170. The Golden Age of Huffing - After Show

AlexEveryone, after show. Oh my God. Everyone's tired and sick. What a sad low energy episode.

MaxI'm exhausted. I'm not sleeping. And I'm just stressed out about opening this restaurant.

AlexIt's fine.

MaxMerlin's sick. Alex, what's your excuse? I'm fine.

AlexI'm not sick. Everything's fine.

MaxShingy.

AlexNo, I'm still tired from the hospital. Why were you in the hospital? I had an allergic reaction To something, still don't know what Oh shit, when was this? Spent Friday to Sunday In the hospital What the fuck? Everything was fine, it was just me getting a bunch of energy

MerlinWhy am I not informed of these things?

AlexBecause, I don't know I texted you a bunch

MerlinYou should get a guardian ad litem You should get somebody who can keep me in the loop on this stuff Did you eat something weird?

AlexThe thing that I think happened And so I said, okay, what's a beer for someone who doesn't really like beer? And I'm like, oh, try this. And then I walked away and started drinking it. And I was in a different room and just started to feel weird. And then immediately I'm like, oh, I know what's happening now. And then I took a lift to Northwestern. And then I stayed there for the weekend. But, yeah, we'll see. You had an allergic reaction to a beer?

I truly don't know the tests are coming back because they can't I don't know

Merlinoh it would be so sad if it was gluten I don't want it to be gluten

Alexyou love gluten

Maxno you eat bread all the time

Alexyeah no no I haven't been eating bread or potatoes or oh I want french fries yeah but um the oh fuck what do you eat all I've ever seen you eat

Maxis bread

Alexthe well you don't see me eat oh I want bread so much right now good lord um the merlin what do you take when you're sick like are you taking any like do you do a mucinex

Merlinyou just let it flow yeah i mean you just want to let it get out you know mucinex makes me loopy yeah i love that um did i take a new insurance and it's so fucked up it's so fucking amazing this is this is an actual thing that happened after my uh friday after friday before last uh My point with my shrink, I go to the pharmacy. It's in a medical building, and there's a pharmacy down there. I was like, hey, just for what it's worth, I got this new insurance, and I thought I'd just run it through.

And what the man said to me, I've been seeing the pharmacist guy for many years, and what he said to me was, a lot of things are about to change for you.

AlexOh, that's okay. That's where we are with insurance.

MerlinBecause I've been paying literally nothing, nothing I seek or need has been covered by my insurance for years. And apparently it now is. So, for example, one thing that I take for one of my disorders had been $10.90 per pill, and it's now $0.17 per pill.

AlexOh, my God. Yep. Oh, my God.

MerlinYeah. Here's another one. It had been $1.72, and now it's $0.54 per pill. Another one that had been $2.30 is now $0.16. Yeah. So basically I'm paying like a $5 out of pocket for almost all of these.

AlexOh, my God. Yeah.

MerlinOne of them was $389 a month and just one. I mean, I was, I think I was all told it was just under $1,500 a month I was spending on mental health.

AlexI think that's about what I, no, I think it's about $1,000 because allergies, you need to take the brand name.

MerlinOh, you really want the price? But the price that's fucking me up is it's the same feeling I had when I got on a new thing, I think back in February, I want to say, of last year. And it was really costly. And my shrink said, oh, you know, check. You've seen this advertised on probably MSNBC or similar. It's that yellow card you get, and you go in, you show them the yellow card, and then you get the steep discount. So, like, why is it that going to this Walgreens, this would cost $500? If I go with this card, I go to Safeway with the exact same card and it's $250.

And it's like, okay, I'm glad I'm getting a discount on this, but let's just stop for one fucking minute and think about how irrational at least one part of this process is. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. On the one hand, I'm like, yay, $5 copay. But then on the other hand, you're like, well, how come a month ago it was $300? Who's getting fucked here? Like somebody's getting fucked. If something goes from $389 to $5, somebody's getting fucked.

And it's just like, it's just the whole system is so like, it's just insane. The man said to me, a lot of things are going to change for you. Can you believe that? Because now I can have medical care.

AlexYeah, this is why I literally have nightmares about this all the time.

MerlinWell, I know, and this is why I told you, I've been saying to you guys for years, mostly offline, that like, this is the problem with Kaiser. When you're covered by Kaiser, you basically have permission to go into a building and have them go, eh, take walks or whatever. Like you don't really get any health care from Kaiser. And if you do, I don't want to get into a thing here, but the drugs that they cover, that they do cover, are usually the most inexpensive generics from Asia that are not controlled or inspected at all.

It's just so fucked up. It really is the opposite of what you would want in health care. They start out with what it is cost effective for them to cover. And then that is deployed across their incompetent team of ding-a-lings to say, yeah, your kid does kind of have a speech thing. You could work on W's. Thanks for coming in.

