122. Myke's Mic

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, find a use for your harness.

MerlinYou got a busy morning. I have indeed. So you went into church and you did Ash Wednesday.

Alexday yeah yeah it's the beginning of lent aka the four weeks of shame that i've experienced my entire life just the four do you have a thing no i may have intentionally worn my bangs down and worn my hat so oh it conveniently rubbed off oh no it's usually just get smudgy did you lose your whole cross well it's it's not so much that is i don't want to talk to every single person today like ah you're catholic and i have a bunch of meetings later so again the shame um well i just

Merlinused to do the whole, I used to forget and just do the whole you got some schmutz, buddy. And they're like, no, that's the Lord.

MaxI don't know anyone who practices almost any religion. And a couple years ago, Tommy had just come from doing the ash on the head thing and I saw him and I was like, dude, you go wash up. You have something on your face. Girl, wash your face. It wasn't a bit. Like, I genuinely... Oh, no. Absolutely. Go wash up that

MerlinJesus. Get it out of here. What are you doing in here? It's a secular office, bitch. I don't know. The Jews don't do a lot of, like, smudging. Really? You guys don't sage your house or something? You put blood over the door.

AlexYeah.

MerlinWhat else do you do? You got the salt and the bitter herbs, but no smudging. No smudging. No smudging. I have some magic tricks that involve smudging. So anyway, just out of curiosity, because I don't know. I've been to some Catholic weddings, and I think in some alternate universe, I'm still at several Catholic weddings. Yeah, I'm so sorry. My knees hurt. So is it a pretty drive around in the next window type operation, or do you have to go through a mass?

AlexYou do have to go through a mass, but it's very clear that, oh, it just so happens that the church is really busy today. I can't imagine why.

MerlinIt's actually the price to move.

AlexYeah. Everything must go. Yeah. So all of the masses today were delayed, but then they got through it real quickly. It's kind of at the DMV where they're just working real fast before it closes so their bosses don't get mad. So I don't know. I don't know if the cardinal comes in is like, did not meet the Chicago Ash quota. But yeah.

MerlinOh, yeah.

AlexBut no, you do. You have to do the kneeling.

MerlinDo you take communion too?

AlexYeah. Yeah.

MerlinThat's part of any mass, right?

AlexYes. Including the weddings, if you recall.

MerlinOh, yeah. They call you up to the front. Like, yeah. It's like AA. Yeah.

AlexAnd I love the confusion on people's faces. At this point, Catholic weddings are fun for me because there are so few practicing Catholics there. They're like, what has changed? What's going on? There's a lot of stuff, and it's like watching people at the gym for the first time. I really like it.

MerlinI see in room for another John Mulaney joke. They changed it. You got Fat Tuesday, and that's where you lose your ID and you go to the airport, and you get the beads.

AlexHold up, hold up. What?

MerlinSomebody on Twitter just said, planes in the New Orleans airport, they have a separate line for people who lost their ID at Mardi Gras.

AlexOh, makes sense. Checks out. That's so good.

MerlinI look at Twitter. And then are you prepared to discuss with us? I think the phrase is what you're giving up for Lent.

AlexOh.

MerlinAs an act of what? Penitence? You give up something you really like. You have to pick something. You're not allowed to cheat. You're not allowed to say homework.

AlexYes.

MerlinRight?

AlexNot allowed to say I'm going to stop being mean to my brother. Not allowed to say I'm going to stop not cleaning my room. There's no double negatives in there.

MerlinYou can't give up. Oh, you can't cross your fingers. Yep. Right? Behind your back. you're not allowed so you can't say like i'm giving up brussels sprouts because that would be

Alexthe lord knows yes you already don't eat yes yes uh yeah so i can't be like oh i'm giving up the carbs i like because we all know that that's it that's that's for me to not hate myself

Merlincompliment men i don't know

Alexoh no well well the new like trendy thing well by trendy i mean it's happened more in the last 10 years is is you try to add something during lent or or give up a bad behavior like it sort of goes with that so replace a bad behavior with a good right so i'm just gonna not try to skip uh seeing my psychiatrist every week because i know that that it's it is for me but also i know i treat other people poorly if i uh in my personal life if i don't go and it's just you know i don't

want like my kidneys to fail from all the lamictal so yeah i'm just gonna stop doing that because i do the oh i'm staying late at work but i don't actually need to stay late at work i'm just watching max do magic tricks of my own volition right right let's see how long this lasts did i tell you the lamictal anecdote uh i've heard many i don't know is this a new one so i'm back to

Merlinvisiting with a certain professional in my life and we talked about the lamictal days title. And I was saying, yeah, I said, oh man, of all the things you ever said to me, the one thing I remember the most was that, look, I'm a libertarian. I'm somewhat skeptical about the Kennedy assassination, but I'm going to say words to you now that you need to hear very carefully. I'm going to tell you to break this Lamictal into a very, very tiny piece and take that for a few days. You went through the same thing, right? Oh, yeah. Like, this is the ultimate ramp up because there is a chance, there's a black box

warning on here, that you may get A deadly rash. The rash. The rash. So, two things, because it's always two things with me. He had done the ramp up with a person that he was professionally.

And, number one. And, number two, he ran into said person in public totally randomly. And the person had a rash. They explored it further and her back was covered with lamictal rash.

AlexOh, my.

MerlinThat's genuinely scary. Can you even imagine? this is not like chicken pox or poison oak this is a rash that you get that can kill you yeah like not not the fun like not the kind you get from rubbing yourself or wearing a swimsuit for

Alextoo long no it's it's not like a nice xanax overdose no there's no there's no rash and i don't care

MerlinOkay, hey! Start the show! Start the show!

AlexMax is here. Hey, Max! You look like you're handling something. Do we need to... No, no. Okay.

MerlinI think it could be an effect. Oh, is this already an effect?

AlexOh.

Speaker AOh, my God.

AlexYou're supposed to ask. Well, whenever cables appear on my desk now, I'm like, okay. These either are going to be put away or they're a magic trick. And when I put them away, they're going to start. They're going to set the AV closet on fire.

MerlinDoes he like pull them out of his sleeve and they just keep going? Zoom, zoom, zoom.

AlexOh, that would actually be very good. Max actually looks very nice today.

MerlinWhat's going on? You got an appearance in court? What's happening?

AlexYeah, I don't know.

MerlinI got a haircut yesterday.

AlexOh.

MerlinOh, nice.

AlexI'm sorry. I didn't notice.

MerlinMy hair is amazing right now.

AlexIt is. Okay. This is not going to. How do you live with that? Do you not have? Okay. It's not, no, not on appearance, but do you just not mind having a lot of hair or I don't know?

MerlinI'm really glad you've asked me this. I think my last haircut was in May and it doesn't grow as fast as it used to, but I'm getting the cool curls in the back and it's floopy. And if I let it air dry and I walk around, I basically get some really sweet, like 70s hair. It's very, very floopy right now. As you saw in that picture, who'd you say I look like Max? Nick Nolte?

MaxYeah, I thought you had that kind of Nick Nolte mugshot vibe going on in that photo.

MerlinYeah, in the morning when I get up and I just want to do some writing and be left alone, I comb it straight back and I look like someone who's recently beaten a meth rap. No, I made a decision. I'm going to have, because I don't have that much longer on the planet. I'm going to have long hair one more time. And I know it's not going to look good because I already look like a catcher's mitt. but like I figure I'm going to be that guy. I'm going to be the old guy with the long hair and I'm probably going to get some colorful glasses.

