107. Ball Bangers

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

Speaker AAre we recording this? Oh, boy.

MaxRude. You know what? I said I didn't want anything, but now I want a coffee. I'm suddenly realizing how tired I am.

AlexWell, you're saying that as if I know how to make coffee? No, I'm just going to go get a coffee. Okay. Merlin, sorry, we'll call you back.

MaxOkay. Did Merlin pick up last time? He did? That's so funny.

AlexNo, it's not. Hey, Merlin. Merlin?

MaxHi.

AlexSorry, Merlin. Bubba Booey, Bubba Booey. Howard Stern is the king of all media. God damn it. hang up hang up no don't do it don't do it don't do it don't do it i'm okay cameron's not even moving so good wait are people not obeying my commands i i'm the jazz girl in this for this hour and a half only then i will go back to doing whatever

Maxyou want you can't baba booey someone and then not hang up oh boy now you're just an asshole i

Alexdon't even know that reference you guys having a good morning over there what's going on

MerlinDid you get a big coffee or something? What's happening? Yeah, I got a big coffee.

AlexYeah.

MaxI got up very early. I got up very early and I went to City Hall. I actually don't want to get into too much specifics, but I'm just doing-

MerlinThen you're off to a terrible start.

MaxI don't want to get into-

MerlinOkay, is this the story? What's happening?

MaxThis is the story. I can't- I don't want to get into too much- Is this the show? Are we on the show right now? Yes. Everything that's in the show is part of the show. So you got up early. So I'm trying to do something at my house that requires like a form from the city. I have to pay this. Max, no. No, it's not. I'm like, I'm trying to.

MerlinWe need a name for this, Alex. We need a name for the thing that he's going to talk about for a real long time that we'll end up referring back to. And then sometime on Thursday afternoon, he'll demand it be removed. We need a name for that. No, no. It's Max's Thursday mission. I'm just.

7.35 p.m. Cut out everything. They cut off everything I said about that thing they told me not to talk about and every reference to it subsequently. Chop, chop. This one's not bad.

MaxI'm just doing – I just need like an easement from the city to like put something on my house. And it's so – And it's the same form. It's the same form that if you're a business, if you have a restaurant or something, and you want to put like a canopy or like sidewalk seating, you need to like fill this form out. And so all the paperwork – But I'm not doing anything like that. I just need this piece of paper done. I'm going to have outdoor seating at your house. Yeah, a little sidewalk cafe. A little cat cafe.

And I've been trying to fill this paperwork out for months, and it wants my EIN number, and it's like, are you a sole proprietorship or an S-corp? And I finally went into the city, and I was like, I'm a private homeowner, and my alderman told me I had to fill this paperwork out, but I don't know how to do it. And he was like, oh, well, you just put under the type of business, just circle. And I was like, but what type of business is my house? Should I put a sole proprietorship?

And he just was like, he like put a little thing that said other. And he was just like, we'll just call it other. Like, it's so weird. Like anything interfacing with the city is so fucking weird.

MerlinThat's how Mueller gets you. He gets you on the, he asks you things that aren't related to the actual investigation. And then he files a whatever, 1001 CFC on you.

MaxSo you think I did some sort of Papadopoulos perjury trap?

MerlinI think you Papadop. I think you Papadop hard. I think you're going to get a letter from the alderman on behalf of the outside cafe committee this is very interesting we have a lot of questions about your outdoor seating what do you even sell at your sole proprietorship

MaxI really think that could be you decorate a lot for Halloween don't you think that could be a funny Seinfeld bit Jerry you pop it up list yourself Jerry no pop it up no cafe

AlexI have a controversial opinion. Oh, yep. Here we go. Boy, here's Alex.

MaxWhat Thursday?

AlexThursday mission. Thursday mission. the most recent season of the great british baking something is the best season of any of the seasons the one after the people left yep that's all johnny they got no johnny hollywood they don't have the probably lesbian lady they they not prop oh she is open okay moving on uh no it it's completely the lesbian lady you're saying it's better than the nadia season i am not saying the people yes i'm not saying any of the hosts are better i know i has she seen it i

think you just don't like the lesbian you're asking has veronica seen great british no the most recent one the most controversial i i know you're right why am i i'm sorry dr burns well

Merlinjohnny hollywood left and then the other people left in support right or johnny hollywood stayed

Alexwhat happened yes johnny left or stayed yes uh dr hollywood is still there and it's it was very funny because they make it so you can tell that they're trying to make him much more likable uh the problem is it works it and it works hard and really the just the contest it could be that next season it's absolutely awful but the contestants is it still gentle is it gentle oh it's so gentle it's it's in if more so like i it's like they they knew that they were losing

so many good things that they knew that they really had to dip all the stops. Is Mary still on? Nope. Nope. There's Prue.

MerlinThey're probably the lesbian lady and Mary are gone. What about the blonde lady? Is she gone?

AlexYep. Everybody is gone. Everybody but Johnny Hollywood. Yes. Okay. All right. And people are like, oh, he's a bad guy. Don't worry, though. He didn't assault anybody. He just cheated on his wife a bunch, so it's fine.

MerlinI get a vibe from him.

AlexHe's very, well, they make him likable. They make him likable.

MerlinThey make him likable. They give him the hero edit.

AlexHe, I, I ended up really liking him. All right. Controversial opinion over. Please tweet at me.

MerlinWhat made you want to talk about that, Alex?

AlexI just want people to watch it because people are like, oh man, I, this makes me sad.

MerlinIf you don't get rid of anybody, get rid of Johnny Hollywood. That's what I'd say.

AlexExactly. Exactly. But it has brought me so much joy the past few weeks.

MaxYou know what, Merlin? Is he, now, do you think that they have pan men in Britain?

MerlinI think he's, I didn't want to say it because I, I have, I have privately and publicly made a point of saying I was probably super wrong about Guy Fieri. Guy Fieri is a very nice man. Now, he likes lesbian ladies, Alex. Unlike you, he's making gays married. He marries gays. He marries gays one to the other. He fed the firefighters. He dumps his donkey sauce on the bride. No.

MaxHe brought the firefighters to Flavortown. He made a...

Speaker AI'm here today with the Flavortown

MaxFire Department. When they had the fires in California, he went... He went and he it's not garlic mayo no mayo no mayo no mayo he went guy fieri he went and he brought and he brought food to the firefighters yeah yeah i've shifted i've

Merlinshifted with i'm gonna get to your question in a minute because i think i know exactly what you're fucking talking about i think i think he's closer to jose jose honday honday than we thought i think he's a nice man with donkey sauce and I think that Johnny Hollywood is the British doppelganger avatar of a gay gay.

But not nice. He's not making gays marry probably. But maybe that's why the lady left the show. The lady with the converse is probably a lesbian. That's why she left the show. Now what's a pan man? Let's start here. What's a pan man?

AlexAre we talking about sexuality or the metal thing? No, no, a pan man. What's happening?

MerlinYou're always talking about sexuality, Alex. It's an affliction. You're always talking about it. Everything's sex for you.

AlexIdentity politics.

MerlinCan I lick it? Is it salty? Is it like a battery, like a 9-volt battery? Yeah, bring it. Put it on my plate with my bread. Jesus Christ, Alex. A pan man is a very, it's a highly Florida phenomenon. A pan man, I've... Would you rid of that? Oh, it's a very Florida, maybe a South Florida phenomenon. Absolutely. And I find it easiest to argue by example. It's difficult to get a Webster according to Webster's, but you could say like canonical pan persons. I think Gavier and Sammy Hagar

if you make tequila you might be a pan man

Maxwhat about the guy from Smash Mouth oh he's such a fucking

Merlinpan man helps to have not a full goatee

Maxhelps to have one with a little hair stain you know what I think it is partially I think you've got a facial hair situation where you're kind of sculpting a chin for yourself

Merlinyes

MaxDo you see what I'm saying?