AlexAnd I think it's like the who's getting fucked. But also I'm like, who are the people getting rich off of this? Like it's – Martin Scrooge. I don't want to be like, oh, guess what? The one – like we know it's the one percent. You're right. But I like do, you know, like the agents that you have to fight with to like, no, I have insurance. The I had a house, the ambulance, an ambulance bill one time, $14,000 and had to spend hours and hours on the phone being like, no, really, no, this was covered.

And then it ends up being $40. And it's like, OK, so exactly like my bad.

MerlinSorry.

AlexYeah. And it's this poor person who I have to fight with. And they're not, you know, their life, I assume, isn't great. That they basically have a telemarketer's job. And, ugh.

MerlinWell, anytime you've got to deal with people. I do try to, there's this thing I try to remind myself sometimes is that how much of the people that this person has to deal with are having their worst day or nearly their worst day. And you're like, that sucks. Like, that sucks. But like, okay, so this just, I really am at this point just bragging that my wife got us on this better insurance when we had the chance to change. And what am I bragging against? I'm bragging against the years and years that I have gone, I don't even, I don't go, I don't do anything with Kaiser.

They are, I have so many fucking war stories about Kaiser that would fucking curl your hair so bad. And my shrink all along has been like, you've got to get out of this group. And I'm like, to what? He says, literally anything but Kaiser Permanente because they're so fucking bad. Just stories of like, in one case, a surgeon, a Kaiser surgeon who had been injured actually falling off a Segway. And he got this kind of like,

Maxhe got like an egg behind his ear

Merlinand went in, he's a surgeon, right? He goes in and they're like, eh, same thing they said to my wife about the thing on her nose. Eh, you're good. Send him home. It turned out that it was some kind, I believe it was a blood clot.

AlexOh, no.

MerlinGrossly misdiagnosed by other Kaiser doctors. And then, like, then it was a whole thing.

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinSo, anyway, and what's my point in all of this? It's just, I'm excited that, like, I'm covered for stuff. But on the other hand, it's like, God damn it. What a racket. Like, it's just, it's such a racket.

MaxYeah, so here's where I am at with this. I had a situation where a couple of months ago, I was out of town traveling, and I got a nasty sinus infection. I assumed from the flight, but maybe it was like brewing before I left. But it was one of those things of the first day of this event, I was not feeling so good. And I could tell I was like getting a little fever. And I was getting, you know, you get that migraine when you get the sinus infection.

MerlinThe pressure, that terrible pressure.

MaxYes. And then day two, I woke up, and I get the sinus infection so often. I mean, at least three or four a year, and I just, I kind of know what they feel like. And I woke up day two, and I was like, fuck me, I have a sinus infection. And there are so many, like, problems. Like, number one, I did, I, like, couldn't get out of bed because I had, like, a migraine. I just wanted to lie in the bath, and I had, like, a fever. And, like, I, like, barely could function at this thing I was at. That's problem number one. Problem number two is I need to get on a flight in, like, two days to come home, right? And, like, I super don't want to fly with a sinus infection.

I don't know if you've ever done that, but that's a...

AlexThat is one of the worst experiences of my life. I've done it many.

MaxIt is horrible. Your ears go, like your chest feels... It is a painful panic attack of a flight. It's really overwhelming. It's a horrible feeling. You feel like your head's going to pop like a grape.

AlexI would rather have a throwing up, can't look at light's migraine than fly with a sinus infection.

MaxAnyway, I'm a big baby. So I was like, I need antibiotics now. I cannot wait. And also, the other thing is, for me at least, if I wait a long time to get antibiotics when I have a sinus infection, it just gets worse and worse and worse.

MerlinYeah, if you get in there fast, you can, I mean, this is ultimately my problem as a kid is I would never finish my antibiotics. As soon as I started feeling better, I'd stop. But that's the thing. You can feel better in a day, a little bit, if not a lot, right? Yeah. And so what happened? Where'd you go?

MaxOh, so, well, so I have, like, my, I go to, like, a, you know, one of the, like, medical group, one of the hospital groups in Chicago. You're at Northwestern, right, Alex?

AlexMm-hmm.

MaxSo I have, like, I'm not at Northwestern. I'm a different group. But I, like, there's this app.

AlexOh, wait, wait, sorry. Group? What do you?

MaxLike, you know how there's the Northwestern medical group?

AlexWell, no, like, so Cards has Blue Cross, Blue Shields, Illinois, which is very good.

MaxRight. But you've committed, my guess, I mean, so Veronica, for example, is on, like, like the Northwestern group, and I'm on a different one that just my doctor is on. You know how you can be part of a medical system?

AlexYes, but-

MaxNot insurance. It has nothing to do with insurance. It's like you go to Northwestern Hospital, they recommend you specialists within Northwestern's network.

AlexIt's like a network, right?

MaxI don't know why.

AlexYeah, it's not, we're not talking about an HMO type thing. No, no, no, no, no. It's more of like, yeah. It's like I have,

MaxI'm on like, it's called like the North Shore University, whatever, medical campus or something. And they have an app that they give you that you can use to send a fake text message to your doctor. Do you familiar with this technology?

