82. Oh No, My Stocks!

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Demkin. This week's challenge, follow up.

MaxHello. Hello. I'm trying to set the studio up and everything is weird. Skype isn't logged in. Oh, no. Alex is going to have to walk me through like Apollo 13, how to set the studio up, because we made the studio too expensive for me to know how to use it.

MerlinOh, you're at work?

MaxOh, I'm coming in blind, Merlin. Oh, I'm at work, big time. I thought I was going to come in and we were, you know, I usually come in hot. And, you know, there's no producer crest. There's no Alex. The lights are off. I'm turning knobs. I'm pushing buttons. And nothing is calling Alex.

Speaker AIs this it? Is this it? Is this it?

MerlinThe adventure begins.

AlexOh, sorry I'm late. You got a man in your room. Oh, that was very upsetting. Alex, why is there a man crawling around in your room like a human centipede? And then he was on my bed. He was on my bed. Oh, no. It touched my pillow. I was like, okay, here's what happened. I'm going to tell a story coherently, maybe for the first time on this show. I was prepared at 9 a.m. because I am recording in not in Merlin's neck of neck of the woods, but the big the big old state of California.

Ethernet has been fine all week. And then, of course, of course, it craps out. Stop. Stop. Yes.

MaxYou're in. Alex is in California this week. Yes. For the computer convention.

AlexPerhaps. Maybe. Maybe.

MaxSo this morning you could. So this morning you're trying to dial into our podcast Dubai Friday from your hotel.

AlexYep.

Maxokay then what's the next thing that happened after that step what was the last thing you

Alexremember step two oh man it doesn't look like anything to me i'm in my bed um step step two get a call miss cox you're trying to get on the internet well oh yes i am um like are you having any problems well yeah well yes yes i am and then there's a man outside your door oh no and uh he came in and was like i i apologize it seems that your internet is no longer working which you think that would be like a first thing in the morning type of thing to tell somebody um

and then he had to go under under my bed use some screws there was some noises there was an electric drill that was exciting and uh now i'm back on ethernet hooray end of story hey good job that

MaxThat was almost in order and everything.

AlexThat was almost in order.

MaxDo you think they're tapping our call? Did he come in to install some sort of bug?

AlexMaybe he's a cuck and just got very... Actually, I think they thought I was trying to... Oh, he just wanted to meet you. I think they thought I was trying to steal internet or something. I don't know.

MerlinI see, I see.

AlexHow's your room? I mean, I like staying in hotels as long as I have an excess of Lysol wipes. I did not bring enough Lysol wipes. And they were out at the Safeway.

Speaker Aoh this is bad

Alexit's gonna be fine are you having fun in general though yeah okay I'm gonna tell a coherent story again I flew to San Jose

Maxwell you mean for the first time

Alexit's always always the first time yep yep so you went to the computer show in San Jose I'll tell a coherent story I went to the big computer show WWDC but I'm not at the big computer show or WWDC as they say WWDC stocks uh stocks stocks stocks stocks um teeth teeth just to uh hold you're making you're making

Merlinguest appearances i'm sorry please please tell your coherent story

Alexfinally finally i get my stocks and it's in the news app okay no see i need to i'm gonna tell the

Maxstory in order but what if i'm looking at the stock price and i don't know the news that's behind the stock price changes.

AlexExactly, exactly.

MaxYou know, every morning, you got to wake up and you check your portfolio and you're like, did it go up? Did it go down? Anything could have happened. What happened to my portfolio?

Speaker AWhat happened with my stocks? Stocks! What's the story? What's the story behind the overnight on my stocks?

MaxEvery morning, you wake up and just screaming into your pillow, how are my stocks?

Speaker AWhere's my stocks?

Alexso you went to the computer show in san jose the big computer show and i've had some very very important business meetings and by that i mean i've been hanging out with friends of the show todd and making doing being being on some podcasts and uh talking about robots and i'll guess i guess We'll get to that later if we want to talk about the big computer show.

I don't know.

MerlinI saw a cute photo of you two together.

AlexOh, really? Did I take a photo?

MerlinLet me see if I can find that and put it in the super secret text channel. Oh, look at that. Look at that. John Syracuse takes very good photographs.

AlexHe does. It's so impressive.

MerlinThere's you and Todd.

AlexMm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's what Syracuse calls my fake smile because I cannot smile. It's very upsetting, isn't it? I'm like, please don't kill me.

MerlinMine's funny, go to smile I wasn't charged

Alexat 50% so I was like Oh, that's funny

MerlinLet's see Oh yeah, so you're having fun? You look like you're having fun, you're meeting people Are you being gracious? Are you being gracious as somebody that people want to meet? I told you to be gracious

AlexYes, everybody's been very kind, thank you Are you being nice back to them or are you being awkward

Merlinand saying no, don't like me You have to say thank you very much. I really appreciate that. That's what you say.

AlexI don't want to incriminate myself. Anyway, I thought that I would just be sitting reading a book by the river all week, but they have Scoot Scoots now in the fine city of San Jose. Have you heard about the Scoot Scoots, Merlin? Oh, there's so much Scoot Scoot discussion to be had.

MaxI heard they were banned from the city of San Francisco. San Francisco brought the hammer down on the Scoot Scoots.

AlexGod, I love them so much.

MaxSo, you know, we haven't really spent a lot of time talking about this on the show, but I'm a little bit curious. We do not have them in Chicago yet, or at least they're not prevalent enough for me to see them. But as an outsider, I'm actually a little bit curious about how the scooters work, like the system of getting and leaving them. And so I know, what do I know about it? I know that there's this problem of people just leave the scooters everywhere. And I read the article about the, what are they called, the bird hunters or whatever that go find them. Mm-hmm. Such a good article.

It was really interesting.

MerlinThere's basically this whole kind of like sub-economy of young, even high school-age people who go out and they use the app to go find Scoot Scoots in the Wild that they can then charge on their parents' 110 outlet for money. And it's a very cutthroat industry. You get mom's minivan, you go out, you grab all the birds you can.

MaxMm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And people throw them in crazy places. Like they throw them on the bank of a river. Yes.

MerlinIf you can find them, it's like a treasure hunt. Yeah, if you pull it out of a river, you get extra scoot points.

MaxAnd then sometimes it's a honeypot. So the burglar will, like the mugger, will take the scoot scoot and put it down a dark alley. And then when you go to retrieve the scoot scoot, they mug you. That's how they get you.

AlexThat's how they get you. Well, I wanted to see how far out of the city I could go before the scoot scoot was like, nope, nope, nope. Got to go back. and I rode it for about two hours and nothing. It was like, okay, ride is still going. And that ride, it costs $6 for two hours of use.

MerlinIt's really cheap. It's like a dollar to start and it's like $10 an hour or something. Okay, so I'm a little bit,

Maxso I need someone to like, here's the, I have some critical information that I'm confused about that I want answers. So how do you get a scooter? Like, let's say I leave my house and I want to take a scooter to work, right? Now, I know that you can use the app to locate the scooters. The app will, for any particular company, the app will put a pin where there's the nearest scooter or whatever. Correct. But where are the scooters? Do you see what I'm asking? Yes. Like, where are they? Like, where's the known, I think they call it a bird's nest, right?

AlexOh, yes, but I've not seen a bird's nest yet. I'm going to put a screenshot in our super secret channel of one of the apps.

MaxDo I, as a casual user of the scooter, if I live in San Francisco and I just want to get one from my house, do I need to like climb a fence over an embankment of a river and like fish it out from the, you know, from the canal to ride it?

MerlinOr are they like? No. I think, I think, I mean, the joke that everybody's going to want to make is we'll just open your door and there will be one there. Because they are kind of littered around in the main middle parts of San Francisco anyway. My wife says it's just a blight. Like up by Mission Bay, there's just so many people just leave on the sidewalk. But I think they call it a bird nest or bird's nest where you can – designated places where after they've been charged, the youths bring the birds back to a certain area and those are known like get a scooter places.

MaxThis is my other question is so the kids who drive their parents' cars around collecting the scoot scoots, like I get it. They take them home. They charge it. You get your bounty. But then what? You don't just keep it, right? People don't come to your house and ring your doorbell to get the scooter. Like you have to put it somewhere, I assume. Yes. I think that's the second part.

AlexAll right. Part one, you sign up for the app. You scan a barcode that's on top of the scooter. You pay. I just use Apple Pay. You get on the Scoot Scoot. You ride it anywhere. It's literally like San Jose has a cicada amount of scooters. They're absolutely everywhere. And when I went on my two-hour trip, I dropped it off at a Starbucks and I was in a suburb at that point. And then I was just curious and waited. And about 15 minutes later or so, some guy pulls up in a minivan, takes the scooter and puts it in the back of the minivan.

MaxSo you like hid in a bush looking out with binoculars, like waiting.

AlexBy a bush, you mean Starbucks, yes. And by binoculars, you mean me standing very close to a window. So you're like Mike from Breaking Bad.

MaxYou're like on a stakeout, but you just want to see when the scooter company comes to get your scoot scoot.