AlexOh.

MerlinYeah. I'm going to really lean into it. I need new glasses. My glasses broke like three years ago. I've been putting off getting new ones. So I'm going to try and get a whole look. I got a lot. Alex, I have so much to tell you. I have so much going on right now. You have no idea how much is going on.

AlexI feel like I'm talking to someone, like I'm getting drinks with someone from high school right now. I'm very, very excited.

MerlinYou're seeing a little bird coming out of its little egg. It's very exciting.

AlexI got a question for both of you. Sometimes you wear glasses. Sometimes you don't. How do you go years without wearing glasses?

MaxMax? Well, I don't really – I don't super need glasses, but I – Do you wear them for distance? Yeah, for distance. So, like, if I go to see a movie, how do I put it? Like, I can follow the movie. I can like, I know everything that's going on. But if I wear glasses, I'm like, holy shit, there's a lot of detail. It's so different. Yeah.

MerlinIt's the difference between SD and 4K, basically. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Well, several years ago, we had had a very, very, very, very, very long flight to go visit our relatives on the East Coast.

Speaker AThis is very short, I promise.

MerlinAnd we landed at Logan. And now we've got to wait for a bus to get us to the place with the thing. And it's like nine o'clock. And my poor daughter's exhausted. She was younger, obviously, at the time, because that's how time works. and I wanted to amuse her so we were horsing around and I was riding on the rolly suitcase with her on my back and I ate it I ate it outside Logan waiting for a bus I ate it she was fine but I really ate it my shoulder still hurts from how hard I ate it and my glasses the arm broke off

so I super glued it back on I super glued it back on for like two years and then finally it broke completely off so now I only wear them in a dark movie theater or at home to watch something on TV. I watched Michael Jackson with them on last night. And my daughter looks at me and she's like, you look so insane right now. Because my glasses have one arm and they go look at it.

AlexOh, no. And I look, I'll send you a photo.

MerlinI look completely insane. It's such a pain. You go and I shouldn't get them from the one place that's famous because they maybe don't do the right index frame right or the lenses. and I don't know. Now, do you wear contacts, Alex? No, no, no, no. Do you have flawless vision?

AlexNo, I wear glasses. Oh, wait, wait, you wear glasses, don't you? Yeah, yeah. I can't imagine a time. Well, there was that thing where I was really excited because I always thought my face would look better with glasses. But then in sixth grade, there was glasses and braces at the same time. I'm like, oh, this is a mistake. However.

MerlinWhat kind of glasses? Do you have like Peggy Hill glasses? Were the glasses of the time?

AlexI don't know what that means.

MerlinBut I'm but yeah, girls from my girls from my vintage in high school in particular, if you look at pictures of girls, they all look like your mom's friend and they're all wearing like a spree clothes. And they've got the Peggy Hill glasses with the little where the arm kind of goes down and it might have a puppy dog or their initials on the lens. It's a very dated look.

AlexNo, no. luckily I I kind of had the same glasses for the past 10 years and it's or how I'm old am I one oh the past 15 years good lord are you 28 I am let's not talk about it um but but uh no like the the other day uh I I just could not find my glasses and it's like the thing where you're like yep this is you really recognize your own mortality and brokenness as a human because I don't know what to do.

It was great because I had an excuse to not go out and hang out with friends and they could be like, oh, oh, oh, Alex. And then I found my glasses 15 minutes later. But yeah, I don't have the privilege. You got to check that privilege, guys. Thank you. Yeah.

MaxWhere do you get your glasses?

AlexEither, well, I was a LensCrafters person for a while. Now I'm all in a- Oh my God, I love you so much.

MerlinYou get your haircuts at like Supercuts and Fantastic Sam's and you go to like LensCrafters for glasses?

AlexOkay.

MerlinOne, yes, I do go to Supercuts.

AlexTwo, no. I know. Let's crap. Lenscrafters is...

MerlinYou just order the angry swap meet lady look?

AlexNo, it's so... Make it look like her. No, no, I'm a millennial who goes to Warby Parker because we have two Warby Parker stores in the city of Chicago now. I don't know how that works.

MerlinWe bought the kind of couch that they have there. You guys ready to start the show? Woo! Woo!

AlexMax, do you have news items? Because I haven't been following the news. I saw a Saturday Night Live sketch yesterday because I just want to see the John Mulaney bit. And I don't know what's happening with Cohen.

MaxWith Cohen? Oh, right. We were going to talk about it this week. I mean, was it newsworthy? I mean, is it funny? Is it newsworthy? That was a week ago?

AlexYeah, I truly don't know. Oh, my God.

MerlinOh, it was big. Last week was huge. There were two big – well, there was the Korea thing. But there was – there was the Cohen testimony, which I watched all of. And then there was our big wet president on Saturday night, which was a hell of a speech. Those were two amazing things. I'm just up to the point in Chapo where they've just walked in. Laura Loomer just got thrown out, and they're walking in to hear the president. Very good episode this week. They went to CPAC. And it's – have you listened, Max? Oh, yeah. It's really good. That's really – and was it Matt?

Matt was tripping? Yeah, he dropped acid right when they went in. Oh, gosh. But Cohen, man, what do you say? Everybody's talked about it already. But we said not that we weren't going to talk about it. Is this boring to talk about? It's kind of boring. He brought up a lot of stuff. There's a lot of Allen Weisselberg content that everybody is suddenly very interested in. They're interested in the insurance. AOC just dunked. She was so good. Her questioning was so good. And yeah, the big web president's got more people looking at his stuff now for shizzle.

Eighty one people sent letters requesting documents. Adam Schiff's been busy with the copy machine this week. It's crazy times.

AlexI kind of am still waiting for the next thing the Republicans will drop. Like, oh, look at what AOC did right now. And it's going to be like she bought a large bottle of alcohol on her 21st birthday. And be like, see, she was just waiting for a debauchery.

MerlinShe rode in a car. Now the big one now is that her chief of staff, something something, money, investment, company he owns. Do you know anything about that, Max?

MaxI don't have all the details. I probably shouldn't say anything about this because I haven't read. I really don't know the whole story. But it seems like it's probably nothing. It seems like it's probably the same kind of – every campaign takes in money and they spend money. And there's some, you know, even if you're really well-intentioned, there's some parts of it that are really opaque and weird. And because it's a small world and very small relationships of people and small networks of people, like especially among like ideologically aligned people in a local race, there's going to be self-dealing.

And people like, you know, I've been on campaigns where I've like hired my own company to do consulting because my company was the only company that could do it or could do it the cheapest or had some other competitive advantage. So without knowing all the details, it's hard for me to tell if it just looks bad or if it actually is bad. But, you know, the whole role – but then also if you want to take a step back, like why should campaigns have to raise any money? Like it's all it's all seedy. Like and AOC had had a very small donation, people powered campaign. She didn't have any huge industries pouring money into her race. And if even you can look at her books and say, well, this is this is we're a little uncomfortable with this.

then probably we should have some sort of public financing or something dramatic out to get the money out of the races.

MerlinSometimes you can do a quick 30-second vet of a story that's out based on how much it's been picked up or – what's the word? Confirm. Confirm it. Yeah, so I search for AOC chief of staff, and the links I see are Washington Examiner, Fox News, something called Hot Air, and themindunleashed.com are the top stories for this.

