206. The Money is More Flavorful

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. This week's challenge, eat paper.

Hello. I won this time. I feel really accomplished.

MerlinI'll let you win you know that's the thing as a parent it has to be in my nature to always let the other person win

Alexis is that how parenting works are you practicing parenting on me

MerlinI've already said too much I'm practicing life on you I've already said way too much because you have not been well as we say in the community you haven't been read it you have not been detailed on what's involved

Alexin terms of parenting

Merlinyou haven't even gotten the manual yet

AlexI

MerlinI've already said too much Alexandra, I'm exhausted We've Setting aside gestures broadly We've been struggling with some tech issues But now we're here Hey everybody, it's Dubai Friday challenge

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

MerlinGod, you're so quiet

AlexI can just sit further from the mic But talk louder Since I don't really know how to use

MerlinThis microphone You get a lot of nice room noise from that

AlexOh, oof

MerlinAh Ah.

AlexYou seem upset. About what? Tech issues aside. And, well, let's talk about the gesture broadly.

MerlinOkay, first of all, okay, listen, listen. I have a lot going on right now of my own design because I choose to have projects.

AlexI've got a lot going on.

MerlinI'm using a different keyboard. I have a new Razer. I set up and configured a new router at my office, and I'm doing a lot with my Synology. So there's a lot of things happening. on top of which everyone texts me all the time. I get so many texts. And I should just be able to just go turn that off. Also, my Matthew Castellini-Cassanelli D&D is being spotty, and I haven't had time to track that down. So when I think my D&D is on,

because you know I got D&D as a complication on this watch now.

AlexOh, yes.

MerlinOh, shit, dog. I talked about this on the Back to Work program, But my God, I really, it's finally starting to click for me, like how this all fits together. It's really exciting. We should share faces.

AlexWe should share faces. Oh, oh.

MerlinI have good faces. I keep good face. I'm sorry. You know, I know we're good pals, but I'm so sorry. That was not appropriate.

I'm saying that unlike DJ Khaled, I do eat pussy. Not recreationally. But it's as a sacrament. It's a form of a lobby of communion.

AlexI truly wish Ben Shapiro's wife well. May her marriage not be in vain, as you would say.

MerlinYou know, it's really hard to know what's going on with other people. That's all I'm going to say about that. Yeah. It's very hard to know.

AlexUh-huh. Well, let's share. You've got all of your projects.

MerlinI think what you do is you get yourself, let's say, maybe 10 firearms in the house. You have some drinks. you just fucking go ham on your wife until your friend the cop gets there and then knocks you to the ground oh yeah yeah god damn that was you know and the thing is my lady and i said the same thing brad pascal or otherwise what he did or otherwise it it just sucks the way cops operate but that said he did have guns and hit his wife yes yeah i i i mean and we didn't see the whole thing

so we don't know what preceded that but now i'm not defending cops in florida and i feel bad about

Alexnot just cops not just talk about a cab it's more really it's kind of like a calf like all like all cops kind of seem like they're in florida is a cab the guy in moby dick is that

Merlinthe captain that's chasing the whale captain a cab yes yes that's stupid i don't even know if i got

Alexthe reference right that's why i just went with it because i don't think i've ever finished moby dick i definitely finished a child's i skipped i skipped so many chapters so many chapters i had a

Merlinclass um in my third year that i loved with a teacher that i loved and um this is the kind of shit you do at new college it's called american masterworks and all we did the whole semester what all we did we we read um three novels three big important novels and talked in detail and it It was Moby Dick, The Ambassadors, and Absalom, Absalom. And it was great, except for the part with The Ambassadors and Moby Dick. But the Absalom, Absalom part was really good. I don't hate it. I don't hate it.

AlexI have no idea who The Ambassadors are in Moby Dick, so I figured that out.

MerlinIt's Henry James, William James, you know, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs. It's one of those James boys from the James gang. It's either the psychologist or the novelist, probably the novelist. Are they brothers? I don't even know.

AlexOh, no. No. I really haven't.

MerlinYou can call me Ishmael. Just don't call me late for dinner. Oh, my God. I'm really inhabiting full dad mode.

AlexI thought you were not on Twitter as much.

MerlinWhy are you zooming in on my fake Peloton? I was just showing you a picture of my tween-eating paper, and you have the temerity to zoom.

AlexI, well, I think you should assume things about people more. And you should especially assume that I will always zoom in on every picture. And you should take it as a compliment because I was like, it seems that the Mann family has a, perhaps a Peloton product. And I'm just interested in that. and I was going to check by zooming in what the fake Peloton was to ask your advice.

MerlinYou're the kind of person where I would hand you my phone to show you a beloved photo. And then not only would you start flipping through all the other photos, you would zoom in on them and probably send all of them to yourself. And it's like, you know, I make myself vulnerable to you. I'm like a dachshund on my back, blah, blah, blah.

AlexWell, I mean, if you're in full dad mode, I really like dads today.

MerlinMy lady decided to get, she decided to get a computer bike for the days when it was, especially when we just weren't, you know, pretty much literally weren't leaving the house. And they both really like it a lot.

