to 1,250 songs per 5 gigs of storage.

MerlinYou don't think that would be helpful to somebody?

AlexNo, no. Oh, here's what I found interesting and upsetting about this book. There were little things that I'm like, oh, this is helpful, and it's little doodads and I guess life hacks.

Like tapping an egg on a counter, which, oh, I lost it.

MerlinOh, yeah, he says, I disagree on this. Is this the one who hit a flat surface instead of an edge?

AlexYes. Is that him? and and i don't agree with i don't agree with that well and and it's stuff like that um and but then there's other things like submitting to a lie detector test if you're innocent do not take a lie detector test if you're guilty take it because it may exonerate you oh and that one's from kevin kelly um because they're wrong a lot but but what made me skeptical is like the more intricate the rule it felt less likely to be true oh you should never take a lie detector test under

Merlinany circumstance ever okay i'm gonna write that down put that put that in in the book there's no

Alexunless it's for comedic purposes you know like mo like you're in a clown suit that would be funny

Merlinyeah i mean it's a it's max page 22 ducking a meeting a meeting is not worth attending if the trip takes more time than the duration of the meeting itself oh brother is that 10 times over true i'm not even close it's it's only it's it's so true it's only partially true it's like I could take that so much further. It should be five times in value the amount of time you spent having to deal with it.

MaxThe inconvenience, how much this meeting sucks is so out of proportion with how long it was. We're trying to run into this guy in the hallway so we can meet. It's like, ugh.

MerlinSo you guys went so into it. Did you roll your eyes at some of these?

AlexI don't know. I mean, I'm really into right now Max being in. And he's like one of the young, scrappy characters from the West Wing right now. But a lot of it was just...

MerlinCan I just mention also in passing a phrase that my daughter has started using?

AlexPlease.

MerlinWalk with me.

MaxYes! Wait, what's that from?

MerlinWell, you know, like you get the walk and talk. But like, you know, when somebody in like the chief of staff wants to talk to somebody, you go, come on, walk with me. She just started saying that as a thing where she wants to talk to me. Come on, walk with me. Like the way Gordon Ramsay says, two seconds, everybody. Like she'll just say, walk with me. And that's her way of saying, we need to talk about something.

MaxAll right. Here's my guys. I'll call back in in a minute. Okay.

AlexIt actually happened. I hope your hands up.

MaxIt's going to be a switch around all over again. Hang up on this thing. It's going to be switch around. So we got that.

AlexOh, man. Oh, bye, Max. Oh, man. I can't believe it's actually happening.

MerlinI'm a little bit surprised. Really? Part of me wonders if you're overthinking these a little bit. And part of me wonders if you're overthinking the fact that these are meant to be, like, light heuristics but were there were there some i mean setting aside the ipod one because you're gonna well actually that are there ones where you were like no that's not even in the right ballpark of truth some of them some of them seem clever uh beyond their wisdom i'll say that right right

Alexand there are some that just i want to try and i i purposely did not go in and like research things because I wanted to see if, I also want to get to ones that have stuck with you. But the one that's like, if you are too busy to use hot air hand dryers in a public restroom, your lifestyle's too hectic for your health. Like, okay, Gerald Gutlip mathematician.

MerlinWell, that's going to be one of those WHO type things. Well, I mean, another version of that. How about this one? Like, if you're too busy to adopt a GTD-like system, you're never going to improve.

AlexRight?

MerlinYeah. Like, if you're too busy to get organized, if you're too organized to get your shit together, then you're never going to get your shit together. Because you're always going to be busy.

AlexI think it's because a lot of these are just so literal. And then there are other ones like a moderate good fortune. Oh, the titles, too. Moderate good fortune. You can have a hot job, a hot lover, or a hot apartment, but you can't have all three at the same time. Okay. All right. You disagree? I guess.

MerlinWhat's hot in your life, Alex?

AlexYou know what? I would say all three. Ooh, look at you. Yeah, yeah.

MerlinWhat kind of car you got?

AlexIt's so subjective. Well, a car isn't in there. A car isn't in there. Excuse me. I have a very attractive scoot-scoot. Who says I have a car?

MerlinBut you only ride it in the office, like an animal. Like, what kind of car you got?

AlexNo, I did. I bought a helmet, and now I do ride it outside. What do you think?

MerlinWhat do you think? How's it going?

AlexIt's pretty good. It's pretty good.

MerlinIsn't it pretty good?

AlexYeah, yeah. But I don't have a car anymore, but my partner drives a Toyota Camry. That's a very smooth ride.

MerlinThat is a pussy wagon.

AlexNice work. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know what? If I, if some-

MerlinYou need a wand to scrape the ladies off the side.

AlexOkay, okay. Let's say you're driving in Portland. Oh, if anybody came up to me in a very affordable Nissan LEAF, I'd be like, hello, hello. So it's subjective. I know, I'm the same way.

MerlinI still just have contempt toward black BMWs, and I always will. That's my rule of thumb. Contempt toward black BMWs. That's a rule of thumb. Okay, this one's stupid. Page 13, choosing a barber. Between two barbers in a shop, choose the one with the worst haircut. Barbers cut each other's hair.

AlexWhat does that even mean?

MerlinI don't know. There's several things about that that seem very speculative.

AlexYeah.

MerlinYou know?

AlexIt seems like something that was true in an old neighborhood or something. I guess so.

MerlinChoose the waiter with the dirtier hands. They're getting more accomplished.

AlexYeah. running cheap vodka through a brita filter four times will make it just as smooth as the good stuff and that's a topic on atp i think that's come up before wait really oh you know um casey

Merlinlikes that vodka that has like zapp chancery on the label yes and uh and i think i think there was some discussion of whether running it running cheap vodka through a brita filter makes a difference i've never done it that's that is that crosses a line for me for sure but as a life hack It's interesting.

AlexYeah.

MerlinOh, here's one I totally believe in. I would put this slightly differently for my own taste, but I think this is true. You can extend this so far. Fabulous fibbing, page 25. When lying, don't explain too much. And remember that odd numbers are more believable than even numbers. Now, I think there's an element of truth in that that goes beyond fibbing, which is if you're ever making a quote unquote excuse for not doing something, give one and only one reason and never explain it.

