187. Dr. Lard

AlexHow are you doing there?

MerlinOh, great. No, no, all good. I think it's still... I just installed Call Recorder and now it's not showing up at all. Oof. He loves mixing it up.

AlexYep.

MerlinFun, fun, fun. Sometimes the most creative solution is to just fix the thing. Well, I mean, you know, there's just so many fucking variables where there's so many points it can break if we haven't tested the system. And then that's a lot to put on you and Quinn.

AlexWe figure it out.

MerlinAll right. I think this will work if Max comes back. What's going on? Has he gone dark? Wait, come back somewhere. We need to talk.

AlexI don't have faith.

MerlinWhat's happening? Why am I on video? I'm in my underwear and I'm on video. I don't like this. Hey, buddy. Oh, my God. I made it way too loud.

MaxNobody say anything. I think he's finally on video. Let's try this.

MerlinLet's go. Let's go to a different platform. We have an office source platform. You just need to check it out of GitHub, and we'll get it installed, and then we'll be able to do it. Now I have to go get my different microphone.

MaxCheck, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check. There we go. Can you guys say something? I think. Okay. No, I don't rejoin. I've got to hit join.

MerlinOh, I'm joined. Uh, no, Jesus.

MaxI think I hung up. All right. I'll restart it in a minute.

AlexWait, wait. Everybody, everyone calm down. We are all on Skype right now. Yes?

MaxYes.

AlexAnd we're all recording right now. Oh. Yes. So Max, just start recording in GarageBand and we're all good.

MaxHey, who cares if we record the podcast, guys? I mean, we're here. Let's just talk to each other. Maybe it's the friends we made along the podcast.

AlexThis is Dubai Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, get a nice treat.

Maxyeah do we have to productize it i mean isn't that kind of cheapening the conversation

Merlinyeah why can't we just like it used to be about the music yeah oh wow look at your little setup

Maxoh that looks very comfortable oh man okay so the flannel it's a live photo just so you know that oh no my balls the flannel that flannel blanket uh guess what what heated it's a heated blanket heated oh man heated blanket now watch this i'm fucking i'm gonna might fall asleep i might fall asleep during this podcast that's fine that's fine we don't need you for this one

Merlinoh my god i'm gonna be compulsively saving this is oh my god my ocd is on fire one of them is

Maxfriends is is so hilarious i'm not recording i'm not even gonna record my end you guys this is good

Alexthis is the new show oh my god blanket so anyway she had a friend and her friend was at the time

Merlinin like fourth grade, came to her birthday party.

MaxHey Siri, movie lights. Hey Siri, movie lights. There we go. Oh boy. Okay. Now we're cooking with fire. Oh boy.

AlexAll right. We're all good. Everything's fine. All right. We're going to do a clap at three, two, one. Ready?

MerlinSo, yeah. Go ahead.

AlexThree, two, one. Eh, close enough Oh my god

MerlinIs he like this all the time? Is he always like this?

AlexReady, 3, 2, 1 There we go I got more excited that time

MerlinI'm going to keep saving this file. Okay.

MaxI'm so... God, I'm so relaxed.

MerlinThis is upsetting.

MaxThis is really... Hey! This is great. Challenge, challenge, challenge, challenge.

MerlinWe just loved each other.

MaxWell, thanks for coming to Dubai Friday, everyone. Everything's great. Everything's great. Can I promote my things? That's why I'm here.

MerlinYeah. Yes. Hi, hey, Max. How's it going?

MaxGood. Hey, everybody. I've got... You are so joker-fied. You're an agent of chaos. Why? I want to promote my things. That's fine. Go ahead. I've got a Kickstarter project. I'm making three 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles. Could you take down the comment that has the F word in it?

MerlinMy son was sitting on my lap. There's a sign in Ramsett Park that says not to drink the water. I made sun tea with it and got an infection.

MaxYou can get them. You go to magicpuzzlecompany.com, and you can check out these jigsaw puzzles. They're really neat and they're doing well on Kickstarter and I'd love to have your support. And they're only, probably when this episode comes up, you'll have only a few days left to get them.

MerlinSo go check out. They look really cool. They're very pretty. Thank you. I despise puzzles, but they look beautiful as art.

MaxIt's my friend Adam Rubin who makes puzzle, not jigsaw puzzles, but like puzzly puzzles. He was like, he said to me, he's like, I hate jigsaw puzzles because they're like a form of mental tyranny. It's just like this perfectly good piece of art and you break it up into a thousand pieces and then you just have to sit there in like a work camp. And there's only one way to put it back together.

MerlinAnd there's only one way to find out if you're missing even one piece. Correct. It's the ultimate commitment. And then when it's done,

Maxit becomes this like white elephant. It just sits there in your house. You're like, are we allowed to take it apart yet? I don't know. You have an extremely cracked painting. The other thing that's absolutely perplexing to me, but I'm like steeped in the world of jigsaw puzzles now, is there's a big thing in the puzzle community of people who use them.

Speaker AIn the puzzle community. Come on.

MaxNo, the puzzle community fucks. There's a big thing where they use this product called Puzzle Glue and they stick, they, they, they. We've got some, we've got some.

AlexOh, I've used that, yeah.

MaxGlue the pieces down. What kind of a demented tyrant glues the pieces? What's wrong with you? It's like using the craggle from the Lego Mew movie. Let's just think of the same thing as Will Ferrell's fault. Yeah. It's the craggle. Don't do that. You solve it. You break it up. It's like a mandala. You solve it. You break it up. You give it to a friend.

AlexNo, it's like working out without an Apple Watch. You're not doing it. No.

MaxNow they get to waste their time on the puzzle. I got to show you this. I don't know if eBay will let me copy this image. Wait, I'm not done promoting things. I know you're not. You've also got your hole. Your new hole. Yes. Clickhole.com. Go there and enjoy the comedy. That's pretty much it quick close back click. Oh

MerlinOkay, and probably it's pretty funny. So my mom enjoyed enjoys she's not dead She enjoys puzzles more than I do for sure and she would just you know Get a big-ass puzzle and solve it really fast. Okay, so this one if memory serves I believe this is the exact puzzle. Did you get the image of the coin?

MaxOh, shit. My phone's all the way over there.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinThat's good radio. Reaching.

AlexYes, this is a coin.

MerlinI like the ones where Max groans. Wow, that's a puzzle? Is that a piece? 500-piece puzzle. It's mostly gray and black. It's one color, basically. Yeah. Oh, no. It's ridiculous. I mean, think about that as a 500-piece. So what we're looking at here is a giant ass 1883 Morgan silver dollar coin.

MaxGreat for coin tricks. Is it? Oh, yeah.

MerlinThat's the prized coin for coin magic. Nice and heavy. But, you know, imagine a 500-piece puzzle of an old coin. It's basically one color and then kind of a different color. And that's it. That's insane.

AlexAnd why? Just why? For fun?

MerlinI got to tell you. Well, you know, that's the same reason, you know, we go head to head about games in general. It's just like that doesn't, I said to Syracuse, talking about, you know, whether you like certain kinds of comedy over other kinds of comedy. It depends on what part of your brain you want scratched tonight. And this is a part of my brain I never want to even acknowledge. The part of me that would make a large gray thing that's 500 pieces and then it turns into one piece. And you glue it. I don't know. It's a very fascist form of entertainment. Not my tempo. It's an extremely fascist form of entertainment. Max, tell me more about.

I'm sorry, go ahead Are you going to promote more?

MaxOh, no, I'm done Hey, I want to put Let's talk about middle ditch and sports

Speaker AOh my god, what are you on today?

MaxNothing, what are you on? I'm chilled out, man

MerlinI got my heated blanket, I'm lying on the couch I'm just sipping my coffee, just enjoying my coffee Tell me what the puzzle community is like As a community Are there tentpoles? Is it a community of respect? Is there a lot of hand stuff? Like what happens in the puzzle community? I got to make the puzzle glue.

