99. Calendar Hour

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

MerlinHello. Were you taking edibles last night?

AlexMe or Max?

MerlinI don't know.

AlexOkay.

MerlinI don't know. four pictures of a water bottle.

AlexOh, I, I, I, all right. I gave the context of, I was trying to break portrait. Like I was trying to make,

Merlinthat's not what you said.

MaxGo ahead and read what you said.

MerlinAt this point, I'm trying to make the camera fuck is because it's so good.

AlexI missed the word up. That's not that bad. Do you see any more photos?

MerlinIs this just like the best of,

Alexuh, those are the, oh, see one looks like a ghostly water bottle i didn't even think it's the edibles theory didn't even

Maxoccur to me i just got those and i was like alex is back on her bullshit and it was like it was like in the office at 11 o'clock at night too and i was like well that's a normal another normal

Merlinweeknight i'm no better i'm no better my family walks into the hallway and there's several dolls on the floor and some pieces of paper and my daughter goes what are you doing and i said i'm doing my camera test she's like what and so you know i do that whenever i get a new camera i take out my michonne from uh walking dead i take out my doctor who i take out a quarter and then i print out the names of all the different cameras to put in frames so i can compare them lights on lights off spoiler alert spoiler alert halide on the 10s looks pretty damn good is that how you say it

AlexHalide? Halide? Halide?

MerlinNo, I deliberately mispronounced it to fuck with you.

AlexNo, I am...

MerlinSeriously, you're just asking the question.

AlexSometimes.

MerlinI got an X-Wing fighter. I got a quarter.

AlexThere are some things where I was convinced for years that people were just mispronouncing words to fuck with me. Oh, yeah. For sure. Kind of...

MerlinNo, no, I've had the same feeling. What's that internet phenomenon of a word you've read dozens of times a day for 10 years, but have never heard anyone say? Mm hmm. Right. What's the most embarrassing one? I have an anecdote from when I was in about eighth grade and I regarded myself as an intelligent person. This is unrelated. But somebody said, where do you want to go for dinner? I said, I don't care. I'm expendable because I thought that I'm inflexible. I heard it in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Expendable. Are you? You're more easily replaced than repaired.

I knew someone. I knew someone who said who saw the road sign for like ducks crossing.

MaxYou know that road sign? Yes. And they assumed that the word was zing. That zing.

AlexOh.

MaxAnd they said, be careful if you're going to zing the road.

AlexThat's very good.

MaxUntil they were in college. Until they were in college. They just had no idea that that wasn't a word called zing. Oh, my God.

AlexOh, man. I'm not going to say mine because it's way more embarrassing.

MaxSay it. Now you have to say it.

AlexNo, Max, you need to take off your headphones then.

MaxOkay.

AlexOkay. He's.

MaxOkay. He'll never hear it.

AlexOkay. Well, this is the thing. Wait a second. I'm sorry.

MaxAlex, you know that we're in the same room, right? If my headphones are off, I can still hear you.

AlexI know, but I wanted, but people wouldn't think about it.

MaxAll right. I'll take them off.

AlexThat way. Merlin, so you know how I went to Catholic school and they didn't really do a lot of like sex ed, so they didn't say words out loud. So until I was 10 years old, I thought it was pronounced clitoris. It is.

MerlinWait, what? What's wrong with that? I mean, it can be.

AlexA large O? The Oris?

MerlinI've heard it both ways. Can I put my headphones back on? Yes, you can put your headphones back on. Thank you.

AlexThat's like saying penis. That's not how it works.

MerlinConellus. We're talking about our Captain Toad treasure tracker? Conellus.

MaxI how's everyone doing this week I feel like my grip on sanity is very tenuous this week I mean I really I really am I'm I'm really upset yes well uh no I'm just upset yeah oh it's just upsetting week what happened well there's been some developments in public life in this country

AlexOh, you guys.

MaxOh, boy. It's very upsetting. I'm probably, I mean, I don't know. I mean, history, I think history plays tricks on you. I did just listen to the Malcolm Gladwell thing about memory and flashbulb memories. And so I think people don't remember those historical events quite how they think they do. But I think I might be more upset about this than the election.

AlexYes, I said the exact same thing the other day.

MaxI maybe I'm I minimize maybe I don't remember how upset I was about the election but I mean I it

Merlinreally it really feels hopeless I mean it's a godfather situation where you know to tell you he's a pimp I should have known it was Barzini all along like you know the the thing was real upsetting but you could certainly trace it to some kind of a strain of economic anxiety but the the grace note through this entire fucking thing is how useless congress is and how I mean to me the The thing that I keep, like these are supposed to be the people who are taking care of this. And this week that came into relief in a way that is utterly painful.

I've been crying this week. I've been a very sad boy. As you know, Alex, I did vomit last week. Right before Jeff Flick's courage found him. Oh my God. I literally went in the bathroom and vomited twice. He's such a hero. He's very upset. Very upset. No, I'm with you, man. So when you pinpoint it, what's the pinpoint?

Maxpoint? Oh, I think you want to believe, you know, I think like when you're, I think when you're a kid, you hear these, these fictions about how the orderliness of the world and how grownups are looking out for you. And you want to, you want to believe that like the world works in a certain way and these systems are designed to have fail safes and like you can feel safe and that there's like people at the levers of power who know what they're doing. And I think people so want, they want to cling to that so much that even in the face of overwhelming evidence that that's not the

case right of like donald trump comes barreling into the electoral system like a fucking like the john mulaney bit like the the horse in the uh in the hospital right and it's just total fucking chaos and this absolute ape just comes just comes barreling into politics and surprises everyone and even in the face of all that evidence people still want to go no it was a conspiracy of the russians and all these powerful people because even that there's still someone who's in charge There's still a plan.

MerlinThere's somebody there like, you know, things may not be perfect. Things may not always be just. But you do have this sense that there are people who are going to be standing by the break glass in case of fire. Right? You're not going to let it get that bad.

MaxRight.

MerlinYou're going to, like, in order to, like, this is the kind of, it's so sickening that, like, this feels like something you were taught in a civics class in, like, third grade. But like that somebody is not going to let the entire fucking system get messed up. And when that comes to as dumb as the Supreme Court is as a thing in some ways, like that is that is the backstop. Right. That is that is at least. And I know that's not historically accurate. There's all kinds of reasons. But in my brain, I'm always thinking like, well, at least there are these people who are going to be the super adults who are not going to let this thing get fucked up.

And when he got to after that, guys, the day I threw up, I watched nine hours of television. I was I was I felt I felt empty inside by the end when he got up there after the lunch break. And then when he was so fucking mad. And then when he got into the part about how this was revenge for the Clintons, I was like, you've got to be fucking kidding me. That that like there's two sentences set aside everything else that's so terrible and disqualifying. There's like two or three sentences he said in that thing where you're like you want this guy on the fucking supreme court like and you're just like who's going to break the glass.

MaxHere's the other thing is like there is as Veronica puts it. There's like a tinkerbell quality to the the way that the supreme court works, which is we've decided in this country that the supreme court is the is the final arbiter of the law and the constitution and what they say is how it is and then we're done that when they make their decision that's as high as it can go. And it's been like that for 200 years, give or take. I think there might have been one or two times. I think like Andrew Jackson, just the Supreme Court told him to do something and he just didn't do it. But for most of the time, like that's been something that's been, like you said, it's this like bedrock idea.

In America, we've all decided that that's the way it is. And why is it like that? Does the Supreme Court control, like do they have like the army or something enforcing it? No, it's just, we just all believe in it and so that's how it is. And I do think that the like one of the biggest like you know that I'm very resistant to these sort of like norms and whatever kind of arguments. But like I really do think there's a risk that like this – maybe it's already happened just in the nomination process. But especially if he actually gets on, it delegitimizes the court to a point where people don't really accept that they're the final authority on law.

And maybe we'll be OK if that happens. Maybe we won't. I don't necessarily want to find out.

MerlinAnd what's our response? The response is, okay, well, we'll pack the court.

MaxHow many people said, how many people include, and I'm guilty of this too. How many people said when Trump took office, because I said this too, I said, I said, they're not going to take away abortion. That we can't, like, it is not possible. Like the country, we cannot go back. It's not going to happen. They're going to have to go through so many people.

MerlinThere aren't even enough people that want that.

MaxOh, it's, it's, it's incredibly unpopular. Like so so leaving aside that it's three different ways.

MerlinAnd like if you were to have an informal debate over a coffee with somebody, you go like that. That's not a thing. Yeah, can't be a thing.

MaxYeah, I just it just so did not seem possible. And yet here we are. And I know. And then there's this take I see on Twitter. A lot of people saying, oh, well, let them put Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. They'll never win another election. And like, don't you think they've done the math? Like if Kavanaugh, if they get Kavanaugh on the bench, they don't need to win another election. That's how it works. At some point, the wealthy and the powerful in this country become so entrenched and they use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power that it doesn't matter who we vote for in the elections.