AlexYep. Oh, for sure.

MerlinSo you don't say, oh, I can't come to your party because I'm sick. Also, I'm busy.

AlexWell, that's...

MerlinAlso, yeah, right? Also, I don't have gas in the car.

AlexYeah. No, you know what?

MerlinJust say, I can't come. I'm sick. My cat's pregnant. You know, I got a sick kid. No, you don't have any kids. Yes, I do. I just adopted a very, very sick boy. Please, my boy. His name is Jeremy, and I love him.

AlexI've lost my boy.

MerlinOh, no, my boy. Oh, clowns are upsetting. If you sacrifice, we shall live. I don't have a problem. You have a problem.

AlexHere's one that I am very keen to try. Each hour of sleep before midnight is equal to two hours of sleep after midnight.

MerlinExaggerated, but semi-very true.

AlexInteresting.

MerlinI think that is true. Now, what about the one that's like a 10-minute shower is equivalent to three hours of sleep?

AlexOh, did I miss that one?

MerlinNo, it's okay. There's a lot in here.

AlexI mean, I guess cold showers. Have you tried that?

MerlinJohn Dickerson was talking about this. Have you tried the cold shower thing? Do you know about this thing that people are doing?

AlexTaking cold showers to wake up and be more productive or the horny cold shower? Yeah, but it's a little more scientific than that.

MerlinThe mojo I hear. John Dickerson was talking about this on Political Gab Fest. that there's this thing people are doing, which is you take your regular hot shower, and then at the end, you run it all the way cold for 30 seconds. And it supposedly is very, very stimulating and hellish.

AlexOh, interesting. I actually do that at the beginning. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I am going to have to look into that.

MerlinThat challenge, oh. I'm not going to take a whole cold shower. I'm in there to get clean. I want to be a clean boy. But I'm interested in the 30s. I don't know if I could do 30s. I bet it's like waterboarding. I bet that is an eternal 30 seconds.

AlexThat's true. I actually do. Do you remember that shark tank bit where there was a guy who, like, you, like, flash freeze yourself in a. Oh, I do.

MerlinThat was in, like, a little chamber.

AlexThat was weird. I want to be in the chamber. I want it so bad. It's just one of those things.

MerlinI really want to try sensory deprivation.

AlexOh, I don't.

MerlinNot in a dirty way. But I want to try the one where you get in a tank. I really want to do that.

Alexwe thought about doing that for uh like a like a bit and maybe we will at some point but uh i i feel like people would have to sign i i feel like would you get claustrophobic in that no i think i would just like it might be like doing acid or something like you just lose all semblance of reality and hope i would be so into that i would love to just know that i'm going to

Merlinbe floating in these mini pounds of epsom salts for like whatever half an hour even oh my god When they come out, they're like, no way it was that amount of time. That was like five minutes.

AlexOh. I would like to see how Max would react to a sensory deprivation chamber for a few hours. A lot of people are claustrophobic. Well, but isn't the idea is you, it's sensory deprivation. So once you're in, that fear goes away because you can't orient yourself.

MerlinDigga, digga, digga. Biohacker found dead in sensory deprivation tank at DC Spa.

AlexOh.

MerlinSee this story?

AlexNo.

MerlinThe controversial CEO of a biohacking company was found dead Sunday in a sensory deprivation tank at a spa in downtown D.C. Aaron Trawick was found inside a sensory deprivation float pod at Solex Float Spa in the one that, oh, God, they give the address. Really? He was 28. The owner of the company went to check on Trawick when his session ended and found him. Death investigation is underway. No evidence suggests foul play. Trawick ran a sentence of biomedical, which encouraged non-scientists to conduct their own medical research. In February, he took off his pants in front of a crowd at a biohacking conference in Texas

and injected himself in the thigh with an experimental non-FDA approved treatment for herpes.

AlexOh my God.

MerlinIf we succeed with herpes in even the most minor ways, we can proceed with cancer, he said. Huh.

AlexUh, yeah.

MerlinOkay.

AlexI mean, I'm the...

MerlinSaid the guy who took off his pants. Okay. Oh no, my herpes.

AlexIt's a stress pump.

MerlinHmm.

Alexoh boy uh here's here's one that i oh man i can't no i can't get the image out of my head of like a it's it's like from a bad vince vaughn movie or something uh a guy like yeah i i oh

Merlinhe's gonna do it he's saying his pants off you know code of code of conduct pound sign code of conduct i mean you know do we have to it's it's like donald trump in the presidency do we really have to tell you that when you're on stage please keep your pants on please and thank you it's okay

Alexit's for medicine now that now on to cancer dig dug uh here's one that i wanted to ask you specifically about the cheaper the booze the worse the hangover you enjoy alcohol did you find

Merlinthat's true i can say you know i'll say it's definitely true for gin which is already a kind of poison i'm not a big gin drinker i'll have a couple three martinis and that's plenty enough for me uh i one time i went to a bar as i did when in my youth that would have uh very cheap drinks or all you can drink for a certain amount which is a very very healthy idea and i remember experiencing something called you know you know there's well brands and um there's like bar brands and well brands the the it was called abc gin it was like generic quality gin oh it was really

really nasty now my life hack on this or my rule of thumb that i think is true is that generally speaking, the clearer and less sweet the alcohol, the less the hangover. Or conversely, the browner and more sweet. Like you have a brandy, you have an amaretto, that can give you a wang and headache, by and large. But it depends on everybody's body. Everybody's different.

AlexSo for example, I'm sending you a photograph. Oh, maybe a gif? I don't know what this is. Something that I enjoyed last night, despite the fact that I'm 27.

MerlinI saw that. I saw you having a very large drink over and over. The shirt made you do it somehow?

AlexWhy did the shirt make you drink? No, I meant to DM Mike and then it was on Twitter and then people responded. So I just kept it there.

MerlinSorry about that. It's a live photo. Whoops. It's a living photo. Oh, look at that. Look at you and your big drink.

