151. Gentleman's B

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, set up an iPhone from scratch.

MaxWe got him now. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. You don't think we got him now?

MerlinHow's everybody doing? Do we or do we not got them? Pretty good Learning about Miranda Kerr

AlexLove her now

MerlinOkay, alright, alright Are we doing this?

AlexI want your tapes Did you guys see the TikTok? No, okay

MaxI posted the Washington Post TikTok

MerlinDid you get that off Apple News? Yeah, I think so

MaxI'm back on Twitter, baby

MerlinYou are, you're so online You're matrixing. I had so many screens open. I got MSNBC over here. I got Parliament over here. They're talking about whether veterinary medicine is going to be able to make it in with a no-deal Brexit. I'm having a great morning. I'm learning about stigmata, and I'm learning about wellness. I'm learning about Palo Santo. I'm having a hell of a morning. Okay, tick-tock.

AlexWait, explain the talking that's ticking. Is this like the youth?

MaxIt's in the dock. I want you guys to know, I know Merlin's been having a tough podcast week. No, no, no. What the devil you say? What? Why would you say something like that? I'm trying to make Merlin's life easy this week. God damn it. And I'm using the Google Doc. Thank you. I'm using it. I put all my notes in the Google Doc. Is that you? I knew somebody really populated this. So I put all my stuff. This is the stuff that's normally in my own personal private note. And I put it in the Google Nock. And then at the end of the Google Doc. Tick-tock Google Nock? Tick-tock Google Nock.

Give the dog a bone? And then Now at the footer At the bottom of the Google Doc here Just in case you guys need it I pasted in the complete text Of Charles Dickens' masterpiece A Tale of Two Cities Oh my god It's scrolling very slowly

AlexYou didn't You didn't Really? It's only Oh fuck this

MerlinWow that's a sweet ass frontispiece That will serve me well at sea

AlexThanks Thanks buddy Best of times and the worst of times

MerlinI'm gonna ruin I'm gonna ruin that lady Look at her She's Oh She's sitting there

MaxSo you can enjoy this entire I'm free now courtesy of the the Goonberg project thank you alright that's gonna

Merlinearn you a free Richard Speck photo

AlexI was wondering why I couldn't open this on my iPad

MerlinI'm sorry I'm just trying to help I know you're having a rough week

Maxis he in Mindhunter

Alexyes

Merlinyes and Alex is very disappointed about it

Maxhe's too normal

Alexin it

Maxso I need to I need to watch Mindhunter

AlexI retract my statement about saying I liked the first season more than the second the second season is indeed better you know what i'm watching i'm

Maxwatching the righteous gemstones and my god is that show funny it's so funny running on the floor

Merlinwith a pickle in my mouth i forgive you for my suspicions of you earlier what does it mean what i made my wife watch it having seen none of the rest of the show and she didn't think it was as funny as I did. I watched it four times.

MaxHe's got his clogging shoes. The younger brother from

Merlinthe acapella movies. Yeah, the fake Jack Black. Yes.

MaxHis Satan worshiping friend is so funny.

MerlinOh my god, his goth friend? Oh my god. He's so funny. He's eating the soft serve. Alex, it's a very good show. Danny McBride is... No, no,

AlexI'm watching. I'm just one behind. Oh god, the one

Maxwhere he's watching eating the soft serve and he runs

Alexinto his old Satan gang. is so good. You've seen the dance, yeah? Yeah, you've seen Misbehaming.

MerlinThe crew was like, Danny, this song is so good and I can't find it on Spotify. I haven't made it up for the show. Oh my God, he's so good. There's your Richard Speck photo. That's one you haven't seen. I don't think I've sent that one before.

AlexAlright. God, iMessage on the Mac. Is it Messages on the Mac?

MerlinI don't love to know about it. Did you get it? I don't know if it goes through. I've got a lot of problems with Messages.

Alexhe gets a bikini

Merlinhe gets a bikini he's in the clink and he gets this beautiful bikini brief and these tremendous C cups tremendous that's my next Danny McBride show those are not C cups

Alexthat's a B plus follow up in front manner

Merlinit's a gentleman's B

Alexyeah

MaxFollow up and front matter.

MerlinOkay, let's go.

MaxLet's see. First of all. Let's do it. We got him. First of all, I have posted, I don't know if you guys want to talk about it or not, but the Washington Post had a really good TikTok of the whole sort of Ukraine story going all the way back to the Manafort days. I actually thought this was very informative. And for me, it really like filled in the gaps of all the little weird, weird things I didn't know. for example did you know that the current president of ukraine it was before he was president was famous for being a comedian who played the president of ukraine on television

Merlinyes yes and he was he was so good in the part that everyone knew they love to see it they knew he had to be the real the real thing yeah it would be like if martin sheen got elected i think we

Maxeveryone should read this yeah i read i read it and it was very helpful it was tons of stuff i didn't know that was in here and i i think maybe we'll put that in the show notes well that's and

Merlinthat's the thing with what's coming god damn it the last two days i hate this last two days have been just brutal and like but super interesting like it's been wild to be sitting here and watch all yesterday everything that happened before noon my time after months and months no excuse me after years and years of holy fucking shit people i feel like i'm losing my goddamn mind are you not seeing this and then by noon yesterday it was like what is what is happening and then you got the Rudy stuff.

You got to talk about the Rudy stuff and the bar stuff. What is happening? Merlin, you seem really online. I'm more online than I'd like. I'm not thrilled about it. I've reinstalled the

MaxTwitter app as of yesterday to follow the news. I love it, baby. I'm fucking back. Yeah. And now they do have this new feature where you can swipe into your lists, which is actually... The list swipes. I love it. I hate to give anything to Twitter, but it is It's a really good feature. It's a great feature.

MerlinIt makes me want to use tons more lists.

MaxYeah.

AlexOh, God. I'm in the matrix. Wow. All right. Where is... I cannot find this Washington Post thing.

MaxIt's at the first link. Follow up in Front Manor. Washington Post TikTok of Ukraine nonsense. I can computer. Now you click on that, and it'll take you to an article. All right. Now, an article is a post on a website. Okay. Got it. Yeah, but how does it work?

MerlinWhat does it do?

MaxYou know, can I...

MerlinI know we just said we should do Follow Up in Front Manor, but we have so much to cover, Max we don't have time for a lot of digressions

MaxSo last night there was a big story Where and local Chicago News or whatever it was on like all the police scanner Twitters and basically police Were responding to a pressure cooker Found oh yeah it wasn't even plugged in Garbage can outside of the Stans donuts that was funny Max you were funny about that And Veronica and I were looking at it and I said and Veronica was really worried and she goes Oh my god are they gonna get bombed and I was Like we've been to that Stans donuts and I go and I go you know I don't know how a pressure cooker works

and I'm really scared to Google it. I don't want to go on Google and be like, how does a pressure cooker work? But I'm thinking like, so I fundamentally get the idea that you somehow, you put nails in it and then you overload it. You put nails and forks in it and then it makes a bomb. But you overload it with pressure somehow and then it blows. That's what pressure is, Max.

MerlinPressure is overloading, that's what it is.

MaxBut the thing is, like, this pressure cooker was just left out by a garbage can and And it didn't, how are you going to like keep loading it? And so Veronica was like, well, maybe they filled it with pressure at home and then they brought it over there. This is a famous kind of improvised device. This is the Atlanta ball. And I know, I know. But so then Veronica goes, maybe they're just going to fill it with pressure at home and then bring it outside the donut shop and leave it.

MerlinSo it's like an explosive potluck.

MaxAnd I'm like, but I'm like, but we use a pressure cooker all the time to make beans and we fill it with pressure and it doesn't explode. So why would if you left it on a sidewalk, why would it explode? Like that doesn't make any sense to me.

MerlinI think they might be voiding the warranty by not following the directions in the manual.

MaxBut do you understand what I'm saying here? It's like, what specifically, how does it explode?