Already, a dramatic majority of the people in this country, they want women to have health care. They want to make a living wage. They want to have a clean environment. And they vote that way in pretty overwhelming numbers. And we don't have those things because the wealth and the power are so concentrated that, you know, you have I don't need to go through all the millions of reasons, but people can put unlimited amounts of money into these political campaigns. You have gerrymandering, you have voter suppression, you have all of these very real threats to the democratic process.

And at some point it just compounds and compounds and compounds. And like, how do you dig out of that?

MerlinCan I make a podcast recommendation? Well, first of all, today's episode of The Daily. I know you guys are not fans. No, but I couldn't.

AlexI saw the title and I'm like, I got to do it.

MerlinIf you want a whistle-stop summary of what The Times reporting from yesterday means, it's very, very good. It's something they're very good at. Something I listened to yesterday, Chris Hayes has this podcast called Why Is This Happening? And he had Rebecca Traister on, who has a new book about women being angry. and it's so crystallized. I mean, in a way where I feel like a manga chud, how much everything fucking has come into focus after listening to this show because she really lays it down. She really summarizes this, what's happening.

MaxWhat if this is on Chris Hayes?

MerlinYeah, I'll put it in the dingus. But it just really crystallized for me in a way that I'm so white, I'm so privileged, I'm so male. And like hearing her crystallize this, well, first of all, she makes a great historical case for how many things have happened in the past for because of angry black women. who are always being typified as like, well, you're the problem, oh, you're hysterical. And just women in general, whether that's stuff with labor, the triangle shirtwaist factory fire, all this stuff, it started with women and their anger. And that's what caused so many of these forces. But the way she just like, even just in a glancing blow in passing, just says like, what is happening right now is you are seeing played out in a way that's usually very much more subtle.

My words here, but like you're seeing the naked attempt to just protect male power and to protect. And that means having control over a woman's body, which by extension means control over her economic health. But basically what you're seeing played out right now is the most naked attempt to protect a power that has previously not been named. So now we talk about things like privilege and we talk about things, you know. But I would suggest folks, listeners out there, go and listen to this because it's really, really good.

It's about an hour long. And you just, you come out of it and you can't help but be fucking mad with her. because what you're seeing right now is, let's just say it. What they're saying is you are not allowed, you're not allowed to, and this follows a lot of articles, a lot of Twitter threads. I did not invent this idea. What you're seeing with Brett Kavanaugh is this way of saying, you are not allowed to challenge me on a moral basis. I went to Yale. I did all the right things. I'm the bootstraps guy, right? Play that story right alongside the story of Donald Trump. When Donald Trump's father died, the single biggest amount of money in the Fred Trump estate was the IOU from Donald Trump, the guy who created himself.

So I don't know. I'm sorry. I don't mean to ramble on. But I think I do want to read her book. But just listen to that one-hour podcast. Really crystallize this for me. This is something that was – it's hegemony writ large. It's this thing you can't identify. It's like trying to grab a handful of air. But what it is, is this presumptive power where you're not even allowed to question that it exists, let alone that it's that it's the law of the land in every way. And that's and you just see that happening in like this. I want to say slow motion, but it's not slow motion. We're going to have a cloture vote.

Yay. Fucking A. It's just it's it's excruciating and it's breaking my heart.

MaxYeah.

AlexThe thing that was that's that's the thing. When she got up and told her story, no, no woman was surprised by it.

MerlinI wasn't surprised for it. Who wouldn't want to do that?

AlexWell, that's the thing. We've all heard, I've heard that story from my friends. I've had to tell that story. And to stand up there and do that was heartbreaking and horrible. But many people have heard very similar stories many, many times. And from women who don't remember and don't have a clear recollection of what happened. And that doesn't end. But to hear her story and just the details confirmed over and over again.

And then to have the whiplash of the I was great at Yale. I was at Yale, Yale, Yale, Yale. And I just enjoyed beers with my friends. And then lying about the like find finger fuck thing. Like the like triple F or whatever. And it's like, okay, you're all, you all know what this means. You're all lying. And then it's just, it's nothing new. Like you said, this interview, I realized I've actually heard it before.

And all of the privilege I have in my life is really because of queer black women. and they're what's horrifying is if this was not a respectable well-regarded wealthy woman i don't think anybody else would be able to stand up and do what she did because another woman probably wouldn't even have gotten that far they wouldn't have gotten to another senator's office the letter would have been ignored and that's also just a horrifying

Maxhorrifying part of this yeah i've been thinking a lot about the um that uh the george lake off books that i really like which i read during the bush administration and he writes about that that he sort of has this breakdown of like conservative and liberal metaphors of how people like look at the world and conservative the conservative metaphor like one of the big ideas is that there's like a natural order like a hierarchy to the world where you have humans above other species in America above other nations and white people above other.

It's all run by a strict father.

MerlinYeah, yeah, the strict father morality, right?

MaxYou have white people above other races. You have men above women. And that when that gets disrupted, it's people's, it's like natural law being upset and people need to set it right. There's like a manifest destiny idea to that. And I think that has been on such plain display in these hearings. It is just so, like you said, Merlin, it's just so the subtext. It's like it's in between every sentence that these Republican senators are saying.

MerlinLike, how dare you?

MaxAnd it's a sickness. Like, we're so unequipped. Like, our whole media ecosystem and social media is so ill-equipped to deal with that because that's not a legitimate – that's not the other side. That's not like a legitimate point of view. That's not like, oh, we have to respect the conservative thinkers who believe that. That's a sickness. Like that needs to be driven out of our society. Like it feels very like it feels a lot like the Bush administration to me where there's this this plain lying and insanity right in front of our noses.

And even a casual observer of the news who just watches it for themselves could come to the reasonable conclusion that these people are hiding behind process and authority and just lying to you. And it's and it's a it's a moral sickness that they want. Like their agenda is is repulsive and inhuman. And yet they're doing it and the media covers it. And they're like, well, the Senate committee is convened for the vote and they'll have three days for this and one day for this. And they need 50 votes. And everything goes on as normal behind this this sheen of process and respectability and authority. And it's really it really, to me, makes me feel like things are out of control.

AlexTwo-hour time limit. When everything ended on Friday, the fact that no one knew what was going on, who's the adult there? We keep saying that.

MerlinThat moment when Grassley said, okay, exactly what you said. You're right. Okay, I know what you're talking about. We go to our time limit and DiFi is like, what? And he's like, what did we just decide on? It's a gentleman's agreement. Okay.

AlexAnd then he paused, gentlemen and woman. And I was like, wow, you really had to remember that to try to cover your ass, huh? And I think at that point, I can't remember how many times I've thrown up this week. Well, and it's also a top and bottom situation. Normally, yeah, it's real bad.

MerlinOh, I see. Talking about the basement times.

AlexYeah, bad basement times. sometimes um but yeah it's probably for all that spicy food yeah definitely i need to have max was nice and brought me an espresso max is always nice but he brought me an espresso shot oh this is a

Maxfancy cup oh yeah the uh i can't believe i'm saying this but the john oliver was actually very good this week just going through the test just sort of just sort of remind there's so many small moments that i forgot about there was just so much like that happened in that in that in that testimony when was it last thursday or whatever yes there was so much that happened it was amazing i forgot about half of it half of the line and the dozens of times you mentioned the word beer

Merlinoh my god so many odd odd things that you just and you know and the things we're not allowed to do that right we're not allowed to go wait a minute wait a minute you're you guys are okay with what happened that afternoon like what that what happened that afternoon when the mask melted away and you saw who this guy really is and chop it did a great bit about this but like he i mean i'm not saying the guy was drunk that day but you know me and my adderall theories he drank a lot of water i'm just saying he seemed a little bit jacked and he seemed like he seemed like there

was definitely something going but when you saw that guy you saw every fucking angry drunk you ever met in your life come out and it was completely antithetical to everything he'd ever presented himself as in the past but you could tell that when he was you know crying and

Alexsticking his tongue into his mouth that he was not crying there was not a single actual tear that was

Merlinthat i don't know man adderall makes you very emotional you give a drunken adderall just saying that's interesting well you're okay with that you're all right really seriously that's

Maxyour lifetime appointment it was it was an insane it was an insane deranged performance and the thing in john oliver that that i had not fully taken the time to think through that that really made my head spin was that he had that bit about his father used to keep a calendar and then on christmas he would read the family the calendar and he started crying while he was talking about it yeah and john oliver was like well at the time he started keeping the calendar he would have been 13 so he read him the previous years he read his 14 year old son the previous year's calendar and

then he when he told the story about that he cried and he was like well it's bedtime son oh yeah and And he was like calendar hour. And then he was like, well, maybe he was crying because he's thinking about his dearly departed father who's no longer with him. But no, his dad is sitting right behind him in the audience.