AlexAnd then I went outside casually and said, oh, hey, are you a birder? And he looked at me like I was speaking a different language. But who knows? I probably stammered and I was trying to tell a story and it didn't it didn't work. He didn't hear this patented, coherent story for the first time. And he was like, oh, yeah, I work for the company. and there that was the end of the interaction he put in his car and drove away so he he maybe he was stealing one i don't know i assume that after a while it's completely deactivated because there

is a companion app like with lyft or whatever it's like a birder app so the people who pick things up are different than the people who ride them even in like what sort of gig economy thing

Maxthey use. Does that make sense? Yeah. But so like in Chicago, we have Divi Divi and in New York, they have city bike and there are designated stations where you get the Divi in the city bike and you just know to go. It's like you have to get the bike from those stations and you have to return the bike to those stations. But with the Scoot Scoots, is there a station where you can go

Alexget them there are a few but they're just littered everywhere you just see one there's there there are kickstands they'll just be in the middle of the sidewalk and then you jump on do the little scanny thing and you go i don't want to ask too many questions i'm not asking the question i just enjoy and then yeah you don't want to ask the question i see i i can't i mean i can't answer it's a deep dark hole and i'm sure it's very problematic but they're so fun and they're so dangerous and I've never been happier in my life.

MerlinIsn't it? But doesn't it sort of mirror that I do have scoots who follow up for this very special episode. But it's, I mean, something you just notice across the board with people. And actually, they actually talked about this on the ATP from the other night that I was listening to you right before this is you go through, Marco's talking about going through these phases where first you're like, what is that? And then you're like, these people are bad. And then you're like, hmm. And then you get on it and you're like, this is so fun. These go so fast. And I feel like with any kind of scoot scoot, you kind of, as soon as you can balance and

feel like you're not going to die and you move a little bit and then you start to go fast, you go, oh, I understand this. It really, really makes sense. And it's a goddamn shame that they were not more careful or let's just say considerate from a civic standpoint about how this would be received. They did the startup thing where they basically, this all started in fucking March. March is when three of these companies came to San Francisco. They just dropped in fucking scooters everywhere. Like I think over, they're talking about bargaining down to something like 1500 on the street.

So who knows how many are out there right now? And yeah, they are, they're a menace. Like if you're in some kind of assisted device, like how do you get around?

MaxIt's just such a shame because I, you know, I think we've made fun of them a lot. And I do think, you know, like obvious, it clearly is like a public nuisance. Like this is not tenable the way that they're being run, but it's like good urban development. Like you want, like I would love for more people to ride electric scooters than drive. Like that's highly desirable.

MerlinOh God, it makes, in a city like this, it makes so much sense. It's, it's such a missing piece. There was a really good article in the Atlantic that I can't find right this second. Oh, I read that about like, it's like, I'm a scooter defender. Like I should hate these. I should hate these things, but I instantly got it. And it's true. I mean, there's this, the, the, the phrase people use a lot is the last mile, right? Like when you're doing any kind of thing, there's, it's not that difficult to get in a plane and go from Los Angeles to New York, but then, you know, how do you get to Williamsburg or whatever? Or how do you in fact get from the subway to the place that you're going? And a lot of people here take Muni, they take BART, they want to, they have to get around. And that idea of like, you know, anything that's good, I'm sorry to be that guy. I've tried to stop being this guy, but I am this guy.

Anything that gets us out of this fucking thing of one person driving in a car to go somewhere that is almost within walking distance is crazy. And so, you know, yeah, Uber and Lyft are a kind of solution for that. That is. Yeah, yeah. But but I mean, there's a reason taxis kind of worked as a thing in New York, you know. Anyway, I agree with you. I think it's such a goddamn shame because it is one of those funny things, though, where if you haven't done it and you have been inconvenienced by it, you're instantly turned off to it and think the whole thing is a terrible idea.

AlexIt seems like there's a very easy solution to this where Max keeps saying, is there a nest? Where do you pick these up? Where do you drop them off? And if it was just like a divvy bike or a city bike and you had to pick it up at a designated place, return it to another designated place, and obviously it's going to be in the richer neighborhoods or whatever. And if you had to pay a fine if you left the scooter somewhere, I think that that solves a ton of problems.

MaxI just don't – it's an existing model, right? Like there's lots of bike share companies.

MerlinYou hear some of this about shared bikes just because there are people who just hate bikes and hate people who ride bikes and think that the cars should own the roads for all times and everybody else is in their way. Like that is a POV. I get that. But we've got tons of shared bikes here and you do not hear that particular argument because, again, there's stakes. Like some grocery stores I remember, I want to say back in the 90s, used to have a thing where you had to put a quarter into the – you ever see that? Where you've got to put a quarter into the shopping cart to unlock it? And even it's just it's basic freakonomics. You're you're much more likely to bring your cart back so you can get your quarterback. It's the dumbest thing in the world, but it works.

AlexAnd that's the thing. I would probably in a bind pay the $20 or whatever if I was the dick who was late to a meeting or something. Sorry, I was late. And I don't know this. It seems like I really like your new word wholesome. That seems like an almost wholesome business model. And then they figure out a way to recycle the batteries somehow in like a hopefully an ethical, safe way. I just they're so cool and they're so good and they're so easy to ride. I was the opposite

of Marco. I went to I love this. They're perfect in every way to oh, I don't know if this everyone is kind of a dick who's riding these and then oh, these should be illegal. They need to have a way different system. And I think shared bikes is kind of how to do it because there's also an accessibility issue with bikes they're scary sometime to ride uh especially in chicago if if you're not like i don't think people hate divvy bikes but people who use their own bike

hate divvy bikes so that's kind of i do you see that max yeah and i've used a divvy bike every

Maxonce in a while it's kind of nice bikes are are bike i mean a lot of the stuff i think it cuts right to the core of like why politics is divisive because people feel very, you know, it's like, I know lots of people who are like, oh, I don't follow politics, right? Like it's sports. Like, you know, I don't watch baseball. And, but the difference between sports and politics and like why it's so inane to say like, oh, I don't follow politics is like, you know, baseball, like there's no consequences. Like if you don't watch baseball, it just goes away. Like there's no, it doesn't

affect your life in any way. Like the team doesn't do better or worse. Like it has no bearing on anything, whether you like baseball or not. So you just, it's like, you know, it's like I don't care about lots of things and I just ignore them, right? Like I don't care about the fight over the new Star Wars movie that everyone's litigating on Twitter.

MerlinRight, right. It could be annoying to you, like culturally and annoying to your taste, but Han Solo is not actively harming you.

MaxYeah, and you know what? I muted Star Wars and I don't see people saying defend Kelly Marie Tran at all costs and, you know, throwing themselves off a cliff to protect an actor in a movie and or the people attacking her. And I don't see that whole obnoxious debate. And you know what? My life goes on just the same. And I'll go see the new Star Wars movie and I'll enjoy it and not have to know that the stupid, meaningless fight behind it. But politics is the exact opposite of that, because it's like, well, if you don't pay attention to it, it still affects every facet of your life. So whether you care about it or not,

it's like it really does start to come out when it's like well what about who's using the sidewalk in front of my house or my commute to work like it is the struggle over resources that we all share together so you have to care about it it's it doesn't even make any sense to say oh i don't follow politics and it does i agree with you like it does bubble up in weird ways where it's like suddenly you have a shared bike program and everyone is like you know loses their minds well

Merlinit's it's uh it's a kind i feel like it's i'm probably just repeating something everybody's already said, but there's, I feel like, cause it's always two things with me. It's two parts. One part is just basic tribalism. And that tribalism is like, whatever I've got, I don't want to lose. And nobody else is allowed to have a part of the thing that I have because they're not part of my tribe. So on the one hand, you've got the car people who can suck a bag of dicks as far as I'm concerned. And then you've got the bike people and the bike people are the black Panthers in this situation. They're like, Hey, we've worked really hard to get stuff like bike paths. And the last thing we want is a bunch of snorks riding around their little rented scooters in there. And

everybody's got their own POV on that. And I understand it. I don't agree with it, but I do understand it. But then the other part is the almost impulsive automatic FUD, fear, uncertainty, and doubt that we feel about new things where you get, you start pushing back before you've done even the basic de minimis amount of trying to understand what it could mean to make something better. And now we're getting into black and white thinking and pretty soon you're into, well, this can't solve all of the problems. So why should it be good for anybody?

Alexthis is very much a John Green thing I'm eating on the show so people would be mad at me and not Max people said on the

Maxreddit the other day there was a post showing doesn't Max have anything Max has no respect for the listeners of this show that he ate on one of the episodes and like when was it implied that I had respect for the listeners of the show

AlexI know when was there was no agreement

Maxwas there a promise made at some point that I had respect for the listeners of the show like I'm hungry I'm gonna eat I don't think you

MerlinI don't think you ever said that Max I certainly I mean to enjoy the program I would not I would not install that as a tentpole of enjoying the show for sure

Maxdid I was there a did I sign something

Merlinit's our new summer campaign Max cares

MaxI just want to make it clear that I'm Max Temkin I could barely have any less respect for the listeners of the show

MerlinHi, please share all of your concerns with me.