MerlinIt's like a Peter Jackson forced perspective. George Lucas, if he wasn't as successful in his career, he could have been a pan man. Well, he has a dewlap. That's a different kind of thing. He's got a meat beard. A meat beard is different, but very related.

MaxA pan man, I think, is going to have a Hawaiian shirt.

MerlinHelps to have a Hawaiian shirt. Now, what about James Buffet? Is he a pan man? I don't know who that is. Jimmy Buffet?

MaxOkay.

AlexOkay. You're getting too clever now. Okay.

MaxYou know what? I think that it's its own thing. Jimmy Buffet is his own thing, but you're going to have a Venn diagram where there's going to be some Buffett people. If you went into Google Sheets

Merlinand made a scatter chart of Panmen, what would the two axes be? Because we know for sure that Gauffele would be a very upper right. I don't even know what the axes are, but Gauffele is an outlier.

MaxYes, you're going to have, on the x-axis, you're going to have how much gel is in the hair. Oh my God. Right? the tip because it's the tips it's the hair do you have frosted tips well is it just the tip but it's that real it's that it's that real it's that real 90s hair where it looks like it was put on with like an icing bag oh yes like when you're making like when you're making egg whites like it should stand up stiff on its own you know it's like bad piping really you want an amount of hair gel in your hair where it turns into into like a meringue right you want it to have stiff yeah i

MerlinI was going to say it's like that cake stuff that's not really good that they use for sculpting cakes. What's that stuff called? Fontanelle? The Fontina? They do that stuff that's disgusting. So far I've got Frosted Tips. I've got Makes Tequila. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. I think you can't get it hot enough for them.

MaxOkay, yes.

MerlinThey say to you, how hot do you want? Well, as John Roderick says, do you want jalapenos with that? You say, fuck yeah, I want jalapenos with that. They always want jalapenos. You can't make it hot enough for them, right? Yes. Spicy enough? Absolutely. Now I think... Oh, signs guitars. I think if you sign guitars, you might be a Pan Man. Like, you show up somewhere and you start signing strats. Like, you carry an identipan with you and you're just signing shit everywhere. You're the signs guitars.

AlexIs Jimmy Carter a Pan Man? Is Jimmy Carter a guitar signer?

MerlinHe ain't got no frosted tips. He does wear a bandana sometimes. Where's bandana?

MaxWhere's bandana is a classic Pan Man affectation. Now I recently watched the Netflix special salt fat has acid heat and that is everything and that that is not she's not a pan man But that is very funny. You know, they have that Kind of canned intro that comes on before every episode and I feel like I heard it 300 times because I just watch them all at once And she has the funniest line. It's the first line in the intro She goes I've spent my life in search of flavor and that's and now that to me is a very pan man saying

Speaker Aoh yeah

Maxif you spend your life in search of flavor you might be a pan man

Merlinyou okay spend life in search of flavor okay

Alexare you putting this in the doc

Merlinoh no I can if you want you guys never look at it

AlexI'm always in here you see my little picture there of me licking my cat I'm always here

MerlinI do see it I see it alright I'll put it in the doc I'll share my wisdom episode 107 new section new section which is called Pan Man Criteria.

MaxNow, I think you're going to have some sunglasses.

MerlinBack of the neck, back of the head? Absolutely.

MaxSunglasses not on your normal face. But what about this, though? Neon cord. Sunglasses. Oh, the froggies? Is that what they're called? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a neon cord, you know?

MerlinOkay, this is going to take a little bit of Supreme Court here. sunglasses, not on regular face and froggies. Oh, and could they say neon? Did you already say neon? Neon sunglasses?

MaxOh, no, but they certainly are.

MerlinThey certainly are. Wrap around? Wrap around. Okay, that's a whole Supreme Court section there. Alright, we got Frosted Tips makes tequila. Can't make it spicy enough for me.

AlexThat's a very important part.

MaxCan't make it spicy enough for me. laughs real hard. I think this is a very American phenomenon, the pan man. But I think it's probably, like a lot of American culture, it has its roots in British and European culture. And I think there's got to be some sort of ancestral pan man thread that Paul Hollywood came from.

MerlinLike an Ur-pan man.

MaxYes, the Ur-pan. Paul Hollywood, he's like the Ur-pan man. And he's, you see what I'm saying? Oh, I do.

Speaker AHe's not a pan man.

MerlinHe's like the Beowulf of Flavortown.

MaxHe's like a pan lord.

MerlinYes. Okay. Well, you may know there's a lot of songs, folk songs you hear. There's something called the Child Ballads, which is the first time that somebody really, I don't know if it's the first time, it's the canonical collection of UK balladry, the Child Ballads. So somewhere in there, you got Sir Patrick Spence, you certainly got, you're meeting somebody coming through the rye, and you're going to have a pan man in there somewhere. Maybe it's like a Tom Bombadil type situation. Maybe it's Tom Bombadil a pan man. Oh, he's such a fucking pan man. I think you're gonna have pan lords and ladies. Okay, right pan lords new section pan lords the pan ladies

You never have a pan duchess you ever see a pan duchess. I don't think so

MaxI think if you I think if you make it if you if you become one of those like channel for personalities You know, there's only like eight famous people in England and they're all yes Yeah, yeah, I think that in that case you become you're part of the

Merlinpan house of lords oh it's like the shadow cabinet yeah okay there's a completely different section right oh what about a dog with a bandana dog with a bandana well no no i think you're like a you're

Maxlike a you're like a that's like more cross punk isn't it oh my okay oh i see a little portlandia

Merlinokay so like a shadow cabinet right so you got like the republicans and the democrats and then you have the independents which are the pan men and somewhere at westminster whatever there's There's an entire room full of people eating jalapeno peppers. Are they listening to the Eagles?

MaxWhat are they listening to? Okay.

MerlinIs Billy Joel a pan man?

MaxHe's kind of a pan man. I think they're probably listening to the band Some 41.

AlexNo, no, no, no, no, no. Is it going to be Blink-182? No, no, no. Let's not associate my pop punk childhood with the pan lords. No.

MerlinIs it possible, Alex, you're a secret pan man, pan lord, pan lady? Are you a pan lady? Maybe you're a pan lady.

AlexI'm a panchist.

MerlinDo you have frosted tips?

AlexNot anymore.

MerlinYou used to have frosted tips. Shit dog. Have you ever made tequila?

MaxOkay, what about this? No. What about this? Maybe they listen to Sublime.

AlexYes. Yes. Okay, there we go. I'll allow it.

MerlinTom Bombadil. Oh, and then we got Johnny Hollywood. He's going to be one of the...

Speaker AOkay.

MerlinYeah, I don't know. It's hard to tell. This is why we need a scatter chart, because I think to get to any level of granularity, you're going to have to decide what the axes are and who's in the scatter.

Speaker ABut, you know, Europe's a very strange land.

MerlinBut there's German pan men? Oh, you bet. You bet. Oh, wear shorts in public? Wear shorts, maybe?

AlexI think they need some sort of side pocket. Not necessarily a cargo, but an unnecessary pocket. Unnecessary pocket.

MerlinOh, oh, oh, footwear. Flip flops. Crocs. Crocs.

Speaker AOh, no. I think we're all learning something about each other right now.

MaxMerlin, why? I just noticed that you had a recorded reaction. Sorry.

MerlinThis line's breaking up. I have professional Crocs. I don't wear like orange baby Crocs. I wear professional Crocs like a chef would wear.

AlexThere's nothing wrong with the... I have pink Crocs.

MerlinWhy are you so sensitive about this?

AlexBecause I enjoy my pink Crocs that are...