MaxIt's a real thing. It's a real thing. You can go to. I mean, I think like probably the main, the main spot would be if you go to Reddit, r slash jigsaw puzzles.

MerlinThat's going to happen.

MaxYou go to, you go to r slash jigsaw puzzles. And I don't know. It's people seem pretty friendly and positive. Did they have names for the different piece types? They do have names for the different piece types.

AlexI knew it.

Speaker AGod damn it.

MerlinI knew it.

AlexOf course they do.

MerlinIt's like when you try to describe a Lego and you don't know the terminology, and I'd say to my kid, like, give me one of those red six nubbins. Give me one of those little brown one-ers. But they probably do have names, because of course, anything that has community after the noun probably has names for things. It's like George Lucas naming aliens.

MaxYeah, so a puzzle piece can have loops, sockets, knobs. You are Frizzledore glibbin-blop. A puzzle piece can have loops, sockets, knobs, holes, tabs, slots, keys, and locks.

AlexOh, my God. Yes. Oh, my God. Oh, I just finished. I hate it.

MerlinI hate it. And so you go, what, do you get three puzzles? Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. That's a good deal. I feel like puzzles.

MaxI do want to put on the stack middle edition shorts. I want to get to that.

AlexOh, interesting. So Merlin you could have

MaxAn edge piece, double wings An irregular piece, a regular piece Or double ears

MerlinThese are names that I know better than my own grandmother's name It's gonna get into this car Having brunch with these two com dumpsters

MaxNow I don't want to be Canceled but some people would say the tabs Are male and the slots are female I think that's personally reductionist. Reductionist. Oh!

Speaker AOh!

MaxOh! Personally, I don't believe in that. Or I do. I'm not sure. This piece, this particular accordance is called a chunky dumpster. I was called out recently on an email for saying, hey, guys. Yeah. Wow. I just apologized, but I didn't mean it. We're only allowed to do that here, I think. I said, I'm sorry. I got called out. And then I said, I'm sorry, it won't happen again. But in my heart, I didn't mean it.

MerlinMax's cancel party.

AlexOh, I want to know who it was so bad.

MaxI didn't think it was that bad.

AlexI want to know who it was so bad.

MaxFat chance. Okay, good treat. Alex, it's my other friends. They go to a different school in Canada.

Is that really that bad? Is that really that bad? Am I history's greatest monster? I'm sorry. I didn't even mean it. It doesn't even mean it in a gendered way.

MerlinI've tried so many other ones. And listen, don't contact me. I've tried. I mean, I spent a lot of my life in something like the South, where it is entirely normal. to use you all as second person plural. If you do it anywhere else, you sound simple. But that's a really good one.

What time are y'all going?

AlexOkay. I can't do it.

MerlinI'm married to a woman. I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it. Let's just say I would lose a lot of credibility with somebody from Rhode Island if I talk like that.

AlexI can't. I sound like a broken robot even more than I normally do. and I'm like, y'all.

MaxI cannot start saying y'all. To me, it would be like if I started saying that something slapped. Like, I'm just not going to do it.

MerlinYou're not.

MaxThis is everything right now. I'm not going to say that something slaps and I'm not going to start saying y'all. I just, I don't talk like that and I'm not going to affect it. That being said, like, I'm not complaining. I shouldn't have said, guys, I know it was wrong and I don't have any, I'm not, I don't have a political point here to make. I also. Type it up. Type it up in notes, baby. Put it up. Is it that bad? Am I really history's greatest monster? It was... I didn't mean anything by it. No, you're worse than that. You're like history's fourth greatest monster, which sucks.

MerlinYou're never going to get a wax figure. I'm sorry. You're never going to get a Netflix series. This episode's never coming out. I always know which puzzle I'm not going to sell before I don't sell it.

Speaker AHi!

MerlinOh, boy. Well, we got a lot here in the dock. Oh, boy. We got a lot in the dock. Middle Dutch.

MaxCan we talk about Middle Dutch and Schwartz? Oh, I mean, sure. It's fine by me.

AlexYes.

MaxYou didn't already cock us by talking about it with Syracuse, did you?

Speaker AI'm going to say no. Never. What? Oh, you did. No. Oh, my God.

AlexYou could have said no.

MaxIt's only like an hour of the episode. Oh, I'm still in. you guys are talking about the new year's 2017 in my feed exactly he wouldn't have found out for six years why damn we're so beta syracuse is an absolute chat he's the absolute chat unit

Merlinhe uh no here here's the thing i i i get what you're saying and uh the thing is though not everybody listens to all the things that's the secret no i don't i don't care i listen i clearly

Maxhave no problem repeating anecdotes over and over. You? Her? I watch it. I watch it. I have... How many episodes are there? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. Okay. Alright. How many episodes are there? There are three. Okay. I watched the first two, so I need to watch the third. I liked it. I overall liked

Merlinit a lot. Okay, cool. Let's see what else we have in the doc here. That's it? I listen, I'm going to say what the president says. I know you better than you know yourself. I know. I know. I know you. You hate pickpockets and you have notes on what I'm allowed to like in comedy. So let's hear. Let's hear your notes.

MaxAlex, did you watch it?

AlexYes, I watched all three. I thought the first show was the best. The third was the second best. And the second was the.

MerlinNow that is a hot motherfucking take.

AlexI don't want to say it was bad, but it wasn't the strongest step. episode for me.

MerlinOkay. All right, cool. We got some other stuff here.

MaxGuys, what does it feel like to be doing the worst episode of the podcast that we've ever done? Same as every other week. Oh my God.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinOkay, listen, listen, listen. I'm going to pop the stack for just a second here. I'm going to hit escape. I don't like doing what I'm about to do, but it's important that you understand that we just spent one hour trying to get all of us away

Maxthat we could record the podcast because Skype... Oh, also to be clear, I'm still not recording I don't know I can't see the screen

AlexI'm sorry Quinn I'm so sorry My levels are going to be blown out again

MerlinAt least we don't have to worry about him not uploading his file I'm just out here chilling In Cedar Rapids

AlexI don't know what a reference

Speaker ABut like Jason the sweet alien boy You didn't love that Sweet alien boy

AlexI said the The third?

MerlinThe switching in between the Stanleys and when he has to go run across to get the correct pronunciation of the name and they turn into each other?

AlexThe third episode is my second favorite of the bunch. Oh, boy. I just enjoyed the ghosts.

MerlinOh, in the... Oh, that one? And then when he's walking away. Oh, my God. Okay, cool. All right, great, great, great. All right, I'm going to let go of this. Letting it go. All right, all right. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. These baseball players got a lot of funny names today.

Let's see. Oh, I'll do a quickie just to get us rolling. Hang on.

AlexOh, my God. I don't like it.

MerlinWell, as you'll see in the doc under news and topics, we closed a chapter over the weekend. We've finally given up on the litter robot.

MaxOh, no.

MerlinBecause the cat won't piss in it? Well, here's what we got to Let's just roll back real quick She ordered this, my wife Can you remind me, what do you have? The nice one, the Litter Robot 3 Connect

MaxSo it's the one that The design is almost like a big sphere

MerlinIt's the latest and greatest And it was costly

MaxThe cat shits in it and then it senses the cat's weight And it rotates to Separate the poop from the litter and resets itself

MerlinI mean, it's like the kind of thing you would hear about, I want to say like one of those MIT kind of contests, you know, like the way they do pranks on each other and stuff like that. But there's also just those crazy kind of Apollo 13 style contests, like what can you put together? Like it's an amazing piece of theoretical engineering. And for some people it works great. Like, and like you guys,

Maxit sounds like your cats love it. Y'all. Sorry, sorry. Sorry, sorry. Merlin is canceled. I

AlexI love my little robot. It is very large and upsetting to a lot.

MerlinBut your cat likes going in it, right?