AlexYes. Care Portal is what mine is called.

MaxI have some other fucking healing chat or something. I don't know what it is. But anyway, so I messaged my doctor and I'm like, hello, I'm in Florida and I have a sinus infection and I feel horrible and I need antibiotics. And he goes, well, I need to see you in the office for this. And I said, here's the problem. you're in Chicago and I would have to get on an airplane to go there and I need the antibiotics. So he's like, sorry, you're out of luck. And I think I was actually, I couldn't even get to the

doctor. I was talking to the nurse practitioner or something. But anyway, I wound up going to the CVS Minute Clinic and I got the antibiotics, but then I like came back and I made the appointment. I had to wait longer than I wanted to see the doctor. Like he couldn't see me that week. So I had to go in the next week and I still wasn't feeling great and I needed to extend my, but the doctor, oh, the CVS Minute Clinic is only like, I'll give you like three days of antibiotics. She's like, I'll give you the minimum, right? And she's like, go see your doctor for the rest. So I go into my doctor, and I was like, I need more pills so that I can get rid of this sinus infection. And he's like, well, I didn't prescribe these, so I can't help you with it.

And I was like, what am I supposed to do? So anyway, here's where I'm at. You're not in a gang. You're all physicians.

MerlinI'm sorry, I'm not going to give you any crit pills. And also, I was like, what do you think I'm doing with these?

MaxDo you think I'm getting high on them? Oh, yeah.

MerlinI can't wait to get on a plane and get real high on these antibiotics.

MaxIt's just like, yeah, I started taking these antibiotics,

Merlinand I'm just hooked on the diarrhea.

MaxI have to keep taking them.

MerlinOh, I know. I love to take this and listen to rap music, I guess. It's called getting crunk.

MaxYeah, I just love to pop a few antibiotics and organize my drawers.

MerlinJust chopped and screwed, baby.

MaxGet those antibiotics in me. Yeah, so I just love swallowing these huge horse pills, too. The big ones you get for the sinus infection. Do you get those, Alex?

AlexYeah, and you're not allowed to cut them in half. Yeah, right. And I'm just, every 12 hours.

MaxSo it's a horrible experience. So I left my doctor group, and I went to like, I have got like a concierge doctor now. So it's basically, the way it works is I pay $5,000 a year to see this doctor. I pay $5,000 like cash, basically. and they don't take insurance. It's like a retainer. Yep. Yep. You pay $5,000, and that's it. And there's no more money.

So I still have my insurance, because if I have to go to the hospital or something, I need to be insured. But for me, I was like, even though I have insurance, I have a good, we have great insurance. Well, we have okay insurance with cards, but it's good enough.

AlexIt's as good as you can get. That's what sounds like.

MaxI was like, it was so non-functional for me when I was sick and I needed medical attention. It was so useless for me having my insurance. So now I just have a doctor and I can, part of the perk of this thing is, it's basically how you want the doctor to work, which he has a small number of patients and he knows them all. And if I need to talk to him, he gets on a video chat and he'll help me with my medical problems. And he's responsive. It's basically what we should all have for free.

Merlinyou mean he behaves like a doctor used to behave

Maxyes and it's it's outrageous to me he's attentive

Merlinand listens to you and is available

Maxand yeah and I went and saw him and I was like well this is the fantasy I was like this is what I want he's like well he's like the reason it works is we don't take insurance like there's no like I'm not going to go ask for permission from some company to like provide care it's like you'll just you pay me this retainer and then whatever we do is free for the rest of the year and you contact me as much as you need when you're sick isn't that nice yeah but it's still so fucked up I wish I had it. That would be great. The whole idea that we have this system and people go, oh, America has the best healthcare in the world. And it's like, well, it doesn't. It doesn't. It really doesn't.

The whole incentives of the insurance system prevent you from having the most fundamental thing, which is a doctor you can talk to and you don't feel good.

MerlinYeah. I mean, that's like saying on the basis of there being a BMW dealership that we have the best transportation system in the world. Right. It's like, well, yeah. I mean, from one standpoint, I guess.

MaxWell, here's the other thing that's interesting. I like, when I look for a doctor, I'm generally looking for something, like I like very like conservative medical care in the sense that I would prefer not to do things most of the time. You know, I'm not trying to get in there and tinker. And I mentioned that to him and he said, well, that's interesting you mentioned that. Oh yeah, like I know exactly, I think I know exactly what you do. You don't need another project.

MerlinRight. Like I'm not gonna go in for fun on a Friday, just for funzos and find out if we could just root around a little bit and find a thing I could work on.