AlexHere's what is bugging me. People don't imagine these problems complexly because it's so othered immediately. It's become like Occupy Wall Street where everybody wants public transportation, but nobody agrees on the right way to do that. And maybe it is scoots scoots. What if there were Tesla scoots scoots? Oh, my God. Oh, I'm all right. Alex. What is that? Good or bad? Computer show. I don't know. Wait, what's good or bad?

MaxWas that like a moan of agony or ecstasy?

AlexNo comment.

MaxYou seemed very emotionally moved by the thought of Tesla scooters.

MerlinWell, I think it's also it bubbles up something that I know I very actively struggle with. And I struggle with this because on the one hand, I absolutely see and understand why this could be or may be a terrible, terrible thing. While on the other hand, I absolutely see the benefits. And I feel that was so much gig economy stuff. We're like, I don't go to fucking Safeway anymore. And it's made my life so much better. I over tip somebody to bring groceries to my house and they're getting paid.

I know it's not the best thing, but it has changed. It has made my life so much better because I'm a privileged white man and I can do that.

AlexMerlin, you're not going, you're not not going to a mom and pop shop. you're not going to Safeway or Target instead. You know, like you can't tip your target clerk. So maybe it just, it feels a little better to me. I don't know. But again, also privileged white person.

MerlinBut it's, but I mean, I do understand also that there's all kinds of, and so this gets me to, so when I look at the, what is called, whatever, birds, scooters, the scoot-scoots, there is a really big problem with Silicon Valley startup culture in a lot of ways. So just to zoom in on one right here, What was the catchphrase at Facebook? Move fast and break stuff, something like that.

Something like that, which I think they're not, you know, touting so much anymore. But that is part of the idea of almost every one of these companies is to do something disruptive. And a lot of times that disruption means routing around the old system that is one reason why it is costly and hard to scale. So I'm not saying that they're cheating exactly, but like, you know, it's for the same reason that Michael Cohen's taxi medallions aren't worth so much anymore. To just dive in without any without hardly any kind of approval from the community or the government, they come in and do this. And that puts a lot of people off their beer, which I think is understandable.

MaxMy guess is that very few people object to the to the concept of like grocery couriers or scooters or Uber drivers or any of that. Like I think these are like – they're conceptually sound things that – one breakthrough that I think gets too much credit for these things existing is like the app economy and everyone having phones. Like yeah, could you have Lyft if everyone didn't have cell phones? No. Like you have to have the cell network and the app install base and everything to make the business viable. But the whole story of like Lyft and Uber for example is that it's like the app revolution created this.

But it's actually two things simultaneously. It's the app revolution enabled it. But there's another factor, too, which is the Uber economy, which is that you have to have a class of people that need to drive and a class of people that want to be driven. And if the insane wealth stratification and the underemployment of like a whole generation of people makes it so that people are forced into these gig economy jobs, like they're totally –

you know, it's like, it's like everyone's long been accustomed to the idea that, you know, like that the working people have like nothing to sell, but their labor and that your labor is like abstracted from you. And it's just this thing, the service that you'd sell for money. And now it's like, we've even gotten rid of the comfortable, um, idea of like a job with like, you know, benefits and loyalty and like, you know, life. Yeah. No, I'm so loyal to me. I'm very loyal to you, Max. We'll see, we'll see how many stickers you bring back from a dub dub. But, uh, but I'm just saying like it's like it's now it's totally atomized right like your labor is like it's like

by the minute right it's like a commodity like pork bellies and it's it's ugly and it's exposed to people and i think it makes people mad when when you transparently see like that that there's two things happening there's the good idea of scooters as public infrastructure which i i think we all support and can see a good execution of that's like right there and it would be awesome But then there's the dependency of the business model on these – basically on poor people who have no choice but to sell their labor as like scooter gatherers cleaning up after rich people.

And the other piece about this that – man, we need to get off of this because it's not funny. But there was an amazing – I think maybe they were talking about this on our beloved Chapo Trap House. But people have – rich people have an incredible amount of class anxiety right now. So you guys might remember that New Yorker story about how rich people are doing doomsday prep to prepare for the inevitable collapse of the system that they've engineered. So people have an incredible amount of class anxiety. They know that they're perpetuating an injustice and they're doing something that's wrong and they're taking advantage of people.

And so you get – one of the ways that that expresses itself is you get the mythical coal miner takes up an enormous amount of the liberal imagination. or like the J.D. Vance's like hillbilly elegy, right? So it's these poor people.

MerlinIt's this generation's starving African child. It's the Trump card that you can throw down at any point to stop the conversation.

MaxCorrect, and like now we're all, three of us are implicit in like making people's lives pretty miserable who are in this gig economy and labor for us. But you know, let's use Chicago as an example. The people who do labor for me that I'm complicit in these unfair employment situations, you know they are black and they're going to live on the south side and they're the people who um carry my shit and bring my packages and make my coffee and it there is i mean there is an amazing

amount of anxiety about that so people will like take this class anxiety and they'll sublimate it so that they worry about this mythical creature the west virginia coal miner a guy who does not exist and i'll never meet and i'll never be accountable to and like he's didn't you say say the other day or post something, Merlin, that there's more people who work in museums than are

Merlincoal miners. But he represents the person of another generation who did incredibly difficult underpaid work, right? They were kind of the Instacart of their time. It's the poor person

Maxthat I can bring myself to care about because they don't actually exist. Right? The poor person that actually is suffering as a result of these gig economy things that we use, It's too uncomfortable for us to say this guy in my neighborhood who brings me my Amazon packages or, you know, makes my cappuccino foam is suffering as a result of my decisions.

MerlinOr the person with an MA in gender studies and pottery who has $200,000 in student debt.

MaxRight.

MerlinA double major.

MaxAnyway, let's see.

MerlinI can tell you this pot is misgendered and that's all you need to know about it. Please remember to like and subscribe. Transition. Reviews really help. Digga, digga, digga, digga.

MaxOutgoing Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz rips Democrats for veering too far left. How are we going to pay for these things? He's running.

AlexThey're sure having a week. Howard Schultz is running. Why do you leave?

MaxHow are we going to pay for these things?

MerlinI wonder what the things are. All I saw as a headline is that he is credited as being the person who brought us something called modern Starbucks, which I guess is the third place notion.

AlexThe third place.

MerlinWas that him? I think so, yeah. Okay, and so what is it? What is it Democrats preventing happening? What? We don't, what?

MaxOh, so he's running for president. It seems to be the rumor. He's kind of putting sealers out to run for president. And he just had this great quote the other day. He goes, he says he rips the Democratic Party for veering to left. And he goes, how are we going to pay for these things? Oh, Jesus. We're going to raise your taxes, bitch.

AlexOh, God. Oh, $50.

MaxIt's not hard.

Speaker AYou're a sense of latte. Yeah.

MerlinLook, I'm looking forward to that extremely light blue wave. It's going to be real effective. Yeah. Oh, Jesus Christ. Elections. What are you going to do?

MaxWe did pretty well last night. The California situation resolved itself. Who's that? The California situation that everyone was very worried about. It resolved itself, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got Democrats on the ballot on all the races.

MerlinWait, you got that guy that likes Russia. He's coming back. Rohrbach? Oh, he sucks. Devin Nunez did well last night. He's very splotchy. Yeah, he looks like a wax impressionist. Look at a picture of him. Dana Rohrabacher, is that it? Yeah.

AlexWhat a name.

MaxIt's like R-O-H-R. Dana, R-O. This is our new bit is Googling things. Google Dana Rohrabacher. Google Dana Rohrabacher. But look at how splotchy he is.

Speaker AYoung Dana Rohrabacher. Dana Rohrabacher feet

AlexHe You know what he looks like A grandpa that is A little too Is not racist enough But enough where you're like I don't know

MaxHe's not going to Yell the n-word at the Thanksgiving table But he is going to ask what about black on black crime Just look at Chicago

Speaker ALook what's happening in Chicago

Merlinenough said i can i can i do can i mention one here this is uh from february jess dweck on twitter the the dweck wayne la pierre looks like a halloween mask where you know it's supposed to be a president but you can't tell which one and now i think about that all the time go google google wayne la pierre and it's true he looks he looks like a composite sketch of presidential

Maxmasks he looks like the uh he looks like the bad guy from men in black where he's wearing the skin suit and it's a little loose. Give me sugar and water.

Speaker AMore.

MaxI'm watching a new show. Yeah. So I saw that on Twitter I read something about the sequel to The Good Wife which is called The Good Fight. Did you guys watch The Good Wife?

AlexI'm not, no.

MaxNo. I didn't either but I heard that it was really good. And the New Yorker TV critic, Helen Rosner, who's one of my favorite TV writers, my tastes probably most closely align with hers. So like I know when she recommends something, I'll generally like it. She's also very funny on Twitter and definitely recommend giving her a follow. She is at Hells, H-E-L-S. But she wrote a really nice piece about the Good Fight, which is the CBS like digital sequel to The Good Wife.

and it's a sequel show but you can just start watching it. Like I just started watching it and I didn't have a lot of problems and I fucking love it. It's really good. It's, you know, it's network TV but it's like good network TV.

AlexBut wait, is it digital? Like can you watch it on regular old people CBS or is it just like a Star Trek thing?

