182. Gadget Ratchetfence

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, Jen LM and Coffee, Coffee, Coffee.

MerlinI am on Skype. I'm on Skype. Hello. I'm on Skype. Wait, no, we're going to get Jen Do I know Jen?

MaxKevin, look at this pro setup You have here

Speaker AYou like my little microphone?

MaxI like it, it sounds good, it sounds pro

Speaker AThank you Do you have a little microphone? It's just a little boy It's not that little It's the Audio Technica

MaxI think that's about the average size of microphones A lot of podcasters lie about the size of their microphone

MerlinI'm in an awkward position Because all the men in my family have just slightly above average sized microphones. Like not enough to like really crow about, but like, you know, not exactly sweating it.

MaxMerlin, I mean, if I could say, if I could pay you a compliment, it's got a good girth. I mean, it has, in fact, you've got a special, you've got special hardware to accommodate the girth of your microphone.

Speaker AI'm sort of raw over here.

MaxI'm not I don't have oh I see I see as a Jew I have the the wind sock taken off of my microphone

Merlinlike lizard like a wizard sleeve let's see Jen is that Jen that looks like Jen Jen is here Jen is not here and then one of let's we play Alex handle roulette let's try all the Alex things Oh, look at this. There's four. Let's add all of them.

AlexOh, there's Alex. Hello. Look at my internet.

MerlinWait, how'd you get in here? I'm adding you anyway. There you go. We now have five ways to find her.

AlexI clicked join conversation. Oh my gosh. There's not, there's one canonical address. And that address has been, what in the world? Oh, that address is now owned by Microsoft and they just won't give it back to me. so yeah it's so fun it's like skype roulette every time hello good morning hello uh is jen

Merlincoming or can i start my anecdotes i'm trying i'm trying all the things things i'm trying i'm just pasting everything in my text channel into the window now all right let's try let's see oh god oh there that's her too okay let's add all of these i'm adding all of these people to the

Alexcall. Merlin, Kevin Budnick, and eight others.

MaxOkay, it's trying all the gens. Gen Bane's the world over. We've got Alex Cox, Alexandra Cox, Facebook, AlexCox42, Live, Alex 30920. There we go. Hey! Wow! It's the dream team. Cool.

Speaker AWe're all recording? And do I need to do anything on GarageBand? Oh, you're dope.

AlexOh, you didn't need to do... Look at that. Look at you. You're a professional, Jen.

MaxWhat a pro.

AlexWell, yeah. Okay, I can't tell if you guys are making fun of me or not. No, I am not. I am not. That's...

MaxAlex just has resting, patronizing voice.

I get hacked. Oh, no. Oh, you get hacked? Yeah. Well, it wasn't really consequential for me. It was more of someone stole money from Amazon. But basically what happened was, you know, I've been watching Amazon quite closely because it's basically my entire lifeline to the outside world. And I just order pretty much everything on Amazon. I just looking at my deliveries app right now. I have one, two, three, four, five, six packages coming over the next, you know, whatever, two weeks from Amazon. It's nothing crazy. I'm buying laundry detergent and towels and household stuff.

Anyway, I was looking at Amazon on my orders the other night, and I happened to notice all of these orders, like dozens of orders for PlayStation gift cards. Oh, that's not good. Bummer. Not good.

Speaker AThis happened to me too. I got an email yesterday that said PlayStation, that my account on PlayStation, like my username had been changed or something.

MerlinYour PlayStation got hacked? It's also like when you get that call from your bank that's like, did you just buy a great deal of gasoline in Oregon?

MaxSo basically, do you remember last week you guys recommended this privacy app? It's called like Mongoose or something.

AlexIt's like Jumbo, which I do not endorse it. No hot hands here. I was like, I've never heard of it.

MaxSo I installed this app Jumbo. I installed this app Jumbo. I was just asking the question. I know. You're just asking questions. It was not a recommendation. It's Pounce Time Merlin shit list. No, I know. So I installed, listen, correlation is not causation, but I installed Jumbo, and Jumbo was like, I'd like to log into everything. And I was like, okay. And Jumbo's like, give me your Facebook. And I was like, okay. And then it was like, now you give me your Twitter. And I was like, okay, Jumbo, you can have my Twitter. And now it's like, now log into Amazon. I was like, okay, Jumbo, you can have my Amazon. And she wanted everything. And then it does a scan, and it's like, did you know on Facebook you're sharing your

birthday with your contacts? Do you want to turn that off? And I turned everything off. I actually found it fairly helpful. It found a few, like, I think I do a pretty good job on my privacy stuff, but Jumbo found a few things for me. And then I was just sort of like, okay, thank you, Jumbo. Good night. And I closed it. And then like three or four hours later, I saw these fucking PlayStation gift cards on my Amazon. So immediately what I did was I went into my bank account to find out which, did they use a credit card or a debit card or, you know, what was happening there? And could I, could I, did I have some sort of protection?

very strangely, did not see the purchases in my bank account. The mystery deepens. But there were in my order status over $500 of PlayStation gift cards in increments of $20 and $50. And you don't remember buying this? No. No, I blacked out. Let's see. It was like, yeah, it was like Midnight, Hunter, Hunter. Me frantically playing video games in a fugue state. Yeah. Midnight, Hunter ready to buy Amazon gift cards.

No, I didn't buy them. And they weren't in my bank account. And I thought, that's very curious. So I went on Amazon support, which is very hard to find. But I eventually found a chat window. And I think they probably am able to see how much money I spend on Amazon. Because they were very helpful to me and immediately refunded my purchases. And I turned off two-factor and turned it back on with a new. I'm using like a third-party app now. I'm not using text messages. I changed my password and logged on all my devices and did everything

right. But I later was able to forensically reconstruct what happened. It's actually an amazing scam. I'm actually sort of impressed by how good of a scam this was. So here's what they did. Somehow this person logged into my Amazon account. And when I went to review my Amazon account, I saw a Kindle Fire device that was like showed like logged in as me. And I do not own a kindle fire so lord knows how i do have two-factor authentication on my account so god knows how they

got in there i'm gonna try not to lose too much sleep over that but maybe they did a social engineering i have i have no fucking idea no idea but somehow someone logged into my amazon account and then what they did was they contacted customer service in my amazon account and they went through a bunch of old items that i had ordered and said i never received them so for example i had gotten a few months ago. Oh, shit. In January, I got $120. I bought a year's supply of air filters for my HVAC system, of HEPA filters.

And I received them. They're in my basement. I can see them right now. And they went through and said, I never received this item. And Amazon just credited my account with an Amazon gift card for $120. And they just kept doing that and then spending the gift cards on PlayStation gift cards tied to their PlayStation account, I think. So what's crazy is I went and complained about the PlayStation gift cards and then Amazon refunded me about, I think it's like $512 in an Amazon gift card

sitting in my account right now that I didn't earn. That's like not my money. Wow. Oh, so you're-

AlexWait, are you having a moral dilemma about whether or not to use these $512?

MerlinWell, no, it's not. I think he's, well, Alexandra, I think Max is posing an Old Testament ethical dilemma.

MaxLet me just stipulate that I actually don't think it's a moral dilemma. It's purely a question of if I'll get caught. That's from the New Testament, yeah. Yeah, I've already decided that if I don't get caught, I'm spending it. But the question is, will I get caught?

Speaker AIt's not morally wrong.

MaxNo, it's morally right. I think it's actually morally correct for me to spend this free money.

MerlinIs it possible that you, Max, have unintentionally discovered yet another MLM?

Speaker AOh.

MerlinCan you keep converting that? So imagine it's like Dwight starts with the paperclip and you're going to trade that and you want to eBay your way up to an automobile or a house. Can you convert all of these refunds into more refunds in your downline? Right. You know what I'm saying? So like already you're making money off this. Let's be honest. And all you did was lose a little bit of sleep over it. But how do you keep converting it? Now, what if you tell them you never got the gift card?

Max is gone. He's gone.

MaxI get a little water. That blew my mind. I had to get some water.

MerlinI had to process. Do you see what I'm saying, though? Like, okay, so what you don't realize is you were brought into someone else's MLM.

MaxIs it possible that, all right, let me freak your bean a little bit. Is it possible that no one, what if no one's ever bought anything from Amazon? Maybe one person bought one book in 1999, and everyone's just fucking asking for refunds and trading gift cards around.

MerlinIt all starts with one copy of The Orchid Thief, and now we're all in the MLM. Yeah. We just don't know it yet because we haven't gotten our call. We're all in Jeff Bezos' downstream. Oh, my God.

Speaker AThen how do you explain the HEPA filters?

MaxSomeone else paid? That was all that.

Speaker AWhere did the water fluid come from?

MaxNo, the thing is that I paid for the HEPA filters with a gift card that I got from refunding Alex's, you know, road podcaster that she never paid for.

MerlinAnd never received.

AlexI know, I'm not using it.

MerlinSo now you're making double roads. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's a lady who swallowed a fly situation.

MaxYou take a dollar, you throw out a banana. You take another dollar, you throw out a banana.

Speaker AI can settle this. It was me. I was on Max's Amazon account. I really needed those PlayStation gift cards.

