179. Saturday is Pandemic Day

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Tenkin. This week's challenge, build a house in Minecraft.

MerlinHello!

AlexOh, so much energy.

MaxGood morning! Good morning. what's going on what's everyone what's everyone up to we all at home yeah yep partying how do you

Alexdo that like you would go to any place say a grocery store or uh i a bodega what the fuck is even in san francisco because i for the bodanga the bodanga be for the first time i was out

Maxyesterday uh against my will and where did bodanga come from why is that in my brain is that a thing someone says bodanga and it's very funny i i think it's considered i think bodangas bodangas are considered essential did i do a slur that's gotta be a um a uh bodanga pieces of marrow thing

Merlinoh you know what it is it's a catchphrase from that boy on the uh on the cbs show bodanga Is that what he says? He loves comics He's such a nerd like me

MaxListeners, if you know why Bodanga's in my brain Email me Call now Call now Saturday is pandemic day

MerlinIt is funny what's essential But for now Here's the thing We need to begin appending everything we ever say For the foreseeable future with this little phrase for now.

AlexYep, yep. We're recording. Don't you kind of feel like? Yep, yep. It's 11 a.m. Wednesday, March 25th. Yep, yep, yep, iPad day. Central time, sorry, sorry. iPad day?

MerlinIt's March 25th, central time, and it's iPad day. Pew, pew, pew. It's motherfucking iPad day, and I've got my iPad.

MaxFuck you. It's sitting in shrink wrap right at fingertips reach. I could open it up right. I could completely disengage from this podcast, not less to another word that you're saying. I know that sucker up.

MerlinOkay, challenge. Do you have any idea how tempting that is? Patreon bonus. You get to watch Veronica do a bad job opening Max's iPad.

Speaker AAnd taking his sticker off. Yes.

MerlinNot enough money in the world. Max, tell that again because it always makes me happy. So you go and you're a good phone boy. you go when for now when we had apple stores you would go to an apple store and you buy you up you pick you up your phone and then what do they do they're going to help you how do they help you

Maxwell here's the i mean here's the don't because i do often go pick up the new phone from the store back in the before times when they when there were there were stores a store is a kind of a place where you would go out to buy things and the apple corporation had them how would you get that daddy

Speaker Ayou're not allowed to leave the hubble if you can't leave the hubble how do you get to the iPhone.

MaxWelcome to Journey of the Accents. You'd wait in a crowded line where everyone was touching everything with their moist hands and sneezing into their mouths.

Speaker AIs this before we got Mexico? Is this before we got Mexico for extra six feet?

MaxYou'd queue up in a line and you'd wait for hours and it would be raining and you would hope that one of the men in the polo shirts would look kindly upon you and allow you to come into the store and pay for your thousand dollar phone but uh no that you know at the apple

Speaker Adid they have bubble parking how many how many musk bucks did a phone cost

MerlinIt's got a picture of Elon Musk giving you the finger.

MaxOh, that'd be hot. Now, you know, at the Apple store, they're trained to be very helpful. And they have their service that's called...

MerlinYou know, 80% of the folks they're dealing with are not you. Let's just put it that way. There's a lot of folks going in there like, what's my password?

AlexOh, God.

MaxI don't think I have the coronavirus. I think I'm dying for other unrelated reasons.

AlexYeah. Yeah. I mean, you're still going to die because you can't get into a doctor.

MerlinI think my swollen uvula is stress-related, I've decided. I've decided I've been unintentionally sucking.

AlexOh.

MerlinAnd the unintentional sucking is causing it.

MaxOh, boy. I've got the Wything SmartThings forehead thermometer sitting at my desk, and I check my forehead. About once every 45 minutes, I go, ooh, I'm not feeling so good. And I check my forehead temperature, and it's 98.7. I'm like, okay, back to work.

AlexOh, that's bad. that's bad that's bad did you know it changed it fucking changed and no one told me i can't believe it changed is it higher now right it's lower it's lower all right hold on well i have within almost

Maxa one and a half degree depending on the time of day and if i'm like drinking water or whatever it'll change it'll go up or down by about a degree and a half that's so upsetting yes so when there

Merlinwere stores max would go in there and he'd pick him up his phone and then they want to help they

Maxwant to help oh well all right yeah at the apple store they're you know they're trained to be very helpful and they have this i don't know what they call it it's like personalized set up or set up or something like that and they go would you like the like the guy will say something to akin to like can i can i help you you know set your phone up and i'm a polite person i don't like to say no to stuff so i'll go yeah sure man go you know do what you have to do and fucking take the phone out of box and start peeling it taking off your sticker your sticker from your iphone your sticker taking

the sticker taking the sticker right off he peels off your sticker on your iphone that happened that happened to me one time and now i know now they go the guy starts to go can i go i will take it hand over the phone do not open the box do not breach the seal that's me holding my airpod to

Merlinthe lift driver it's kind of it's it's a little bit it's a little bit of an old mafioso but but But it's also a little bit of game show. Bop, bop, bop. Like, you just got whammied.

Speaker AYou had all summer to plan something for this. Where did you put your bubble when you went into the lift car? Where'd you put your bubble, daddy? What, our phone?

AlexIs this child Cockney or Australian? What's happening?

MerlinI'm a foreign exchange student from the past. I cannot steal a joke from my brother and me the same week it comes out. Did you listen to that yet, Alex? Have you listened to that yet?

AlexNo, no, no. Just using Zoom. I live here now. Lovely service.

MerlinI'm soothing. I'm self-soothing so goddamn hard. I'm soothing. No, not in the usual way. Not as in the working from home way, but in the other way. Anyway, you can go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com and we will continue to produce. And, you know, we haven't talked about it. Boy, I'm guessing. I'm guessing we have a lot of, as they say on the Slate podcast, I'm guessing we have some business this week. But I just, I mean, you know, we haven't talked about this. But, you know, hey, you know, I hope you can keep up your Patreon. But if you can't, no hard feelings. I'm not going to look.

That's my 401k. Literally. I'm not going to look. I love watching the VIX. I love watching the VIX go up. That's fun. Because I'm an accelerationist.

So, anyway, thanks. Stress uvula, stress sucking

MaxHey, what even is going on? It's going to be nothing but coughing and hacking all week on the podcast What?

MerlinThat's our very special emergency pod

MaxYou guys staring at deliveries all day? I'm doing a lot of staring at deliveries I'm renaming things, I'm organizing them I'm categorizing them based on when they might arrive Oh yeah, it's been fun to We should talk about Instacart strategy

MerlinI have a whole Instacart strategy I have in place right now.

MaxYou know, we tried, Veronica and I sort of built an Instacart cart and then it was like, yeah, we can deliver that on April 25th or something like that. I'm like, that's no good.

MerlinYou know what you do? What's that? You start staggering two deliveries in the future a week and you keep adding items to the open cart and sometimes a five hour-

MaxYou're part of the problem. You're part of the problem. You're hoarding the Instacarts.

MerlinI have a baby. The lizard? He needs his kale. but um but um hey so so how are things going we have a i mean am i jumping ahead i'm sorry uh it sounds like we have at least a couple things you folks might want to report back on what's that oh my god you're really gonna drag me through this

there's the Mutual Aid Fund and there's the Minecraft server.

MaxOh yeah. Yeah the Mutual Aid so last week we rolled out the Dubai Friday Mutual Aid Fund. It's basically I mean essentially it's you can go to takeourfuckingmoney.com to check it out but it's basically a Google form that we coordinate on the back end on our Discord and if you need help you can go on there and ask for help and if you are looking to connect with someone else and help them you can give help. Max you know what it is?