AlexThey love it because they don't like their own shit, and they immediately want it to be cleaned up to the point where we get, ah, ah, ah.

MerlinYes. And the captain likes hers, right, Max? Yeah, she likes to watch it rotate. That's so cool. Okay, so just real quick, and we'll be done with this, is my lady ordered that pre-Christmas, but they can hand-build them or some components of them, so you've got to wait a little bit. And so it arrived in January. This has all been covered, but it's useful context. I'll cut this long story short to say that we've had two full replacements of this thing for different things I eventually learned

were errors in the way that it was constructed. Now, how did I arrive at that? by spending so much of my time sitting in front of a cat box, an electronic cat box, and dealing with it, and waiting for the cycle to work, and then waiting for the cycle to not work. And that went on for months and months and months. Yes, okay, so that was in January. We got it set up. We got two replacements. We finally got one that has been working for about the last, I say, two months. Yes, Max, the cat will not go in it.

So eventually what we started doing is picking her up and putting her in there. And then she'd just stare at us like, why have you put me in the spinny death box? And she'd just go, and so you ask yourself, if we took, we did all the right things, right? We took away the old litter. We used only this litter. Ask yourself, if she's not using the box, what is she using? The house. So that's my job is to keep the litter robot working and to go clean up the teetles and the toodles that she leaves as little presents, sometimes under things or inside of things.

And then I find them. And I get to find a very large, very hard poop. Anyway, we're back to the box. Chapter closed. And she's kind of using it. She made a doodle in it yesterday. She's back in a regular box, her giant, giant box. We're not going to do the piddle pad this time. We're going to see if we can make it with just the box. I think she's probably so relieved and so backed up that she's just glad to have a clean place to pee.

AlexYeah, I think, you know, the investment was worth it.

MaxSo you're scooping it every day?

MerlinYeah, we actually are trying to scoop it quickly after she leaves a tinkle or a toodle, just to encourage her.

MaxSo you're sort of always on toodle watch?

MerlinOh my god. Well, at least now I don't have a machine to maintain as well as... I mean, it was the worst of all. It was a perfect storm of cat shit.

MaxWell, this is what people say, is that we may automate away a lot of our labor, and then we'll have robots doing jobs, but who will maintain the robots?

MerlinWho will maintain the robots? Are you saying this is like the myth of the creative class, the luxury class? Yeah. So there's always going to be somebody out there having to clean up that very, very cold pee.

MaxYeah. Yeah, you're going to have a litter box operator, and then you'll be part of the PMC that tells the litter box operator what to do.

MerlinI see. And you think there could be a machine learning component to that?

MaxOh, I think it's all going to be on the cloud.

MerlinSo everybody's constantly getting replaced by something better. Eventually the cat, of course, would be replaced By, I guess, an AI cat Yeah, eventually

MaxWe'll put all the people, they'll live in Some sort of foam-based High-density housing We won't need them anymore

MerlinLike a Matrix kind of thing? Like a human battery? You just give them a little Japanese Hotel?

MaxAbsolutely

MerlinAlright, cut all that out, that was lame Hey everybody, it's your pals at Dubai Friday Hey, can I promote some stuff? You guys like puzzles? One time in the 70s, my mom Got a five

MaxA stock and flow The zone Where's that going? Oh, that was the same story you told already Yes, and

Alexgot it short paul was pretty funny you gotta like short paul his little legs i love short paul oh my god

Speaker Ayeah you could say that so you've known her a long time yeah you could say that

Alexwe are talking about middlewitch and middlewitch and cut just so people know what we're talking about because i want people to

Maxwatch it you guys watching the bulls documentary Did you already talk about that with Syracuse? No. Are you watching it?

MerlinI have a controversial opinion on this.

MaxOkay. Okay. Go on.

MerlinYou know what it was? It got oversold to me. Everybody was like, oh, my God, this is everything. This is so great. I mean, I enjoyed the Bulls era. That was an exciting time in basketball. But my lady and I, so my kid went to take a shower last night, night before. and they're like, oh, this is finally our chance. Let's dip into this thing everybody loves. You don't even have to like sports ball. It's just, it's so great. Such good storytelling. So much humanity. I thought, I got 15 minutes in and we both looked at each other like,

this is the most boring thing I've ever watched. Oh, interesting.

Speaker AI thought it was really boring. And usually I'm so game for that stuff,

Merlinbut I just thought, I don't, I mean, I'm super glad other people like it. Mainly I'm just surprised I didn't

Maxbecause I was so primed to be super into it. I don't give two toodles about basketball, but I've been enjoying this. I mean, I, I just like the editing. Like, I think it's got good energy. I love, I also think like, there's just little things to me that make me happy about a documentary. I love when one of the main people in the documentary has like an amazing voice and you just look forward to every time they get a, you know, a moment where they're narrating and fucking Scotty Pippen man has a voice, best voice. Old Scotty Pippen just has like, I want him to fucking read the dictionary to me when I'm falling asleep.

He's got a great voice. he sounds awesome he sounds like an old wizard he sounds very cool i'm what do you think alex

Alexyou've been watching it i have a conspiracy theory that they made it longer than they had to like i think that this was the director's cut and they were like all right we need to fill airtime let's just go with you know the first or the the like second or third cut we had before we completely trimmed all the fat because it is just a bit too long for me i think too too too long like

Merlinum the classic netflix too many episodes or the storytelling is just not tight enough it's just

Alexthe storytelling isn't very tight there's a lot of pandering to chicago folks which i'm i'm fine with. I love that. I love to be pandered to. Yeah, exactly.

MerlinI was happy with it. I think people who say they don't like being pandered to are lying.

AlexYep. It's my

Merlindream to be pandered to. My god. Panda effectively, that's all I ask.

AlexThis is something, though, that definitely benefits from a week to week viewing and not a binge watch, which I think it was originally going to be like, we're just going to drop this. But instead they aired it weekly on CNN or ESPN I don't know nothing makes sense and I enjoyed it it was something nice

MerlinI bet Kara loved it right

Alexoh my god I got live updates I had to watch it live otherwise the whole thing would be spoiled they won a lot of championships spoilers

Merlinthey're good at basketball

Maxwhen they're talking about I don't know some basketball thing and then it goes to the montage of Michael Jordan just slamming dunks. It looks so cool. And they have cool music, too. I'm a simple person. I'm a simple person. Did he punch Steve Kerr? What? Sorry. I might not be that far. Oh, sorry. Spoilers. Okay. Steve Kerr seems really nice. I like him. He looks a lot like my brother-in-law in a good way. One time I was playing mini golf and Steve Kerr was at the driving range hitting balls.

Hmm. He's a extremely tall man. Hmm. I like the shape of his head.

AlexHmm. That's normal.

MerlinYou know what? I should try it again because I enjoy TV. I love documentaries. It's just, yeah, I don't know. You know, again, this is something I keep meaning to talk about more with Syracuse is this whole like... All right, then. No, no. Just the way that like we go back and forth about like rating media and deciding on media. And I've been trying to figure out like, is there an access for something like how I, my mood right now, my access and an access for like the, my available attention right now.

Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, I feel like there are some things where I go back, like, I want to go back to Mrs. America because it didn't land for me. And everybody I admire, including my wife is like, no, it's actually really good. You should watch it. And I was like, it felt a little like a walk hard. It felt a little bit like, oh, Ray Charles sees his base in Liverpool or whatever. I don't think that would happen for a variety of reasons. But you know what I'm talking about where it's like the Marvin Barry kind of moment?

MaxYeah, I think there's something about a really good piece of media where it's got some hook. It can get its little hooks in you almost no matter what's going on. And I think like, to me, like one of the great things about Tiger King as like a, just a piece of media and the time, you know, that it was just so made for the time that we're in is everybody was just this absolute wreck, this complete ball of anxiety. Like it was hard for me to almost get through a movie at that time because you're just like constantly thinking about what's going to happen in the world.

