117. The Good Plastic

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

MaxHey! Hey. Merlin, you remember our mutual friend? Yes. Who owns the massage parlor?

Speaker AMmm.

Merlinlisten a lot of a lot of women come in and they request the texas titty twister

Alexi every time i go to a massage i'm like whoops

Speaker Aoh bless me my towel fell oh is it moving it's moving stand back i don't know how big this thing gets you know that's a very old bible joke good morning merlin good morning adam says to eve adam says to you stand back i don't know how big this thing

Maxoh what a what a what a what a good episode i just listened to i don't know what you're

Alextalking about neither do i i'm just talking about my friend the masseuse who i just drop Patel in front of...

MaxI just made bacon, and I listened to an episode of a podcast, and it was very confusing. Was it? Did you like being in it? Did you enjoy being in it in a redacted form? I like the part that I was in. Yeah, you know, I've decided... Are we just going to talk about this? I've decided I'm going to message that reporter. Oh, God. This reporter who I know a little bit, who writes for The Atlantic, sent me a message on Twitter. Now, it's interesting because it's not... So they sent me the message and they said, I'm writing a story about Inbox Zero. Could I get your comment on it?

And at the time I thought in the back of my head, surely what happened was they knew that Merlin made Inbox Zero. They couldn't reach Merlin and they knew I'm friends with Merlin. So they thought they'd get a comment from me. Does that make sense? Like that's that I thought that was the process.

MerlinIt does make it does. It makes sense in our circle. Right. But that's that's excluding the fact that this concept has taken on such a life of its own that people have no idea that I'm involved with it. I mean, except when they retroactively, I guess, decide to go do some research or read it.

AlexResearch in quotes.

MaxThis reporter contacted me and was like, can I do an interview? And I had a good reason why I couldn't do an interview. I think I was like, I don't have any time. Can I just send you a statement on this? And the reporter was like, yeah, it's fine. And I wrote a whole thing about how the history of Inbox Zero and then Rowan started it and that... You summarized the concept very well.

MerlinAnd I mean, I'm just going to give you your plaudits here. As I've said, privately offline, I was very grateful that you took the time to write these, in my recollection, four long paragraphs that not only succinctly said what the thing was, but explained how it's kind of a shame

Speaker Athat the actual thing is not what most people think it is. And isn't that kind of a bummer? Because you found it very useful.

MerlinI was very touched. It was very affecting to me that you said that this had an influence on you that really helped you. That's why I did it. And so just stipulate when you sent me that, I hadn't given it too much thought. I didn't read it immediately, but I went back and read the whole thing. And I thought it was really cool that you did that. And I really appreciated something that any normal person could read and say, let me set you straight on what this thing is that you don't understand.

MaxI could tell from the pitch. So she had pitched me. She said, hi, I'm doing a story on the hellish quest for Inbox Zero. And I was wondering if you could comment briefly for it. And at the time, I thought surely I thought it was a weird question because I thought she must be asking me because she knows I do this show with Merlin and she couldn't get Merlin. So she's getting me. You know, she's got onto the the you know, it's like you've got you can't get Johnson.

MerlinSo you call Boswell. You can't get Socrates. So you call Plato.

MaxRight. You've got your fourth choice Oscar host here. And I thought and I thought that's weird. But I was like, yeah, I'll I'll go into battle to defend the honor of Inbox Zero. And I and I wrote this whole thing. And I should have known from that that the story she had already prior to doing any research or contacting anyone. She had sort of already decided, you know, by describing it like every fucking every fucking journalist has the thing.

MerlinThen they'll just sit and wait until you say something that's close to what they want you to say.

AlexEvery sort of media training I've ever done is talk to. No, just don't talk to reporters.

MaxAnd I just try to do that. Fake news. How did they know to be outside my house before I was indicted?

MerlinCNN got the heads up. Mueller called him on the red phone.

MaxSo anyway, I wrote this really, I thought a pretty nice thing about Inbox Zero. And I had one, literally, I mean, I wrote four paragraphs and one sentence of it was, I said, you know, like, I don't understand how anyone could like live their life doing what the like most popularly understood answer idea of Inbox Zero, which is like answering every email. And then I spent this whole thing saying what Inbox Zero really was. And then she took that one sentence and put it in. And it should have been so clear from reading it that that from looking at what I sent that that wasn't the vibe of what I was trying to communicate.

MerlinIt was, as I said on that episode, it was the single, I feel like it was the single thing that you wrote. And it was the first thing you wrote, which was like you're framing this as I can't believe anybody would live their life in this crazy way. But it was the single sentence that could be taken. One could choose to take completely out of context and it could be read as equivocal or very negative. It was the one thing that you said that if you didn't read the rest of it could be. It's like when they do a movie review, right? and they do the elliptical quote that leaves out like,

you know, a stunning achievement in the history of shit films. And like they say, a stunning achievement. You know, it's that kind of thing.

MaxI'm writing her back right now.

MerlinNo, don't do it. Don't do it. Please don't. Oh, please don't. I'm doing it. Well, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I guess in politics and stuff, please don't. In politics and stuff, don't you kind of have to talk to the reporter unless you're that car guy, the guy from Mueller's team?

MaxYeah, well, I'll tell you something else. is you know you get this i'm sure i'm i'm alex i know has been part of this on cards against humanity stories that have been that have been re-supported i mean a classic one is that we really do something that's funny and then people report on it like it's a hoax oh yeah the super

Alexbowl oh yeah i was so mad about this yeah the super bowl like we like actually bought a super

Merlinbowl ad and did this dumb thing it had a potato and my daughter still laughs about it and we but

MaxWe actually did that, and then it got widely reported as a hoax, like Cards Against Humanity hoax Super Bowl ad.

MerlinOh, that you hadn't actually bought the ad?

MaxYeah, yeah, yeah. Widely reported that it was a hoax, and we don't do hoaxes. We either do it or we don't, and we don't. But anyway, if you guys ever get on a political campaign or have any engagement with a political campaign, ooh, the quality of reporting is very low, very, very low. And it does make me, unfortunately, when I pick up the paper, even if it's a good paper, like the Washington Post or something, like there's just a good amount of that is just wrong or the report, you know, like it's like you said, Merlin, it's someone who's sort of cherry picking, like they're waiting for someone to say something that sort of confirms

their narrative.

MerlinYes. And frequently that takes the shape of when I was more hungry for status and recognition and I would take any request that came to me thinking it would be good. I would talk to anybody. I'd talk for hours. I'd talk and talk and talk and talk. And I honestly, I don't want to sound cynical, but the truth is they'll talk as long as you want to talk until they get the quote that they want. Now, this is a very foggy memory that I have mostly blocked out in my mind, but I'm going to share it. I think I've told this story on Back to Work. But one time, circa mid-2000s, when I had some notoriety in the world of Macs and productivity, Apple and productivity, but it was mostly Macs then,

I got contacted by this woman at one of those like Mac Gadget or Digital Addict or something like that. And she's like, I want to talk to you about your work with Max and productivity. And the interview went something like this. I was like, so Merlin, wouldn't you agree that you're probably one of the foremost thinkers on the topic of productivity as it relates to computers? And I said, you know, I really wouldn't at all. And if you were to quote something like that, that would be a gross mischaracterization of what I think and believe, so much so that it would be really frustrating to me.

She said, okay, so would you say this is probably the most exciting time for Mac users in terms of – and it kept going like this and going and going and going. And, of course, I'm fucking holding Caulfield, and I'm like, no, you big phony. That's not right. Here, listen to my mouth words. My mouth words are better than yours. Use those. And it kept going on and on and on. And I started to get kind of frustrated. And she said, okay, well, I think I've got everything I need now. We need to book you for the photo shoot. And I said, you need to shoot who and the what now?