MerlinMax says give a penny, take a penny.

MaxIt's give a penny, take a penny.

MerlinI'm sorry, hire a suggested donation. Give a $10 bill, take a $10 bill. Yeah. Basically, so let me just go through.

MaxWhat is dollar bill, daddy? So one of the situations we're having is after last week's episode came out, we had, I believe, hundreds of people sign up to help other people. Your screenshot actually made me and my wife cry.

Merlinso Max posted this thing and you guys did a pie graph of this what was the breakdown the first time you checked I didn't see the pie graph, you'll have to describe it and then Alex must have it was a vast majority of the people who had visited this site I'm just saying this, I found this very moving because certainly it's designed the whole reason we have it the whole fucking reason we have it is to help is to give the things and the time and the help and the love but it was really moving excuse me, really moving to see how many people showed up just to offer help.

MaxWasn't that the majority of what you got? We had hundreds of people who showed up to offer things to help and maybe less than a dozen who asked for stuff. Oh, shit. Oh, no, it's the producers. We did a reverse producer. Yeah. So before I start stealing everyone's money, before I start creating victims where they go into some sort of a slush fund that I use to buy Nintendo Switch games for myself, I encourage you to go to takeourfuckingmoney.com and check it out. Let me quickly go through some of the things that we can help you with because it occurs to me I didn't say that on the show last week. But many people have offered, if you need groceries delivered to your house,

if you need an Amazon wish list or something like that, a lot of people have signed up saying, hey, if you've got something on your Amazon list, I'll just buy it for you. So there's people willing to help you out with some groceries or buy some video games or whatever it is you need.

MerlinIt isn't just cash disbursements are part of it, but the other part of it is if there's just a thing. You made the, I mean, you tried to minimize this, But if you need a USB-C cable, like we can probably find that for you. Whatever it is. Yes. Because sometimes 50 bucks makes a difference. Believe me, I have scrounged in my adult life much later than I would like. I have gone through couch cushions for quarters. Full shizzle. And some months are better than others and some months are really rough. And, you know, if you can, Max's new word that I've overused, operationalize.

We want to operationalize. Like take the needs and turn it into the things that people can give you. And, you know, if you're a soft touch like me, you always got 50 bucks. I don't even need to believe me. I don't need the PowerPoint. Like, take my money. You know what I mean? So that's that's where we're coming at this from. And I'm just really moved that y'all did that. It's I'm very vulnerable right now. And I'm very grateful that everybody has been showing up to help their help our mutual friends.

AlexOne thing that I hadn't thought of before until someone asked for it was, hey, I would really like YouTube live because my kids are watching all these videos. and there are just so many ads and normally I'm fine with it. I'm like, oh, yeah, totally. And then someone Venmoed them like 15 bucks. Or if you're uncomfortable, you could Venmo me 15 bucks and then I'll steal it or Venmo it to them. Whatever you like. Like it doesn't mean to be. I am the oversight. Yes.

MaxSo a few other things that you can ask for help with. People are willing to share their subscriptions for Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Go, et cetera, et cetera. possibly one of those degenerate anime streaming channels email Alex let's see another thing you could ask for help with perhaps you are homeschooling your kids or your kids are home and as part of your program for them you would like to connect over video chat with

interesting people who are experts in different fields you can check that box and on the other end there's people who are like hey i i uh i work with uh big cats at a zoo and i'd be happy to like talk to kids about what that's like so there's um uh definitely some opportunities there if you'd like to have your kids take you know basically do an faq you're gonna get to talk to joe exotic you are receiving a call from hey kids hey kids you want to learn about the big cats if you would

like someone to buy you a steam key for a video game if you would like to learn i'll have someone teach you how to play a new video game. Or if you're just looking for friends to play video games with, those are things you can ask for. I myself may organize a couple of let's learn to play some games together things.

MerlinThat's so cool. With Max Tempkin from the internet.

MaxYeah, the breakout... Breakout hit character. If you need medical advice or legal assistance, this one I'm not sure how well supplied we are on.

MerlinIf you need legal advice, go to the

Maxinternet, because everybody's an expert. It's a free form. It's a free form online. You take it for what it is.

AlexIt's a Google form, everybody. It's a Google form.

MaxIt's a Google form. But listen, there are some people who are qualified experts in some medical fields or some legal fields, and they've offered to give advice. And the other one is if you are a teacher, if you are trying to offer some paid lessons in something like music, art, writing, magic, Like something that's, you know, performance based and you're looking for students who would pay you for lessons. That's another thing you can indicate on this forum. And we will probably be advertising those on the Discord and trying to get some teaching going.

AlexYeah. And it's been really nice. Like I actually asked this one guy like, OK, I kind of know how to play the guitar. But with this guitar, I just I can't do drop D. Can you do this really specific thing? And it was really fun to like hang out. Oh, I can't believe I'm saying this. I enjoyed looking at a stranger through a webcam and they had what you asked for someone to help you with your guitar yeah or just because uh most of the songs that I like are you are you are you

MerlinI'm sorry I don't interrupt this anecdote are you are you starting a death metal band the no a lot

Alexof uh like a lot of early aughts emo uses drop d and it sounds weird drop d rules I know pull it off if you got the action it is awesome that's the thing is I do not have the action nor the skill um because you get the buzz you get the buzz a little bit yeah so that's and and he's been helping me with that and i'm like okay let me pay you and he was like no no no don't i i don't want money take people's money or take take like a grubhub gift card or something because then you can buy from let's say the chicago board game cafe and get a nice night in with food and games

you want to tell people about that max what's going on with that oh i don't know how much of

Maxaudiences have. If you live in Chicago, the Chicago Board Game Cafe is delivering dinner and a game for your whole family. You can go to chicagodinnerandgame.com to learn more. We also have our takeout window is open and you can go pick up beer, wine, board games, puzzles.

MerlinThat's so cool. I can't believe you're doing this. This is so great. You got the stuff. You might as well move it. I can't believe we have a takeout window. When we were building this thing,

Maxwe realized, we were like, oh man, there's this big window in the store. I wish I knew who came up. I want to be like Applebee's, but with dice. Yeah. And so we had this big window, and someone was like, you know, we should turn that into a takeout window so people can go up to the store. And I believe I said, that's a stupid idea. We're never going to need to do takeout out of our game cafe. And I was convinced to do it. And now it's probably the best decision that we ever made because we actually have a way to serve people food.

MerlinMr. Tempkin. Mr. Temkin, I have a business where I take old cigarette machines and make it so that they can bend N95 masks. I can give it to you at a very cheap rate. Would you be interested? We're never going to need that for our game cafe.

MaxI sell squid signs for bathrooms. I have to show you guys something. Can I show you guys something weird on Twitter? Please. You? I am back on Twitter.

AlexOh, you don't say.

MaxI'm not in a good brain place, and I'm just using Twitter all day. Okay. Okay, here we go. I just want to show you this.

MerlinFor those who are listening at home, this is an instance of, I'm going to guess ahead of time, this is proof that Alex and Max get a different internet than I do. Max, what are you going to share with us? Okay, here we go.

This person fucked Play-Doh for six years, and now they've started a successful ukulele duo. What? What?

AlexAll right. We are opening Twitter. Oh, no.

MaxOh, no. Here comes the rabbit hole. I just want to show you this. It's just weird. It's just weird. So there was a story. I retweeted a story. I saw a story from Reuters. It was getting passed around on the Internet as a kind of a feel-good story. And it said, Facebook donates emergency reserve of 720,000 masks due to coronavirus outbreak. And I saw that. And everyone was like, wow, cool. Facebook's donating their masks. And I saw that. What do they know that we don't? What do they know? And I said, Facebook had 720,000 masks just sitting around.