AlexI had to Google that. And I'm like, wait a second. Wait a second. It was fucking bizarre. I didn't, you know, I didn't put church in because I didn't put in brushing my teeth either. And wow.

MerlinHe's also doing his service projects, going down a little flower for mass.

AlexOh, God. I, man, and I, okay, I can't believe I'm going to say this. My favorite part of this whole thing is when the good, not Max's, Dr. Ford, at the end of her opening statement was like, and I'll just, I need some caffeine and sort of giggled because that's all you can do at that point. And then all the Twitter takes came in of, oh, ah, she's laughing at this. This is all a joke to her. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me?

And then this poor woman is drinking Coke through this whole thing. And I know this is only going to be relatable to a few people probably, but every sip was like humanizing. Whereas him just chugging that water just confirmed what a monster he was. And I know that sound, it is rational. It sounds irrational. But that it was like this weird anger that just kept happening over and over.

MerlinWell, and not to I mean, on the one side, this is so boring. On the other side of the aisle, I don't care if it's boring. I'm sorry. I mean, it's that way. But I mean, only in the sense that this is literally almost all of the content that I have consumed for the last week. Everything we're saying has been said. but um but there's there was also something like people keep saying like what you know oh yeah we all we all had our hijinks and our horseplay when we were in college and high school and should he be and and like everybody kind of keeps saying us ding-a-lings us cuck tards over here on the left

are like yeah but like he fucking lied he lied and lied and lied about all of that and doesn't it seem at least a little bit telling and i'm not trying to substance shame anybody but doesn't it seem a little bit telling that every time alcohol consumption came up that's when he acted like a 15-year-old boy. That's when he did the thing with Klobuchar. That's when he did the thing with White House. He fires back at this, well, what do you like to drink? It's like, you're a 53-year-old man who's going to be on the Supreme Court. And when you're confronted about something simple as do you drink a lot, you could say, I don't want to talk about it.

You could say, I do. You could say whatever you want to say about that, but instead you say nothing, you say, you just come back to these same lines over and over again. But when he's questioned about that, that's when he gets incredibly touchy and it's like i don't know how you watch that and go like this is fine

Alexi don't know if this part has been covered and normally i hate i i don't believe in playing devil's advocate but i'm let's just say in a different set of circumstances you would judge that someone is suspects to have a substance abuser and uh who's an alcoholic and that's it That's the only thing wrong. And you and it's only that line of questioning. And if someone answers that way, we're going to have that person as the if that was if that was just the only issue, not a violent person in any way.

MerlinIf it was kind of the Trump, it's kind of the Trump problem all over again in some ways where it's like, oh, that will shit. There's 16 other things. Is that that's what you're going to like make a big deal about. But like, you know, Ginsburg Ginsburg, you know, got shot down because he'd smoke grass. It's like, anyway.

MaxMay 27th, 2009, National Public Radio, NPR. Even before she appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for her confirmation hearings, Judge Sonia Sotomayor can expect Senate Republicans will grill her on the wise Latina versus white man line in her by now infamous 2001 speech. If she's really the wise Latina, she seems to think she's probably wishing right now that she had never uttered those words since they give her political opponents a very exploitable angle of attack. They otherwise wouldn't have. The line comes from a speech Sotomayor gave during a symposium at the University of California Law School at Berkeley.

The conference's theme was Raising the Bar, Latino and Latina Presence in the Judiciary in the Struggle for Representation. One point of Sotomayor's speech was that the life experiences of women and minorities in the law often informs their work, leading to an ultimate outcome of greater justice overall.

Sotomayor describes the conversations she had with this other judge. to this Sotomayor said, while recognizing the potential effect of individual experiences on perception, Judge Sederbaum nevertheless believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies. This is not the interesting part here. Where's the, where's the, I want to find the wise Latina quote. She said, whether, this is a quote from Judge Sonia Sotomayor, whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than

my colleague Judge Sederbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Judge O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and a wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnick attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I'm also not so sure that I agree with that statement. First, as Professor Martha Minow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than

a white male who hasn't lived that life that paragraph one of the most boring things i've ever read in my life almost sunk her supreme court not she almost did not become a supreme i mean almost certainly the best the best justice on on the bench right now in my opinion she sure doesn't sound like a white guy almost she almost did not make it onto the bench because she made that comment about a wise latina woman that was such a scandal i remember this and that's the

Alexthing it it was a scandal everybody expected it like and i she going in knew knew that was going to happen and i think we're going i i don't know how many times i'm going to have to see this in my lifetime of bringing up the questions of oh well would you be biased against a man if you sat

Merlini i don't know that there's this quote that goes around a lot and i just found at least who it's supposedly from a guy who used to be the president of peru um this is so succinct for my friends everything for my enemies the law that's what we're talking about so that's in so that that to me subsumes so much of what's happening right now. For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law. And what do we mean by that? Well, if you're on my side, like if you're with my dudes,

if you're hanging with my bros, if you're pumping with Tobin and PJ. And so for those guys, hey, there's all kinds of things that can happen. But you know what? If you're not on my side, we've got the two-hour limit. And we've got the adding 30 seconds to the clock when you interrupt my guy and there's all that stuff and that's and the problem in some ways this is really inside baseball at this point it was so frustrating to watch people like i said you max in the text channel i know how you love it when people choose to not have a voice or walk out of something as a

way to let's turn my profile black so no one thinks i'm here and they're like when when cory booker was doing a big thing with his bulgy eyes and he's gonna walk out and kamala harris who's a very able prosecutor, she's still fucking hitting him with the like, do you will you allow for an investigation instead of saying like, what does this mean? Chapter and verse. So as you know,

MaxI'm a genius. I'm probably the smartest person working in democratic politics. And I don't know why I'm the only person who's come up with this. But as you know, the filibuster has been eliminated for over judicial proceedings. There is no filibuster. So there isn't like a democratic senator can knock it up and filibuster Kavanaugh.

AlexRight.

MaxBut you guys know what a filibuster is, right? A filibuster is like, it's a procedure that's recognized in the Senate rules where you can It's a trick. where you can stand up and you have to be recognized by the chair as long as you're speaking, right?

MerlinAnd they have to yield to you for as long as you speak.

MaxThat's correct. But before that rule, the filibuster was you would just go up there and talk for as long as you could. And if I was in the Senate, and especially if I wanted to run for president, I would When there was the closure vote, I would get up there and start talking, and I would not stop talking. Until they dragged you out? I would just do a filibuster, right? I understand that it's not recognized in the Senate procedures, but what are they going to do? At some point, they're going to put you in handcuffs and drag you off the floor. And better that than walking out in silence. At least show the—if it becomes apparent that they don't have the votes, at least show the American people what's—at least look like you're fighting.

if they had votes they would have voted well that's possible that is that is possible but

Merlinthe second he thinks he's got every time every time supposedly mcconnell right now has left and we're not sure where he's going um sorry real-time follow-up um but uh yeah i mean the conventional wisdom is well first of all mcconnell he's big on the saber rattling you'll remember last week he talked about how easily this was going to be completed and i i you know me i've come around to your terrible way of thinking, Max. I refuse to be optimistic. I constantly swatting my wife down about her optimistic.

MaxGuys, I'm going to tell you. Here we go. They're putting him on the bench. Let's not beat her on the bush.

MerlinMaybe this comes out

Maxon Friday and I sound like a fucking idiot. I hope I do. I will gladly eat that shit next week if I'm wrong. Listen, let me tell you exactly what's going to happen. This being recorded at 1140 a.m. on Wednesday. And I already know exactly what's going to happen, which is the FBI's report is going to come out tomorrow or Friday. And it's going to be, they're going to have gone through the motions of doing this investigation. And what they're going to have is a couple of nuggets in there that could be incriminating. So if people want to read the report as incriminating,

there'll be a couple of threads and breadcrumbs there. And then there'll be enough in the report that says, well, we don't know. And so if you want to read the report that way.

MerlinInconclusive.

MaxIf you want to read the report that way, there will be threads and breadcrumbs that way. Because the FBI is not – do you think they're going to – after the election, you think they're going to weigh it in and they're going to issue a report that has a decisive thing one way or another? Like, of course not. They're going to leave it – they're going to have something in there for one side and something in there for the other so that whoever is in power isn't that mad at the FBI. And probably Republicans will have the votes and they're going to put them on the bench. And the reason that they're stuck with Kavanaugh, I'm sure they'd rather have another nominee at this point.