And she goes, we need to book you for the photo shoot. And I said, okay, tell me a little more about that. And she said, well, okay, so everybody who's being interviewed for this package is going to get shot. You're going to come out. We have a photographer that's going to – you're going to dress like Steve Jobs. And everybody dresses like Steve Jobs. And you're going to have the turtleneck and the jeans, you know, and you sit on the floor. And then we photograph everybody like that for the package.

Speaker AAnd I said, well, I'll look forward to seeing that. But I don't think I'll have the... Life's breaking up. I don't think I'll have the availability for that photo shoot.

AlexThank you for your time. That's not even something I would masturbate to. That's insane. Max, do you have any breaking news for us this week? I feel like there's just... Pew, pew, pew. It's like back in the day where there's so much. The cold is so fucking cold today.

MaxGuys, it's so cold there. So it is... Let's see right now.

MerlinAlexa, what's the temperature in Chicago, Illinois? Oh, I turned it way down. I got a new thing. I got a remote for my... Alexa and I turn it down now.

Speaker ANegative 17.

Alexwhat oh fake fake news but hold on uh uh alexa what does it feel like outside in chicago there's

Speaker Ba wind chill warning in effect until thursday january 31st 12 p.m the current weather is minus 17 degrees fahrenheit with partly sunny skies today's forecast has intermittent clouds with a high of minus 10 degrees and a low of 19 degrees okay so it's still not saying the wind chill but

Maxstill yeah so it's a it's a wind chill wind chill as low as 45 to 55 below zero until until 1 p.m thursday yeah it's it's really really cold i haven't gone outside it feels like a day for biscuits and netflix i um i was doing errands last night and it was about i don't know what my car said it was like seven degrees out and it was so fucking cold i was freezing my nuts off outside in terms of you know i it's making me anxious because i can't help but think every time

i look out the window i think like this is just the world with the broken world that we live in now like you know that that every and then i and then i also thought well should i move away from chicago like is this going to be how it is now that it's always you know negative a million degrees and it's you know it's like you're living in antarctica and should i should i move and then i was like no because everywhere else they'll well there's maryland where you live is going to burn down or there's going to be an earthquake and it's going to separate into the ocean.

MerlinYes.

MaxIt's all fucked. It's all fucked everywhere.

MerlinIt's backwards day everywhere. And that's what's so frustrating about people failing to understand the relatively straightforward physics of climate change. Like there was, I was just going around on political Twitter yesterday after our president

Speaker Awas saying, look, it's so cold outside. I guess whatever happened to global warming.

MerlinAnd then I think it was a government, some kind of government bureau posted a childlike MS paint style picture of a tea kettle over the Atlantic Ocean and saying, well, when it gets hot, that makes lots of steam and that steam goes over here and that makes it cold over there. It's like, this is how physics works. You dingus. It's like, yeah, I think it's going to be, I don't know. I mean, I have to be honest. It's been difficult for me to even think about. I've been worried about climate change for a very long time. Since I first heard about Stop Using Hairspray,

I've been really scared about what we're doing to the planet to the point where I have I have to be honest. I've kind of shut down thinking about it. But but I guess the latest warnings are like, yeah, don't buy anything big in Miami right now. Like you're going to be fucked. You're going to be fucked so hard. Every Starbucks is going to have two feet of water in it. You know what? The president's hairspray. Oh, is it Pantene? I feel like it got mentioned in an article. I love this. This is the best part of access journalism is when we get some brand names.

We get to learn about not being able to use the light switches. Tell me about the president's hairspray.

MaxThis is from 2016 from factcheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. For at least five years, Donald Trump has been making false claims about hairspray and its impact on the ozone layer. Most recently, the likely Republican presidential nominee made comments at a rally in West Virginia. Trump said, hairspray is not like it used to be because chemicals in it that affect the ozone layer have been banned. Many countries began phasing out the ozone depleting substances in hairspray in the 1980s. But these regulations wouldn't affect the quality of the hairspray. He also said using hairspray in his apartment, quote, which is sealed, would prevent any ozone depleting substances from escaping into the environment.

so basically in 1987 the montreal protocol banned hairspray with cfc's in it which is like an ozone depleting you know gas it makes holes trump and so in response trump stockpiled a lifetime supply of hairspray with cfc's which he still uses oh my god he uses vintage vintage hairspray

Alexyeah he's like elaine from seinfeld saving the sponges good god oh yeah i think this uh media

Merlinpresser is not hairspray worthy my uh my daughter in preschool had a one of her closest friends this little girl uh what was her name i think it was naomi and naomi was she was so fucking colorful you know i mean i don't know how much exposure you have to little kids but they come up with some banana stuff naomi could explain everything with total confidence and naomi was To this day, my daughter still has Naomi quotes that are like, don't wear yellow when you're around mosquitoes because that attracts them. She points to a painting on the wall in a cafe and says, that's where my stuffed animal, Jellycat, was born.

And she has everything that she says is provided with an utter certainty about causality in the world.

Speaker AAnd when the president talks like that, I'm reminded of Naomi because he sounds like he's explaining something with his big boy words. He's like, people don't understand about the so-called climate change. If you wear yellow, mosquitoes will be attracted and sting. Sad.

It's like, he just keeps doing it and he's still the president.

AlexOh, God. Oh, God. What was the article from Deadspin, the writer guy that you really like? David Roth.

Speaker ADavid Roth. Our big, wet guy. Our big, wet president.

Alexour big wet boy i love david rock it's just one of those things where he really toes the line between mockery and also not just being like cheeto cheeto drum drum while actually making insights i i adore this guy now um despite not knowing his name i feel like max is the one who

Merlinturned us on to this fella and i am so in the in the can for this guy i i love him and the other a day on Twitter, I said something, kind of a big statement. I said, I think this is true. He might be the best writer working right now for me in terms of like, I so look forward to a new post from him. And somebody responded and said, wow, thanks for telling me about this. This guy's really good. And I said something like, he, in this time of like haze and numbness, he still finds

Speaker Aa way to touch the original insanity. that we feel every day without, I mean, and of course he does have that chop chapeau style,

Merlinstyle. Like he does have a certain kind of style where he uses phrases like our big wet president, but, but he really, he touches, he takes you out of this ongoing numbing moment of, oh, it's that again. You know, the horse is loose in a hospital. He takes you out of that moment to go like, this is really fucking insane. This guy, this guy's, there's words we can't use anymore for what this guy is. He's goofy. And he somehow touches that feeling in me of the, you know, the run up to November and all the way since and going like, I honestly feel like I'm losing my mind every day. And I feel like he is the rare author that still has freshness

to pointing out the utter madness of what we're living through.

MaxThe news media is like all throughout the campaign and still currently, you know, in the covering the president, the news media is so ill equipped to report on trump for what he is because all they have are the tools and the language of recovering the presidency and trump is not a normal president they're used they're used to necktie coverage

Merlinwhere there's actors that are party affiliated actors who have their reasons for what they do we may not agree but i mean he makes he makes dick cheney look like a pretty sane guy i mean dick cheney had his fucking reasons for what he was doing but with trump it's just it's always occam's razor he's just really fucking stupid he's really fucking stupid and self-involved and has zero interest in anything that is not a compliment to him right now. That's it. That's pretty much the whole story. He's incapable of seeing what any other adult would see in terms of the disparity

between what's expected of him and what he's doing. He's incapable. It looks like nothing to me. You know what I mean? I don't think he can see it. This is very old, but I think it's just hard to have to live with that every day. But the funny part is, then this is why I listen to Chapo. It's like, I don't agree with them. I mean, but I need someone to push this bruise so fucking hard that I remember there's a bruise there. And necktie Twitter does not do that for me. Well, Trump's considering this thing with pulling troops out of Syria. It's like, what?