And am I going to run out of food or just whatever craziness you're thinking about with coronavirus. and then all of a sudden Tiger King drops and it's just got this fucking crazy guy who says really funny things. I mean, you're in with that.

MerlinThat is one of those movies, or one of those, in that case, sorry, TV series, that kind of ruins you a little bit for even superior things because, I mean, there's so many layers to it. Yes, I know we talked about this, but I mean, to Alex's POV, the documentary making, it's kind of miraculous.

MaxYeah. It's pretty miraculous what they got. It's almost impossible not to be like stimulated and interested by it. But then you're like, oh my God, I can't believe these crazy characters.

MerlinNow we're going to really settle into this story, right? It's like, no, you're going to meet four to six more crazy people every episode. And they do have a role in this. And you're like, how much fucking crazier can this get? And that's, it's just, so like we went back to watch Making a Murderer. And I was like, you know, I said to my kid, I think if you like Tiger King, you might enjoy this. Making a Murderer, I forgot how intense that series is.

AlexI don't know how you can rewatch that.

MerlinIt's so frustrating. I forgot how mad I was watching it, how long it's been and how mad I was. That one guy, that one attorney with the glasses and the high voice, that one guy who ends up getting into the sexting scandal at the end.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinAnd it's just like it's so obvious. There's got to be, it's not a conspiracy. I mean, it seems like it's happening right out in the open.

Speaker AThey just have a hard-on for this family, and they want to destroy them.

MerlinBut only to say that, like, after coming straight off of Tiger King, I was like, you know, first of all, yes, this is as good as I remember, but it also shows me what they got away with or what they were able to do in Tiger King. It's like the most entertaining kind of film that you could watch, but it's mostly kind of sort of true. I don't know. You know what I'm saying though? Like you go back and watch Indiana, you go back and watch something like, even like an Errol Morris, like a classic Errol Morris. And it's like, you know, the pacing, you realize how fast the pacing of Tiger King is.

It's just relentless.

AlexThere seems to be so much panic over, oh, we're not going to have anything to watch for so, so long. And I think-

MerlinI'm worried about that.

AlexWell, or-

MerlinThey've got a lot in the can already.

AlexThey have a lot in the can. And also, as we see with Tiger King, like human beings are creative and we can use different styles of storytelling and different types of media.

MaxLike, are you saying I should get a tiger?

AlexI think you should. Oh, well, I mean, this will be part of the challenge. But like there was times where I'm like, seriously, if I like it wouldn't be that hard to save up for a tiger. But spoilers.

MerlinCould you do like the way Thomas Keller buys part of a steer? do you think you could get like a timeshare tiger

Alexexactly exactly that's what I was thinking did you guys not have

Maxthat thought when you were watching Tiger King because I got about I got about two thirds of the way through the first episode they were talking about the sort of exotic animals market and that was one of the main thoughts I had I was like a tiger is very attainable to me like I could put together two thousand dollars and buy a tiger right

Alexnow and that's what I was like okay if a tiger if a fucking tiger is like two thousand or three thousand dollars What is like a meerkat Or something

MaxOh that seems entirely affordable

AlexYeah

MaxWhat about a sugar glider Have you thought about getting a sugar glider Do not get a sugar glider Go on Max don't even think about it

MerlinNot even once Why okay I'm thinking about it

MaxHelp me But aren't they flying rats No they're very cute They live in your pocket

AlexI love this I love this it goes in your pocket

MaxI don't know man it could be my little buddy oh that is true you know here's the thing I don't know much Alex what if we have a meeting this isn't some hypothetical future where we're like

Alexwe're in the same room

Maxyeah we're in the same room and we have a meeting and all of a sudden we're talking about you know business and all of a sudden a little sugar glider pops out of my pocket how cute would that be what's his name is his name cute what's his name oh let's go to the cat name document I bet I got something in there.

MerlinLet me go here. Let's see. Okay. We have not returned to this in so long.

MaxHave you looked up sugar glider, like a picture of it?

MerlinYeah. Yeah. You don't think it's cute? It's only micropenis that I won't look up.

AlexOh, that's really a shame.

MerlinWhat if I called it Stilton? Squiggle.

Speaker AOh, Stilton's sweet.

MerlinWheezy. Sprinkle. Noodles. Come here. Pancake. Mittens. Crackers. Scraps. Chappy. Mitzi. In. Come in. Puppy. Pim. Scoops. That's Chappie. Walter, Sushi. That's Chappie. Sushi, Bonnet, Pepsi, Pepsi Jr., Jarvis, Scout, Pizza, Pickles, Puppycat, Kibble, Princess, Fluff, Edgar, Daniel, Mr. Biscuits, Scooter Beach, Stuffy Cottonball, Ziggy, Daisy, which got stolen away from me, Gookie, Gyoza, Truffles, Kirby, Precious, Cardinal Theodore, Cardinal Theodore, Lily, Colette, Cedric Diggory, Hello Kitty, Butterscotch, Nubbin, Buttercup, Lord

nibbler taco tobiko nachos cozy bear chips beasy buckets peewee cupcake sherbet cat cat pep pep wasabi niffini kipple princess zelda hoffman frosty pascal tribeca bibelo bibelo with a different spelling that's my old cat's name my old cat is named bibelo um what if you had a sugar

Maxglider that lived in your pocket and it was named bibelo that would be so cute kobe cheddar i think that would be pretty good.

MerlinKobe cheddar taco with two A's and a K and Mr. Perkins. You can see the evolution of our interests over time and of course it ends with the McElroy brothers.

MaxMr. Perkins. What about squimby?

MerlinYou spell it Max. Sprocket. Wait, hang on. Just real quick and I want to give you a clear runway to go with this. Bibelot. B-I-B-E-L-O-T. Bibelot. Look it up. It's French for a little cute thing. What if it was gizmo? Oh, wow. Unleash the Kraken, Max. Max, give me some names. What if you named it Potato?

MaxMr. Potato.

MerlinNo, Mr. Potato Head.

MaxPotato. I would love to have a... This is more of a cat name, but what if you had a cat and you named it Poobel? Poobel would be very sweet. It's French for garbage cans, I think.

AlexI mean, the cat's already going to be bullied.

MerlinI hate this epic phenomenon of cat bullying. Sugar Glider named... I would allow Gus. That would be sweet. Trixie. Oh, Gus would be so... All right, I should really be getting a sugar glider. You should get a sugar glider. Start with the name. It's just like a punk rock band in high school, right? First you come up with the name, and then you never have the band. Just keep working on the names.

MaxLentil, Noodle, Footnote, Pilcrow, Obelisk, Figment, Voxel, Sprocket, Epsilon, Puddle, Mushroom, Nettle, Stilton, Seraph, Muffin, Squimby. Oh, no, here comes the Winter Soldier. Stencil, Gizmo, Potato, Quarter Eye, Cumber Nickel.

Speaker AOh, pumpernickel.

MaxMarmalade.

Speaker AOh.

MaxPickle, fishums, goober, splish, blinkums. Donut, smooshy, moppy, satchmo, cheddar, lumpy, pierogi, jalopy, burt. Wheezy, nutmeg, muppet, hazelnut, pouchy, yodel, bigums. Soft serve, cotton ball, waddle seed, schenectekee. Doity, eyes and meow, scuttlebutt, fur pants, fig, sourdough, poppy seed, schmear, beep boop, eggnog dollop fish and chips poobel schnitzel meatball egg roll ziggurat teacup raffle peapod

tumbleweed tenderloin roland cumulus windsor trickster salsa bupkis little mensch tchotchke snaggletooth this was one this was one do you remember that the the website that made uh programmatically generated cat names. No.

Speaker ANo, no, no.

MaxIt was very funny. But you could have either like a nice name or a mean name. And one of the mean names that it came up, this was like an AI cat name that it came up with was Dr. Lard. And I wrote that one down. I thought that would be a really funny name for a cat.