MerlinIt's not, they're not cooking. I can't tell if you're picking the piss. No, it's an improvised device where you could use a cell phone to cause it to explode, I think.

AlexIt has its own Wikipedia article, so that means it's real and normal.

MaxOkay, so the part that I understand is that it's a- Oh, no, I'm not clicking that.

AlexNo, no, no. It's Wikipedia. It's fine.

MerlinI already looked up stigmata in Richard Speck's boobs today.

MaxYeah, you don't want to look up Richard Speck and pressure cooker bomb.

MerlinDid you guys get that? Did you get the photo of him in the bikini grease? Alex, I honestly wish you wouldn't text this to me.

MaxCan I – let me just please –

MerlinIt's pretty bad.

MaxIt's pretty bad.

MerlinOh, no, no, no. Stop, Alex. Stop. No, that's going to screw up your recommendations on YouTube. What are you doing?

AlexAnd then encryption and 10 encryption.

MaxI'm seriously very confused about this. So I understand the point where you put nails in the pressure cooker and it explodes. But I use a pressure cooker all the time and it doesn't explode. And it's not even plugged in. How are these people making it explode? Oh.

AlexWell, if I said how, then it's like admitting I know how to make a bomb on a podcast. So, no.

MaxSomeone on Twitter last night, I posted this on Twitter, and someone on Twitter goes, they're putting explosives in the pressure cooker.

AlexI mean, there are ways to get power to a pressure cooker that doesn't involve an outlet.

MerlinYou guys, you don't have to power at the pressure cooker. I don't fucking know.

AlexOh, really? Yeah, I don't actually know.

MerlinWhy am I acting like I know? No, you don't have to plug it in. You're not going to sous vide a roast. It's just the pressure is what is needed to create the bomb effect.

MaxBut let me ask you this. So what you're saying is, are you saying the same thing that someone on Twitter?

MerlinYou're saying how even did they get the pressure if they did it at home?

MaxOkay, so someone on Twitter yesterday said they're putting explosives in the pressure cooker and then detonating it. And somehow it being in the pressure cooker, it like supercharges it. It turbocharges the explosives. Is that the deal, Merlin? Wow. you know what i'm gonna skip this one then what i was thinking is like do you know the great kumail non-johnny bit about the cheese the kids are doing cheese no uh fucking give me the cord

Merlinstop the podcast i'm trying to i'm trying to find the really good gif of the exploding pressure cooker where it makes a hole in the ceiling i can't find it i i know it's bad i

Maxknow it's powerful and bad i just do you so listen so here's my whole sort of premise with this because i know some people were saying okay so what the way the pressure cooker thing works is that um the way the pressure cooker thing works is you have an existing explosive and you put it in there and it somehow supercharges it but then it made me you already have an explosive you don't need a pressure cooker do you that's what i'm saying and that reminded me of this wonderful classic stand-up bit from friend of the show kumail nanjiani big fan it's a street name for

Speaker Ait it's like a new drug cocktail called cheese and i read all i read like four or five news reports on it. They were like, there's this new drug called cheese. It's sweeping the nation. Kids in the Midwest are doing it. It's an epidemic. It's a new drug. It's an epidemic. Then I looked up what cheese is. Cheese is Tylenol PM and heroin.

So really, it's heroin. It's mostly heroin. Heroin's doing the heavy lifting in this drug It's not a new drug. It's mostly heroin. I can't put heroin on pancakes and go, I have a new drug. I call it Shake Cakes. I eat them every day. If you stop, you'll get the shakes. Don't forget the special shake sauce. It's maple syrup and heroin. Pour that on there.

It's not a new drug is my point. It's mostly heroin. I'm not a new drug. It's mostly heroin. I think the last new drug was crystal meth, which you had to make in your bathtub. And if you fucked up while you were making it, everything would explode and you would die. That's how dangerous that drug is. Just trying to make it can kill you. And you make it just from shit you get at the store. To make cheese, you still need heroin.

Just do the heroin. You already have heroin.

MerlinJust do the heroin. It's so good.

AlexI assumed that the heroin was at least in cheese, but it's in silent LPM, which is just a, yeah. You know what, hot take? I agree. Just do the heroin.

MaxBut do you see what I'm saying, though? It's like if you already have a bunch of explosives. It's a bootstrap paradox.

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

MaxExactly. Just use the explosives. What do you have to put them in a pressure? What is the pressure cooker adding? Just do the heroin. Is it like a turbocharger? I don't think that's a thing.

MerlinI don't know, Max. Your point is very good. We'll definitely follow up. Dr. Don. Maybe Dr. Don knows how to make a bag.

AlexOh, yeah.

MaxWhat does it do, though? The pressure cooker. All right. so uh do our friday do our friday was in the new york times oh you know i don't get to do my my

Merlinone paragraph reading series no please we would love for you to do that everybody of course is we're reading over this uh it's not a transcript twitter um the uh but but their boy if they thought this was going to look good. It really doesn't look good. And this is the, I got, I woke up, I picked up my phone. It's the first thing I read this morning.

I would like you to do us a favor though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. But I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine. They say CrowdStrike, I guess you have one of your wealthy people. The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people, and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday,

that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine.

MaxWhat the fuck?

MerlinWhatever you do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible. I think Gandhi said that.

AlexI understood about 15.

Merlinoh my god he's melting down he's completely fucking what am i looking at here is this is something trump said today yeah this is the from the um whatever we're calling it that the white house released today of him talking uh to the president to the actor man of uh ukraine and no so so just here's a quick translation so basically he's congratulations on your terrific win everyone And many people are saying that it was a huge win. And then he cuts right into, I'm pretty sure Hillary Clinton's email server is in Ukraine.

Can you find that for us? And that's from July of the year of our fucking Lord, 2019. But we know it wasn't in Ukraine. It was in her basement, right?

AlexYeah. And also, what does it matter now? Are I guessing still stuff there?

MerlinThe server, they say Ukraine has it.

AlexOkay. All right. So, so.

MerlinApparently, this is a thing he's had going for a while where he's, I don't know how this got into his head, but he has this idea. No, it's not an OS X. It's not like a Mac Pro in Hillary Clinton's basement. No, apparently it is a server in Ukraine. Anyways, that's just part of what we learned today. Not even getting into the Rudy shit and the fucking bar shit. Oh, my fucking God. Please contact my attorney general so we can do some of these things I want to do. Oh, OK. I don't know if we got him. I don't know if we got him, but...

MaxDo you think the...

MerlinI don't even barely understand this whole scandal.

MaxDo you think the American people are going to care about it?

MerlinThe scandal is the scandal... So my understanding of this in and out, what led to this last super interesting week or last few weeks is that somebody in the... So when the president has contact, you know, with people, heads of state, there is usually somebody there. They rotate in and out. It's not very much definitely not probably a White House employee, but there's somebody from the intelligence community who's sort of listening in on what's happening. And the story is that whoever that person is heard something in this call,

and it's not just the call, this is very important, but in the call alone, there was something that led to them deciding to blow the whistle, as they say. And the whistle blowing in this instance is you can't just call your boss and say, hey, I think some bad shit's going down. You have to contact the inspector general for, I think, the NI, and you say, basically, I know the rules here. I'm pulling the switch because there is a credible and urgent matter involving national security that has to be dealt with. So you're hitting the big red button to go, this needs to be escalated.

That inspector general then passes that along to, I think it needs to go to Congress. It needs to go to Adam Schiff's committee. The White House somehow sat on it or wouldn't allow it to go to Congress. Adam Schiff had a conniption fit with his tiny little head on MSNBC. And anyway, long story short, that's where this started. The most recent stuff is what you need to know today, Axios, be smart. What you need to know today is that there was an attempt to conceal the fact that there was a whistleblower report about this.

And further to that, that apparently the reason that whistle, one imagines the reason that whistleblower stuff didn't go through is because it contains some pretty ill shit about Trump basically equivalent of soliciting abroad saying, you know, I'll give you your $400 million in aid, which Congress has already approved. I'm holding that. I'm holding that for a week. I might give it to you later, but I need you to find out what the deal was with Hunter Biden because he and his cricket father are corrupt. And I'm very concerned about corruption. And then now it's all unraveling very, very quickly.