AlexOh, oh, we got a guy.

MerlinIt's on.

AlexHey, we're back. Hey.

MaxHey, all right, I'm done. How's your alderman? uh so we had a brief discussion about whether to stay and and wait for him so he canceled on us and then we had and then you know like all the whole team showed up and we had a brief discussion of like should we stay and try to meet with him anyway um because sometimes that's the procedure and then we ultimately called it um because he canceled the meeting and plus like even if he did come in and meet with us he'd probably be running late and he wouldn't pay attention to what we were saying so that's not helpful time yeah that's how it works that's how you missed

Merlinmostly just alex telling me that she thinks a bunch of these are bullshit oh man i have a whole list of bullshit ones okay just make sure we save time because i have i have many lines i i spent an hour this morning exuding all of my not all but many of my rules of thumb that i didn't even know i thought give me the bullshit pass the bullshit oh what about the one about the barbers to get the barber with the worst haircut?

That doesn't seem right to me.

MaxIt doesn't seem right to me. What about taste? What if the guy just has bad taste? Oh, yeah. I didn't even think of that.

MerlinWhat if he moves a lot? What if he has uncontrollable motions?

MaxLike, the president has a horrible haircut, but it's taste. It's not that everyone else is a better barber than him. Do you have access to your bullshit list, Max? I'm trying to open up the Kindle thing. This is a mess. And I'm on, like, speaker in my cab. Hang on.

MerlinHe's such a jet setter.

AlexWhat do you do here?

MaxDo I go to, how do I find the stuff that I highlighted?

AlexYou will go to the upper right-ish corner that looks like a piece of paper, and it says my notebook.

MerlinIs this Kindle or iBooks?

AlexKindle.

MaxNice. I got it. Okay, here's one that I thought was really.

MerlinI bought a book the other day that wouldn't let me turn off justification, and I couldn't read it. Can you believe that? Can you believe putting out a book today where you can't turn off full justification?

AlexI think you're hanging out with CGP Grey too much.

MerlinThat's a hate crime.

MaxMerlin, here's one that I have for you, and I'm curious if you could explain to me how you use this in your everyday life, okay? Absolutely. Bring it on. Okay. On rainy nights, 90% of the worms crossing a highway will be facing the same direction.

MerlinYes. That's because of the way, well, let's be honest, it's because of the way that most annelids have their work scheduled. I take it for granted that it's true, but what can I do with that? There's a day crew and a night crew. Well, it depends. What kind of work are you interested in? Yeah, I don't know. I think that would be an observation. That's an observation.

MaxHere's another one. Ring around the moon, rain by noon. Ring around the sun, rain before the night is done. Now, I'm 30 years old, and I've traveled all over the place, and I've never seen a ring around the sun or the moon. What does that mean?

You're not following the worms.

MerlinShame on you.

MaxHave you ever seen a ring around the sun? Not when I'm sober. No.

MerlinI don't think I ever have, Max. That's a good point.

MaxIf you ever looked up and you saw a ring around the sun, would your first thought be like, oh, it'll rain before the day is done?

AlexAlso, why are you looking at the sun? Don't do that. Periodically just throughout the day. I feel like I'm having a stroke. Yeah. Well, a lot of those, it's not that I glossed over. I just took them as true and was like, this is a fun nifty fact that I will forget and never use in my life, but that was okay. It was the ones that were like really in detail, were really detailed or trying to give actual advice that made me kind of squicked out.

MaxHere's a good one. When a sow conceives, make a notch about the moon on your fingernail. When this mark grows off the end of the nail, the sow is about to give birth.

AlexI kind of like that one, honestly.

MerlinArm wisdom.

MaxBut what are you supposed to do? How am I supposed to use that?

MerlinGoddammit, you don't have a kid. Every morning when I brush my daughter's hair, she watches these terrible Russian YouTube videos of life hacks. And it's all stuff like make a hole in a Coke lid and then put string in it. Why? Okay, next one. It's just all bullshit. It's just all like, oh, isn't that a clever idea? You can make your own hot dog warmer out of a Coke can. It's like, it's just all people love this shit because they're like, oh, isn't that clever? I didn't know that. I don't think all of these are meant to be for you, Max. but I take your point that is not actionable. Pig nails are not something you're going to be able to deploy in comedy card writing.

Fair enough. I'm not angry about it. I take your point. I happen to be somebody who likes going, huh, I didn't know that. Turns out.

MaxHere's one that I thought was just really bad advice. This one is from Edwin Spills Bang. The higher the stakes, the easier it is to bluff.

AlexYeah, that was one.

MaxAnd it was like, that just seems like horrible advice to me.

MerlinYeah. If your turds float, there's too much fat in your diet. That one I liked. That's a good one. The easiest way to quiet a drunk is to whisper to him.

AlexThat feels true. Just like the idea, like the way to quiet a room is to just, or to get the attention of people in a loud room is to talk more quietly.

MerlinHere's one that everybody needs to learn, and this is not just about cows and ranching. Always, this is the rancher's rule. always leave a gate the way you found it. I think that is true. Always leave everything in the condition that it was in, not just in terms of like an Airbnb, but like assume that everything was that way for a reason and try to replicate it when you're done with it.

AlexThere's one, I keep going back and forth on this book, not only because it's made in a very interesting way. Oh, I love the snap. But circling back, circle back to what I said before. Or it's all, maybe if I had read it, read the paper version initially, it'd be like, okay, here's where the little fun things are. Here are the stupid pictures rather than actual advice or wisdom.

MerlinYeah, yeah, yeah. Reading this on a Kindle is not fun.

AlexOh, there's a hot dog suit, man. I think you guys don't like authority.

MerlinI think you guys push back against that. It's typical of millenniums. I think you guys just have suspicions about authority.

AlexWell, when you've got aldermen canceling on you all the time, you never know. Who can you even trust? Exactly.

MaxI did like there was one that I wanted to endorse and I in fact there was one or two that I was I put on my FAQ and so one of them was the one about how politicians wait different communications that come into their office.

