161. It's My Plastic Straws

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, sleep on the floor.

I keep wondering what if I just started calling Merlin Merle without any comment. Hi. Hi.

Speaker AHello. Hi, Merle. Hello. The bitch is back.

AlexI know that you were triggered this morning. What? A part of my body was triggered. What's up with you? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

MerlinOh. What happened? Well, they're trying to undo the election. Everybody knew that Hillary should have won, and now we're triggered.

AlexHow's that going?

MerlinIt's really bad. I'm triggered. They should have had a content warning on MSNBC.

AlexIs this a real thing people are saying?

MerlinWell, I mean, 39% of the country is saying that apparently.

MaxOh, boy. I will say I'm slightly upgrading my prediction of that impeachment won't do anything, and it's just a waste of time and a distraction to, it might do something.

Speaker AWhy?

MaxIt's starting to feel like we got him this time. Yeah, he's back. It feels a little different.

MerlinNo, I'm not going to be drawn into this. Counselor, I will not be drawn into this line of inquiry because then you're going to stab me.

MaxIt's a very clear... I think what's different this time is that there's a simple story that you can point to of the thing he did wrong that has really stuck in a way that other stuff hasn't stuck to Trump.

AlexWell, what is that tweet-link thing that you say at Thanksgiving, happy post-Thanksgiving, I guess?

MaxHe sold out the national security interests of the country for his own personal gain.

AlexAnd what was that personal gain? For political. To get them to investigate his political rivals. And so how did that hurt the country? Nothing happened.

MaxBecause it was in our political interest to give that foreign aid that Congress decided to give to Ukraine to Ukraine.

AlexSee, it's not that I, obviously there's no reason to try to change people's minds.

MerlinYou're being that tough judge that asks the hard questions because you want to let that person make the case.

AlexIs that what you're doing else? No, I'm being the racist uncle at the table. There's no reason for it.

MaxSo I don't think this is the kind of thing that's going to get the racist uncle to not vote for Trump. but I do think that there's a lot of people that it's going to activate. I think there's like new people. Yeah, that's basically my thinking is I think there's a lot of people who just otherwise don't vote who might be like, this is finally too much. Like I care now and I have to vote against Trump.

MerlinWell, can I rejoin what I said when I was yelling at you guys? I still agree with what I said when I was yelling. I still think I'm right about like this is their fucking job and they need to do it. And the way I want to rejoin this is to say, I think there's this, I think as we've all gone numb to the terribleness, by the way, everybody, welcome to Dubai Friday. Hope you're having a good day, Thanksgiving and holidays. But there is, I think it is necessary for Congress to do its job, even if they're not going to win.

You don't stop playing sports ball because you think the other team is probably going to win. And like you, you, that's the game. The game is you keep playing, you keep doing your job. And that part I think is, as I said before, and I didn't mean to yell at you guys, but you guys need to be yelled at. I do think that's, I do think that's really important. There's also, as we all go numb and continue to feel numb and bad about all of this and nothing can change. And the people that we thought we could trust to be the guardrails are obviously either lying

and or corrupt. it also assumes that we've seen everything, to quote Patrick Stewart. We have not seen anything. We haven't seen it all. It doesn't matter. She's trying to ride my bike on the grass. She says, oi, you, okay, so here's what I'm trying to say. So I think we could stand, I feel like I could stand on a moral basis and a civic basis, stand on that first point, which is this is their job. They should do this. Okay, let's set that aside for a minute. We get so fixated.

Oh, God, I have so much to say about this, and I'll make it quick. I promise I'll make it quick. You guys were a little—we started late, so I already drank too much coffee. So deal. I think that we keep thinking we've seen it all, and we haven't seen it all. The biggest challenge that Congress has had so far is that every person they talk to makes them want to talk to five more people. So there continues to be more and more shit coming out. Do you think that ends this week? Do you think—no. As long as they keep going with this, more and more shit is going to come out. They're going to keep fucking up and stepping on their own dick.

And there's going to be all kinds of stuff that there is also like,

Maxthere's a few like other like ticking time bombs of like the bank records. There was a big court case. Absolutely. Trump can't block the bank records. And like, like obviously I think it should be, I mean, I hope I'm not, don't sound like a conspiracy theory, not that like if those bank records and the taxes ever do come out, like the guy's fucked, like clearly, like I think it's, I think we sort of already know that he's, that he's basically has like a criminal enterprise that the Trump organization is basically like uh among other things it's like uh um they're doing like money laundering and there's some like ponzi scheme elements to it and yeah he does business with

all these like unsavory care like he's probably laundering money that shouldn't be laundered like i think he's just it's just going to show that he is worth a tenth or twentieth of what he says

Merlinthat if you think let's go back to josh marshall's razor like what it's going to come down to is like He, it's so important. He sued the dude from Bloomberg years ago when he wrote the book that said he wasn't a billionaire. His biggest thing, Bloomberg, his biggest thing is he needs people to think that he's the rich boy and everybody likes him.

MaxI somewhat, you know, I know that this is the big thing that I do hear Libs say that. Well, I've heard this say about Michael Bloomberg. People go, it's good that Bloomberg is in the race because he's a real billionaire. He's going to expose Trump as a phony billionaire.

MerlinOh, finally. Yeah.

AlexOh, thank you. Thank you.

MerlinAlexandra, was that Alexandra Petri? I keep waiting for a candidate to enter the race that's actually just a stack of money in several trench coats. That's what I really, I'm waiting if that's going to be my candidate. And then what was my final point about this? I do think there's that, but I also just, I feel like, okay, so finally, if we're going to talk about real politic here, we still all do this thing where we accede to whatever fucked up narrative these folks are coming up with. And like we continue. I think that's one of the things you got to hand it to Schiff is that he was so good at saying staying really focused on like, OK, yeah, I get it. You think everything's a conspiracy. Thank you very much. Let's let's move on to the next person. And he was really good to not take the bait and go down a rabbit hole of saying, no, that's not true. Look at it this way. Let's say you're the principal at a high school and you're dealing with the mean girls.

and let's say instead of just being mean girls who give people an eating disorder, they're actually committing crimes. Would you be a good principal to say, well, you know, their parents donate a lot of money to the school and they're very popular girls, so I really should not stop their bombings. Because really, you know, I want to keep my job. If I'm seen as being ineffective, if I don't successfully stop the bombs and they're still popular, I won't be loved as a principal. It's like, no, put this on any other job that's not Congress.

And it's farcical to think that you shouldn't even try to do your job because there's some kind of a political price to pay. And it's like if everybody, it's like a union. They need to like lock arms and move in the direction of saying this is our job. This is not about partisanship. This is our job. Our job is the man did the crimes. And we have the proof. And we have to keep doing that because it's our job. And I know that's not a very, that may not be real politic, but like, that's my feeling on it. It's like, do your job, sir.

AlexI want to agree. You're just the most optimistic.

MerlinSo what should they stop doing and what will it accomplish?

AlexNo, no, no, no. That's the thing is, I don't know. I still wake up every morning looking at my Google alerts to see if anything new has happened with Jeffrey Epstein. Because this is the conspiracy theory I've locked myself to because that's all my brain.

MerlinThat they'll let you know about.

AlexRight.

MerlinWhat will they let me know about?

AlexIt's like I'm, it's my plastic straws. Like I know it's not going to change anything, but I just gotta keep saving the turtles.

Speaker AYou're so triggered. You're so triggered.

AlexWhat was the thing this morning? And I oop.

MaxAnd I oop. Do you guys drink Celestial Seasonings brand tea bags? Yes.

AlexI have in the past, yes.

MaxI think we've talked about the raspberry zinger.

AlexIt's like the best flavor. Love the zinger.

MaxLove the zinger. Do you know there's, so there's a whole zinger line of teas?