But I don't think there's another time, especially given the incompetence of the Trump administration, I don't think there's another time to roll out another justice and do the meetings and the hearings and put them on the bench before lame duck. And I also don't. And I think McConnell would rather risk putting Kavanaugh on now than trying to get his colleagues to do it during lame duck, which they might also do. By the way, even if Kavanaugh goes down, they might do it during lame duck. I wouldn't put it past them. And it wouldn't I would be outraged.

MerlinI would absolutely I think they would. But so but the dust that's been kicked up in the last few days. And I think it was a calculated risk to say that we'll allow this investigation. Well, then, of course, we'll hobble this investigation to the extent possible and try to undermine it. But you know what? I refuse to be optimistic. OK, you're right.

AlexBut there's little feelers.

MerlinThere's little feelers out there right now that are super interesting, which is the fucking more and more stuff just keeps coming out, which is exactly what we all kind of expected. But you think it's going to come down. You think Murkowski, Collins, Flake, you think they're all just going to fold?

MaxThe only play for the FBI here. So I think that everyone put all their eggs in the basket of the FBI investigation. And if the FBI investigation comes back and it doesn't have a smoking gun in there, which I did. I'm just telling you it's not going to. Then everyone now has the permission structure to vote for Kavanaugh, regardless of anything else that happened.

MerlinIs this just cover to say, well, no, I don't think it's a.

MaxI mean, I did see people saying, oh, it's all part of the plan of Jeff Feig to create this thing. It wasn't. They're fucking idiots and they're improvising and one thing goes wrong. But I'm just saying as a consequence of the way this is played out, once that report comes back, unless it has something absolutely withering in there, it's just not going to. I don't even know what. Maybe they would have him on perjury or something. But unless there's just something absolutely devastating in there.

Alexlike they're all to have murdered a important white man and buried him like underneath the white house i and i had this dark horrible selfish thought of he's going to be on the bench why i can't believe we're gonna go through with this like i i that was such i i it's so shitty but i was like i just want this to be over like it's nothing's gonna happen i do think i agree with Max. I don't think that like Flake planned it or anything, but he just did the bare, bare minimum

of what a moral human being would do. And he's being applauded for. Yeah. And the Democrat,

Maxand let me tell, let me say one more, one other thing about this, which is the Democrats are not your friends here. They are not, they have not played this smart. They didn't play this tactically. They have not latched on to the best attacks against Kavanaugh. This is that we, we do need, we need younger, smarter, better people in that Senate, and we need more women to be on these committees and create that stark contrast between what we're about and what they're about. So I hope everyone remembers the way that Senate Democrats bungled this and played along with the process

and gave it the veneer of respectability all the way through while putting on an angry face, but doing nothing to meaningfully obstruct it the next time that there's a primary against one of these people and there's someone young and exciting running. People in this party need to start voting their conscious. They need to start voting for the people that they actually like and believe in and want to be in Congress fighting these fights for them.

MerlinYou guys ready to start?

AlexYeah, let's do it.

MaxChallenge each other, challenge yourself.

AlexOh boy, that felt good though. That felt good.

MaxShould we read a phony Trump story? Yes, please. This is from BuzzFeed News. This is a hurricane story, so it's a little old, but we didn't get to it. President Donald Trump was in the Carolinas Wednesday, touring the damage left by Hurricane Florence and speaking with first responders, elected officials, and other locals. This is, of course, the hurricane that, according to Trump, was, quote, one of the wettest we've ever seen from the standpoint of water.

After that assessment, it's perhaps not surprising that Trump's tour of the disaster zones got a little awkward. Here's a breakdown. Quote, at least you got a nice boat out of the deal. As he visited homes destroyed by Florence, Trump spoke with a resident who ended up with someone else's yacht in their yard. Quote, at least you got a nice boat out of the deal, Trump said. The president assured the resident that he tried to help with an insurance issue, but the boat, Trump added, was incredible. Quote, they don't know whose boat that is, he said. What's the law? Maybe it becomes theirs.

MerlinI say boat. That's boat. Boat joke. Boat joke.

MaxDuring a briefing with North Carolina officials, I like that Trump goes, nobody knows what the law is, folks. What's the law? Nobody knows. We'll see what happens. During a briefing with North Carolina officials, Trump asked about his golf course. Quote, how is Lake Norman doing? Trump asked. I love that area. I can't tell you why, but I love that area. The Trump National Golf Course is Charlotte is located in Mooresville, North Carolina, next to Lake Norman. Trump reassured local officials in South Carolina that the federal government would help them in their recovery from the storm.

Quote, Washington is with you, Trump said. Then, oddly, he continued in the third person. Trump is with you.

Vote.

MaxAs officials describe the destruction Florence caused in South Carolina, Trump focused on what he thought would be exciting. Quote, I think the most exciting part is going to be that rebuild, the former real estate developer said, because we're going to have a lot of rebuilding. I flew over and there's a lot of damage In New Bern, a North Carolina city Hit hard by the storm, Trump helped distribute Meals to people in need As he handed takeout boxes to one driver MSNBC's cameras picked up his farewell Quote, have a good time

MerlinHave a good time Enjoy your fries

MaxNobody knows what the law is folks Maybe he gets to keep the boat Nobody knows what the law is What is the law? There's no way to know what happens

Merlinour time law cannot be known can I channel Max New York Times exploding wheelchair wounds FBI agent I love this story so much

MaxI saw this yesterday and I saw the headline and I thought to myself I read a lot of news and I can tell you from experience that there's no way that the article is as exciting as that headline I saw the headline and I thought

Merlintypical Max it's like alien right all you really need is the headline but it actually does yeah i thought to myself that

Maxheadline is writing a check that the article cannot cash but do you want to read it oh no you please

Merlinoutside a minivan rigged with steel animal traps blocked the driveway near the home a gate was booby trapped to send a circular hot tub rolling toward anyone who opened it like the boulder that bore down on indiana jones and raiders of the lost ark neither trap and snare the bomb experts who visited the home in southwest oregon last month according to uh an arrest warrant affidavit but the team ran into trouble inside where someone nudged a wheelchair triggering a loud explosion that sent shotgun pellets flying i'm hit yelled one of the experts an fbi agent according to the

affidavit scrolling down a little bit uh so basically they're trying to get this guy's he's forfeited his house he's a bad bomb boy at the lawyer's request the fbi bomb expert and three state bomb technicians arrived to inspect the house around 9 a.m on september 7th when they found the minivan in the hot tub as well as a rat trap in the garage according to the affidavit The rat trap was not set, but had it been, it would have discharged a shotgun shell when the garage door opened. After circling the house and finding the windows bar, the team gathered at the front door and opened the explosive. Inside, they found the wheelchair and the same kind of fishing line used some of the other traps.

Though it wasn't immediately clear where the line led, someone mistakenly hit the wheelchair, causing the explosion.

AlexThis is a catch me if you can situation or like a Ray Liotta type thing where he needs a job.

MerlinI want this guy on my team.

MaxIt's too bad this guy would be, I really think that he could make good use of Siri shortcuts. And it's too bad that he's in prison when iOS 12 came out.

MerlinYou think people are going to fuck with your cordless drill after this boy comes in? Gregory Lee Rodville at age 67. He's going to set up some fucking rolly hot tub.

MaxSiri, release the rat trap.

MerlinYou know, it's just like Siri. Ah, killer bees.

MaxMy car is full of bees. Federico could really do a number on some federal agents if he really put his mind to it, you know?

MerlinAnd then you swipe to release the hot tub. Just swipe.

AlexDig Dug, Merlin, you have... What is this? Hugh, serious shortcuts for Hugh, Trojan horse for Normies.

MerlinI put it far down on the list. It's really boring. I don't want to talk about it.

AlexNo, I want to hear... I use Hugh. What's this?

MerlinNo, this is going to kill the momentum. Okay, okay, okay.

AlexAll right, all right. Here's all I'm going to say. Here's all I'm going to say. Here's all I'm going to say.

MerlinHugh released an update yesterday, and it says, hey, Hugh has been updated to work with Siri Shortcuts. And at first I was like, oh, my God, this is great. And then I went, wait a minute. I already use Lady in the Tube and Siri Boy. I already use that. All I wanted to say was I think Hugh is so fucking boring. All I wanted to say is what's interesting is here's what it's doing for normies. Now, do you think people with you know what you can do with it? Now it bubbles up inside your Siri area in settings,

and you see that you can, say, set the master bedroom to relax. I mean, how many people do you think actually do that? You do that, right? You would say set the living room to energize or whatever, right? I just think it's really interesting what ends up bubbling up in there. What's hilarious is so much of the Siri shortcut suggestions that we got with the stock Apple apps, as we've talked about, were asinine, which is like, do you want to create another calendar event for go to jury duty? No, I don't. I did that. I did that, Siri. I don't need to do that again. But in this case, it's going to bubble up stuff you did recently and remind you, if

you have the knowledge to go in and look at that, that it could bubble that stuff up. Cut all this out. It's really boring.