MerlinAI cat name generator. You know what? I hate to say this because I don't like being wrong and I hate admitting that I'm wrong. You need to get a sugar glider. You need to find

Speaker AYou need to find

MerlinA painting for that frame You know what I'm saying? Do you think there's going to be a turns out with the sugar gliders?

Speaker AOh, fuck yes

MerlinImagine having something in your house that flies Oh, did I mention it also shits? You have a flying shit rat

MaxNo, I'm going to get one I'm going to pay for the upgrade where it doesn't shit That's a good idea A little diaper

Speaker AA little diaper would be a sweet name A little diaper

Maxi googled sugar glider and the first link is here's why you should never buy sugar gliders oh let's see here pita let's see rock and roll fun sugar gliders aka sugar bears oh that's a

Speaker Ai'm already more want one even more 4.3 ounces what they weigh they weigh they weigh a quarter

AlexPounder. Oh. Oh. Oh, no. Oh, God, they're so...

MerlinMax. Max. You should maybe borrow one. Can you check one out? Like, out of a sugar glider library? Could you just try one?

MaxNow, that's a service I would love for the public library to offer. Netflix for

Merlinexotic pets. What if the

Maxpublic library had a variety of sort of whimsical pets that you could borrow for, check out for a certain period to see how much you don't want it in your house. You know, I thought of getting birds the other day for magic purposes.

Speaker AWhat? Oh my god!

MaxI was like, boy, I should get some doves. And I asked some of my magician friends about I was like, tell me about doves. Do not open. I was like, wouldn't it be cool if you went out to lunch with your friends and then halfway through the meal you produced a live dove? No. It would be even better if it comes to the end of the meal

Merlinand you say, let me pick this one up. Ta-da! And you pull out a dove And you're like, where'd the lighter fluid come from?

MaxSo I asked my friends, I was like, what about doves? And they were like, you know, you get a disease, like a lung disease from having birds, from having the doves. Really? Isn't there a special dove disease you get? Oh, no. A lot of magicians have gotten it. It's really bad.

MerlinCan I follow up on your idea, though, Max? Because I'd like to explore the space a little bit here. What I'm hearing you saying is, like, there's certain kinds of things where you know it could be a little risky. And a great example is a pet, or especially an exotic pet. So like, you know, it's similar to a lot of things where like it may not be what you expected, right? So yes, you can check out a cat. Sure, you can take home a glider. I'm cool with that. But like maybe there's other kinds of things too. Like should you really have bangs? There should be a way you can check something out.

Are you sure you want bangs? Because that's a lot of commitment. Maybe there are different, you know what I'm saying? Maybe skinny jeans. there could be just a lot there could be a lot of things where you help somebody try something on literally and see if it works for them is there any opportunity in that space you know a lot

Maxof the turns out here seems to be that the PETA doesn't like the sugar glider traffickers oh huh

Alexwell but then you're rescuing one technically because you're not going to profit off of this

MaxHere's my thought. They're going to be trafficking those sugar gliders whether I get one or not. So the only question is, do I have one or not?

MerlinIt's like buying a fur coat that's already made. Instead of saying, kill this particular fucking animal. I got some chinchillas here I'm really not super into. Could you make them into something? I'm not commissioning the sugar glider. That's true. Oh, okay. Oh, it's like the difference between in places where drugs are illegal, right? God, they're so cute. You can have it. Can you smoke it? Can you smoke it indoors? Are there laws for that? that gets you coming and going, are there sugar glider laws that you would need to know about? Did you learn about that at the strip mall? Do you have any sense of what the Chicago's sugar glider

rules are? How long do they live? How long do they live?

AlexOh, interesting. How many times will this death break your heart? Yeah, you get the goldfish problem.

MerlinLifespan.

AlexI don't know. My betta fish lived for years and years

Merlinand years. 10 to 15 years. That's because it didn't have any testosterone. What about sex toys You could go to the library You say I know I want a dong I don't know if I want a double dong You know what I'm saying You could go You could check out a tens unit Maybe you want to be shocked I don't know

MaxThe library staff already has to clean the bathroom Oh god People love to ruin that bathroom It's one of the most eminently Ruinable bathrooms

AlexPeople are already experimenting With stuff there They don't need more of that

MerlinWell I mean obviously you'd have a room to try it on Can I accommodate a double dong Or let's be honest my half of a double dong

MaxI mean I think the university library primarily Just serves as a sort of setting for Cam girls to record videos now I don't think anyone is actually studying there So they may as well make the full plunge

MerlinI always said Universities are going to have to evolve

Speaker AOh no Dig Dug Should we challenge? Yeah challenge

MaxBoy I really want a sugar glider you guys No Merlin do you think your family would like a sugar glider?

MerlinYeah but here's the thing Here's the thing Okay so just real quick And yes let's get to the challenge so I have been pitched on all of these animals and long story short finally capitulated on the cat later on my kid really wanted a bearded dragon and so I'll tell you what sold me the thing that sold me number one YouTube video I'm not proud of this YouTube video of a bearded dragon eating a blueberry it was possibly the cutest thing I've ever seen

I didn't tell them this but I was like that's pretty fucking cool I'd like to watch a lizard eat a berry one day after school. I picked my kid up at school and I said, hey, you, uh, why don't we lift over to the store? So we lifted over to the store. We walked in, I, uh, I called and I said, on the way in, I said, Hey, Hey, uh, do y'all have, um, you know, did a Google search and et cetera. This is just a place up, up in the avenues here, like North of us by the park. And, uh, I said, do you have any bearded dragons? She said, yeah, yeah, we have two, uh, two babies and one full-grown one.

We get there. We walked into that room, and I knew the second I saw Bando that he would be mine. I knew immediately. How did you know?

AlexWhat a beautiful story.

MerlinThe look in his eyes, just the level of dignity. He can't do anything without being extremely dignified. And then he turns his head a little bit. But I put down a deposit right then. I called my lady, and I said, look, I know you and our daughter are into this? Is it okay if I put down a deposit just to hold the lizard? Wait, wait, you needed a deposit for a lizard? They, so basically somebody had turned in the lizard. There's somebody who had been the animal companion on for many years. And the person basically turned it into the pet

store and said, Hey, look, you know, sort of like a predestination, leave a baby at the nunnery situation and said, look, you know, I just, this is too much for me to deal with. I don't know if They were, you know, whatever. It's not.

AlexThey were just testing it out.

MerlinNo, they had it for years and it had a good home. So technically, I'm saying that it was an adoption, but it was critical for me to go to a place and meet one of those animals to know. And it was the easiest decision in the world. Because as soon as I saw him, I'm like, we could totally do this. We could totally do this. I mean, we're in for a few hundred bucks to get the stuff. It's the easiest pet I have ever been around.

AlexHuh.

MerlinI mean, on the matrix of coolness to easiness, like, goldfish is easy, but it's a garbage pet. Like, this thing, woof, he eats blueberries, you guys. Max, you need to, what I'm trying to say to you is, pet stores are essential.

MaxHow did you know when you walked in, how many lizards were there? Well, there's a ton, including some other ones that we've been thinking about.

MerlinBecause I've been keeping a notes file. But how did you know that Bando was the one that you were going to get? Well, we saw the little ones at first, and we were like, oh my god, these are so cute. And my daughter was like, I'm scared I'll kill them. I'm worried that if we got babies, we wouldn't. I was like, I take that point. And they said, this is Bando.

And I looked at him. I looked at him and he looked at me and went, hmm? Turned his head a little bit. He looked over. And his little eye blinks and he looks at you. And how did I know? It's difficult to describe. Maybe it's a Malcolm Gladwell blink thing. But I guess what I'm trying to say is for the longest time, I think this is not a terrible way to make decisions in life. don't at me. But you should spend a super long time thinking about all the reasons not to do something. Because really, you should do almost nothing in life. If you start getting the urge to do something,

that's when you start doing your research, you start compiling things, you learn the benefits, you do some swats, all that kind of stuff. And then, luck favors the well-prepared. If you've researched well and prepped well and told yourself no enough times, you'll know when you meet the one. Pet stores are essential, Max. You need to go see a sugar glider. Their movements might disturb you. That's one thing. I bet their movements are odd. Not based on these pictures I'm looking at.