MerlinOh, huh. I think there's the one I like, the red one, which I like iced. I make it very strong. Is that the raspberry? I think it's the raspberry, and I have it iced. I like that a lot, and I put that in my little bottle with my scrunchies around it. I have this bracelet, and I oop.

AlexIt's arrived at my kids' school.

MaxIt's a thing.

AlexYou make fun of them. You know what? You're going to make fun of them.

MaxYou know what's funny is I know you're doing some sort of voice, but I don't know what it could be. I don't know.

MerlinI don't associate that voice with anything. Well, it's arrived at my kid's school, so now it's a thing, and she has friends who are VSCO girls, self-identified VSCO girls now. So that's great. Thanks for making that popular, Alex. Sick, sick, sick, sick, sick. Sick, sick, sick, sick. Sick, sick, sick, sick. You got any scratches?

AlexYou're not. Listen, we can appropriate girls stuff.

MerlinSo what?

AlexMerlin, Merlin, Merlin.

MerlinI'm not familiar with that voice, though.

AlexYou can't make fun of the girls.

MerlinPoint a personal raspberry. Someone's going to have to write in and explain that voice to me. I have a parliamentary raspberry procedure.

AlexAll right, let's talk about the teas.

MaxI have the, I've been enjoying the, I think it's an apple cranberry. Ooh, that sounds, nighttime, that would be nice. That's a good nighttime tea. Now, do you know what? So we were buying teas, and I asked Ronak, and I was like, what distinguishes the zingers from the non-zingers? Because I like a zinger. I don't know the answer to that. Do you know, Alex? No. It's got hibiscus in it. Hibiscus.

AlexWhat?

MaxHibiscus. That's a beautiful flower.

AlexI don't see that as the zinger plant. Well, that's what makes it a zinger. Okay.

MaxIt's got the hibiscus. If it has hibiscus, it's zinger.

AlexOkay.

MaxAnd if it doesn't have hibiscus, it's not zinger. It's regular celestial seasonings. But boy, those zingers, I really like them. Oh, I love the zingers.

AlexIs there something in the hibiscus that zings?

MerlinI think that's what makes it a zinger.

AlexOkay.

MerlinI'm going to guess ascorbic acid, but I don't know. I'm just going to guess that.

AlexThere's a sangria zinger. Oh, my.

MerlinIf you don't know who the product in the room is, it's probably the hibiscus. Cranberry apple zinger. Cranberry apple zinger.

MaxThat cranberry apple zinger is a hell of a tea. Let me tell you, I put a little simple syrup in there.

MerlinMake it hot. We say special needs syrup now.

MaxThis is never going to come out. Oh, no. First, there was the voice that I don't understand what it was.

AlexFirst, I made fun of the gum.

MaxI certainly don't associate it with anything. No, no. And I oop.

MerlinThat's so stupid. Is it a cartoon character? What is it? No, it's a thing. It's a meme. Scooby-Doo. Yes. It's Scooby-Doo.

Speaker AThey're the turtles.

MaxOkay, I feel like you're doing Scooby a little gay.

Speaker AJust a little bit. I've got Scoobdar.

MerlinI've got Scoobdar. Is he the bottom or the top, Alex?

AlexOh, he's a power bottom. and um he's a bossy he's a bossy doggy

Maxthere's the uh there's the there's the men who are dogs who pretend to be dogs or they are

Merlinthere are dog men yes

Maxoh the puppy puppy puppy men and uh they were on the magic show on Netflix

Alexoh Which one?

MaxA very delightful show on Netflix called Magic for Humans. Oh, cool. Okay. Magic for Humans.

AlexI have not seen that episode.

MaxIt's really fun. It's a wonderful, silly, delightful magic show.

MerlinIs it a behind-the-scenes thing, or it's still got the magic of magic?

MaxNo, it's kind of like a street magic, but it's very whimsical and funny. It's a little bit Penn and Teller, but it's not mean. I don't know how to describe it. No, no, no. I'll check it out. It's good. It's fun.

MerlinI like TV. I like TV.

MaxFucking Watchmen.

AlexRight? Oh, my God.

MaxI don't think we should say a lot about it except to say that thanks. I mean, thank you for turning me on to the show.

MerlinYou know, it was so funny to hear them talk about it today. As you know, as you know, save the turtles. As you know, I listened to Slate Culture Gap Fest before we record this show, and it's a show that I like a lot. And they attempted to talk about it. They brought in Jamel Bowie to talk about it and to sort of elucidate what's going on. But it's so wild to listen to somebody who is bought in to the show because it's the most extreme mainstream example I've seen in a long time of just trust me.

Like, you're going to be confused. Like, when you get to episode four, and especially episode six, you'll be less confused. But it's not going to stop being weird. It's not going to stop being confusing. I cannot talk about this show because I was once like you, and I'm glad I stuck with it. You know what I mean? In the mainstream, it's so rare to have something that's broken this way to where people are like, no, I don't like superhero things. And by the way, this is not really a superhero thing. Just trust me. You know what I mean? Because you can't say anything about it. And it's not like it's just about twists. But it's so assured in how it knows how these pieces will fit together.

If you can sit with that discomfort, you know. I'm so glad you guys like it. Is everybody caught up?

AlexOh, yeah. I thought you were trying to get me into Jonestown. Kind of like, just line up. There's the Gatorade or whatever it was. The Kool-Aid was fine.

MaxFlavor-Aid. There were so many moments in this episode that were just shocking and awesome.

MerlinAnd I loved it. But I could feel, you know what, I'm sensitive to this. I was like this, let's just say I was like this with lots of things I now love. My brother, my brother, and me. Where I just get so tired of hearing about how, oh, this is really your thing. You really should do this. Oh, just trust me.

Speaker ATrust me. You've got to get through the first nine episodes of Buffy and then you get to the musical episode. And it actually gets good at that point.

MerlinAnd you're like, fuck you, man. I have so much other shit to do. I could just, I could, you know, jerkin my gherkin. I could do anything. Why would I go do this? And I understand that backlash. I have felt it many times. Yeah.

AlexI keep trying to think about how we could incorporate this into a challenge because I just want to talk about Watchmen for hours and hours. And that's mostly what I do with my life now.

MaxYou know what we should do is, that I think could be fun, is once it's done, which will be in like two weeks or so, we should get the panel of our friends together who watched it and just do a spoiler cast and put it in the after show feed and then we can just talk about it

Speaker AI'd be down for that

MaxI'd be totally into that

Merlinoh look at that Tim and Eric executive produced magic for humans that's cool can we incorporate it with the office party or should the office party be its own thing I think that's its own thing

Alexand I don't think everyone there has watched the watchman so that was what the question is who's watching the watchman because they should come on our

Merlinpodcast now we know who's not watching the watchman yeah i i i um i don't know i i i've i've gone on too much about this show but like it's so rare to like find something this weird and involving and rewarding and like i don't know man i just i i can't go i so i haven't gotten on pdpedia i know that's the thing lots of people are doing i i watch the youtube videos where people talk about all of that stuff but like i just the show itself the primary source is like

Maxpd pd pd is like the official like it's created by the show and it's like a repository of like lore and online information that you can go read if you want right yeah pd is gene smarts uh dude

Merlinworks with gene smarts character and yeah it's it's i think it is meant to be very similar she could light my stamps on fire oh shit dog i just i started i started i started following a wonderful lesbian called Jill Gutowicz and I started following her just on the basis of her tweet that says, I've been caught up on Watchmen and I know two things. Number one, I have no idea what's happening and number two, Gene Smart should kill me.

I highly recommend. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I feel the same way. I want her to just slowly, methodically reveal all of my lies. You know, I don't know how deep

Maxinto the like, I don't know how deep into the subreddit you guys are or whatever. Do you know she has a thing that's kind of a funny thing to have? You know what I'm talking about, right? It's a big reveal in an episode. But the name.

MerlinThe name of it? Yeah. Do you guys know that? I do. I do, but that's not his name. That's the funny part. That's her last name, not his. Unless he took her name in the woke style.