MaxYou old scamp. Honestly, what would you spend? If you had $500 of credit on PlayStation gift cards, what would you even buy? How many copies of Spider-Man for PS4 do you need?

MerlinCan you use it as fun bucks to enhance your world? When you guys play your video games, don't you do things like buy special robes and enchanted swords and shit and go to the taco truck and buy a sword? Couldn't you use that to fill your vault space? Hey, wait, 512. 512, how many spaces do you get in a Destiny vault? Isn't 512 one of those magic numbers, like 128, 256, seven meats, three cheeses? Are you feeling me on this? I think that's a meaningful number, Max.

AlexI don't know if this is a bit or if it's real.

MaxDon't you? Do you have questions about Animal Crossing?

AlexThat's the thing. I wonder if one day Merlin's just going to start rattling off actual Animal Crossing facts and statistics, and then my brain is going to break, and I won't know what's real anymore. I'm like, wait, is Merlin referencing the uphill storage curve? What is happening?

MerlinYeah, yeah. What I do is I, well, I do what's called a bell arbitrage and I convert turnips into bells and I pay the capitalist pig Tom Nook and also there's a zipper person that we're all upset about. He's bad. How'd I do?

Speaker AYou did pretty good. You did really good. Good job.

MerlinThe zipper person's kind of a Rebel Wilson type situation, right? Doesn't zipper person, they're wondering about the zipper because you take off the outfit and there's a whole rub of Wilson underneath, like in Cats? Isn't that what happened?

Speaker AIs it a human or is it a bunny? Yeah. Is it a bunny?

MerlinOh, it's one of those drawings that could be two things. We're back to that, the goose or the old lady. Max, Max, what do you, you could do, you like buying lube. You've done that before. You can't buy lube on PlayStation. Oh, does this have to be spent on PlayStation? If you get this converted back into Amazon bucks and you get, for the sake of argument, what would that be? What's 512? you get 1024, I guess, in buck cards. You could convert that to another platform.

MaxI have the money. I have the Amazon dollars. Oh, do you know what else is crazy? About every couple hours, I get a little ping going, someone has requested a two-factor authentication code. Oh, fuck.

MerlinOkay, listen. Security by obscurity. I want to talk about this in the after show because I do have a question about your 2FA on this. If people wanted to find the after show, where would they go? Anyone?

Speaker AFriendshippingpodcast.com

MerlinFriendshipping... Is it... It's friendshippingfm.com? Is that right?

Speaker AJust friendshippingpodcast.com Are you sure? No. Hold on.

MerlinJen's been hicks. You can go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com if you want. And we'll probably put this dumb video up too. Is the video ruining the show? Be honest.

AlexI refuse to do this video once we are all in the same place again.

MaxI refuse to do the podcast unless we're on video, so now we're at an impasse. We've got a little Mexican standoff. Oh, shit.

Speaker AWhat season is that? That is David and Goliath.

AlexSeason 38, baby. Yeah.

Speaker AOh, classic. You're good. You're ready to go rob a bank.

MaxI have a Winners at War buff that I've been wearing out to the grocery store. I pull it over my nose. And when I walk down the sidewalk, I go, they're coming for you.

Speaker ADid Jeff write that or did Jeff's son write that? Why don't you get Jeff on the horn, Max? I know you're your close personal friend.

MaxThey're coming for you. Can I find that YouTube? Winners at War song

MerlinOh no! You're singing the song! That horrible, horrible song! I love the horrible song!

Speaker AI don't hate it!

AlexI gotta confess, it doesn't bother me as much as it should

MerlinIt's just weird because I'm used to the grunting I'm used to the grunt man song

AlexInstead of like, ooh ha ha It's like a bad Fiona Apple Oh no

Speaker AOh this is bad

MerlinThis makes me want to do a Jan Levinson ghoul dance.

AlexOh, God. Don't you have SoundSource? This is a professional program.

MerlinHe took me by the hand, made me a man. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show.

AlexDid no one send this to me? Can you see what it is?

MaxI'm looking at a blurry cube.

AlexOh, okay. Let me...

MaxCity... Are those crazy bones?

AlexThese are... These are...

MaxWe don't say that. We do not say that anymore. What do you people have to hide? Turn off your blur.

AlexHold on. I'm turning off the... How do I turn off the blur? I just think it looks uncanny and upsetting. Unblurred.

MerlinYou look good. It's very flattering. It looks good on you.

AlexThere's nothing. The only thing there is the clitoris pillow. It's not exciting. So look it. Excuse me? There is a giant box of-

Speaker AS-ports.

AlexYeah. No. They're typical crazy bone sports. And I haven't- Okay. This is upset. Never mind. I thought this was a bit that I was being trapped into.

MaxAlex, what's that in your background? No. What's that in the background?

AlexThat's the gigantic clitoris pillow that Matt needs to use.

MaxIs that an immunity idol? Does that come loose? Is that an idol?

AlexIt's definitely hidden. Oh my God, you guys. I have literally, someone sent me a package, a gigantic. Oh God.

MerlinThe sent you a box of gay bones?

AlexNever. Yeah, I'm surprised no one chose. Oh, there are stickers. Oh, Kevin. Oh my God. Oh my God. Guys, look. It looks like a little.

Speaker AYou didn't open them until.

AlexIt's like a coffee filter. No, I assumed it was going to be a bit and I was going to be trapped into something. But no, someone just sent nice toys.

Speaker AThere's no cards inside there.

AlexNo.

Speaker AOh, no. There's cards in everything.

AlexBut it was from Amazon. Oh, my God.

MerlinIt's full of cards.

AlexExactly. Dig deeper. The Two of Hearts is next to Magic Bone Boy. What a good name. All right.

MerlinYou talking about Cubone? Cubone from Pokemon?

AlexWow. Good job.

MerlinYeah, this really works for Tom Nook. I found out, you know, you're the one who told me he's problematic, right?

AlexHe's a slum lord. Yeah, well.

MerlinNot Tom Nook, but Cubone is problematic because that's his mom's skull. Is that accurate?

AlexIt's not that he's problematic. It's that he's darkly tragic and it's weird that he's your favorite.

MerlinHe's so cute. He hits the man with the bone.

AlexWhile wearing his dead mother's skull. Wait, why?

MaxYou've made that up or is that canonical?

AlexNo, no, no, no. It is canonical. Kevin, I don't know where Kevin has gone, but he can back me up on this 100%. Like, yep. Hey. Oh.

Speaker AOh.

AlexA little cubone.

Speaker ASince we're all showing off our bones.

MaxYou know, I have a Twitter beef with Kevin. What? Kevin did one of those memes of like, give me four characters to draw. Yeah. And I said gadget hack wrench, but not horny. I did that. It was a little horny.

Speaker AYou can't not make it horny. I had the beholder, my friend.

MaxI thought it was a little horny. I don't know. I did not like how horny she was.

Speaker ANow, is the drawing horny or was the viewer horny? Where does one end and the other begin?

MaxNo, the art. I don't do anything to the art. The art is unveiled. And it comes into my senses. And it makes an impression. What is it called, Gadget? gadget ratchet fence gadget hack wrench gadget hack wrench from uh from chippendale rescue rangers but do not search for an ad put not oh okay i was gonna guess not on there just yeah put

Speaker Auh oh shit dog search on let me assure you you can't draw this thing on horny come on This has some serious

Merlinlate 70s horny Disney vibes.

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinShe's got goggles? Wow.

Speaker AYep, yep. Is she a mouse? Yeah. She's a horny mouse.

MaxShe's not horny. She's a brilliant inventor. She invented the soda bottle. She has a name. Yeah. She has a soda bottle. She invented this. Oh, there's a pregnant Gadget Hack Ranch. Oh my goodness. Oh no.

MerlinLet's try Gadget Hack Ranch Vore.

Speaker ANo.

AlexOh, are we gonna, do you want to start this? Because I have quite a bit of new Digimon for I could share. Oh, look at that. Oh, hello, Agumon. Oh, no.

MerlinShe's got a stink line that makes a heart. Is that the love she feels for her For her mouse baby

MaxI believe there's I believe there's a cult in Russia that worships her as a god Okay That makes sense Yeah sure why not She invented the little Coke bottle dirigible That they travel in That's her original invention

Speaker ANo They just keep coming That's what she said

Merlinso does that is is gadget gadget hatchet face is she eating or being eaten in that picture i just sent no she's eating uh who is she eating a little person it's another little mouse

Alexa little anime girl tasty kids it looks like a little anime girl that looks like kiki oh no i mean it's a stretch but like oh and look at there's tombo down there like if you really Oh, no.

MerlinOh, no. Most ambitious crossover. Wait, that's the bicycle boy? The flying bicycle boy?

AlexI mean, again, it's a stretch. But if you were like, who is this young anime girl? I would be like, oh, that's Kiki. Yeah.

MaxI wonder what happens if I go on DeviantArt. Oh.

AlexThis is what happens. This is actually an old standby that I've just sent you. Oh, look at that. Yeah. No.

MerlinDigimon.

AlexWhat?

MerlinSo to the listener at home, we're looking at pictures of drawings of cartoon characters eating other cartoon characters.