So I retweeted it with the comment, do most private companies have a reserve of 700,000 masks? Because I thought that's pretty curious that Facebook had that. And I didn't know what I meant. I didn't really mean anything by it. I just thought, that's weird. Do you guys agree it's a little bit weird that Facebook has over half a million masks just sitting around?

MerlinWell, Max, if you're interested in this, there's another company that also wants to pitch in. So Apple is going to donate 9 million masks.

MaxYes. Wait, seriously?

MerlinApple is going to donate nine million masks.

MaxI saw that. I did. I've seen a lot of companies in the Bay Area have the masks. And the reason is. Because of the smoke. We have the smoke.

AlexNo, this makes sense, I think.

MaxSo I actually think it's two things. I think some companies like Apple, yes, they have a big reserve of masks because they're thinking about wildfires and taking care of their employees. But also, some companies have them because they have clean rooms, like if you're doing like processor, you know, working on computers or processors.

MerlinYeah, and I don't know if it's official policy, but there was a time not that many weeks ago when you would change your mask every single time because they're like Kleenex. Nobody needed to stockpile Kleenex because how many Kleenex will you use in a day? It's okay if you go through the whole box. We've got 80 more. Don't worry. And that's the problem, though. A mask that should cost less than a dollar selling for $7 is pretty problematic.

MaxAll I want to show you on this, I really just meant, I mean, I knew that they had them because of the wildfires, but it was that number 700,000 jumped out at me. And I thought that is just weird to me that Facebook just has a warehouse with over half a million masks just just sitting there. It's weird to me that Apple has that many masks. But anyway, I didn't mean anything crazy by it. I just I just tweeted and I was like, is that, you know, do most private companies have a reserve that big?

MerlinYou're asking the basic question, which is why? Why would you choose to do that?

MaxYes. And look at the reply.

MerlinYou're just saying, what's the motivation for doing that? Look at the replies to this.

MaxOh, no. Oh, no. Is it people on the Internet? It's people on the Internet. look at how fucking fired up people it's like that gif of the have you showed you the gif of the ants where the guy pokes the stick at the ants and they all spray their their formic acid out i'm gonna find it oh no no i'm good i'm good i'm good these these um oh god i want are they specifically really yeah don't bring your own jokes come on guys look that's what happened when i posted this it's the ants gif look at our channel oh no oh no wait where's the ants gif i

AlexI'm looking at angry people on Twitter, and then I'm supposed to look at some ants. This is not helping. That's what's happening. This is being trapped in the Animal Crossing Museum.

MaxThis guy, he's touching the stick over the anthill, and they're all spraying their formic acid. That's what happened. I poked the anthill, and here's all these people, fucking Jimmy and Tyler, and they're all in there, my fucking ant mentions, going.

MerlinScott and Jason. Is Zuck a prepper? It goes with the faces they have stockpiled.

Maxjust I wish I had a clown horn I could just aim at every one of these some people are like so defensive and they're like yes they're an electronics manufacturer of course they have masks and other people are like it's a conspiracy Facebook created the coronavirus like damn yeah

Merlinyeah there was this is this is why I'm really getting to a place where you remember Stephen Frank had that plug-in he made um the turned off comments on most sites like so many things Stephen was way in front on that um and you know it was great because at one point eventually he added YouTube and it was a game changer. Because there's just a lot of places where you don't want to see the comments. Folks like you, go to Reddit because I guess you love comments. But I'm now at a point where I just don't want to see tweet responses on other people's tweets. It's gotten, it's gotten, what was the one last, there was one last night that was just

like, it was the same, oh, you know what it was? Oh, oh, it was, oh, oh yeah, it was Ryan Reynolds who has, I think he's a partner in this gin company. He's been, it's like been a thing he's done and it's hilarious. They have great branding and messaging, you know, along the line of cards. They're very funny. And he's so charming. He's such a good follow. He's one of the great celebrity follows on Twitter who's not just weird, weird follower. A weird guy on Twitter. But you know what I mean? Like, it's not just like Cher and her, you know, emojis or whatever.

Like, Ryan Reynolds is very charming and funny. And so he was like saying, hey, you know, we're really excited that we're going to be able to do this thing, pay bartenders at our favorite bars, you know, 30% of our stuff. now is going to go. And then the very first response that I get showing up in the algo is, why don't you convert to making hand sanitizer?

Oh my God. Okay, we'll do that. We'll do that. Because I think actually they already have done some of that for one thing, but no. Because now it's just everything has to be all the worst shittiness, neoliberal, like slightly pissed off. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's just frustrating. It's just like, oh, can I just have a minute? Can I just appreciate a nice thing that somebody did and didn't want to pause for it? But here's the thing we're doing, and you can help with the cause. And it's more like, wow, well, why haven't you done the thing that I'm focused on this five minutes?

AlexIt's like, I don't want to be sad.

MerlinI don't want to. But what kind of acid is it, Max? They're shooting. I keep seeing this. It loops. What are the ants shooting?

MaxThey shoot the formic acid out of their, I don't know, cloaca? I don't know what ants have. It's kind of ampukake.

AlexOh, oh, no. Oh, no. I love this gif. I don't like thinking about it now. This gif reminds me of Twitter.

MerlinI have to be so honest, I really super don't love it.

AlexNo.

MerlinOoh, the stick is soothing, though. That's my ASMR. Bong, hong. All right.

MaxOh, fuck. What else do we have? Oh, well, we'll get into the Minecraft server, because that's our challenge this week. Max, can I ask a question? Oh, I have a question for you. Oh, please. Don't monopolize this.

MerlinI have a question for you.

MaxAll right, yeah, yeah.

MerlinMax, are you ready? Max? I'm ready. Max, I'm always ready. Hey, just play with the bit. Max, where do you decide to paste a link? In our super secret? I've made a study of this for some months now. Me? And so far, Max, how do you decide where to paste a link? I put it in our super secret text channel. You do. But you also put it in the other channels and sometimes on Twitter. And I'm wondering, do you have a personal algo for why that link went here rather than there? Because I get links from you. Also in the Slack. There's the Slack and then there's some areas in the Slack.

I get links from you in so many places and I enjoy that because each one I try to read in a certain context but how do you decide where it goes?

MaxUsually if it's something that I think Kevin and Jen will enjoy I post it in the Dream Dream. The Dream Dream.

AlexHe's been coxed! Oh man!

MaxI put it in the Dream Team. If I think Kevin and Jen will like it and if it's too upsetting for Kevin and Jen my most upsetting context

MerlinI know exactly what you mean.

MaxIt goes just to you and Alex, obviously.

MerlinAnd when you want to send photos of the Palladipus cloaca, you send that to the Monotreme team.

Speaker AMm-hmm.

MerlinTo the what? That's a really, really stupid joke. Okay. But I agree with you. There are some, I feel like, okay, two things. First of all, here's my theory. My theory is I've noticed in my algo that you tend to drop a link right after Alex or I or someone else has posted somewhere. That pops up. My sense is that you always have a link in your clipboard ready to deploy. And they're very good, very upsetting links. I think when that notey pops up, you double click, boom, boom, now you're inside.

And maybe, I don't know, maybe you have an Apple script. But whatever's on Max's mind and in Max's clipboard, on his mind grapes board, that's going to go in the channel.