MerlinI think it's in their Star Trek app.

AlexYeah.

MaxYeah, I let's say bought it and I have the files and I'm watching it in Plex. Yes. But it's really, and you recommend it? it's really good it's um it's it's just very it's highly watchable and season one i liked but season two is like outstanding like it really hits its stride in season two and it's very much about what it's like to live through the trump presidency like it really captures how it feels to live through the trump presidency better than any other show but in a funny way it's funny yes yeah it's a

Comedy drama.

MerlinYeah. I heard a good interview with Armando Iannucci about Death of Stalin on some TV podcast. It was so good. You know the scene at the beginning when the orchestra's playing and Stalin is listening at home and calls up the studio and says, send me a recording.

AlexRight?

MerlinYou remember how the movie starts and everybody scrambles?

AlexI definitely have never felt that ever.

Maxwe lock the theater and do it all again

Alexdo not make me put you on a list

Merlinyou're gonna you're gonna just yeah you're gonna have to just forget about maddie until they're useful to us again um so basically in he said there were so many things where he had to actually dial it down because he was afraid no one would believe it and so in that example what happens in the movie is that the conductor, when he learns about this, freaks out, passes out, hits his head. So they have to go and find somebody else to come in and direct the symphony in his pajamas. But there's actually three people in reality that they had brought in. There's the original guy who

did actually hit his head and get knocked out. There was a second guy they brought in, but he was drunk. So they had to go and get a third person. Oh my God. I know that it's a true story

Maxthat Stalin's fail son killed the Olympic hockey team.

AlexFun fact!

MerlinAnd that's the guy from Homeland? The guy from Homeland is the fail son, right?

MaxYeah, so Stalin's fail son ordered the hockey team to get on a plane and fly, even though all the aviation people said that it wasn't safe, and the plane crashed, and it killed the whole hockey team. And then he replaced them with a new team, and hoped that no one noticed.

It's kind of a background story in the movie, but it's a real thing that happened.

AlexHave either of you watched the new season of Arrested Development? Tried.

MaxMm-hmm. I'm trying to get through the

Speaker Arecut of season four

Maxbecause I forgot. I watched season four once and then I was like, I don't want to return to this because it kind of made me sad.

MerlinI'm really, really not feeling it. I had heard that the first two episodes, I think on the watch they had said that the first two episodes are a rough go because it is all like catch up. So I hopped into the third one. I'm like, oh my god, Michael Cera is like 45.

MaxIt's like watching the next generation movies. It's like, I'm very nostalgic for this thing, but now they look like kind of melty.

AlexIt's so.

MaxIt's like, well, it's the good ship grandpa.

AlexIt's funny because a lot of people, the whole cast. And yeah, Jeffrey Tambor is a dick. We all know Jeffrey Tambor is a dick. And, but the, I.

MerlinOh, like you've never made a woman cry at work.

AlexYeah. It doesn't look like anything to me. Oh, it's just the, it's just the industry. we're very fortunate to have this job moving on but i watched most of the recut and i did not like it at all i liked this sort of rashomon style it wasn't amazing but i kind of liked what happened and i they had but they had to dial back all the jokes because they did not expect trump to win and it the what's his name Mitchell what's his

the guy who Mitchell Hurwitz I was like yeah I thought I wrote a really good season Mojave Try not hearing it now Mojave

Speaker ADig Dug Big Computer Show maybe?

MerlinBig computer show. I'm running iOS 12 on an old phone.

AlexI was so mad. You, oh, I'm so.

MerlinYou should see the stacked notifications. It is so sweet. Oh, God. It's so good. It doesn't have shortcuts yet.

Speaker AYo, you boys.

MaxIn a memo obtained by Business Insider, Uber CEO Dara, uh-oh, Kaz Roush Shashi, encouraged employees to say that they, quote, have the D when they have the authority to make decisions in meetings. Claiming to have the D is an established managerial technique according to a 2006 article in the Harvard Business Review. But to some young Uber employers, it sounds like a slang phrase, I got the D, which means, quote, I had sex.

MerlinWe're encouraging our employees to, when they complete a task, say, I ate that ass. this is well known in the in business circles and entrepreneurs i ate that ass as a way of saying i successfully completed my we encourage our employees i do think you should start doing this

Maxi ate that ass you know i i don't read a lot of you know business books and um self-help stuff but if the harvard business review says this is good i think we should start doing it at cards against

Merlinhumanity we should say i have the d okay well let's let's let's reverse engineer this a little bit unless so let's say for example what are the kinds of things that we struggle to to communicate at work like um we we have things where we need to meet a deadline right we need you want to have a subtle way of saying like don't overdo it but we need you to really press a little harder for this deadline maybe i think you say take you say you're not gonna be paid you say take it all take it all in business circles you would say that i mean listen you guys i know it's friday but you guys

really need to take it all yeah it's not me saying that it's the harvard business review

Alexthat's our business school hbs and if they're i'm thinking about other things like maybe you you need to get a project done but you need to be a little bit more subtle and you just reverse the cowgirl and then you right i'm justin the jokes don't land i'm not travis no no no i know

Merlinwhat you're saying like for example if you you think the approach is mostly working but you need to iterate a little bit you'd say spin that twink exactly thank you is that what it's called a

Alexspinner alex yeah yeah we're gonna spin this project around right right if you're worried

Merlinif you're worried if you're worried that there's leaking going on you want to make sure you keep your uh your stuff you know from getting out you would say we're gonna have we're gonna have to

Maxpull a soft dyke so what's the um what's the in the new phone again stack notifications huh Stack notifications. It's pretty sweet. I watched it with subtitles. I thought it was in recent Apple.

MerlinI liked it way more than I expected.

MaxThey're making things better.

AlexI'm so happy. I'm so, so happy.

MaxIn recent Apple presentations, I felt that they were way too long and very boring and very technical and that they were getting really lame and dad jokey and straying away from the cool, understated confidence that made Apple keynotes fun to watch in the first place. And I feel like this keynote was much better. I thought that it was very watchable and that they showed, they did a better job of showing like not what the computer can do, but what you can do with it. I thought it was a good presentation.

MerlinTotally agree. And so my controversial POV on this, I just sent you guys a link to something I watched with my family last night, which is The Verge cut it down. Apple WWDC 2018 keynote in 14 minutes.

MaxHow are you going to know the customer sat statistics or the brightness on the screen? What about the e-Lego?

MerlinYeah. But, you know, okay, so here's my just quick hot take. Coming in hot is, you know what? I love the stuff that they're doing, and I just don't think the presentations were that good. And they were fine. Like the lady on the exercise machine made me very uncomfortable. Oh, Max had a good tweet.

Speaker AWhat?

MaxI've got some good news and some bad news. Anna, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is you are going to be demoing the new Apple Watch features on stage at WWDC.

MerlinThe bad news is you're going to have an elevated heart rate. My wife was watching it last night. What did she say? Sometimes she just drops one. She'll just go like, oh, these people are all on beta blockers.

Speaker AI said, what?

MerlinI said, what do you mean they're all on beta? She said, oh, these people are. There's no way you could get up there. Oh, exactly. And be a woman on that stage without. I was like, what does that even mean? She's like, oh, yeah, when I used to work in psych. they're like cut this out all the docs would give themselves beta blockers whenever they had to do a talk because you lose all fear yeah what's a beta blocker i don't know but now i want them

Alexyeah give me that it keeps your heart rate low and but it doesn't have the effect uh there's no sedative effects so it's not like taking xanax before you go on stage where you're like lego but you're you're just kind of stable and calm that's my new thing is i'm gonna start taking

MaxXanax before I give a talk and I'm going to become a SoundCloud rapper.

MerlinI thought, you know, the presentation itself, it's fine. But I think what they're doing, some of it, some of the iOS 12 and watch stuff, I think is really good. And just because a lot of it is stuff I've really wanted. That notifications thing. Did you see that, Max? The thing where you can now go in and say quiet notifications or turn these notifications off. That's huge. Like when you long press on a notification, you get options for what to do about those kind of notifications in the future.

MaxOh, that's interesting. You know, Merlin, you've been like voice guy for a long time and I felt like you were pretty full of shit and it's not that good and not that useful and it's like really overblown how good and useful it is. What are they calling it? The automator, voice automator? Shortcuts. Shortcuts? I was watching that and I was thinking, like, it's here. Like, we're here. This is the thing I've been waiting for to fully commit to doing voice shit.

AlexThis is phase two of the Marvel Universe, I think. I'm very excited. It's phase two of the Marvel Universe. Well, the Apple Universe. We are getting to a point where Siri is going to become the operating system.

Speaker AOh, I got some hmms.

MerlinLet's see. I'm trying to see some good ones here. So right now, I have not... I was comforted.

MaxI really enjoyed when they said that they're definitely not going to merge iOS and the Mac because they're two different operating systems. But however, they are doing that.

AlexThey are.

MaxThey're basically moving iOS to the back. No.

AlexStock, stock, stocks. Stock, stock, stock. Stock, stock, stock. I'm just quacking it at this point.

MaxIt's so good. What did we think of the developer's David Attenborough video? I feel like almost all the comedy videos are pretty embarrassing that Apple does.