MerlinOh absolutely you've been seeing this all along.

MaxYeah and you know what's interesting is like I've definitely seen this you know after Trump got elected everyone and like every branch of government. yeah everyone on twitter became an expert in the legislative process right and they all appointed remember that for like a month everyone was like i'm gonna go to go sign this petition

Merlintweet at this account use this hashtag and nobody ever fucking saw any of it and yeah and then the

Maxand then everyone had lots of bad advice they were like oh it's like 10 points if you write it in fountain pen and you know like you have to use like colored paper so that it like you know the senator reads it or whatever like everyone was just full of like like bad like shitty life hacks and bad advice. And I felt like this was this is the I mean, the answer is that every Senate office and every I mean, House offices general, I don't know that they have any systems for mail, but Senate offices, they do, but it's different for every office. And this is a pretty good summary

of how to explain it of like they weighed it to represent a certain different certain number of people. And I thought that the way that's book explained it was was excellent. I had a question

Alexfor you about this one um because it seemed i think i didn't highlight it it said something like it's uh 30 people for every phone call 40 people for every handwritten letter do you think is it more effective to make a bunch of calls because that was one thing like there was a lot of stuff in our office or in our communities where uh we would all just call or do letter writing campaigns and we all seem to get more done when we actually call the truth is i don't

Maxknow that any of that stuff makes a huge difference. And I think that it would be way more effective to like get involved in campaigns and elections. Like if you're really looking for like leverage, like you should be, people should be considering like volunteering on a local campaign. But if all you're trying to do is like influence a vote, like definitely writing a handwritten letter is the superior, it for sure counts the most. And emails and petitions are basically

Merlinworthless. I like this one a lot from page 29, the rule of political interests. If a politician mentioned special interests. He or she is discussing someone or some group with whom he or she disagrees. On the contrary, the public interest, quote unquote, is always something with which he or she is in complete agreement. That's I don't think that's super obvious to a lot of people that a lot of times special interest is at best a code word and is at least a dog, sometimes a dog whistle. Like, oh, people who want health care, like blacks who are sick. Yeah,

that's a special interest of this guy.

MaxWouldn't that be, wouldn't it be great if you, if you did have a candidate who finally had the balls to say like, yeah, it's in the public interest, but I just don't agree. You know, I won't support it.

MerlinOr just say, you know, every interest is special. Yeah. I love all of you. You're my children and I love you. You're all very special. I'm interested in what you're interested in because you're special and I love you.

MaxAnd then at the worst levels, you have the deal where it's like AT&T paid, Michael Cohen's fake company to get access to the president. And that's what I'd call a very special interest.

MerlinWell, they just wanted insight. It's not that weird. The four payments that are $20 under $100,000 are weird. Jesus Christ. Why did you have to bring this up?

MaxI turned on CNN last night because our friend of the show, Renato, was on Don Lemon last night. And right before Renata was on, they had Avenatti, the Stormy Daniels lawyer. And he had such a fucking funny burn on Don Lemon that I really appreciated. He said about AT&T. He said, if AT&T wanted insight, why don't they just watch CNN like everyone else? And of course, Don Lemon couldn't go because CNN is worthless and you couldn't learn anything from this network, even if you watched it 24 hours a day.

MerlinAnd also AT&T is trying to buy Time Warner, I think. Right.

MaxYeah, they're clearly not trying to get insights. They're trying to peddle. They're trying to get influence.

MerlinYeah. Oh, my God. What a goddamn mess.

AlexIf someone wipes his mouth right after taking a drink, he's probably been overindulging. Hmm. Okay. Again, you're both older and cooler than me.

MerlinTo me as an authority on alcohol, I'm going to gut you.

AlexWhat? Because you, well.

MerlinYou understand drunks.

AlexWhat? No, no, no, no, no, no. because I have seen you among people who have been a little over served. Man, this book loves words like this. Yes. And I've seen, but no, no, no, you have not been that person. You have been, uh, I have assisted people who were over. Exactly. Exactly. And hypothetically, uh, yeah. Hypothetically, you've been a very caring and considerate person to those people.

MerlinI would abstract that a little bit. That's a cute specificity, but I would say in general, people who do stuff with their mouth a lot that could be that could be rubbing it could be i do

Alexthink that that is an indication like when people are doing this kind of thing that could be an

Merlinindication but if if they're there at that point you're going oh he hasn't touched his mouth yet he's probably good i'm not sure if that's that useful if somebody's acting all fucking drunk they probably had too much to drink that's my that's true uh i do like the i definitely yeah

MaxYeah, so it's on the right. You'll take a left here into the sort of driveway.

AlexYeah. Oh, this is going to be...

MerlinYeah, down in Homer here.

AlexSwitzerland all over again. It is. I hope the Alp doesn't get him.

MaxOkay. The Alps got me.

AlexThe one with trying to pick a choice and you flip a coin and you immediately know what you want. It's totally true. And I liken it to... That's not the word. Whatever. I compare it to when people are like, well, where should we go? What do I want? I always say White Castle, and immediately somebody chooses.

MerlinThat is so smart. But, I mean, you're getting at so many levels of truth with that. This is kind of a be in my bonnet. Sometimes I'm asking you what you want for dinner not because I'm nice but because I need the help. And the truth is sometimes then if you go like, okay, fine, I'm just going to order steak.

MaxNo, I don't want steak again or whatever.

MerlinBut the coin one I think you can make very, very simple. It's like if you have the slightest hesitation at the result, you really want to go for sure.

AlexThe same, I think, goes with the. Oh, I didn't highlight this one either. The idea you should always choose paper if you're playing rock, paper, scissors, because it's the easiest to make as a fist. And Max is here. Max is all fancy, too. Chris, is he on Mike three? Like always.

MerlinIs he already back at his stately Temkin Manor?

AlexYes. Chicago is a very, very small city. That's why we're called the second city, because we're tiny.

MerlinOh, yes and.

AlexWhat a fucking shit-ass, what a shit-ass, useless, worthless morning.