MaxLet me give you an example. When I had a, I used to love my doctor and he retired, and he was awesome. I saw him for my whole life, basically. But when I stabbed my hand doing that card trick a few years ago, I had gone to urgent care, and they'd stitched it up, and then I brought one in to my physician, and I was like, what do you think about this? Because it's kind of stiff, and I can't move it. And I was like, do I need to do something? And he goes, well, let me give you my thoughts. He's like, if you saw a younger doctor or someone else, they would probably refer you to a hand surgeon, and they would get in there and do some stuff. But he said, in my experience,

they're going to be about as likely to make it better to make it worse make it better and my advice is to leave it for like seven months and see if you see where it's at after that and thank god I did that because I have like full mobility and it's fine it was like it was like 100% the right decision not to do more stuff but anyway I mentioned that story to this new this like concierge doctor that I'm paying to see now and he said well it's interesting you mention that because he said most people the incentive on the financial incentives on them is to like do stuff because you paid to be there it's like hey I paid for this appointment

right like I'm here and you're not satisfied leaving and if the guy goes well i don't think we should do anything you go no no no i that's not what i'm paying i'm not paying to not do anything you go i'm paying for something to happen so give me some pills send me to a specialist like let's get something going here oh wow and and he's like i have no incentive to do that he's like i already have your five thousand dollars he's like come in we'll do something we won't it's all the same to me like i'll just give you the medical advice and you know you come back if you need something and i was like boy do i like that i love to not do things me too it's my favorite thing to do is nothing

MerlinI need to go to the bathroom Do you want to pause and come back? Bring the mic with you You're not going to want that

AlexFeeling any better?

MerlinHuh?

AlexFeeling any better?

MerlinMe?

AlexYeah

MerlinHey, you know what they say, Jack? Job not over until paperwork's done So this long car is coming through And the other fellow is coming in over here And he's feeling my leg I'm like hey Jack Put your jacket back in the tube And what not

AlexI've listened to it twice And I think I'm just

MerlinOh my god I feel like I'm losing my mind

AlexIt's so good I'm losing IQ points

MerlinLet's go to the

AlexDuh Or the sheet rather

MerlinSpread sheet Now it's time for Things in Google Sheets.

AlexI mean, so your home screen, bottom right-hand corner, I saw those shortcuts. That's exciting.

MerlinDon't look at my screen.

AlexI know. It's very exciting.

MerlinWe've got a lot in here. Substitute host, Google Sheets.

MaxI have a possible topic. I don't really know how to operationalize it into a challenge. All right. But you guys know I'm – well, I think we're probably all sort of always playing with different to-do apps and like notes apps and system ecosystem. I'm trying to like, I'm kind of like in an evaluation.

AlexUs? No.

MaxI'm kind of in like an evaluation period of my whole sort of text ecosystem. And one of the issues I'm having is lately I will have something that I need to write down and I don't know where to put it.

And it's like, well, I could, and then it's like, well, I could have drafts and I can put it in drafts, but then I still have to do something with it when it's, you know, it's like, that only like sort of kicks the can down the road.

MerlinWell, the nice thing, I mean, I don't want to unproblematize this, but that's the nice thing about drafts, is you don't have to have, it's just where everything starts, and then it can go to wherever with just a click.

MaxDo you find in your drafts workflow, so what happens to me is I have something that's important, so like, let me give you an example. Last night I came, I was at the diner, I might talk about this, but Simon and I were at the diner, and we came up with like a really fucking cool idea for a magic trick. But it requires, it's like more of a, it's sort of a to-do item because it's like, it's like, ooh, write this down and later in my life like go work on, research this and learn it and figure it out. And that's kind of a to-do but also kind of not because it's like text heavy and it has this whole thing I had to write out and it's like, I don't know.

MerlinIt's an idea. So it's in that liminal space between nothing and something.

MaxYeah. It's like, I wouldn't put it on my to-do list because it's not like, I can't really like tick it off and be done with it.

MerlinIt's not ready for that.

MaxYeah, right. So my fear is that if I put that in drafts, I'll be like, oh, I'll sort this later and I'll figure it out. But then I never will. Like it'll just get lost in the sands of time.

MerlinWell, Alex probably has thoughts on this. But one thought I would have is that you could utilize – there's several different ways to slice and dice your drafts files that can be really handy. I would not go into doing all of these all at once. But one that I think, I mean, first of all, let me just stipulate. I am due for basically like a reboot with drafts because it's so powerful. And I have not really spent tons of time on it since so many things have been improved.

AlexShould we do it as a challenge? Should we do it? Do you have time to do it?

MerlinWe've done that once before, but it could be a good time because. But it's so different now. We did it years ago. Yes, because it's now on the Mac. And now it's on the Mac.

AlexYes, exactly, exactly, exactly.

MerlinBut Max, one idea that could be...

AlexI don't know if Max is taking pictures or not. Is he... Are you going to make fun of me with the mount on Instagram again? Merlin, Max is doing something with his phone and standing up. But I'm sorry. You were talking about the Mac.

MerlinI hope he's ready to be helped because here's a very simple idea. Oh, my God.

AlexI'm sorry, Merlin. I don't know what... I truly... Like, I understand you're not in the same room, and I wish I could tell you what's happening, but I don't know. I'm going to send it to you right now. I don't know.

MaxI'm sending it to you right now.