AlexWell, none of you recognized my very, very funny prank and Siri shortcut that I just think was really bad. I couldn't tell.

MerlinYou made a Siri shortcut to go to a YouTube video? Yeah. And you sent it to me twice two different ways with a blank icon? Yeah. Was this edibles? No. You sent me something called pee tape? Oh, because it's called pee tape. Yes.

AlexThat one's broken, though. You'd be shocked.

MerlinI don't click things that people send me with links.

AlexIt's a tap. It's not a click.

MerlinI would have to install the shortcut, and I'm not going to do that. You're an unknown vendor.

AlexOh, boy. All right.

MerlinP-tape, get shortcut.

AlexWait, I think that one's broken, though. No, do the one beforehand. Do the one beforehand. And I am shocked at how many people just tap on shit that like I haven't texted in days and without any context. I would never do that.

MerlinI would never do that. I'm not going to do it now. I don't know what's a shortcut. It's going to be a dirty shortcut.

AlexIt's stupid. I'll just put it in the show notes. What was that momentum you were talking about? This is boring. Oh, boy.

MerlinHey, hey, hey. It looks like our site got unhacked. Yeah.

AlexNobody knows why or how.

MaxIt was probably something in the Google algorithm that they just decided to recognize the kind of URL redirect we're doing. That's my guess. I don't think anything changed on the domain.

MerlinI just want to let our listeners know it's finally safe to visit our site.

MaxSpeaking of that, Dubai Friday, we do two episodes every week. We have the after show, which you can get for just $5 a month if you go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com. The world is ending anyway, So what else are you going to do with that $5?

MerlinYeah, it's like the blacks. What do you got to lose?

MaxYeah.

MerlinBlack unemployment, very low.

MaxBuzzFeed News. The curvy wife guy is threatening to sue Babe for comparing his book to the Unabomber manifesto.

MerlinYes, yes, yes. Put it in my veins.

MaxRobbie Tripp describes himself as, quote, an author, public speaker, entrepreneur, and influencer. But you probably know him as the curvy wife guy. In case you missed it, Tripp went viral last year for an Instagram post in which he said he loved his wife for being a, quote, curvy goddess. even though other less woke men might not understand it. It became a meme. Tripp is also the author of Create Rebellion, a book he describes as, quote, a creative Bible for the disruptive soul.

His website bills the book as, quote,

MerlinMy dick just fell off.

MaxHis website bills the book as, quote, an avant-garde stream of consciousness that seeks to inspire creative minds to listen to their inner desires, to create, to be disruptive with their creations, and to disregard those who don't see the beauty of their inspired vision.

However, it didn't get a great review from Babe.net, which has been covering Tripp in detail. They also recently revealed some old racist Instagrams he had.

MerlinOh, no.

MaxWriter Harry... Look at my racism. Writer Harry shook me. I'm going to click on that. Now I want to see what the racist Instagrams are.

AlexOh.

MaxLet's see here. What do we got?

AlexI love my milkshake and it's curvy ducks. It's funny again. I don't want to let the meme die and it's not going to go away.

MerlinCreate rebellion. Oh, look at that. He's sitting there in his underwear. Oh, he lives in San Francisco.

MaxYeah, no shit. I thought maybe these would be funny, but they're actually just racist and not funny.

AlexNo, no.

MaxWell, I regret to inform you that the racist Instagrams are not humorous. Writer Harry Shookman wrote a post about the book saying it, quote, reads like the Unabomber Manifesto. So, Chukwin challenges readers to try to identify if a quote is from Create Rebellion or from domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski's... We have to do this quiz right now. Just, let's just do the quiz. But anyway, he's...

MerlinOh, he's got a picture of his wife in a brassiere. Oh, no. She's in her underpants. Oh, no. Oh. She's in her underpants all over this thing. Yeah. Oh, close the tab. Oh, no, no, no.

Oh, boy.

MaxHe's influencing. Okay, here we go. Yep. See, this is now from the Babe.net story that he's suing over. And by the way, if Curvy Wife Guy wants to sue the Dubai Friday podcast, you can reach us at 1917 North Elston. And the official attorney of Dubai Friday is friend of the show, Matt, who just passed the bar exam. So he will, Curvy Wife Guy, bring it on because Matt will ride into battle on a stallion of justice and he will slay you on the legal battlefield. You do not have a chance.

AlexI really want to take this quit where is the

Maxokay so I'm going to read it okay okay see if you can distinguish between these two extracts one is from the famous Instagram influencer who loves his thick wife and another is from Ted Kaczynski the blood search 90s terrorist who murdered a load of murdered a load of people okay extract number one quote be careful and act swiftly as you operate among their spiteful hostility their infection can quickly turn you into a diseased member of their epidemic of complacency and whoredom These nasty symptoms of free-flowing hatred and negativity are ones that can so easily taint your own mind, revolt against this faction's pathetic pornography, and shatter their closed doors into splinters, exposing their pastime of staying on porches of criticism and enjoying lounge chairs of scorn.

Their path is easier than the one you have chosen to pursue, but do not be tempted by its hollow pleasure. Common minds critique while great minds create.

MerlinCurve boy. I'm going to go curvy. I don't think there's such a thing as a chair of scorn.

MaxLet us see here. Does it say that is correct? Extract one was from curvy wife guy. Okay. Extract two quote. It is true that primitive man is powerless against some of the things that threaten him disease, for example, but he can accept the risk of disease stoically. It is part of the nature of things. It is no one's fault unless it is the fault of some imaginary and personal demon. But threats to the modern individual tend to be man made. They are not the results of chance, but are imposed on him by a person whose decisions he as an individual is unable to influence.

Consequently, he feels frustrated, humiliated and angry.

AlexJust because that makes there's a teeny tiny sliver of rationality that a crazy person could could find from it. I'm going to say bomb boy.

MaxKaczynski. Yeah, the Unabomber. You know, I thought that second thing was pretty, pretty good. I might read that. I might read that Unabomber. There's geniuses on both sides. I don't disagree with anything you said there. I'll say it. I'll say it. I'll say what we're all thinking.

MerlinSee that photo in the channel? See that photo I just sent?

AlexPopping up, popping up. Oh, no. Oh, my God. No.

MerlinSo it's a three-quarter rear view of his wife in a bathing suit on the beach. Good for her. He is on one knee behind her, mugging at the camera and giving the double thumbs up to her ass. How do you think she feels about this?

AlexAnd the thing about this is I really don't know if she's posing. Like, I feel like he picked the one where it seems like she's posing. I don't know.

MerlinYeah, this definitely seems like one of those guys with a shared email account. His Twitter picture is him with a woman that doesn't remember him.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinI date women. Oh, man. Oh, well, good for him. He's living his best life.

AlexGood for you, Curve Boy. His name's Tripp. No. Thanks, Tripp.

MaxAt the start of the second chapter, Curvy Wife Guy says, quote, Blitzkrieg the cowardly corporations with your open awareness of their misdeeds. You must make them understand that you are no longer a marionette that is subject to the inconsiderate movements of their wretched wrists.

MerlinUh-huh. Thanks, Tripp. We must storm the sea battles of mixed metaphors and quicksand the iced tea of remembrance.

AlexOh, man. Okay. Good for him.

MaxOh, but also he has, just in case there's any ambiguity, he has done sponsored Instagram posts for McDonald's, Chase Bank, Alaska Air, eBay, and Lactane.

Merlin106,000 followers does not strike me as a very influencer-y account.

AlexI think he's a micro-influencer. Beep boop. He's a nano-influencer.

MerlinHere's my wife's butt. She doesn't know about this account.

MaxThe desire to bring into existence something unique something the world has not yet seen is the definition of purity never stray from this holiest of missions which is to create something that survives far longer than your tabernacle of flesh and bone For when your outer shell descends to rejoin the dust from which it was spawned These manifestations of your mind will continue breathing and intertwining into the beautiful helix of the universe You guys never allow anything or anyone to repress your urge to create Challenge. Challenge. Challenge. True creators would rather die than be unable to express these natural impulses.

MerlinIt's my challenge this week.

AlexOh, boy. Dig Dug, whose challenge was it? Yours. Oh, wait, really? Max, is there more good stuff?

MaxFill the pews of your daily life with unique characters that are rich with experience and diversity. Keep a constant appara... I don't even know this word. Apparat? Oh, appetite. Keep a constant appetite to live fully, inspire widely... Widely. Live deeply and create unsparingly. Remember that the recipe for a satisfying creative existence will never include the pursuit of excess. If destiny allows wealth and notability may become a validating byproduct of your creations, but they should never be your sole intent. The chasing of such vain and terrestrial tantalizations will only burden you with unnecessary weight of worldliness.