MaxThe pageantry of the presidency of American politics is all very purposefully and powerfully designed to make it authoritative and make it normal and make it real and make it nostalgic and patriotic. You know what I mean? like all those the songs and the Marine Corps marching band. It's a part of a long tradition of how other people took that office more seriously than

Merlinanything they've ever done in their life. Right.

AlexI mean, it's just absurd the way we treat the presidency and people like me. The president was not designed for women or any marginalized folks, neither. And this is nothing new. But the fact that like marginalized folks on MSNBC, that even people like Rachel Maddow are considering this like the status quo is still mind boggling to me and it's i don't know in the past couple weeks maybe it's the david roth stuff but it's like that fury is just building again

Merlinyeah and it's it's like this ongoing state of i'm probably i can't believe i'm saying these words out loud given that the state of anxiety in which i constantly live there's this part of me that wonders if I have off the charts cortisol levels that have led me to something approaching PTSD, where there are certain things in life that I'm very, very anxious about, and it never goes away. But you have coping mechanisms for that, right? You find a way to get through the day mostly, despite this very heavy feeling about things that are out there.

Like I said to Syracuse last night, like nine days ago, I accidentally flushed half of a paper towel down the toilet at work. I instantly panicked, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. That's not normal. But I find a way to get through the day despite wondering if my landlord's going to take me to court, right? Like that's the kind of thing that goes through your mind. And with this though, it's like you get, even if you're like, God, an abused kid, you find a way to try and get through the day. Because if you ever directly address the thing that's made you how you are, it's just desperately painful.

And people still, I mean, the most we get is a little bit of snark. But it's hard to really touch the madness because it is so incongruous and all we want is for it to go away. And it's just a terrible way to live.

At least we got bacon.

Speaker AEpic bacon!

MaxBacon week. Where was the Foxconn podcast episode? Was that on Reply All?

Oh, I know the one you mean

Merlinwith talking with the mayor and all the crookedness. oh i hadn't even thought about that yeah i feel like that was probably reply all that was a really chilling episode that guy is a bad guy um yes foxconn and the village negative mount pleasant oh yeah i remember this a small town in wisconsin becomes the site of a

Alexcompletely unprecedented experiment oh yeah was that it that must be it yeah yeah that must be it

MerlinSo basically, help me out here, but the thrust of that piece was that we all know about the president touting, doing his big announcement and touting that Foxconn was going to bring an unprecedented mega factory, a complex of factories to Wisconsin. And that in return for these, I think, thousands, if not like tens of thousands.

MaxTo build the kind of screen that nobody wants anymore.

MerlinYes, but. But I mean, we got to go back to the original pitch. The original pitch was this is going to be what they're doing in China, all those Chinamen making our phones. Not only are we going to start doing that in the good old US of A, but it's going to be your town is going to be a new – the beginning is a phrase the guy kept using that's escaping me now. But the mayor, was it? Or the city council guy?

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinAnd this is going to be like an unprecedented tech megaplex of actual hardcore hardware construction. or whatever but it was going to be sprawling it needed so much space because of all of the actual and this is important because there's a reason it's done in china for lots of reasons not least cost but like you know we're going to reshape this is going to be the beginning of a whole new world for wisconsin and arguably maybe america is that these factories that used to go to the

Chinaman it's coming to America but uh the reporter the reporter who was following the story for reply

Maxall she started talking to sort of technology and manufacturing experts just in the episode I mean it seemed pretty cursory right she called a guy up who knew a lot about factories and she was like uh is this like a like a lasting thing and he like looked at the plans he was like well they're making the kind of flat panel monitors that nobody wants anymore I can't I don't can't keep it straight but they're making LCD and everyone wants OLED now or something along those lines I I might have gotten that wrong but they want the old kind they're making the old kind and she was like oh well if people decide they want the new kind can they just switch over to that and he just starts

Merlinlaughing yeah because like you talk the read the retooling that would be necessary for that would be like switching from toyotas to toasters or something like that yeah you tear down the whole you just have to rebuild the whole thing but like but they but they but what happens they got to get

Maxthat land they got to get that land well people should go i don't want to spoil it people should go listen to this episode because it's an amazing story of local politics and fair to say it upended

Merlina community at a fundamental level in order to get what they needed to build this factory of the future.

MaxI mean, it's a horror. It's a slow-moving horror story, this Reply All documentary about what's going on in this town. It was unbelievable. And it focuses on this woman who's sort of a nuisance or an activist in the town and her trying to just get this information out of the mayor and her feud with the mayor.

MerlinThe guy starts having sock puppet accounts to go after her and stuff like that? Exactly, exactly.

MaxYeah, it's pretty wild. but anyway it was always I mean that was the first time I really got all the details about this was hearing the story from Sruthi and she called this one person and it wasn't even like like an expose there right she called someone she was like does this make any sense and he was like absolutely not and so of course like now today in the news it's like yeah it's like Washington Post yeah they're they're the the Foxconn's like bailing on this factory and it's just going to be office space because no one wants these TVs like it should have been obvious from the first thing that this was just sort of messaging. And it's also like Foxconn's doing the same thing Amazon does, where they shop around.

They do comparison shopping to different municipalities to get tax breaks. And then they pocket the tax break and don't do the thing that they said they were going to do.

MerlinLet me read these paragraphs. So basically, this is Washington Post today. Foxconn's plans for a giant Wisconsin factory now looks uncertain. I'll jump down just a little bit here. The Taiwanese technology juggernaut initially pledged in 2017 to construct a $10 billion liquid crystal display panel plant and create up to 13,000 jobs in the state's northeast corner over the next 15 years. The positions would pay an average annual wage of $53,000, the firm said a solid salary, for sure, in the manufacturing realm. Now, a new paragraph.

In exchange, Wisconsin agreed to give Foxconn at least $3 billion in state tax credits and breaks, according to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. Now, my understanding is they still get those tax breaks, even though they're not going to make the hardware. Pretty good deal.

AlexThis feels like the – did you see the turns out story about Amazon returns this week? Oh, what?

MerlinIt gets resold? Tell me about that.

AlexI felt like shit. I thought I was this great, great person for buying a bunch of shit on Amazon and then returning it thinking, oh, yeah, this is like resold. The idea being I'm going to try a lot of things and I rather have one thing that I like and obsess over rather than just switching out something every other month. But apparently most of the things you return to Amazon just sit in a warehouse until someone buys it at wholesale.

But it ends up almost being like a, what is it, when you buy a storage space? Not hoarders. When people bid. Like preppers?

MaxOh, like storage wars or whatever?

AlexYeah, storage wars, storage wars, yeah.

MaxHave you ever ordered something on Amazon and you get two of them?

Alexuh yeah all the time and then it's like what do you do i well if it's something i don't want or need like i i return it but it's put in this big box and the like wholesale hoarders just buy this big box and usually throw half of it out and resell the rest it's like this giant giant shit show and shows the machinery of like yeah nothing there's no way you can be a good person and use amazon even though i use it every single day it's really really it's killing me it's killing me i

MaxWith the caveat that I order a lot of things on Amazon, I've probably 10 or 12 times I've ordered something on Amazon and gotten more than I ordered. Really? Yeah, like I get two of something.

MerlinI've started getting more of the – Gruber's talked about this a lot and I used to roll my eyes. But I've started to get more of the stuff that I know it was not – I try to avoid the Amazon Marketplace stuff because, you know, here's the thing. What it comes down to is, of course, I am a Prime customer. And of course, I assume that anything on Prime mostly, you can hit that little dingus at the top and say, show me only Prime available things. Oh, yeah. And in my head, for no particular reason, I always assumed that meant that that was not just fulfilled by Amazon, but was, you know, kind of by Amazon.