MaxSo you're saying I'm the only host of the show that doesn't own a pair of Crocs? Yes. I had a little follow-up on our Dubai Friday secret Krampus after it took a couple of tries, but we finally sent out the secret Krampus assignments. Huge shout-out to all of our mods, Matt and Robbie and Huxing, who I don't know their real name,

who's actually put in a tremendous amount of time to clean up the database and make it work. We had, I think, almost 500 people sign up for the Secret Santa, which is pretty amazing. Okay, so Robbie and Matt just ran some stats on the 500 signups for a Secret Santa, and here were some interesting things that we learned. The most Common name Was Andrew

We had 10 Andrews sign up We had 9 Michaels 8 Bryans 7 Matts And 7 Nicks And 6 Ians I didn't realize there were that many Ians

AlexI mean I know 4 Ians in my life personally

MaxSo we had 43 states were represented What? Really? 43 states We had 50 people from California 30 people from New York 20 people from Texas 20 people from Washington 16 people from Illinois so shout out to all of our those are cocks in California and let's see we had five District of Columbia were there any women?

yeah you know

Alexwe didn't ask for pronouns or gender identity

Maxwe don't know but judging by those first names

AlexI don't see gender I'm going to ask right now how many Alex's?

MaxSomewhere in here the other one that I was really excited to read was there was a list of countries that people signed up from that was really interesting. I always think that's super interesting.

MerlinI'm going to go look at our Simplecast page. I'm sometimes amazed that there's as many people in places like Australia that listen to the show and it always makes me happy.

MaxOkay, so there were 331 people from the US, like 50 people from Canada, 20 people from Australia, 20 people from the UK. And then this is wild. We had three people from the Netherlands,

one person from Austria, one person from Brazil. You know, the mail doesn't really work in Brazil, so good luck getting your secret center present. They don't really have addresses in Brazil. They have descriptions of houses. They're like the third house past the water tower on the left with the red door. It's crazy.

MerlinFavela 6A.

MaxWe have a listener from Israel. we have let's see we have one listener from the Ukraine who I think might be an operative what do you think I hope so just Ukraine no the

Merlinwe don't say the we don't say the that's a Russian thing I've heard John Roderick

Maxthe Russian what he got corrected he got corrected oh I see

Merlinbecause when you say the you're treating it like it's your own little district that's interesting our biggest for our listeners our biggest source is the US almost 8% from the UK 6% I'm rounding Those are the pan lords. These are the pan lords. Milady. Donkey sauce.

Govna.

AlexReal time update. There are only five Alex's in the secret Krampus, including me, which is very upsetting because I feel like this used to be a very common name and I used to always have to be I'm Alex Cox. But now I'm just Alex. It's not cool anymore.

Speaker AOh.

MaxAll right.

MerlinWell, anyway, thank you. 2.8% from Germany, our listeners.

MaxOh. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for signing up for that. I really think that's pretty – I was blown away by how many people signed up for it, and I really think that's – I think it's very sweet. And I'm glad that we have, like, a nice listener base, and they want to do cool stuff like that. That makes me really happy. Boy, we've got a long tail.

MerlinThere's a country of San Marino. We've had one download.

MaxWhat is that?

Speaker AIs that a real country, or is that, like, an island?

MerlinI'm starting at the right end of the long tail.

MaxIsn't that, like, one of those, like, banking islands? Like a Palmeida, Fort Island.

Speaker AYeah. You know what I mean?

MaxIt's just like a runway strip in a P.O. box. In a helipad.

MerlinCabo Verde, Anguilla. Cabo Verde.

MaxMy grandfather's from Guiana. I'm almost sure that Cabo Verde is not a real country.

MerlinDjibouti. Djibouti. One download in Djibouti. Thank you, Djibouti. St. Bart's. Equatorial Guinea. Togo. Togo. Three downloads in Togo.

AlexWell, what I like looking at is how many people use-

MerlinAnd kill names. That's such a good show. I'm so glad it's on the show.

MaxSamoa. Oh, Burundi. Jabouki. Well, to our listeners in Togo, I just want to say bonjour. Walk along at Seaside. Sorry, you reached Fiji.

MerlinYeah, it's been a big week. French Guyana. Okay. St. Martin. Okay.

MaxAll right. And so thanks for doing that. You guys came through with the Krampus. I got a new. yeah it took me like three tries to get the email to correctly send the email but we got it

Alexyou're literally one of the best people I'd argue in the world who sends email both as a person and

Maxas someone who does business can I tell you what I did though I got a little too clever I don't know if this is interesting but I got a little too clever basically so here's how it works so everyone signed up on a google form and so then we had a google sheet of 500 people right and I was like how do I know who to assign everyone else to so what I did was I just alphabetized it to randomize it and then I created a I duplicated the email column and just shifted it by one right and then I was like everyone will get assigned the person yeah below them

the person below them right it's like it's like off by one and so everyone else what I did not account for is that many many people signed up like six times because they screwed the form up And so then when I sent it out, my like brilliant off by one scheme like failed because they got themselves. And then in some cases, there were whole blocks where like it wasn't off by one because because the multiple signups like knocked it back up a spot. Right. It was a disaster. So then Matt and Robbie went through and like manually deduped the list and took out like joke replies and things like that.

And then we we we got it under control and we resent it. But that that's basically what happened. I thought I got away with a clever little, oh, I don't need to spend any time on this. Just like everything else in life.

AlexLow-hanging fruit.

MaxLow-hanging fruit. Did you use Google Docs? Yeah, I did everything in Google Docs and MailChimp. I love Google Docs. MailChimp is an amazing product. God damn, I love MailChimp.

MerlinDid you want to talk about the delivery of treats as long as we're on admin? I just wanted to acknowledge you guys sent out treats. It looks like treats went out.

AlexWe sent out the first half. Okay, now I am the main, we have decided that I am the main arbiter of the treats when they go out, when we say that the updates are happening, so that nobody is confused. Okay, so, wait, no, one more thing, one more thing. Half of them have been sent out, the other half are being sent out this week. The problem, as we've stated before, is people like us too much. So we're now officially going to be putting our products into a warehouse, which means nothing to you people, except for the fact that basically the instant that we take everybody's names, then instantly all of the treats will be able to go out instead of having them shipped to the office.

MerlinWell, it sounds like you did a successful Shark Tank here. Like you got it going on.

AlexWe scaled too hard.

MaxLet me ask you this, though. Is it a product or is it a business?

AlexI mean, it might be a dog.

Maxso yeah well i mean is it a feature is a feature let alone shark tank has had some pan man over

Alexthe years yes oh wait wait one more thing one more thing the i will let everybody know in both in discord in here when every single treat has gone out and then please email me and get mad here's

Maxthe thing though i'm saying if i can just translate what alex said into english oh my god that makes sense okay go ahead we used to send all of the things out by hand from the office and now there's too many people who support our Patreon, which is a one, and thank you for doing that. It's a great problem to have, and now we're just using a warehouse to send it out, and it will be much faster, and you won't be waiting for us to do it by hand. Okay, that's the update. And if you do want to support us on Patreon, we would love to have you on board. You get a whole free second episode. Well, not free. You pay for it. If you pay for it, it's free. You get a whole second free that you paid for episode

every week, and you can just go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com, and then after you give us your fucking money, it's all free. Everything you get is free for the low, low price of $5 a month. That's a really good way to put it. Yeah. When you think about it like that, can you afford not to get a second free episode of Dubai Friday?

MerlinI don't see how you can afford to not do it twice. I mean, deals.

MaxAll right. I have a little bit of a follow-up here. This is from a listener, Ryan, who wrote in with probably the best technical tip that we've ever gotten on Dubai Friday. Ryan writes in, hey, Max, I heard you and Merlin talk about the brightness of the iOS screen at night on a recent show. There's a good chance I am not the first to message you here. Good instinct, but you were. But it's an iOS trick I hear so rarely and use constantly, so I'm apt to share it. Here's what you're going to do. Go into Accessibility and set the Accessibility shortcut to reduce white point.

Okay? Now, when you triple-click the side button, it will cut your screen brightness way down. And that's on top of the normal brightness slider, so it can go incredibly dim.