Speaker AThey know. Yeah.

MerlinAll right. I just worry. I worry video is ruining the show. This is basically what the show. Oh, here's Vore Editor.

MaxI found Vore Editor on DeviantArt. Okay.

MerlinVore Editor.

MaxI'm not comfortable posting any of these in the chat, but there are some weird. There's some really weird shit.

MerlinOh, man. do they think people get pregnant by eating other people i i think it's it's uh it's like

Alexthe bat soup it just takes one person to have that idea and draw it and then that's where it

Maxstarted i think we're entering we're leaving the world of today and we're entering into a world of

Merlinfantasy merlin now is the time now is the best time erp oof i am full lone exploded

Speaker Awhat that mean what is this is this yugioh oh this is oh i've seen this one this is the zootopia abortion comic that you've just found oh jen just found the zootopia abortion comic yeah what is this uh i need an explainer you will never unveil or unknow that you've seen this

Alexyou are entering oh see okay jen please explain the zootopia abortion situation um so you know

Speaker Athe movie Zootopia? Yes, of course.

MerlinJudy Hopps.

Speaker AIt's a pro-cop propaganda movie is what it is. Some right-wing conservative on DeviantArt, which is a cursed phrase already, turned the characters into... I don't know. Someone else. Pick up where I'm putting down here. Explain what we're seeing. It's a domestic slice-of-life manga about Judy Hopps and the horny fox living together. Oh yeah, Nick Fox

Merlinor whatever. Oh, I see.

Speaker AAnd they love each other and yeah, Judy gets pregnant and I think the fox wants her to keep the baby and then

Merlinit's a Bruce Springsteen song for emotionally stunted people which would be a Bruce Springsteen song.

Speaker ABackwards.

MerlinOkay. He's pregnant?

Speaker ANo, I think maybe he wants her to get an abortion and she doesn't want to. Oh, I see.

AlexYep. No. And our super secret text channel now is...

MerlinYeah, a lot of what they call in court, they call evidence.

AlexNo. is a

MerlinI'm sorry I complained against myself

Alexthe most upsetting part is if any of this is admitted into evidence people scroll like Normie scrolling through this would be like that picture right there is the most innocent of them all and it's very

Speaker Aupsetting look at that drawing yeah look at the action imagine having this kind of talent and using it for this

Maxyeah it's called I will survive a zoo a Zootopia fan comic by Borba. Why did Borba make this? Does it have an anti-abortion message? Why Borba?

AlexYeah.

Speaker AYeah, I believe it's because the fox wants her to have an abortion. Oh, I see.

MerlinBut we do read it with the grain. We're supposed to be sympathetic to the fox man?

Speaker ANo, we're supposed to be sympathetic to the rabbit lady.

MerlinOh, the rabbit lady because he wants her to... It's a Papa Don't Preach type situation. Okay. Got it, got it, got it, got it. I saw some... How shall I say? Commercial art in an advertising medium. recently uh and it was anna and elsa nude pregnant and discovering one another and then i closed the tab and i said uh whatever whatever this could do for me and what i'm working with i need this to not be up here because they're both like this they're both like

Maxdid gruber also thank them in the uh in the main feed for sponsoring

Merlinthe department of sisterly pregnancy discovery you guys know fracture

MaxI'm sorry I've I've this is it's not the video that's ruining the show it's but I searched for Gadget Hat Grunch on DeviantArt. It's so weird, dude. Of course it is. I mean, I don't know what I...

What did you think? It's weirder than I thought it would be. Well, you know what it is?

MerlinI mean, I can answer that question, Alex. I mean, you expect one-axis weirdness in life.

MaxYes. It's weird to draw the mouse sexy. That's where I thought the boundaries were, but it's spilled over. There's so many other...

MerlinWhen you get into three or four axis weirdness combined with a lack of talent, but no less.

MaxHere she is. Here's Gadget Hackwrench. I'm not going to post it because it's upsetting, but she's dressed as Princess Jasmine from Aladdin, but also she's a baby and she's wearing a diaper and she's being fed a bottle. That's three axes.

AlexYep. Okay. All right. Well done.

MerlinWell done. Then he flips his scarf. There he is.

AlexHe's going to starve. I'm just going to open another crazy bone. Good God.

Speaker AOh, God. Let's see.

MerlinOh, can I read you what I wrote down this morning when I woke up from a dream? Oh, yes. Permiso. Permiso. Yeah. I've been going through a time lately. I also want to talk about evolution in Galapagos and how we're all going to be different in weird ways over the next couple months. This is, let's see. Last week, I lost the recipe for blankets and for my father. The COVID plants and plant pots are missing, but they still smell. The truth is we never found the rocks after we moved, plus the rocks and beads dissolved from international disuse and pleurisy. The plywood restroom at the old dream school is dark and still narrated by Ira Flato.

Everyone is in my way. Everyone is in my way, and I'm out here trying to save the universe. A sidewalk is a contract. So I sigh as I do very rhythmic parkour all over your family. One morning, all the people under a certain height just disappeared, and it was the saddest loss. They were so little, and they all loved wearing hats.

AlexAll right. I've learned that I shouldn't ask.

MerlinI don't have a song. I don't have a song, but I'm eventually going to have a song for this, and this is going to become a bit. I'm just kind of tossing it out there for right now.

MaxWhat does it mean that you lost the recipe to your father?

MerlinI lost the recipe for my father, but also for blankets. Also blankets.

AlexThat is one of the most tragic sentences I've ever heard.

MerlinWhat about the plywood restroom in poor Ira Flato?

AlexSure. Great.

MaxI did see, I did see, and I've been having crazy dreams the last couple weeks, and I did see... My dreams are insane. I saw an article the other day saying, why is the coronavirus and the quarantine causing people to have such crazy dreams? And partially, I think it's because if you don't have a lot of sort of novel experience, like coming into your senses, right? Like if your day-to-day is very boring, your brain just comes up with crazier stuff at night.

That was the theory in this article.

MerlinAlmost like it's overcompensating emotionally or something?

MaxWell, I think part of the purpose of dreams is to process all the new input that you've had over the day and defrag or something. It's like resetting the PRAM on your brain. And if you don't have to do that, your brain is just like, I don't know, let's fucking freak out.

Merlinlet's have some more drawings of hatchet wretched face

Speaker AJen are you having crazy dreams yeah I always do though I dream very vividly I've been reading uh a lot before bed and I've been reading um some some like scary thriller actually I just started this book yesterday it's called into thin air it's by oh yeah yeah it's by uh it's about it's about the Mount Everest disaster in 1996. You know, just to lighten things up, you know, I've just been too happy lately,

Alexso I thought I'd bring myself down and pack. Jen, I read that in, it was like required reading in fifth grade, and I remember going to bed every night reading it and then just having horrific dreams of drowning on Mount Everest, which doesn't make sense. Spoilers, but that book is so-

MerlinIn a dream, it does. Don't try to make sense of your dreams. Let the dreams make sense of you.

AlexYou don't know my dream logic.

MerlinOh, I do. I do. I know your waking logic, and I can certainly give you an art what your dream logic is like. Oh, this is a thing I could put in my mouth. Yeah. I mean, the phrase John Syracuse used was, what did he say, brain garbage? So I've stopped, personally, myself, I've stopped trying to interpret my dreams, and I've stopped trying to turn my dreams into a story. Instead, I make words of what happened in the dream and what it felt like without regard to whether it makes sense.

I'm doing four sets of air quotes. You know what I'm saying? They've become more fun for me. They've become less daunting for me. They've become more amusing, and they've become more of a little movie that I can watch. I'm not saying other people should do that, but I think sometimes people do try awfully hard to turn a dream into an amusing story or into a cogent evidence. Like when my kid tells me a dream, it's like a bad episode of Gilligan's Island. I'm like, you didn't actually dream that, did you? There's got to be some kind of like secret lobster in there or something. There's got to be something more to it than just this thing happened this way.

But I don't know, that brain garbage idea is appealing to me because it, I don't know if that's what a scientist would say, but I do think there is some bookkeeping and filing happening. And what you're watching is like whatever's sort of passing through the shredder of your mind.

AlexI that makes sense I'm just kind of trying to think of this in like dreams are for the foreseeable future going to going it's just going to be a pseudoscience but I mean there's a really direct correlation to me I'll start over now I'm going to have my coffee

Maxhold on I think the dream is the time when my memories of my family's birthdays are overwritten in my brain with images of Gadget Hackwrench from DeviantArt. If your birthday

Merlinhad goggles, I'd be more into it.

AlexI think it's, for me, where my brain dumps the illogical... No! Bad! Bad mouse! But I always have dreams about family members dying very tragically, and now this hasn't happened for the past few weeks because i think it's like become a very rational and normal fear fear like oh that's that's not healthy so they're just now more and more bombastic like ah you're gonna die in a

gigantic shopping mall which is not a thing that can happen at this moment in time why are there

Maxmore pictures of horny mice on that no that one's not horny that that last one i want to get as a tattoo. It's very sweet.

Speaker AThis is very cute.

MaxThere's no one good. She's so cute.