You know what I mean? That basically it came from an Amazon facility. But increasingly stuff, what did I get? I've gotten more and more stuff lately that's like, obviously before it was packed, it was like dented or shop worn or just generally fucked up. Like I ordered a book for my daughter recently that was just, it looked used. I've gotten more and more stuff like that lately on Prime deals. So, I mean, maybe they've gotten to the point where they can do fulfillment on Marketplace stuff under their own aegis and you never know the difference.

I also had a record-breaking delivery, I think. Setting aside the fact I do get paper towels from Amazon. I'll let you think about that for a minute. I need a couple long boxes for my comics.

AlexThink about a lot of stuff right now. Go on. Sorry. Sorry for interrupting.

MerlinThis is a good one. This is a pretty good one. So I get the buzz and I go downstairs and there's an probably large box. Like a, wow, really big box. It was like the kind of box that you would get like, let's say like a dehumidifier in. And I was like, oh, that's wild. I don't know if you guys know what a long box is, but it's like, you know, it's a big, long, white box for putting comics in. it's comic book sized and it's you know probably like four feet long and i thought that's weird they must have shipped me two assembled comics boxes nope nope nope nope opened it up there was

probably 60 feet of paper in there and two on two unfolded cardboard boxes in a cardboard box

Speaker Awith like 60 feet of paper i was like oh my god i just i just killed so many papers

Alexoh my god those living beings you know is paper

Maxis there a thing where you're a vegan except for paper i should i have to stop i've ordered i've definitely done that if i've ordered like the other day i ordered like uh like one of those little uh one of those little birth control pill dispensers but of sewing needles like what is

Merlinthat it's like a little no we turn the little dial and the needles come out yeah i just needed

MaxIt's like a little bigger than a silver dollar. No, it's big. It's like a, I don't know what else to say. It's like the size of like a softball. Oh. In diameter. Like a pin cushion? No, but it holds the needle. Oh. No, it's like a clamshell, and it has the needles in it, and you turn the thing and the needles come out.

MerlinSorry, it's not important to the story. Clam, shell, needle, dispenser.

MaxNeedle dispenser. Needle dispenser.

MerlinClam, shell, needle dispenser. are one of my favorite got it by Voices songs.

MaxNo, the needles come out. Two, three, four. I'm telling you it exists. Anyway, it's very... But it came in a huge box just filled with paper and packing peanuts. And it weighed nothing and it's indestructible.

Speaker AI heard a plunger that came in a five foot box. It was... I mean, I know why...

MerlinI've read the articles. I know why they do this. Apparently, this turns down to... Like, their fulfillment is so sophisticated

Speaker Athat they know what size box will be next to other size boxes so they know that in some cases it makes it better for the larger shipping and packing

Merlinpallet thing if this kind of box is on there rather than that size right so have you guys heard this this is why they do this yeah because this is why this is not a mistake you you get an improbably large box because the robot knows that that's the size box that's going to be best

Speaker Asoft wow look at your needles you've never seen one of these things before it's not softball sized

MerlinWhat are you talking about?

Speaker AI got one of these. I got one of these from the Singer Corporation. In diameter.

AlexDo you know what size the packaging of birth control is? Have you ever seen a softball?

Speaker AWas this written by a softball? Kill all the papers. Look at me. I'm Dick Cheney. I hate paper.

Maxfollow up media ite uh it's uh long been public knowledge that mark zuckerberg the billionaire founder of facebook has hardcore new year's resolutions in 2009 he pledged to wear a tie to work every day that's hardcore in 2010 he pledged to learn mandarin in 2011 he pledged to only eat the flesh of animals he had slaughtered with his own hands.

MerlinCan you imagine him with those creepy eyes, what it looks like when he's slowly, ruefully destroying an animal with a laser?

MaxHe's not blinking, not blinking, just unbroken eye contact with you while he does it. We now have a firsthand account of Zuckerberg's bloodthirsty resolution. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was asked about his most memorable encounter with the Facebook chief. Quote, well, there was a year when he was only eating what he was killing, Dorsey replied, he made goat for me for dinner. He killed the goat. He kills it with a laser gun and then the knife, Dorsey continued. Then they send it to the butcher.

He gets lasers we don't even have access to yet. A laser gun, asked our befuddled Rolling Stone interviewer. Dorsey explained, I don't know, a stun gun. They stun it, then he knifed it. Then they send it to a butcher. Evidently in follow-up there's a rule or regulation that you can have six livestock on any lot of land. So he had six goats at the time. And I go, we're eating the goat you killed? He said, yeah. I said, have you eaten goat before? He's like, yeah, I love it. I'm like, what else are we having? Salad. I said, where's the goat? It's in the oven.

Then we wait about 30 minutes. He's like, I think it's done now. We go into the dining room.

Speaker ALet's enjoy our normal human dinner. Do you enjoy normal human dinner? I like food. Let's eat chess pieces like normal people. Have you seen Lasertron 5000? Ha ha, yes, I fast 22 hours a day. Thank you for asking. Is this salad made of peas? Ha ha, that's funny humor joke. Okay. Enjoy human goat meal.

MaxSo Dorsey says, Dorsey's telling the story. He goes, where's the goat? Zuckerberg, it's in the oven. Then we wait for about 30 minutes. He's like, I think it's done now. We go into the dining room. He puts the goat down. It was cold. That was memorable.

AlexI forgot about that part.

MaxSomebody reboots Zuckerberg. I don't know if it went back in the oven. I just ate my salad.

Speaker AOh, shit. Did you see his fasting tweet?

AlexNo, no. Jack? Jack's or Zuckerberg's?

MaxWell, Jack is into all of these weird Klingon pain rituals where he goes and meditates in a cave and someone whacks his balls with a stick. Here's the beauty part.

Speaker Aperhaps slightly like some other people i know he he says he says things that he thinks sound

Maxhuman in the interest of having a conversation jack is uh he's always posting about like you remember he was like meditating in a cave and he's like i just let the mosquitoes bite me so i could like feel what it would be like and then he photographed it and now he's like fasting and stuff do you think maybe he feels guilty about anything and that's why he needs to do all this self-flagellation and wear a hair shirt all the time i don't know it could be some psychology

Merlinhappening. January 26th. Been playing with fasting for some time. I do a 22-hour fast daily dinner only and recently did a three-day water fast. Biggest thing I noticed is how much time slows down. A day feels so much longer when not broken up by breakfast slash lunch slash dinner. Anyone else have this experience?

AlexYes, teenage girls who aren't billionaires and who are genuinely sad and sometimes harm themselves or have an eating disorder. Except they're You're not billionaires.

MerlinI've begun a new practice of making small cuts in my thigh. I do them in parallel rows that I find very orderly. Anyone else have this experience?

AlexI do read his tweets. He's such a teenage girl. Like, just like with his fucking quotes and like, as someone who's been a teenage girl, you do you, teenage girls.

MerlinJust setting up my MySpace. I want to put people in my circle. Anyone else have this experience? I'm told by my assistant that this is humorous. Oh, God. Holy shit. To be a fly on the wall for that dinner. Oh, my God. Do they have drinks? Do they talk? Is there a TV on in the background? Are they just looking at each other with those dead doll eyes? Can you imagine the two of them sitting around like, Oh, would you like to come over for a normal human meal tonight?

Tonight is bad because I'm going to become a jet plane in a video game. All right. Sounds good. Let's FaceTime for this. FaceTime.

AlexDid you guys try out the FaceTime thing?

MaxOh, I tried it.

AlexYeah, immediately.

MerlinI had it done to me, but you did it yourself with Matchy, right?

AlexOh, yeah, absolutely. It was incredibly creepy. And then I did it with my parents just to see what would happen. And yep, yep.

MerlinYou made a crime when you did that.