They're still images.

MaxYeah.

MerlinCan you find a live photo? Maybe see its balls. Oh, that's so cute. What's his name? What's your top contender right now for a name? Potato.

Speaker ADr. Lard. Dr. Lard.

MaxWhat if you had one named Cheddar?

Speaker AI think that's one of mine, too.

MaxMr. Biscuits. I really want to call something Mr. Biscuits. What if you're in a meeting and the little sugar glider pokes its head out of your pocket and you're like, oh, that's Mr. Biscuits. Don't worry about him.

Speaker AThanks, Mr. Biscuits.

MaxHe just wants a blueberry.

MerlinI want to reverse engineer a pet out of the cool names. see like pepsi and pepsi jr those could be completely different species

Maxwhat if you had a cat named pepsi and a sugar glider writer named James. One wrote on the other.

MerlinOh, boy. rosabelle crackers lord nibbler tobiko Beezy

MaxDid we have a challenge this week? I can't remember Did you guys watch the Sudoku video? No I heard the threes were good Oh shit I'm going to endorse this for you guys but also everyone listening to the podcast

MerlinYou almost did it Alex, I want to give you credit I want to give you 25 co-host points for almost successfully getting us to the challenge by my count at least twice

MaxThank you There's a video going around You can put on YouTube the Miracle Sudoku, and it's a guy who I don't know much about him. I think he's a competitive Sudoku solver, and he takes this really hard puzzle. It's a puzzle, so it's a Sudoku, but it has extra rules added to it.

MerlinBut isn't it like nine Sudokus?

MaxIt's a three by three. Okay, yeah, yeah. So it's nine separate Sudoku puzzles. Right, but they all work according to Sudoku rules. Oh, my God.

AlexThere's many Do we want the one that was two days ago Or one week ago

MerlinLet's see I saw Jason Goldman Tweeted about it so I'll find that one

AlexAlright There's a 500,000 view And then there's a 100,000 This is

MerlinWe can't watch the whole thing right now

MaxI'm guessing it takes a while So you want Cracking the Cryptic The Miracle Sudoku, 335,000 views, 25 minutes and 48 seconds long. Yeah. And it has a red background. Don't watch it now. All I'm going to tell you is I know it's a tough sell because it sounds insane watching a man solve a Sudoku for 25 minutes, but it's just one of those things. It's like Tiger King. It's going to grab you by the balls right away, and it's not going to let go. And all of a sudden, 25 minutes are gone, and you are on the edge of your seat, and you're like, this is one of the most enthralling things I've ever seen.

MerlinI love stuff like that. Do you remember the thing about the, there's probably a This American Life or a radio, it might be Radio Lab, but the episode about the, what is it? It's like a thing in a cave where the, it's like a stalactite kind of thing where the tar drips only once every few. Is that what it is? But it only does it like every few years. And if you miss it, you missed it. That's it. It's like Halle's Comet kind of thing. Yeah. I think stuff like that's fascinating. Time was, we would watch, the first webcam I remember back in the day was of, I believe it was a coffee machine,

was the first webcam I remember.

MaxThat's something back when I was a kid, we played with a hoop and stick. Oh, you were so lucky to have a hoop. We bought a hot dog for a nickel and went uphill both ways to the movies.

MerlinI had half a stick that I got to borrow once. And I loved it.

AlexYou know, but both of you are making the point of, this is a very entertaining thing to watch that requires one human being. Also a webcam of a bunch of animals or a God, the fucking marbles. I love watching the marbles.

MerlinWhat's the marbles, Alex? What's the marbles?

AlexOh, you don't know what the marbles are at the marble racing leagues.

MerlinSure. I do. I was just funning with you. I love marble videos. What the fuck? What are you talking about?

AlexMarble? Oh, see, see, see, you're not, you're, you're not. Merlin,

Maxthe one thing that you need to know is that it's to do with marbles.

AlexOh, I love that video There is a racing league For marbles, literal Marbles

MaxIt involves Marlin It's marbles

MerlinHere's my question, if you can make a teacup chihuahua Why can't you make a teacup bear? What if I could get a bear?

MaxOh, that's very cute

AlexExactly, the panda thing Exactly

MerlinOh, a little panda I love pandas

AlexDid you know they are actually, like, in terms of their species, they are carnivores, yet they choose to eat bamboo. It's a choice they're making. They're so stupid.

MerlinYou are Parks and Rec, and those things are, pandas are libraries and salads. Like, you have such a hard on for pandas. I don't understand. What did the pandas do to you, Alex?

AlexThey just...

MerlinThey're so sweet. They're pretty smart, aren't they?

AlexNo. No.

MerlinWhat about with the bass stick?

MaxThey go in the bass stick.

MerlinThey go in the bass...

Speaker AOh, all she wants to do is rake the leaves,

Merlinand it keeps getting in the bass stick, and it falls over. He keeps foot holding on his behind.

MaxOh, my God. Okay, I will watch this. Merlin, I think the thing you're missing here is, though, that there's a video about marbles.

MerlinWait, so is that up right now?

MaxThe marbles? Yeah. Yeah, it's marbles.

MerlinMarbles.

MaxOkay, but it's not a live stream. Okay. No.

AlexWell, sometimes they live stream them.

MaxAlex, you want to tell us about the challenge this week?

AlexOh, this week's challenge was, I don't know. Let me go to the doc. Get yourself a treat. This week's challenge. Get yourself a treat.

MerlinWho's the panda now, Cox? Can someone check to make sure Alex is still recording? Is your brain getting smoother? Are you taking any kinds of new powders we should know about?

AlexOh, I mean, I do have a Nespresso shot multiple times a day now. Whoa. This is wild.

MaxThis is so interesting. From where? What's making it?

AlexLittle Nespresso pods. Oh, nice. The ones that people got mad about.

MaxNespresso's the good one, I think. Little pods. If you're going to do a pod, I think the Nespresso's the way to go.

AlexYeah, yeah. It's great. However, I only did the three out of ten today, and I think I'm going to go and have a seven out of ten. Oh, okay. And you might ask, oh, come on, Alex. Is that about marbles? What is 3 out of 10, Alex? What does that mean? I don't know. I don't know. I wish I could tell you. I've Googled it. I don't know.

MerlinOkay, let me, I'm going to jump in at this point. Hey, everybody, the challenge this week was to get yourself a slightly fancy treat.

AlexOh, yep. Yep. Merlin, how about you go? I think I know what you got, which is very exciting.

MerlinWell, I mean, it is only accurate to say that I peanut buttered insofar as I peanut buttered. But I didn't actually. I did a classic Dubai Friday. Yes, I did not succeed, but I super tried. And I have a thing I want to do for a future challenge as a result. What I wanted to do, what I want, is a 3D printer. I've been wanting one and as soon as I mentioned it to my kid I kept getting multiple, multiple texts

Did you pick one yet? Did you get one yet? So the peanut butter part is I didn't get a 3D printer The good part is I would like us to think about Do we all sort of agree offline to consider some kind of maker machine challenge? Oh, I'm down to do that Okay, so of course, I'll wrap and then I'll 30 you guys. So I tried, I did the research, and I learned just enough. It was a perfect education where it didn't take me long to realize I don't know enough to know what I don't know.

And I don't want to misspend cash on this and then discover it has a proprietary format or won't make Star Trek dolls. So what I did What I ordered that will not arrive Well has not arrived in time Is I ill-advisedly bought a raspberry Pie setup that I would like to play with And so I did that The only thing, the closest thing I got to a treat that arrived is a new Aware Air quality plugin Which is not very interesting

AlexDo you know about the Aware family

MerlinOf products? No

AlexSo not the Kewl family Aware products

MaxAm I having a stroke right now? Do you guys smell toast?