MaxGod, that sucked. You're never going to get that back. I just got kicked in the nuts by the city all morning repeatedly. You got power-cut.

MerlinLet's throw that guy out of office. Should I tweet about it? You want me to put a hashtag up? God damn. Basta.

AlexThis is not normal. To solve a crime, remember two things. The most obvious solution is probably the correct one. And if you've eliminated all the other possibilities, whatever is left, however improbable, is what happened.

MaxOh, that's a rule of thumb from Sherlock Holmes.

AlexYep.

MaxI think, yeah, it's very, very close to what I've heard called Occam's razor. I had a couple of good ones here that I actually liked. One of them was if a dog misbehaves, you must correct the behavior within 1.5 seconds. Otherwise, the something I my highlight didn't continue. Otherwise, the dog won't make the connection between what it did in your correction. I think that's very good advice. It definitely applies to the cat. Like you can't like they're just going to think you're an asshole.

Yeah. The cat does not have a very clear understanding of like causation. So you basically have to catch the cat. Even if you explain it. Oh, what you did last night was problematic. Exactly. Yeah. So you basically have to catch the cat in the act. And like, so if she like, like nips at me, for example, I'll just immediately just like swipe her off the couch. And then she stops. She doesn't nip at me anymore. She learned that she gets swiped off the couch. That's a good one.

MerlinThat's a good one.

MaxThis was a good one. I thought for this was very on brand for Dubai Friday. If there's more than three cars in line ahead of you at the drive through window, it'll be faster to get out of the car and go inside. Yes.

MerlinOh, Jesus. Preach it.

MaxGenerally, I also find that your order is more accurate and the food is like crispier too.

Merlin35 years ago or whatever, when I worked at McDonald's, that was 100% true. You would always lavish more attention on the people who would be dining in with it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. 100%.

AlexI was really nervous about recording today because, of course, I'm sick. But there's a rule of thumb. To get a good quote, blow out of stuffed nose, always blow the clearer nostril first.

MerlinI tried that and it works.

AlexSame. I also feel better. That's fucking good. It's such a turns out.

MaxIt doesn't make any sense, but I find it to be totally true. Maybe you just get stuff moving.

AlexYeah, it's like stretching before going for a run.

MaxYeah, it's like snot yoga.

MerlinAbsolutely. You gotta warm up those sinuses. You wanna really open that up, really send oxygen to that joint, you know what I'm saying?

MaxHere's one that I had a question about. If a dog is charging at you and barking, it is merely defending its territory and will not bite. But a dog that's charging and not barking is going to attack. how if there's a dog charging at you are you supposed to get your little rule of thumbs book

Merlinout and filter through the highlights and be like now which one was barking and which one wasn't i think yeah i think probably you're supposed to run some drills they had a similar one about ostriches oh they also an enraged ostrich attacks you lie down and pretend to be dead it will think it has won and forget the whole episode within a few seconds allowing you

Alexto retreat intact the one about bears is you will only have hope of surviving if you run downhill because the bear's center of gravity is apparently, yeah, I just picture Winnie the Pooh being like, oh, bother and falling down the hill.

MaxCan't you just shake a can of pennies at the bear?

AlexWell, turns out... Or offer a small role in a movie.

MerlinI thought you...

AlexI hate that movie so much.

MerlinThere's all kinds of ways. The thing is, once you learn the art of persuasion, you know what I'm

Alexsaying? Oh, gosh. If the bear has a fedora...

MerlinM'lady.

MaxThis was my absolute number one favorite rule of thumb in the whole book. This is from Michael Ryder, graphic designer and art director. He said, Catholics feel guilty for what they weren't supposed to do, and they did. Jews feel guilty for what they were supposed to do and didn't. that is so fucking true read that again i think i like that catholics feel guilty for what they

weren't supposed to do and did jews feel guilty for what they were supposed to do and didn't

Alexthat is so true yes i almost was completely done with this book and then i read that one and i was like okay i will finish that's a that was kind of blew my mind that one was very good

Merlinone that one was very good and that's that's a good example of the kind where they can be very satisfying in the same way that like, you know, I've talked a lot about like the phenomenon of like thinking something you imagine nobody's ever thought before. And then finding that not only is that something other people have thought, but there's a name for that phenomenon that always is so satisfying to me. And in that way, you're like, oh, you know, that actually seems like a

Alexpretty good general observation. It's very satisfying. That went through my whole family group texts. But then there's other things that are, it's like trying to give you an existential crisis uh i forgive you but i can't forget it he has probably not forgiven you like okay okay thanks cool nice man that can do both am i right up here yeah did you guys already i want to know

Merlinwhat your what your original new rules oh we did not get into that yet you guys are done i have so

Maxmany i have so all right all right well i really only came up with one oh i didn't know we were supposed to come up with a bunch i thought no no but i mean like i bet it's a really good one i

MerlinI thought it was one good one.

MaxAll right. What do you got, Alex?

AlexI didn't know. No, you go. You go. This isn't fair.

MaxI'll do a lightning round of a bunch of the short ones. Oh, no. Well, I think it's all right. I'll say mine. I think Alex and I should go first because ours are going to be underwhelming as compared to yours, Merlin. Mine is that whenever you order pizza for a group of people, you should always order twice as much cheese pizza as the next pizza that you order.

AlexYes.

MerlinYes. Nobody. Well, I mean, I don't want to contravene the advice of Roderick on the line, but it's Cheese pizza is the monad. You're good. Get cheese pizza. You will be fine.

MaxListen, trust me. We've talked about this on the show before, but anytime there's a selection of pizzas, guess which one goes first? The cheese, because it's agreeable to everyone.

AlexYes.

MaxWhy will people not learn? Some people- You want to seem cool. Some people really want their garlic and clams pizza.

MerlinIt's like a first date. This is not your time to try shit you've always wanted to try. Here's a rule of thumb. the most successful date is one that doesn't end in an emergency room. I just made that up. It's the same with pizza. Don't be clever. Don't be clever. Nobody wants the fucking Polynesian mustard bastic. Just get something really fucking normal that anybody can eat, including kids.