AlexOh! Oh, wait, wait. I'm sending it to you, Alex. Looking up the character. I'm pretty sure I know what Max is talking about. Not sure what, or I'm sure.

MerlinYes, yes, yes. Oh, and there's a dog.

AlexOh, I didn't know that. Well, but the third part. Oh, no, see, I did not know. Did not know that.

MerlinThat's her last name.

AlexYes.

MerlinBut I'll buy it. I'll buy it. I'm in. I'm in for a penny and for a pound. I'm so fucking good. Keep saying it, Max. Keep saying it. Keep explaining.

I'm making sure Alex gets it. I am on Skype. Oh, what a sweet doggo. What score would you give that doggo, Max?

MaxThat's a 10 out of 10 rare pupper.

MerlinI think that just to close that thread, I think the PDPD is meant to be very similar to, not the Black Freighter, but meant to be like the, you know, the Hollis Mason content. Like at the end of each issue in the original, there's always that extra stuff, like newspaper articles or book excerpts. You know what I mean?

AlexYeah, no, I have no idea. What is the PDPD? I'm just listening to the official podcast. I have not.

MerlinOh, isn't it so good?

AlexYeah, and reread the comic, but. I'm sorry, I'm le supple. What is P. Diddy, what is happening?

MerlinYep, P. Diddy. What is it, tell our Max.

AlexP. D. P. D.

MaxP. D. P. D. is like, it's a trend in TV shows, and especially like prestige shows now, where they have like an official canonical sort of website, themed website, where you can get like extra lore and background and history and stuff. And so PD PD is the thing created by the showrunners. And the idea is it's PD from the assistant of the detective from the show.

AlexOh, so it's like a fan wiki.

MaxYeah, but it's official. It's created by the show. Oh, interesting. That's what I'm saying. The showrunners made it. It's like part of the promotion of the show and the resources of the show. But it's presented as like this is PD's fan website.

AlexOh, PT as in PT, not PD as in police. I loved PD. Yeah. Oh, he's adorable.

MerlinWe have suspicions about Petey.

MaxYeah, you know, we think he's another character that we don't know who that is. This has got to be insufferable for anyone who's not.

MerlinIt's easy to laugh at a grown man in a rubber dog suit chewing on a squeaky toy. Maybe too easy, in fact.

AlexThis is my favorite article of all time.

MerlinYou want to do a reading series on this? That's a really good looking suit. The thing is, Dalmatians are not very smart and they're very inbred. Don't email me. He's a simple dog, like a simple syrup.

AlexAll right, Watchmen over. Dig Dug. Merlin, I have sent in the super secret text channel an article called The Men Who Live as Dogs Were Just the Same as Any Person on the High Street.

MerlinHello, hello, hello. Subhead, the deck. The deck is human pups like to live in packs. I'll do my anti-arm. I'm Robert Siegel. Human pups like to live in packs. Play with squeaky toys, eat from bowls, and nuzzle their handlers. ahead of a new documentary, Spot, Bootbrush, and Kaz, open up about their community.

Community?

MerlinOh, look at them. They're so shiny. And they have derpy tongues. Oh, boy. Yeah. Oh, good for them. They look happy. They look kind of like the lube guy.

AlexNo, but what I find fascinating about the puppy men is, like, I sort of get the sex thing. Like, there's, like, doggy style, sure.

MerlinI get every cubic inch of this. I totally get this.

AlexI don't get just being a dog.

MerlinThey're not a dog. They're a person dog.

AlexOh, right. They're a person who lives as a dog.

MerlinWell, like a furry is not supposed to be an actual wild animal.

AlexBut these aren't furries. That's what I'm saying. Oh, my God, Alex.

MerlinPlay with me.

AlexI'm sorry. I'm sorry.

MerlinIsn't that true, though? I mean, no. It isn't like you're dressing up to literally pass as a pantomime deer. This is not what dogs look like.

AlexI don't know. The Dalmatian.

MerlinThese are obviously men in dog suits. Alex, are you getting that?

AlexThe Dalmatian is pretty close. As you said, they're inbred.

MerlinAnd their tails are always swishing things off the table, sweet doggos.

AlexThere's a reason she wanted a coat out of the Dalmatians. They wouldn't have known.

MerlinI don't have a single problem with this. I think this looks like fun. I'd try this.

AlexYeah, I'm just asking the question.

MerlinI wouldn't lifestyle it because I can't really lifestyle anything. I don't have the, I don't know. I have so many problems with consistency. I don't think I – because it's probably hard to keep these – it's hard to keep these clean. I bet they don't look this shiny naturally. I think there's a lot of work involved in being a dog man.

MaxI think it's less of a commitment than doing home automation.

MerlinOh, shit. You're so fucking right. Oh, my God. You're so right. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. You're right.

MaxThat's my thing. I think if you had to pick one, I think if you're like, okay, I'm either – It's so much easier to be a dog man. I'm either building a 10 out of 10 rare pupper suit for my dog play, or I'm going to rig up my whole home Dale Gribble style so the lights turn purple when I walk in.

MerlinMax, can I – will you accept my confession? Right before we started recording, I thought, hey, these Wemos that I have at my office are fine, but they don't work with HomeKit, which I don't like.

AlexOh, yes, they do. Yes, they do. The Wemos?

MerlinWell, because I just bought the bridge.

AlexLet me finish the paragraph.

MerlinI bought a bridge. It arrives today. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Speaker ASo to use the app that I don't like with the outlets I don't need, that'll be arriving by price.

AlexHey, Siri, turn on the Christmas tree. So many people just got happy right now. Yeah.

MaxI've definitely gotten in the over my strong objections to it initially. I've definitely gone a little crazy on the home automation thing. The gateway to me was discovering that having the smart light bulbs is a bit of a false path. I think they're like super commercial.

MerlinIt's a hack. It really is. It's an unpleasant hack unless you are a bachelor hobbyist.

MaxI think it seems like the first thing to get naturally. You know, they're sold at the Apple store, which is I think where I got my Philips Hue sort of set up. And it just seems like the thing you should get because it's like, oh, yeah, smart light bulb. Like you can just screw it in and it's done. but I have to say it's a terribly inconvenient home automation device and when I got I had an electrician come over and put some smart switches in my house and that's when shit really started popping off that that's when it got really good is when you have the smart switches my my only

Merlindefense my defense of hue that I still I still really like is that hue has I'm not trying to sell people on hue but to explain why I continue to use that stuff is that it is a large upfront investment but you get a lot out of it especially as a renter i mean yeah and it is less expensive

Alexthan a electrician coming into your home like yeah and i do like the color stuff like i've

Maxrecently gotten i love my purple lights especially when it comes to well the call you do not get the color stuff with the smart switches but especially with the electrical stuff i am not a very handy person i just don't trust myself to do it but i am good and i do not endorse this on the podcast but I am led to believe that if you wanted to like put smart switches in your rented apartment, that you can't, it's not.

MerlinYeah, we've got some, but like the IKEA track lighting, the inexpensive IKEA five light track lighting in our hallway, Hugh makes one of the, you know, those little bulbs, those little like, the little guys. And that, it works, it works so great. And so we have all kinds of triggers, not the Donald Trump Jr. kind, but the kind that are like, okay, when you walk in the front door, it turns on the lights in this area, that kind of stuff. It's just that, you know, it's interesting. It's almost like when you talk about SIRI and it's like, well, what do you mean?