The whistleblower wants to basically appear before a shift's committee, I think, tomorrow as we record this.

MaxDo you think this is more—is it somehow worse than all the other stuff Trump has done?

MerlinI'll give you one note on this from a man who's been too online for the last 36 hours, and that is this. I think an important bellwether here is our friend Nancy Pelosi, who does not like to proceed. She is stonewalled on anything approaching impeachment because she didn't have the votes, right? Like she didn't – and it wasn't worth it. She loves being in power.

She got a lot of pressure from people in purple districts and new congresspersons. Got a lot of pressure to do this. And I think – here's my takeaway from this. She said as much at the Atlantic – her interview at the Atlantic Arts thing yesterday. This just happened, and it's very plain to understand what happened and why it's wrong. We do not need a 400-page report to understand what happened here. It is clear on the face of it that this is something that the public can understand.

So consequently, this is something that Congress can get behind. Now, my last thing on this, and I'll shut up, you hope, is that my tickle on these things always is there's stuff we don't know that they do know. There's whispers. Like think about the stuff with the Steele dossier where that had gone around in circles for a while. There was sort of a whisper campaign about that. I think there must be something to this. I don't know that I think she would so quickly push for impeachment based on what we know exactly right this moment publicly right now.

Do you follow? Like I got a feeling there's some fucking grenades rolling around. I don't know if they got him, but it's going to be a real shit show for the next few months. And I'm online for it. Your thoughts. Your thoughts.

AlexAll right. Hold on, Max. Before people get mad at you, let people get mad at me first. I don't think.

MaxAlex is just jumping in front of me and taking this bullet. No.

AlexNo, no. I'm dead serious about this. who care when you say like the public can understand this sure it's like okay Ukraine

MerlinDonald Trump was trying I don't have a dog in this fight but I will try to defend that position even though I don't have it's not strongly held but please continue that's I don't want to come off I'm not want to come off as the guy in comments talking about we got cheetah this time

AlexI'm not saying that at all no no that's that's why uh oh what is happening wait Is this a bit? Okay, I'm just gonna What's happening? I don't know Alright I don't Oh, some jazz Alright, okay

MaxNo, that's not the song I wanted

AlexOkay No, I Around I was not very online yesterday And I was just like Oh, oh Guess something's happening Oh, oh And then there was like A three hour time period Where I was just extremely online And it just felt like No one is gonna care about this, right? Why is this? Is this just Nancy Pelosi being like, oh, see, look, we tried. So you'll elect me again because I because I tried. Right. I tried. I tried because I don't understand how this is worse. I don't understand how this is going to track with people.

MerlinI don't think we as the public know that it's worse yet, but I do agree with the idea that it is easier to understand that the fact that there would be this attempt to directly go after yet another democratic political opponent by seeking the help of another country and people wrote down what he said in July, right? And when you say people don't care, like who won't care?

Alexhis supporters don't read the news yeah yeah i mean his supporters people i think i think calling

Merlinit i think finally calling it impeachment not only does that lead to it's not fundamentally different there's still the six committees they're going to work on this and now you know you know maxine waters is on the case which is awesome um no i think it's more that when you when you call it impeachment you get certain powers you didn't have before right so neil kachal was talking about this yesterday when you once you call it impeachment you have the you don't need to and panel a grand jury to do stuff. You now have abilities to accomplish things. And the other thing, and again, I'm not selling this. I'm just trying to inhabit the point of view.

AlexOh, no, I know. Yeah.

MerlinSo there's the one part, which is calling an impeachment, first of all, gives you, I think, more powers to do stuff without, you know, without having to go through the approval of the executive and stuff like that because that hadn't worked out so far. And then the other part of it is that once it's called an impeachment, I think people will I think Johnny Lunchbucket might pay a little bit more attention but I don't know you might be right and I know you see the thing is I know Max part of it I think it's a superstition you have as well as like a bit and you're so tired of being

disappointed that you're like a little kid who's like God you know my parents are never going to get back together everything sucks so I mean I get that point of view but I think one also has to sort of look at what the facts are right now and this has a slightly different barometric pressure than a week ago I feel like now bring me down off my cloud

Alexnow let's make everybody sad please I'm not going to bring you down but I think

Maxpeople, not you Merlin I think that people tend to Democrats or whatever

MerlinI read the same magazine articles that you do

AlexI wasn't going to say it Merlin

MaxI think people tend to give themselves

Merlineverything's getting better Max

MaxI think people tend to give themselves galaxy brain because you go on Twitter to read the news and you're not, you're sort of reading the news. I mean, that's why I'm Twitter because that's where the headlines are first. But what you're also kind of looking into this, like hall of mirrors where everything is reflected back into itself and then you can't tell the reality from the perception. You're like, what should we do? Isn't this different question from what people think? You know what I mean? Like it all becomes very-

MerlinWell, you start guessing what everybody thinks and knows or because that's all we have.

MaxYeah, you're like eight levels deep into the inception of like just making a simple decision. And I would say on the matter of impeachment, the way I felt about this since the fucking guy won the election is like it is should be obvious to everyone including the Republicans how history is going to look back and judge this moment. And sometimes things are sometimes people have power.

Because sometimes you're just supposed to do the right thing because you have power and not because it's going to get you more power. I always felt that about. Well, this is famously what Obama said when he was doing when he was doing health care. Right. You know, the economy collapsed. He gets into office. He bails out the economy and then he spends all his political capital to do health care. And people kept saying to him, this is the wrong move because you're going to spend all your political capital.

MerlinWell, yeah. And the same thing of going like, remember what happened? Remember what happened when Hillary did this? Remember when Hillary wanted to make the card and she wasn't even an elected person? And how damaging that was and their historical precedent is, you know, 1992.

MaxRight. And people kept saying to Obama, you're going to spend all, you're really going to spend all your political capital to give people health care. And Obama said, what else is my political capital for? Like, I'm in this office to do this thing. Like, this is why I'm here. Like, there's no point. He's like, what's the point of having the political capital if I can't use it for the health care? That's it. Like, I'm here to do this.

MerlinSo let's fucking go. I'm not just here to accumulate and maintain power. I'm here to do something.

MaxRight. And ultimately, I think the vision got pretty fucked up because of these cowardly Democrats in the Senate who ultimately could only do like a very, very incomplete and lame sort of version of health care. We wound up with this compromise thing. But because it was like people didn't understand. It's like we had control of all three branches of government. That's why the American people gave us the keys is they wanted us to do this. And then you're going, but if we do it, they might take away the keys. But it's like, yeah, okay. But then we're using, we're going somewhere, right?

They gave us the keys. Like, let's fucking go. Let's drive somewhere.

MerlinThat's what I've been saying for two years is like, It feels like the message behind so much of what's happening is if we use our power, people will take it away from us.

MaxRight. Now, one reading of that. Anyway, so just to connect the dots here. The American people voted in a new class of Congress with a big Democratic majority, historically big Democratic majority. We have the House. The House's job is to do impeachment. What the fuck are they there for if they're not going to do it? Like it's obvious that it's it's it's leaving aside the Ukraine or the this or the that or the little back and forth. Like obviously the guy should be impeached. Obviously he is doing I mean just a monument.

MerlinIt's the fact that there are literally the literally dozen what Nancy calls other candidates for this that there are dozens and dozens of reasons that in any in any prior time. Right. You over. Just the hotel.

MaxJust pick one. Just people. Yes.

MerlinExactly. Saudis at the let's just even say Saudis at the hotels. Pick one.

MaxJust go. Yeah. I know. So anyway, it just sucks to me and it feels very cynical and lame that they finally got this like, oh, we got – now it's the – we've – now it's finally too much, sir, and whatever. I'm glad we're there. But I do – my worry is like we've so like – it's so like calculated and fake and weird that it's like the American people – it's just going to seem like politics. Like it's not – we've lost the moment for it to be this genuine thing. But I don't care. Like as long as we're doing something, we're doing it. But I don't know.