AlexThere should only be one pizza that is Instagrammable, and then the rest of it... Yes, queen. Is that our new thing?

MaxWe're going to coin aphorisms like Gary V? We're going to be on the fly?

MerlinCush it! Did you crush it?

MaxThe main secret to success is trying and then not failing. The secret to success is really about the success of secrets.

MerlinInstitutional wisdom is really the wisdom of institutions. The only thing worse than being talked about. That's Oscar Wilde.

MaxJesus Christ.

MerlinGive me a guess. That was good. That was very good, Matt. Alex, what's yours? I think when you hear some of mine, you're going to have, every one I've got, you're going to have three in response probably. Because a lot of mine are about work and life. All right, Alex, what do you got?

AlexSo, number one, yes, number one, which is not me subcasting Max. It is any boss or any project manager I've ever had. No, no, no, no, no. If your boss doesn't give you an update on the status of a project, it's time to put it on hold or it's not a priority at this time, which is, I think, true.

MaxOh, my God, that's so wrong for Cards Against Humanity.

AlexOh, okay, okay.

MaxThat's deeply, deeply wrong. Oh, okay. If that was on the front burner, you would have bugged her about it.

AlexYeah.

MaxNo. There's lots of things that are on the front burner that I can't keep in mind. Should she dock her own pay?

AlexI think I just got demoted.

MaxAlmost certainly.

AlexYeah. No. I think it's if something doesn't go for, I don't want to give away specific examples.

MaxThis is very wrong.

AlexNo. I'm not talking about budget things.

MaxAt cards, we do too much. So I can't be in charge of everything, and neither can any of the other partners. So that's like the that's why we have a staff is to be in charge of things and get them done. And then when they're not done, we're always surprised. We're like, I thought that was supposed to be done by now.

AlexThe OK. Well, then there's sort of an asterisk to that. But it needs to get like a yes or a no.

MaxIt needs to get a yes or a no.

AlexYeah.

MaxIt needs to get a yes or a no.

AlexYeah. For like, yes, it is a go on this because you have the.

MaxAssume anything I ever ask you to do in the future is a yes.

AlexIt's always a yes.

Maxit's always a yes and it's never a no all right wait merly boasted by your own baguette

Alexproblem okay problem solved life hack oh god life hack all right i'm gonna put a sign up

Maxi'm gonna put a sign up in the bathrooms assume that when when max tells you to do something it's

Alexalways a yes and it's never a no no no no that's that's the thing though they're all that is you saying do something like you want me to prioritize they're all number one next question yeah that's that's the thing. It's that is not, if I'm, uh, this, this isn't, again, this is not like sub, sub casting max. If someone's like, uh, I'll, if they say, I'll get back to you.

MerlinRule of thumb.

AlexThe more often somebody says,

Merlinit's not about you. It's totally about you.

AlexNo, uh, it like if, um, oh, just waiting on it, which is, which is fine. You're making it worse. I know I'm making it worse. I'm excited to see where this is going. No, that's it. That's it. That's it. Uh, all right. If you're cleaning out books in your apartment, the ones that have yellowed a bit and you bought new are probably the ones you'll never read. And number three, if you go to urgent care right before it closes, you'll be seen more quickly. A lot of people. What?

That's got to be the most Alex thing I've ever heard. I know. I know. Yep. Planning my day out accordingly. you yeah because a lot of people are like okay I'm going to get somewhere right as it opens no no no you want to get there right as it closes and it's not because the employers are going to be annoyed with you because it closes when it closes but they're going to move faster because they want to get home to their families as do you so you just go a half hour before it closes that's good

Merlinthat's a good one I like that how about

Alexalright alright are we going to do a deep dive into yours yeah I want to know

MerlinI don't have that many. I'm not really a crier. If you don't remember what an app does, you can probably delete it. Most things take twice as long as you expected. When estimating the time will take to do anything with a child at at least 20 minutes per child, whoever wants the meeting least usually holds most of the power. Any slack is only as good as the person who always posts last. Avoid any children's movie whose trailer includes more than one fart or butt joke because that's what they think was the funny part. Avoid any food whose name has been altered for any reason for legal purposes.

Avoid vegetarian dishes that try to recreate something that's primarily based on meat. In any large store, choose the line that's mostly young people who are by themselves. Always make all the bacon. Never try to bribe someone unless the amount you're offering them seems shockingly high. If you really want a glass of water at a restaurant, always order that first. You'll need to listen to three episodes of a podcast before you'll know if you could really love it. And if you want an honest opinion, this is just a few. I'm just getting started. If you want an honest opinion, always ask for the second superlative. People will think about their answer more and are less likely to give a rote answer. What is your second least favorite thing

about working at this job?

MaxInteresting.

MerlinThat's all the short ones. I got a lot of longer ones.

MaxIsn't the thing about everything will take, everything will take twice as long as you think it is, isn't that already a thing?

MerlinHow's that?

MaxIt's already a thing. What's that?

MerlinIt has a name and everything. I don't think anybody's codified it quite as well as I did.

MaxEvery deadline will take like twice as long as you think.

MerlinOh, I got lots on estimation. I got a lot of estimation. All right, well, please proceed. You want to hear some longer ones? Oh, yes. Okay, this one's about money. If the person with whom you're negotiating, you've heard this before from me, but I finally tried to write it down in two sentences. If the person with whom you're negotiating finds it impossible to give you a budget or an estimate, ask them to put it between two orders of magnitude.

Discovering that your ballpark figures differ by two to four zeros will save you a lot of time. So, do you want to pay me $10? You want to pay me $100? You want to pay me $1,000? $10,000? Which one's closer? And they go, oh, oh, we don't have a budget for this. Like that ends the conversation very quickly. Just orders of magnitude. Just add a zero. Like how many zeros? And if you disagree by more than one zero. That's a good ass life hack. Yeah, because when you say to somebody, what's your ballpark figure, they're going to go blah, blah. We'll say, okay, is it closer to $1 or $100,000?

AlexWell, here's the problem though. So what happens if they're like, okay, and you never really wanted to do the job? Do you just say no to that? Or you're like, oh.