When you say Siri, what do you mean? Like, do you mean dictation? Do you mean shortcuts? You know what I mean? Like when you scratch the surface of that, you realize there's so much to it. And I think you're nailing it, Max. If you are actually just an adult that wants to have automation and preferences honored, like having that stuff wired makes a ton of sense also he works with home kit here's the deal the

Maxthe switch the key thing with this with the i have the lutron switches that work with home kit that's what i've got i got dimmers and the key thing with the switches is there are no special instructions i never need to tell anyone do or don't use the switch you just use it it's just a light switch until you want to go to sleep and you're upstairs and you're in bed and you're like damn i have not turned any of the lights off on any floor of my house and i can go hey dingus good night turn off all the lights and it goes on and everything goes off and i can stay in bed and and like that's such a small thing but it's such a luxury right of like that that not having

you get sleepy and you don't have to get out of bed to like do that last stuff well like our lizard

Merlinlights so right now he's in his we're still struggling with understanding completely with the brumation thing but i've got something called i don't love this it's kind of pounce i'm merlin shitless but coco geek makes this pretty cool little um uh why can i never remember the name of this device, a power strip that has three 110 plugs and two USB ports. And each one is addressable as a separate thing in both the Cocoa Geek app and in HomeKit. So what we do normally, and I promise I'm going somewhere with this, but in that case,

that's really handy because we can say, leave his little heady rock on all the time, but then honor this schedule for when the UV light and the heat light come on. It also has a built-in power gauge. It'll tell you how much power is being used. I like little things like that. But yeah, it does work with HomeKit. What's it called? Coco Geek? K-O-K-O Geek.

But you know what? I think the one thing I'm really going to agree with you on, and now we really are into the first world stuff, is a switch of some kind that a normal person can use makes all the difference. My family despised. despised my family's come around to like you know asking google about the weather or definitely very comfortable doing timers on the echo product line all very comfortable with that but the thing that got the light stuff to be not a horrible hindrance was getting those in my case the hue switches

which are not cheap but if you can like whatever you spend on lights spend that much on switches because no everyone will hate you well didn't match you used to hate the fact that that they had to interact with all different kinds of dinguses to just make the lights work like having

Alexto talk to the echo well that was on me because i had a google mini or a google home mini whatever um in various echoes and you discover the voice dinguses are are very very nice to have at an

Merlinintermediate and above level but if you will never get to that intermediate level if you're

Alexfrustrated with not being able to make a light work but but we come have completely come around to just the Siri ball. And it's awesome because it works on all of our phones. And you just got to commit to one, I think. That was my problem.

MaxIs it Koo Geek? K-O-O Geek?

AlexYeah, I'm on it.

MerlinOh, it might be Koo Geek. Did I say Koo Geek? It's probably Koo Geek.

MaxAnd what is it describing? It has USB ports in it? I don't. So this is confusing

Merlinbecause the one you'll see on their site is like an English version. Is that the one you're seeing? I'll see if I can find the one I got. But I like that idea, though, of each one. I'll try and find it for you for notes. But I really do like that idea. If you're going to have, if you're in a rental and you're okay with a little bit of hacks, I think that's a very smart idea. And I've used it for lots of different things. It used to be what we used for my kids. She's got her own little Christmas tree in her room. And so we could do the lights with that and the star

on top with another one. It's just neat that each one is addressable separately.

AlexHold on, hold on. You have multiple Christmas trees in your home?

MaxYeah. Wait, how do you know that?

AlexOh, that's so cool. Oh, my God. Oh, and so you're saying you have- No, I just said it. I just said it. So people wonder if Max listens to the show.

MaxNo, I'm buying a Koo Geek DW1 door and window sensor.

AlexSomeone put this in the chat. He's doing a riffle bridge. Okay, so, oh, my God. So I could switch. Oh, my God. See, please, please, someone put this in the chat, because I never know what kind of tree I want. I want to have a colored Christmas tree, or an African-American Christmas tree, and sometimes I want a white Christmas tree, and if I could just switch those off easily. Right now, I have two Wemo switches, so I turn on... Wemo! We almost work. Hey Siri, I say, hey Siri, turn on gay Christmas

when I want the rainbows, and I do, hey Siri, turn on white Christmas. And so I would just, I'm so excited.

MerlinWait, wait, do you have more than one set of lights on your tree that are different colors?

AlexYeah.

MerlinOh, my God. That's such a good idea. Why have I never thought of that?

AlexWell, and why have I never thought to not have more than one Christmas tree? I mean, we do only have two rooms in the house, but still, that's amazing. Wait a minute, though. You just, you're, I really like Christmas. Did you discover that?

MerlinI know, I know. I know. Calm down.

AlexDid you invent this technology?

MerlinI don't know. Because it's such a good idea.

AlexI don't know. Well, because when the Christmas tree, I was like, well, actually, my cat discovered it because we had a tree that had built-in lights, which is a mistake when you have any animal in your home. And so we were like, okay, the lights are built in. Let's just get other lights to put on top of it. And it's like, oh, you can't really notice the other lights, even though they're off. So I'm like, what if you just put even more on?

MerlinShe's just blowing my mind.

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinYou can have so, so like I like, a thing I learned from my ex as a, I mean, if I had my druthers and I was the main Christmas tree decorator, let's just say one good way to string lights is, I think, is to do very near the trunk, like you have a lot of white lights that are identifiable as like being on a branch. I'm imagining doing like an, and then you could have more on the branches if that's your only thing. But in this case, you could have white lights in the middle that simulate a Melania Trump snowy Game of Thrones thing. And then you could have little guys, the little, not fairy lights, but you know, the contemporary little lights in many colors.

Then you could throw on some, like, 40s Christmas story giant bulbs, and you could pick the Christmas you want.

AlexThat's what I'm saying. You're doing this. But right now I only have two outlets. If I had, like, various. This changes everything. Yeah, yeah. There's even more Christmas stories.

MaxAren't there, aren't there, I mean, I'm not, I don't know this, but there's someone out there has got to make smart Christmas lights where you could just address the lights, one strand of lights. Because, you know, they have, like.

AlexYeah, but they.

MaxWe do that with a smart plug.

AlexYeah. There you go. It's much easier just to do it with a home kit. I've tried this. You have to go into the app, and you can't say, hey, Dengus, turn on the Christmas tree. So I just get the, I think it's the Warm 1000s from Philpube, but not the smart Philpube.

MerlinPhilpube?

AlexWho is this Philpube? I have problems with P's and B's. Hi, I'm Philpube. We all know this, as well as T's. I'm a Philip Pube. Hi. Hi, I'm a Philip Pube.

MerlinHas life got you by the long and curlies? Try my new power strip, the Philip Pube. Do you find too many question marks on your toilet lid? That's me, Philip Pube. Hi.

Have you tried Bluetooth, Philip Pube? Okay, now here's the other thing, though, Alex. This is now a totally separate issue, which is you need to have a second small tree and it could be for anything. In my case, it's for my dumb kid. You could have a separate tree for your cats or the Lord.

You need a small tree and it stores away nice if you want an artificial or you could go by, as I like to do, get a Charlie Brown tree at the lot. But whatever works, no, what I'm saying is whatever works for you, you have an affliction, which is that you're obsessed with the winter holidays. You should lean into that like a rubber puppy and say, it's okay, my squeaky toy is going to be a second treat for my cats in the Lord. You should lean into that is what I'm telling you. Did you guys find the coo geek that's got the American outlets?

MaxIt's completely sold out on Amazon. I'm going to try to buy it from a website called tomtop.com. Oh! Hi, I'm Tom Top.

AlexHave you met my puppy man?

MaxIt supports the full Philip Pugh line of products. So Philip Pugh is the puppy man.

Speaker AThat's what you're saying.

MaxWell, Tom Top is the handler of Philip Cubes.

Speaker AI've been chewing on this ding-dang ball gag all morning.

MaxWhen he goes into doggo space. Into doggo space. Tom Top is the handler. Kennel. Kennel.

You know, this is pretty sketchy. It specifically says chips from China warehouse. Oh, boy. I don't know about all that. I don't know about all that.