AlexDid you know that you made a crime? Oh, I did crime? Oh.

MerlinYou did crime. Did you know that?

AlexThat's a crime. No, no, I didn't.

MerlinI'm sorry. Is it really? I read it on Necktie Twitter. Oh, yeah. If you knowingly, that's the computer interrelationship act of 1992 or whatever. You did some kind of a crime, I think.

MaxHey, Merlin. Yes. Just think of any card in the deck. Okay. Don't say it into your microphone.

Speaker AThink about it, but don't tell you? Yeah, just think of any card in the deck.

MaxOkay? Yeah, don't tell me. It's turned off. It's turned off. It's turned off? Oh, okay. I haven't turned off. I can't do this trick then.

AlexOh.

Speaker AMr. Police, I want to report an assault.

MerlinDo we know? So let's stipulate. If you're a dingus like me and you have your services on, your Apple services, you know, you get stuff like your messages theoretically show up on all your devices. I have several iOS devices and they all had FaceTime on plus two computers. Do we know yet? Like which one is getting the audio or is it all of them? Like how does that work?

Speaker AYou see my question though? Like is my computer at work doing it?

MaxIs it only iOS?

Speaker AOh, I see.

MaxSo here's my understanding and I tested it a good amount. It affects all devices with FaceTime including your computer. but it's sending like six audio signals oh i see i understand what you're saying um that is a good question apple has some way how do it know right that's a good question apple has some way of determining which one to send the the notification they've gotten they've

Merlingotten a little better at that where it doesn't ring on everything so i think they probably know

Maxif you're using your computer to put it on your computer screen, if you have that on, if you don't, then do your phone. I think that's how they do it. I'm guessing.

MerlinThe only reason I ask is because that had occurred to me. It would seem sensible to me that if I were using the iPhone when the call was made, it's sensible to me that that's what it would show up on. Having said that, the problem with the hack, or the bug rather, is that it's irrespective of whether you have accepted the call. So if you're not using any of your devices, it seems to still work, right? How does it pick which one?

AlexThat's, oh, ooh, I don't like that. Yeah, yeah, I would, I thought it was only on iOS, but I guess I'm wrong and now I'm turning everything off.

MerlinBut if you were the kind of person that's, for example, let's just say hypothetically had an iPhone and two iPads and you weren't using any of them at the time, yeah, like that happens. but like for the sake of argument you were taking a shit and forgot your phone yeah which one you

Alexsee my question it's just what's an interesting question to me no i i do and i'm turning off if i was the person that had two ipads literally like in arm's reach right now i'm just turning off the ipads because i i don't know that's good that's a good hypothetical idea

Maxi mean from my i tested this pretty extensively and one thing i can tell you is like it does not work reliably it's it's it's kind of it's a bug right so it like kind of works sometimes it kind of works others I never got the video to work even though purportedly there was some way that if you declined the call to get the video I never I never was able to figure that out so I think it's like a I think it's like a spotty sometimes thing I think my guess is that having multiple devices probably further confuses it but yeah you should everyone should just have this off yeah I agree

AlexOh, yet another reason Tim Cook is making us buy products so that we don't spy on each other.

MerlinBad timing. It's a bummer. It's really, it really is a bummer. And like, you just got to wonder, even in the, how many, how long was it in the wild? Well, first of all, there's that story about the woman trying to report the bug to Apple and having a terrible time because they're like, go put it on radar, you dingus. And she couldn't get through it, anybody. That was an interesting story and sad. but uh yeah i mean let's even say that it was out in the wild did you see the tweet from the guy who

Maxwas like years ago as an independent developer i filed a bug on radar and then i started working for apple and i got assigned the bug that i filed and then i fixed the bug and and then i got a push notification to all of my devices that i still had my developer profile on saying can you verify this

Merlinfix oh my god that's so funny yeah the call's coming from inside the radar

Alexdig dug do we want to get into our challenge or is there any more breaking news um oh why did the atlantic was it the atlantic they put impeach on the cover is there some hubbub yeah right or am i i think i'm losing my mind well the case for the again like the issue there's been

Maxa lot of this there's two books right now about the case for impeachment and there's the atlantic thing and there's a lot of impeachment talk but like the issue is not that we don't have a reason to impeach the president we had a reason to impeach it would have happened already political it's political interest and will he was yeah he exactly he was we had a better we had as good or better reason to impeach donald trump almost from the first day he was in office than we did certainly bill clinton but probably nixon right and and um now we a million percent have him have him like

stone cold like like way more than nixon but the question is not whether we got him it's like is there political will to do anything about it like yeah he's he's guilty as shit it's just we're not going to do anything about it until we win elections and unfortunately i don't think i could be wrong about this but i don't think right now the sort of issue of like all this russia stuff and impeachment and all that like i don't think we can win elections with that. I don't think the American people, like if you say to the American people,

like what will get you out of bed to vote? And you're like, we're going to like impeach Trump and Russians and fake news and all this. I think they're going to go back to sleep. Like they just don't care. Like the people want to vote for like their family and health care and things like that. And, you know, minimum getting more money from their job and all, you know, all that good shit that nobody really cares about this Russia stuff. So we get into this vicious cycle where we're like, but he should be impeached. But, you know, we can't do it until we have the political will and we can't build the political will because people don't care about the issues we're talking about.

Anyway, it's negative 50.

AlexYeah. Yeah. I mean, speaking of fake news, every year this thing happens where it's like, Oh man, polar vortex, thunder, snow, and whether people get all, uh, see how politically I was not problematic, not weather men, whether people get really, really just all excited and hard about the weather. that's going to happen in Chicago. And I'm like, yeah, it's not going to be that bad. It can't be that bad because it never is. This is the first time I've been afraid of weather in Chicago. It's real bad.

MaxThere's ice on the inside of my double-paned windows. Same. Oh, my goodness. How's your cat? My house isn't cold.

AlexOh.

MerlinYour cat was cold and laying on a blanket, Alex.

AlexYeah, he's right next to me and behaving, so that's how you know it's cold. It's very strange.

MaxIs your apartment cold?

AlexOh, yeah. I mean, it's not literally freezing, but it's enough that, you know, we're all in one room, except for now, Matt, she's on the couch with a space heater.

MaxHi, Matt.

AlexHi, Matt.

MaxHi, Matt. Hi, Matt. Hi, Matt.

AlexHi.

MaxWait a minute. What's the temperature? What's the inside temperature?

Alex62.

MaxOh, my God. Really? Is the heat running?

AlexYeah.

MaxThat's so cold.

AlexIt's pretty cold. Do you have a space heater? Yeah, we got space heaters. We got all the plastic on the windows.

MerlinIt's kind of sexist to let your apartment get that cold.

AlexI know.

MerlinOh, that's a great point. What about the Polish ladies?

AlexThat's a great point, Merlin.

MaxThank you. You know, just because Maddie wears a full wool suit around the house every day.

Speaker AIt does not mean that he gets to set the thermostat to 62. Listen, mad man, dial it down. Some of us are freezing. I got a space heater under my space heater.

MaxI think we're rocking our normal. I mean, we normally have our house at like 68 to 70, and I think we're right in the zone.

MerlinI bet your house is very well insulated,

Maxand I bet you've got all your... Well, it's a gut rehab, so we put all this space station material, and there's science now. But your windows don't have a draft and stuff like that.

Speaker AYeah, yeah. Well, it's new windows. We basically live in a Gilligan's Island hut. You can hear the whistling. It's wet on the inside of the windows. It's like if we lived anywhere else, this house would be unsustainable.

MaxWhen they were working on the house and I saw the quote for windows, I was like, I lost my fucking mind. That was amazing. When we built the house, my whole perception of what's expensive and what's cheap to put in a house completely fucked on its head. It was amazing. There's all these luxuries that I've always wanted. Like I've always wanted a, like I always wanted a garbage disposal.