MerlinWell, I mean, I do this as an emergency because, like, everybody gets that same piece of negotiation advice, which is maybe true, which is the first person who names a number always loses. It's like, well, you know what? I got shit to do. So, like, what's your budget for this project? Well, we're not really sure yet. We need to really vet that. Okay. Is it somewhere between $100,000 and $1,000? Is it somewhere between $1,000 and $10,000? They go, oh, $10,000. As soon as they go, oh, $10,000, you go, we're good.

AlexYeah.

MerlinBecause now you realize they thought that was ridiculous. It's kind of like the bribe. Like if they thought that was ridiculous, then you're not going to have any negotiating position.

AlexHave you ever bribed somebody?

MerlinWhen I say bribe, I also mean stuff like a maitre d'. Never bribe somebody unless the amount seems shockingly high. Like if you go $10 is probably good. Not enough. If you really want a table, give them $100. What do you think, Max?

MaxI've never bribed anyone but I agree with you

MerlinI don't mean necessarily like a government official I mean anybody that you're asking to do something extraordinary in a non-tip environment usually

MaxI think that the point is that what you're saying is like you don't want to offer them an insultingly low amount of money because then you're really insulting them twice it's bad for everybody you're really insulting them twice you're really saying like well I think you have no integrity and also that your integrity is only worth 50 bucks or whatever and that's what's that's one of the things that's so funny about all the trump bribes that we're finding out about and the trump payoffs and this like exactly exactly what you said i sent you that

Merlinin the text because exactly what you said it's exactly as petty dumb and cheap as you could it's

Maxsmall it's like small and stupid right it's like that's it that's what your dignity is worth that's like the the that's like the trust and fidelity of like the american people is like it's like you know whatever like a hundred grand or something i'm gonna pay you an applebee's coupon Hey, everybody. I've got a quick Patreon update for all of the Dubai Friday Powder Nation.

Some of you know we don't have any ads on this show. We are just supported by our listeners, and that makes it so we don't have to sell underpants or mattresses or none of that stuff. and basically the way it works is you guys have money and we want your money. So you can go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com, and you become, for $5 a month, you become a supporter of Dubai Friday, and we do a whole second episode every week, the after show, and you get that in a private RSS feed for just $5 a month. But we also have another level, the more elite tier. This is where our true friends are, I would say.

And in this elite tier, we send you swag, some Dubai Friday swag every so often. So the previous piece of swag was a show poster by our friend Kevin Budnick. And this was sort of, how would you guys describe it? I would say it's like the Avengers Infinity War poster.

MerlinIt's a very ambitious crossover. It's like the slash fiction of your dreams. What if all of the breakout hit characters of Dubai Friday appeared on the same piece of paper? Exactly. Exactly.

MaxAnd it's yellow. Yep. And you can still get that if you upgrade. If you become a $10 supporter or if you upgrade now, you can get that poster. but we do have a cutoff date. Do you know what that date? Have we picked the date? Yes, May 18th. So sign up by May 18th and after that date we are going to stop sending out the poster. So if you want the sort of season one Avengers Infinity War crossover event due by Friday poster, sign up by May 18th and otherwise there will be no more posters going out but we do have new swag in the works so it's round two.

We're doing another kind of a cool project. I think it's going to remain a secret for now but if you want that we'll just send it to you for free as long as you're a $10 backer. So I guess it's not free. It's $10. But for the low price of $10, you can get all the swag. It's a good time to become the $10, you know, the high fidelity member of Dubai Friday because you're going to get two things. You're going to get the poster and you're going to get the new shit that we're about to send out.

Thanks, Max. Now back to the show.

MerlinEnd of speech. Ron Swanson. Here's some I'll keep the I'll skip the super long ones A lot of them are about project management Here's one you'd like Alex I always have at least a six pack of Diet Coke on hand

AlexA lot of people drink Diet Coke And most people who do drink a lot of it Yeah For projects

MerlinThese are really boring But these are things I learned You guys can disagree with me on this Everybody knows that any project is a triangle Made up of three sides That are time, money, and quality Everybody knows that shortening the length of one side necessarily lengthens at least one other side and usually both other sides. Less well known is that inexperienced clients tend to shorten the side that they actually understand the least.

AlexYeah.

MerlinChecks out. I mean, people who think, people who really think like, okay, we're going to get all the quality in short time and we can totally skimp on the budget for that. Like people who don't have a lot of experience. And then I got a lot here about how to account for that when you're figuring out what to charge people.

AlexOh, God.

Merlinother ones. Archive any email that's older than 30 days. If it kills you to archive that email, immediately turn it into a task and then archive it.

MaxOoh, that's,

Merlinokay, you got me back at the end there. Yep, yep, yep, yep, because if you're not going to do it now, you're never going to do it. Most office culture comes out of a combination of what is rewarded and what is tolerated. If you want to change your culture and improve it, you need to change what you reward and what you tolerate. This one's very general, but in project management, if the client estimate for any given aspect of the project feels poorly thought out, mentally double the budget for money and time for that part of the project. At the end of the project, after you've done all of that, then add at least 20% on top of

all of that because you're going to need it and you'll definitely earn it. Wait, isn't that an

Maxactual from the book Rules of Thumb where it's like basically if you're skeptical about a client paying their bills, like charge them twice as much and bill half up front? That's a good idea. Also,

Merlinif you're going to get a haircut, go to the person with the worst haircut because they're definitely facing in the direction of the worms at the time that the ostrich left the farm ranch.

MaxYeah, but what if I need to know if the worms, 90% of the worms face the same direction?

MerlinHow even will you know? Will there be a ring around the sun?

AlexI have another one that's very Alex. I wasn't going to, hmm, okay. If you don't have any waiting time for a psychiatrist, meaning they're immediately taking on new patients, they're probably not very good at their job. I love these Alex-specific ones. These are such a good one. I mean.

MerlinIf you think a food will have a taste to it, it probably will.

AlexThat's not. That's the thing. I'm not telling people not to see a doctor, but stay on their waiting list.