It's just also like, you know, listen, here's the other thing I was thinking about yesterday. I was going through the people who had already said they support impeachment. And all the candidates that, you know, Cards had worked to elect a bunch of new congressmen, and I have worked even beyond that on a bunch of campaigns. And all the people that Cards supported who got elected and all the people that I worked for that got elected were the first people on the lines for impeachment, right?

Thanks, Sean. Yeah, all the Illinois delegation, Sean Kasson, Chui Garcia, Lauren Underwood, all the first ones up to say, yes, let's fucking go. Let's do this thing. And maybe my takeaway for me is like I felt a little satisfied by that because I was like, you know what? Two years ago or whatever, I was like outside freezing my ass off, holding a clipboard, knocking on doors and doing all this work. And then now today I'm reading in the newspaper that like that, that can, that insurgent candidate that where we flipped a seat.

Now we're actually getting to the place where, where I want to go. And it was a nice, it was a good feeling. And so I would say like, again, this is only my, my personal take and people can take it, take it or leave it for what it is. But my personal take is like, if you're scared or frustrated, or it seems like things are out of control and it feels really bad. like I think you're a very very very limited use sort of talking about it in Twitter and sort of like staring into this hall of mirrors all day and I think you will feel much more in control of

your own destiny and actually tangibly make a difference in in like a world historical difference in the course of world history if you just go work on a campaign you'll meet cool people you'll get to get your hands dirty you'll be you'll spend your energy doing something as long as you're still

Merlingetting real data and not just relying on partisan reports?

MaxJust go to the Secretary of State site. Just go do something. It will feel so much better. You'll feel so much better. Sometimes the people,

MerlinI don't mean to call you a romantic because I mean it in a more old school classic sense of the word, but day to day, in our day to day, it's sometimes the people the people whose hearts have been most profoundly broken in the past who become the most cynical and i think and i'm not saying this is you but i'm kind of saying it's you when your heart when your heart's been broken like super hard about something you that you really loved or cared about or that was a tentpole in your understanding of the world when your heart's been broken that hard

and maybe even arguably that many times it makes you um skeptical and it makes you you put up you put up shields for that. And I'm like that. I think we're all like that. Especially if you listen to Chapo, you become really broken inside. But at the same time, it does pay to be always open to the idea that things aren't what you think or aren't what they seem or are at odds with your own conception of it. So at this point, you're right. You're right. We're going to

campaign for sure for sure that's that's fantastic advice that not many people can super do all the time but even if you're just an observer i don't know i don't know i think it's going to be i you know what it is man it's the fucking velocity it's the velocity of these last two days that tells me something's something is up you don't get that a little bit i don't know you're very online as of

Maxtoday max i think it's i i think i am back online i i think it's uh i just i just i'm i'm trying to

MerlinWhat is it you're trying to avoid? Or what is it – I get the sense that you're trying to not do something.

MaxI'm trying to understand politics. I'm trying to like have a conception of politics on a sort of face value understanding. So what I mean is like I'm trying not to have some sort of four-dimensional chess of, oh, well, this is that way because this person knows this. I'm trying not to have that. Right.

MerlinThen like you're not that far from just being liberal Q when you start doing that.

MaxI'm trying to avoid that temptation. And I would say, I think that part, because I feel the pull to do that. And I got really into that with the Epstein stuff too. And I think part of the temptation to be like, well, this is connected to that because this person knows that and then they're going to do this. And then the American people will believe this and then that will set them up to do this. And then it's all part of the master plan. I think it is a very scary and bad feeling to have this feeling of nobody's in control and the world is spiraling out of control. and having this feeling of someone out there,

Pelosi or the Democrats or whatever, Bernie or whoever you believe in, whatever, someone's out there playing four-dimensional chess and if we can just get in front of the pieces, you're all part of the master plan. I think that's a sort of comforting in these times where I think the reality is it's much closer to Veep and everything is just vanity and ego and contingency and it's all just randomness and no one's really in charge. And I'm just trying to...

MerlinAnd that each person is just looking out for what's going to keep them alive in the short to medium term.

MaxCorrect. That there's no sort of grand conspiracy. And I'm just trying to hold on to like – so instead of trying to – for me, instead of trying to get my feet on the ground on some sort of complicated eighth dimensional master plan, I'm just trying to stick to like a simple moral truth of like nobody should like die because they can't pay for medicine. Like that's a very helpful place. Like if I could just say that 10 times to myself and like, and I know people have a lot of, well, what about this case where someone should die because they can't afford their

medicine? Yeah. Okay. But, but, but also, you don't hear, see that on Twitter where so any, if you, if I right

Alexnow, but any like sane people, if I go on Twitter right now, well, yeah, I mean like

Merlinyou need, you need a, you need a liver transplant because you drank too much and it's not my job to pay for it.

AlexOkay.

MaxIf I go on Twitter, if I went on Twitter right now and said, nobody should die because they can't pay for their medicine. What about Richard Speck? Do you know how many fucking egg heads and contrarians and devil's advocates?

AlexYes, but those aren't – by talking about the moral imperative, those people are trolls. They're monsters and they shouldn't be –

MaxBut a lot of people who are quote-unquote experts on politics, their whole thing is, well, actually, I'm doing 12-dimensional chess and you can't even say that because of this and that thing. And I'm like, okay, but also, but like, it's also like, but also I just believe that. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just believe it.

AlexNo, you're not wrong. Okay. I have never been more sure about anything I've said on this podcast than that you're not wrong. But you know what I'm saying?

MaxLike, there's someone listening to this right now who's going, actually, Alex is wrong. Someone should be dying because they made some bad call. Who knows? But it's like, but also like, I just, I know it's right. And like, in the same way, it's like, yeah, I know I'm following. I know there's that, okay, well, Pelosi's looking at the polls and the numbers tip that way and she knows about the public opinion and it's this and that. But also, there's just the more simple thing of the guy, he's violated the – he's violated his oath of office so many times.

MerlinThe sickest part is we're going to look back and when the books come out, it's just going to be so embarrassing how dumb it all was and Josh Marshall is going to have been right. Like there's always, it's always the stupidest, most venal, most grifty explanation.

MaxBut it doesn't need to be this whole calculus where now we can pull so you can finally move because the pieces are in the chessboard or just in order. It's like, just fucking do the impeach. Just go. Just do it. That's what you're there for. And even if you lose and he's not impeached, at least you tried to do the right thing. And sometimes that's just what you do as a person. It's not always because you know you're going to win. That's not being a leader. You don't always go to battle just because you know you're going to win. Sometimes you just have to do it because it's the right thing to do. It just frustrates me.

Like the Democrats, they're so cucked. They're like, we can't even do the right thing because what if we lose? It sucks. You're right, Merlin. It's like how many times have you gotten your heart broken where it's like, well, we might lose so we can't try to do the right thing. Oh, cool. I love to be on that team. We're not going to put our uniforms on and play because we might lose. Cool. What a fun team to be a fan of. Yeah, and then we'll have to wash the uniforms anyway.

MerlinYou go back to what everybody says. If you're wondering why nothing happens with gun control or common sense gun control, after Sandy Hook, how could we get through? I'm going to pivot in a second. But people say, after Sandy Hook, how could we go on living the way we lived after Sandy Hook? And now that's in the rearview mirror and it's just another Walmart shooting. that, you know, a lot of people will say, like, if we couldn't fix it, then we'll never be able to fix it. And I think everybody's got their own example of that

with this administration. And some of us have 16 examples of that. So you take something like Charlottesville, where it's like, it's just, boy, just a real easy dunk to say, yeah, the Nazis are bad. But instead you get the both sides-ism. And then that becomes part of the vernacular. And now we're just used to that. And now that's just a normal thing. That's the kind of heartbreak I'm talking about. It's like, oh, man, somebody, I mean, it's sort of like, Um, I said something about this the other night and I don't know if I piss some people off, but like I was saying that sometimes my party feels like the parents who let their kids keep sleeping over with Michael Jackson, where, you know, your first job is to protect in some ways.