MerlinI can't remember if it's ours. I think it was on our Slack. But on some Slack, I've been really going crazy with this Synology and been wanting, what was it I wanted in particular? There's a certain kind of app that, oh, yeah, yeah, I wanted an app that would let me, I forget what I even wanted. But the point is that I wanted an app to do a thing on Synology. And they at some point discontinued their iOS app that does the thing that I want. So I started searching around and like, oh, my God, it's I don't want to sound racist.

So I won't say this.

Speaker AOh, my God.

MerlinDude. OK, so the app I got and downloaded looked incredibly sketchy. And so I went and looked at the developer profile and he has two apps. One is a bespoke app for Synology that hasn't been updated in five years. And the other one is called Best Bargains.

And I thought to myself, ha, ha, ha. This doesn't support Quick Connect, which feels a little weird. I'm not sure I'm going to put my creds in here. I think I'm not going to do that.

AlexProbably smart. Best Bargains.

MaxI have a home automation topic and a television knowledge topic that I would like to ask our listeners to help with. Can I do that?

AlexLet's go.

MaxNumber one, let me give my home automation topic. Our friend of the show, Matt, has recently posted about that he set up a Raspberry Pi that does home bridge. You guys know I'm like all in on HomeKit, right? I have one Siri ball on every floor of our house. So I have first floor, second floor, third floor Siri balls.

That's a nice little tune.

MerlinFirst floor, second floor, third floor Siri balls. Put them on every floor My Siri ball

MaxThe voice recognition On the Siri ball Is so good That as long as I have one On the same floor as me I can be pretty much Anywhere in the house And just address it And it goes Whether I have my phone With me or not And I love it I think it works The best of it For me I found it to work The best of any Of the home automation Stuff that I've played with And to be honest I do not feel 100% Like happy Having one of those Video Alexas Or any Alexa Really plugged in I know

MerlinI'm getting the fear too

MaxSo it's just my personal craziness. But anyway, I do trust Apple a little bit more on that. So Matt recently set up, but the problem is I have all these accessories that do not work on HomeKit. And Matt recently set up this thing called HomeBridge on a Raspberry Pi. And it runs and it somehow connects his HomeKit to all of his dinguses.

I would really like some help with that. And if someone wants to help me, I will send you a free Dubai Friday windbreaker. A wind jacket? A wind jacket. If you help me, if anyone knows about this, and I don't want like, oh, I've read a few articles online. Like, you know what? Have the dignity of doing it. Actually know it. Serious inquiries only. Serious replies only. No, I know that there's got to be someone listening out here who kind of, who like, Like, it is a little bit outside of my skill set to set up a Raspberry Pi running Homebridge.

And I do need, like, if someone wants to jump on the Discord and help me out with it, I would love, just message me or get in touch somehow. And I'm looking for help with it. Does that interest you guys as a potential challenge or a thing to learn about? Or is that too techie? Or what's your thoughts on that?

AlexI do.

MaxGo ahead.

AlexI feel almost like every one of our fruit friends has this already set up.

MaxYou know, my fear is I fear that it's going to be like very fragile, that like it'll be a windy day and somehow it'll stop working and my whole house will stop working.

MerlinYeah. Well, I think what we're saying here is like we don't want to be we don't we want to find a hobbyist who's great at this rather than having to become hobbyists on our own.

AlexExactly.

MaxYeah. But I'm also interested in this. Does that make sense of like, I definitely have some tech stuff that like doesn't work as often as it does work. And then I'm like, you know, I'd be happier just doing it manually. Do you know what I'm talking about?

AlexYes. Yeah. Yeah.

MerlinI feel like I saw something. I'm struggling to find it in my history right now. But I feel like I saw something. It might have been in our Slack. But I feel like I saw something that's basically. And now, so if you go search for Raspberry Pi in a box, la, la, la. You're going to find a lot of stuff that still looks like something in a hard drive case. I feel like I saw something and it wasn't Kickstarter, but I feel like I saw something recently, which is a like plug and play GTG, like raspberry pie setup for normies. And I can't find it.

I will keep looking for it. It's gotta be in my history somewhere. I think it's an interesting idea. Yeah. Because the, I don't want to be diddling around. So what are you talking about? What's the thing called home?

AlexHome bridge.

MerlinThat's the thing Casey and everybody uses.

AlexYeah.

MerlinOkay.

Speaker AOkay. Let's see if I can find that.

MerlinYeah. I think that's a good challenge. Guys, seriously, I've been killing it in the challenge document. I've been entering in some meta challenges now, too.

MaxI'm excited about that. All right, here's my second thing. So, you know, Veronica and I are both...

MerlinWhere do you want people to contact you about that?

MaxOh, the Discord, I guess.

MerlinOkay.

MaxVeronica and I are both really... Well, there's a link to sign up to the Discord. Does anyone remember what the website is?

AlexNo. Well, if you go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com, there's a link somewhere in there.

MaxYeah, you can support Dubai Friday on Patreon. become a $5 supporter. You get an extra episode every week. Or if you're a $10 Cox's Cuck, this is as of, if you were listening to this contemporaneously with it airing, meaning you're listening to this in early December 2019 and you become a Cox's Cuck this week, that is probably your cutoff for getting our next treat, which if I do say so, I know we're trying to manage expectations.

MerlinI saw a photo of the treat and I'm very excited to have the treat in my hand.

MaxIf I do say so myself, it is pretty cool. pretty cool. Pretty good.

AlexVery, very.

MaxYou're pretty cool. I think people are and Alex and I had a little we may make some videos, some exclusive video content that goes along with this thing.

AlexMerlin's going to come to your house and sign whatever you want, really. All the vinyl.

MerlinYeah, I'll be dressed as Philip the Latex puppy and I'm going to come in and we're going to have a personal Discord. Also, just to close the thread, I just sent you a link to hoobs.org. Hoobs. Great. I've been looking for that. That's the thing I was talking about. Hoobs 3 Home.

Maxyou asked and I answered. Home bridge out of the box.

AlexOh.

MaxCan I buy this and it works? Yes. Allegedly. It specifically says now smarter than ever before. That's what I'm looking for.

Hoops. It says home automation for everyone. I'm everyone.

MerlinYou're part of the set of everyone.

MaxWait, this is what I was looking for.

MerlinI think this might have been what you were looking for. It's a hoops in a box.

MaxI didn't know that I was looking for hoobs I didn't even know that's what I wanted

Merlinsometimes you have to get a question to know what question works with Docker you get your docker I've been meaning to get a docker I think you can dock your philip pube they call it docking

Maxtwo men love each other very much $1.99 I want hoobs in a box no additional parts needed

Merlineverything included is in the box

Maxexcluding that

Merlinexcluding fat.

MaxWell, fuck. Fuck. Don't reach out to me anymore. Canceled. Everyone's canceled. It seems like something you'd want. Merlin, you're my only...

Speaker AWhoa.

MerlinIt comes with a Cat 7 cable? I didn't know there was a Cat 7.

MaxYeah, it's got two more. Call the cops. It's got two more.

MerlinFuck.

AlexI got Cat 6 here, and now I feel like I got cucked.

MaxYeah. Shit, dog.

AlexI genuinely didn't know Cat 7 was a thing.

MaxI didn't know that was a thing. If this supports Apple Pay, it's going to be the greatest day of my life. Here we go. Moment of truth. Here we go. Apple Pay. Does it go?

MerlinBitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin. You know it's going to be Bitcoin. Actually, we've transitioned from, we've moved away from the Bitcoin and Ethereum, and now we only take Hoob's coin.

Hi, I'm Philip Hoob's.

MaxOh, select a shipping method, Swiss post. No! This is going to be good. You know what? I'm going to PayPal them. I do not feel like typing my credit card into this.

AlexI keep on typing the PayPal button, and then it does nothing. So I think. Hoops. Hoops. Hoops. Hoops.

MerlinHoops. Hoops. Hoops. Hoops.

AlexNo, but it just, it's not doing, is it doing something for you, for the PayPal?

MerlinYou've had this problem before, Alexandra. You've had this problem before when you were trying to buy something, and the PayPal didn't work. The PayPal does nothing.