MaxWell, I don't know. It's possible. I mean, slush fund, one million dollar slush fund by diverting campaign cash. I've worked for campaigns where people went to jail for campaign finance violations. I obviously when I was there, I didn't know anything about it or I would have. I don't know, but I guess I would have said something or I would have quit or I don't know what I would have done. But it's not always I just want to say, like, the way that money corrupts people in politics, there's not usually like a like a baron with a top hat who's like twirling his mustache and laughing. Like it all seems above board, right?

There's like – it's like business people going out to dinner and shaking each other's hands. And I don't know. Maybe AOC or maybe her campaign manager was doing that and there was some impropriety. My guess is that it's probably the same level of impropriety that almost every congressional race and every federal campaign engages in. And she's just under a microscope and she's a Latina woman so she got caught for it. But you're right. I saw that – so I saw everyone talking about it from the Washington Examiner and I sort of skimmed it. But I was like, I don't really trust the Washington Examiner.

So I would love to.

MerlinWe're the party that has shame. So we're the ones who, you know. Right. It's a different set of rules.

MaxYep. Yeah. Yeah. But also not thrilled with AOC this week for not standing by Representative Ilhan Omar. That's pretty. Yeah. What was that? I'm pretty depressed about that. Why is it a real blanket party on that lady? Man.

AlexIs she like standing, sticking to her guns with this?

MaxIt's who?

AlexAOC.

MaxAOC. She's sort of being noncommittal. So she's saying like, oh, well, I think it's great to have the opportunity for dialogue. But like what you would hope to get is a full-throated defense of someone who's making a case for like a humanitarian foreign policy.

MerlinAnd there's just according to political Twitter, which I very rarely look at. According to political Twitter, there's a lot of drama today in the discussion of this. And Nancy Pelosi got real mad.

MaxWell, they're going to censure her on the floor of the house today. Don't talk for talking about Israel. I'll tell you, as a Jewish person in America right now, it is really crazy making because you have Ilhan Omar, who's very progressive and says, hey, it's really fucked up that the Israel lobby gives so much money to everyone in Congress so that we can't even talk about the human rights abuses happening in Israel. and you know I'm Jewish and I care about the Jewish people and Jewish

history but like I don't care about Israel I mean why would I have any stake in like defending human rights atrocities in Israel like I'm an American like I don't care about Israel I mean I don't get it maybe that's like my grandparents generation because they were involved in the creation of the state or whatever but then the whole ever fucking media outlet and politics Twitter and everyone goes insane and they go, oh, she's anti-Semitic for bringing that up and it's coded anti-Semitism and there's all these dumb takes and all these Jewish publications

that everyone is posting about or whatever. And I'm looking out at the world and I'm like, do you people have any fucking common sense? If there's the two sides here, of the two sides, which side do you think wants to kill the Jews?

AlexRight, it seems bonkers.

MaxAre you crazy? You think the right wing, the Trump people and the alt-right who marched around with tiki churches saying the Jews will not replace us. You think they're the woke people defending you from anti-Semitism and they're going to ring the alarm bells on the real anti-Semitism, which is people who care about human rights?

MerlinYeah, yeah. And like there's just this, I guess, somewhat understandable thing where we have a difficulty separating people and persons from states and institutions. So, I mean, just because I'm not a big fan of the Vatican doesn't mean I'm going to hate Alex. Just because I'm against some of the horrible things that have happened in that particular state in the Mideast doesn't mean I hate Jewish people. And then, you know, but it's so, oh, what's the word I'm looking for? It's just, it's such bad faith.

It's just, you know, such bad faith. And again, we're back to the shame problem. Right. I'm making this sad. I don't want this to be sad. I want this to be a happy occasion. We got harnessed this week, you guys. Big stuff.

AlexIt's the beginning of Lent. Having any sort of happiness is against the rule.

MerlinI feel like I should do something. I feel like I should. Well, yeah, and here's the other thing, Max. So do you know the deal about Christians and Israel? Do you know the deal?

MaxThat Israel needs to exist so that the Christians can get raptured and the four horsemen can come?

MerlinYeah, Israel's basically like our rich friend. Like we're like, for the Christians, it's like we need. This is why all the TV evangelists for years and all the Jerry Fallow people, everybody's had such a heart on for Israel for years because we need the temple to be there so Jesus knows where to go.

MaxYou don't want to own Israel. You want a friend who owns an Israel. Yeah, it's like a pickup truck. Exactly. Right. Well, the happiest two days of an Israel owner's life are when they buy the Israel and when they get rid of the Israel. It's the BMW of countries.

Speaker AWe have fun.

MaxI was going through the fortune cookies that we wrote for PAX like six years ago.

MerlinDo you remember when you were around when we did that, Alex? Yeah.

MaxThe murder box? Yep. We built this crazy contraption on the show floor at PAX, this gaming conference in Seattle. This huge cube. And it was like launching our bigger, blacker box, like carrying case. And it was very funny. People would wait in line for an hour and they'd come in. And then when you come in, it was just this empty box for the cards on a rotating pedestal with like a spotlight on it and a single red rose and a classical cellist just playing music.

And then you exited through the gift store and you could buy the box. And it was very funny. And we built this huge cube because we had to conceal what you were coming in to see and build up excitement for it. And the cube was so ill-fated. There were so many problems with it. But one of them was we wanted it to be a cube. We wanted it to actually be a cube. And in order for, and you know, obviously that means it has to be as tall as the bass is big. And in order to get people in and the cellist and the lights and everything, it had to have quite a wide floor area, which meant it had to be very tall.

Oh my God. And I wasn't willing to sort of sacrifice the height. So it was squat because I want, I don't know why it was just, I thought it would be really striking if it was a cube. And it was, it looked fucking awesome. But Penny Arcade has a rule that they were like, you can't make your booth over a certain height. And we were over that height. So we asked someone, we were like, how do we make our booth over that height? Is there any way? And they said, contact the convention center and they will issue you a variance approval and you can build as tall as you want. And I was like, cool. So we contacted the convention center and we're like, can we make our booth this tall?

And we sent them the plans and they determined it was structurally sound and they said, go for it. You can be as tall as you want. So we build this huge cube out of plastic sort of panels and like a wooden structure, I think. And how do I describe this? So it's in an atrium. And what happens is you're coming from a lower height room into a much higher height room. And our box is about six feet into the lower height room. So imagine the box, but it has like an L cut out of the corner. And it's kind of wedged into where the ceiling goes up.

Does that make any sense? I think so. It like wraps around. The ceiling goes up and then it sort of wraps around the ceiling.

MerlinOh, so it's not like a convention center with like, it's like the airplane hanger height.

MaxIt is the airplane hanger, but we're like right on the lip of the hanger. So the box is almost like wedged under it.

MerlinYou're like on sort of the edge on the perimeter?

MaxExactly. Oh, my God. This is such an engineering problem, Max. It was fucking crazy. So then the other funny thing that happened was where they built the box around the lip. On that lip, there was two things. First of all, there was the air conditioning duct for the entire airplane hangar. So we, like a Batman villain, we stole all the air conditioning from the entire convention center. And our booth, everyone had to wear like a winter coat because it was like 30 degrees in our booth. And then everyone else in the convention center was just sweating.

It was so hot.

AlexWalking in, you see all the Kurtz graders with your sweaters.