AlexOkay. It's just a little Instagram filter that I like, and I'm sending it to you right now. All right.

MaxJust a funny little filter. Just a funny little filter.

AlexMerlin, you were saying about drafts in the Mac, which I am...

MaxI'm listening. I'm listening.

AlexIt was really downplayed how good...

MaxI'm sorry that Alex took that.

AlexI apologize that I caused the problem right there.

MerlinFor example, one thing that's fairly easy to do manually is to just add a tag in drafts.

MaxWait, drafts has tags?

AlexYes.

MaxIs that a new feature? Yes.

AlexNot to this version.

MaxMaybe I don't know all the stuff that drafts can do.

AlexMaybe that's probably the problem. I don't know what they can do.

MerlinSo just to finish the thought, it would be trivially easy. Let's say, for example, like a common thing you have. I mean, I hope you understand what I say when I say something is an idea. So for me, that's I-D-E-A-X in my thing. That's like an idea thing. Or it's a run X or it's a whatever. It's like this class of thing. That's how I use tags in my usual Dropbox setup. Now, going into drafts, though, can we say that something that comes up often for you is an idea for an effect that you want to return to later, but not right now?

MaxWell, it's in every aspect. It's like sometimes I'm in a meeting with people and we're like, oh, that's a great idea. We should do that at a convention in the future for cards. And it's like, well, what is that? I can't. It's not a to-do list because it's like I don't even know what we're going to do it for. But it's also not really a note for me. No, no, this part is not complicated.

MerlinThat part I get. Here's three ways you can handle this.

MaxOkay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

MerlinThe missing piece in this will be what you do behaviorally to occasionally cull from your various ideas, right? That's the thing. But let's say for the sake of argument you want a way to corral and put these in a certain place. Three ideas. Number one, just create or we could help you work together to create a shortcut where basically you would hit a button in your today view or hail it with Dingus. Hey, Dingus. And then you would say something and dictate something that would get added to a new or existing drafts file and would be tagged with idea or similar.

So now you've got a really easy way now using the workspaces. it would be very easy for you to go in and say, show me all of my things that are tagged. What's workspaces? A collection of files based on criteria. In drafts?

AlexYeah, think of it sort of as a perspective. Play a smart playlist kind of. Yeah, like a perspective in OmniFocus.

MerlinYep, yep, yep. That's one way. So, and then obviously the thing there is like, do you want one running file or do you want, personally, I would do separate files that are just tagged in a similar way. That makes more sense. But if you want to simplify this, well, the dead simplest way, is to make a shortcut or similar that would, because you know, for example, that you can, if you're on a page in Safari on any modern OS, Apple OS, you can hit the share arrow, and that will make a card that gets added to a notes file. So we do that at Christmas time.

When we're getting ideas for Christmas gifts for our kid, we send it to a shared note, and then we just have it in three sections, stuff that we got that's wrapped, stuff that we got that's not wrapped, and stuff that's ideas for things we might get. And so, but that adds to that bottom group, right? The third heading, which is, you know, to maybe buy or whatever. So another way then would be to append to a given notes file where you keep a bunch of your ideas. The other one, if you want to use a classic Dropbox style text file sync, would be to make a shortcut that will append to a given like ideas file in a Dropbox.

So it just depends on how you want to roll. But shortcuts is, once you get the basic idea of it, it's really good spackle for just connecting little bits of stuff together.

MaxAll right. I'm going to rejigger my drafts thing, and I'll ask you guys for help this week. I shared my second shortcut ever this week.

AlexYou shared it?

MerlinI shared it on the Back to Work program. Oh, this week? Maybe like the simplest. I don't know if that will send as a link. Probably not. Oh, damn it. I'm going to get to the page. I'm clicking.

This is so simple. It's so dumb, but I really like it. So all that is, I just sent you guys, all that is is a shortcut. Takes the date at 65 minutes and then creates a reminder in 65 minutes that your watch is charged.

Because it's crazy to me that that's not already automatic. I feel like I should get a push notification when my watch charges.

MaxI got an Apple Watch question for you guys every couple months I lock myself out of my Apple Watch permanently and I need to reset it and start from scratch

AlexI have no idea do you have a passcode on your watch? yes

Maxso sometimes I will toss my watch in my pocket a lot of times it's because I'm cooking or something watch comes off, goes in my pocket and then I go upstairs

Merlinoh no and it accidentally interprets

Maxand so what's happening is I'm in the pocket it's reading passcode attempts and then it locks me out and it's like... It's a heat coming off your thigh, baby. I got hot thighs. Hot thighs.

Hot hands, hot thighs. Yeah, it's really annoying. I know that I shouldn't... I know that the answer is, well, don't put the Apple Watch in the pocket, but... Hot thighs, cold heart, can't lose. Yeah. So I think this is a fun challenge. I'm thinking of not putting the passcode on the Apple Watch.

MerlinEw.

MaxWell, you're able to use Apple Pay. I wouldn't. Do you use Apple Pay on your watch? I use it on my phone. All the time.