Speaker AImagine rolling up your sleeve.

MaxI'm going to sleep on it. I'm not going to get it today, but I might get that as a tattoo.

AlexDoes she have crooked camel toe, or is that just how she's drawn? Is that the latest

Merlinrelease of Android? update immediately

Maxoh my god

Merlincricket camel toe is available what are we doing here what's happening

MaxI don't know I got hacked

MerlinI got hatchet ratchet face she's so cute she's going hi that's the show art right there

Maxit's really funny what if I got that as a tattoo on my bicep I think it would look amazing

Speaker Awhen you flex she would wave it's really funny

Merlinit would be so cute Like a dancing hula girl, except it's Ratchet Ratchet.

MaxIf people asked me what's up with that tattoo, I'd be like, it's Gadget Hack Crunch. I found it on DeviantArt.

Speaker AI commissioned an artist. I can do one for you right now.

MerlinOh, my God. What if Max moved from the assault of magic tricks to the assault of you're getting a tattoo from me? That would be so fun. I've designed many tattoos for people.

AlexMerlin do you not know this Wait wait

MaxWhat about Gadget Hat Crunch As I Dream of Jeannie And she's pregnant

MerlinOh and getting eaten by Colonel Nelson And belly dancing No scroll up it's two up Oh sure is that a banana Oh that's a Jeannie lamp And what's in her tummy is that a baby That's would probably That's Major Nelson Major Nelson's in her tummy

Maxmaybe yeah i think that's major nelson oh i have a movie i have some movie news i could share some movie news yes please so i are a friend of the show todd vazieri has been posting about watching some classic some classic films with his family he posted that he watched the great escape was

Merlinone of them and then there was oh um i know this uh well they've been watching news radio and movie wise what are they watching there was another one other than the great escape but

Maxanyway i've never seen the greatest i've never seen a ton of classic movies just because i i didn't grow up in a classic movie household like my family didn't watch like tons of classic movies so i've actually never seen the great escape and i was like this is ridiculous that i haven't seen that movie so i just i i uh bought it and i watched it and it's so good have you guys seen it's one of the best movies i've ever seen i was yes oh my god it's so good like i've obviously

Merlinit really it really knows what it knows what it's doing you know it knows its tone like obviously

MaxI've seen it parodied a hundred times, but it's just, it's so, I mean, Toy Story, Chicken Run, the Disney show Recess, like, it's just like, it like created all these tropes that still... It's one of those things

Merlinalmost like, it's hard to go all the way down, like something like a Dirty Dozen type movie, which becomes things like Inglorious Bastards, Forced End from Navarro, and all those kinds of movies. Yeah, ditto here. Like, that's like the, I feel like it's kind of the canonical movie of that kind.

Maxit was amazing like every little detail and and bit of that movie was just like it was so delightful i was i was riveted i loved it yeah it's a good movie and then there were many

Merlinrecommendations uh for your dad uh movies to moves for your dad to watch jen how's that how's that

Speaker Aproject yeah yeah so my dad's recovering from surgery and doing so well that he's like um bored my dad is an old italian midwestern man who's literally been working since he was 12 years old he would he's like a ron swanson type uh who he like when he was like 10 years old he would sell tomatoes that his mom like out of a wagon on a sidewalk so this is his first time i know so cute this time his life not working and uh i'm like you could watch some movies and he does enjoy movies so i'm trying to like make a collection of things that he can easily access on netflix and in hulu

um he understands netflix he sort of understands hulu he's having a little trouble with hulu no

Merlinone understands who yeah it is it is the darkest art yeah i don't understand hulu yeah

Alexif your dad can watch anything on hulu he's i'm sure he is smarter than me but he's also way better at the hulu interface like i have to shout at my tv it's a maze puzzle not an app

Merlinoh it's so bad i'm curious to hear how that goes and what he ends up uh liking todd sent you some

Speaker Areal good ones you watch triple frontier that oscar isaac movie with ben affleck the one where the donkey explodes into money and he said it was smaltzy and i don't know what that means does

Alexanyone know what smaltzy i know what smalt means so smaltzy is yiddish yeah so so smaltzy not yeah

Maxit's like like uh like uh morose or alex what's smaltzy i i would love to learn what smaltzy is

Alexno no i'm saying i know what smalt is well first let me let me tell you about the importance of centerpieces exactly there we go what's smalt do you not know what what smalt is no wow is that

Speaker Athe smart salt yes oh my gosh is nothing how how is a made-up do-do word actually we should check

Alexin on small how are they doing i do i do all the time it's it's still uh pending their their

Maxcampaign so are you guys getting aggressively i'm getting aggressively advertised for a new type of device that's a thing you can keep in your pocket to like push elevator buttons it's

Speaker Alike a mechanical finger that's what i sent you yeah oh god yeah no is that like an instagram ad

Maxkind of i'm getting yeah i'm like haunted by this ad it follows me from website to website i see it in news articles i get an apple news i get an instagram i'm getting this fucking thing everywhere i'm never gonna buy it it's a it's a thing longer elevator button pusher is that what it's called

Alexyeah i don't know it's just a i have already ordered mine and i do this already with my keys but i look like such a dick because you know like some places you just need to push the numbers on the you know the the at the register right or you gotta sign for sign for something at the drugstore that kind of thing i'm a knuckle man my my hands are too big i've got like the giant weird yeti hands and you know first the hair is stuck in there and then i'm suddenly

pulled into the machine but uh i always it always looks like i'm stabbing at their stuff and like trying to break it but now i'm like if this is going to it's it's going to be like masks where we all have poking devices that are clean and sanitary and it won't look weird to use

Merlinyou don't it's not clean and sanitary though like once it's touched the elevator button now it's dirty with elevator. It is. People think this is one axis thought right here.

AlexThat's why you clean it afterwards.

MaxThis is how Zoomers will like have sex. They'll take off their, they'll reach into their pocket and take out their little pointing devices and like they'll dust the tips. They'll touch them. Like Sweeney Todd with his knives. Yeah, and then they'll both roll over and just go on TikTok, I assume.

AlexThat sounds awesome.

Speaker AEverything sucks. This is like in Victorian times when there were all sorts of like proprietary devices for like bathroom usage and like hole cleaning and stuff.

MerlinOh, that would be a fun time. A fun time. Like people were upset about legs of furniture. That's what an exciting time that must have been. Talk about horny. Look at that Ottoman. Woof.

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinYeah, I don't know. I don't know. So my thought was, what happens if we all do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, we all emerge from our houses on whenever, May 1st or whenever, according to hands, like whenever we all go outside. And like, I say it's like Galapagos because we've all become so fucking weird in our own different ways over several weeks. What happens when we have to get smooshed back together again? And you discover like, it could be something as trivial as like, wow, you need a haircut or wow, you stink or whatever. But it could also be you've just developed, you know, I might stop wearing underwear.

I'm not going to lie to you. I don't know who I'm trying to impress with this underwear business. That's just, that's week four. That's at week four. Like, I don't know where I'm going to be in two months from now. I really don't. Do you know what I mean, though? Like, we're each becoming, does it feel like we're each becoming weird in our own slightly bespoke ways?

Speaker AYeah, I'm growing a proboscis so that I can get nectar out of my cat's water dish. That's funny. Aww.

it's like do you remember do you remember when there was the uh do you remember when there was the the what the office worker of the future is gonna look like yeah oh yes yes so the slumped over woman oh my god yes that's it that's why that's how we get there this is how we get there that was so dark i've got to see this was always part of the plan oh you're right oh my god yes Our thinning hair and our just like.

MerlinOh, no.

Speaker AThis is so awful. Lack of standing. Oh, this is so awful. Our ankles are all like potato-y.

MerlinIt's her hunch that bothers me.

Speaker AI don't like the hunch.

MerlinOkay. So we'll put. Oh, no. No. Okay. We'll put this in show notes. All right. Oh, she's got cankles. She's got cankles. Yeah.

MaxSo very quickly, I put this link in. It's called. Todd made me a list of movies to watch on Letterboxd. Letterboxd. Letterboxd. Go on. It's called pre... Do you see that link? Pre-1970 Populous Starter Pack. I haven't seen two-thirds of these. Have you guys seen all these movies?

AlexSo far, yes. I haven't... Well, I have to look closely because some of these posters I haven't seen before and are great. What's the...

MaxNever seen The Wild Bunch.

AlexI actually haven't ever seen High Noon

MaxI haven't seen High Noon I recently re-watched The Searchers and I did not that movie has not aged well

Merlinwell you know the pacing of a lot of these is pretty glacial by today's standards I mean Vertigo will never stop being one of the strangest movies ever made to me Night of the Hunter is extremely good Apartment's pretty funny Dirty Dozen is really good Never seen Bringing Up Baby. Oh, really? That's charming.

AlexIt is.

MaxNever seen Double Indemnity.

MerlinOh, shit dog. It's the father from My Three Sons getting in on that insurance scam. What else we got here? Wild Bunch. I think High Noon's a little overrated. I think for the time it's an important movie, but I think it's a little overrated. I love Rear Window. My kid just turns on Rear Window sometimes. You've seen that, right, Max?