MaxYeah, I mean, sometimes you're trying to buy the oil for your Dalmatian suit. And you keep hitting the PayPal button, and it won't go. And you're like, the oil, you're like, I'm not giving this Chinese website that sells the suit oil my credit card.

MerlinCould you bring your puppy man onto a plane if you said he's an emotional support doc?

MaxListen, Veronica, so we got Disney Plus. I'm absolutely cocked by Disney Plus I bought it immediately and you know what I think the app works pretty well I hate to give it up to any interface on Apple TV

Merlinbut it works pretty well

MaxI mean it could use more functionality

Merlinbut like they said this is the thing we're doing this is not Plex

MaxI could do without when you're trying to select an episode if you even glancingly swipe the remote just a little bit too much to the right it goes into suggestions I do that all the time

MerlinI like the animations, and I love that it doesn't make a noise like Netflix. Yeah.

AlexI think the animations are cute. Bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop. And then the Irishman trailer.

MaxIn my opinion, the best two things that I have personally enjoyed on Disney Plus are, number one, the Imagineering documentary series. Have you guys checked that out?

AlexMm-hmm. It's amazing.

MerlinI saw what I thought was just one movie. It was a lot of happy talk about how they made Disneyland and stuff. Is that what I watched?

MaxYeah, so that was actually the first episode of a series.

MerlinOh, I thought it was just that one. Yeah, I mean, if you get beyond the hagiography, it's a fascinating insider. I love any of that, like, show me old footage of the wonderful world of Disney. Show me that stuff. Show me the lady in the horse hat, like, standing around and seeing me interested in Walt Disney. Like, I will watch that shit all day long. Give me all the Haunted Mansion content, please and thank you.

MaxI especially liked how they told the story of how Walt triumphed over the trade unions to force everyone to work overtime to build his theme park. Because he had a dream. It is definitely like a weird cult. You know somewhere in the underground in one of those Ayn Rand cities that they have under Disney World that they have some sort of Disney prisoners and they're strapped down.

MerlinWe walled them up in the old Coke oven, yeah.

MaxYeah, and they're doing their like, what is it, the Ludovico technique? And they're showing them.

Speaker AIt's a small world.

MaxTheir eyes are dilated

Merlinand they're watching the imagineers.

MaxAnd they're putting drops in.

MerlinThe lady in the horse house putting drops in his eyes.

Speaker AYeah, yeah. It's like small world after all.

MaxIt's like you get in trouble for littering in the park and then they fucking Ludovico you and you're strapped down to a chair and they're making you watch the story of Imagineering while your eyes are dilated.

MerlinYou should start telling, you know what, you could get away with so much more abuse of your employees if you told them that you have a dream. Have you thought about that?

MaxI definitely, I can really somehow feel in my bones that these hour-long documentary programs about how they created the animal kingdom are being shown to those Muslim political prisoners in China as a form of torture. The Uyghurs. They make the Uyghurs watch the documentaries. I just know in my bones that it's being used to torture someone. But I feel, Merlin, I feel the same way you do, which is I'm like, fucking show me how they built that castle. I want to know.

MerlinOh, 100%.

Max100%.

MerlinOh, yeah, yeah.

MaxTell me all about the forced perspective. Tell me about the names on the windows.

Merlintell me, tell me, tell me all the things. There was one that we started watching, though, that even I could not make my family watch. There was another one. There was a second one. It was that one guy. It was like the beloved characters guy. You know that one guy, the famous, the guy who narrates all the Disney. It's going into the vault, that guy. And I heard his voice, and you could already tell it was so hagiographic. I was like, nope, menu out. One day at Disney. One day at Disney.

MaxOh, I have not watched that yet. One day at Disney. I have not watched that yet. So there's another program in Disney Plus that I also really love, which is called Encore. And the premise of Encore is that Kristen Bell gets the cast.

MerlinAppears in two scenes.

MaxShe introduces it. But she gets the cast of a high school musical together like 10 or 20 years later.

MerlinAnd just to be clear, Max is not talking about high school musical, the musical, the series. He's talking about high school musicals in the generic.

MaxYeah.

MerlinDo you know they have a show called high school musical, the musical, the series?

MaxOkay. Cool. That makes sense. I understand that.

MerlinSo you're in the 90s. In the 90s, a cast of Misfits were all in Annie. let's get them back together today

Maxyeah but it's sort of like they are now adults and they process their high school trauma together and they reconnect lost friendships it's one of those shows that every episode, it's like Queer Eye it makes me feel happy and I forget my own mortality for an hour while I watch it and every episode makes me cry

Merlina little bit on your mentioning it, I watched the Annie episode before bed last night and I'm very interested in watching more uh it's it's weirdly dark in a way like the sheriff man yeah you know i have to say i i just

Maxrandomly watched the beauty and the beast one which is the second episode okay and i and and now i've seen uh three episodes and and i just think i picked the best one to start with the beauty and the beast to me was the the most i don't know i i liked it the best so oh no definitely i

Merlindefinitely will stick with it but it was you know you bring these people together they haven't been together in 20, 30 years. They're all in different places. But they still, like you said, harbor these. It's like, you know, the reason I don't go to my reunions, because I assume everyone hates me. Like you still harbor all of these weird grudges and apparent grudges and fears that like haven't changed an iota since you were in high school. And that's all being played out alongside, wow, maybe I'm not as good a singer or dancer or whatever as I thought. And we're bringing up Broadway producer and this whole team of talented musicians.

It's wild. Alex just ran out very dramatically.

MaxThere's not like a fire in the building or something. No, no.

MerlinIt's a... Oh, okay.

MaxOh, Alex says their nose was about to bleed. Please proceed and they will be back in a minute. Great. Okay, cool. Anyway, so here's a part of the bit that you probably caught, picked up on. Oh, you know another thing, Merlin, is I think that that first one, the Annie one, was a pilot. and then after the pilot, they committed to more of a format and the rest of them are better produced and more formulaic in a good way.

MerlinOkay, yeah, yeah, yeah. The whole concept of it is super interesting to me and the idea that they've got the footage to play alongside of it and you could see what this, the girl who has the tattoos now is obviously a little bit goth and she's really friends with this other girl and they've had this beef, unresolved beef since they were like 19 and they've never talked about it. It's like, I love that kind of stuff.

MaxWell, okay, so here's my conspiracy theory. So in the, especially in the future episodes, they have this bit that they do where right when everyone gets together and they introduce like the musical director and everyone, they usually pick a pop song from when these people were in high school, like a 1996 pop song. And someone plays it on the piano, the music director plays on the piano, and they have each person in sequence sing it one at a time like karaoke style. And they sound horrible. I mean, it's definitely, it's not mean. It's played for, it's kind of funny and fun. and it's like they're all like getting, you know, loosening up and, you know, whatever

and learning to sing again. But it's played for laughs, definitely, and the idea is like, damn, these people cannot sing anymore. And then they continue to sound pretty bad, pretty bad, pretty bad until the night of and then when they show the final production, they sound incredible. They sound, they're all nailing it and the final show sounds awesome and that's part of why it's like a feel-good thing. So my conspiracy theory about this is I think when they're recording them singing, you one at a time in front of the piano. How's it being recorded? Well, it's just a boom mic, you know,

and they're just picking up their voice and recording it, and these people are old, and they don't practice singing, and they're not good at it anymore. But on the night of, the way you're hearing it is they all have an individual headset mic on.

MerlinYeah, like a countryman.

MaxYeah, and I bet that that headset mic is going into a soundboard, and they are adding reverb, I bet they're doing compression, and I bet they're doing pitch correction. and I said to Veronica I was like I bet that part of the reason this sounds so good on the night is that they are not not not like a like a late 2000s like Kanye album level of that's the thing

Merlinthat's that's how that whole thing with the Cher song started is realizing that you if you overdo pitch correction right it turns into auto-tune but you can do you can you can choose to be extremely gentle in the same way that you can choose what quantization you want to do with beats. Like you can, it doesn't have to sound crazy. It just kind of takes the edge off.