Like somebody, you know, the reason we have this particular form of governance is that we don't want to all have to be our own congressperson every day. We, it's a different, it's a kind of democracy where we elect people to take care of these things. And it's like, you're being a terrible parent. You're not protecting your family. Like when you refuse to run down the facts behind some of this obvious bullshit because you're scared you might lose power, you're being a, I'm sorry to put it this way, but I don't know the better example. You're being a really bad parent.

You're not protecting your kid. You're letting your kid get diddled by Michael Jackson over and over and over because it would be impolitic for you to say, please stop diddling my kid. Oh, and by the way, they can't sleep over anymore. But it's movie night. OK, just tonight. And it's like – but except in this case, the country is getting diddled. And I don't know. Maybe you're like a stage dad and you're hoping it will turn into some kind of dancing with the molesters. I don't know, but it's heartbreaking that somebody who knows better can go like, hmm, I think I'm going to weigh this and I think I can wait this out.

I think I can wait this out. And that's hard to watch.

MaxAlso, the gun control debate is another interesting example of this. Democrats are a little too scared to sort of try anything bold on gun control because they're worried, oh, what if people get mad at us or whatever? What if we lose? What if we lose? And they will lose because they don't have the votes. But like gun control, like there's a lot of very like sort of the like low hanging fruit gun control stuff that's like wildly popular, right? Like an assault rifle ban is just like overwhelmingly popular in this country.

MerlinEspecially while the NRA is the fucking Wizard of Oz.

MaxThey're a little man behind a curtain right now and we're still as scared of them as we were in the 90s. It's insane. But here's the here's to me to me, the more like the more like like like just the more simple, straightforward way to think about it, in my opinion, is like they should try to do gun control. And even if they fail, like it will paint a picture for the American public of who's on what side. Like, let's just make it clear who's on what side and what what do you get if you vote for Democrats? If you vote for Democrats, they will try to do this wildly popular gun control legislation. And in the even if we lose in the long run, it's it's showing what we're about.

Do you know how many times Republicans voted to repeal Obamacare? No.

AlexThe literal number? No. How many times did Republicans vote to repeal Obamacare?

MaxUnsuccessfully. They kept doing it even though they knew it wouldn't work. More than 50 times. And that's from Time Magazine in 2017. That is more than three. Yeah. So the House voted to repeal Obamacare more than 50 times. And they knew they weren't going to do it, but they kept trying and trying and trying because they understand power and they understand like telling their voters like this is what we're about. We're going to keep trying until we get it, even if we don't win.

AlexDo you think Pelosi in the history books is going to be regarded as a coward?

MaxI don't think in like the if you were to say like in my this is my opinion, like the more like the most classical like what does a leader do? right they're like they like inspire people with a vision and they're out you know they're they're they're skating to where the puck is going to be and not to where it is I don't think policy has

Alexreally she's she's not so great at that in her career so a footnote not a I'm not trying to get I'm not trying to be a like just a bitch and like ah coward they're all bad but But I think the thing that I find exhausting is even I'll be the identity politics idiot for a second. Like that stupid fuck. Oh, this is going to make people mad. I don't care. I don't even remember what it is.

MerlinDon't make me send Richard Speck again.

AlexI'll do it. No.

MerlinYou're going to make fun of Nancy Pelosi's vocal fry.

AlexNo, no. Remember the LGBTQ presidential forum that everybody was mad Bernie Sanders wasn't at? it was the most performative bullshit I've ever and I watched the whole thing and I was just like oh my god oh my god do you think this is the brave thing you're gonna do is this what people are going to remember you for like it's not there's no voting there's no nothing and yes I did tear up a little bit when Elizabeth Warren has the significance of showing up at a pan with a spatula at a pancake breakfast yeah yeah I mean and at least Elizabeth

Warren and Cory Booker address the issue of all the black trans women who have been murdered this year and you know talking about health care and stuff like that but the rest are like yes i support gay marriage welcome to 2008 good job yeah yeah yeah yeah and uh it i don't know i got a little i i think i've been triggered merlin oh my oh all right

Merlinwell it's understandable i mean you've got we guys we got to say we got to save this episode

Alexyeah alex against gay marriage merlin needs this episode to come up

Merlinlet me tell you what my job is here's my job my job is to set aside set aside all of the feelings and the self-esteem and the uh the former sexual attractiveness that i used to have to people i set aside my dignity i put aside all of that because you know what i do i want the product to be good and i want it to come out on time Courtesy of a friend of the show, Taylor Lawrence.

She posts a screen grab where she says, Miranda Kerr, describing her home. You're asking yourself, who's Miranda Kerr? I don't know. I spent the morning finding out while I watch Parliament. it um taylor lawrence who's awesome uh posted this screen grab of something called miranda kerr talking about her home can i do a quick reading series on this because i found it very

Maxmoving please okay all right yeah but i can't does this need more setup because i'm not sure

Alexi'm following that's i think that is the point that's part of the beauty of it no idea who she

Merlinwas all right okay cool okay well just i'll say this miranda kerr uh you can go google it she's uh She's an Australian model. She's a mom, and she's a health advocate and author. Let me just – I'll bless through this real quick. So what Taylor, the wonderful Taylor Lawrence is screen-grabbing here, I had to Google to find, is an interview, a recent – I want to say – was it July? Let me check here. A May 2019 interview with Miranda Kerr called – this is newbeauty.com.

Miranda Kerr on healthy living, marriage, and motherhood. and I just want to get you a couple choice tidbits I pulled here New Beauty says you were goop way before there even was a goop it's like you were the original

Maxcoconut oil puller wait who is this person I'm sorry I'm not Miranda Kerr

Alexyou're talking about Miranda Kerr

Merlinshe's an advocate she helps a lot with charities she's a beautiful model and she said it's funny because I remember giving Gwyneth the products when I had launched in 2009 Yes, she has a cosmetics line and health wellness. This is part of that rat king of goop things where it's like goop-ish things where it's about lifestyle. It's about health. It's about beauty. It's about like giving skin care to your kids. She's a model who has – Well, I mean she was a model. But now she's a very influential thought leader on health.

MaxSo she's a model. And now she's 36, which is probably people age out of being a full-time model at some point. And so now she's sort of pivoting.

MerlinSending you to Milf Island.

MaxNow she's sort of pivoting into expensive

MerlinInfluencing a lifestyle She's very successful according to what I read this morning while I watched Parler

MaxShe looks like her face She looks fragile You know like if you dropped her She looks like cosplay Amanda Seyfried a little bit

AlexThere's so many things to make fun of about this woman She looks normal and basic She's beautiful

MerlinShe looks like she would break if you dropped her

AlexStunning, stunning, stunning Please, please.

MerlinIt's funny. I'm not going to do the accent. It's funny because I remember giving Gwyneth the products when I launched in 2009. At the time, she was talking about how she just started this website called Goop, and I was like, oh, that sounds right up my alley. Now our products are sold on her site, so it's really coming full circle. I know the self-tanner is flying off the shelves because she texted me recently and said, this tanning lotion is incredible. I can't believe the sales. It's crazy.

And so she's going into, like, people are becoming more educated about health and wellness, and they're looking for different self-care avenues and practices. And this is the part that we're getting down here, skipping down to the part that Taylor screen grabbed. I call her Taylor. We're friends.

New Beauty asks, do you both share any other wellness musts in your home? Marina Kerr responds, we have a lot. We have the air purifier. We have the stickers you put on the back of your phone for radiation. I have the EMF detector that picks up the waves in the air. I've had the whole house checked by a professional who looks for things like EMF waves and things like that. I even had something installed in my Malibu house to turn out all the power while we sleep. It's basically a button that turns all the power off, except for the fridge and security cameras in the nighttime. So when you go to sleep, you don't have any Wi-Fi or electricity in the house at all.