AlexI liked it a lot. I thought it was silly. It played to the audience.

MaxTo me, if they had balls, they would have made the developer video making more fun of developers, right? showing them, I don't know, just all the funny shit about computer programmers and developers. They had such rich material.

MerlinDid they fear for their livelihood because Apple was so unreliable?

MaxYeah. A new predator has entered the ecosystem. Sandboxing.

Speaker AWho will survive and who will find a niche?

MerlinYou will leave the App Store very soon. You will come back to the App Store only after much money has exchanged hands.

AlexDon't worry. But your hip will be illustrated and you'll have a tiny head and a big body and you'll be sitting on some sort of chair.

MerlinYeah, right? That's weird. And they got pointy hands. I don't like that.

AlexI don't like sharp hands. I don't. Yeah.

MaxI love the emoji stuff. That was cool.

AlexTongues, tongues, tongues, tongues, tongues, tongues, tongues, tongues. Tongue detection. Tongue detection.

Speaker ATongue, tongue detection.

MerlinWhat did I say? So we covered this a little bit on Back to Work. Here's my exciting stuff. I think the D&D, the Do Not Disturb stuff is great. I think the bedtime mode or whatever is really good. I love the notification stuff. Shortcuts is not on the phone yet as an app, but if you go into Siri in settings, I'm not breaking my NDA. I've been using the beta for several weeks. You go into Siri in settings and you'll see suggestions in there for things you've done recently that you might want to turn into a shortcut. I think all that stuff is real promising.

AlexThat's so baller. It's so good.

MerlinIt really is. Actually, do not follow my advice here because I'm doing this on my old 7 Plus, but it is no way am I putting this on anything that I use a lot. Will you tell me when I can go?

AlexJust wait until the public beta. It'll come in summer.

MerlinI bet it'll, I mean, it's strangely stable so far.

AlexRight? I was at the live talk show last night, and it was like, I mean, obviously the crowd is mostly developers, but Gruber asked.

MaxWas it just Malts?

Alexthe i mean to be fair i've already forgotten the guy's name who is the he was on stage and he is the vp of apple's vr slash hr team it's not hr fuck

Merlinthat would be a funny i wear a lot of hats here i take care of the employees and the make-believe employees all you need is a 14 foot wooden table and you can have an employee that turns into a guitar. But now let's see what it's really like if I see my employee normal-sized. Now you're a Lego. Hi, I'm Robert Minifig.

I'm in charge of the Lego HR

Maxdivision. Please come in and close the door behind you, and would you like to have this meeting in a scene from Star Wars Episode 3?

MerlinAnd he ends with three amputations. Every time we watch that scene, my daughter and I watch and go, wow, he's having a really bad day.

Jedis are dicks.

AlexNo, they are. Man, he was hot for a while.

MaxThat scene has my favorite line of dialogue from any Star Wars movie where Anakin goes, but from my point of view, the Jedi are evil.

Speaker AI'm speaking a line of dialogue now.

AlexThey killed women and children, too.

MaxThe younglings. The young youngs. So, oh, did you guys see that Cars Against Humanity got in trouble yesterday?

AlexI didn't know if we were allowed to talk about it.

MerlinYou just retweeted something really funny. What? Is this for the movie poster things?

MaxYeah, so we did a, we have Target, the chain store where they sell underpants and cosmetics.

AlexThe unspeakable lady products. Yep, yep.

MaxEnergy bars and Legos. We're sold in Target and every once in a while Target emails us or calls us and they're like, we have a seasonal promotional opportunity for you to do. and usually we say no because we can't think of any it's like they're like would you like to be in a special President's Day display and we're like no but they offered us a Father's Day display this year and we were we fucking love making fun of dads it's like one of our number one joke topics we're like we're going to jump on this Father's Day display we're doing it and they told us

we had all these different ideas we had one that was set up where we were just going to sell like grill spatulas and HDMI cables and cards against humanity like an all-in-one dad station. And then Target told us that on the left, oh, fuck, I forgot what it is. On the left side, there were two, we had movies on either side of us. So on the left side of the thing, oh, here, I actually have the info here. It's just so fucking good. It's like on the left side is like, I don't know, it's like Mad Max.

Oh, no, it's Dunkirk and Jurassic World. Those are the movies. So it's a three-sided display. On the left is Dunkirk, in the middle is Cards Against Humanity, and on the right is Jurassic World. So we were like, immediately we were like, okay, we have to make our own movies to go with Dunkirk and Jurassic World that you buy for dad. So we created like a Markov chain generator that made 90s action movies and we just picked the funniest ones and then made movie posters, you know, DVD cases of them. And it's on a display. You're telling me these weren't written? No, these were made by a,

the titles were made by a Markov chain generator. Breakpoint Dawn Infinity? Yeah.

MerlinOh my God. Blood oath remembrance.

MaxHere, I'm going to put, if you go to our website. The Swedish compromise. So if you go to our website for this, it's kadaddy.com. Oh my God.

Speaker AI didn't know that.

MaxYeah. Oh my God. Yeah, so go to kadaddy.com and then there's a little generator and you can click make a 90s action movie. Titan Warrior. Massive Horizon. The Sixth Blood.

This one is great.

Speaker AData Erasure. Game of Shadows. Maximum Centurion.

MerlinOh, these are good. Final Night. Hot Honor Redemption. Zero Spy 3 Ultimatum.

MaxBad attack. So anyway, we did our promotional email for this yesterday. We launched it yesterday, and we wrote the email as a letter from your dad, going like, Hi, it's your dad. All I've ever wanted for Father's Day is this DVD thing. And I don't know, it was funny. It made us laugh. And we sent it out to our mailing list of like a million people. And almost immediately we start, we got an all caps email back like 30 seconds after it sent from MailChimp. We got our first reply even before the out of office responders started coming. And when the out of office responders start coming, by the way, when you send an email to a big list, it's like something out of like Game of Thrones where they're like army of the dead starts like rising from their graves.

You just see arrows, arrows, arrows coming at you. It's crazy. It's like terrifying seeing all the out-of-office emails come in. But anyway, we got our first response like 10 seconds after the email went out, and it was just all caps. This guy replies back, My dad is dead!

And we were like, Unsubscribe! And Jen and I looked at each other and we were like, We may have made a slight miscalculation here. And we did get, we probably got a hundred replies of people who were like, My dad is dead! And a lot of them would put in the details of when their dad died. So the worst one, the ones I felt worst about where people were like, my dad died yesterday. Oh, God. But then the ones that then there were also people who emailed us and they were one of one woman was literally like, my father died 30 years ago. And this email was very upsetting to receive.

And we don't we didn't reply because there's nothing. I mean, there's absolutely nothing we can say to anything we reply. We should have included a trigger warning for fatherhood. I don't know. It was pretty... T-Dub. I don't think it was the best. We could have anticipated this. So are the cards inside the DVD cases? Yeah, yeah. So it's the same pack in every DVD, but then it's just these funny DVD cases. But anyway, I just thought it was funny that people were like really emotionally bruised and they were like, my dad died 30 years ago.

It's like, maybe we're not the issue. You know what I mean?

MerlinBut he would have loved Brock Chavez in Red Fear, Massive Heat.

MaxMaybe seek therapy if you're infuriated at us enough that you have to write us a mean email that your dad died 30 years ago. And you're inconsolable at an email that talks about Father's Day. Maybe we're not the villain in that story.

AlexYeah. What's weird to me is like Facebook knows all about you. And yet all of my friends who have parents who have passed away recently, like they've been literally shopping for gravestones. Why can't you like, you know, maybe not have ads for flowers for Mother's Day. Maybe not have ads for golf for Father's Day.

MerlinOr maybe not a throwback to like, hey, dad's last chemo. Like people whose kids have died. They're like, on this day. Thanks, buddy.

AlexMax remember when well both of you do you remember when Target like outed a teenage daughter for being pregnant by sending what if the next email is like hey congratulations this joke is going nowhere but I just like we don't have data on people

Maxsome people emailed us and they were like it was really rude of you to send this to me after my father died last year and it's like well that's why we sent it dude we thought you think it's funny

Speaker Awe specifically

Merlinsent this to you to hurt you personally

Maxright it's not we didn't actually only send it to you because your dad is dead it's like you're on a mailing list of a million people and we send it to everyone

Merlinwell and you sign up for a mailing list for a wholesome company like Cards Against Humanity you don't expect something offensive in the mail like fatherhood not if it makes fun of you certainly that crosses the line little panda that can't keep its eyes open so my dad is dead

AlexI wonder if people can email after their dad has died and be like remember when I got that email it was very triggering I mean we're still getting

MaxI think we're still getting them today too

Merlinif people complain you should offer to put their put their dad's name as an actor in next year

Speaker Athen the final performance

Merlinby Robert.

MaxThat was another funny thing. People were like, keep this in mind the next time you do a promotion like this. It's like, what promotion will we do making fun of your dead parents again? Like, uh-oh, this is really going to impact our Mother's Day plans.

You're going to have to have a virtual HR meeting.