MerlinAnd you need that. On the big boy iPad, that's where we were looking for that. I think listener Todd Vaziri, one of John Syracuse's flying monkeys, I think listener Todd might have offered that too. It's a great – there's so much great stuff in accessibility. I don't want to go around.

MaxLet me ask you this, though. Why doesn't the Apple slider just – if the device is capable of getting all that way dim, why doesn't the slider just go all that way dim? Does that make sense?

MerlinI have – I think I have a theory on that. Oh. It's the same reason that I – so I've mentioned this before. A listener helped me on this incredibly dumb error I made, which is sometimes when I'm going to take a nap or do a podcast, I will go and I will click on do not disturb and say do not disturb for one hour, do not disturb till, you know, whatever the setting is. One time out of 15, I accidentally click on airplane mode. Yes. So airplane mode turns on. And then I turn airplane mode off and I'm always surprised that the phone's not working, even though I did it on my watch.

And somebody said, dingus, when you turn on airplane mode, they're not going to talk to each other anymore. And I don't know if that's true. Please don't email me. I wonder if it's a similar thing with brightness, where if they let you take it all the way down, you wouldn't be able to see the controller anymore.

AlexOh, interesting.

MerlinYou'd be locking your keys in the car.

MaxOkay.

MerlinI don't know.

MaxI'm just guessing. You know what?

MerlinThat's a good theory. There's so much good stuff in accessibility. And it's ironic because it's actually really useful for many kinds of Apple things. For example, so you're saying hit the side button?

MaxSo here's how I have it.

MerlinWith old button, you just triple click, and any of your accessibility things you chose would pop up.

MaxYeah, so I have it set so that when I do three taps, when I go one, two, three, the screen gets way dimmer.

MerlinI love that for, what's it called, the zoom in thing.

MaxOh, what do I need that for?

MerlinTrying to read whether which kind of connector this is on an Apple thing in the tiny, tiny text on the back of the plug? It's just really useful to look at very, very tiny text. Wait, wait, wait. Wait, it zooms in the screen? So basically it looks like your camera. You get what looks like the camera screen, but it is improbably zoomed in and improbably sharp. So if you want to go see which mint a coin came from, like you... You're fucking, you're kidding me.

MaxNo, let me see if I can get it here. That's just in the phone? Yeah, it's part of accessibility. There's so much stuff in accessibility that's great for everybody. That's cool.

MerlinYeah, so I'm going to settings, general, accessibility. Let's see. Reachability.

Try zoom. Double tap three times to zoom. No, no, no, not zoom. Zoom is going to be for the stuff. Magnifier, that's it. Magnifier lets you use your device's camera to quickly magnify your surroundings. when enabled, triple-click the side button to start magnifier.

MaxMagnifier on. Okay. All right. I've switched it. One, two, three. And it worked. No fucking way. And look at how weirdly stable it is.

MerlinNo fucking way. It's surprisingly, it's almost, it's maybe not quite as useful as the flashlight, but at least a couple times a month, you'll find a time when that really comes. I mean, have you ever tried to read the text on the back of an iPhone charger to say, like, is this the big boy or the little boy?

AlexYes.

MerlinI was saying the Syracuse it's like the text is like CCC on EEE impossibly similar gray in the typography and it's like what four point it's really small

Alexeven in the very low light of the studio this is really impressive

Merlinisn't stability nuts how like weirdly stable it is

AlexI got a new litter box

MerlinI got so much stuff you guys I got so wait a minute I thought you had like a $1,500 look

AlexI thought you had the magic one Didn't you have the washing machine one?

MaxI got the new model.

AlexOh.

MerlinOh, shit, dog.

MaxOh, I had so many purchases. So the new model. So the first thing is our previous model had some issues, so I'm going to just – and it's still under warranty, so I'm just sending it back to them. And then I just went ahead and bought a new one. And the new model is – it's a smart – it's an IoT thing. And so it will actually send a push notification to your phone to tell you when your cat takes a shit. Your cat shot.

Merlinand if you want it can tell you the weight of the shit oh please that would be so good with this you could put that right into google sheets so that's kind of what i was thinking if there

Maxif there's an if to integration i can have like all the lights change and then i could play like

Speaker Ainspirational music all the lights blue when my cat makes a big doodle oh my god when it registers

Maxoh my god when the cat makes takes a shit i would just have a little doodle in the plastic I have a little speaker. Come on.

Speaker AWhat happened to the lights? I'm trying to make a difference. I'm in the shower. I'm in the shower, Max. I'm in the shower.

MerlinOh, man.

Speaker AI would like to, if we have time,

MerlinWe had a real what's called pay pig time last week in the after show where I ended up buying so much shit based on what we all like.

MaxWhat did you guys get? And then we have to talk about the balls for a challenge. Oh, the balls.

MerlinWe've got to talk about the balls. I'm curious what you guys got. I just want to talk about Max. You had a big influence on my Amazon account this week. Oh, boy. What did you get? Let's see. What did I get? I'm going to go in order. I got the Eneloop batteries, the Pro Eneloop batteries. They take a real long time to charge, but I'm going all in on rechargeables.

MaxBut it doesn't really matter that much.

MerlinWell, we use so many AAAs. It just pains me how many of those we have to drop off at Walgreens, which I imagine they just throw them in a river. I don't know. I got that.

MaxI think you'd be surprised at it because if you just throw them in overnight and then in the morning, like, okay, one trick. Just get my back on this. It does take like seven hours, right? Yeah. Oh, I mean, I'm always this. I just throw them in overnight or whatever and take them out the next day. but one thing with the anteloops also is like you know i might have bought mine at costco or something like that um because i got a lot of them and then if you have and they do hold their charge so if you just get a bunch you don't really have to worry about charging time right

Merlinokay yeah i guess i bought tons i bought i i'm trying to go all in and so we got one of these really cool battery dinguses for holding all your batteries it's got a little charger for it not a charger a meter to test your batteries um and so i'm switching all out i mean for for the d's i feel like we may not need it as much but the one I got I imagine like yours will charge both AA and AAA which is I would say by almost an order of magnitude the batteries

Maxwe use the most. I'm proud to say that I have a D battery free household. What about

Merlinflashlights? What about cop flashlights?

MaxAll our flashlights are You get little boys with lots of LEDs? Yeah, I have the little LED ones and those all take AA's.

MerlinI have a little bit of a thing for flashlights. I have a lot of flashlights. I really like a nice flash.

MaxWhat are you looking for in a flashlight?

MerlinWell, I like a flashlight. The technology, since I was a child, obviously, has come a very long way. It used to be you'd get that little whatever EverReady or Duracell red or orange flashlight everybody had with two batteries in it. And, like, by the end of the picnic, you couldn't see anything. Today, you can get ones where you put, I want to say, three, four, or more AAAs in there in a very small package with a crazy number of lumens, which is like me, Alex. You get a lot of lumens.

Professor Lumens having a really tough night. You get lots of lumens because they do these super high-powered LEDs. my go-to take out the trash one has four settings 25 50 75 100 as well as sos and straight blinking

Maxso i like a small flashlight with a lot of lumens so i carry i have two flashlights that i like one of them i go is in my backpack and it it's kind of like what you're describing except as a killer feature which is okay bear with me but it so it looks and operates exactly like a normal sort of pen flashlight you know i think it takes a triple a battery and it has those little led boys and it gets very bright but then it has this one killer feature which is if you start twisting on the not the not the back end where the battery go but the front end you can get like a more focused beam

no no it doesn't focus what it does is it on it starts to come out like a chapstick and oh a slide light and what you got one of the slide and what comes out is like the it's like a plastic tube that glows.

MerlinYeah. It's like a camping lantern

Maxinside of a flashlight. Yes, and I carry that in my backpack everywhere I go and it's amazing how useful it is to have something that can either be a flashlight or a lantern. We have one of those that takes D's and it's got a huge

Merlinlike neobidium magnet on the end. It makes it so great for like if you have to like look at something, fix something. You could probably attach it to your head if you had to. Alex, do you have a favorite flashlight?