MerlinWhat the hell are you talking about? Toast would be a sweet name for our shared letter

AlexAware products

MerlinIs that like a Kewl? Are you talking about Ain't it cool news?

AlexI was trying not to use the word Molecule

MaxNow I have the Kewl hub I have the Kewl hubs for smart homes I used to have that

MerlinI used to have that, but then I went with the Kuelhub for the Enterprise, which is a much better one. It's very difficult to use, but it's easy to buy.

MaxNow, does that talk to my Somfy home? No, no, no.

MerlinNo, you're going to need the Glorp Bridge. Oh, God. Also, it does work with HomeKit, but only at night, and not the night you're thinking of. You're going to have to run HomeBridge in Docker.

MaxShut the fuck up.

Speaker ATry this. I tried that on my Synology and I was so fucking lost

MaxDo not tell me to run Homebridge Get out of here with your Homebridge

Speaker AOh boy

MerlinI got tired of having to swipe

MaxYou might as well tell me it doesn't work If you're telling me

MerlinYou might as well drop a box of wires on my head

MaxYeah Just go ahead and say it doesn't work If you're like no there's a module for Homebridge It looks in Docker

Speaker AIf you go get the correct Perl module You should have no problem at all

MaxJust go ahead and say it doesn't work right out of the box.

Speaker AAll right. Then you're going to, seventh, you're going to go create a new instance of Blurpub. Then you're going to populate that with the directory files that you found under the username. You're going to have to update the quota, not to four terabytes. It has to be an even number, divisible by 28. Now, if you want to get the camera connected, you can't do that. You're going to need HomeLorp. HomeLorp. HomeLorp for that. You can check it out for that.

MaxGet the PyThaiMod. Just save me the work. Just let me buy the thing. Just let me buy the thing, and then it should say right on the box that it doesn't work, and I can throw it right in the garbage and save the time. Because now the thing doesn't work, and you wasted my time.

Speaker AYou didn't have mono installed. You're going to want to get this branch, not any other ones, and don't update it. Oh, boy. Court pro.

MerlinSo that's going to be neat when this fucking Raspberry Pi arrives, because I saw, ooh, you can make a cool camera with this, And I didn't even bother talking to the ATP guys about this. But so I thought, yeah, screw it. What are you going to do with it? Well, I mean, Raspberry Pi seems fun. Yeah, it's cool. And I thought it might be a thing my kid. Oh, is it? I mean, is it? Do I really need to solder and stuff? No, I don't think so.

AlexI think it depends on what you get.

MerlinBut you can like make a little computer type thing, right?

AlexYeah. I mean, I have the basic ass like $30 one that it just does some bleep bloops. And then you've got Linux. And I have done nothing with it other than that.

MerlinI thought it would be kind of a fun project, maybe. But yeah, so that's coming. But I would, and again, I'll table this probably for the after show, which you can listen to. We do an after show every week. You can go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com. Maybe in the after show, we could talk about that idea for the Maker Challenge and get some movement on.

MaxI'm fully into the Maker Challenge. I think, Merlin, on the topic of the 3D printer, I used to know a lot about this. and I'm at least five years out of date now on what's going on with 3D printers. You are primarily interested in it for the purpose of making... Star Trek dolls. Minis, right?

MerlinThat's part of it. Yeah, yeah. I wanted to do all the things, but yeah, yeah. I just...

Speaker AYeah, yeah.

MerlinThere's all kinds of ways I could get this very wrong in a very costly way.

MaxWell, I actually think you're not... So I think 3D printers are very affordable right now. And I think it's a good time to buy them. There's lots of different good brands of 3D printers out there. And you probably can't go that wrong. But I also think...

AlexYou can't go that wrong.

MerlinSo far, this is definitely very actionable for me so far.

MaxNo, no. What I'm saying is I think you have a lot of good options for 3D printers. There's not like you're going to get a bad one. They're all fine now. Part of it is it's the wire cutter problem.

Merlinwhere I, the, the, whatever wire cutter has become problem, which is that like, I don't want to buy the $800 one that's not good enough when I should have just popped for the $1,200 one that does what I want.

MaxYes, I, however, for the purpose of making minis, I actually think that you may not want the 3D printer. I think the 3D printer may not make, may not sort of be capable of making the, the sort of topology of the shape that you want. And I think what you may want is, a newer thing called a resin printer.

MerlinRight. Yeah, I saw that on Slack. I don't know what that is. A resin printer.

MaxSo it's a bath. Okay, so it's a little...

MerlinOh, the way that it makes one of those... You go to an amusement park in the 70s and it makes a gorilla for you, that kind of thing?

MaxThat's more of a mold. And the way the resin printer works is pretty cool actually. So it's like a little tank of liquid, resin, of some sort of plastic or some rub, I don't know, something that I'm sure is horrible for you. And then a laser a laser basically shoots into the liquid layer by layer and freezes it, solidifies it. And somehow what you get out of this thing is a much more high quality, smooth professional looking

sculpt. But also there's certain without getting into too much detail, with the 3D printer, the way that it works, there's certain geometries it sort of can't do. so any sort of shape that cantilevers out is very challenging for the 3D printer so imagine like

Merlinanything that's tapered like a sword, it probably can't do a super good sword do you get that army man problem where the legs are kind of weird

Maxexactly what I was going to say imagine a guy holding a sword out I think you're going to have a lot of trouble basically 3D printing that sword I'm out of my depth here and I'm sure we're going to get some notes on this which may be helpful but I think the resin printer is what you want

MerlinThis strikes me as something that would be good for the, uh, to ask about on the discord probably. Yes. So I bet you there's at least one person there who knows about 3d printers. I have a feeling.

AlexI've got a pretty strong feeling that they do.

MaxCan I, can I FaceTime you video guys to show you? So, Oh, for the challenge this week, which was to buy something stupid.

AlexNo, it wasn't. It wasn't. Okay.

MaxWhat was it? Unconventional fancy.

AlexI don't know.

MaxWhat was the challenge this week?

AlexI don't know.

Speaker ABuy yourself a treat.

MaxI don't know anymore. I bought myself a treat. Can I show you? Can I FaceTime video you? Sure. I'm putting down the microphone. I'm going to start the video call, but while I'm getting ready, just try to open your third eyes.

AlexOkay.

MaxDo I have to stand up for that?

AlexI am.

MerlinWhy are you spreading your butt cheeks? Just airing it out. What? What? Did you watch that, Alex? Did you watch the earliest show?

AlexThe earliest show? Yes, yes, yes, yes.

MerlinMax joined FaceTime. I have D&D on, so where do I find this? I'm clicking FaceTime, FaceTime, FaceTime. I am in my underwear. Time to join.

AlexOh, how do I mute this? I guess I can't.

MerlinOh.

AlexOh.

MerlinWhat? It's a LED light thing?

AlexOh, oh.

MerlinSo many hexagons Are you in a TARDIS?

AlexThis is too early in the day

MerlinHas it taken Max? Has it taken Max?

AlexI think so Is he green in the cube? You okay? You okay Max? Whoa Oh no

MerlinSo y'all won't be able to see this Max has sent us a video of something and we don't know what it is It's got hexagons and depth And what appears to be lights and oh oh fuck this fuck this I hate it cool okay whatever that is oh cool knife I want to buy that right now what's it called Max what's it called

Alexhe doesn't have his headphones on

Merlinit's like a flashlight it's like a galaxy fleshlight

Alexoh oh my so he's activating the galaxy fleshlight, it seems, with an actual flashlight. Is that a pun? I don't know.

MaxOh, okay.

AlexI think he's coming back to the couch. Did you guys have

Maxany sort of spiritual experiences while I was going? That was really... What's it called? What's it called? What is that? So that's a... It's a kaleidoscope.