MerlinDiggity, digity, digity, challenge. Challenge this week was mine. And my idea was, now that we're into our diggity 81st episode. I thought it'd be fun. This sounds like easy log rolling, but I think this could be interesting. The idea is I challenged us all to go back and look at previous episodes and to provide some follow-up in the time since that challenge. Are there new things? Are there surprising things? Have you stuck with something or rejected something? Do you have strong changes in feeling? So this week is all about follow-up. Copyright John Syracuse of 2011. Yep, definitely

Alexnot a trademark and definitely not in 2007.

MerlinOkay. All right. So my dad's dead, man. He died when I was seven.

Speaker AMy dad is dead. Stocks. Stocks, stocks, stocks. Stocks, stocks, stocks. Everyone look under your chair.

AlexThere's a stock.

MerlinYou get a dad. You get a dad. You get a dad. That's not funny, Oprah. That's some bullshit, man.

AlexWho wants to start? I feel like Merlin, you have the most follow-up slash feedback. Yeah, kick us off.

MaxKick us off, Merlin. Maybe we'll do like a draft. Should we do a draft style?

MerlinKind of. But I mean, I just thought it'd be fun. It's just real easy, straightforward. Is there anything, especially where you have developed a stronger feeling about it? And I thought it'd be fun to just hop onto others as well. I mean, one of my no-brainers, I got some no-brainers. Well, okay. All right. Well, one no-brainer for me is the Scoot Scoot.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinSo we had a challenge to go out and buy a costly scooter. And because I was doing it and I still love, we can't go too far on this because we've already talked way too much about scooters. But I also want to just share, I share my screenshot here. I'm up to 125 miles on this thing. You ride it around town? I ride it around my neighborhood.

MaxI saw it when Veronica and I were up in the suburbs seeing my parents. We saw a number of people on Scoot Scoots.

MerlinYeah. It's just, it really is, I hope I don't get too much blowback as a result of all the bird problems. But no, I'm just loving mine to death. I still use it for jaunts of a mile or less a lot of the times. It's great for doing errands. The single most difficult problem I have with it is like kind of knowing where to put it, that it'll be out of the way and won't bother anybody. But I just want to toss to you guys. Mainly, I guess I wanted to ask Alex, you used to just like to drive it around the office at night as a therapeutic thing.

How much are you guys using it? Are you taking it out more since the challenge? Are you going places on it?

AlexI've taken it to work a few, from home to work a couple of times. And it's fun. It's wonderful. But on the busier days, I'm just like, oh, lots of people are watching. But now it has led me to investigate other fun forms of electronic transportation. And this was pre-Burder, pre the, you know, cicada of Scoot Scoots. but I man I don't know like electric bikes in general and the cool thing with the whole scoot

scoot is it's perfect for the I this is too far to walk but also it's not far enough to take a lift so there's a jewel like a mile and a half to my house and I just don't I'm lazy and I don't want to walk there and it's also just very calming I don't know I ride it at least once a day I almost brought it to San Jose. It's just, I can't describe it. It's hard to describe it. Exactly.

MerlinYou can just stand on it. I just stand on it sometimes and rock back and forth and it's totally fun. But I know exactly what you mean about those. There's certain kinds of trips. Like sometimes it's something as simple as like, I need to go to the ATM or I need to go to Walgreens and like, it takes about one third of the time that it would with walking. And it is, it is fun and therapeutic. You get out of the house for a minute, maybe you get in the sunshine and I'll Oh, I have a new favorite ATM. We have an awesome new ATM. Let's pick the denomination of money that you want.

AlexIsn't that all? Wait, what?

MerlinNo, you say I want $400. I want three $100 bills.

AlexOh, okay. That's awesome.

MerlinI want four 20s and I want four $5 bills. And it gives it to you. $5 bills. $5 bills. Mojave. Have you found any place for Mojave? Mojave. Oh, God. Have you found any place for it in your life, Max? No.

MaxI ride Alex's around the office, but I would never take that thing out in public.

AlexYou know what? It's a full-body fidget toy, really. It's just nice. No, it is.

MerlinYou're both stimming. Look it up. Probably, but it is. I don't know. For sure, vis-a-vis the earlier discussion, boy, it sure makes a lot of sense. Because you know what you don't have to do? You don't have to go and wait at lights to turn left. You get to take any path you want. Every sidewalk is as fast as every other sidewalk. What do you do with it when you get to your destination? That's what I was saying. That's the only difficult part. The only part, like I was saying, though, is that if you – it's just you don't have to park in San Francisco.

You do not have to find a parking spot. You do have to do something with it when you get to the grocery store. When I take it to the grocery store, I don't do it because I have a gig economy for that. But when I got to go somewhere like the bodega or whatever, I just – I get off it like a gentleman. and I put it in the walking around mode and I just bring it in with me. Sometimes if I go to the butcher shop, I'll leave it in like an unobtrusive area off to the side. If I take it to my kid's school, oh God, I have an anecdote. If I take it to my kid's school, I will put it in sort of the lobby area off to the side.

Real quick, one day, one day my, actually I have to tell you, we have two Scoot Scoots. I have one and my daughter has one. And she likes it pretty well. I make her wear a helmet. I'm a total hypocrite. But one day she's like, oh, when you pick me up today, bring the scoot scoot. And I was like, oh, I could probably do that. And I had this plan in mind where I would ride her scoot scoot because mine has the extender stick on it where you can kind of like lead it around. And I like I totally ate it like right in front of two college girls. It was so bad.

And I was like, oh, and I got back up and I tried to do it again. And I kept running into each other. It's bad enough. Have you had the experience of your Segway tire running into something it didn't expect and it goes pop and it like jumps in the air? Imagine you're riding a scoot scoot when two scoot scoot walk at each other. So I did the dorkiest thing I've ever done in my life, which is I picked up her scoot scoot like a great extended penis. I held it in front of me and got on to my scoot scoot and rode it down the hill.

AlexBeep, beep.

MerlinThat's right. That's right. I'm going to have a scoot scoot in a second scoot scoot. How do you like that?

MaxThat's like how people use drafts. They're riding on the scooter holding 10 other scooters.

MerlinOkay, well, that was my follow-up on that. I'm glad I got it. All right, digga-diga-diga. Alex. Alex.

AlexAlex, what's your pick that you're going to revisit? Hello. Hello. I just really like all of the sleep challenges we've done and the health stuff in general. I remember when Merlin made us take a nap, I was infuriating and I couldn't do it.

MerlinAnd now you're still you're still never gotten over that anger.

AlexYou know what? Yesterday I took a nap and it was wonderful. The I think we talked about this, how, oh, in rules of thumb, where three hours or one hour of sleep before 7 p.m. is like three hours of sleep after 7 p.m. And I was like a Red Bull, except I didn't want to puke afterwards. It was wonderful. And I've been tracking my sleep a lot more and using Exist.io. And I do find it actually is helpful. Like, oh, you can't exercise this close to bed. Oh, now I have tags for the

genre of movies and shows that I watch before bed. Yeah. So you're doing that and you're doing the hashtags. Oh, yeah. I love the custom tags in Exist.io. I know that we've made fun of it like, oh, in Washington, D.C., you weigh more. You weigh more in Washington.

MerlinYou get more steps when you have more activity. What?

AlexI love the custom tags, though. And you know what? You really sold me. Boy,

Merlinwe could do another deep dive on sleep. I have like six different apps I'm using right now. I'm only feeding three of them. I'm only letting three of them write to Apple Health because some of them have been so stupid. But your sleep watch is really good. Yes. I got my lady to try auto sleep and then i was like you should try sleep watch it's actually if you only want to run one of these dumb apps that one the results are good and it makes sense when you look at it it actually makes sense it's not just a chart watch sleep watch do we try that one for the podcast

Alexno well or maybe it was like when we pimped our sleep i think that was the first time i brought it up but it's one of my favorites for someone who's just starting out in the nerdery sleep

Speaker Awatch by Body Matter.

AlexDo you want me to go through my quickies?

MaxNo, we're doing a draft.

AlexWe're drafting? Mine is

Maxthe episode from June 22nd, 2017, episode number 30. There's no condoms in the fantasy suite. As a result of that episode, I've now watched every episode of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette since that was broadcast.

MerlinI'm hooked. I really like it. You get into it. Are you hate watching it or is it fun?

MaxI want to say that I'm not hate watching it, but I am ironically watching it. Is this something where you like the ding-a-lings? Is it like watching a cooking show where people can't cook? It's like watching a cooking show, but with none of the cooking and just the boring. It's like just the parts I don't like on Top Chef.

Speaker ABut I don't know what to say.

MaxIt's very watchable, and it gives me something to talk about with our writers and the people in the office. And it's like if I don't care about sports, it's like here's one thing I can talk with people about.

AlexI yeah oh that's that's the other thing sports are cool this week and I've been watching the Merlin's team the Golden Boys and it's been a lot of fun I think I like sports they got a

Maxgame tonight big game tonight why can someone explain the meme of LeBron James making the

Merlingesture at some other guy well first of all I just want to stipulate I'm not a fan of sports ball I'm not even that much a fan of like oh our local team is in my wife is far and away the biggest sports fan. She's an athlete and a fan of sports. So she is really into, especially when you get into playoffs, pennant race, all that kind of stuff with the Giants and the Warriors, not so much with the football team. But, and as a, as a result of that, now my daughter really likes it. So I watched it kind of grudgingly and I watched my first Warriors game, maybe the third game I've ever seen ever, ever, ever. But here's the thing. Basketball is really fucking exciting.