MaxYes. Okay. I've seen Bridge River, River Kwai.

AlexI'm trying to think of like what's the most important of these. I'm, you know, trying to pull that film degree out of my ass.

MaxI love 12 Angry Men. I think 12 Angry Men holds up as a very good movie.

AlexOf all of these movies, I think this and Vertigo, 12 Angry Men and Vertigo are my favorite. But I don't know. Well, no, rear window. I don't know what's most important, though.

MerlinWell, it depends what you're trying to accomplish. I don't know if you need to sit down and watch all of The General. Forgive me, Todd. There's a lot you can pick up from just highlights of The General. And Safety Last, any Harold Lloyd movie is great. The stunts are just so insane in those.

But that's famous for a reason. North by Northwest is quite an achievement, though, also. French Connection? I don't know, man. That might be a little dated. I don't know. It's a good list, though, for sure.

MaxI'm excited. I'm going to watch all these. stuck at home you know what's great is what's her name the comedian who had the show on Comedy Central and she did the 12 Angry Men parody can't remember her name

AlexI have no idea what you're talking about

Maxoh Amy Schumer the inside Amy Schumer 12 Angry Men episode that was a very funny bit it was really really well and just well executed too

Merlina nice pairing for that one is also Last Fuckable Day you remember that one there's one called last fuckable day and it's, it's Amy Schumer's last day that men have decided that she's fuckable. And she has a party with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tina Fey. And it's, it's, it's very, very funny and very Tina Fey. Yeah. I like that show. I think, I think she's a riot.

AlexI have to bring it up because they're still mad at me. Have you seen the film sneakers? Because Casey Liss and our friend Todd have just been, all over me about this movie that I've never heard of. No, I've never seen it. Should I see it? Okay. Sneakers. I don't know. Dan Morin, too. Dan Morin's

Merlinalso a fan. It's a very good movie. Okay.

AlexIt's just so wild that I had never heard of it. Like, this movie... Really?

MerlinIt's a really good cast.

AlexRight! It's got Straheran in it. I love that man. It looks so good. And now I'm just... Okay. That was all. I think it holds up

Merlinvery, very well. It looks really

Alexgood, and it's one of those things where do you ever like watch a movie and then from like 10 years ago and you're like where the fuck was I when this was going on? All the time. Yep. Totally. And this feels like one of those but just in terms of like historical not goofy yeah I guess like historical goofy action movies that would totally be in my wheelhouse that totally missed it. I was also two years old but still.

MerlinNo there's a lot of those. This is no I'm not going to talk about this with regard to video games because I don't want to get yelled at. But I do feel like there are certain windows of, if not necessarily opportunity, but there are times when you're going to be, like the way the McElroys can talk about 90s TV shows for kids or Gadget, Gadget Ranch or whatever. Like, I don't know what the fuck they're talking about. I was in my 30s and married when those were on. And like, so I don't have any context for going, oh yeah, that's cool. DuckTales, Treasure Bath, okay, cool. But like, I have no obligation to appreciate any of that because I was a grown ass man at the time.

and my allegiances are for older things but anyway, I do feel like there are the corollary oh, here's my new Sondheim I'm doing, I've been working on this one this one and then you bring this, you go for a full Sondheim out of that

Alexit's like a very complicated sex move

Merlinthere was this period for me, there was this period in the 80s and 90s when I was going to the movies a lot, a lot and so there are so many by today's standards obscure independent movies that I mean now in the times when you can like find them different places it's one thing but it used to be the film festival or whatever would bring this to town and you had one opportunity to see it and it was a big deal and it was in French and stuff like that so there's I have I'm way oversubscribed in a good way to like a certain period

of like pretty deep catalog on some 80s and 90s like independent films But then there's other stuff where like there are these holes. A good example would be, let's say, oh, I don't know, around 2007 and 2008 when I did not get to see a ton of grown up movies in the theater. And I'm like, how did I miss this movie? It's like, oh, yeah, that's right. We had a tiny crying person in the house. So I didn't get to go to that where I used to go to things. You know what I mean, though? Like there are these weird like I don't know how to describe. You know what I'm trying to say, though? Like there's there's certain things where you have way too much knowledge about this one period of stuff just because you were saturated with it.

And there's other times that are like culture deserts in your mind. Or like, I don't know what happened that year. I have no idea.

MaxI feel like that for video games. There's times in my life when I'm like, I don't know, I'm not busy or whatever, playing a lot of games. And then there'll be like five years where I basically don't have time to play, really get that into any video games. And then I'll be like, man, they haven't made a good game since 2013. It's like, well, no, you just haven't. I haven't played. Yeah.

MerlinYeah, that's like saying nobody makes good food anymore

Maxwhen you just don't eat or something. I had a hot take that last year, that 2019 was a really bad year for movies. You did. And everyone got, I got a lot of heat for that online, but 2019 sucked for movies. Because you're wrong. No. That's why you got heat. There was a few good, like Parasite was good. There was a few good things that came out in 2019. Parasite was amazing. Yeah, I'm not saying Parasite was a bad film. I'm saying overall, there were less good films in 2019 than come out in most years. Right.

AlexCompared to what, though? Like, I still don't... Like, name a year with worse...

MerlinThis is what makes it a hot take. There's absolutely no reason.

MaxThere's no reason behind it. Deeming hot take. When's the year that all the good movies came out? Was it 1996? 1999. 1999? It's 2006.

MerlinYeah, no, sorry. Go look it up. 1999 was when all the good movies came out.

MaxNo, yeah, you're right. I'm thinking of... Yeah, look up movies from 1999. 1999.

MerlinI mean, it's a famous shop-worn bit at this point. Yeah. That there's a shocking number of very good movies that almost everybody likes that came out in 1999. Yep.

Speaker AAll right. I'm just going to list a couple movies from 2019 that I think make it a good year. I'm just going to get owned. All right. Did you see The Farewell?

MaxNo.

Speaker AOh, no.

MaxIt's in my queue. I mean to watch that. Yeah, same, same, same. I got to see it.

Speaker AYou got to see it.

MaxBooksmart?

Speaker AYes.

MaxLoved it. It wasn't as crazy. I thought it was fine, but I didn't think it was as amazing as everyone else did. I thought it was a-

MerlinI went in knowing nothing, which was key. Like somebody being able to say it's a Jonah Hill movie with Jonah Hill's sister, you'd go like, oh, okay, yeah, I guess I kind of did do that. But the other girl, they're both so charming. Okay, keep going. Keep going.

Speaker AIt's Uncut Gems.

AlexAnd the other girls on Grey's Anatomy. Oh, fuck Uncut Gems. Yeah. Oh, yes. All of these girls. Keep owning them.

Speaker AMidsommar? Didn't see it. Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

AlexOh, I want to see that. I haven't seen it yet.

Speaker ANever heard of it. Last Black Man in San Francisco. Yes. Let's see what else. Scroll in. Is this thing on? Can anyone hear me? I've said Knives Out. I hear you now. Hi. Your audio's been weird. Sure.

AlexKnives Out. Knives Out.

Speaker AKnives Out. Knives Out.

AlexLight Knives Out. That's okay. First time I've said it publicly. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Speaker AJojo Rabbit.

MerlinOh, Jojo Betzlar. That is a huge movie in our house. I just saw it the other day. I love it. Pretty good. It's pretty good. The first third and the last third. Yep. Oh my. I mean, the whole movie is good, but I was not prepared for the last act of that movie.

MaxI think that movie has one of the strongest first 10 minutes of any film I've ever seen. But I don't know. Listen, I could be wrong about this, but I think it's a fine movie. Nothing against Jojo Rabbit. I just don't think anyone's going to be thinking about Jojo Rabbit in 10 years, the same way we're thinking about The Matrix.

MerlinWe bought a poster. Really? Here's some 99s for you. We can go do a little round robin. Tycho Waititi as Hitler is very funny. Oh, God. He's so goddamn funny. He's very funny.

Hi, man. Just throw it out. Just throw it out there. Hi, man. Yeah. Hitler? Who is Hitler? matrix fight club american beauty not very good six cents being john malkovich uh magnolia now we're talking now we're talking magnolia eyes wide shut iron giant i'm just i'm just going kind of randomly here uh but a lot of these were or have not stood up as well as i expected boys don't

Alexcry you don't hear about that that much anymore oh yes you do well in my circles sorry circles with those people.

MaxDamn, Man on the Moon.

AlexI've never seen it.

MerlinVery good. Green Mile. Let's see, Election, Galaxy Quest. Yeah, exactly. Being John Malkovich. This is... A lot of good movies. I don't know. Adam Sandler's Big Daddy. Oh, She's All That. Stuart Little. Office Space.

I like that movie. Kevin, you do some. Lock, Sock, and Two Smoked This is a good show. I can tell already this is a good show.

Speaker AYeah, I have a theory. I have a theory that I want to share with the group.

MaxDoug's first movie.

Speaker ADoug's first movie. With the titular Doug. There was the year 2006 was when every sort of like stoner comedy that like people remember as being like defining that sort of genre came out. They all came out in 2006. because that was the year that what was it? Accepted and Idiocracy and Grandma's Boy and Beer Fest and Nacho Libre and Tenacious D.