AlexI'm a cranker.

MerlinOh, come on.

AlexWhat? When you need a flashlight.

MaxLike Little House on the Prairie?

AlexYeah.

MaxYou're churning your own butter?

AlexI mean, I have other flashlights that take the big boys, but I don't think I've ever used them. It's just like in the middle of the night, like something terrible has happened. I get the little crank. Let me crank my flashlight so I can see what's happening. I crank my flashlight.

MerlinI don't want to see what's happening instantly.

AlexI want an activity first. No, no, no. The standby time is incredible. so I'm only cranking maybe like once a month and it's almost like a fidget toy

Maxyou have a Google Calendar reminder for that crank the flashlight

Merlinit's called it's called Torchmate Torchmate sends a push notification to the app called Do to let you know to create to spawn an omni-focus project well that's going to be your task called crank me torch

MaxIt's going to import the task paper template into OmniFocus. And then you're going to have a single action list, which describes the cranking of all of the flashlight.

MerlinAnd then you slide right, and it goes to Zapier. No! No!

MaxSo you can get a report in Instapaper. It's part of my workflow. Oh, God. And then when you're done cranking the lights, you have to play your theme music.

AlexI use a shortcut, actually.

MerlinI watched Matthew's video on how to do Spotify with the HomePod.

AlexOh, my God. Isn't that good? All right. I'm going to use my mouth words. I have another show that Max and Merlin don't listen to called Supercomputer.f. Oh, my God.

Speaker AYou're so good at this.

AlexYou're so good at this. I noticed, yeah, the other day, my friend Matthew Cassinelli, which I do a show with called Supercomputer. It's definitely Cassinelli. It's definitely Cassinelli. It's not Casselini.

MerlinBecause Casselini is a really cute name.

AlexIt is a very cute name. His name is actually Matthew Cassanelli, and he does – He used to work at Workflows, Workflow – I don't know. Now he's just very good at creating series shortcuts, which –

MerlinAnd explaining it, and explaining it.

AlexYes. That's – That's important. Man, I don't want to get into it, but, like, we have this whole conversation of, like, some people's jobs. Are they a writer? Are they a filmmaker? And there's some people, their main jobs are communicators, and everyone makes fun of, like, communications as a major. But there are so few people – Like CGP Grey.

MerlinI mean, is he really a YouTuber?

AlexIs he a video maker? Yes.

MerlinHe's also a researcher. Like he's, yeah, he's a guy who like explains the ways of God to man.

AlexYeah. He takes iPads into secret libraries and.

MerlinYeah. And learns about statues and islands. Yeah. Yeah.

Alexoh yes we're talking about that i got the same thing

Merlinit's so clever max's max's three in one oh the hydra i thought they were gonna be shitty hydra

AlexI thought it was going to be like a knockoff, like, oh, look at this fun novelty dollar store thing. It's very good.

MerlinYeah, it is. I've plugged it into my iMac. I always have like some, usually historically it's been lightning into my iMac. But now, I guess now I got a way to get USB-C. Because the basics, so you get a USB-A on one end to a USB mini, correct? Is that a USB mini? And then there's two little dongles.

AlexNo, no, no, micro USB.

MerlinFucking A. Why do I get that wrong all the time? USB-A to USB micro. And then you have two little boys on a cord that you can snap onto the micro to get USB-C or lightning, right? And so you end up getting three possible connections from this one USB-A source.

MaxMy only wish is that that cord, instead of terminating in a USB-A on the one end, I wish that it terminated in USB-C. Because now I actually have more plug-in USB-C. I've kind of I kind of decided like, OK, I'm like when the switch came out and my laptop was USB-C and everything was USB-C. I was like, fine, I get it. I'm going to convert my whole life to the USB-C lifestyle. And all my like plugs and shit in the house are USB-C now. They're not USB-A.

AlexI tried to do that. There's it falls apart too quickly.

MerlinMy Mac doesn't have a USB-C.

AlexExactly. I so right now I just got a bunch of cheap anchor USB-C to USB-A stuff.

MerlinIt must be different if you're a laptop person, right?

Maxif you're a laptop person the USB C lifestyle is a lot easier exactly oh I've been living I've been living in this reality for like when Like when they when everyone freaked out when they like put the iPad on USB C I was like whatever I've already carry around a bunch of USB C Adapters and shit in my backpack. It's a dark time for Apple products like what it's a It is it's a dark well

MerlinNo, if you draw it as a network diagram of all the possible ways and how you get from one to the other in the network is Like for basically traveling with my family, I have to go through this incredible decision tree to figure out what to bring without bringing everything. You've probably never suffered from this, Alex. I know you don't deal with dongles very much.

MaxI think of the story of when Apple bought Next and Steve Jobs got put back in charge of the product line. And he had a lineup of all of those clone machines and gray boxes and stuff. And he said, which one do I tell my mom to buy? Which is the good one, right? And then they all sat there scratching their heads.

MerlinWell, it depends. Are you an educator? Do you go to Sears? It was crazy. 1996, 97, it was so nuts. My wife's first Mac, my lady's first Mac, was a clone.

AlexOh.

MaxI mean, that's how I learned to use computers was on Mac clones in my school.

AlexYour school had Mac clones?

MaxYeah, before the iMac line when it was like the gray boxes.

MerlinDoesn't that seem like impossible in retrospect that those ever existed? You could go into a Sears and buy a Mac that wasn't a Mac. It's so strange.

MaxBut yeah, I just feel like things are not as bad as they were then. But I do think there's an analogy of like if my, you know, it's like it's fucking complicated. If someone's like, like an example would be like maybe like we're packing for a trip. And Veronica's like, what charger do I bring? And I'm like, I don't even know how to begin to unpack all the.

MerlinI use the Anker with three USB. I don't know if they're A's but you know classic form factor plus one USB-C and then it's powered by its own little dingus cord I like that anchor hub a lot yep that's just how I travel is with

Alexone of those and it that okay the iPhone 6 design is the word one of the worst phones ever made in history we have had a few uh basically every phone since the 10 we are in like a relatively sure bad time but it's getting it's going to be so much better like things are going to ramp up

Merlineverything's going to be usbc in terms of functionality or interoperable like what do

Alexyou mean when people say like it's a bad time for apple it sure you people can't come to us and be like what should i buy and then you instantly know the answer but it's still better than everything

Merlinelse. And I'm not saying that that's an excuse, but I, I, I, I've talked to Jason Snell about this a number of times, how in the, in the telling of Apple's history, people look at the, was it Scully period or whatever? People look at the mid nineties as the nadir of Apple and look at that as like, Oh my God, they really lost their way. Shit. Everything was shit. And it's like, I think Jason agrees with this memory serves, but I consider that my personal glory days with the Mac. That's when I got good at using a Mac and making web pages and the world of shareware.

And like, I was so excited. I was more excited about Macs in that supposed dark day period than I've ever been about Macs. And it's when I was like kind of a, part of my job was being an admin for the office and like being the person who backed up everybody's stuff and fixed their bugs and ran conflict catcher. And, you know, the biggest problem we had then was like SCSI 25 or scuzzy 50 there was not that many things but i love that time i i've never been more excited

Alexabout max than i was probably in 1995 i mean what so are you every day somebody's born who hasn't used a mac you know monoprice monoprice still point inducer i'm struggling with it because a

Merlinno matter how i lay the still point inducer goes the wrong place and and b every time i do it i I'm not sure it should be as painful as it is. I think I'm doing the still point inducer wrong. It didn't help to go to YouTube. The videos are very fruity. Is the still point inducer something that really actually works, Max?

AlexWell, did you listen to the CD that's in the box?

MerlinNo, I threw it out. I don't have a way to play CDs.

AlexYou just came in the CD? Yes. What did it say? I was like, I don't know what to do with this.