It's soccer, but good. but it but it's it moves fast and the games are short the quarters are short i mean i know this sounds exactly like what it is which is like an outsider coming in but it's not like watching fucking baseball like and on top of it both all of the four teams um i mean are so fucking good and the way they hit three pointers is like watching magic it is insane the three pointers with no setup at all these guys can throw i'm just saying i'm not trying to make a case oh yay basketball, but it is actually like weirdly exciting to watch. What happened in that game

was LeBron James, who a lot of people say might be the greatest basketball player of all time. Basically he is, well, how does one say he's the good one on the team? Like he does a lot of the scoring. He had 50 points in the previous to the last game. And in that game, one of the guys got the ball and apparently didn't know what the score was and he kind of futzed around with it and he kind of blew at that point i was uh i think they were behind and he blew it and lebron that

what you're seeing in that meme is lebron going like what were you doing like why did he blow it

Maxwhat happened what can you that's what i'm curious about i mean i can tell lebron james is mad at someone else for doing something but what did he do he i think what happened was he got they get a

Merlinrebound and then he didn't he didn't move fast enough to to take the shot he was he basically

Alexwent into killing time yeah he should have got the rules of the game and forgot the score of the game he didn't know the score yeah i like when i see a meme happen in real life uh it's like watching someone pick up a scooter and put it in their van yeah it gives you gives me a flashback though to

Merlinlike playing like um touch football or nerf football as a kid where there'd be one really good guy on the team and like you really don't want to disappoint that one person it's so shameful the one person who like has deigned to be on your team do you think the better you are at basketball

Alexthe more weird athletic wear you're supposed to have on you at all times like what does that do what does you know what i'm saying like the tights the arm band is that so that the oh yeah the gear has gotten very strange i don't know what's happening other than the mouth guards i don't understand why you need like volleyball well i remember this from watching the bulls in

Maxthe 90s is you every guy on the team is going to have some sort of signature you know weird things you can pick like pieces of flair yeah yeah yeah it's like your flair yeah like scotty pippen had the weird goggles and that's how you knew in in the nba jam game that you were playing

Merlina scotty pippen all right uh merlin your pick um i'll also mention uh something that if you want some kind of like it's it's it's it's right in the wheelhouse for like having on you kind of watch lightly but face off on sci-fi is a series where makeup artists do hollywood makeup challenges. Veronica watches this.

MaxThere's one guy who really creeps me out who's a judge and he kind of looks like a bird. His hair looks like a bird spreading its wings.

MerlinBut yeah, he's like a chunky Dracula. He really upsets me. What is his name? Glenn Glenn Faceoff. I think his name's Glenn Faceoff.

MaxOh, Jesus Christ. You know what else is fun about The Bachelor? Don't you guys ever like watching Meerkat Man or a gorilla documentary where you're just like looking at how these things behave these animals i think

Merlinit's interesting to watch how people behave alex click on that link i just sent you you guys don't

Maxhave any interest in that of like we're just dropping a bunch of people into this situation

Alexand seeing how they behave it's interesting well meerkat manner is different than like planet earth you know i don't enjoy things where they personify the meerkats as that's what's happening on the bachelor as you've got a bunch of your cats and they give them all personality and they tell you how to feel with music yeah i'm not i don't enjoy that it's yeah no pass pass what is what merlin

Merlinwhat am i looking at glenn hetrick he's kind of the zach posen or the uh he's kind of like the who else he's like the not the tom colicchio but he's he's kind of like the head judge he's the first guy that always gets introduced and he's a hollywood makeup guy who looks like somebody has

Alexinflated him. Yeah, he looks like an inflatable leather daddy. I'm not sure

Merlinhow he's supposed to feel about him. Yeah, he looks like he's retaining leather. This time of the month. Retaining leather with Zach Posen. Another one from me. Mine are so boring now, I realize. No. I can talk about voice stuff. I got new powders.

AlexPowders, powders, powders.

MerlinI'm trying this thing called Cortisol Manager, and I think it's helping. Is it a beta blocker? I wish. No, it's this thing my wife went to an acupuncturist for some stuff, including sleep. And this woman sounds real smart and gave her lots of good advice for stuff to try. Like stuff where in the past, like we've taken magnesium, which gives you the shits. And she had this idea for a kind of magnesium that won't give you the shits. And we're taking that and that's good. But Cortisol Manager is this, it's a powder you get. It's a pill. And basically it purports to reduce the amount of stress hormone.

What is it? It's a pill. What is it? It's herbs and shit. It's herbs and shit. I mean, it's cortisol manager.

Speaker AOf course, of course.

MerlinAnd it doesn't have melatonin and stuff in it, but I take two before bedtime. Sometimes I'll take one in the afternoon when I tend to get stressed out. And it's got all different stuff in it. You should try it.

AlexWait, so is it somewhat fast acting? So you take it when you're stressed out in the afternoon? Like you're taking it in the afternoon?

Merlinit's not it's not going to be like a Klonopin

Maxtaking a new medication makes me stressed out though because I'm worried about what if I'm going to have a side effect or a reaction or you get the shits it's not going to help me relax I'm going to buy a new pair of underpants I'm going to be incredibly stressed out

Merlinthe trick is to buy two pairs of underpants

Speaker Aand a whole suit of clothes

Merlinthat's my tip cap I'm always wearing two pairs of underpants ashwagandha L-theanine which I take already ashwagandha magnolia magnolia that's a pretty name and epimedium anyway that's one of my powders I take some other powers the L-theanine I can't tell if it helps but I think that's supposed to help with calming anybody else got any good new powders

Alexstill in the kratom train kratom kratom stocks chain a bunch of people died from taking

Maxtainted kratom

Alexyeah everybody tweeted about how everybody died you know what people die from Tylenol every single day Calm down Thank you I don't know if you're making fun of me or not But the This American Life episode

MerlinNo I'm being every one of my Sister-in-law's friends when they say something Thank you

AlexIt's so scary I don't know The This American Life episode freaked me out

MerlinRemind me what the Kratom does

AlexKratom is a replacement for opiates It's used to get people Like in addiction centers Often And it also it brings about like a calming effect or a painkiller effect. I'm trying. I don't know. I'm trying to take like less ibuprofen and stuff for headaches and trying to.

MerlinYeah, I should do that. I should do that.

AlexYeah. I take way too much. Yeah. I hear six is a therapeutic dose now.

MerlinI eat them like licorice. I mean, it's terrible. I got to stop.

AlexYeah. And I can tell. I think there is some placebo effect, but I don't know. It makes my neck and head hurt less. but I don't take the stuff that apparently gets you high and like gets you gives you like the euphoric effect. That I'm afraid to try but now that I'm saying it

MerlinI kind of want to. Would you permit me to put your episode on Hobby Horse into the show notes? Oh yeah

Alexokay. It was

Merlinreally good. That and your Brett Terpstein interview were both good but I especially like you talking about the marijuana. I thought it was really good. What is this?

AlexYeah I talked to our friend Matt Howie about. Matt Howie

Merlinhas a new podcast. How did I miss this? It's really good. What's it about? I can't believe I didn't know this. It's what a given person is nerding out about. Oh, that's fun. The episode with Jesse Char talking about Disney stuff was so fucking good. John Roddark talking about Alaska.

AlexThey're all so good.

MerlinJesse Char still goes to Disneyland twice a month.

AlexI love it. And it's like a business expense. It's so cool.

MerlinShe's going to meet with Elaine. It's so great. uh erica hall on what it takes to be a triathlete uh jeff atwood on yo-yos um oh yeah jessamine on trivia leagues jason kaki on alto's odyssey but it's really good it's just it's exactly in the in the wheelhouse for me of just people talking about something they're really excited about that maybe not everybody's excited about it's a perfect idea for a podcast it it's see i'm glad that i

Alexmentioned in that that oh i am not high right now i'm just very very nervous i should have been

Merlinfor that but uh episode nine alex cox enjoys some weed yep it'll be in show notes yeah um so anyway that's powders what's next we gotta we gotta wrap this

Alexup soon okay okay it's oh it's it's me um when we did the vlog challenge i'm not i yes yes yes i had that one too okay so i really forgot how much i enjoy editing films um but more so I enjoy editing Verite stuff and I'm not really on the vlog train. It's not really for me. YouTube's been doing some really gross stuff with demonetization of like queer creators and it just

makes me feel icky. However, I've been doing a lot of small projects just with friends that probably will never be released, but it's just, it's fun. It's fun to have a hobby that does not become, you know, a source of income. Actually, I hope it does. But I don't know. It's it's

Merlinflexing a muscle that I haven't in a while. And and and so is it the being in it or you're

Alexsaying it's the editing of a verite that you like? Oh, no, it is not me being in it. No, no, no. Yeah, that has nothing to do with it. I don't enjoy being on camera unless Syracuse has taken the photograph. He takes good photos. How about you, Max?