AlexOkay. Yes.

MaxIt's gonna upset you how expensive it is.

AlexOh, shit. Really? Oh, boy. Okay.

MaxAll right. Don't get too excited. Okay. it's called a Nova scope

MerlinNova scope

Maxand it's made by I paid I paid not correct I paid not a good amount for that for that kaleidoscope

AlexI guess how did you hear about I assume there is a kaleidoscope community

MaxI was googling I was looking around at different mystical artifacts that I could buy and look at. Oh, you're like a regular Ricky J, huh? I don't know. I've had the Nova Scope in my shopping cart for almost probably two years. Hmm. I can't find it. Did you get it from Amazon? No, no, no, no, no. No, this seems... These are all one-off art pieces made by a dude. Okay. David Sugich. Sounds possible.

AlexOh, this website also is a little too trippy for this early.

MerlinOkay, there he is. There's David. Hi, David. We are the largest supplier of novoscopes in the world. I want one. I'll click that.

AlexOh, that is not nearly as much as I thought it would be.

MerlinWhere? Purchase. Okay, I'm clicking. Enter the password.

MaxOh, I'm sorry. Are you not spiritually ready to purchase the novoscope? Oh, I guess I'm not. I'm sorry Merlin did you think you could just waltz right in and buy one of those oh my god I did

Merlindid I just prove myself unworthy I think so oh shit

Alexthis is okay so can you go into a little bit of what is happening here because I don't

Maxyeah it's a fucking piece of glass and it's got some mirrors in it and it's metal I think I don't know

AlexBut it's got a lot of mirrors. I mean, oh, wow. This is like some Disney World's Epcot level shit. And it's, is this just one guy?

MerlinI'm trying to decide how I feel about this guy's attitude because I think I might love his attitude. On the face of it, I despise his attitude, but I think I kind of love it. It's sort of like the way Syracuse keeps raising the price of his apps because he doesn't want people to buy it. That's such a Merlin move. FAQ, penultimate FAQ. How do I buy one? Sign up to the Nova Scopes newsletter To get the password to the shop You only send emails out to notify you When Nova Scopes and other products have been added

AlexYou know what I'm

MerlinI get it, I see it, I see it, Max, I'm not worthy I still haven't watched the second half Of Dear Evan Hansen

AlexWell, that's the thing, and I had tickets Related this year, and so I was like Do I just watch it now? I don't know

MerlinThis is the thing with blank check, you have to earn the next episode Alex, what dumb thing did you buy?

AlexI bought a desk chair Oh cool Yeah You know we have a fund

MaxI've repeatedly told everyone that we have like a fund For everyone to buy office supplies for their home

AlexWell I The chair that I bought was $30 and it was the fastest thing I could get and it's really Really uncomfortable now so I have

MerlinAlex I'm so sorry I think we had a transmission error there Did I hear that you bought a $30 chair

AlexNo well not for this challenge I spent a lot of, I saw what Merlin was spending and then I did it. No, no.

MerlinOh, notionally.

AlexNotionally. Oh, wait. Damn it. Where's the tab? Where's the tab? Because I have sat in the wire cutter recommended chair and this, I also peanut buttered in that it's not going to come here until, oh, six to 10 days. Cool.

So I, this is the thing. I don't like buying things unless I can have the nicest thing. Does that make sense?

MerlinNo, I've quoted you on that. I think that's a very interesting idea. I can only, they say, that's that saying, I can only afford the most expensive one of these.

AlexYeah, because if-

MerlinBecause I don't buy a lot of stuff, and the stuff I do buy, I just want the good one.

AlexIt has a 10-year warranty, and like, I haven't ever really owned a desk chair, because there's school, and then there's a dorm room.

MerlinOh, this one, yes.

AlexYeah, and I think it's similar to Syracuse's chair, but I No, it's the one I bought

MerlinOh, really? It's his wife's chair Yes, I bought this one Are we not saying the name?

MaxOh, it's

MerlinI don't know even what it's called Don't create puzzles for people Because then they'll just want to solve it Okay, it's the fucking steel case gesture chair And it was expensive and I bought it Close tab It's really nice I did take the arms off a la Syracuse So which took some getting used to It's pretty comfortable But, you know, for once, I do kind of agree with Syracuse where this is probably not the best time to buy a chair because it would be nice to really sit in one. Well, it's a lot like the Sugar Glider.

AlexYes. You've got to sit on it. I have sat on this one.

MerlinThe other one you couldn't even sit in.

AlexWell, the one I had didn't have arms, so I had to double, triple check that I can also remove the arms on this one. Because once you get, oh, with the armless lifestyle, oh, that's problematic, isn't it? once you take the arms off your chair, it's a whole new game.

MerlinYou get a little low for that one.

AlexWell, no, it's true, though. There's the stock and flow thing that Max talks about. If I were to move, there's really not much in my apartment that I would take with me. I'd be like, everybody, just the next person who lives here, you have to deal with the IKEA furniture. It would cost more to move it than it would be to just buy new IKEA furniture.

MerlinI know exactly what you mean. Like, hey, you want my cinder block and board bookcase apparatus?

AlexYeah. And I was like, I don't know. Everything, this sounds, I don't know. I'm a spoiled middle class white bitch. And I have anything that I would want. I don't know. I get an iPhone every year.

MaxWhat is that in service of? I'm so confused, Alex. Alex, do you have a fancy marble?

AlexOkay, you got me there.

MaxOkay, well, there's always, you know, a bigger marble. I don't have a marble.

AlexI don't have a fancy-est marble. Okay, I'm not ready for the marble.

MerlinDid you ever make him a Batman, by the way?

AlexWhat?

MerlinRemember Max's requirement, if you got the new computer, you had to render him the most exquisite Batman. I don't remember this. Oh, we were drunk, that's why you don't remember.

AlexOh, we had a lot of, that's the night that I just slept at the office, yeah.

MaxYeah, I did get pretty drunk and buy Alex that expensive computer. Hey, do you guys have a fantasy of buying a bunch of land in the woods and going to live in the woods?

AlexOh, yeah. Sure.

MaxYou guys thinking about that a lot?

AlexYeah.

MaxOh, I mean, actually? How easy it would be to go buy a bunch of wooded land and build a cabin and just go live in there.

MerlinIt would be easy to buy a lot of wooded land and build a cabin there. Talk more about that, Max. So you're going to draw upon your skills In real estate, carpentry Wiring, plumbing Land rights issues You could build it on your secret island You're forgetting the key thing Which is that I would pay other people to do all of that stuff I hadn't thought of that, that's a good idea

MaxTo whom you may concern

MerlinI'm in the market for someone to build me a cabin in the woods

MaxI would design the cabin

MerlinClowns need not apply I could just have someone build a You could, I mean people do that You're cabin men go find a qualified, insured, contracted, bonded cabinman. Yeah. I've been looking at

Maxwoods, and if

Merlinyou're willing to go... You would really thrive. I feel like you would really thrive in the middle of the woods.

MaxIf you're willing to go a couple hours out of a city, you could just buy land for not a lot of money. That's true.

AlexWell... That's true. What you are saying is true. You can buy land. It's actually true. You can also move to Venus.

Speaker AI mean,

Maxtheoretically a lot of things you could do okay well someone's someone's not getting an invite to visit me at the cabin well i you don't have to split some wood if you know what i mean uh

Merlinoh well so uh okay without without uh compromising your uh info on opsec what tell tell me about you talking about one room cabin like a fancy cabin like a youtube cabin when i say cabin what i mean is a house. Oh, yeah. You should get a Matt Howey house or a Ex Machina house. We all want the Matt.

AlexLet's not pretend.

MaxLet's not all pretend that we don't all want Matt Howey's house. You just can't get his garage door open. God damn it.

Show notes

Transcript

187. Dr. Lard

Show notes

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