MerlinReally? Yeah, I use it all the time. Like if I'm ordering lunch, it says to my watch, hey, you want to pay for this? And I go, yeah. Yeah, I do lots of stuff.

MaxOh, I'm sorry. You mean like on your Safari browser on your Mac? That too.

MerlinYeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. I see what you're saying. Like if you did the thing on your phone. Just do it on your phone. Yes. Right. But also I relish the opportunity if I am ordering something to check out with Apple Pay since I don't have to enter in address information and stuff. Right. So like if I'm buying something from like a Mack Weldon or similar, that makes it really easy. Although they have my address. So the challenge would be something like, do we want to make it as general as revisit, revisit drafts,

redraft,

Maxhow about like, uh, learn a new drafts trick and share it with the group. That's fine by me. Like, I think we should all do a new draft.

MerlinMaybe, maybe, maybe we can invite Greg on.

AlexWe could, we could.

MerlinHe's good. He's a good interview.

AlexI, yeah,

Merlinyeah oh the mac power use and he's and he's looking i think he's kind of i mean i'm more than happy to promote his stuff i'm on the literal home page i love this app um uh so uh maybe he could you know promote he's still kind of i think hustling with the mac app god he works so fucking hard right so between him and marco i i've got like 17 overcast releases a day like that kind

Maxworks so goddamn hard to fix that stupid i feel like i feel like i'm gonna become mike hurley because what's gonna happen is i'm gonna i'm gonna not have something ready for you're gonna get a

MerlinReminder for your reminder for your reminder.

MaxYes. Okay. Well, this isn't ready for the to-do list, so I'm going to put it in drafts, and then I'll have a reminder for myself to empty out my drafts list and operationalize it into to-dos. But I'll have to remember to set the reminder, so I'll have a task task, a tsk tsk go off, and that will... That gets pushed into Taoist. Yeah, that's a shortcut that activates the do app.

Neener, neener.

Merlinum the uh gotta get my streak did i did i read all my drafts check off the stroke i think i stroked um the uh what was i gonna say if you're in england your watch makes a klaxon that's a very funny that's a very funny sound i

Alexshould um it is a funny me um i wish that my english my british siri would say like half past three and it oh man oh my ladies are english this is a big new release of fantastical what the fuck

Maxyeah yeah yeah i've always i paid i mean i paid for it but it's i don't know okay um so max can i

Merlincan i uh can i socrates you a little bit hi hi is it fair to say that magic is an important aspect of your vacation your life your enjoyment your hobbies magic is a big deal to you

MaxWell, yes, Merlonius, I would say that magic is important to me.

MerlinYes, all men are mortal. And so do you have set-aside times for, as Stephen Covey says, do you have set-aside times for sharpening the saw, or is it just an as-available thing, you'll do coin tricks waiting in line? Do you have time to set aside where you're doing a bit of a dive on your magic?

MaxWell, Merlin, I should have to answer that I do set aside time to practice magic. that would be a valuable time

Merlinfor you to review your ideas file oh I see what you're saying make that part of your process is that like whatever if you have a day off or an afternoon off

Maxwhen you work on this I'm not saying you're right I know you're right no no no no it's fine no I know you're right but it's like you know what it feels like it's like toys for my work feels like work yeah it's like a toy like when I go to work on magic I want to like I'm trying to look inside of myself to be like boy what's exciting like what do I want to do like where's the energy right now Like what, what, what am I going to like put some time into? And it's like, I don't want to have toys for my toys where it's like, first I got to do the upkeep phase and then I got to untap and then it's that and then it's that. And then finally I can like do my, it's like, no, you don't want to sit and work on it.

MerlinI have a, I have a slightly behavioral approach to this, which is that, you know, as we all know, if hearing it, I really like task paper and I use just plain text files to say, here's stuff I got to do. It's very, very lightly taxonomized, but a funny thing happens. There's the one, there's the one you that's like, Ooh, I should write this thing down that I want to do, especially if it's a thing that needs to happen at a different time and place than right now. Like I don't want to forget to put the laundry in the laundry bag or whatever,

or I don't want to forget to like, there's a thing I need to do, right? My, maybe my wife has asked me to take care of something when I get home and I want to remember that. So that could be a reminder. It could go into task paper. But the key part of that is just, as you know, just putting it on the list is less than half of the job. The real part of the job is remembering to look at the list when it's appropriate and then do the things and then have enough taxonomy and alarms, reminders, et cetera, to keep you honest about that stuff. But that's the thing is like I've definitely reached the age where I'm like,

I know I'm forgetting stuff all the time. If I don't treat these things like the outboard brain that they are, it's not enough to just drop stuff in a file. There has to be at least a little bit of structure to ensuring that they then get taken care of. I know that's not crazy helpful, but like if it's important, you treat it like it's important. That's kind of the thing, I feel like. And inevitably, you know, there's that rule of thumb that I find to be 100% true more so every day, which is if you think you've forgotten something, you have definitely forgotten something. Like there's never been a time when I've paused on the stairs for a minute to go,

I feel like I'm forgetting something. And you know what? I've always forgotten something. There's so many things for me to forget. And then, yeah, but having those lists in that upward brain is really useful for that.