MaxNo, listen, I don't have, I know at this point I'm just going to get made fun of for saying it. But I'm just trying so hard not to use public-facing social media in the sense of, like, sharing everything, right?

MerlinBecause everything, all context clues are completely stripped. And I see it every day. And I just call it the, it's called muting mornings. And muting mornings is when you go out and you go, oh, you made a funny joke. Now you're muted. Then that's a muting morning where I go through and I do all my pruning on the previous day's posts.

MaxI am not claiming that I'm doing a good job of this. I'm just trying to, you know, I used to use Twitter a few years ago where like literally any link or anything that caught my attention, boom, tweet it and put it out there.

MerlinIt becomes like a common book or a journal almost.

MaxYes. And I'm just, I'm not doing a great job. I'm just trying to use some self-restraint. And that means when I see an Apple news story or just something comes across my path, I'm like, I got to get this out of the system. And usually I send it to you and Alex.

MerlinAnd that's where I feel like this really is. Oh, we're the garbage. it's the vip room like this is really where the worst stuff goes this is where i i try to save my

Maxvery worst stuff i know who goes for the vip room the worst stuff goes to i made a new channel on the discord called the black pill zone oh where no that's not wholesome buddy and no it's just all it is is it's one little chat room pure nihilism it's pure nihilism about coronavirus and I've literally yelled at people yesterday for being too hopeful they were all posting positive stories about like oh Italy's bending the curve that's not what this is for

fuck off post your survival lanterns your tactical flashlights your articles about the existential fail videos I want to know about the volcano under Yellowstone that's about to erupt I want to know about how the electricity grid is going to go down trying to capture grandpa's last breath yes oh boy i'm old enough that i remember when uh republicans uh for a while at least the like

defining thing of of republican ideology was something that they called respect for life where I was like, yes, we're anti-choice.

Every baby is... Anti-euthanasia. Oh, 100%.

MerlinEvery baby is a gift. And that turns into a human being, which is also a gift necessarily.

MaxBut somehow they were pro-war and pro-capital punishment. So I never understood. It always was false. Even, would you remember this era? It was the Bush era, the 2004. and they were like, yes, we have respect for life. Being conservative is about having respect for life. Do you remember that? Oh, yeah, dude.

AlexI went to a Catholic school.

MaxWell, you did just start a war that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq.

MerlinEven before that, though, in the Reagan era, it was all very coded because like all of these cultural artifacts, it has to be super coded. And it sounds silly to go into this unless you weren't there and don't know how coded it was. But when you say you're pro-life or that you want to show respect for life, that pro-life is really, what we're really saying here is we need to be able to control women's bodies because then we control them socially, culturally, and economically. So if we can control the way that women are allowed to reproduce, they have to be nice to us.

So there's that part of it. But then the other part that I think is, and I might be reading too much, but you tell me, this is all before the Gulf War even, but there's the whole coding of like pro-life or we love life. well, yeah, but we still have to kill the criminals because they're trying to take your life. And if we can create this class of people that we can all just put into something, a barrel called criminal, then they don't have humanity anymore, even more than women are allowed to own their uterus. Like we have now created,

this is a very Douglas Lakoff kind of idea in some ways, but like we've created this entire class of people called criminal and they're all a burden on the system who are, you know what I'm saying? Like that-

MaxIt was just, yes, I am totally on board. And also the other thing I remember that just felt absolutely fucking insane about this whole, I guess it's now it's, you know, it's whatever. It's over 10 years ago. So of this era of politics. But I just I'll just never forget it for the rest of my life. I'll be mad about it. But people would go. The news would go. They'd have some Democrat on and, you know, John Kerry. Right. And they go, Senator Kerry, are you pro-life or not? And he would go, well, I'm not pro-life. And then that's now you sound evil.

Speaker AYep.

MaxOh, it's like.

MerlinOh, right. It's like asking a woman if she's a feminist. It becomes kind of a trap in some way.

MaxYes. But it's how quickly Democrats accepted that framing where they go, well, we're not pro-life. And it's like, oh, okay. We don't have respect for life. It's like, are you fucking kidding me? And then, of course, there was the death panel. Yeah, when did you stop beating your wife? And then there was the death panel thing, the Sarah Palin, the death panel thing in reaction to Obama, you know, wanting to give health care to people.

MerlinJust for folks who weren't there, that was a way of saying that basically there was going to be health means testing. Well, this is not true. Now you need to say this. There's going to be health means testing. And if you're too old to be worth the trouble, you will not get medical care because you're old and not worth the trouble. Right.

MaxThey said under Obama, there will be government health care and the government will decide whether you get health care or not.

MerlinLiterally.

MaxSo they will have what they called death panels, which I guess are panels of government people who decide who lives and who dies. And now here we are. Yeah, it's like a star chamber for grandpa. Here we are, 10 years later. Yes. And it's like, Peepaw needs to die for the economy.

MerlinOh, Mr. Trump, sir, I will lay down my adult sons that they may live. Oh my God, it's such a death cult. It's such a goddamn death cult. Are you guys listening? Hey, if you want to be sad about something different.

MaxIt's freaking me out. Yeah.

MerlinOh yeah. Oh no, it's really fucking, it's a death. There was a time after Parkland where I was like, okay, this is it. But I think a lot of people said this has now become a cliche, but there are a couple of watersheds of the last few years. One of them certainly has to be, oh shoot, the big riots where the woman died. What city was that?

AlexCharlottesville.

MerlinOh, Charlottesville. Charlottesville was a watershed, and let's be honest, Sandy Hook was a watershed. And everybody looks at Sandy Hook and says, well, if we couldn't agree that we're going to fix it after that day, there will never be a day where there's ever been more of a chance to get people around that idea. You know what I'm saying? and like i i feel like that uh i don't know oh my god i'm so depressed oh my god really

Maxthe politics the politics is bad are you okay so to be sad about something different i'm gonna i'm gonna level with you i'm gonna level with you it's not good not what's which part oh the politics oh the politics of it but the civics you feel like is going pretty good oh it's not it's not going good that's not going good okay all right no no and the democrats their whole the democrats whole thing they became like the conservatives on this where they were like oh the Republicans they just want to do a big handout and help everyone but we're not we're not means testing it enough and how do we know that the right

you know that what if everyone gets too much help and how are they going to pay it back I know damn read the room guys yeah this sucks

Merlinare you guys listening to blowback blowback never heard of it okay so not front of the show but I enjoy his stuff Brendan James has a new podcast with another fellow called blowback and boy this is right in your wheelhouse Max

Maxoh this is the Iraq war

Merlinokay I don't want to get Stitcher oh fuck I only listened to the first episode now I got a stitch fuck that

Maxdidn't they advertise it on when he was on Chapo talking about it

Merlinthey basically ran an episode of it guest appearances amazing fucking amazing guest appearances at the top from H. John Benjamin and James Adomian it was so god damn funny

AlexMm hmm. Checking this right now, it looks like it's just kind of like the dream where it just comes a week later. Like get the whole series now.

MerlinOkay, so if you can find it or you choose to find it, at least listen to that episode because, boy, the reason I'm bringing it up, Max, I want to talk about something happy, the Iraq War, talking about the genesis of your getting interested in politics and how you often talk about, you say that, you know, now counter-revolutionary idea that Trump is nowhere near as bad as Bush, and everybody goes, oh, come on, Orange Cheeto, Agent Orange, burp, burp, burp. and you're like, no. You know what, though?

MaxI have to say, with the handling, he may...

MerlinYeah, I know. He's turning a corner.