MerlinLike a heated bathroom floor, that kind of thing?

Speaker ASo I have a heated bathroom. No, I was at Matt Fraction's house and he had a heated bathroom floor. I was like, fuck, I want this. This is so nice. It's not hot, but it's warm. It's so nice.

MaxSo I have like this heated tile thing in my bathroom. I have a garbage disposal and in my kitchen sink I have an InstaHot. So it's like a little thing where you pull a lever and like boiling hot water comes out. And you can make like a cup of tea. Now, I've known that these things existed. And I had always assumed that like, and I've never had them in any apartment I've ever lived in. And I always assumed that like a garbage disposal was like a luxury for like a sultan. Like if I had to guess what that price tag was, I would have been like, that probably costs $30,000 to have a garbage disposal.

Speaker AOh, Mr. Temkin, if you have to ask, you cannot afford it.

MaxSo here's the thing.

Speaker AThat's the disposal dealer.

MaxThe heated tile in the bathroom was probably cost like, probably cost like a thousand bucks. Like in the scale of building a house, like very, very low cost. That's nothing. It cost me $200 anytime the plumber comes to the house. That's nothing. The InstaHot cost like hundreds of dollars. The garbage disposal, I think it was like $90. Like these things cost nothing. But you know what cost a ton of fucking money is windows. Windows costs a fortune. They cost so much money. That makes so much sense. I couldn't believe it was, it was tens of thousands of dollars of windows i could not believe it and i remember saying to the

guys i was like are we do i need to buy this much window like can't i get cheaper windows and they were like it's chicago get the nice windows and like damn am i glad like i i saw everyone post taping the plastic up on their windows and i and on twitter and i was like do i need to do that and then someone was like if you have like new windows you probably don't like if you have good windows

Merlinwe should do that in ohio in ohio we had plastic on our windows for like a third of the year it does it really does make a difference yeah maybe not that much but our but like you know on the big front window for sure i mean you could get it like a hardware store this is like window plastic and you put this up and i think we taped it is that what you were doing alex were you

Alextaping up your windows in that photo oh yeah the the it's gorgeous our windows why'd you only do the one side oh that that was the first first half because i wasn't i was at work so that was just matchy doing it but we ordered you know like the the supposedly good plastic that's like actual insulation a month ago from both home depot and it was back ordered on amazon and it just never got here so it's like well let's go to jewel and it's it's working all right like it's not like

Merlinfull-blown wind i noticed you use that blue tape i noticed you use that blue tape that they use to

Alextie up women when they're trafficked in mexico no it's it's oh no that's painter's tape why why Oh, no. No.

Speaker ABecause they don't come in through the ports.

AlexOh, no.

Speaker AThey drive tanks over the wall. Oh, no. I think you might be an abductor. Oh, no. Are you a trafficker?

AlexLook at all my foil blankets. There's nothing going on here.

Maxthe challenge there's not really that much to say the challenge this week i have some stuff to say the challenge this week was mine and it was uh a number of our friends uh like uh dan benjamin and Casey Liss have the

various patented bacon methods. And I always thought it would be fun to try them all. By patented we mean they read it somewhere and have a web page about it. Well there's a t-shirt too.

Speaker AI had this idea. I had this idea that just came to me and it's you cook food using the oven.

MaxYou know you guys make fun but I found vast differences between the different bacon recipes. And I have a few of my own to contribute.

AlexOh, no, please go on. I'm genuinely curious.

MerlinYeah, I want to hear this. I would like to interrogate what it is that we reckon makes the various differences in what we come out with, whether that's temperature, cold oven, foil, no foil, rack, no rack. I'd be interested to hear what you think makes a difference for the kind of bacon that you like.

MaxYes. Well, I had a couple of stipulations to put on this. The first thing is I think people's taste in bacon varies really, really wildly. And I'm a pretty – as long as it's like cooked – as long as whatever version of it is a good version of it, I like all kinds of bacon. I like like a soft rendered bacon. I like like a crisp bacon. I like a thick bacon. I like a real processed Oscar Mayer bacon.

I can get down with any of it. if it's a good version of what it is. And I also don't really have an aversion to like an oily bacon or anything like that, but I know some people feel really strongly. The other thing I want to say is like bacon is like any other protein, it benefits from having its temperature changed slowly. Protein does not like to have the temperature changed quickly. So it doesn't want to get hot quickly and it doesn't want to cool down quickly. And what happens is it seizes up and it gets tough and chewy. That's why you put it in a cold oven, huh?

I believe that's why you put it. I think that's why Dan's recipe has you put it in a cold oven. But anything that's protein, including eggs, I think people should be thinking about how to change the temperature gradually rather than quickly. And you'll...

MerlinMy go-to egg recipe, I think it's the New York Times recipe, is you poke holes. I actually have a bespoke thing from Amazon for poking a hole in an egg. Highly recommended. Do you have an egg poker? I got an egg poker. But the two things that most people, I think, well, I don't want to sound condescending, But two things that help a lot are putting them in the pan before you turn it on. So this method is the big thing. Okay, so starting from cold with these eggs. Also putting in, I think it's a half a teaspoon.

MaxWait, can I? I'm sorry. I truly don't understand this. Why are you poking holes in eggs?

MerlinBecause for one, they're easier to peel. You can make them easier to peel.

MaxYou're poking a hole in the egg and then you're making a hard-boiled egg? Well, yes.

MerlinOr medium or whatever. A boiled egg? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, but you poke the hole in. That lets the air get in, and it cooks more thoroughly and doesn't stick to the sides. But the other thing is—

MaxI have to say, I have never heard of that or tried that in my life. I'm very excited right now.

MerlinDo you use baking soda when you do the eggs?

MaxWhat the fuck?

MerlinSo what most people do is they boil a pot of water and drop in eggs for 15 minutes unpoked. That is a good recipe for a very unpleasant egg. You poke a hole in the fat end, the tiny pinhole, basically, at the end of the egg. You put them in cold water with, I think, don't do this without looking it up. I think it's half a teaspoon of baking soda per three cups of water starting from zero. Then you start it cooking on high. When it gets to a boil, you let it boil for one minute. Then you cover it, take it off the heat for 10 minutes, and then you instantly put them in ice water.

And that's a good-ass egg.

AlexOh, huh.

Merlinthe baking soda and the whole uh make it a make it a better egg you don't get those green yolks but anyway i only mentioned that because well first of all oh by the way this is my new don't get this website it's my website it's called egg method oh and you take an egg and you cook it and i got shirts and so uh i only mentioned that because that to me that supports what you said about being careful about what food how food wants to be heated or cooled right well it's like Gordon Ramsay says, you don't make hot boiling spaghetti sauce and then put it directly

into the fridge or it gets sour. There's things chemically or physically that happen with food and if you don't know the trick, you make some ugly

Maxass food. Right. Well, I have long been a proponent of the Dan Benjamin Bacon Method. Would you like to describe that? Well, let me just go to BaconMethod.com Um, okay. Um, so basically...

AlexThat's a good URL. Good on him.

MaxI like that there's a navigation bar on top with an option to donate.

MerlinAlso, you can get some affiliate links to pans. This is the ones he recommends.

MaxSo here's what I do. I follow this pretty much exactly. So I take up a metal baking sheet. I line it with tinfoil. I take bacon. I do not worry about the bacon touching because it's all going to come apart. and I will just put all the bacon neatly lined in the pan. I'll try not to make it touch, but it doesn't matter that much if it does.

MerlinI used two pans, two baking sheets.

MaxTwo baking sheets. Now, this is another piece of bacon philosophy from another podcast that I listen to. When you open up the package of bacon, make all the bacon.