AlexYou have never... Hmm. I... Hmm. That is really interesting. Which part? Every time you think you have forgotten something, you have. That I...

MaxHuh.

MerlinYeah. Some part of your mind... I don't know if I want to say your brain, but some part of your mind is prompting you that there is an incomplete circuit here. Oh. Like something is... Merlin?

MaxOh, no. Did we forget him?

AlexWhat?

MaxI think I forgot Merlin. What? What? Merlin? What? I think I forgot him. Forgot him? What happened? What?

AlexYou cut out before the interesting part.

MerlinOh.

AlexIt's not your mind, or it's not your brain, but some part of your mind.

MerlinIt's just like, yeah, something is telling you that there's an incomplete circuit and that there is a thing you still need to do. And pause for a minute and listen to that and be chill and just be cool. And it'll occur to you that there is probably a thing you need to like. So like a common one for me, now this sounds so lame, but like if I, so like I have, I spent a huge amount of my life in two locations, my office and my house, which is different from my work and my home, my office and my house. And so sometimes I need to remember, like I'm swapping out this media hard drive.

So the end state of that goal is to take this hard drive and connect it via USB to my television and then take off the drive that's there and bring it back. yes, I do have three media drives that I switch out for large capacity media. And so here's the thing though, even though that end state is to have this thing connected to the TV so that I can enjoy the movies, how do I get to that point? Well, I'm, I'm stupid enough to admit that the first thing is detach hard drive at work and put in backpack. So like I have a, I have two projects.

One is, um, house to office and the other is office to house where it's stuff where like the, the first step, I mean, it's not always detaching it, but like, let's say bring toilet paper to work. So you know what that task is? Put toilet paper and backpack at home. Do you follow? Like, it sounds, it sounds like it's either like, it seems like ridiculously, stupidly obvious, or like, why are you doing that? Well, the way I'm doing that is like, what is the task? What is the, as they say, next action? What is the physical thing that I do to keep this thing in motion and like get toilet paper at office is a goal that's the project but the task is to put

the toilet paper where i'll remember to take it you know put your briefcase in front of the door

Maxis what i'm saying i uh related but thought in this is like you know it's almost like the first thing in every book about this or or i've heard you talk about this a lot but it's the idea of like taking a thing and then breaking it down into its smallest parts so that you can actually do them. That's so fucking hard. That's really most of it. That's like most of it. It requires

Merlinyou to both think about and understand something that may be difficult to at least think about and certainly difficult to understand. Because like if you don't know what you do for like, you know, what is it? Kurt Vonnegut says anybody you can't explain what they do for living to a 10 year old as a charlatan. Because you have to understand what it is that you're doing, how it gets done, what you're trying to accomplish and then how that fits into the landscape of all the other shit you've got to do. And that takes a little bit more work up front than you think it would. But it really pays dividends to think it through, I think. Because then you can also just make smart decisions about, I'm not going to fucking do this other

thing that's a bunch of bullshit. Because I got this thing I need to do over here. And even if that is literally just toilet paper, like whatever that is, that's what you've committed to doing. And then to do that well. Fuck me! Can you hear me?

AlexAh! Ah! No, yes, yes.

MerlinAh! Alright, challenge, drafts, boom. So it's learn a new draft trick. something like that yeah yeah it works for me oh it's trying to do time machine don't back up now

Alexstop don't don't do that uh i like this yeah i'm very excited this is uh do you want to try and reach out to greg and see if you might want to come on yeah do you have his i could he's on he's on the tutor yeah yeah i'll ask him i'll to him oh okay thank you yeah uh you were you're saying do you do i have i don't know what i was saying yeah yeah everyone's oh i have a proposal uh i

think this was a very good after show i think we should put both of these out what do you think fine with me because um we're just low energy and i i don't think it was a bad episode well well whenever i think it's bad people are like oh my god this is my favorite yeah um so but i think lots of people that we haven't had a nerdy merlin man talk in a while so i think we should uh yeah

Maxmake it available do like uh we should do like the the chopo guys unlocked unlocked what does

Merlinthat mean if you want to be able to put modok together you're gonna need the arm by listening

Alexto red scare for five minutes it it took me genuinely like 15 minutes to figure out i just wanted to hear this interview with this one drag queen and it took like 15 minutes and $30 to do

Maxit. And I'm like, but they're socialists. That's a really good song. That's such a good song.