MaxExactly. And I was like, I bet that all their voices are being filtered through a computer and you're hearing a live orchestra of professional musicians who they ringers that they bring in, um, to make it sound good. And it makes every, it sort of lifts everyone like, you know, what, I don't know, 20, 50%, you know, on the actual night of the show. And that's part of the fun. It's part of the fun of it is that they suck until they go on and then they all nail it. and you're like, damn, that's great.

MerlinIt's a classic musical trope being played out in a musical TV show is like the show's falling apart until it suddenly comes together. Did she disagree with your conjecture?

MaxWell, first, Veronica was like, I don't think that's possible. And I was like, I know it's possible because I could do it on my laptop. And if I can do it on my laptop, surely the Disney Corporation has like a sound, a truck of servers and computer equipment that they can wheel in to do live audio processing on all their microphones. Like I'm sure technically, I don't know this for sure, but it's easy for me to believe that that technology exists for them to add pitch correction and reverb and stuff. But then I went further and I said, not only do I think they do this in the show, but I bet in major Broadway productions,

they're doing a lot of work on those people's voices to make it sound way better. And probably not the best Broadway singers. They probably don't need it because they have amazing voices. But I bet when they do stunt casting, like when it's like Russell Crowe, you know? Right. Or it's like some celeb in it.

MerlinSo your conjecture is that, A, they are doing some kind of sweetening on the night for the show. And B, you're further conjecturing that as needed, it wouldn't be unusual for a big show, especially a Broadway show, to be able to sweeten the voices of a Russell Groves-style singer. And you want to find out if that's realistic.

MaxI bet it's almost, my guess is that within the industry of Broadway, if it's a big production, you know, a big Broadway production, that it's basically assumed that there's some sort of vocal processing happening on everyone except maybe the most talented singers. And so the question, as I understand it, is like, is that? Does anyone know anything about that? I Googled it, and it does seem like Google, like just based on the first page of Google results, you know, I found like fucking like Quora threads and stuff about it. And it does seem like people are, it does indicate that this is happening in Broadway.

MerlinThis is not a statement on anybody's singing ability. It is a statement on the technology. in one of the millions of things I've watched about Hamilton, they talked about the way they do signal processing for,

well, there's a lot of amazing signal processing that's going on for like the sound effects. But one of them is there's a point when there's like, on one of the songs, they want to have the natural singing voice of the person. I think Aaron Burr in that case. And it's got this, it might even be on Dear Theodosia. But anyway, there's one song that involves like some digital delay. on the voice and like what a difficult problem that is to solve in in that room so i the only reason i say that here is like i imagine there's a lot if you've got the dough and the team i bet

Maxwhat you're describing is totally possible yeah it's not hard for me to imagine and and again i'm not saying like this is like every musical like i know there's musicals that go off that where they don't have this you're not implying that there's a lot of cheating going on no but i think if you're if it's a multi-million dollar like Broadway, like fucking Lion King on Broadway or Book of Mormon or one of those big shows and you have a huge budget and you're entertaining thousands of people, like, yeah, if I was in charge of it, I'd be like, you know,

let's have a safety valve on here. Let's just make everyone sound better with some processing.

MerlinYeah, well, in the case of Hamilton, they've talked about how they deliberately made the role of King George to be something that stunt casting visitors could step into. So there was the first King George, and then the second one was Jonathan Groff, who's a great singer. But the idea was that you could have somebody who just kind of dips in for even a few nights, because there's three songs that have exactly the same melody. It's not that difficult. Your total time on stage is not too onerous, and you don't have to be at every rehearsal.

AlexOkay, I just walked back in the studio, and they're talking about Hamilton with Max, and I feel like I might have died from my nosebleed, and this is just some strange... You've gone to heaven. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I'm sorry for saying.

MaxAlex Cox is bleeding through the nose each day. Let's get back to talking about the cases that we have on our iPhones.

MerlinOkay. All right. Let me tell you what I'm doing with lockdown right now. Yeah. So I've been really looking at Bear. I'm very excited about Bear. I like the background that's slightly gray.

AlexI'm the drafts person, not the bear person.

MerlinI updated some of my drafts actions today.

MaxI'm not the drafts person anymore. What? Oh, man. Oh, man. Alex, I'm sorry. I don't know what that voice is referencing.

AlexI don't know what that...

MaxI'm like one of those...

AlexWho's to say?

MaxYeah, I'm like one of those Westworld robots. If someone does a slur, it doesn't seem like anything to me. I'm not familiar with that. I'm not familiar with that.

MerlinAnd I oop, and I oop.

Maxso the turtles

Alexmy nose would bleed again

Maxwhat else was I going to say about that oh anyway that no that's pretty much it if anyone knows anything about that write in

Merlinso the challenge is the challenge to our audience is tell Max and if you need to have your voice disguised if you're going to be Bobby Deep Broadway we can disguise your voice and have you on the show to tell us that Angelica Skylar actually can't sing whoa no you

Speaker Adidn't she's great i love her so much did you hear that strong songs alex did you hear the strong

Alexsongs on um satisfied i oh i'm satisfied yes yes yes uh all right alex what was this challenge this week this makes no sense to me oh dig dug the challenge this week was mine and it was to sleep on the floor yeah and tell us tell us more about that alex that i was just curious if you either of you had ever slept on a floor willing me. You asked me

Merlinto save it for the show. Willingly. I saved it for the show. Why would anybody fucking choose to sleep on the floor?

AlexOkay. First of all. You said you have a lot of content

Merlinprepared so I'm just gonna mute and make some coffee and I want to hear about

Alexsleeping on the fucking floor as a grown person. Okay. People have done this for literally hundreds and hundreds of years. There's no reason not to. Our resident orientalist, Alex Cox. There's no reason not to. All of these stupid podcasts, you know, if I know that some people here make some of their living selling these squishy mattresses, but they're really not good for your back. They misalign your spine.

And you know what doesn't? Just a floor. A floor keeps everything straight. It keeps everything together. And you know what's better? We all agree on this. It's better to sleep in a cooler environment. You know what's cold? The floor. And there's no reason not to sleep on the floor. The only reason would be you have a dirty floor. You can solve that problem. You can clean it. Also, you could just roll. If you decide to, I slept on a yoga mat, you just roll it up and then you're done. You have extra space in your home. It's perfect. It's easier than making a bed.

Merlinall right does questions comments i've i've unmuted so you can hear my coffee water um that's fucking insane it's not no it's not i'm muting again of all of your bananas bullshit

Alexthis is the most insane i'm muting out it's no it's not um you know what's you know i'm gonna

Merlinhop in here real quick to say it's fucking insane none of the words you just polluted

Alexthis podcast with make any fucking sense. I'm muting. Those are real words. However, what going about researching this, if you Google sleeping on the floor, the first thing that you find is an article from menshealth.com that says, I tried sleeping on a hard floor for a week. Can ditching your mattress give you more energy, less pain, and maybe even a better marriage? and it just goes on about how you should slowly wean yourself from your...

MerlinAre you familiar with Betteridge's Law, Alex? Are you familiar with Betteridge's Law?

AlexNo.

MerlinIf a headline poses a question, the answer is no.

AlexOh, oh, yeah, sorry. I didn't know that was... Why is it called Bedridge's? Sorry, Florida Ridge, I meant to say.

MerlinBetteridge.

AlexBetteridge.

MerlinSo how many nights did you do this?

AlexSince four nights? wait no since uh since friday night um and it's been fine it's been great yeah yeah okay i don't

Maxit's not alex i'm gonna be honest you there's a lot there's a lot of weird stuff that i think we've discovered about your life from this podcast yes but the whole notion that like someday you're gonna go on like the tim ferris podcast and he's gonna be like alex give me your Give me your top five health hacks. You're going to be like, well, Tim, every morning after I awaken from my sleep on the floor, I crack open a bottle of my piss water.