Let's Go to Prison, Employee of the Month. All of those movies that had Rob Schneider in them. Benchwarmers, all of those movies all came out in the same year.

MaxWow. Damn, 2006 was a fucking great year for movies though.

MerlinLook at 2000. You get Children of Men, Borat, Pan's Labyrinth, The Prestige, which my wife still claims she did not like.

MaxI think that's insane. Casino Royale, Departed, Little Miss Sunshine. Oh, that's so charming. Now, that's a good year for a movie. Devil Wears Prada. I like that movie. That's a good movie.

AlexIt's, oh, Anne Hathaway. Give me our money. Well, Anne Hathaway is a fan of Max's. So, you know, there's that.

Speaker AIs that real?

Alexyeah do you not remember this this is pre is this jen is this pre you at cards too this was like 2011 the correct me if i if i'm wrong but um it was it was oh holy shit it was the lame is here we're on the red carpet uh someone was like anne hathaway what are you up to and she said you know i love playing the game cards for humanity like she definitely said it wrong i forgot what it was I don't think that was the Les Mis year. Oh, man. It was before that.

Yeah, when did Les Mis even happen? This was not the year she won. It might have been the year she was...

MerlinWell, if it was 2006, that would be Double Wear's product. 2011.

Speaker AYeah, 2011, 2012, somewhere around there. Got it.

AlexWas there... Did you guys do anything for that, Max? I know the answer to this.

Speaker AOh, yeah, we did, actually. Yeah. What did we do? You changed the website to say, Hey, Anne Hathaway, some of us are single. You can call us here.

Maxwe made a special phone number you could call if you're Anne Hathaway to date us we made an Anne Hathaway dating hotline and you picked it up and it's like if you are Anne Hathaway press 1 now if you are not Anne Hathaway press 2 your call is very important

AlexI have a theory all podcasts now are kind of what we're doing just listening listening

Speaker Alistening movies

Alexor talking about music and I is it because we're bored or is it because we're longing to go do these things again and make these things again because I thought I hated seeing movies in a in like a commercial theater and now

Maxbefore you even answer that let me tell you this movies from 2007 movies from 2007 fucking Zodiac There Will Be Blood, Ratatouille, No Country for Old Men, Juno, Pornhub, Red Tube.

MerlinHe's better than my own grandmother. He's in the hot dog suit.

So what you're saying then potentially is that if you look up the year and movies, there may be good movies. No, because look at fucking.

MaxNow I'm going to look up 2019.

MerlinNo, I'm making fun of myself because I'm all like, hey, I'm like Johnny 1999.

MaxBut like there's good movies every year. No, there's some years. Some years are good years and some years are bad years. 2019, not a strong year for movies. Oh, my.

Speaker AI'm sorry. Not that good. I think it's a matter of perspective, too, though, because I think I saw more movies in 2019 that I enjoyed than in 2018.

Max2018 was a pretty bad year for movies, too. I think part of the issue is that a lot of the air is getting sucked out of movies by horror and superhero. And there's less... In general, the movies that are getting distribution and stuff like that. More creative energy is going into TV, which is awesome. I love it. And less wild energy and risk-taking is going into movies. And it'll probably change and bounce back over time, but we're in a stretch of,

in my opinion, not super exciting. However, wait a minute. 2017 fucking baller year for movies. 2017's an all-timer great movie year. Give me one. Phantom Thread, Big Sick Get Out Dunkirk Logan which I fucking love that movie Baby Driver Shape of Water I also enjoyed that I know that's not a popular pick

Speaker AI like that one

MaxSpider-Man Homecoming

AlexOh Coco Coco

Max2017 very strong year for movies I don't know I don't have a good theory for this

AlexI talking about this just makes me sad because we're gonna you know when is the next time we're gonna say oh man that's the year

Maxmovies came back or well also in 2017 let's not let's not forget the uh the the matt damon movie

Alexdownsizing where everyone became small like like like why it's funny because i just saw some i

Maxjust saw some gadget hack wrench art that referenced this okay oh i see oh this movie looks downsizing oh my god you have to see the trailer i think there's a it's one of those movies that I think has a nut shot in the trailer. If I had to guess.

AlexOh my God.

MerlinOn the face of it, this immediately reminds me of a movie that would be in Seinfeld. Yeah. Like Sack Lunch. Don't you want to know how they got in the back?

Rochelle, Rochelle. Look at the poster for Downsizing. It looks straight out of Seinfeld.

MaxYeah, yeah, yeah.

MerlinSack Lunch with Damni Coleman.

Maxget small live large matt damon is downsizing

Merlinoh boy oh fuck god science fiction satirical wait a minute this is not a thing downside according to the internet science site downsizing is a 2017 american science fiction satirical political drama film.

Alexander Payne. Alexander Payne. Oh, that guy.

MaxThat's that guy Felix always makes fun of. 2016, bad year for movies. 2015, great year for movies. I don't know.

AlexIt's just random. Oh my god. It's almost like it means nothing and it's totally arbitrary. It's almost completely

Speaker Aarbitrary. No, it's not

Maxarbitrary. It's whether there's good movies or not.

MerlinI don't think there's enough sense to it to even be arbitrary. He's literally flipping a coin. Good year.

Speaker BBad year. Good year. Bad. Good.

MerlinGood. Good. Bad years. It has? Wait, which years? Doesn't matter. Next two. Good. One year. Bad. Four years. Very bad. It's perfectly reasonable. It's based on... Too many films with orientals. speaking of which alexander pain alexandra hamilton alexander pain uh was married to

Alexsandra oh and then they got divorced i know he messed up the best thing he ever had and nobody

Merlinshould watch election or something i could my your hands would just get lost in that hair

Alexbe amazing there's so much of it oh and so much it's so big she's always playing with it oh my Oh, man. Sandra Oh, she's underrated.

MerlinWe should get to our challenge such as it is. I would like you guys to choose from me. I felt like having a treat today. I can either have a Stewart's cream soda or I can have a Stewart's orange and cream.

AlexOrange. Orange.

MerlinOrange and cream.

MaxI like orange. Are we green?

MerlinI have no objections. What year is it? Let me check. Oh, shit. 2016. That's a terrible year for cream sodas. A bad year for cream sodas. Tick it, tick it, tick it, tick it. Why are we here? what's happening challenge.

AlexDig Tug Challenge. This week's challenge was Jen MLM and coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee. So, so, Jen, what MLM did you design?

Speaker AIt is so cute that you guys thought I had, I would do this challenge.

MaxWhy? We all did it. We all did it. Yeah. Did we? Yeah, that's how I remember it. 2020, Bad year for challenges.

MerlinWe could just talk about coffee then.

AlexI am so... Well, well, did... Oh, we did talk. All right. Merlin, why don't you start us off?

MerlinCan I go get my bottle opener and come back? Can somebody else go while I go get my bottle opener? Somebody smashed it on the desk. What are you talking about? You just pop it off. Do it with your teeth. I can do the thing, but I don't want to break the top off. I only got four of these. made with cane sugar

AlexI only have four treats

Merlinokay I'm gonna go get an opener Max didn't you prepare for this one? didn't you do like a lot of things for this? I did some stuff oh you want to go last because you finally did one okay

MaxAlex talk while I get my bottle opener who's gonna go here? Alex I saw that you got some very exciting and possibly don't you vomit when you have coffee?

Alexokay no I vomit when I have too much milk. And when we had a coffee challenge like two years ago, I kept sampling the coffees that you did not like. And I had too much milk. And then I left and threw up and came back to the recording like a champ.

MaxOh, God. I remember that when we went with Kara. We sent Kara to get one of every coffee from the place because we were trying to figure out how to get a cappuccino.

AlexYep. And so, yeah, no, I just hate coffee. My body hates milk. I don't know. I don't think my taste buds have any objection to milk, but it seems like a weird texture. But for this challenge, I decided to buy the Bell... What? I can't... The label's messed up. It's one of those Nespresso pod dispenser dinguses.

MerlinOh, you got like the Marco ones, right?

Speaker Ano what are these are these like are these like keurig cups what is this it's basically keurig

Alexbut for espresso shots um they're very there's so much there's so much cartoon animal vore in the

Merlinchat yep there sure is humpback lady oh yeah uh a humpback canker lady with dermatitis Nespresso pods

AlexRoma Levanto Capricchio

MaxRestretto Can I just get a fucking coffee flavored coffee?

AlexThere's your sign

MerlinJust give me a fucking large I just want a large I want a podcast I just want Kevin reading Italian words It's like Brian Butterfield.

Nos reso. Nos reso.

Speaker AArrivederci. Alungo.

MerlinConalingas.

Speaker AThis is another detraction, but I've been watching the new, the part two of the new Terrace House series and there's an Italian boy on it and he's, his name is Pepe and he draws manga and he's very, he's very handsome but he, he's like, he's like, he's teaching them how to make, like, carbonara and stuff and it's very, it's fun because they're all like, ooh, he's so, he's so exotic. His name is Giuseppe but he says, call me Pepe.