MerlinMake all the bacon, but also when you take this, this is our Life Hacks episode. When you've got a pack of bacon, everybody knows it can be hard to separate. Before you open it, basically fold it until it's like a half circle and kind of do this. And that'll loosen up the bacon a little bit. It'll uncongeal it. It'll decongeal the bacon. Yeah. Then make all the bacon. Oh, I'll save these three strips

Speaker Ain case I want a treat later in the week.

MerlinFuck you.

Speaker AMake all the bacon. No, you make the cooked bacon and put it in the fridge. It's good. It's a quick snack. Now it's food.

MaxYeah. Yeah. Make all the bacon. So, okay, so you're going to take your baking sheet. Line it with tinfoil. Put the bacon on the tinfoil.

Speaker AAluminum foil.

MaxAluminum foil. Put the bacon on the aluminum foil. Now you're going to put the thing in the oven. The oven is cold at this point, okay? Close the oven. Set the oven to bake at 400 degrees. Set the timer for 20 minutes. 400 or 450? 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Hmm. And then you're going to set the timer for 20 minutes and check on it. I sometimes will do check on it in about 15 minutes, but usually 20 minutes is a little light, and then I usually let it go for another four or five minutes.

MerlinHuh. Okay.

MaxYep. And what's nice about that is the way that it comes up to temperature from zero to 400 with the bacon in there, all the fat renders. It gets so soft. It gets so crisp. And bacon really is better if it cooks in its own fat. All of these devices that strain the fat away are wrong. So once it comes out, you can dab the grease away like a fancy prince. Do you have these people who have a paper towel and they blot the grease off of their pizza, individual slice of pizza?

Yeah. Just live your life, man.

MerlinI think it all comes back to how you like it. I like my bacon to be – I have a test, which is if I pick up this slice by one end and hold it straight up 90 degrees in the air, what happens to the piece? I think there are some people who like it to be floppy. There are some people who like it to be 100% rigid. I like it to be just short of totally rigid. I don't mind rigid. I kind of like semi-burned bacon. But that's usually my test is if it could stand up on its own.

MaxWhen you're eating that and then you get to that little piece of the rendered fat and it's all soft, don't you get a little excited? Like that is a good bite.

MerlinThere's a lot of angles to this. Now, some people say you should use a baking rack or a bake. Is that what it's called? You get a sheet with the aluminum foil.

MaxI think it's called a rack. You put it on there. I've never tried this with a baking rack. I can't imagine it makes that much of a difference. I think it would be... Doesn't it get crispier cooking in the grease? Or am I getting that backwards? It does. It gets crispier but also more flavorful because the fat is where all the flavor is. You want it to cook in the... Trust me. Just trust me on this, everyone. Cook it in the fat. Just live your life.

MerlinCook it in the fat. Just do it. Stop dabbing your pizza like a fancy duchess. Just eat it.

MaxIf you have some situation where you're really monitoring the oil droplets on the pizza or the bacon, just don't eat pizza or bacon, okay? Just have cauliflower. Wow.

AlexNo, it's not like a health issue. I don't understand. Okay, if you have, you really want pizza and it just happens to be really poor quality pizza and it will taste better if, you know, the grease isn't liquefied on the top for texture and like you don't want it to like come in your mouth as you bite into it. Oh, phrasing. You know what I did? I meant it. It's gross. I don't know.

I'm a dabber.

MerlinThere was a thing a few years ago where they introduced this new thing, which was like a fat substitute called Olestra.

AlexOkay.

MerlinDo you remember Olestra? Turns out. No. Turns out. So here's the thing about Olestra. is it causes some unusual transit issues, at least it's something that in the business is called anal leakage. And so when you've enjoyed your Alestra chips with your, I'm cutting down on my fat because I'm healthy, you get something called anal leakage, which means without your butt meaning to or you meaning to, it produces a pizza grease-like excretion from your anus that you're not aware of or able to control.

What? That's called anal leakage. Yeah. And now ever since somebody described that as being the consistency of pizza grease, I think about pizza differently.

AlexOh, okay.

MerlinIt's called Olestra, Alex. You might want to look into it.

AlexMerlin, so far you've ruined pizza and my window tape.

MerlinYou're a millennium. You're ruining everything.

AlexYeah, we are.

Speaker AGolf clubs are dying because of millennials.

MaxI remember when those Olestra chips came out and it was just like, oh, man, these are so good. you can have as many as you want. You just sit there and have the whole bag of chips. I'm sitting on a towel. Yeah.

Speaker AJust eat them on the can. Drip, drip, drip. Don't be a duchess. Eat your chips.

MaxThat's the circle of life. You dumbass. Okay, so I have more bacon. So I stand by, I personally endorse the Dan Benjamin Bacon Method, available at baconmethod.com. I do think that's, I think for most home cooks, that is probably the best way you can possibly make bacon.

MerlinAt least pick up a baking sheet. I do 450 for about half an hour. and it's usually pretty good. But it depends on your oven. I think my oven might be a little cooler than I think it is.

MaxWell, you've got to get a third-party oven thermometer.

Speaker AI do, and then they get all black. They get all African-American

Merlinand I have to throw them out. They get all gunky. I hate that. I hate that.

MaxI hate what happens to them.

MerlinIt makes me sad.

MaxHuh. That sounds not normal. That's not happened to our oven thermometer. You think I got leakage in my oven? You got a sick house. I don't know. Something's going on. What? Just because the windows are wet? inside. What makes you think that's unhealthy? I think that's black mold. I think something's going on, Merlin. We don't say black anymore. Okay, so now, here's the deal. So, I also tried the Casey Liss bacon method, where you take

a plate, you put two paper towels down on a plate, you put the raw bacon on the paper towels, you put two more paper towels on top, you microwave it for two minutes, you flip the whole thing upside down the whole bacon you can also do this with paper plates on either side it makes easy to flip over okay there you go you flip it and then you do i believe he says 75 to 90 seconds what happened to me was a a wet mass of undercooked and yet burnt bacon that was stuck to the paper towel i could see a little like those candy dots from our make america make candy great

again episode oh no the little paper stuck to the bacon it was in i tried a little corner of it and And it was hard, and it was tough, and it was inedible. And I got to say, Casey, I don't even understand. Who needs bacon that much that you're like, I will eat that version of it? It's so bad, dude. It varies. It depends on your microwave. Don't do that. Wow, hot takes from Max today. It was so bad. Hot takes, cold weather. Just don't have bacon. Just eat something else. Oh, my goodness. Hammer coming down. If you're going to ruin it, just don't have it.

And I'll also say, like. Are you banning them? Casey, I'm banning you. Do not make bacon in this way. Do not make bacon in this way. You're banned from enjoying bacon. It would be better to have, like, literally nothing. Like, that is not, like, having no bacon is preferable to that microwave bacon.

AlexOh, my God.

MaxIt was so bad. You're going to get letters. And then I do think, like, I do think if you know what you're doing, which most people don't, just pan frying bacon in a cast iron pan is probably the best method. And you can get it better than the bacon.

Speaker AYou can't make that much, though. I want bigger scale.

MaxWell, that's why I see people crowd the pan. It's a whole fucking, it's a whole disaster. People do not know what they're doing, so I think most people are better off sticking with Dan Benjamin's bacon method. Or not eating bacon. Finally, do check, if you're a bacon enthusiast, if you're an advanced bacon user and you do know what you're doing and you're intrigued by my words of wisdom, please go on to Serious Eats and look up sous vide bacon from my friend Kenji. Sous vide bacon. Your friend Kenji. That is the best.

Speaker AIs there anybody you don't know? Sous vide bacon. Sous vide bacon. Oh, you've got to be kidding me. It is. So do you par cook it?

MerlinYou like par cook it and then finish it?