AlexI'm having normal water today.

MerlinCould punching yourself in the nose make you ejaculate further? More after the jump.

AlexOh, God. It's just amazing that Men's Magazine has this really long guide. Like, one, switch sides, as in of your bed, so that your spine gets used to something different. And then two, switch rooms, so that if you're sleeping on a different mattress, at least you know that you're in a different place, so that you won't awaken and be startled that you're not in bed. Who is this pussy of a man who needs to go through it? Just sleep on the flugging floor.

MaxOkay, I'm going to give my thoughts. thoughts. This is, Alex, you've somehow made this like so much worse. This pitch is so bad.

AlexBut I will say. It's good for your back. Sleep on the floor. It's comically,

Merlinfarcically, historically bad. It makes the opposite of any sense intuitively, unintuitively. There's not a scintilla of evidence that I have seen that makes any of this true. You're just literally saying words. And words that just don't make sense.

MaxI will say, I do not I have slept on floors Plenty of times in my life A lot of times Like really early In the early days Of cards And making games And stuff Like I would share A hotel room With like 13 other people And I would just Sleep on the floor Because that's just How it worked Or rent a house We'd rent an Airbnb And you'd just Sleep on the floor With a blanket And I will say Like on the contrary Of making my back Feel better It caused days It caused days Of nearly immobilizing Back pain I mean like

I was hunched over, struggling to step up onto a curb level of back pain. But that being said, I will say the one thing I have about this is while I do not sleep on the floor, I do occasionally enjoy lying on the floor for like 20 minutes. Oh, I do it after dinner every night. I do enjoy, it does kind of stretch your back. Sometimes you lie on the floor and you kind of press your back down to the floor.

MerlinIt's so different from sleeping on the floor.

MaxAnd your back all pops into place.

MerlinDo you ever get a nice crack when you lie on the floor? You walk on an escalator. Why wouldn't you sleep on it? Just think about it. It's good for, it's good for, and then you don't, you're not confused because you woke

Maxup on the wrong down escalator. I've chosen, I've chosen to participate in this challenge by not sleeping on the floor, but by occasionally lying on the floor, like when I read a book. And I enjoyed it. Now, did we do the spunk?

AlexOh, we did do the spunk at one point, but none of us could figure out how to use it properly. Is that the pointy mat?

MerlinYeah. Oh, yeah, I like the pointy mat, yeah. Do you use it ever? No, it's rolled up in the garage. I get my spunk out, and I use my spunk occasionally,

Maxand I feel like that's lying on the floor plus.

MerlinI make my puppy sleep on it because he's a bad boy. Well, Alex, this is a great challenge. Just in the time you guys were visiting, I come up with four reasons not to do this. My bones, my muscles, my joints, and my fucking brain. The last time I slept on a floor was 1999 because a lady and I wanted to do hand things. And I slept on a floor in 1999, and it hurt a lot, notwithstanding the hand things that we did. It hurts all of the parts. If you're a child, you can do that.

A grown person never should sleep on the floor. I mean, unless you've got a back problem, if you've got a herniated disc, and it actually helps. But I don't think any doctor's going to tell you this is a good idea.

AlexWell, are you doctors?

MerlinOh, shit.

AlexUh-huh, exactly. Yeah, let's call up Timmy Ferris. Let's get him in here.

MerlinI used to be able to sleep anywhere. I used to be able to eat anything, drink anything, sleep anywhere. There was a time in my life, seriously, I mean, sleeping on the floor, I could sleep anywhere under any conditions. I could have coffee all night and then just go to sleep on a workbench. I could sleep on anything. And at some point it really did take a turn, real talk, which is just that I would wake up and over the years more and more parts would hurt more deeply. and it would just be like one big, ugh, the next morning. I would struggle to get up

and it would hurt my lower back. It would hurt my side back. It would hurt my hips.

AlexOh.

MerlinI didn't do it.

AlexI look forward to this.

MerlinI sleep on the couch a lot. I like to nap on a couch.

MaxNow, I do like the firmest mattress. I'll basically always pick the firmest mattress that I'm allowed to get. Yes, you're not a hobo. Get the hardest mattress you can. Yes. I think this is a point of contention between Veronica and I. She enjoys a very soft mattress, and I enjoy a very firm mattress. You need to get a sleep number. Hi. Hi. I'm Philippine. You know, I think we did look at the sleep number, but we actually were able to compromise on a firm memory foam mattress, but we did the official memory foam brand mattress, not

one of the various knockoffs. Swedish knockoffs, yeah. And boy, I love that mattress.

AlexSee, the thing that actually prompted this challenge was one time I slept on the couch, and I woke up destroyed. I'm like, oh, this is what it must be like now. My body is just going to feel like this every time I wake up. And it was frightening. And then for some reason, I forget why. Oh, fuck. I remember. I'll just say it.

founder of Cox's Cucks, Cara Fagan, got very drunk and was sleeping on my couch. And I was worried. So I slept on the floor beneath her because I'm a good friend. And then I woke up and I'm like, fuck, I feel awesome.

MerlinSo just to be clear that when you do sleep on the floor, you're doing some kind of padding like a yoga mat or similar, right?

AlexI have a yoga mat, but that's more just because like, I don't want to ding like my funny bone. Like when I slept on the floor floor, it was fine. but then I bruise myself. So with the yoga mat, I don't.

MerlinI also get weird. Like, you know, parts of your body fall asleep. That's the other thing is you wake up and you're like, I don't have a left arm anymore. What happened to my left arm? What nerve damage am I doing to myself?

AlexYeah, that's what I feel like when I fall asleep on the couch. Like half of my body doesn't work. Do you take the cushions off?

MerlinDo you take the back cushions off?

AlexOh, that's not possible with my couch. It's like sewn in.

MerlinOh, well, I am a pro-level couch napper, and I have a whole system. And I could take at least one of the back cushions off, which is just enough room with a pillow under my head to be very comfortable for a half hour or one hour nap.

AlexHave you ever accidentally gone for a six-hour or a full night sleep? And does it fuck you up? I'm not judging. I'm just curious.

MerlinI mean, no, not anymore. I mean, no, unless it was like in my 20s and hung over or something. I saw you sleeping on something that looked like it was like something from a shipping container. What did you send us?

AlexSee, that was the mistake. I had purchased what I thought was a mattress. It was a weird photo. Yeah.

Speaker AIt was a really weird photo.

AlexIt was marketed as something for sleeping on the floor, but something that you people would use. It was basically a temporary mattress. So that is going back to Amazon.

MaxAre you talking about Jews? What's that? What do you mean by you people?

AlexDid I?

MerlinOh, I think she meant the Jews for sure.

AlexNo.

MerlinYeah. Sleeping on a Jew mattress. Alex is canceled. Hey, listen, if you want to hide money in your house, what do you put it under? Case closed. Jew mattress.

161. It's My Plastic Straws

Show notes

Transcript

161. It's My Plastic Straws

Show notes

Transcript

0:00

0:20

0:28

0:33

0:41

0:51

0:53

1:00

1:03

1:11

1:27

1:28

1:37

1:45

1:58

2:06

2:11

2:23

2:29

2:35

2:43

2:48

3:07

3:40

4:11

4:41

5:14

5:16

5:51

6:00

6:16

6:30

6:32

6:34

7:24

7:59

8:28

8:32

8:34

8:50

8:53

8:53

8:56

9:05

9:09

9:12

9:18

9:19

9:21

9:23

9:27

9:43

9:45

9:45

9:47

9:52

10:07

10:10

10:11

10:12

10:13

10:15

10:21

10:23

10:45

10:45

10:47

10:52

10:55

10:55

11:02

11:07

11:09

11:09

11:13

11:15

11:21