Almost done. New Beauty says, that's pretty serious. She says, it's like going camping. I also have an alkaline water filter so I can pick the pH of our water. There's a lot of research on that. You don't want to be going too alkaline because you do need a little stomach acid to digest your food. I typically choose somewhere around the 7.5 to 7.9 mark for the water. Then I like using Palo Santo to clear the energy in the space. And I also have little diffusers around. What did she use? I like to use Palo Santo to clear the energy in the space. What is that? Isn't that a place? Wait for it.

Wait for it. And I also have little diffusers around the house with essential oils, depending on what's going on. We even mop the floors with hot water and eucalyptus oil, which is what my mother used to do. It's good for the wood and it's antibacterial. It also smells really nice. 30.

So, Palo Santo, I had to look up.

AlexI love it. I've read it like six times.

MerlinAlex, Alex, do you have a sticker on your phone for radioactivity?

AlexOh, no. Not yet. Not yet.

MaxShe married Orlando Bloom. What? In 2009, a gang of thieves known as the Bling Ring broke into Bloom's home. The group stole luxury brand clothing and jewelry. In this case the ringleader allegedly wanted Kerr's Victoria's Secret Lingerie Like for science? Now she's married And then they got divorced And now she's married to the billionaire Snapchat Co-founder Evan Spiegel Good for her In 2017 Kerr surrendered

$8 million in jewelry Which was given to her by Malaysian financier Joe Lowe In 2014 Financier to the U.S. government amid an inquiry into the One Malaysia Development Berhad scandal.

MerlinThat's like the lady with the basketball coach where she had to give back all the stuff. That's a goddamn shame. It's basically a button that turns all the power off except for the security cameras in the nighttime. It's like going camping. Dig a dig of Palo Santo. I had to look this one up. I'm here on sacredwoodessence.com. Palo Santo is a mystical tree that grows on the coast of South America and is related to frankincense, myrrh, and copal. In Spanish, the name literally means holy wood.

It's part of the citrus family and has sweet notes of pine, mint, and lemon. It's got ceremonial benefits. Let me tell you the healing benefits of Palo Santo in case you're thinking about having a round for whatever's happening. Palo Santo is traditionally used for relieving common colds, flu symptoms, stress, asthma, headaches, anxiety, depression, inflammation, emotional pain, and more.

AlexWow, it really could do everything. Wow, I can't believe I haven't got that.

MerlinThere's so many challenges sitting right in front of us here, you guys.

MaxHow do I do the Palo Santo?

MerlinGet a button that turns off your electric at night for camping. Stickers for your phone, EMF consultant. How do I even find somebody to detect EMFs in my house? Ring, ring. Hi, it's me, the EMF guy. Is that good?

MaxI'm sorry, my phone's shut off. I'm sleeping. What? I'm curious, how do you do the Palo Santo? Do you snort it? Yeah, well, you can snort it. You can freebase it. You can put it in a pressure cooker. I think most people burn it.

MerlinIt's like a sage type thing. You burn it and you smell the smoke. Stress, asthma, headaches, anxiety, depression, inflammation, emotional pain, and more. I'm not a medical professional, but if you have like a cold, you probably shouldn't be like huffing smoke, right? Well, they're very clear about that here. It says relieving common cold and flu symptoms. So I think from an FDA standpoint, I think Palo Santo has covered its mystical butt.

MaxIt's like how McDonald's You can't have Like an ice cream sundae But you can have like a cold dairy beverage

MerlinWhat's it called? A slurry? What are they called? A slurry?

MaxWe're legally not allowed to call this It's like the whole

MerlinNow the cow people are mad Because of Impossible Burgers They say, nuh-uh, that's not a burger A burger has to be You know, it has to be a real burger With dead cows in it, right? God, I've been so healthy lately. I want a burger. I want a burger so bad. She's also the author of the book Treasure Yourself, colon, Power Thoughts for My Generation.

AlexAlex, you want to get burgers? No, I ate like literally a loaf of bread at that event yesterday. I can't.

MerlinIn Treasure Yourself, international supermodel Miranda Kerr offers her own view on how her generation and those following can achieve greater health and happiness. Miranda believes that one of the most powerful tools to facilitate change is positive affirmation. affirmation. She's collected over 100 affirmations from some of the world's most inspirational authors. Please tell me that they're in there. Who?

MaxAre there the affirmations in there? David Avocado

MerlinWolf, your main man? No, no, no. No, this is just her book on Amazon. It's available on Kindle for $4.99.

MaxCan we read the affirmations?

MerlinOh, geez, I don't know. Let's see. That's what I want. I want to know what they say. Miranda Kerr, Treasure Yourself Affirmations. Well, let's see. It's from the likes of Louise L. Hay, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra and many more

AlexMany Many more

MerlinI confuse Deepak Chopra and Dinesh D'Souza Is that racist?

AlexCut that out It's a trap Well Alex is it?

MaxIs it racist? Did you see the take? This is all going to be edited out So there was the SNL the comedian that was fired For doing the racist accents And one of the big takes that I saw on Twitter about that Was What do they mean in Asian accent? I don't even know I don't know what that is what would that they're like do you know what I'm talking about people are like they're like what would that even be an Asian accent I can't even I don't know

Merlinand I like I think if I did a Ching Chong Bing Bong for you right now you would know that that is primarily an Asian accent

Maxhow fucking desperate

Merlinand thirsty for those faves

Maxdo you have to be to be like I've never heard

Speaker Aof this Asian accent

MaxI don't know I don't know I can't even conceive I don't get it I don't even know oh my god I don't see accents I don't know how would you even know it was Asian or white. I don't know.

MerlinI've never heard of that. All I know is that there's people who are super into my recycling on recycling night and every other day they have no interest in my trash. It's crazy frustrating. So what I want to say is treasure yourself and shut off that electricity because

MaxI have actual we do need to get to our challenge but I have actual can I do some actual follow up and front matter stuff? So do our Friday. It was in the New York Times and it was in a story about Apple's usurious policies about the podcast app and how they're... Usurious Banking.biz. Usurious Banking.biz. And if you scroll, we'll put this in the show notes, but if you scroll way down on this thing, you can see Overcast. And if you zoom in, there's a little screen.

See it for a second.

MerlinFor a second. And if you zoom away and there's a tiny... If you jog with your Master MX mouse, you just jog just a little bit,

Maxyou'll see it for a second. and there's a tiny little Dubai Friday in there. Now, it's right next to a Mitch Larger Rec Diffs. The Rec Diffs is very prominently featured in there, but I thank you to the New York Times for officially endorsing, not only endorsing Dubai Friday, but everything that we've ever said on this podcast. Especially the anti-Semitism. Primarily. I mean, that's how you, you know, you want to get known for something. It's called building a brand.

MerlinI just want me to go for one thing.

MaxWhat else do I have here? Alex and I both participated in the RelayFM podcast-a-thon.

AlexYes, you very much brought it up.

MaxYou took an iPad apart? Congrats. Congrats to them for raising a lot of money.

Merlin$260,000 is really good.

MaxOh, it's fucking wild. It's a lot of money. A lot of money. Good job, guys. That's so cool. So Alex brought her smashed iPad and was just like getting embedding little pieces of glass in your finger. It was very upsetting to watch.

AlexOkay, hold on. No, it was fine. It was fine. I still have it here.

MaxIt's in... Alex, get it fixed. Go get it fixed.

AlexIt's very expensive. But I was told by a listener that it is safety glass. No, no, no, no, no. It is not the safety glass. It's Gorilla Glass. But look, it's still working. So I plug it into a monitor.

MerlinIs that crunchy sound to your iPad?

AlexOh, well, it's in a plastic bag, but I can take it out.

MerlinPlay the future.

AlexYeah.

MerlinAll right. I need to sleep.

MaxAlex, just get the screen fixed. Get it fixed, Alex.

AlexOh, it looks so cool, though.