MaxYou know what? I thought that our boy would not get anywhere near the body count of George W. Bush. I mean, you'd have to have 10 Trump presidencies to get anywhere near George W. Bush at the rate he was going.

MerlinAnd more competent people. Yeah, more competent people. Yeah. Well, anyway, it's a hell of a thing to go back to those early and just remember the rage.

MaxHe is fucking putting some bodies on the scoreboard this week, let me tell you. Anyway, I thought you'd like the podcast. Yes, you're right. I enjoyed the episode on Chapo and then they said you have to get it on Stitcher Premium and I was like, I'm not going to get that episode.

MerlinI'm going to tell you guys what my ex-wife used to tell me, which is that I wanted to help you, but I think you can't be helped. And I said, what does that mean? She said, exactly. Anyway, I'm married again.

I can't leave the house.

Maxyou guys got any uh merlin this this might be a good uh merlin merlin area to to to plumb for a minute um you guys got any like uh sort of like you know we're we're all like just to state the obvious in case maybe someone's listening to this in the future we're all stuck at home and we have been for this is what i think for me it's my about my third week at home is that about right

Alexuh we're in the third week right now uh of official oh okay yes we have

Maxwell officially i think we're we're like halfway through this first or second week or so we're earlier but also like most sensible people stopped going out i think we're closer than further to

Alexeaster if that's your question yeah yeah we're closer to the massacre and then get in there

MaxShoulder to shoulder. A little bit of host. Anyway, we've all been stuck at home for a little bit, and I'm curious if you guys have any, you know, any, Merlin, you're known for your sort of life hacks, your productivity blogs.

MerlinI am. I'm always posting a blog. Your listicles, you know, all that kind of wonderful content. How to, Colin?

MaxI'm wondering if you have any sort of life hack type material about that would regard, you know, staying at home for a while, work from home, setting up your office at home, so on and so forth.

MerlinYes, yes. We talked about this. Thank you for asking. We talked about this on Back to Work the other day. It'll be talking about a little bit about the work from home. It's available on Stitcher Premium or anywhere where podcasts are found. Available on Stitcher Premium Pro for the enterprise. It's available in Microsoft Creative Cloud for Windows NT Linode. Linode. We want to thank Linode.

And on an upcoming RECDIFS, but let me just give you, here's my quick tip. As I say to Dan, in order for this to be useful, it must be almost impossibly abstract. I have specific suggestions that I could give. My abstract expression is try to find a multi-quadrant hit that will keep your household occupied. And I'm going to say, why do I say that? Well, multi-quadrant in the sense of it's something that everybody in your house won't hate helping with a little bit, but that also will make your current situation and state of living more comfortable, convenient, or fun.

And so, like, in our case, that is we are—this is—forgive me. Hi. Hi. If I live this year, I'll be 54. We are rearranging our pantry. We took everything out of the pantry. Whoa. We saw if it was expired. got we had just actually this is a project we've been oh ready for this oh here's a real merlin tip we've been meaning to do this for a year so we had for example a rolling shelf that we knew we wanted to put all our appliances on i had not even assembled it so what we did was now we got time time enough at last i'm burgess meredith and so so uh so we cleaned out the pantry completely

i redid all the lighting in the pantry and an emotion sensor light so that it turns on and off now. Maybe this is like that

MaxTwilight Zone episode where you finally, you finally, it's me in my pantry and then your spice rack breaks or something.

Speaker ANo, my spice rack.

MerlinOh my god, I can't get another one from Amazon till May. And I died. I was inconvenienced. But so here's the thing, but what I have been able to sneak in because of my canny way I order things is I got this really badass, I got our usual emotions sensor adapter for a light bulb. And I did, I shouldn't even say this for insurance reasons, but then I got this cool chandelier-ish, you plug in a typical bulb thing, but it makes four little offshoots like LED track lights and you can put low wattage bulbs in those. So you get like a,

without having to go all in on a hue-ish thing. Anyway, that was a great, how excited am I about this? I am very excited. This kept me busy. I had something to do. Now I know exactly how much wild rice we have. And I know that every single stick of food that we have in the pantry is not expired. And I put together the rolling cart and I put the Instant Pot and the Panini Press and the Darth Vader toaster and all the things, the rice cooker, I put it all on there. And now it rolls in and out. So that was mine. I had no problem at all realizing that was something that would be

absorbing, fun, improve our life, and actually make things better for the situation that we're in. So my first suggestion is, it doesn't have to be that ambitious. Clean out a drawer, but do something that makes your area a little better. Take one thing down to the garage that gives you more room upstairs because you're going to want it. And my only other tip on a completely different part of the spectrum, and I've heard a lot of people say this. I'm not the author of this. However, if it's more than one person in your house, you must find and honor ways for those people to, on the one hand, be by themselves.

but I would add to that, ideally, if you have a way to pull it off through going to a yard or a park or a basketball, everybody should get time in the house completely by themselves a little bit, at least every day. I got more, but that's two that I think can help. I worry a lot about people who are literally alone. It seems like this must be a... On one hand, it's cool. Nobody's bugging you if you're super introverted and you just want to watch all of Tiger King. This is a good time. And boy, we really super need to talk about Tiger King. Yes.

But anyhow, yeah, that's how I would start. Remember, leave some in the tank. Be in this for the long haul. Find ways to minimize friction. Give each other room. You're going to want probably maybe even a little more structure than you usually have. Who's going to have shower time? When does somebody drop a deuce? If there's ways you can figure out your preferences, don't be fucking afraid to take a nap. Don't be afraid to let your sleep schedule change. I'm now sleeping about an hour, hour and a half later than I usually did, and I feel great health-wise.

MaxI was at the, I popped into the cafe the other day to check in with everyone. And I was kind of seeing the staff. We're all keeping our distance and everyone's like wearing gloves and we're all, you know, we're checking temperatures when we come in the door and we're all that kind of a thing. But we're an essential business or we're allowed to, you know, come in to do our delivery and takeout. And I've known some of these people I've been working with for years, but most of them I've only been working with for a few months. And in those few months, we went through opening a restaurant and going through our first month of service.

MerlinIt's like boot camp.

MaxOh, it's fucking crazy. And I was realizing as we were all in there, I was like, most of these people who I was seeing, I was like, I haven't seen these people getting well rested ever. I never knew them at a time in their life when they were getting regular sleep. Oh, God, that's so funny.

MerlinIt's like when you see people on Survivor at the reunion and you're like, you don't look like yourself. You know what I mean? Oh, my gosh, you look normal. I was like, everybody looks amazing.

MaxLike, they're all like, had time to do laundry and they're like getting eight hours of sleep. Like I was thinking for myself, I cannot tell you, I really could not tell you the last time in my life when I had this many contiguous nights of sustained eight hour plus sleep. Maybe, maybe never.

MerlinYeah.

MaxCollege? I don't know.

MerlinHow are you doing on the front, Alex? Are you, honestly, are you doing, is it, how are you doing with sleep?

AlexOh, um, I mean bad, but I'm always doing bad with sleep.

MerlinBut it's not different. It's not worse.

AlexOh, it's, it's worse. But I mean, I'm also in like the situation. Also, we're going to be. All right. Point the first. I feel like people are going to be worried that I'm not talking a lot. That's just because my Internet is bad. I'm actually not. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, no, no, no. I am. Whenever you guys talk a lot, people get mad.

MerlinThis is just you guys know this is hard to do. We always have terrible latency and the latency is crazy bad today.

AlexOh, man. And then people email me and I get DMs like they really didn't let you talk this week. I'm talking bitches. God, calm down.