MerlinHipster Stephen Miller.

MaxThe true makers bleed their masterpieces from veins of pure expression.

AlexWhat?

MaxI often say these things.

AlexYeah.

MaxI go around the office and I say these things to people.

MerlinWhat a stable genius. I got to fill my pews. That's my problem.

MaxAll right. So this week was the Dubai Friday triathlon. And what were we supposed to play? Spider-Man was the one that I remember.

MerlinOh, yeah. You're supposed to play the PlayStation game Spider-Man. Yes. You're supposed to not shave. Yes. And you're supposed to take a cold shower. Yes. Triathlon.

AlexYeah. I'm sensing some, how much peanut butter is happening here?

MaxOh, not much. It's not none. Fill your pews, Max. Not none.

MerlinZero's a percentage. It's not no peanut butter.

MaxBut it's not a lot.

MerlinIt's not not not peanut butter.

MaxAll right. Well, Alex, it's your challenge. Okay. Why did you pick this challenge?

AlexSo people can listen to the after show if they want to know why I picked this challenge. I have no obligation to say that here. But we can all agree that I know I'm very brave. I'm going to walk out right now. Merlin, did you play the video game PS4 exclusive Spider-Man?

MerlinJust a little bit. I've watched my daughter play it a lot when she's not spending 16 hours a day on Zelda Breath of the Wild. It's so cute. She sits there with a hardcover book in her lap, the giant how to play Zelda book. and she just she got a sword and she just defeated her second boss guy that you get for the special power thing so i think she's all in the last week she's made a lot of progress um no but i've watched her play a lot and i played it a little last night um but it was late and i had to go to bed and i kept confusing the controls i kept falling off buildings uh but it was pretty fun it feels it

feels great it the rumble stuff uh so fun i'm not a video games guy but i could see myself

Alexblown a lot of time on this thing yeah i only played uh jen's into it right isn't jen all

Merlinmobbed up with spider-man oh boy yeah someone someone got her that game as a gift someone

Maxincredible someone some incredibly generous person must have must have given that to jen wow there's really boss ever says the mug yeah

Alexnobel prize there really uh but yeah i i played it for maybe five hours which didn't it felt like like 10 minutes though it is so good and even if you just spend the entire game just like it's shooting webs and flying around yeah yeah it's fun so fun it's and it's also very very fun to watch except for the those puzzles are weird do those puzzles eventually go to way like they're

Maxthere are not a lot of them i agree they're not great but also i've played a lot of shitty puzzles and a lot of triple a video games and they're they're no they're really easy they're no sliding block puzzles i'll say that yeah like like there was an era in games i think in like around like the game cube era whenever that was where every fucking triple a game had to have a fucking sliding block puzzle in it where it's like resident evil 4 oh you can't go confront the final boss until you solve this sliding block puzzle yeah and at least it's not a sliding

Alexblock puzzle yeah they're they're fine and they're i don't know if they're harder are you

Maxtalking about the frequency puzzles or the circuit puzzles there's i mean there's both oh is are those

Alexthe only two in the game?

MaxThere might be some more. Oh, no, then there's also the spectrography puzzles.

AlexI don't think I've gotten there yet. I just finished turning off all the, or reconnecting all the towers or whatever. I'm like, no, I'm a boss past that. I don't know, but it's, the puzzles are very easy and you can get through them quickly. That's the only part of the game that isn't both fun to watch and fun to play. I mean, it's kind of fun to play, but like we i i maddie played it i played it like and it's so it's kind of like zelda in that it's

it's almost like a group event you can like pass the controller around and just like just swoop and do the spidey things and i i just really really liked it and it made me happy after a trash week

Merlinoh the kind of thing i this kind of thing that could appeal to if i liked video games this is the kind of thing that would appeal to me. Just like, yeah. And it felt good. It looked good. I thought it was great.

MaxSo, I'm curious. The first night I played the game, I was getting rave reviews, and I downloaded it on my PlayStation. I was pretty excited about it. And it really, doing that first battle with Fisk, it just kicked my ass. Like, I didn't, I was fucking fumbling around with the controller, and I felt like I had no control over Spider-Man, and I couldn't remember all the buttons and I didn't understand all the things that you could do and it was like I was just staggering around. I kept getting killed and I had it on the easiest difficulty

and I really did not. The first session I had with the game was really bad. Oh, really? I do not think that game was well tutorialized, at least for the way that I learned how to play games. And then I would say for the next 10 hours after that, I also felt clumsy. So I would die in almost every battle. Like, so if I would go just drop down on the street and try and do like a crime or whatever and like fight, you know, just in one of those normal crime things. Like, I couldn't do any of those without getting killed. And also, like, I just felt like I was like anything where there's a lot of mechanics in the game where you have to race something around the city, like catch a car or a pigeon or something.

AlexOh, I'm not good at those.

MaxAnd oh, my God. I was like, these must be impossible. Like, I don't understand how you do that. And I'll say, like, I just kept playing because I like the story and I like the voice acting and I like what was going on. I like the world. and about, I want to say maybe five, ten hours in, in that period, like I did start to get good at it. And the other thing I'll say is the doing those science stations, the research stations, those are the best. In my experience, those are some of the best tutorials for the game because each one of those teaches you a little mechanic that you kind of need to know. They give you a little puzzle that you need to learn the controls to solve.

And once I did those and then started incorporating like web zipping and some of those aerial things into the way I was moving, suddenly everything opened up for me. And now I feel like I'm in control of that Spider-Man character and I can do more stuff with him and it's more weightless and graceful than almost any video game I've ever played. It feels amazing.

AlexI am going to disagree about the tutorial because I felt, maybe it's because I have subtitles on. No, that doesn't make sense. It told you like, you know, like, triangle at fisk. Here's how to do the web punch. and stuff like that.

MaxYeah, but it didn't stay. You remembered all that shit? It gave you 300 controls, and then you're like, what do I have to do? Web them and then hit them? Well, it's better than... And then sometimes you have to press L1 and R1 to zip, but sometimes you have to press L2 and R2 to throw. This is why I kept all my buildings. It is a hard... It is a complicated... Like, you just... There's no... For me, personally, I just had to get the muscle memory for it, and it kind of sucked, and it was not very fun. But then once I got it, like, oh, man, is it rewarding. I am just soaking in this game.

I mean, I'm 100%ing this game, no question. I got every backpack. I took every photo. Like, I'm doing every side quest. Like, I'm eating every crumb that this game has to offer me.

AlexIt almost gets into what I would want about Grand Theft Auto. Like, it's not open world in the same sense, but there's enough side quests where you feel like you have a lot of agency over this character. And in terms of like the moves and stuff, I guess it kind of felt like a fighting game for me. Like I at first I'm like, OK, I vaguely know what the controls are. I know that I'm smashing webs on people. But then you so you're effective in what you're doing. But then you you have like the grace and you're not falling off of buildings and you're oh man running.

I don't know why I like to run on buildings. I think I like that more than swinging around. Love the building run. This is so interesting.

MaxI think there is so much smart stuff happening in this game. I love the character. I mean, as you go through it. The writing is actually good. Can you say how far you are without spoiling it?

AlexI don't think so.

MaxWhat's like one of the last big things that happened?

AlexThe thing with Mr. Octopus is happening.

MaxThe big thing with Mr. Octopus? The middle thing, I think.

Alexyeah merlin take your headphones off what part alex where where he he did he does a suit he's

Maxbecome doc yeah is he like did did am i farther in the game in the prison the yeah yeah yeah oh shit you were very oh it took me weeks to get that far okay are you doing everything uh no i'm doing

Alexyes yes um i'm not quite 100 percenting it because then i kind of got bored with like going into every jewelry store and stopping.

MaxI'm like, fine, damsel in distress. You only have to do five of those thug crimes.

AlexExactly.

MaxSo I'm not doing all of them. I'm Hondo P. That's probably why. That game, there's nothing more for me to do. I go into it with OmniFocus, and I'm like, okay, what's my next action? And I don't do that main quest until I've exhausted all possibilities.

AlexThat's what I did with Fez. I did OmniFocus project.

MaxI'm not. Here's the one thing I'm not doing with those fucking challenges. I am not doing. I'm not getting gold on all the challenges because I'm not a sociopath.

AlexOh, wow. I have been watching. I can't believe this is one of those games where like Spelunky, I do actually enjoy watching internet videos of people playing these games, which there's the thing that happens with

MaxRikers and one of the big plot developments. And that's about as good of a story and about as engrossed in a narrative of a written – I am a very public critic of written games, games with a script where it's writing. I think they're all shitty books. They're all the worst action movie ever made. And they have no – there's no nuance. There's nothing in between the lines. They're just empty, brain dead. They're the worst plot cliches of like you're working for this organization.

and the organization betrays you. It's like the worst stock characters and writing cliches as just garbage tier narrative. And I think the only good story in games for the most part is like emergent narrative that comes out of you interacting with the system. And there's a couple of games, AAA games that I've played, where I feel like the writing rises to the level of a good film. And I would say Mass Effect 1 and 2, Spider-Man is definitely up there.