MaxOh, I had that one too, and it really scratched an itch for me of I want to make more videos, but I also don't really like the aesthetics of vlogging, and I don't like talking to the camera. So I haven't really been able to figure out exactly what to do, but I do want to—

MerlinI can feel you being very interested in this, though. It seems like something where it bubbles up. You've got something, something inchoate going on.

MaxI don't know. maybe I want to do something involving politics, like go take a camera and like go into different campaigns and, and make a little documentary about it. I've been thinking about lots of different ideas, but it's very time intensive and I don't have a lot of that. And, uh, mostly, like I said, like, I just don't like the aesthetic. I don't like talking to the camera. I don't like how narcissistic it is that it's all about you. Um, you know, I think, and the other thing that surprised me was like when I started doing it just for fun of like, I'll take the, I'm going to this cool thing. I'll take the camera with me. Like, I think I found myself doing like a Casey

Neistat impression. And I think most other people who do blogs, vlogs do a Casey Neistat impression. I'm not saying everyone, I'm saying most, most people do like he just so owns that aesthetic that it's kind of everywhere. I don't know. I did see a YouTube channel that got me. It's probably the most exciting YouTube channel. Um, I've seen in a long time. Um, I'm looking it up right now just so I can get the name. You both will love it. It's a YouTube channel called June's Kitchen, J-U-N-S. I want you guys to both check this out this week.

In fact, that's probably my challenge. It's my challenge, right? Oh, it's yours? No, thank God. It's mine.

AlexYep, yep.

MerlinOkay. We'll be covering that in the after show.

MaxOkay, so it's called a YouTube channel.

MerlinBut I'm adding it. Sushi for cats? Oh, my goodness.

MaxYes, yes, yes! She cooks for cats? It's called June's Kitchen. And basically, it's a Japanese guy who I think is a, He's basically a professional chef or a semi-professional chef, and he cooks delectable Japanese food in a very peaceful sort of tone. And his cats watch and sort of participate in the cooking. He lets them smell every ingredient and everything.

AlexHe puts one of his cats in a basket when he goes out. He'll go out into the fields to get fresh produce. And he does this one trick that helped me make sure the cats don't destroy all of our food. he lets them sniff everything so they're like oh oh interesting and then they don't attack his lovely meals except the one bad guy that jumps into the garbage can but spoilers I love I love this video

Merlinhave you guys seen Miniature Space no what's that my daughter is obsessed with this channel and we watch it and we kind of not hate watching but we ironically watch it but it's a guy oh mini cooking I know

MaxI'm familiar with this genre.

MerlinIt's a guy in Japan who makes tiny, tiny versions of food and then serves it to dolls who don't eat it. It's really upsetting. And almost all of the tools are in slightly, slightly, slightly different scales.

MaxLet me just get this straight. Let me just get this straight is that you made fun of me for watching The Bachelor, which is like the most popular TV program in America. But you watch a channel of a Japanese man cooking tiny miniature food with little implements.

MerlinServing it to no one. But you have to appreciate that he uses a tiny knife, too. He has about a one-inch long knife that he uses.

AlexYou are watching porn with your child. There's no way that this is not... Good for me.

MerlinI'm sorry. Come on in, honey. Pop some corn. Hi.

MaxOkay, who are we up to? I had one more I wanted to cover, which is recent episode, May 3rd, 2018, episode number 77. Hot hands!

Speaker Aand it's the one with Dr. Don

Maxand oh my god was I neurotic before about washing my hands and cleaning shit but I have gone to a new level I bought Purell dispensers and installed them in my home oh my god are you kidding me? no I'm not kidding you I got the automatic Purell dispensers with the VF formula that Dr. Don recommended it's the motion kind though so you don't have to touch it? correct and it's not refillable they're disposable cartridges but they last for like 500 squeezes or whatever and oh man am I on my

bullshit but it just gives me that extra kick I still wash my hands twice in very hot water with a good long scrub with a little pumice in there just to

Speaker Areally get in all the crevices

Maxbut then hit them with the Purell you just get that extra little mile you know that extra little something

Merlinsomething. I love that you have done this. Now how does your lady friend feel about having

MaxPurell dispensers in the house? She thinks I'm insane but I put them in, they're not like in our, in our personal bathroom. I put one by the bed or anything.

Speaker AIt's over the bed. So if you move too quickly, it dispenses

MaxPurell onto you. You think that's enough, Max? I'm dirty. I'm still dirty. I put one, we have like a, like a, we have like a mud room and we have like a big like, like sink in the mud room. So I put one over the,

Speaker Aover the entryway sink. So that's

Maxkind of washed. If I'm like out working in the garden or something, I like wash my hands in the big sink and now I have the Purell there. And then I put one in the basement in my office. I love it.

AlexI have started to enjoy the smell.

MaxI threw out all our sponges. I bought all new sponges.

AlexGood. No, don't even use sponges. No, no, no, no.

MaxHow do you wash your dishes? How do you wash your dishes?

AlexWith a dishwasher.

Speaker AOh, Jesus.

MaxI forget people cry. Mudrooms and dishwashers. Hi, we're white. You can't just put dirty dishes in the dishwasher. They have to be pre-scrubbed.

AlexNo.

MaxRight, and then sanitized.

AlexWell, not if you eat dry vegetables and bread. You're fine.

MerlinI guess if you're just eating toast, you probably don't need to scrub. You probably don't even need to clean your toilet, Alex. You don't actually defecate, do you?

AlexIt smells like cookies. I have one more that is just very brief. I really liked the Les Mis Challenge because it opened up a new facet of Merlin that I did not know about. And I have another friend to talk about musicals with that understands all the references. And it just makes me happy.

MerlinMy last one is something I've added to the cry list.

AlexYes. every second of Dear Evan Hansen every talk about Dear Evan Hansen even now if I see somebody with like a cast on their arm I get a little choked up

MerlinConnor Max has your heart softened about musicals in general? No, I still think they're incredibly lame

Speaker AWhy are they singing? I've seen Since we did the Les Mis challenge

MaxI have let's see, I've seen Hamilton, which was, Hamilton exceeded my expectations. I thought that it was, I thought there's no way it could be as good as I, I thought there's no way it could be as good as the hype, and it was really, really good. It was really, really good. And it did make me cry at the end.

Speaker AAnd then we went and saw Wicked,

Maxand Wicked makes no fucking sense whatsoever. It was totally, it was like a hallucination. It was crazy. Do you know that

AlexThe backstory of the Wicked story, essentially.

MaxDo I know the story of Wicked?

AlexThe backstory, the book that it's based on, and the whole drama around that.

MaxNo, but I'm sure that doesn't make any sense either

Alexif it was adapted into the musical. That's the thing. It's really, it's just the gayest, weirdest, furry-esque book, and they're like, there's something here. There's something here, and they basically just picked out all of the stuff that they were like, hopefully an audience won't think this is gross. And they made everybody straight, which honestly, I don't care. Like, thank you for taking out the goat furries. But did you get that the mom fucked a goat at the beginning? And that's why Elphaba is green?

Speaker AWhat?

AlexYes, because she fucked both the wizard and, spoilers for Wicked, she fucked both the wizard and a goat.

MerlinOh my God.

AlexYeah, it's an interesting book. Highly recommended. Oh, that's very upsetting.

Maxoh boy it's like a Edward Albee play why can't we just go see plays why does it have to be a musical why do they have to sing why do they have to move oh you know what I did see a musical that I like though did you see the Hatsfield versus McCoy's at the house theater Alex yeah yeah yeah that was a hell of a musical that's the thing half of the house shows are musicals in it yeah but I don't notice it when it's good. It's like VFX. Listen, it's like VFX.

It's like VFX. It's like friend of the show. Todd says it's like people have no, when these people are like, Oh, I only like practical effects. It's like, no, you love VFX. They make all kinds of stuff look good. And it's just when they're done really well, they serve the story and they're not conspicuous and you don't notice it. They just didn't enhance what you're seeing. And that's how a musical works.

MerlinI go back and watch, I go back and watch that. Is it nerd writer? But I go back and watch that video about David Fincher's use of effects from time to time. And to me, that's all you got to do, show somebody that video. You had no idea how many effects were in David Fincher movies.

MaxAnother one along those lines that I recommend is, I think it's on Vimeo. If you go look at the VFX reel, the industry reel that this company made for Wolf of Wall Street. So look at the amount of VFX that were done for the film Wolf of Wall Street, which you do not imagine is a movie with a lot of heavy VFX, it will blow your mind how many VFX are in that movie and how much CGI and stuff is in that movie. But anyway, that's how I feel about musicals. It's too conspicuous. You shouldn't be thinking about the fact that it's a musical.

It should just be a tool that's occasionally used to tell the story, I guess, sometimes.

AlexFollow up on another thing that makes me cry, actually. You know in Company, where there's a line, someone to sit in your chair and ruin your sleep and now i have a chair so sometimes i just look at

Merlinmy chair and get a little weepy i love my chair and square sides some cat to sit in my chair and scratch it up and some cat to knock over my things phone rings door chimes in comes company

Thank you.

Show notes

Transcript

82. Oh No, My Stocks!

Show notes

Transcript

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