MerlinThat's so interesting. I get that same DM, but about twice as many as you do. And they say, why is Alex on the show? And I say, you know, we love the kid.

AlexWhy is Alex there?

MerlinWhy is Alex there? It's like twice or three times probably. I don't even know how many you get, but many people are saying that I should have my own show.

AlexI'm actually doing pretty well. My advice to folks is really not calm down, which is normally my advice, but let yourself feel really bad and sad. Because if you try not to, then you're going to end up taking it out on the people you're living with or your poor delivery person. It's okay to feel really upset right now. And I'm going through this thing of like, oh, yeah, I'm going to be really anxious and angry and sit with those feelings and be OK with feeling them instead of being, I don't want to say in denial about the situation, but I've seen people trying to be the optimists for everyone and you can't.

And the other day on Fresh Air, his name's Max Brooks. He's the writer of World War Z, but he's also.

MerlinOh, yeah.

AlexYeah, it was an amazing.

MerlinHe's like a consultant on Apocalypse Now, right?

AlexYeah, he actually does like prepper stuff, but in real life. And he actually at one point in this.

MerlinLike for institutions.

AlexYes, he works with the CDC. He's worked with FEMA and World Health Organization, all of that. And he did a great interview on fresh air. But at the end of that, he said, all right, everybody, stay safe, stay sane. And I'm like, oh, shit, that's kind of what we need now. Because a lot of people, like, it doesn't feel heroic to sit and binge and watch the final season of The Office. But, like, you're doing a really good thing right now. So, especially after being outside yesterday, my God, people are really still out there.

Jesus Christ.

MerlinYou just see these little, like, these little flash mobs of stupidity. Like, people going out to pick up their food and they're just cheek to jowl. two 22-year-old guys in fucking shower sandals just cheek to jowl, and you're like, you fucking... You know, somebody said something to me. I hope you find a way to get good sleep, because I really do believe that it's not Pollyanna. The other thing, Alex, that I like about you is you always focus on a very practical thing. It seems like you always focus on, what can I do about this? What can I do about this right now? And if the answer is, I can't do that much about this, well, local, local, local,

get as close as I can to something I can get my hands on. I might be putting words in your mouth, but it feels like you actively try to notice and reject the idea that, like, you have to convert all anxiety into hopelessness and helplessness.

AlexWell, then you become the person on Twitter who's like, why don't you make hand sanitizer?

MerlinOr like the guy in Parks and Rec where he's like, in the time capsule episode, where he's like, well, you know, why would you do these time capsules? Maybe I'll be killed by a flu or something. He's like, do you have a question? He goes, no, I'm just really scared right now. I heard a thing once and I'm going to say a phrase just so you know because now we're in an age now where we must preface what we say with whether it's accurate or true. I'm about to say something that somebody said in the 80s that is an impolitic thing and then I'm going to save it by pointing out how it's actually universal.

Does everybody understand? I'll deliberately misunderstand it

Maxif it's funny.

MerlinSomebody once said something to me that made so much sense to me at the time but in a very narrow way which somebody said you know if you understand women and you've got to understand that they confuse their strong emotions. And that's why nagging works. Can I finish? And I said, huh, that's interesting.

Speaker AThat's what you said.

MerlinI don't see anything wrong with this. Michael, I didn't know you were coming. You said you were watching the last season of The Office. But you know what I realized, and this is where I save it, is it's really true of everybody. So everybody confuses their strong emotions. Men in particular, as you know, I have the theory that for men in particular, where almost any kind of multi-front war of the emotions results in anger. For men, almost everything gets converted to anger.

I think for a lot of women, to be honest, it can. Men or women, but especially men, tend to get angry about things. And I guess what I'm saying is right now we're all feeling a lot of intense emotions. Okay, so now I'm going to ruin what I saved by making it flip and saying, watch Parks and Rec. Watch The Office. You're going to laugh so fucking hard at season four of Parks and Recreation right now. And it's not just, ooh, I love my comfort food, whatever. Call it whatever the fuck you want. I'm telling you, watching the Comeback Kid episode where Leslie launches her campaign and she has to go across the ice.

Pistol Pete is there to do a big dunk. Pistol Pete, everybody. And then they didn't. But the thing is, it's one of the greatest comedy payoffs, I think, in TV of all time. Absolutely, I Love Lucy level of payoff. For the entire episode, they've set up all the ways that this campaign is failing. And then everything falls apart at once. Tom didn't get enough red carpeting. Okay. April didn't notice that they- The basketball. Champion, the three-legged dog, comes in. You also get that April got the basketball court only, uh-oh, it currently has ice on it, but she was too bored to listen and notice.

Then they get pulled over, and they only have enough lumber for a tiny little platform. and they ordered the wrong banner size. So it's only part of Leslie's face and two letters of her name and the icing on top of it all, the cherry on top is that Jerry for the first time in his career has succeeded and actually accidentally got a large audience to turn out. And it's all scored to get on your feet by Miami Sound Machine. And it is, here's what I'm here to tell you. Right now you have a strong, if you're like me, well, I'll tell you what I have. I'll speak for myself.

I have a strong feeling of just kind of a constantly buzzing something hurts anxiety title of just constant buzz of worry and anxiety and of a certain amount of fear for what I know is coming. A lot of extreme frustration about the time we've lost to get this going. And then on top of it, the guys in the shower sandals outside making it worse for everybody. So I have a lot of strong emotions. And after about four or five o'clock when we make dinner, we sit down to watch something on the TV. It feels really good to say,

I'm going to get away from this ad for a while. And now my strong emotions are going to be to laugh my fucking ass off at Chris Trager and do some celebratory lunches. So let your, let your confused emotions become something where you can laugh or cry so fucking hard and don't feel like you need to tamp it down.

MaxYou know what I've been enjoying in a similar vein is fucking Seinfeld streaming on Hulu.

AlexOh fuck.

MaxNo sleep.

MerlinAs soon as I heard Kenny Rogers died, my first thought was no sleep.

Maxand that makes a pretty mean bird I jumped right into season 4 which is the one where they make the TV show so good I mean it's gotta be every episode is a classic

Merlindude fucking Bob Balaban Bob Balaban is so good the cabin, the cheever letters

Maxevery episode is just a fucking classic the dad is in New York and he goes to the doctor and he runs in the hallway my wallet's gone, my wallet's gone but while it's gone

MerlinBarney Frank not Barney Frank Barney what's that guy's name I love that actor so much while it's gone

MaxI really endorse season season four of Seinfeld on Hulu is just a fucking masterpiece it's so funny what's your

Merlinwhat's your pick Alex is it your Animal Island

Alexthe you seem like

Merlinyou're very in my daughter loves your username right now so much well she loves everything about you What's your username? Isn't it Nook's Bitch?

AlexOh no, she sees me on Twitter. Oh no. Oh, well, there goes another month of...

MerlinShe's heard the word, Alex.

AlexShe'll be fine. Yeah, I've been playing Animal Crossing.

MerlinJust no pressure. It's just that she's a huge role model. She buys lots of Polka Dot shirts now. Yeah, she's pretty much watching every move from you and modeling it. Oh good. She learned from you, Dad.

AlexOh yeah, then Grey's Anatomy is my fault. Everything is my fault. Literally everything is.

MerlinI walked in right at the end of the one where Meredith, this is up to the current season, I believe. It's the one where Meredith is walking through the hall

Speaker Aand we see all of the people in her life who died.

MerlinThe doll. Oh, no. Alex, Alex. It's the first time the show made me cry.