MaxSet up the cube. We built like a walk-in refrigerator. Like it was insane. And then the other thing was, I can't remember the game now, which is unfortunate. But there was like some huge AAA video game that was coming out and they had bought a banner for like $10,000 that went on the lip of that hanger. And our booth just neatly ensconced their banner. So it was up, but it was inside of our booth.

MerlinYou are a 1940s Batman villain called the Cubist. The Cubist.

MaxWhy was I – oh, right. I'm going to obscure your banner with my cube. anyway, I remember why I was telling the story. We were wearing onions on our belt. This was the style at the time. And so, okay, so now we have people waiting inside to get into the, waiting in a line to get in the cube for like an hour and a half. And they're all lined up. And we were like, we better come up with, this was like leading up to the convention. We were like, people are going to be waiting in line. We better come up with something for them to do. So we made all these giveaways, like little card packs. And then we made fortune cookies and we wrote sort of funny fortunes and we had them all custom made. So when you open it up, you got a funny fortune.

and I just found I was going through the Google Doc and I found them and they're very funny. Here are the fortunes that made it in. Also, I should probably say at the outset that we only did this once and some people got upset and then we never did it again. You're standing in line, you get a fortune cookie, you open it up, you crumble the cookie and there's a little paper slip and you go to read the slip and it says, war is never the solution unless you want other people's land and resources. When Morgan Freeman dies, you will remember this cookie.

Oh my god.

AlexI've never heard that one.

Max18,000 children starve to death every day. They would have loved this cookie. Remember, you never lose anything by asking for help, except your dignity and the respect of your peers.

You're perfect just the way you are. Maybe a nose job. This is one of my favorites.

AlexThese hold up so well.

MaxThey're very funny. This is one of my favorites. I'm you from 14 years in the future. I've risked everything to send you this message Don't You are smart enough To recognize how shitty the world is But not smart enough to do anything about it Oh no it's funny because it's true Life hack if you give up on your dreams You can just play video games all day Here's the one we got in trouble for You have to warn them before it's too late They're going to fly two planes into the World Trade Center

Speaker AOh no

MaxToday you will meet the love of your life Or maybe not, I'm just a cookie You will start a shitty podcast That one came true And then here was the one that was reminding me Of our previous conversation So this was another one I think people might have gotten mad at us for Pro tip, if you ever create a special country Just for the Jews Don't forget to put it far away from people who hate the Jews

MerlinYou don't keep the dog food next to the dog's bowl.

MaxIt's a Jew rich environment. You should pursue your dreams unless you don't have what it takes, in which case don't bother. Oof. This one is so funny. After a stingray barb fatally pierces your chest, you'll be fondly remembered by your millions of fans. Oh, no. This is an amazing one. Congratulations. You've just received the one millionth fortune. Click here to claim your prize. Still thinking about the hungry child

AlexNo, Morgan Freeman

MaxFun fact, trees are just really, really old people Your wildest dreams will come true Assuming those dreams are about the extinction of honeybees Fun fact, homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord.

AlexOh, no. Someone, someone, I remember someone asking me about that and was like, are you okay? And I'm like, yes.

MerlinAlex has probably never heard that before.

AlexI know, I'm shocked. Shocked, I say.

MaxThe Catholics are famously cool to the gays.

AlexShocked. Who said that? What?

MaxShow me, show me the law. Who has the receipts on this? There are over 400,000 species of beetle. Why can't you give your mother a call?

AlexI don't remember why we're doing this, but I'm glad it's happening.

MaxNow I'm just delighted. These make me laugh. The notion of some random person getting one of these is so funny to me.

AlexIt's very, very good.

MaxLife hack. Ejaculate inside a woman to create a new person. Eventually they'll become a tree. Your smile is the sun emerging from the clouds. Oh, wait, never mind. I thought you were someone else. Wrong window.

AlexMerlin, do you ever go back and look at your own work and you're like, hey, good on me. And I'm not being like inbox zero guy. I'm thinking about like your old tweets. They're just real, real.

MerlinOh, yes.

AlexMan, am I backhand compliment? Man, I used to love what your old tweets were.

MerlinI noticed a couple things. There's always two things with me. One thing I noticed is like, so I follow a Tumblr that shows Favard from I think 10 years ago today. Wow. It's really fun. God, all these people were so fucking funny. Sween, Bad Banana. It got to be. The thing was, though, I didn't see myself on this for the last few weeks because I remember taking a very long and public break of like, meh.

I remember at the time I was like, meh, better. I did have some good ones. When your kid asks what you made for the internet, you can show off all those times you just said, meh, assuming you eventually have sex.

America gets interesting whenever powerful people can't agree on what they want you to fear.

MaxHere's a sandwich one from this day in Favard. His are good. They're so low key. I made 2008 the year of the paperless office and intended to declare 2009 the year of the digital bathroom.

MerlinYou know, there were some goodies in here. Look at that. Oh, there's Ryan Bateman. He's still around. I still follow a lot of these people on the internet.

AlexWhatever happened to Fire... Fire... The Fireland? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MerlinHe's like a famous copywriter now. I think... Does he work at Slack? He's... He's... I mean, off the record... Not off the record. You can probably go look it up. I went to a movie with him in Sandwich one time, and he was like, yeah, I've been selling scripts for years. They never make them, but... Wow. No, I think he's a writer McWriter boy.

MaxAm I wrong about this? Hasn't he written a bunch of sandwich videos and I think he's worked for a bunch of startups to write funny copy for them?

MerlinI don't know. Am I thinking of somewhere else? I've lost track of so many people. A lot of these people, you just don't see them much anymore because of the muting, I guess. I don't know. Maybe sandwich will tell us. Somebody muted most of the accounts on me.

Somebody's going to realize that I mute everything I post within 10 minutes.

Speaker Asomeday you ever wonder why i'm so relaxed um

Alexi thought it was the rash just slowly creeping up your back oh god it's not even a good rash

Merlinuh that was a that was a fun time that was especially like in the like the year before

Maxthat it was a very fun time we went to so what did we we went to we saw ria butcher very funny good show on tour right now if you get a chance to see ria in your city i haven't heard any of

Alexthose jokes before. Have you, Alex? No, I, it felt so, it felt like they were trying out a bunch of new material, but in the best way, like knew that this was the audience for it. And I loved it.

MerlinI listened to their stuff on Spotify as well. Oh, the older stuff? Well, like there's the one

Alexfrom a couple, a couple, three years ago. Right? I, oh my, wait a minute. No, that can't be it.

MerlinThat must be it. Oh, my goodness.

AlexThe pre-married days.

MerlinI don't know what to call it. Single life?

AlexSingle life. There we go. Oh, man.

MerlinComing out and board games. Oh, yeah. Jodie Foster in public bathrooms. Yeah. I'll put in show notes.

MaxThey did like maybe hour and a half, which was a long set and just crushed. It was everything worked. It was very loose, very, very really funny, like really versatile material. I thought it was just like a really, really, really strong stand-up performance. And if you can see Rhea on tour, go do that. You'll be happy. And then what else? And then we hung out with Mike Hurley all day on Sunday. And Mike showed us. You're kidding.

MerlinWhat the hell? What's he doing in Chicago?

MaxSo Mike came in for a live podcast.

AlexHe came in. He was supporting Stephen Hackett and David Sparks. They did their first live Mac power users since.

MerlinOh, exciting.

AlexYeah. I like that. Since the one that was at Macworld and they didn't record it. Well, not them. The shitty AV guy didn't record it. And that was the one with Rob Corddry. And I'll never experience it. Hmm, sad. Oh, man. But I was record boy. So I.