Alexwhat about see i i was going to say wow i violently disagree with that but if you're talking about triple a games triple a games indie games are different but also indie games don't

Maxtend to have written the indie games don't tend to tell their stories that way right they do sometimes gone home gone home right rose to that level i wait wait okay all right so i've gone gone home was a masterpiece like it was excellent it was excellent i was about to walk out again in brave protest. But Gone Home also, I do think Gone Home was a narrative that was an emergent thing of you and the system of the game. It wasn't a script. I mean, it was partially that, but Spider-Man is a script. Characters call you and they read dialogue lines.

Right. It's cinematic. It's a movie, right? You're watching, you're doing quick time events and watching a movie and it's very much on rails. And I resent that kind of storytelling because I think that it's the lowest form of like, it's like, you know, it's like, it's like guerrilla entertainment. It's like, it's like, it's like, not Transformers movies because those movies have excellent visual effects, but something else that's all a dumb movie. Fast and Furious, there we go. They're like Fast and Furious movies. Like, I don't want to see those because I don't need to be, I don't need to be like condescended to in that way.

AlexThe line that, and I still remember it, where that made it be like, oh, this is going to, like, I'm going to be respected as an intelligent person is when the detective is like, oh God, this has been going on for three years. But it's like a passing moment in that normally I was like, oh, wait, they just did exposition, didn't they? Oh, oh, that wasn't thrown at my face again and again.

MaxI also just think that it thematically deals with a really interesting part of superheroes. I don't know too much about Spider-Man mythology or whatever. But I love the idea that this guy is really put upon and he barely has his own life together. And he's got so much shit to do. And he's being pulled in all these different directions. And there's all these different pressures. and you have Aunt May calling him and he's trying to do the good thing over here. Doing the good thing, especially outside of the law, is extremely complicated and leads to all of these fraught moral problems. Oh, man, I also like the way MJ is written in this game. I fucking love the mission with MJ.

You probably know the one I'm doing.

AlexDon't even mention it.

MaxIt's a good... It's good. It's really good.

AlexIf you are a fan of Spider-Man Homecoming, you are, I think, very much going to like this game.

MaxDoes this game have narrative continuity with Spider-Man Homecoming?

AlexOh, pretty much. I mean, wait.

MaxIs this basically, so the Peter Parker from Spider-Man Homecoming, is that the Peter Parker in this game? Someone may need to write in and tell us. I don't think so. You don't?

AlexNo, but it's years later. So I guess I'm talking, it has the same attitude and the same writing style. Like it's not, it's definitely Peter Parker. It's not like Miles Morales or anything. like and i mean that in terms of his like attitude and snarkiness i think it's standard 616 generic

Merlinspider-man and but the the the um there is a doc thing that happened a couple years ago

Maxthat it sounds like they're doing here what can you say you could say that that's not a spoiler

Merlinthey did a mind swap and dan slott got death threats over it and it ended up being a really interesting arc oh wait what's a mind swap um i think i'm trying to remember exactly how it happened but basically dr octopus you know it's it's such a classic marvel trope i guess really just a comic superhero trope of like the and you see this so much in the fantastic four you see where it's like the bad guy or you know it happened in hulk it happens in all of these where like the bad guy wants to approximate what the hero has so red skull wants the super serum you know super soldier serum uh you know dr doom you know ends up making himself into a monster

etc and you know dr octopus is incredibly envious of peter and so something happens and i think i think what happens is dr octopus is in like a coma and there's a mind swap and basically it's doc ox brain in peter's body and vice versa and dan slott who's a great writer got death

Maxthreats over because people were so mad but it was a really good arc that is interesting dr octopus's

Merlinsmall-sized girlfriend. It was a very interesting character.

MaxAlright, well, that's one of the tracks. So I recommend it. Sounds like,

Merlinlet's go to endorsements. Was it a good bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie you kind of like?

MaxThis is a good bad movie. So it's a bad movie. This is not like a cinematic masterpiece that has something to say about the human condition. It's a good video game. Yeah, it's trash, but it's like, you know what, this is the Cool Ranch Doritos of video games. of like, it's not nourishing in any way, but oh my God, it tastes good. Oh my God, it tastes good.

AlexOh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

MaxIt's a miracle how good it tastes.

AlexIf you like Spider-Man 2, both the video game from PS2 and the movie, which is my favorite superhero movie probably of all time other than The Dark Knight.

MaxWait, Tobey Maguire, Spider-Man?

AlexThe second one, Spider-Man 2. Spider-Man 2, Tobey Maguire. Second one is a very Peter Parker movie. Yes. So Peter Parker. And the third one, if you want to hurt yourself, go ahead. Hard pass.

MaxI'm going to go back and watch this. You know the one funny story.

MerlinWatch the second one. Skip the first one.

MaxYou know the one funny story about the Spider-Man 2. Do you know the story where I saw that with Josh? No. Josh and I saw that in movie theaters together. Because this is Cards co-creator Josh. And Josh, he's a physicist now. But even then, he was very, very interested in physics. We saw this movie in theater together. and there's a storyline in the movie where Doc Ock or whatever makes like an artificial sun and then Spider-Man dumps it into the ocean and we left that movie and Josh was fucking, he was fucking furious and he was like,

if they put an artificial sun into the lake, there would have been more steam. There was no steam and they would have vaporized that lake and it all would have become steam and there wasn't enough steam and he was really upset. That's Dr. DeGrasse Tyson. Yeah, he went all Neil DeGrasse Tyson and he was really upset. He was like, they did not handle that correctly and I was like, Josh, it's a movie about a spider man.

The hyphen's there for a reason.

AlexYeah, don't forget the hyphen. I put in our super secret text channel, How Spiders Reproduce, which really puts...

MerlinYeah, you teased this to us, and tell me more. I just learned from No Such Thing as a Fish that their legs work hydraulically, and that's why they look so creepy.

AlexOh, oh, I did not know that. No, they just shoot out webs. Their webs are spurned.

MerlinThey shoot out webs?

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinSpider jizz? They've got spider jizz. Spider jizz. Spider jizz. Does whatever a semen is.

MaxSo I don't know a lot about the Spider-Man lore, but it is a little weird to me that he sort of shoots his jizzy webs all over New York City just on people's windows and lampposts and streetlights and awnings. And he just shoots his jizzy webs all over the city swinging around. And then he just leaves them. And is there some janitor that has to come out the next morning and scrape his jizzy webs off the window? Yeah.

Merlinuh three pieces of very quick follow-up number one the author of create rebellion his name is robbie tripp uh number two the book create rebellion actually came out in november of 2015 oh god follow-up three you guys dodged a fucking bullet because it's not available on kindle oh bummer bummer bummer my pick bummer create rebellion says robbie tripp it's an abstract manifesto for disruptive creativity.

AlexAll right. Who took a cold shower?

MerlinMe.

AlexMerlin? Oh, no. He's making a noise. He made a Tina slash Alex noise.

MaxHere's the thing. Our shower in our master bedroom, we had a fancy, what do you call it? The thing that changes the temperature in the shower.

AlexA thermometer? I really don't know what you're talking about. The dial.

MaxWe have one dial. So here's the thing. We got a fancy one from Kohler or one of those.

MerlinIt's the one where you get a separate heat from. Yeah, I love those in a hotel.

MaxThey're really nice. So basically there's one knob that turns it on.

MerlinWell, just explain. The idea is then you do not have to turn it up all the way hot to get high pressure.

MaxThat is correct. So you turn. There's one that does the pressure and there's one that does the temperature. And usually we kind of like leave it on the same temperature because once you dial it in to the right temperature, It doesn't, you know, it's like if you have a separate knob that you're not constantly fiddling with it that much. But the one of the properties of this knob is that it doesn't go from zero to 100. It goes from like it goes from like 80 to 110.

MerlinHuh. Do you see what I'm saying? You can't do like so normally the way the way my understanding of this, which is very basic, is that no matter how the water is dispensed or how whether you have a single handle or double handle. The thing that you're doing is mixing heated water from your water heater with presumably room temperature or colder water from the line. And what you're doing in adjusting those is you're adjusting the mixture of the hot water and the cold water. It sounds like in your case, you couldn't get, say, a 60-degree shower.

MaxNo, the coldest it goes.

MerlinSo it's basically like being in the Gulf of Mexico.

MaxYeah, like turning the knob all the way to the left does not produce cold water. It produces like body temperature or slightly below body temperature water. So I would have had to have like gone into a foreign shower to do this challenge. And it became a lot of work. And I didn't want to do that. I appreciate your courage.