MerlinThe YouTube video is recorded with the in-camera mic. It's like... she's like she's got she's certified in with like letters i've never seen at the end of a name she has she's like she's like a master of standpoint induction

Speaker Aand then if you do it in bed it kind of flips away how do you do it you lay on the ground maybe

MaxMaybe she's an RPL. A Royal Pan Lady.

MerlinI'm going to work that thing, though. I'm going to work it.

MaxI don't know, man. I find it pretty intuitive. You've got to put it right in your neck, right at the top of your spine, and just kind of lie down flat on the floor. I find that it really does something to my back, personally. I wish it was on a bigger base, is what I'm thinking.

MerlinMaybe I could nail it to a board or something, but it just slips around. But I'm going to get it. Does it feel good to you to lie on the floor? Yes, I love lying on the floor. Because my daughter takes my seat. I don't get to have anything in the house. I'm not going to complain. I'm always going to be on the floor.

MaxBut lying flat on the floor feels amazing on my back for a few minutes. And this is lying on the floor plus. Oh, yeah. Okay, this is like lying on the floor deluxe. Yes.

AlexHold on. So I have my point inducer.

MaxYou know what? It's lying on the floor S.

AlexMax.

MerlinLying on the floor S, Max. Okay, is she inducing a still point? Oh, I see what's happening. Ouch, disappeared behind the desk.

AlexSo, can you hear me, Merlin? So, Merlin, I'm underneath the desk.

MerlinYou sound like it.

AlexWell, no, because I was using it the other day, and it kind of, it feels, it like makes me a little bit high when I have it right underneath my head.

MerlinIt's like that party trick where you help make a girl pass out, by pushing on her neck? Is it that kind of thing? No, I don't know.

Speaker ANo, it's not like that.

MaxYou guys never partied with Jeffrey Epstein. Are you guys doing like the choking game? What is this? Yeah, the choking game. Why does a feather heavy as a board?

AlexWhat? Oh my God. I'm just trying to describe the sensation. It's like it's poking nerves. It does nothing for my spine, but it goes all the way up to my temples in like an interesting, it's almost like I'm dizzy right now in a pleasant way.

MerlinI'm so into this.

AlexYeah. I don't know. Maybe I'm...

MerlinAre you choking yourself?

AlexYeah, and then I cum. All right. I'm done with this bit.

MerlinWell, you know, it's funny. Coming on the heels of the banging balls, like, I'm ready to lean into this, as Sheryl Sandberg says. I'm ready to lean into the pain-inducing balls. And this does... It looks like inverted testicles that you're going to put on your neck. So I think by the principle of ball extension, this will be good for me.

AlexSee, I...

MerlinOh, I also got a stress ball.

AlexAh, same. I bought like six stress balls for people in the office.

MerlinMy daughter has now adopted the stress ball. It's so good. Isn't that thing great?

AlexIt's so good.

MerlinIt's really satisfying, yeah.

AlexI thought, well, one, I thought the Still Point inducer, we were having a debate whether it was boobs or butts. I'm not a testicle expert, but I would have expected that testicles aren't that appealing. It's very appealing in shape.

MerlinYou have to disclose Alex is not a testicle expert.

AlexNot an expert.

MerlinYou're so fortunate.

AlexI know. I wish I wasn't. I know.

MerlinIt's all too familiar.

AlexBut now I have a number of stress balls and I got a, I was so sad when fidget spinners stopped being cool. But I went on Amazon and they suggested a fidget spinner that looks more like a weapon than a fidget spinner. Oh, more like a shuriken? Oh, it's so good. Yeah, a little bit. Cool. I do not like how it looks, but people so far have not commented on it. Look at this little spinny guy. That's tiny. It is. It's less, you know, I'm not doing, I can't do any cool tricks with it or anything. but if I was the kind of person who really needed to play with something all day in order to not lose my mind,

I really, really like it.

MerlinThat's most of mine. Give me some of yours, Alex. What did you end up? You got some of the same stuff?

AlexOh, I think I got the balls. I got the cords. I bought some extra stress balls that have motivational sayings on it, like be quiet, be kind, and I'm like, I'm not listening to this. I also got the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD I've already lost it

MaxIsn't it tiny? I already lost it

AlexIt's in the office somewhere But I'm not like a Losing things person

MaxIt probably got sucked up into the vacuum

AlexI'm pretty sure it's like In the risers in the theater or something So I'm like okay I guess it's just

MaxI, let's see, I got the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall set, which I, it is huge. I haven't even opened it yet. It's huge. I'm going to, I think I might like watch a movie and build it this weekend. Um, and I got, is that it? I think that's it.

AlexYou only, well, you were mainly, you were mainly the provider. Yeah, that's true. Hmm.

MaxI'm just looking to see if I got any other things that you guys recommended, but I, I think that's me. And of course I got the balls. Oh, I did get the Listerine pack. The Listerine mints. Oh, did you try those? Oh, the car wash for your mouth. Yeah, the car wash. Yeah, they're very intense.

AlexThey are indeed.

MerlinI do think they might give you diarrhea.

AlexWhat?

MerlinI think they do too. You got to watch out for mints.

AlexNo, wait.

MerlinYou can feel it. It's not a mint. It feels like somebody's whistling through your anus. If you get something too minty. I used to take peppermint for medicinal reasons. And boy, I got a real whistle through the back door.

MaxI think they give you diarrhea if you have too many of them.

MerlinYeah, I think they do too. Also, the texture's a little bit like human skin.

MaxYeah. I assume. I don't like how it makes like a papery film. when you're 20.

AlexHow many did you take that? Oh, like four or five boxes. No, no, no. How many did you put into your mouth that gave you diarrhea?

MaxYeah, yeah, like four or five boxes.

Speaker AGod damn it.

AlexI have done what? I have no idea what's happening in the news, and it's kind of making me worried that Max hasn't told a story yet. I've just been—

MaxIt's one of those weeks where things are pretty bad.

AlexOh, good.

MaxDo you believe the Manafort— You know, I— I think that's a problematic story. I actually—I don't know. I assume that—so let's say I was Paul Manafort. At this point— He'd be giving up everything if he was really doing this?

MerlinSo I disagree.

MaxOf course you talk about Ecuador. You're forgetting something, though, which is Manafort thinks that he's going to be pardoned. Do you really think that? I think Trump will probably just pardon everyone.

MerlinOkay. But he's already forfeited $40 million in stuff. He's already basically copped to all these charges. He's still on the hook in New York and Virginia.

MaxWell, the state prosecutor, he might be pretty, yeah, you're right, he might be pretty fucked.

MerlinHe's pretty fucked on those. I don't know. I mean, it's funny. It's been funny to watch political Twitter guests about this because it's really difficult to know which of several completely. Let's go straight to the one that Cool Twitter is. Cool Twitter is like, hey, you know, he's actually dumb. And he's just dumb. Okay, fine.

MaxIt's possible, sure. At this point, do you think he has the best legal representation?

MerlinI think dumb and desperate are pretty different. You can be both. But if he is that desperate, he shouldn't be that dumb.

AlexOkay, pause. Tweet length description or summary of what happened with Paul Manafort this week.

MerlinThe known story that continued. So there's been this kind of like background noise grace note thing about WikiLeaks and Roger Stone for some time now. There's a lot of smoke and beyond that links to Roger Stone being in a fair amount of trouble. You get into the Randy Credico stuff. You get into the Corsai stuff. There's all kinds of stuff around Roger Stone and WikiLeaks that has not been settled on. So putting that aside for a minute, that's something where everybody's wondering, like, what is that going to end up being and how far does it go?