MaxI wonder what notes app Rob Corddry uses. I mean, we'll never know. Oh, no. I thought he liked OmniFocus. Like tears in the rain.

AlexOh, boy.

MaxI like that guy.

AlexThat guy's all right. We hung out with Mike and took him to a Bernie Sanders rally.

MaxWell, so we were going to go out to a diner and get breakfast. And then I had a delivery person come into the house. And I was just like, do you guys just want to come over? And we'll have coffee here. And so everyone came over to my place. And then we made breakfast. And we were hanging out. And then Mike was showing us audio editing tricks. And Alex and I were enraptured. And it was so much fun. I bet he's really fast Mike has some workflow stuff that he was showing us with Adobe Audition that was fucking blowing my mind

and it will and I spent almost $2,000 on audio equipment on B&H but that aside he Marco'd me real bad he Marco'd me so bad

AlexMarco's a plague on the community

Maxwe went and kind of fucked around in my little basement studio and he showed us Adobe Audition stuff and that was amazing and Alex and I were I thought I was I was like this is one of the coolest things that's ever happened to me is like Mike Hurley like came to my house and like poked around in my audio cables and like told me how to podcast better you know that's so it's like watching somebody use VI I remember when the first time I saw somebody

Merlinuse VI in person I was like what are you doing what like like what you have the same text that I have and you can do that and just like and just like madness how do you know to jump 15 lines and three characters what did you just do i love it's just it's watching somebody use vim in person is mind boggling you're so right and it's i feel like it's the same with editing stuff where it's like i don't know how to do any of this stuff like i i grab and i drag and i drag and i got no workflows and i'm clicking i'm dragging i'm clicking and i'm moving and i'm oh god looking looking down your reading glasses

seems a little loud there but i don't think i can change that that's part of what we got on the original tape now do you mean i click on the little apple this reminds me of my mom when she would call me in tears and she would say i i can't get my

Maxfirefox and that meant her internet when i i taught my i taught my grandfather in his late 80s how to use the computer and he was interested in sort of course by using email to correspond with his war buddies and look up the B-24 Liberator on Google. Curse and deaths of Japanese. And he developed his own computer tricks. And one of them I thought will always stay with me,

which is so he made his background image a kind of stretched out digital photo of him and his wife. And he's wearing like a polo shirt. and every time he would use the computer, when he was done, he would X out of all of the applications and then he would take the cursor and he would position it over the top button on his polo shirt.

Speaker AOh my God.

MaxAnd then he would close the computer and I was- And he always knew where his cursor was? And then when he started the computer up, he was like, well, I'm putting the cursor away so I can find it next time.

MerlinThat's so cute. Oh my God.

MaxHas that literally ever occurred to you to do?

AlexNo.

MaxPutting the cursor away?

AlexNo, but I like it.

MerlinJohn Siracusa. And every Google Doc creates an official cursor resting area at the top. Where you're supposed to put your cursor when you're done.

AlexHave you ever heard of this? It's so good. It's good.

MerlinBecause of course he does.

MaxOh my. What does it look like? Oh my God.

MerlinI'm sending it to you. I'm getting it right now.

MaxOh my God. Ah.

MerlinThat's not that weird. Don't change the doc. Don't change the doc. I got it that way. I got it the way I like it. I took out all your foos. Oh, my brain. It's just become a regular bit on Reconcilable Differences where I watch him edit my work in real time.

That's not really a thing. That's already covered if you put it in the right area. If you got the taxonomy, you don't need to worry about that. Put your cursor back. I love that. I love that. But, you know, it's that funny combination. Yeah, I actually got it at a really good time. There you go. I do love that combination of like we were watching and you're like, oh, my God, please stop using menus for everything. Learn the key commands. But then you'll see some like brilliant piece of like, oh, you just solved a problem that I didn't even know was a problem. Official, official curse arresting area.

You can tell he's active because. Welcome to my world. Anybody want to sub for me some week?

Your clocks are wrong. Your clocks are wrong. You need to reset your NTP server. I wasn't late.

MaxOh, boy. Oh my god. So anyway, we were hanging out in my basement. Yeah, my curly, my curly. I was doing magic tricks. Mike was showing us audio editing stuff. You got a regular Andy Warhol's factory going on there.

It was fun.

MerlinIt wasn't... Alex, it was backing up here. It was very fun, right? No, no, no.

AlexIt was very good.

MerlinDouble clicks are playing in the background.

AlexOh, fuck you. It was very...

MaxIt was very fun and normal. Yes. Right?

AlexIt was. It was. You're making it weird.

MaxIt was normal, but now you're getting to the not normal part.

AlexSo go on.

MaxWell, I had to go. So I knew all these people who were like running the Bernie rally in Chicago. It was like his launch event. His second rally was at Navy Pier in Chicago. And they were like, do you want to come to the Bernie rally? And I was like, nah, I'm not going to wait in line to like see a little tiny speck of Bernie Sanders like, you know, a mile away from me.

MerlinWatch him pet an imaginary horse from a distance.

MaxYeah. Like, you know, I'm interested in his candidacy, but I'm not going to wait in line for it. And they were like, well, and they're like, well, there's like a if you come, And there's like a VIP entrance. And then you don't even have to wait at the VIP entrance.

MerlinA VIP entrance for Bernie Sanders.

MaxYeah, yeah. Yeah, for like elected officials and me.

AlexAnd a British podcaster.

MaxAnd a British podcaster. And they were like, and they're like, and you don't even have to, furthermore, like you won't even have to wait at the VIP entrance because I'll escort you in. Or we'll send someone to escort you in. And I was like, all right, cool, I'll go. All the servants are very well compensated. So we're in the basement screwing around with audio stuff, and it's time for me to go to the Bernie thing. And I was like, do you guys want to go to this Bernie Sanders rally? And I think Alex and I might have talked. We talked about it at the Mac Sparky thing, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And then I was like, Mike, do you want to come with? And Mike kind of took a beat, and he was like, what the fuck? Why not? Like, that'll be interesting. And so we go. We pick up our friends. We go to the rally. and it was very weird. We went through Navy Pier, which was like a huge, there's no really equivalent in San Francisco. Maybe Mission Street?

AlexI would say.

MaxNot really Mission Street.

AlexNo, no.

MaxIs there like an abominable tourist trap that no one would ever go to in San Francisco? The docks or the pier or whatever that is? I mean Fisherman's Wharf.

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah. Where the sourdough bread and the seals are. Yes.

MaxIt's the Fisherman's Wharf of Chicago, right? Okay. No one ever hangs out there. But there is an event space, which is where this rally was. And so we go. We go, like, Chicago hot dog. We're going through this thing. And then we run. And, you know, it's a real sort of who's who of all the, like, very progressive sort of lefty political people. And, of course, like, I know them all. And I'm recognizing all these people. And we're, like, waiting to be escorted into this thing. And we're there with a friend of the show, Lawyer Matt. And Lawyer Matt sees ahead of us this young guy.

And he's like, is that alderman elect La Spada? And this dude, Daniel La Spada, just won a really crazy race, like just very improbable. And he beat a very powerful incumbent alderman. No one thought that race was possible. No one was paying that much attention to it. And he should come out of nowhere and like whoop this guy. I think he beat him by like 20 points or something. Wow. Wow. Yeah, it was a very, it was a crazy, I mean, as big of an upset as I've- Is this in the same race as the 14 mayor candidates? Yeah, same election. Yeah, yeah. I mean, given the number of like how divisive that must have been, that's wild. It was crazy.