Speaker AOh, God.

MerlinI said, it's going to be McDreamy. It's going to be McDreamy. And it was McDreamy and McSteamy. Yes. And the mom.

Speaker AOh, my God.

MerlinThey're all there.

Speaker Aand then George and I said oh it's George I want a George season again

Merlindid you see that scene Max when Mara is walking down the hall did you see that oh it's one of my favorites

Alexit's one of the greats one of the greats

Merlinand then she cuts the hair on that big bulky Tom's of Maine guy Tom's of Finland what kind of guy is that that big bulky guy remember the new guy he's a new guy who's handsome he's a new guy but he's gonna cut his hair which one's one of them's toothpaste and one of them is man love Tom's of Finland Tom's of Maine what am I thinking of

AlexI forget are you talking about the Australian one or like the

MerlinWhat about this baking soda? Did you ever watch that movie? Did you ever watch the Tom's of Finland movie? No, no, no, no.

AlexWell, you know, at least, Max, you didn't miss the seminal episode that has the musical inside of the episode because some people skipped that episode, and it's just still really, really upsetting to me. Just fine.

MerlinI also haven't finished Millennium Actress.

MaxYou guys, I have a good one that's been making me happy. I probably have shown you guys this But the printer go burr meme

AlexThe printer go burr

MaxOh god this is your new favorite thing it is funny It is really good it's my favorite meme in a long time I think it seems like A 4chan-y thing It's like the troll face guys It's this character called Wojax or Feels Guy And so you have The young The sort of maybe like Gen Z Wojax on the left And he's crying

MerlinProbably like a gender fluid social justice warrior.

MaxYes. Yeah. And he's crying. No, I think he's coded as kind of a right wing. Oh, you think he's a soy boy beta? He's a soy boy beta. I think he's sort of one of these right wing alt-right guys. Because he's kind of got the alt-right haircut and he's got his gritted teeth and he's crying and he's upset about.

MerlinOh, I see. I think he's kind of right wing.

MaxThis is men's right Charlie. Kind of. And he's very emotional. And he's going, you can't do this monetary policy and artificially inflate the economy. And then on the right, you have another Wojax, another feels guy that's a boomer. And he's just sort of smiling with a blank look on his face. And he goes, haha, money printer, go brr.

It's such a good meme. So then this was the sort of remix.

MerlinUnited States Federal Reserve seal.

MaxYeah. This is the sort of remix that came out on Twitter. so so now the so now the now the upset now the the the upset crying guy is is the white cell oh you can't just hijack my cell membrane force me to make copies of you and then you have the coronavirus is the old boomer wojacks and he goes ha ha protein printer go and now here's uh yeah was the do you have a biden one now this is another one that i enjoy

from this one I just saw today.

MerlinA person who looks like a golem with the plague says, health care, please.

MaxThis is like a desiccated feels guy. He's like a needy feels guy. Health care, please. And wait, and then there's one more. This is another really good twist on it. Printer broke.

Speaker APrinter broke. Printer broke.

MaxSo in this one, the millennial guy, he's going, no, you need to go back to work. He's talking to an old, the boomer Wojax, and he goes, you need to go back to work so we can increase Q2 GDP by 3%. What about the stock market? This is government interference in the free market. The labor theory of value is communist propaganda. No.

And then you have the old guy who's hooked up to the ventilator just going, brr.

Speaker AHa ha ha ha!

Merlinyou'll find these in uh show notes for this episode it's so it's such it's a very good

Maxmeme because they've got two sides that i hate both of them they're sort of opposed to each other and it's a really good they're making fun of both of them in a good way okay if you want

Merlinto find them on know your meme it's money printer go brr oh the know your meme examples are good

AlexOh, man. I love this. Great meme.

MerlinAnybody else got anything to be helpful or to make people feel less terrible?

MaxAgain, this is one that's similar to yours of like, I didn't come up with this, but I found it useful, which is like, I found it helpful. I shouldn't say people should do this. I found it personally helpful for myself to establish a little bit of a daily routine. I will say I am very lucky that I have a home office I have a room in my home where I have like my computer and my studio and stuff and it's like a physically a place I know not everyone has this but I'm very lucky that I have like physically a place I can go that's like my workspace

but yeah I have a little routine for myself I wake up I shower I make breakfast I like make a coffee I go downstairs and I set up my work day and then you know I five or six I stop working and Veronica and I figure out dinner. We're kind of developing a little routine. Veronica has one that I think is very clever where she goes on the exercise bike in the morning and then she goes and works.

She's teaching and doing the e-learning or whatever, which we could talk about in a second. But then at the end of the day, she goes on the bike again to sort of end her day and she calls it her commute.

MerlinOh, that's so good.

MaxYeah, isn't that good? Oh, I love that. She sort of does the bike to get ready for work, and it sort of creates this transition for her of, like, bookending the day, I guess. But, yeah, man, the e-learning thing, I don't know if you guys know any teachers, but what a crack of shit.

MerlinI mean, they spend so long coming up with the curriculum that they have for the thing they're familiar with. Not only do they have to change it, but they've got to move into a thing that they're not familiar with.

MaxYes. And I get the emails from my online law school. I get the emails from the school. And it's so funny to me that they're like, this is Northwestern University, which is a good school. and they're like, professors are expected to transition their lessons to a digital teaching environment. And it's like, these people, whoever's writing this memo

has no fucking idea what they're talking about. They think it's like the Matrix. Everyone's going to plug in and go to a, oh, it's an e-classroom. It's a digital learning. If it's a place, we'll all go. It's a very old conception of the internet that it's this place that we'll all go to. It's like, what are you talking about? That's not a thing.

Merlinand it just helps it's another one of those kind of Justin moments where you're like Justin McElroy moments where you're like words mean things like if you change some of the words in what you just said you realize how insane it is starting next week we will be doing all of our classes via hot air balloon I don't understand what that means well it's just that that's the way that's the medium that we'll be using so we'll be printing things on the side of the hot air balloon or we'll be taking separate people up in different bastics or like how how would that become the curriculum so well you know you're the media expert I'm just the hot air hot air balloon thinker.

So yeah, I mean, like it is, it is, I mean, I'm just here to tell you, buddy, as somebody who is pissed and moaned a lot about having to do presentations in super constrained environments, even the thing of like having to take, this is going to sound so stupid, but anybody who's done a talk will know this. There have been instances where I found out at the very last moment that I would not have my Mac with my keynote, with a separate monitor, et cetera, et cetera.

MaxCan't you just hold the microphone up to the speakers of the laptop?

MerlinCould you export this as a PDF and email it to me? And then you'll use that on my laptop so that we can have it be on WebEx. And I'm like, you want me to A, B, C, D, E, F, and what the fuck? And then so now that's the thing now is I'm talking to people on your campus that are half watching as a PDF goes by and a guy gets all spazzy and back in Massachusetts. What? This is terrible. It's a fundamentally different thing I would have prepared for.

MaxJust checking in, today was actually the deadline where we had requested that you mail the slides in for our approval. You sent us your deck. Max, have you sent your deck?

MerlinAlex, can you make sure Max sends his deck? I shan't be doing that. Because we want to incorporate it into the super deck. It has to be purple with yellow letters that are extremely small. Your letters are too large. You're not making enough points on one page. Did you get a chance to send your deck yet?

Speaker AThis is making me anxious and I don't know why.

MerlinCostume font? What's his costume font? Do you really need to be using images? Because it would be a lot more helpful for us. We have a telex machine. If you could send it to the telex machine, that's going to take that, and that's going to feed it into the PC that we have in the presentation room.