MaxIf it has any color to it whatsoever, do not put it in your mouth.

AlexIf it's a white food, it's a theory. If it's white, it's right, but not at night. Oh, no.

MerlinHey, what do you think about that one, though? If you really want... Like, I always really want a glass of water. Glass of water is the most important part of the meal. I always order that first before anything else.

AlexSo do I.

MerlinI feel like people really forget about it, especially with room service. People really forget about the water unless you order it first.

AlexYes. You taught me the pitcher thing. Like, always order a full pitcher of water when you get room service.

MaxWhat scenario is it where you sit down to eat dinner and you don't want water? I feel like I feel like I am constantly ordering water for the whole table like they get they come back and they're like how's everything tasting or can I get you anything else and I'm like yeah well I have a water for the whole table everyone wants a water why just bring it you

Merlingot two eyes and one mouth Johnny why don't you look at the fucking empty water glasses and you

Maxcan draw your own okay but a lot of times there's not even an empty water glass like you have to specially request a water also when I go to a bar I always want a water don't add just everyone at a should always be given a water you should never get a beer without a water it should oh i agree everything should always come with a water you should always be handed a water the only exception would be if there's a state if there's like a place with an extreme drought like i think in california they stopped you know you basically they made it so you had to ask for water and i understand that because that literally that glass of water isn't is even though it's going to take

Merlin15 to 20 times that amount of that glass of water to wash every dish whatever that's fine

AlexI'm going to fucking break.

MerlinOh, it's actually, you know, if you want to be green, hang up your towel. No, I'm going to cum on my towel. I'm going to shit on my towel. I'm going to rub that all around, and then I'm going to spread it out all over the floor because I need you to know I want fresh towels. The sheets, don't ask. I want you to know that we're committed to the environment,

Maxso just go ahead and throw like an animal. Oh, no. Just throw your sheets right on the floor.

MerlinWhile outside, the sprinklers on the golf course are going 24-7. uh you know one one from um the u.s military via cgp gray that i do think about a lot three is two two is one and one is none yep that is so fucking smart and it's really really true and it's changed the way i think about supplying my house do you know that one max yes that's i you know i was

Maxtrying to come up with a way to phrase in a witty way my my my other like number one life hack which is like basically it this is a better way to say it but basically like any like you know everyone you have these little shits that you always need. So like pens and nail clippers and like a stapler. Oh my God, a USB charger. There's just little shits in your life and you're constantly in a state of going, where's that little shit that I need? Just have eight of them.

MerlinBuy three. Buy three. Just go on Amazon. Buy three for everyone you need.

MaxDo you have any idea how much the best nail clippers cost? It's like $10. Oh, I got the best nail clippers. Hold on. Oh, I have the best nail clippers. Just go on Amazon and just get five of them and put them everywhere where you might need your nail clippers.

AlexWhere do you need nail clippers other than a bathroom?

MaxI need them in each bathroom in the house. Okay, fine. I want them by my desk at work in case I have like a weird nail and I can't type. Don't you ever get a weird nail and you can't type?

MerlinOf course you get a weird nail. If you've got a kid, we have five nail clippers and they're never there. We keep buying scissors on the reg because they just disappear. But also, is it Sakura? Is that the name I want to say? There's these Japanese nail... No, that's the pen company.

MaxNo, I'm not clipping my toenails in front of my desk like a... There's someone who does it. in the office. No, there's not.

AlexThere have been sighted toenails. Edit this out.

MaxWho is it? Tell me who it is.

AlexNo, we don't know. Nick and Jen have been investigating this for like a year.

MaxYou keep fighting little moons? Oh, yeah. Listen, I'm not going to sit at my desk and clip my toenails and they'll pop off like little boomerangs and fly all over the office. You know people do that

Merlinon public transit.

MaxOh, I've seen it. Oh, I've seen it. I've seen people do that on the out.

MerlinDig it, dig it, dig it, dig it. I just sent you guys a nail clipper that, oh, it's animated. Look at that. You see that, Alex? Buy this nail clipper, trust me. It is so goddamn sharp. What is this? It looks like a... The finger is very upsetting. I don't like the person's finger. It's like a wax finger.

MaxIt's like oily. That's not a good nail clipper. This whole thing looks like a Dodge Charger to me. It's like a... What is this? Why would you ever need...

AlexWhat a specific comparison.

MaxWhy would you ever need this much leverage on a nail? It's so sharp. It is so sharp. It sounds like I'm going to cut into my toe with this. Is this a big toenail clipper or is it a little fingernail clipper?

MerlinNo, no. It's a regular finger boy.

MaxNow, let me tell you this. Here's another rule of thumb for Max. Don't use the little ones. Just use the big ones. They're better even on your fingers.

MerlinHonestly, a toenail. But buy a nice one. Don't buy the ones that came in a kit. Get something from Japan that is very high quality. You will be very happy.

MaxDo you see what I'm saying? The large. What you want is a big toenail clipper and you take that to your fingernails. Oh, man, it's better in every way. Why would you use the small one? What's the small one for? Leverage.

AlexAll right, rule of thumb from Alex. You could just file your nails, and then you won't risk weird hangnails.

MerlinOh, God. I could shit in a bag and save it. Why would I file?

MaxThey also have a toenail version, Max.

AlexOh, they do.

MaxWhy would I file my nails? Why would I file my nails?

AlexBecause you know how if you clip your nails sometimes?

MerlinBecause you're a fancy Dutchess.

AlexNo, no. because I, so I, I've tried very hard to stop biting my nails. Um, and then I found clipping them terrible. Cause it's, I guess it's just not a skill that I developed in my life. So I just occasionally file them.

MaxAnd it's, I don't need to brag, but I'm pretty good at clipping my own nails. I mean, I've been doing it for years. Is that impressive? It is. You're a big boy. I should, I should like, if I ever had to make like an online dating profile, I think I would put that in there. Like, I know how to clip my own nails.

Washing own hair since eight. I know how to clip my own nails and I'm good at it.

78. Snot Yoga 0:00 / 01:01:14