So Matt spots this guy and he goes, I think that's Alderman-elect La Spada. And so we're like, Alderman La Spada? And he's like, yeah, what's up? And we were like, we're going to have someone who's going to bring us in. Do you want to come with us? And he was like, yeah, sure. And so we go in and I'm introducing him to everyone. And it was kind of weird because we were such a weird like ragtag group of like Twitter friends or whatever. And I'm introducing him to Mike. And I'm like, oh, Mike runs like a podcasting empire in London. And he goes, oh, I love podcasts. And I'm like squinting my eyes. and I'm like, what podcast do you listen to?

And I'm thinking he's going to say.

MerlinSerial.

MaxYeah, Serial, WTF with Marc Maron. You know, some big show like that, you know, like How I Built It with Guy Raz or something. And he goes, oh, I listen to like comedy stuff on Max Fun and Your Wolf. And now I'm like freaking out. I'm like, that's crazy. And I'm like, what do you listen to on?

MerlinHe's a good, good boy.

MaxHe's the coolest guy. I was like, what do you listen to? He goes, oh, have you ever heard of the Flophouse? What?

Alexoh my god that's so cool yeah i thought you i thought you were like that even more than

Merlinbim bam like flop houses i mean i say this i feel like every time i praise them and they're absolutely one of my favorite podcasts like it's it is it's a it's a weird show for dorks because you have to love their dorkiness so much and like when normals like them i'm like i'm always so excited. Yeah. Uh-oh.

AlexHe was also disappointed. He was like too attractive to be an alderman. I'm like, what's happening right here?

MerlinAre you having an awakening, Alex?

AlexNo, but he... No, no, no. I feel like you're having an awakening. No, no. The thing is...

MerlinYou like a lot of survivor boys in no shirt.

AlexWell, here's the thing. When you're married, you can just say that everybody's attractive and you won't get in trouble.

MerlinI know. It's great for me.

AlexI'm always doing that. Pop-Pop's boobs.

MerlinCheck out Stephanie. She's really dropping some LBs. Looking good. Nice eyebrows. Barbary's shallow. Ozzie got fat. Good thing I'm married. Like the role of that buff.

MaxWasn't he cool, though, Alderman Laspata?

AlexHe was a very nice. It's always nice to meet an elected official. Not just who's normal, but is in the community doing something. He wasn't in the VIP area. He's talking to people, and his constituents were coming up. And it was very nice.

MaxI don't know. But then what did you what do you think of the burning rally? Have you ever been to a big political rally?

AlexNot since like Obama rallies in 2008 when I was in high school. Oh, no. And then in 2014. Yeah. So like a couple, but not in a very long time. And it was not not strange, but because it, you know, reminded me of stuff like that in the past. I was surprised not at the amount of people, but the amount of energy. Like people came out clearly excited for this and not out of a curiosity, which at other smaller rallies, it feels like that.

Like people are there to see, OK, am I going to give money to this guy? Like how excited are people about him? Stuff like that. But this was like a full on like, you know, they pick the people to sit in back of him televised type thing. and I did like after it was

MaxDid you see it on TV? It looked amazing on TV. Oh yeah. Like the stagecraft of it I thought was very just like very expert.

AlexOh and watching, that's actually one of my favorite things when you go to a press event or a rally, seeing what the press corps is doing.

MaxLike how do they know, so they have Bernie is standing up on a podium and the actual people there are all around him almost 360 surrounding him. And then way back, like the whole distance of our office, like I don't know, like way, way back, is this bleachers with the fake audience for TV waving the Bernie signs, the sort of diverse prop people. And, you know, the kids and whatever, the cheerleaders. And they put them on this like, they put them on the bleachers

and it looks so weird in real life. When you're there, you're like, why the fuck are they like?

MerlinYou can feel the like fakeness,

Maxthe application of it. Way back there. But then on TV, it looks like he's in an ocean of fans. Oh, forced perspective. There's something. What is that? How do they know how to do that? It looks amazing.

AlexYeah, it's actually.

MaxMaybe the kind of lenses that they use make it look closer. But they must know that that's the kind of lens that the TV stations will be using.

AlexYeah. That's so interesting. It's actually a fairly common trick even on iPhones now. It's when you're shooting with two different lenses. Because my buddy Matthew Cassinelli talked about this recently. And, like, it's people look different. Like, it's very striking. Like, if you're looking at something with a 24-millimeter lens and then a 50-millimeter lens.

MerlinOh, no, no. I mean, like, have you seen those demos of showing the progression through focal lengths and, like, somebody looks 20 pounds heavier depending on?

AlexYes, that too. That's basically why people look heavier on TV. I'm not a fan.

MaxDo you know, Alex, do you know what I'm talking about, though? Like, when we were there, didn't it look a little weird? Oh, yeah, it always looks weird. The geography of that space, I was like, this is so weird. I was like, why is he sort of floating way out front of the backdrop?

AlexIt's not for the people there, you know?

MaxNo, I know. I just, it's weird.

AlexI agree.

MaxIt's kind of magical.

AlexIt's, well.

MaxDid you feel anything at the rally?

AlexThis was the first time I didn't dread the primaries because I'm like, at least people are excited. his stump speech was really similar to the 2016 one so it was less like bernie and more the people around him oh god and that woman who spoke right before him um turner the oh wow she was an amazing she's one of the best public speakers i've ever seen yeah like like you see a lot of people trying to do what she does like hyping up the crowd but she did it flawlessly um but it yeah i don't know

What about you, Max?

MaxI thought that it was – I had a few moments where I felt very emotional. I had a couple of real moments of catharsis. I mean, first of all, I think there's something really powerful of just being in a huge ocean of people. Exactly. All cheering for something that's kind of cool. Like if you're listening to this show and you've never had that experience, it's a powerful – you can get it at church. You can get it at a big Radiohead concert. You can get it at a Bernie Sanders rally. Like it's a very powerful moment of catharsis, and I hope that you go find that, seek that out, and experience it. It's not like any other feeling. I definitely got a little bit of that, of like belonging to something, you know, that like I am part of this big thing feeling.

Very powerful. But there's also – I had a real moment of catharsis hearing Bernie. You know, there's so many things that other politicians, Democrats, they dance around, right? They're like we will have – They sort of imply it and let you fill in the details. I will fight so that every hardworking American has access to affordable health care. And you're like, cool. What does that mean? Yeah, that seems like a lot of caveats. And Bernie will go out and say, every single human being has a human right to the best healthcare and I will do that.

And there's just such a catharsis of hearing someone say it out loud. When he was like, we do not have to have any new wars of imperial conquest. He just said it.

AlexHe says the word Nazi. He does not dance around the word Nazi.

MaxRight. Right. Yeah. It's like it's kind of amazing. Like I had that feeling. I mean, you know, I mean, maybe I could compare it to almost in 2004 when Dennis Kucinich ran for president. And Dennis Kucinich was saying all these things that on the one hand were laughable. Like I will have equal rights for for gay and trans people. And on the one hand, it was almost laughable because everyone knew that it wasn't going to happen. But also like it was so bold to just have someone say the thing you believed in your heart and just say it out loud. They came right out and said it. He said it right out loud. and I really had that feeling watching that rally.