AlexIt is so. It's such a good song. How do they get away with that? I have no idea how they get away with that. I think it's just that they're not big enough. I also don't know how You're Wrong

Merlinabout gets away with what i believe to be a chemical brothers song oh i thought that that you're wrong about their theme song oh when they you're wrong about does a uh isn't that a chemical

Alexbrothers song i didn't i thought it was uh because i thought michael did music maybe not well good i mean they were fairly this sounds like a backhanded they were fairly small until recently but it's so exciting Sarah Michael you're wrong about like they're just going off the charts now I worry that she hates me but but I really enjoy the show oh I did I I dm'd her that was a mistake I know me too huge mistake I I just uh I just said hey I really like what you do thank you

Merlinum and I have somebody somebody who knew me and knew how I am I think I have to be honest would greatly appreciate the like basically letter that I sent to her. Somebody who doesn't know me and got it would probably think this guy's a real creep.

AlexSee, the thing is that I gave her,

MerlinI gave her like very positive,

Maxbut feedback about what I like about their show. I've been watching you for quite some time. Yes.

MerlinWhat, what if I told you that I could find your child with GPS and there was nothing you could do about it? Do you remember when, uh, is it, is it Jared? Is that his name on Silicon Valley where he accidentally got put in the shipping container to go to China and he comes back and he's all gacked out.

MaxWhat if I told you that I could find your child with GPS anywhere?

MerlinSir, sir, sir, do you have anything, any weapons or drugs? Oh yes, I do. I have drugs. Are these your drugs, sir? Are these? No, no, it's from a child that I brought to my house. The middle out of compression scene is still so fucking funny. Well, they'd have to be the same height and the way they're all gesturing with the jerking off motion. It's so good.

AlexI want to hear like the worst thing I've ever done.

MerlinVery, very much.

AlexWhen Matt was telling me potential names that he was thinking of using instead of his older name, because he didn't have a problem with this. His parents named him Melissa. And he was giving like, hey, what do you think of these names? And on there was Gabe. And I'm like, you can't do that. you just plead for me, you can't do it, which is you should never do this to a person. No Gabe, no Gabe.

MerlinNo Gabe.

AlexThe Office.

MerlinGabe?

AlexNo?

MerlinOh, of course.

AlexYeah, no, no. Who's Gabe on The Office?

MerlinIt's the same guy, Zach. Oh, that's him.

AlexI was like, he can't.

MerlinHe's so close to the same character.

AlexHe can't. Exactly. And then he had not watched Silicon Valley yet. And I was like, oh, oh, no, no, no, no. The end of that show was very weird. and I think I liked it. Of, I don't know. Oh yeah, I get it. Oh yeah. Yeah, that was.

MerlinI love Russ, Russ Hanneman. I just love Russ Hanneman.

AlexHow many people could say we'd save the world?

MerlinRuss Fest.

AlexOh, and in Quart?

MerlinHow much do you love Quart?

AlexQuart is so, that was, I think it was one of their strongest seasons. I know people have opinions but it made me just, it made me happy.

MerlinI can't, I can't find this Chemical Brothers song I thought it was. I don't know, I only really know two of their albums.

AlexYou keep saying Chemical Brothers and I keep hearing my chemical romance and getting excited that they're coming back.

MerlinI'm not okay. I'm not a fucking K.

AlexI'm not okay.

MerlinI'm not okay. I'm not okay.

AlexI'm not okay.

MerlinTrust me. He kisses him. That's such a good video. That's such a good video.

AlexThey don't make them like they used to. You know this is good.

MerlinThat Helene video is good, too.

AlexIt is. What is that? It's like the better of this way. They were called a lot of mean names by the other emo sad boys for that music video.

MerlinTheir music stands up, though. I think so. They're so good.

Alexthey're one of the few bands where I listen to like you know the aughts pop punk emo stuff where most of like my favorite bands as a youth their songs are it could be written by incels like they just all hate women we're done right

Merlinalmost almost did you watch the video with the black girls

Maxyes oh my god I don't like the music but I like the band I know I know I know but like just like oh my guys just turned on my wife and I was like could

Merlinyou have imagined even 10 years ago that there would be like three uh mostly african-american it seems maybe some hybrids and uh and uh it's kind of queer and they're playing like really thunderous overproduced punk pop like what the it's so fucking exciting unless there's something extremely terrible in corporate going on here that just that buoys me that makes me so happy

Alexlike three black girls playing punk rock makes me very happy it no corporation would be like woke enough no they would go back and you read some old tom wolf you know and like there's

Merlindefinitely there's been a lot of uh slide into hegemony happening for a long time you know like it used to be if you opened a bob dylan record you'd see the sleeve for columbia what was the phrase they use like columbia is where the rebels are or something like that it was like what was it they used to say it was so dorky hey the turtles are back with one of that crazy albums Columbia where the something are where the counterculture are Columbia

I won't find it hey everybody thanks for tuning in Dubai Friday everything's going to be better next time Max is going to have his new his cafe will be open I'll be all clear of my chest I'll be clear of my Chesstil stuff and Alex will have some drafts to share

AlexYeah, it'll maybe make me happy Finally, this is finally the thing I think this is it

170. The Golden Age of Huffing - After Show

Show notes

Transcript

170. The Golden Age of Huffing - After Show

Show notes

Transcript

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