Does it stop at Don Jr.? Does it stop at Roger Stone? The big one this week, though, is I don't know how this came about, but the Manafort, not Mana, I'm sorry. The Mueller investigation people put out a document that basically says, look, Manafort agreed to be a cooperating witness on all kinds of conditions. And one of those really important conditions is that you be truthful about all the things in the past and you not lie in the future.

in this investigation. This has all been like over the summer. Basically, Manafort has continued to do crimes. Like Ashley Feinberg says, hello, my name is Paul Manafort and I fucking love crimes. He can't stop. This is a man who buys ostrich jackets. He has no fucking sense. He's so mega fucked right now. He's lost his house. That's gone. $40 million in property, gone. He, as part of the plea deal with the investigation, he basically copped to fucking everything. He could be charged with all of that if he breaks the deal.

He will be in jail for the rest of his life. He's been lying. You remember when he first got out and was working with the people in Ukraine to do the puff pieces on him?

Speaker ADo you remember that?

MerlinHe fucking can't stop. So the question then becomes, well, is Max right? Is he basically banking on definitely getting a pardon? Is he banking on – where does he go from here? So that came out and now there's there's all these other little puffs of stuff coming out. The crazy one that came out from the Independent that came out yesterday that nobody else has been able to confirm. And a lot of people are very skeptical about is reporting that he went to.

Was it visit with Assange?

AlexWhat?

MerlinOn three different occasions.

AlexThis is an actual I have not seen this.

MerlinWell, there's I mean, there's a lot, a lot of skepticism. They've already, if you go look at the diffs on the story, they've already walked back some of the story. Yeah, but basically, of course, everybody. I woke up yesterday morning and Twitter was fucking melting down on woe if true.

MaxThey don't. He doesn't need to have visited with him. We already know that they were like he was DMing with the Trump family. Right. It's just I mean, I think there's I think there's one of two things. I think the first is that the Manafort and Trump sort of school of like when you when shit really hits the fan and things are really looking bad for you. you start attacking and you just do stuff and you don't really stop and think you just create action and chaos and somehow in the ensuing you know dust cloud like a looney tunes fight

Merlinyou hope that you're the one that survives or in this case and admittedly we are about to say something about a false flag i fully admit that but this would not be the first time that folks involved in being investigated for this have produced some kind of a fake document as a kind of a honeypot to discredit a reporter. Because I don't think this reporter is a super well-known. It's not from our hit list.

MaxOh, well, that's, I mean, I'm not even thinking on those lines. I'm just thinking that it's like, I just think Manafort, his back is against the wall. And like Trump, he has that instinct of like, go on the attack. Just like do stuff, right? Just say and do anything just to create.

MerlinOh, yeah, right. Like just start waving your arms around.

MaxJust chaos. And then you hope that if you, basically like what happens in that environment of chaos is sometimes the person who has the least dignity to begin with, who can't go down any further, they come out ahead. Because everyone else is lowered into the mud. You just want to turn away. You can't look. Trump's already a filthy pig boy. So it doesn't matter if he gets into a fight arguing about how big his penis is. It doesn't matter. He can't go down any lower. But anyone else who argues about the size of their penis can.

Right? So you get Chuck Schumer in there. Yeah, exactly. Mr. Effectiveness. Well it's a strategy of appeasement Merlin

MerlinWell I think they will definitely stop saying mean things about liberals If he gets 1.6 billion dollars for the wall

MaxThat's a tough bold brave stance I think what people love about Democrats Is when we don't We capitulate to a bully Is when we don't believe in anything And then when we just do Incredibly unpopular things that everybody hates I think that's probably why people get out of bed And vote for Democrats It's called centrism Yep. Oh. So, oh, and then the final thing with Manafort is you're right that the pardon wouldn't really help him because he has all these state issues. But maybe Manafort, maybe he's looked at the situation.

He's like, at this point, one of the things that might happen is like a total breakdown of law and order. You know what I mean?

MerlinI do. I do. I think about it all the time.

MaxMaybe Manafort's like, well, there's still this outside scenario of like, you know, like the basically.

MerlinWell, and maybe maybe Trump. I mean, I could see him thinking, well, nobody's beaten Trump yet. Maybe he'll intervene and just get everybody fired in every state. Right. Maybe there will be some kind of executive order that nobody knows how to defend.

MaxI mean, and there is a strain. Some of these guys, you know, like Bannon, like these guys are fucking Bolsheviks. Like they they really do think like the state is going to come. No, they just want to watch the world burn. Yeah. And maybe Manafort's like, yeah, you know, my strategy probably doesn't make sense under the current sort of SOP, but maybe he thinks that the world, things will change bigly in the next couple years. Here's hoping.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinSo that's all our stuff. Did I get anything else? I don't think so.

MaxNo, but I think the Schumer approach is going to be very effective in the face of that kind of chaos. Because the thing is, if we just let Trump have Poland...

MerlinOh, yeah. You just let him annex the Sudetenland. and everything will stop right there. Got some iced tea. Got some new cat litter. I got an Isle of Dogs book. That's so good, you guys. That movie gets better every time I watch it. I haven't seen it yet. It was problematic.

AlexYeah.

MerlinIt was problematic, and I was super mad, and now it's one of my family's four-quadrant. Everybody loves a favorite movie, so it is so sweet. So I should watch it. It's so sweet. Oh, you should so watch it. Okay. It's really, really good. Oh, the voices, the animation, it's so good. I mean it's probably it is problematic because of the violence for me It's also problematic because there is some orientalism in it violence

MaxCan I throw out a TV topic before we get to the balls? Yes. Yes, um I started watching

MerlinAmerica's Got Talent. Okay, so that's that's the that's the one with Simon Pegg. No Simon Simon What's his name Simon Cowell Simon Cowell? Yeah, you know, it's like it's like the vaudeville

MaxHe's not on the season that I'm one Clarkson Kelly Clarkson So basically what happened was a magician won America's Got Talent, and whenever I would show people magic tricks, they'd go, oh, that's like the magician on America's Got Talent. So I put it on my Plex, and I started watching it, and I got a couple episodes and started watching it on a flight. And like, have you guys ever seen an episode of that show? Yeah. No. It is the dumbest shit in the world.

AlexWhy are you doing this to yourself?

MaxIs this the one where they turn their chair around and then decide whether to vote?

AlexI think that's the Maroon 5 voice. That's the voice, the voice, yeah.

MaxIt's like the gong show or something like that. They can stop the performance. But it's kind of vaudeville. There's like singers and variety acts and stuff. My two large nephews in the overalls playing a giant harmonic.

But I really think when America's Got Talent comes back, we should do a challenge where we watch the first episode or something and talk about it. I really just could see. I mean, I was really compelled. I had the goal of watching the episode that The Magician was on so I knew what the fuck people were talking about. And it was fine. He's a good magician. But boy, there's a lot to, I really think there's a lot to talk about. I really think that- It's a form of, I don't want to say hate watching,

Merlinbut you watch it because it's so stupid.

MaxI didn't even hate it. I was actually really-

MerlinThat's where I am with Shark Tank at this point. Shark Tank has gotten really stupid. And I do kind of hate watch it now.

Speaker AI'm not- Did you see the guy with the broom? Did you guys see the guy with the broom?

MerlinOh, the broom was amazing. That was- That was it. There's no way. like he he hit every bell for like don't fucking do this if you're gonna go on short he's like he had all he had way too much stock he was way over leveraged he'd given away parts of the company and he's like i'm still for like and i was like wait a minute so you made a broom because you hate having to bend over but you still have to bend over with the broom it's like it's so so stupid it doesn't make this is his passion project oh i i the strap guy killed me the strap guy was

What was the strap? What was his thing? A-Rod comes over. It's the straps for the locking straps. And he had, what is it? He got millions of dollars of these straps made. But he gave the design and production over to this Chinese company that fucking blew it. The basic core concept of this product is the sturdiness and you can't cut it.

Speaker ABut then the locking mechanism for pulling the strap just literally didn't work.

Merlinand they had to return all of them. And he doesn't know the numbers. Home Depot knows the numbers. I don't know those numbers. What? Oh my God. So bad. And they moved Mark's chair. They let A-Rod have his chair.

AlexOh, I know. I didn't like that. I did not like that at all.

MerlinI don't tune into these shows for change.