I was like, Bernie's just saying it. He's just saying it out loud. Like the thing we all want, the thing we all want to believe in, that every candidate is kind of walking on eggshells and tiptoeing around and he's just out here saying it. We'll do no more wars of imperial conquest. Why can't everyone just say that? That's what we all want, but they all have to cage it and we'll have a measured consideration of a withdrawal of our troops in Afghanistan. Like, you know, I don't know. Like it's kind of nice to have someone just come out and say the thing you want. That's shocking, yeah.

AlexAnd I think that is the one difference in terms of like seeing his stump speeches and stuff on TV before. Like there's a very visceral. There are very few times where I'm in a room with like tens of thousands of people and I don't think they want to like kill me, you know.

MaxI asked Mike, you know, on the way out, I was like, what was that like? Like there's generally not political rallies like that, like anywhere else in the world. I think that's a pretty American thing, a big stadium, highly choreographed rally like that. And I was like, man, what was that like? Like, what did you think about it? Because, you know, I know he went because he was curious to see what the whole deal was with that experience. And he was like, well, it was the first time in my life I realized that I was somewhere where I might get shot.

AlexYep.

MaxAnd I was like, that is so weird. I didn't even I mean, I guess it's there in the back of my mind of like, yeah, someone might like bomb this rally. But like I'm not like it's not different than any other time in my life. Like every time the doorbell rings at our office, I'm like, oh, maybe that's someone with a gun who's going to come shoot us all.

AlexWell, that's the thing I was surprised about. We were talking about this afterwards. And I think about this all the time. Like when I go to a premiere of a midnight movie and it's a big theater, it's like, well, when is it?

MerlinOh, you think it's Dark Knight.

AlexIt's today to the day. Like every time I visit a college, like it's fucked up. But it is always in the back of my mind. And, you know, every time you see a cop, every time there's metal detectors. Like if you're at like a big concert like Pitchfork or Lollapalooza, it's just always there. And I don't know. I don't know why I think about it more often. Maybe because, you know, intruder drills and stuff like that. So it's just a part of me. What a healthy, normal thing.

MaxWell, if I had to hazard a guess as to why you felt like that, maybe it's because people get there's mass shootings every day. People get shot all the time. And that could be it. That could be it.

AlexThat could be it.

MaxI don't know. I mean, it could be anything. Maybe you're playing too many violent video games.

AlexOh, that's it. That's it.

MaxI had a video game recommendation.

AlexOh, boy.

MaxCan I give it real quick?

AlexGo for it.

MaxYeah, of course. Merlin, I have a game. Do you? Fuck, though. I just realized you might need a PC, which you don't have, do you?

MerlinOh, okay.

MaxIn the event that I get a PC, what do you recommend? My game recommendation of the week is called Ape Out. Ape Out. And so the premise of the game is you're a big gorilla, and you're in a zoo, and you break out of the zoo, and you smash all the guards, and they all have guns, and you just throw them against the wall, and they burst like an overripe grapefruit. But the whole game is rendered from the top down, and it looks like a Saul Bass painting. It's like three color and it's like very stylized. Yeah, I'm looking at it. And it was recorded with a live jazz band. So everything you do in the game creates the music and it's all on a beat.

And it's this, it's a fun and funky. Oh, fun and funky. It's fun and funky rhythm. It's so much fun. It's so kinetic. I've just been laughing and playing this game. It's amazing.

MerlinI love the way it looks. I love the kind of simplified, the abstractness. Like you say, like a Saul Bass.

MaxWait till you hear it with the sound design. It's just wild. I'll get a PC challenge.

AlexNo, I put it in our correct channel. It's on Switch, too.

MaxOh.

AlexYeah. Oh, really?

MaxDo you have a Switch?

AlexYeah. Merlin's favorite. You play that every day, I hear.

MerlinDoes your family have a Switch? Yes. There you go. Okay, great. My daughter plays the Zelda boy. She plays him pretty much every day. She has a big book about how to do Zelda things. What a game.

MaxSyracuse posted this Twitter list of like nine games or whatever, and he's like, these are my games that I recommend. It was a very good list. Really, really good list. More people responded.

AlexYeah, I did notice. I was like, I'm going to do it. I know I'm going to be reply guy.

MerlinYou did it. Was it Gone Home? No. Yeah, it was Gone Home. Syracuse would love Gone Home. You should play that.

AlexWell, and then he replied, almost made it on the list. And he did that to every single.

MerlinThat's what a list is. A list is not everything. challenge this week's challenge was i believe alex it was the challenge this week it was find a use

Alexfor your harness uh and alex describe our harness the harness uh thank you to our friend steve Wilson who tweeted about this. And then I immediately ordered three of them. It is, I don't know how to describe, you know, it looks like-

MerlinIt ships as a bendable foam covered thing that you bend into a shape, you attach a dingus to that. And the notion is that you can, and it sort of hangs off of you in the front, like what? Like a cantilevered bridge. And then you're supposed to put, presumably your iOS device into this. It's in show notes if you want to see what it looks like. But basically, you have a phone. Your phone is supposed to be kind of floating in midair about two feet in front of you while you do other things.

AlexYeah. And I guess the best visual, now that I'm thinking about it, you know in the 90s they had those like thigh smoosher thing? Ah, here we go.

MerlinI believe it was called a Thighmaster. It was promoted by Suzanne Somers.

AlexYeah. And so you uncurl your iPhone Thighmaster and it's supposed to hold an iPhone or an iPad. I immediately broke mine because it has it's there's like little rubber bands on the end that clamp on to your iPhone. But like the tightest one, like that, that had the least amount of slack. It was immediately broke.

MerlinI think the idea is that, like, I haven't done this yet because the devices that I've been fitting into mine are all small, but I guess you changed the width of the rubber band? Is that how you accommodate an iPad?

AlexYes, but there are two.

MerlinNot the width, the overall length that loops around.

AlexYeah, so now I was only able to use it with my iPad.

MerlinIt's a very primitive device, Alex, let's be honest.

AlexIt's a piece of rubber with bendable wire in it, and at the end where you're presumably supposed to put your neck, there's some padding that doesn't really make it comfortable.

MerlinNo, not at all. No, no.

AlexIt's pretty bad.

MerlinIt's pretty bad. It's real stupid. But boy, we found some uses, haven't we?

AlexOh, I did indeed. Did you find a use for it, Merlin?

MerlinShit, dog. You kidding me? I'm always looking for ways to pimp my objects.

AlexYeah.

MerlinI suppose. I don't know. I've never seen the show. No, I'm imagining. So did we all do this? Yeah.

AlexMax definitely opened it. See, actually, Max has it in what looks almost cool and normal. but I bent mine into it. I could not put it back into a straight, like how it came out of the buoy.

MerlinNo, it's upsetting. It's hard to make it look symmetrical.

AlexNo, it just looks like a torture device.

MaxOnce it gets runkled, you're done.

AlexMine's very runkled. But no, I've been using it. I tried to read in bed with it and yeah.

MerlinWell, also, that's the other thing. It depends upon you mostly standing statue-like very still Yep. Because if you move at all, it's a katoing, katoing, katoing.

AlexYes, it does.

MerlinAnd if you're laying in bed, that's just going to hit you in your face. Yep.

MaxYou already get that. You already get hit in the face with your Kindle. I'm worried that we haven't described what this thing is. And I want to describe it to our listeners.

AlexYes.