AlexCall me, call me Pepe. Now I just.

Speaker AHe's a good boy so far.

MerlinI love it when you call me Big Pepe Nespresso

Speaker AArpeggio Arpeggio

AlexSo I Here let me just show actually Matt's gonna bring me another one but do you see

Speaker AYeah you're drinking it out of a sample jar

AlexIt's uh

Speaker AWhat does that say on it

AlexIt says shots I've been putting espresso shots in Alcohol shot glasses Because there's no other to put it underneath the little dispenser, there's no other way to get it unless you have a proper...

Speaker ADoes it go in a machine? It goes in a big machine and then you...

AlexIt spits it out just like a Keurig, but it's teeny tiny. I'll send you...

MerlinOh, but you do need a machine for this.

AlexYes. Here, let me send.

Speaker AOkay, I see. See, that's what I thought when you shared the picture. I was like, these are like a Keurig situation.

AlexI was wondering... Renucial.

Speaker ANapoli, Yemen, Koto, Skoro, Polamo.

AlexWell, I kept thinking, like, can I just put the powder into my mouth and swallow it? Because that's just, like, what it is. Here, I sent you this. This is what I made.

Speaker AThey're like little plastic bubbles.

AlexOh, yeah. I definitely will be killing many seagulls in the wild due to this.

Speaker AYeah. Yeah, these are the perfect swallowable size for a waterfowl.

AlexThis is the worst.

MerlinSo you're thinking, just so we're clear here, Alex, you're thinking about taking the coffee powder and putting it right into your mouth. Is that correct?

AlexWell, because I don't enjoy the taste of coffee.

MerlinSo you would take out the part that makes it into coffee and just have the coffee without the water, and that would be better?

MaxAlex, what if you do it like, what if you carry a little wooden box with you and you do it like snuff? I always thought that was cool. Oh, that would be so cool.

AlexThat's what those caffeine tablets, like, why can't I just swallow these instead? Matthew is off screen, but is yelling at me to take this now because the shot will die. And I still don't really understand what that means.

MaxTell Matt. I can explain it if you want. Matt worked at Starbucks, right? Tell Matt to come say hi.

Speaker BMatt, come explain the espresso shot. No, I can't. I don't. Hi, Matt. Hi, everybody. Hi. Hi, Dr. Nick.

I'm supposed to explain an espresso shot, and I don't know why. Explain why the shot will die if you don't drink it right away. Oh, because the bottom of it will come to the top. So there's the crema on top, and then there's the body, and then there's the espresso on the bottom, the base of the coffee, and it goes all the way to the top. then it just tastes like dead, burnt coffee, and it's gross.

MerlinOh, so it's physics. There's layers naturally to how it wants to be when it's fresh.

Speaker BYeah, so it tastes smooth if you drink it right away, but if you wait...

MaxWhen you make the coffee, you're getting all these delicate flavor oils to come out of the beans, and they don't last very long. They lose its flavor, I've heard, after 30 seconds.

Speaker BYeah, exactly. All my Starbucks knowledge there.

Speaker AYou have to, that's, yeah, you have to do this. That's why when people get espresso and they just, like, get in the little thing and they take it to go, they're doing it wrong or whatever.

MaxOh, yeah, because it's disgusting. You're supposed to just shoot it. Matt, do you make coffee? Are you the coffee? I mean, clearly, you're the coffee person at the house. Yeah. What's your coffee setup?

Speaker BOh, well, it's terrible. I have, like, a fancy coffee machine, but I'm usually lazy and just use my Keurig. But I have a machine that, like, makes lattes and stuff like that. Oh, nice. Wow. Okay. That's my favorite, honestly. But I use soy milk because I'm kind of lactose intolerant. But isn't everybody? Have you fucked with the oat milk?

MaxNo, I haven't tried it. I heard it just tastes like warm oatmeal, though. I've been, this whole quarantine, I've been going really hard on the oat milk. It's really good. It foams really nicely. It behaves basically exactly like milk. I think it has a really, it doesn't taste quite like milk, but I like the flavor. It has a good flavor. I don't know. I dig it. Is it better than almond milk? To me, yeah. Yes. Almond milk is too watery. It doesn't really froth. It doesn't behave well, but the oat milk, I think,

it also just tastes really good with coffee. Now I'm going to have to try it.

MerlinMy lady likes it a lot. She says it's really good.

Speaker AIt's got a better consistency than almond milk for lattes, right?

MerlinYeah. I also want to start using the word behave the way that Max is using everything. I want to start talking about, certainly, the dairy products in my life and how well-behaved they are, but I think this also may be my new sorting algorithm for my friends. Don't like the way that you're behaving right now.

You have a watery bottle. It's not blooming. You're not fresh. I like a bloom. I used to get a good bloom out of the Tonks coffee. Now Tonks is something else. What's Tonks now?

MaxNow it's called Oh Hey. or something like that.

MerlinOh, yeah. Right? Something like that. We get this, I don't have much to offer for this. Well, here's what I do. I have this that I swear by, which is called the Clever Dripper. It's in show notes. Clever Dripper. Clever Dripper. And I put a number four in there, a number four filter, and it's got this cool little dingus where when you put it in, I follow mostly the method of the AeroPress, except I use this. So I boil

the water, put a certain amount of coffee in, I stir real slow, like let it sit for like about 30 seconds. And then it's got this cool dingus where when you put it on a mug, it bottoms itself out. Can you hear it? Yeah. And these are great. I worry that these are going to go out of production or something, so I've got like three of these in my stockpile. which is for the government, not for the states. But this is where that goes. And I love it. And then I drink the coffee.

I used to be a half-and-half man, and now I am a black... No, I'm a black man.

Speaker ASometimes you say a thing before you understand what you're saying.

MaxI know, I know. That's okay. It's you and Justin Trudeau. I couldn't change...

MerlinI imagine a track where I've got to change the train to this other track.

Speaker AYou saw their trajectory, and there was nothing that you could do to get out of the way.

MaxYeah. No, much like Elizabeth Warren, I used to be a Native American. I was born a poor black child. The new Tonics is called Yes, Please, but it's just PLZ. Yes, Pools. Yes, Pools.

MerlinYeah. And then I drink something my lady got me started on that I like quite a lot. It's not as crazy fresh as getting your own beans, but it's this company called Tiemans. This is also in show notes. T-I-E-M-A-N. And they do this low acid coffee that's a little easier on the tummy, but still pretty tasty. And so that's mine. Alex is busy opening their crazy bones.

Speaker AAlex is sitting on the floor opening crazy bones.

Speaker BYep.

Speaker ALike it's Christmas. I can go. I can talk about coffee. Coffee, coffee, coffee. Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee. I have been doing the same thing for a very long time. I use a V60 pour over thingy. It's sort of the same thing that what you showed, Merlin, but it's shaped. It's white. It doesn't have a lid. It doesn't have a bottom out.

MerlinOh, do you like the Melita? The Melita one?

Speaker AIt's kind of like the Melita. It is ceramic. It is white and ceramic. And I will link it.

MerlinThis is my old one. These are great. I don't like the number two sized ones. I like the number four sized ones. That's supposed to be a pot of coffee, but I'm like, I just make one strong big coffee and drink it. I don't know how that's supposed to be a whole pot of coffee.

Speaker AIt's like a single cup. I have... We just called it a one-hitter. Trying to find what it is. Yes, exactly. But it's... Wait, I can put a picture in the chat.

MerlinWill it be sexy?

Speaker AIt will not be a pregnant mouse, I promise. Everything's sexy if you're horny enough. I'm out. it's uh i have my special little um like water boiler oh look at that almost the exact right amount for one that's a great that's a great setup yeah i use one uh one filter uh the number two boys uh and then i i use uh pre-ground coffee you're it's a cardinal sin you're not supposed to uh but i i don't care i forgive

Merlinof you for your sins. But I mean, it's kind of like wine where like the I'm not, this is no shade at anybody intentionally, but like sort of like the way wine, I don't know if wine's still like this, but throughout my whole adult life, wine has been this way to signify let's just say snootiness, not even fanciness snootiness, like that there is a wine was meant to be this thing that you couldn't just enjoy, you had to also be a student of wine, and like you were some kind of like a cur if you were like drinking two buck chuck or something like that and I feel like with coffee

it's like I think you should just get the coffee that you enjoy you shouldn't, if you need it to be as overworked as some people's coffee setups are that's fine, like whatever you need there's people that have that for sex stuff too which is also fine but if you can really strip it down to just like this is pretty much it there's just not that much actually empirically bad coffee there's bad coffee at one Shell station in Florida that I went to and all other coffee is fine

MaxI basically agree with that The one caveat I would put on it is I always think it's funny when people spend a lot of money on a coffee setup. Like they buy, for example, they buy like a really expensive espresso machine, but then they buy pre-ground, you know, Folgers coffee or Starbucks coffee. Like the one thing I would say is like if your goal, if your project is to make the best coffee, you should focus on buying fresh beans and grinding them before you spend thousands of dollars on coffee accoutrement.