AlexOh, man.

MerlinBrrr.

AlexHow's it go?

MaxPresentation go brrr.

Speaker ASlide.

MaxYeah, I got something cool for you, and then we got to talk about Minecraft.

Speaker ASlide. so I have a

Maxvintage coin operated machine guy he sources of vintage coin operated machines so I have a playing card I have a cigarette vintage cigarette machine coin operated vintage cigarette machine at the game cafe and this is the guy who found it and restored it and he does these beautiful restorations he does new chrome plating and retro style graphics and it's all he's very very

Merlinit looks so it looks like it came so we're looking at a vending machine that max will describe but just so you this looks like it literally came through a

Maxtime machine yes so this is pre-restoration so this this is he's going to restore it for me but this is how it is now but this is something that's been on my radar for a while and it's a machine from i believe from the 40s called the jiffy dog and what it is is on the bottom so it's a it's a little vending machine and basically you buy a a raw hot dog in a bun and it comes in this paper how is it how is it cooked max and it comes in this paper box and the paper box has sort of

Merlinelectrodes coming into it says electrically cooked and served in a carton yep and so then

Maxyou slide the carton into this machine and it electrocutes the hot dog in the bun to cook it and it just has the coolest at least to my taste the coolest vintage graphics on it so he's going to re-chrome plate this so it's all like shiny and silver and redo all of the decals and the graphics and I'm I think I'm gonna buy that I'm I'm like I'm right on the bubble but it's like it would be like I think it's gonna be like on the order of like maybe a thousand bucks to have this thing restored and buy it and I just super want it oh my god max it's gonna be so interesting

Merlinwhen you hand in the insurance form and the guy across and mr. huff says mr. huff says could you tell me a little bit more about what a jiffy dog it sounds it seems that your entire your entire place was consumed by fire and it started somewhere in your private office it looks like. Tell me more about Jiffy Dog electrically cooked. Tell me more about that.

MaxThe fire marshal found a few fragments of Mr. Dog. A delicious hot dog sandwich electrically cooked and served in a carton. I also like this nude hot dog just running away from the electricity.

MerlinHe's so fucking scared. And the electric is like eating out his ass.

Speaker AOh god, that's why he's running! Oh no! Oh no

MerlinThis is pretty cool This is extremely cool

MaxI'm emotional I'm getting my emotions confused here But I just super want this thing I just want it

MerlinGo to google and do a search On presto hot dogger Presto hot dogger And this was a product of my youth Where you put your wiener between two probes in this very 70s device and it electrocutes your wiener.

AlexOh, God, I hate it. Oh, no, why?

MerlinYou know, I do not like seeing the hot dog impaled on those cones. It makes me think of something else. No, it goes into both ends. It's called sounding. And it goes into both ends. They put it... You said it out loud. It's making me think of something I don't want to think of.

AlexYeah.

MerlinYou're talking about urethral insertion, but what if you put it in both ends?

Speaker AOh, God.

MerlinWhat's that going to cost you? Can I get a quote? Can I get a quote on double wiener insertion?

MaxThe Cresto hot dogger. I could get you one of these, Merlin. Do you want one? I can get you a toe.

MerlinI can get you a Jiffy Dog. I know I do not want this. I do not want it in my house. I can get you on a live hot dogger.

Maxchallenge oh fuck the challenge this week was log on to the dubai friday official dubai friday minecraft server except no imitation which is uh which you can find at coxblocks.rocks that's coxblocks.rocks uh and uh build a house i'll i'll start i i did a hard

Alexpeanut butter my laptop just could not run the java version of minecraft uh oh no yeah well i mean it's uh it's i don't have the my my beautiful mac imac pro son but i people sent me i i that's actually a good idea i should probably that's actually a really really good idea i probably should do you have room for it do you have room for it that's that's the issue i'll see i'm yeah i'm gonna talk to kevin putting a pin in that but like yeah woof is kevin your landlord laptops are not great machines anymore wow uh but people have been sending me screenshots and

holy shit it is i mean you you talk about it max like it's amazing you know i i to be honest i played

Maxi played a lot in the early in the first day or two when it came out and i just got so fucking busy and i haven't been back on um i'm trying i'm gonna try and get some time on tonight but like The first night that the server went live, I will say, you know, there's there's I've been playing video games for my whole life and I have these moments in my head of like that stick with me for my whole life of like I'm really magical thing that happens in a video game. Like for me, one of those just to give an example is like original the Ocarina of Time on 64. The first time you go into the Zora's Kingdom, the underwater world and the music changes.

You played that, Alex? Yeah, that's like a big feeling. it's just like I mean I had never played a video game like that but like an open world game where you come into this whole new world I mean yeah it was just it was mind blowing it was literally mind blowing it was so fucking cool anyway yeah there's like that there's like I remember playing a lot of like Diablo 2 with my buddies in middle school like there's these like moments where like lately like I have a lot of fun memories of playing PUBG with friends online or things like that there's these

moments of like it's all intermediated like you're in a game together but it's like yeah it's like a meaningful like a very meaningful like special moment and i definitely had one of those on the first night that the server went live when there were like 30 40 people all on at the same time everyone was building stuff there were people making a railroad and they were collecting the coordinates of everyone's houses so they could make the oh my god so they could make the railroad go from underground from house to house and they were tunneling and everyone was asking for advice and they were on, everyone was on voice chat, just perfect, complete strangers,

all on voice chat on the Discord, just talking to each other and joking around. And yeah, it was so cool. And everyone was like sharing knowledge. And it was just, it was a special moment. It was a very, very cool moment. I'll remember that forever. That's so cool. So I went way out of the starting area and I found an island and I'm just building an island house for myself. and then I'm going to set up like a mining operation. Oh. So you've got like

Alexa prepper compound already. Definitely

Maxon my mind.

MerlinI was going to hit the bell, but I should say, well, I bought the game and I installed the game. I created a new Mojang account because my Microsoft account didn't work so I've got a Mojang account. and then I trolled to respawn Jeremy and I yeah so I got in the game and I didn't know what to do at all and what I had to go on was that these are the buttons you can hit to move and jump

Maxdid you ask your I'm not attacking you I'm just no I understand did you ask your daughter for help because like she plays right she plays it on an iPad she plays okay so it's I actually never played it on an iPad

MerlinI've played it on an iPad this is a completely different

Maxa completely different control scheme? I don't know.

MerlinIt is. I walked into the water and I drowned. So I lost all my hearts, but I still have all my corn dogs. Everyone was laughing pretty hard at that moment. Oh, cool. I'm glad I could amuse them with my death.

MaxEveryone liked that you logged on and then almost immediately died.

MerlinYou know what's fun to me is when I go into a thing I'm confused about and learn that there's a lot of people I don't know that are watching me and know when I'm there. That's a great feeling for me at the age that I'm at is to know that there are people who are enjoying my presence in the block world. And that it's funny, and that it's funny that I'm there, and that they can see that I'm there, and I don't know that they can see. I could be photographing my own balls. I'm Steve, and these are my balls. Enjoy my balls. By the way, I died. Would you like some... Can I leave you my corn dogs? If I go to Ding-a-ling Island, what you're going to do is grab all your corn dogs

and put them in this box. Would you trade that for one opportunity to wear the ocarina of time in your sounding hole? you're gonna want to get the hot dog all the way into the electric outfit

Maxthis is like do by friday meme inception

179. Saturday is Pandemic Day

Show notes

Transcript

179. Saturday is Pandemic Day

Show notes

Transcript

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