MaxOkay. So what is it? It's a big piece of the heavy metal pipe of some sort of flexible like material, like a huge pipe cleaner, but it's heavy. And it wraps around your neck and it's a big snake. and then the end of it is like a piece of paracord that holds your phone into a plastic rig. So it's like a little, it's like a little, it's like that game from Star Trek Next Generation where they all get addicted to it and Wesley Crusher has to save the ship.

AlexSure, that one's more relatable than mine.

MaxBut basically like for me, the main issue is, it's this heavy, uncomfortable metal pipe that just sits right up against your collarbone. And it just, even without any device in it, it's just putting a good amount of weight, just digging sharply right into your collarbone. Do you guys get that? Oh, yeah.

MerlinWell, there's that and the fact that if anybody saw you using this, heaven forfend, it looks like some kind of a quack medical device. Or exercise equipment. It looks like a neck exerciser, an exerciser.

MaxThis is like those Clash of Clans players who have to play the game while they're in the shower because if they stop playing, they'll lose infrastructure. And this seems like one of those things of you would have this on and then you'd have two other devices in your other hands. In fact, I should take a picture like that.

AlexWell, one of my uses was I was able to answer email while also playing Pokemon Go because I attached the Studio Neat Glyph to it.

MerlinThat sounds like a lot of fun.

AlexSo I can suck at two things faster. So, you know, a gorilla pod, you know, those little bendy tripods that looks like a little spider.

MerlinYeah, it's like a butt plug for cameras.

MaxSure.

AlexYeah, sure. Yeah.

MerlinLike you've never thought about those globes.

AlexNo, I always thought of it more as an anal beads for cameras.

MerlinOh, anal beads. Sorry about that.

AlexYeah, yeah. Well, actually. So I wrap that around. That sounds so convenient. And so I had that, and then I had my iPad, and I turned on the data so that I could see the Pokemon Go map of where raids were going to be happening. People don't know what raids are. Don't at me. So I walked around my neighborhood park like that for a while, and for a while, I mean, about three minutes, because there were children there, and I wanted to stop. and then I used it to answer some emails standing up at home

because standing helps you not die, I guess. And then this morning I was using it sort of as like the worst gimbal in the world because it's supposed to, you know, bounce a little bit with the paracord, but it doesn't really, really work. Oh, no, no, no.

MerlinIt's long enough that you get a real kind of like bad lever seesaw effect.

AlexYeah. But that's what my time lapse was this morning of coming to the office.

MerlinOh, I see. It's relevant. Yeah, yeah. Almost. All right. Full points.

AlexYep, yep. And yeah, so that was my use of it, I guess. It's a fun.

MerlinIt's like a gag gift.

AlexYeah, yeah. Although I feel like I could, I don't know. I feel, I don't want to throw this away, but it's definitely going to end up in the trash. This does not spark joy. did you actually use it for anything?

Speaker Ame?

Alexyeah

Speaker Acheck the channel now hang on game changer

Alexwow game changer

Merlinthis is my own bespoke nut nix but I used the blue diamond can oh my god

Maxthis is brilliant Oh my god

MerlinI can't believe how smart this is So basically I put a can of nuts on my gimbal

MaxWow

MerlinBlue diamonds Wow

AlexThat's my favorite

MerlinFits pretty neatly

AlexIt's perfect

MerlinYou could put peanut butter in there

AlexAnd then you just bring it up to your mouth And do a little lick lick And then move it to the side

MaxIt looks like you won an auction and spent $350 on it. Merlin, are you capable of sort of, how do I describe it,

Merlinof sort of flipping the can up such that the nuts fly into your mouth? You're saying I do, again, to go back to Survivor, it's where you've got to jump on the board to get the beanbag into the net that's hanging over the batting cage. Yes. That kind of thing? Yes. Except I try to shoot about, let's say, 60 premium nuts into my mouth. I could try it. I got a vacuum. I got a Dyson right here. I could do anything I want.

MaxI know you've said that you like when we zoom in on your photos, and I cannot help but notice that you've got the RE20 in the cage all the way in the background. You're not using it.

MerlinOh, oh, well, let's, no, no, this is from earlier.

MaxI prepped for the show. Oh, but you are, that is, you're using the Dickerson. Yeah, yeah. Mike tried to tell me that the Dickerson wasn't a good microphone.

AlexNo, it's not right for him.

MaxHe said I was doing it all wrong.

AlexNo, well, you were doing anything wrong. I need a different one.

MaxSomebody give me a Sennheiser.

AlexIs this the Sennheiser? No, it's good.

MerlinSo I got the Marco. There's a costly one on my wish list if anyone wants to buy me one. I ordered the Marco. Oh. I ordered that one that Mike said he likes. The 86A? Mm-hmm. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. I have that. I also like that one. I like that one. That's what I've been using for years until I got this. Nobody could detect any difference in this microphone at all.

MaxMike said that I should get – well, here's the thing. The RE20 has better – you need less gain, so it sounds better overall. Well, what this has is if you get very close to it, it sounds very intimate.

AlexMm-hmm, mm-hmm. I feel like I can I don't like to talk like that

Merlinbecause I sound like an internet reply guy

MaxI feel like I can smell the nut on your breath so Mike said to get this other one and my complaint about the other one is it doesn't look cool I know you've tried it the RE20 looks like a cool radio mic

Alexoh man is that what I have?

Maxyes now this is the one that Mike told me I needed this is the Mike's mic the Neumann KMS 105

MerlinNeumann?

MaxAnd it's very costly. Look, it's $699. Nice.

MerlinLet me see. Blaze it. Let me see what I put on my list. I put a costly one on my list.

MaxBut it doesn't look like a $700 mic for me. If someone came into my basement and they saw that mic on the tripod, do you think they'd go, ooh, that looks like a $600 microphone?

AlexNo, no. They would not be impressed.

MaxThey'd go, where'd you get that? Target? Oh.

AlexIs that a USB mic?

MerlinThe one I put on my list is a Neumann KMS 105 MT Condenser Mic Supercard D-Od. Okay, that's what I'm telling you. That's the Mike Hurley mic. Ah, Jiminy Christmas.

MaxAnd I will say, I'll say though, here's the thing is Mike went on and we put the headphones on and he was talking into the RE20 and damn if he didn't sound like Mike Hurley. Did you find that like magical?

AlexNo. Well, okay. The first time I heard Syracusa talk, I did feel that way. But I don't, it feels like Syracusa has a podcast voice. You know what I mean? and he doesn't

Maxhe's got a big boy voice what I'm saying is I had the same thing when we had Snell in the studio here was I'm talking to Jason Snell and I can keep it together and I'm like oh nice to meet you Jason and then something about when I put the headphones on and he's talking to the microphone it was so fucking weird oh my god that's Jason Snell Jason Snell from the internet I had that same thing with Mike I was hanging out with him all day

Alexand you're sitting next to him and you're like Alex that's Mike Hurley

Maxbut as soon as I put the headphones on and he was talking to the microphone. Mike has a way of talking into the mic and making it sound good. And I was like, that's Mike Hurley. He drops his Cockney accent.

MerlinYeah.

AlexHe was just saying, oi, oi, oi, the whole day. Oi, governor, oi.

MaxBring up the wafers and stairs. What's that rhyme for? I don't know. Oi, governor, a chav nicked me mobile.

Thank you.

Show notes

Transcript

122. Myke's Mic

Show notes

Transcript

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