MerlinWhat do you think, Matt? Does that sound about right? yes i agree because you can get those like those fancy italian machines and i look like i'm trying to milk an italian cow here or sort of a robot workout middle out compression but um but you know like the same like costly four figure like i guess like those are espresso machines or yeah

Maxthat's what i mean it's an espresso machine so i went i went insane i got an um i had a friend who got me really excited about espresso this was probably over a year ago at this point and i I wound up buying a used, a really fancy used espresso machine called a, I got a La Marzocco Linnea Mini. I got it used, so I did not pay the whole sticker price.

MerlinBut it's fair to say that those can be quite costly, yes.

MaxYes, yes.

MerlinLike surprisingly costly.

MaxOh, yeah, yeah. I spent, easily I spent thousands of dollars on an espresso setup. And I felt, at the time, I felt really, I mean, I did it and I had fun and it was educational. I learned how to, I learned, I kind of got a nice education and like learned everything about espresso. It was actually fairly helpful in like setting up the game cafe and stuff because we do, we do coffee service there. But I thought, I felt so bad about it because I was like, man, I live in a neighborhood with like five coffee shops. Like I could just walk and get this espresso. Like what do I really need in my house for it? Well, the last couple of months I've been feeling pretty smart that I got the fancy

coffee set up because I can make myself a nice coffee drink in the morning. But yeah, I definitely feel I'm definitely I have to, you know, it's a whole procedure every morning to make you're milking the Italian cow. You're like I'm like an octopus with eight. I'm like an octopus. I'm giving like seven hand jobs and then smoking a cigarette.

MerlinHot. Can I get a drawing of that, please?

Speaker AIt exists somewhere, I'm sure. Jen, what's your coffee situation like at home? So my partner gets up before me and he we have usually have good good beans on hand. but he is more about efficiency rather than like taking the time to make fancy coffee. So he just uses like a regular old drip thing, which is, which is fine. Like it doesn't taste bad, but it's not strong enough. Like I need, like, I don't know. Maybe it's my imagination or maybe I just, I don't know. I feel like a broken human that I need so much of this like watery coffee to feel, to feel anything.

When you make it the single cup method or whatever, like how the stuff that we have at the office, like which we have one of those same pour over thingies that I use, that stuff's way stronger. It's always way stronger.

MerlinI also feel like it's valuable. I don't know why I'm always obsessing over these unnecessary distinctions. But I think it's useful for me to say that strong and flavorful don't have to be the same thing. I think a lot of the higher-end coffee nerds, which shall remain nameless but are some of our friends, they actually are not into the bitter Pete's-style dark roast. I think the coffee nerds, and Matt can check my facts on this, But I feel like a lot of coffee nerds like something that's not as blah, in-your-face bitter, that's got different notes and has a lighter roast a lot of the time.

But you can have flavorful coffee that isn't strong in the sense of being a Pete-style bitter coffee.

Speaker BJen, you should just have him add extra scoops of coffee to it, and then it'll be strong enough for you. like if you have the like mr coffee like basic pour over thing just add like my mom would like sneak in extra scoops because my dad would make it too weak so like instead of however many it

Speaker Asays add like an extra two sweet yeah yeah i i believe he does that for me but it's still not like i don't want to give the poor man a tummy ache and i like my coffee i like my coffee so

Maxstrong like it'll clear my sinuses jen you should get an aero press and make like an espresso coffee

Speaker Afor yourself for an afternoon cup of jobe i've been using french press and uh burned my hand on it the other day which was made me a little angry at it and i i had a chemex too but i um i broke it

Merlinand cut my hand so we're not on speaking terms hey what uh what espresso should i be uh getting should you be buying i still so let me put this beans when i when i went to yeah when i went to New Zealand in probably 2011 or 12, something like that, they don't make, I mean, they make Americanos, but pretty much all of their coffee is espresso-based drinks. And the two things I learned very quickly is, well, obviously there's not regular American

coffee there. It takes them fucking 25 minutes to make a cup of coffee in New Zealand, but it's so goddamn good. And when I came back, regular American-style coffee seemed so odd to me. And I went on this jag for about a year with getting beans from my local place. Brown ale coffee, the late lamented brown ale coffee. But is there like should I be looking for local stuff? Like how should I be approaching my enjoyment of a non-super bitter but still very strong espresso coffee?

MaxSo I think a couple of thoughts on this. So the first thing is, I do think you, even if you just want regular old American coffee, I think you're often better basically making a shot of espresso and then, you know, making an Americano. Like, so it's the strength of American coffee. But I think a lot of times you'll get like a better, basically better extraction, better flavors from the beans. So you might want to, and you have an AeroPress, right, Merlin?

MerlinI do. Yeah, I'm not using, it's kind of disused right now. But that's what I would be using for, to make espresso, yeah. Well, sorry, forgive my palsy. Espresso. It's not like the official, not high enough PSI to be your official espresso.

MaxNo, it's espresso. I don't know. But I think by my definition—

MerlinIt's espresso-style coffee product.

MaxBy my definition, what comes out of the AeroPress is espresso. But maybe not to other people. But anyhow, yeah, I would— So espresso does not need to be— So when you talk about an espresso roast, that usually just means a very dark roast. But you don't need an espresso roast to make espresso. Like you can make espresso from any beans. In fact, I just buy like, I just buy fancy coffee. What makes it espresso?

Speaker BEspresso means it has, sorry, espresso means it has less water. So you don't need it.

Speaker AIt's the grind and it's also the process, right? Yeah.

MaxI just learned something new that I did not know. So I don't buy, I don't like dark, super dark roast, because to me, I think you can't taste all the cool flavors in the coffee. I like more of the like.

MerlinI thought it was, see, before Brown Owl, my whole life, I used to get like Steve Buscemi or whatever it is, like the Italian can of, what's it called, biscottis. But I used to get that generic.

Speaker ACafe Bustelo.

MerlinAh, that's the spicy meatball, that one. And I would just get that crap and think, oh, boy, this is nasty and bitter. This must be espresso. And then I started having Brown Owl would make this. It was still very strong, but it wasn't primarily bitter. It did have like an explosion of like a middle of the tongue kind of like flavor to it. But it wasn't just, it was tangy and it wasn't all just like weird. And I got hooked.

MaxSan Francisco is probably the greatest coffee city in America. And there's just so many boutique roasters in San Francisco that. And I could give them some money right now. Yeah. And you know what's cool, too, that I would recommend for you is they will grind the coffee however you want and deliver it to your ground. Oh, dude. Okay. And then you can just put it in an airtight container. I'm going to do it. But there's one. All right. Challenge. There's one online called Trade. It's called Trade. Look up Trade Coffee. And you can either do a subscription or just a single bag, and they will grind it.

You can actually put in there underground, grind, AeroPress. What? Oh, I'm going to do this. And they have some really good roasters that I recognize on here. I actually think this is probably a pretty good deal. But also, honestly, if you just Google San Francisco roaster, most roasters in my neighborhood are delivering. I love this.

Speaker AIf you want more caffeine and more flavor, you want to go light roast. That's a thing that I... it's light roast coffee has more caffeine in it because the darker the roast the more like burnt it will be that seems counterintuitive and fascinating i did not know that it's a common misconception but and matt can verify this is one of the things that they teach you as soon as you become a barista in any respect yeah and then kevin were you were you barista oh yeah at starbucks

no no i i worked at um a place in chicago called the bourgeois pig and i worked i fucking love that place yeah it's a terrible terrible place to work oh is it yeah i got i have some shit that happened

Maxuh one of my i love sitting i love sitting on the um the little uh the little bat the side room

Speaker Ai sit and have conversations there all the time yeah it's a two it's a two-sided restaurant so there's the there's the food side and the coffee side and uh yeah i have i have a lot of war stories from that time it's uh it was like people not getting paid on time taking money out of the register in cash because we couldn't get our paychecks through the bank like paying that's no good yeah paying people partials and like running out of milk running out of beans running out of like things every day yeah that sounds about right yeah it was bad it was a bad place

Speaker Bto work. I used to have to go across the street to the grocery store when I worked at Starbucks and get milk and then sneak it over.

MaxSuper not legal. Yeah. Super not up to health code.

Speaker AOh, yeah.

MaxWell, that just about wraps it up. Thanks, everyone, for joining us on Dubai Friday.

Speaker ADing, ding, ding.

MaxThank you to our guests, Kevin and Jen and Matt. Yay. Matt, where can people find you if they want more Matt Cox.

Speaker BContent. At Mattie R. Cox on Twitter and Instagram and everywhere.

MaxBut let's say they wanted to listen to a podcast.

Speaker BOh, Two Headed Girl FM on just, that's our website.

MerlinIf you really cared, you'd find it. Go to AltaVista A-L-T-A-V-I-S-T-A dot com. Kevin, what about you?

Speaker AOh, I'm anywhere Would you want to be found? You can find me on the internet Are we going to go into the after show Or have we been in the after show?

MaxI don't know It's very hard to tell

Speaker AYeah, it's very hard to tell I could do this all day though

MaxNo one's more excited than me to see how Quinn's going to edit us out of this jam

182. Gadget Ratchetfence

Show notes

Transcript

182. Gadget Ratchetfence

Show notes

Transcript

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