AlexYou could have gone to your guest shower probably. Yeah, yeah. I just didn't want to.

MaxThen I should like bring a towel down. It's not the floor of the house. Why would you do that? Yeah, no. I'm not going to do all that.

AlexAll right. So Merlin, did you do a full on cold shower or did you just do a cold blast at the beginning or at the end? No.

MerlinI feel like I remember, well, cold showers, first of all, for somebody of my age, cold shower is synonymous with being horny and trying to get rid of being horny. Cold shower for people of my age, cold shower means, hey, go take a cold shower. It's because you've got a boner or similar, kind of a lady boner on your clitoris.

Clitoris, we say from the Francaise. But no, but that's first of all, I just want to get that out of the way. When people say cold shower, that used to always just mean you got morning wood. the uh i feel like i remember john dickerson talking about this on um political gab fest and saying wow he tried it and it was really really difficult um so i found an article from the scientific journal inc short for incorporated and uh i sent to you guys uh which says that there's all kinds of known health benefits to the cold shower and i went in with gusto so last night

i took me a regular hot shower and at the end i turned it to the coldest setting for as long as I could take it, which was surprisingly not very long. But I got to tell you the truth. I'm going to do it again because I think this could be good for me. I want to do it in the morning. First of all, I should probably shower more than I do. I work it for myself. But I'm going to do it again because I want to challenge myself with this. Now, I'm guessing you did not do this at all. Me? Yeah.

AlexWhat? Heck no. Well, heck yes. I don't know. Did you paint it butter?

MerlinNo, no, no, no. Tell me about your shower.

AlexWell, so I guess I peanut buttered in terms of if you, if I, my interpretation of the challenge.

MerlinI think it's a lot to ask of someone to do a totally cold shower beginning to end. That's a lot to ask.

AlexI did that once. Wow. But then I was, I was concerned, like I didn't feel clean. And so then I took another shower at the end of the day.

MaxSo I was like, eh, man, I don't know about that.

MerlinThat's a good point. I would not consider this a canonical shower.

AlexYeah. So I really want, I think we should ask Dr. Don, like, because it's not, the water isn't so hot, or at least when I'm taking a shower, the water isn't so hot that it's a disinfectant. I really don't know. And I was too lazy to Google it afterwards because each time I was like shaking from, from how cold the water was.

MerlinYou're going to sound pretty well informed.

AlexYeah. But yeah, every day since last Wednesday, I have been. Oh, no. The first three days, I did it at the beginning. Like I blasted cold water for as long as I could. And then I turned it back to hot. But that just felt like then I wanted to take a longer shower because I was so cold and I wanted to be warm. So then for the rest of the week, I have been taking my normal shower and then turning it to like all the way to cold and or not.

So I slowly increase or decrease the heat or make it colder and colder until I can't stand it anymore. And then I'm done. And it helps wake me up more, I guess.

MerlinHow did you feel like once you've done it a couple of times? What was your impression?

Alexuh i mean well actually for the past oh oh since since so since thursday and friday actually i've been getting up at normally i get up at 7 a.m uh and then founder of cox's cox cara fagan was like let's do this dumb white girl self-improvement thing where we wake up an hour earlier each day and we write in our grad two journals uh and honestly it's been kind of nice because i i get up at 6 a.m. now instead of 7 a.m. Oh my god. Aren't you up at

Max2 in the morning now? No.

AlexDon't worry. I've been so sad this week that I go to bed at like 11 or midnight now. Oh good. Okay. So I get about 6 or 7 hours of sleep now honestly. But yeah it's been kind of nice in the morning. I read with the cats. I'm just getting to be an old.

The end. I liked it. How about shaving? I'm assuming you guys didn't shave.

Merlinno no i don't even trim i'm a mess yeah well i usually trim i trim up i trim up the hobo stuff on the bottom and i trim the mustache which is getting i just take a sip of iced tea now and i'm just sopping wet i don't like it sopping wet i kissed my wife that got iced tea all over her it's the wettest in terms of in terms of water oh boy uh yeah yeah but i uh you know i should cut this thing off. I know it looks gross and I know it makes me look extremely old, but it's fun.

It's fun to have a beard with a mustache. Send us a picture. I did. I sent you one yesterday, you piece of shit.

AlexLet me see.

MaxThere's the spider jizz. There's the curvy wife. There's the link I sent you to Mark Judge's book. Whoa, did I miss that? It's on archive.org now.

There's many pictures of the water bottles and Alex saying that she's trying to make the camera fuck. Okay, here's the 99PI thing about the pockets. I've got a YouTube video from Alex called P-Tape. Scrolling. I'm scrolling.

MerlinAre you on your Mac? Click details.

MaxHere's something that Merlin sent us with a picture of TJ Miller, and it says, or no, not TJ, sorry, Thomas Middleditch, and it goes, science shows that just 30 seconds of this will improve your outlook, health, and energy. Oh, here we go. And here's a picture of an old sailor.

Merlin, you look handsome. Thank you.

MerlinI think you look nice. It's unflinching.

MaxBut isn't that a hell of a camera? That is great. So you may know. That's a portrait picture, right? You may know this already.

MerlinI didn't do the selfie camera. I did the other side.

MaxOkay. So let me show you something. So find that picture and select it. Okay. Got it. One second. Let me just find that. Look at that eyebrow. Wow.

AlexYour AirPod is at a 90 degree angle.

MaxThat's where it should be.

AlexIt should be.

MaxPeople wear them too low.

AlexAll right.

Maxso you're gonna go to um edit on the corner in preview or um i'm sorry in photos you're sorry i think you need to have it in the photos app on your phone i do i do i'm going okay you should

Merlinsee what halide does with these things it's crazy halide lets you see like the like the penumbra of where it's doing the um bouquet it's really cool all right go into photos i'm clicking there's

MaxMichonne. And now you're going to go edit. Edit. Now on the bottom do you see this little slider? Where it says depth? Oh, you're talking

Alexabout on the phone. Are you explaining the like number one feature of the new phone to us? I'm aware of that. It's very cool.

MerlinIt's very cool. If it got the built in right, it's amazing.

MaxYou can change the depth after you took the

Merlinphoto. I did that with this one actually. I gave it a little more depth and that's why it's so fuzzy around the edges. No, that thing's amazing. Try Halide. It's really cool. Halide. Yeah. You can shoot in raw or this thing they're doing called Smart Raw. And it's pretty neat.

MaxOh, I have this app.

MerlinYeah, I've had that app. It's a little hard for me to use

Maxbecause I think there's too many buttons.

MerlinBut it's like having a way nicer bathroom except it's a block away. It's like, you know, the bathroom I've got is fine. That's a silly example. But I so rarely, unless I've got a new camera on a new phone, I'm not going to spend that much time in a third-party app. As good as they are. As good as they are. And there's some very good ones out there.

MaxThis one's good, Ben. The other thing is I never click on the camera app button. I always use one of the various shortcuts. What? On the lock screen.

AlexOh, I see. So you use control center. Long press on the camera. Okay.

MerlinYeah. That's generally what I do, too. Wait, what do you do? Long press on the lock screen. What's that do?

AlexNo, it's a camera. Yeah.

MerlinWhat?

AlexLock your phone. This guy.

MaxYeah.

AlexYou just pop it up. That's what you're talking about, right?

MaxWhat's a long press?

AlexIt's force touch or...

MerlinIt's the same thing you do for flashlight. You just hold it for an extra second and it becomes the camera.

MaxThis screen, you just tap it and it goes to the camera.

AlexNo.

MaxIt's not exactly. It takes more than that.

AlexNo, I'm tapping. I'm tapping.

MaxYou're calling that what you have to do there a long press? Oh, my God. I believe it's a 3D touch. You guys know you can just swipe. You can just swipe.

AlexYes. Swipe.

MaxJust swipe.

AlexI do also know that the swipe.

MaxI don't do the long touch. I just swipe. Nah, that's not good. Don't do that.

MerlinWhy? Why? Why don't you swipe? That's ridiculous. Don't swipe. There's no need to swipe. Just hit the button. You do a long press. Same way you get a flashlight.

MaxBut you can get your thumb from any position. You can swipe. It doesn't matter vertically where you are.

MerlinYou've got to stop doing that. Did you know you got a flashlight on your watch?

AlexOh, I love the flashlight. Oh, and you have a...

MaxWait a minute.

MerlinYou're not swiping? I'm not going to swipe. I'm going to do a long press. It makes a lot more sense. No, because you can swipe from anywhere. Oh, sorry, Scott Forstall. I'm going to engage with the swiping process.

Look at this carefully stitched leather.

MaxOur country is dying.

Show notes

Transcript

99. Calendar Hour

Show notes

Transcript

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