MaxYes. This is one of the best things I've ever had in my life.

MerlinOh my God. I'm going to do this. It's so good. I sous vide so much. Probably half of the food I make involves sous vide in some way or another. I like his method for sausage. We have a thing. Well, I'm going to get to sausage night.

Speaker AIt's not just the night on which the sausage is made.

MerlinThe dish is called Sausage Night. And I want to tell you about... I've been making it since I was a sophomore in college, and Sausage Night is very important.

AlexI remember Sausage Night in my sophomore year.

MerlinDa-da-da-da-da. Oh, dear.

Speaker AUnder the Skirt, an exploration by Alex Cox.

MaxI made a presentation to my parents about why I should... Merlin, here's the thing. You put the whole thing in the water. The whole thing. In the original plastic packaging. The whole what? The whole bacon.

Speaker AWhat the fuck does that mean? The Oscar Mayer package

Maxwith the easy open corner? You put the whole plastic package in the sous vide. It's in its... It's already in its... You put it in the subsequent sucky bag?

MerlinNo.

Speaker AYou put... You put... That doesn't make any sense. It would not tolerate 145 degrees for 8 to 48 hours. It can and it does.

AlexDr. Don, Dr. Don, please.

MaxPlease hit the red phone. You place the bacon still in its original plastic packaging. 48 hours.

AlexIt's up.

MaxYou put it at 145 degrees for up to 48 hours. Botulism boy.

Speaker Ait's gonna be a challenging breakfast in two days and here's the beauty of it

Maxwhen it comes out you barely cook it it just gets kissed by the heat

Speaker Aoh let's reawaken the pathogens good morning everybody who's ready to die daddy made bacon over the weekend You what? You did what?

MaxWhy don't you just cook it? I did cook it.

Speaker AI just didn't give it a kiss of finish.

MaxYou mock me, but wait till you try this.

Speaker AWhere are these black Nikes? Today, we all go to the comet from Daddy's Botulism Bacon. Wait till you try it. I love you. I love you. It has been in water for two days. You didn't even take it out of the package.

It's a method. I have a shirt. would anyone like to apologize to me before they die i just want to go to church did you

Alexguys make bacon or did you just have peanut butter for breakfast oh well so alex had peanut butter merlin what'd you do i made bacon well well here's the thing my my family well there's a lot of pork happening in in my family all the time and i've you have a whole barn about pork

Speaker ADon't you have a barn about pork?

AlexI've never made bacon. What? I've never made bacon. Oh, God.

Speaker AHere we go. This week, the role of Marco will be played by Alex. Bacon? Is that a food people eat?

AlexNo. I really like bacon, but my preference for bacon is much like my preference for toast. Very, very burnt. Super. Like, I want a perfectly parallel. Like, I want all of it on the plate perfectly parallel. and it's again the grease the grease no no no no alex has never eaten bacon before i love bacon

Merlinhow do you make bacon um i mean i uh bacon's fucking epic dude i am i like it most of the ways i don't i've made it in the microwave that well similar way many times uh i used to do the pan uh now i do i don't have a name for it but because it's cooking food it doesn't need a name but basically yeah i um i do the cold oven thing i do 450 uh i do it for about about half an hour it's not particularly interesting but i do like the results one problem is my kid's picky um she

only eats she doesn't like the fatty part of the bacon she's she's very repulsed by all fats and so she like peels off the little bacon steak part the little sliver of meat oh yeah and leaves the

Alexfatty pile yeah but no but i like it that way i make maddie pull it off it's so no it's slimy and it's it makes you very aware that you're eating an animal and i don't enjoy that you know

Merlinwhat's you know what's funny is um when i was a kid i think i liked a phrase my mom uses in restaurants to this day still baffles people one time somebody told her that she could order her breakfast to a certain level of done this and she continues to this day to say i would like the scrambled eggs over medium. And I would like the bacon medium, please. We got a pile of bacon. We made it six. That's what we're going to give you.

AlexWait, is that not a thing? I always say my eggs and bacon well done and toast crispy. Is that?

MerlinWell, I mean, like at our diner, there's a pile of bacon in a pan that they made earlier. And I imagine they could make it, they throw it on to heat it up or they could, I guess, cook it more. I don't know. No, but I used to like it more on what I would call the medium side. But if I did the Merlin 90 degree test, it would have flopped over like not all the way, but it would have been pretty like woogoo, woogoo, woogoo, like the pencil trick. And now today I do think I like – I mean one thing about – we're talking about fucking bacon. I hate myself. But the one thing that's interesting about bacon is it has different aspects to its taste and mouthfeel that can be vastly different.

Like a nearly burnt piece of bacon tastes very different from a lightly cooked piece of bacon. You know what I'm saying? Like it's almost a different food. You don't agree?

Alexno totally yeah and and there you know when i said i love bacon i'm gonna read that statement i love my 90 degree bacon it's it's perfect i don't enjoy i don't know like

Merlinyou're like you're like a straight up like a like a 13 year old boy's cock you're like

Alexright right up in the air damn it uh eve stand back can i borrow this catalog uh here's here's here's i have an actual question about like the process so cold where you are i'm loopy uh yeah we didn't sleep like at all last night because of the drafting this um but like i've seen bacon like curl upon itself what it what is happening there like tom joked

I don't know. Well, no, hold on. Isn't curly bacon?

MaxI think that happens when you make it in a pan and you cook it too hot and it starts to seize up. And it basically, like, the heat is so intense that it just starts warping.

AlexOh, ew.

MaxLike the proteins contract and then it gets rigid and it curls. Huh.

Speaker AIs that what causes little waves? like a classic bacon if you're gonna draw a piece of bacon where it's got the little wubba wubba like wavy pattern i don't know i mean who knows i know if if you do the bacon

Maxcorrect like if you do it correctly and you change the temperature slowly and you let it get really nice and crisp like the benjamin method or you do it in a cast iron pan correctly

Speaker Ait should be pretty flat okay that's mine's pretty flat i got flat bacon it should be pretty flat

Merlinyou know another good trick uh if you do the aluminum foil is um i don't know this is environmental. But when you, like, I don't have a disposal. You know, I'm not a fancy prince. But what I do is after, so I've turned off the oven, we're enjoying the bacon. I just let the pan sit with the aluminum foil in it for a little while. Do you put it in like a coffee can? Like, what do you do with bacon grease? My family used to save it. I don't know

Maxwhy. It might have been a religious thing. You know, I was just, I was just looking at the Dan Benjamin Bacon Method and he links to a device called the RSVP Stoneware 6 Cup Grease Keeper Black. It does support his important work at BaconMethod.com if I buy it through his affiliate membership. Please remember to like and subscribe.

What it is is a little ceramic doohickey that holds your grease and it has a strainer built right into it. I actually would use that. You would use the bacon grease in further future cooking.

MerlinOh, boy, you ever have some eggs cooked in the bacon grease? Oh, yeah, I like that. Alex, you're such a gamer for this challenge. Thank you for even considering it and listening to us talk.

MaxSo did you cook any bacon in your house?

AlexOh, not even. I went and ordered well-done bacon, medium-done bacon, and softly cooked bacon from the breakfast place by our house where they...

MaxYou went to a breakfast place and said, can I get a softly cooked bacon?

AlexYes. Make sure you kill yourself with a laser gun.

Speaker AIs it done yet? It's 30 minutes.

MerlinLook at the hooves. Do you agree that they are unusual? Yes. They were not affected by the laser shooting or stun gun that I did for making food I eat. That reminds me, now I can't eat for 22 hours. Do you meditate? Ha ha ha. Yes. I use a VPN to meditate. Then I analyze the data. I came once.

Speaker BThis is not for you.

Show notes

Transcript

117. The Good Plastic

Show notes

Transcript

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