MaxTake it out of Petty Cash. How much is it? Petty cash.

AlexOh, only like $1,200. No big deal.

MaxNever mind. Yeah. That's not petty. What are you thinking?

AlexOh, did it come out? Yeah.

MaxAnd then I was very happy that they had me on at the last second. And Alex may have us. I think Alex did some social engineering on them to make me go on there. And I bumped Syracuse. You finally arrived.

MerlinYeah, Syracuse had some connectivity problems or something.

MaxWell, they put me on before him. And then he finally got on and dropped the connection.

MerlinOh, damn.

MaxSo congrats to RelayFM. Can people probably still give money, right?

AlexYeah, all through September. Oh, nope, stjude.org slash relay. There you go.

MaxAnd let's see what else. As always, I mean, that's a fine place to give money, but if you really want to give your money somewhere good, you should give it to us. If you want it to count. You can support. Go ahead and support. We know you're listening to this Dubai Friday program. You're probably going, oh, you know, that's funny. They've been giving us the real truth about how annoying Nancy Pelosi's voice is and about, well, what are our other takes? And about how we don't know it. She wears too much makeup.

MerlinYeah, she should smile more. Get in the kitchen and cook my dinner. I'm Scott Adams.

MaxYeah, we've been talking about how Nancy Pelosi should smile more and we've never heard. We don't know what an Asian accent is. You're probably going, how do they have these brave? How could they even say these things? Because they lose all their advertisers. Well, that's the secret. We don't have any advertisers, okay? There's no fucking Casper mattress who's going to get mad at us and be like, oh, we're canceling you for your problematic. OK. We're we're we're just too twisted. You know, our takes or to.

MerlinOh, yeah.

MaxWe're too. When you said the Jews aren't allowed to sleep on our beds.

MerlinYeah. They hate that. They hate to see it.

MaxYeah. We're too. Our opinions were just too. We're too extreme. You know, that's the only way. So where do people go if they want to really make a difference? Yeah. Well, if they, I mean, if you really want to do something, you'd support, you'd support the independent media.

MerlinWork on a campaign or give us your fucking money.

MaxYeah. And that's, and that's the thing is that you have money and we want your money and you can go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com and you can become a $5, give us that, you know, you give us the $5 every month. And that, what's the, I can't remember what the website's called. I'm having an aneurysm. Oh, patreon.com. You go on the Patreon and you give us the $5. and then if you do that we record like another a whole other episode of Dubai Friday it's our after show we still got to do that don't we oh god

Alexoh no and that's when we get

Maxreally sad and depressed and we really you know really become some really upsetting navel gazing that's when we really just read out the things out loud that we've seen on Twitter

Merlinreally explain how Filmic Pro interacts with a gimbal

Maxreally good this week we'll be covering how to build a pressure cooker so you can get that and more at giveusyourfuckingmoney.com And finally, we have a little chat room for the Dubai Friday community, and it is a really wonderful and positive place. It is a little Discord server, and it's just for us, and we've made a lot of rules so that people can't be nasty to each other. And one of the nice listeners made, we struggled to tell people how to get to the Discord, and so one of our very nice listeners made a sort of cool vanity URL.

So you can go to DubaiFriday.club, and that will allegedly that will take you into the discord. I checked it. It works. There you go. And you can go chat with us in there. We do have a team of volunteer moderators who are very wonderful and hardworking and they are giving their free time to make that place very nice and positive and free of conflict. And thank you to our moderators who do that. And also if you cross them, I will destroy you. Your account will be banned and we will ban you from the podcast.

You will not be able to listen.

Speaker Ado not defy the moderators but I also do worry

Maxbetween you and I I do worry that the moderators might go mad with power

Merlinbut I'm just trying to speak the truth to women I know I'm not creepy, you're creepy

Maxso you know a lot of people on the discord have decided they put their pronouns in their username and then a very common mistake people go on the discord and they go oh I should do a bit about the pronouns that's a paddling right there you're getting banned right away

Merlinnot funny not funny making fun of my sandals that's not not funny not funny not funny not a

Maxgood bit uh what do you ever worry do you think maybe the moderators might become mad with power

Alexi think here's the problem you talk to them too much and you have you have given them power i think they're just afraid of me because they're like afraid of being sexist or homophobic and they're just like oh alex wants something we'll do it we'll do it maybe i i think i'm i thought

Merlinwe were going to stop using adjectives. Didn't the Pope ask us to stop using adjectives?

AlexI am so confused. I am so confused. Alex, Alex, I know we got a lot to do here, but can you in the after show, we'll talk about the Pope. Oh, we're doing after show Pope after show.

MaxAll right. I had one more resistance. Holy. Yes. Can I do it? Please. Yes. Yeah. This is a tweet from yesterday. This is I went I was very online yesterday and I found one of the all time worst tweets. I see your cursor. God, you click around a lot. And Oh, first you don't want me to be Oh, why is Max the Doc? There's a Doc Did you know there's a Doc? And now it's like, oh, you're clicking too much

MerlinCould you guys talk more quietly? I'm trying to read A Tale of Two Cities

MaxI found one of the greatest galaxy brain resistance tweets I've ever seen in my life yesterday so it is from Twitter well I'm not even going to say but it's from a sort of resistance account on Twitter and she goes this is from yesterday after the

Pelosi announces the impeachment procedure and she goes mark my words so many babies are going to be born on June 30th 2020 and Nancy will be a top 10 baby name thank you is the premise of this whole premise of this tweet is that when

Merlinthey announce the premise is that resistance people have sex which I think is a stretch

Maxbut it's that just announcing that there might be an impeachment people get so horny that they have to fucking I can't finish unless impeachment. I can't even have normal sex. I have to raw dog it and impregnate my wife. Can you talk with more vocal fry?

AlexDig, dig, dig. There's a challenge that we got to talk about.

MerlinWhy did you send me this video? Oh, no. This is awful. Oh, no. With your fucked up hand?

AlexI hate all of this. No, no, no. It works. It works. So I just plug it into a monitor, and then I play my Apple Arcade games, and it's fine.

MerlinHave you played on the Apple TV yet?

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah. Or no, I have not played on the Apple TV.

MerlinI played Desperation of the Final Kingdom Hearts, whatever the fuck it's called. I was playing that a little bit on my-

AlexWild Hearts. Yeah, sure, sure.

MerlinYeah, I hooked up controller and everything.

AlexIt was pretty fast. Yeah, yeah. It's very, very good. I want to recommend, oh God, I don't even remember what it's called, but my new-

MerlinFake Zelda? Fake Zelda's good.

AlexI haven't played Fake Zelda yet. I've pretty much been playing the Syracuse game and Cards of Darkness. I said Syracuse and Siri got mad at me. Oh, and Skate City by Ultron's Adventure. What was the challenge? What was the challenge? Someone say what the challenge was. Jesus Christ. Why? Okay. No. Card hop.

MerlinGuys, we're an hour in. Do you want to do some advice? The challenge this week, which I think was mine, was to buy a phone and set it up. No, the thing this week was to, since we were all getting treats, when you get your new iPhone, set it up all the way from scratch. Saturday is treat day. All you're allowed to enter is your basic bitch stuff and then you don't pull over your apps and whatnot.

MaxI do this every time I get a phone, so of course I did it.

MerlinI know, I know, exactly.

MaxNow Merlin, did you do it? Not at all. Oh, Alex, did you do it?

AlexOh, I got so excited. I started to and then you started doing a stream I have

MerlinI have I have I have I have I have reasons as far

Alexwell okay so

Merlindid you see the new thing did you see the new thing that it can do

Maxholy shit

AlexI did see the new thing

MaxAlex I threw the I threw the little foam wind thing and it got stuck on the panel that wasn't it wasn't what I was trying to do but that did happen so I need you to fix that

AlexMerlin I will paint you a word picture for that later. That's okay. So Max did a live stream for setting up your phone, I guess.

MaxI had to do it, and I thought the Discord would enjoy seeing it.