MaxExactly. I really think that America's Got Talent. I'm not interested in making fun of the variety acts because I actually think that's the most, that's like the galaxy brain meme. that's like the first brain level of that show is like you make fun of the bad acts or whatever sure sure sure that's part of it is that you're supposed to feel a certain way about them and you're supposed to make fun of it i'm really interested in america's got talent i i really am interested in the show itself the way that it's packaged the way that it's shot as a piece of like filmmaking like it is really yeah it's like going to disney world for the engineering

Merlinand design there is like you're not there for the rides you're there for like how it was put

MaxThere is some crazy shit of like, like without getting too into it, like the conceit, part of the conceit of the way that it's produced is that it's in a huge theater, right? Like a big theater with a huge audience and they are seeing the show, America's Got Talent on stage. But you at home are behind the scenes hearing the chatter of the producers and the judges. Oh, it's just like when they talk on the side of the stage,

Merlinthe two guys talk to each other about how this is really good?

MaxYes, yes. You're hearing the judges. so let me put it this way the judges have two microphones they have one microphone that they lean forward to talk to that amplifies their voice in the theater and of course you do hear that on the TV program but then they also have lovs and while the performance is going on the judges whisper to each other and at home you hear the lovs it is oh my god like it is like I'm telling you it's really interesting it's like there's something about America in that show

Alexno I agree but someone's already done this and it's called 50 Million Merits and it was a Black Mirror episode. Like the, no, I agree. I think we should watch it.

MaxThat's a pretty caveman critique of the show, right? Of like, I don't, but what that's, what that's getting at is that when all the acts come packaged.

MerlinBecause all the sacrifice that the acts are doing so their friend can have a nicer life. So this is another way,

Maxthis is the other one, one of the other ways that you're at home, you're watching a show about the show is that the audience, it's understood that the, that things are unfolding live in real time for the audience in the theater. But you at home are interrupted all the time by inspirational video packages introducing the characters as they like walk through their small industrial town in slow motion and talking about their life. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah. And then it cuts back into the live show as though it's all live TV.

MerlinBut you're sort of elevated over the snorks in the audience. Like you're seeing more of what's going on in the real story.

MaxCorrect. Correct. Yeah. And those stories are always this like, oh, it's like a come from behind story, underdog story, whatever. And they're usually sort of in some way poor, disadvantaged people or maybe a minority or an immigrant or something like that. And you're supposed to be rooting for them.

Speaker AI hate that stuff. I hate it.

MaxBut that's the black mirror thing of like you do feel bad for this person. But also like why do they have to like beg for their dignity to Simon Cowell on a stage and earn it by singing? You know, like that's what that's what.

MerlinAnd like with Shark Tank, they mix it up. If you go back and watch the English lady singing the Les Mis song, the I Dreamed a Dream song, like maybe the most.

Speaker AOh, yeah. I think, is that Britain's Got Talent probably? I think.

MerlinOr a British idol? Similar format, yeah. But you ever go back and watch that again, the I Dreamed a Dream lady? Mm-hmm. Yeah. She comes out and everybody's making fun of her because she's like a frumpy, kind of weird-looking, middle-aged woman. And then she does a pretty B-plus version of that song. And she got a whole career. But everybody just starts weeping because you don't know which way it's going to go. is this person going to be the ding-a-ling or is this going to be the person who's going to be like transcendent? Are they just going to come out and break dance and fall down? Or is this going to be like a life-changing performance?

AlexWell, I guess we are like getting too into it, but that's the thing is if you're in that audience, you're not actually snickering about, like that footage was definitely taken when one of the actual ding-a-lings was on stage. And so they cut to, you know, B-roll of the audience being like, oh, fat lady on stage. but no no monster i i just think it's gross it's it's like every reality tv show

Merlinbut packaged the thing you're the thing that you're both right about the thing you're both right about though is whether you look at it as the black mirror thing or the there's the it's the lack of dignity and it's the fact that you get to this is a that's what i explored in my thesis the idea that you get to be the ironic viewer of all of it you get to be the one who like evaluates all of this and you get this extreme level of ironic distance that lets you process it on the level that you want and so you could you could look at it like you can you can

sneer at the people who think they're seeing the the real world you can sneer at the people look down on the people who are laughing at susan boyle you can you can choose to process it on any level you want because you get this ironic distance in this cool medium that lets you be the superior person yep shit fire susan boyle i dreamed a dream 2009 i think it's more than b plus

Maxchallenge challenge who's is this merlin's challenge yes merlin what did we buy this week

Merlinsusan boyle uh how this happened so last week we had we had a little pay pig hour in the after show you can uh find the after show by signing up at give us your fucking money.com I had thought last week was going to be talking about the favorite things episode so I had a list of things, dumb stuff that I really like it was on the main episode at the end we ended up talking about this thing my wife got that I thought was silly which is a shiatsu massager and then Max described it to great effect and the challenge

became get one of these fucking ball bangers and give it a run really really get in there make that thing dig in Yeah. Max wanted pain. Max wanted a pain massage. A lot of people say you may want an athletic massage. Well, I'm here to tell you, you can get some balls banging on you. You put your arms in the stirrups, and you can control how much pain you induce to yourself with the banging shiatsu balls. Yes. So get banged by some balls.

Speaker AChallenge. Challenge.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinSo did you guys get shiatsu balled? Oh, boy, did we get the balls. Mm-hmm. Woo. Now, I describe this. Now, knowing that Max was describing the desire for a truly excruciating massage, I'm not saying this is going to be the hardest. I put this thing on when my wife got it, and I was blown away with how much pain, pleasant pain it caused me. It felt like my nerves could snap at any second, no matter where I put this on my body. It felt like it was a ruthless robot monster that was going to destroy me. It chews you.

MaxIt just chews you up. My verdict on this thing is that it is pretty good. It is pretty good. but if I so like you said you pull it tight to like put the amount of pressure you want on

Speaker Aright and I

Maxfirst of all if you pull it too hard the balls stop moving you manage to stop the ball same every time I am so what I'm trying to do is find I wonder if you guys got a not as powerful one or if I'm just a pussy I'm trying to find I got it it was a killing machine Merlin I can't say but I have a theory but now I find this sweet spot where I pull it real tight just before the balls give out and I'm holding it and I'm holding it right in that sweet point

where if I put one more pound of pressure on it the balls will give out under the pressure you gotta hold it right in that sweet spot but if I could if those balls held up under pressure if I could

MerlinI'd be going twice as hard Maybe more like an industrial one. Well, I think it's like the teeth, like your teeth on a machine. Like if it gets the wrong part on your neck, no, it isn't a pleasant pain. This fucking feels like nerve damage is imminent with this thing because it doesn't know. Now, if you went and got a wise lady with really strong hands who could harm you physically, but she knows when to stop and then stamp on your stamp collection. With this thing, it's a killing machine. It doesn't know if it's on a nerve or a bone.

MaxI like that. It's very Westworld, right? It's like disengage the safety protocols in the holodeck and let me have my way with these robot balls.

Speaker AHarder. Harder.

MaxYou fucking bitch hurt me. It doesn't know that it's killing you. No, it doesn't know.

MerlinIt doesn't care. It's just doing its machine stuff. As long as voltage is applied, it will continue to kill. Still plugged in. Still plugged in. Still plugged in. Killing. Killing. Killing. What about Johnny Hollywood? You think Johnny Hollywood gets banged by the balls?

MaxOh, yes. I think he's got... I think either someone needs to insult his baking, someone needs to tell him that he's a nasty little pie boy.

Speaker AHe's a pie pig.

MaxThat's a very bad pig, Johnny. Johnny, that's a bad pig. He's a nasty pie pig. He goes... Yeah, right before they smash his balls, they tell him that his... How wet his crust is. They tell him that his jammy dodger is a bit higgledy-piggledy. oh

Show notes

Transcript

107. Ball Bangers

Show notes

Transcript

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