MerlinDid you get to peel your own plastic off?

MaxYeah, I did like an hour of just setting up the apps and stuff. Why? Well, I just thought people would want to see it. It'll be interesting.

AlexYep. I started doing it, and then I'm like, seriously, why am I doing it? The tools are so good now.

MerlinNo, but you're so cocky. Max, you've got to see the thing. You've got to see the thing.

AlexWhat it does now.

MerlinI just sent you the link. Max, click the link in the text link.

AlexYou know how I was about to ask Max, like I used to always do the encrypted iTunes backup, and iCloud backups have gotten a lot better, and now you can just directly transfer the data from your old phone to your new phone over a discreet...

MerlinYou just set them next to each other, and they'd make their own little ad hoc Wi-Fi network, and they'd transfer one to the other. And mine, with butt-tons of stuff on it, took less than three hours. For most people, it's like an hour, two hours.

AlexYeah, mine was a half hour.

MerlinCan I give my... It's not a reason. I still did not do the challenge. My challenge, I did not do it. I did that. But I just want to say why. Because in this instance, One of my reasons for getting this was that my kid's 6S is garbage, and it's bad and old, and the battery sucks. And rather than spending money to fix that up, and I wanted her to have a cellular watch, so I handed her down my old 10S and my old cellular watch, and I got new ones for me. Now, I have in the past—this is quick, but just for what it's worth.

I want to tip my hat to Apple because this shit has gotten so much better. Here's the thing they don't tell you. Let me just start with one simple fact. What they don't tell you. What those fat cats and Cupertino don't want you to know is it's so easy to unintentionally fucking bork all of your Apple Watch data, historically. Like, they don't tell you, you know, there is a way to back up your Apple Watch. You know what it is? Historically? Unpairing. Unpairing an Apple Watch whilst you have the original phone intact and the original watch intact.

Until maybe this year, the only way to make sure your data was retained, because it was not going to the cloud. It wasn't. It does now, and this is huge. So it used to be, you'd be like, oh, fuck, I just lost all of that. Because people think, like, you know, it's Apple. All you've got to do is put these things together, and it'll work great. Well, now when you do this transfer your data thing, this is not an excuse, but I want to, like, for once applaud Apple for really nailing it with this. You put the phones next to each other. You do the thing with the little, you shoot the Galaxy with the camera. You enter the passcode on both devices, and then it starts transferring.

And then it says, like, hey, do you want to use the Apple Watch? that you have paired with this phone on the other phone? I'm like, shit, yeah, I do. Because now that's all on the cloud and it's on the phone. So anyway, I apologize. I did not do it. I peanut buttered hard. But kudos to Apple for this transfer your data thing. Jason Snell had a problem with it where I think he hit a button and it had to start over. You can't resume. You have to start all the way back over. But anyway, that's all. I just wanted to applaud Apple. Is that what you did, Alex?

AlexYeah. Yeah, and I do periodically go through and just delete a bunch of apps. So I didn't want to fully immerse myself in the sticky peanut butter. So Twitter's gone, all of my Postmates, and all of the things that are theoretically bad for me, I decided to get rid of just because why not? But I wanted to start playing Apple Arcade games as soon as possible. So I was like, all right, no, fuck this. Are you disappointed in this, Max?

MerlinBecause I really thought I was going to do this.

Maxyes I'm very disappointed in you guys I think you would have learned a lot from doing the challenge

AlexI normally do this every year

Maxit was very painless and easy for me

Merlinyou want to know what I did do though what did you do deleted all my shortcuts hit them all I deleted every goddamn shortcut because they're all showing up in the wonderfully improved share sheet and I'm like I don't know how to fucking get rid of these I just deleted all of them I'm going to start over

MaxI did that I did shortcuts bankruptcy and so far I've only done done a couple of them. Can I? Yeah, we should actually we should probably do a shortcuts episode at some point because I have there's stuff I actually want to do now where like I actually want a shortcut to like put things. So I'm using things as my to do list right now and I want to be able to talk to things with the voice.

AlexYou're going to give Matthew Cassinelli a literal boner right now. Wow.

MaxIt's really all it takes.

AlexAnything you because you can have you can have Siri.

MaxSo so OK. So here's the situation. I have Apple CarPlay in my car now, and I can push a button on the steering wheel. Which is hugely improved. It's very, very good. And I can push a button on my steering wheel to talk to Siri. And so it's actually, I'm starting to get more into what you can do with Siri over voice. And there's some stuff that I want it to go into certain apps versus the default things. No, no, I think you're, if I understand what you're saying, and tell me if I don't,

Merlinit seems like your potential interest in shortcuts previously was mostly academic or intellectual, and now it sounds like you're saying you can see how hooking this to that, especially in the context of voice in your car, you go, aha, there are things that I would like to do, and I would like to do that with my voice.

MaxSo a big one is I use this app that James T. Green, as far as I know, kind of popularized this in the Mac nerd world called Just Press Record. Do you use that, Alex? That's a great app. Yeah, I learned about that from Serenity,

Merlinbut it's really good.

MaxWell, Serenity got it from James. Okay. How dare you? And anyway, what I would love in the car is to be able to press the Siri, the button on my steering wheel that activates Siri, and then say some sort of incantation for it to make a voice memo in Just Press Record. because I have an existing workflow to get my notes to myself from Just Press Record into my life.

MerlinThere's another very programmable app you might want to try that with called Drafts.

AlexI was going to say.

MerlinDrafts does that. Drafts is a button on my watch.

AlexYou okay?

MerlinWow. Is that a boner? Is that a Matthew boner? What happened?

MaxI don't know. I know that you like Bear. I have it all figured out. Read a book. Jesus. Bear is so good Oh look at this It's like a dark PDF Oh my

MerlinIt does Markdown Kind of

MaxIt does Markdown It's kind of Markdown

MerlinIt looks like Markdown Bear is the bee's knees No Not so much It's It's more like RTF for people Who regard themselves As power users

AlexOh my Why are you Talking on Bear Wrong

MerlinI'm so tired Of people demanding That I love Bear and it's like it's just it's your Merlin I think we've actually found the bottom this is actually your worst pick pick the notes app like a fucking dork noob or get serious about drafts Merlin I think what are you doing what are you doing ah it's an h1 it can tell because this is h1

Maxthis is the bottom of the barrel we've we've reached like we've reached like the bedrock of Merlin's like bad takes. Like this is it.

AlexThis is, oh God, it's another episode of 2008.

MerlinNow you guys have convinced yourself, you convinced yourself it's good because, no, because it's the soy latte of apps right now and everybody loves it. That's totally understandable. No, it looks like a good app. Okay.

AlexOkay.

MerlinOkay. Hold on.

AlexIt sure looks good. Been using both drafts. Actually,

MerlinI'm going to take that back. It looks, it looks fine. It looks fine.

AlexIt looks, ah, ah, God.

Maxwow are you still using envy are you still using envy

Merlinlet's not get a Christmas tree this year let's just buy a Christmas card with a tree on it

Alexoh my god

MerlinI hear those sleigh bells bingling I do! I do! I do! I do!

AlexI do! I do!

Show notes

Transcript

151. Gentleman's B

Show notes

Transcript

0:00

0:21

0:28

0:37

0:39

0:42

0:48

0:50

0:54

0:56

1:18

1:22

1:52

2:06

2:10

2:13

2:16

2:21

2:30

2:32

2:36

2:38

2:40

2:41

2:43

2:44

2:45

2:49

2:57

3:04

3:19

3:23

3:27

3:31

3:39

3:41

3:43

3:51

4:05

4:09

4:13

4:17

4:30

4:32

4:34

4:43

4:50

4:51

5:19

5:31

5:39

6:09

6:21

6:37

6:38

6:39

6:47

6:58

7:00

7:00

7:05

7:36

7:54

7:56

8:20

8:22

8:31

8:36

8:41

8:49

8:53

8:57

8:59

9:02

9:06

9:11

9:12