AlexThat's what my mom did. And we don't really have, as it's been established, I really like my small hobbit apartment. Well, my small hobbit apartment is fine. but i'm trying like i think all of us did before to prepare for sort of the second wave of of covid

Merlinlike i'm i'm gonna ride the wave it's so optimistic to think this is a third or second or third way i can't we're facing a third wave really yeah i think you might be getting still getting tossed around by that first one no but you're right you're right with thanksgiving cooler um it's

Alexgonna be tough well and that's the thing i'm definitely not gonna go to a gym and all of the gyms here are open in at least some sort of capacity um and so aren't you a big big uh big kettlebell girl now uh yeah but aren't you dead lifting and shit not dead no no uh kettlebells are still um mostly sold out i'm i'm am a resistance band person now and have only so's

Merlinmy lady she's always putting her wrapping herself in rubber and doing stuff yeah when she gets back from a run she she lays on the floor on a yoga mat and uh does rubber band things is that what

Alexyou do yeah uh multi multi-purpose multi-purpose bands uh but i i am i'm told required to to move uh because i saw my averages in in the health app the apple health app uh like the average

Merlinsteps year by year oh god i accidentally looked at that yesterday we can change it now

AlexYep. Yep. Thanks, underscore.

MerlinMy stand goal is now one. No, yesterday, I checked in yesterday because there's an app that I have previously subscribed to that for a variety of reasons I'm not finding, wasn't finding useful and I'm really not finding useful. Looking at you exist. No shade, no lemonade. But, you know, the insights of like, you know, it tends to be colder when it's cold. you tend to weigh more when the days are long what and i went to cancel it i saw that my average

Alexright now is like 1100 steps a day oh oh yeah no i'm i'm on like uh 1200 which i'm but probably down from 500 because i go outside now sometimes i walk around the block

Merlinbut move goals so i never really completely understood move versus exercise move is just its general movement exercises accounting for stuff like heart rate i i don't know i i just do

Alexwhat smarter and uh well what i assume um are are smarter people as well as at least more attractive people than i because i assume they must be fit that's you know what if there's

Merlinanything i learned from junior high you should always take all your advice from temporarily really good yes yeah they'll be a little good till they're at least like 19 probably i i text

Alexevery 17 year old i know and i'm like hey what sort of powders are you sniffing yeah when i do

Merlinthat when i do that it's a felony

Alexi'm i'm grooming them for peloton

Merlinyou mean like you're brushing their long pretty hair no wait you wait you're grooming them on behalf of i don't i don't know anymore i don't know

AlexI've tried the Peloton suite and I'm like, this is not for me. There's just a whole lot going on there. But I don't know. I feel like there should be some sort of exercise machinery in here. I don't know. Are you familiar with the Nintendo Switch Ring Fit Ring?

No, there's no board anymore. There's a ring.

MerlinI know about the board from back on the Wii.

AlexYes. I loved the board. Very good. Very good. Always loved the board. But now there's a ring, and it's quite fun.

MerlinI'm sorry. A ring? What kind of ring?

AlexA large fitness ring. like a Pilates ring I don't need to

Merlinwe're doing that kind of thing that we do a couple times what the fuck do you mean do you put it on your finger do you put it on your body

Alexdo you stand over it I'm not going to look it up oh my god there's that keyboard here we go target fine fine fine target

Merlinnever mind anyway ring but you like introducing technology our off brand fake Peloton the computer bike, I'm not going to click that. Just stop sending me things to click. I'm not going to click things you send me anymore.

Out of context. Oh, my God. And when you begin your sentence with an ellipsis, it's so confusing. Okay. So the one we've got, it's okay. As usual, I have to admonish certain members of my family to please potentially involve me for certain kinds of purchases for a number of reasons. Mm-hmm. Right? Okay. So, like, if you're going to, God bless you, God bless you. If you're going to buy shelving for the long-planned clean-up the TV and tech area project, don't surprise me with that.

AlexNo, no, no, no.

MerlinBecause you don't, I don't want to stack. I don't want the opposite of stack. What we're trying to move away from is stack.

AlexYes.

MerlinSo like if you get something that's very bespoke and has a five inch depth hipster figurine shelf on it, that's not going to hold a PlayStation and a Switch and an ear. You know, could you involve me in that? No, but the bike, I'm not going to use the bike, but I've gotten on the bike just to help them get it set up. It's hot garbage as tech constantly logs you out. It loses the Wi-Fi, but it's kind of nice. You can write a Google map. You can get on and write a Google map.

AlexOh, well, and that's the thing, too. My VR, my Oculus Quest, whatever the fuck it's called, that's now my new fitness technology that I'm a bit obsessed with. But I'm still sort of just waving my hands around and I probably should move my legs. And I also know that hopefully when things get when we return to normal, that this any sort of exercise equipment that I've acquired will just end up in the trash.

MerlinOh, it's going to go out into that Michael Scott area in the garage. The only thing I want to say here that's interesting to me is I've known for a long time, I used to say back in the 73 folders days, like if you want to build a habit, you want to do a thing, you want to ramp up with a new project. Some nerds benefit from, you know, gear, like maybe that's a notebook. But it could also be something like if it helps encourage you, like having a Fitbit is good. That's all great. I love technology. Technology makes a lot of stuff more fun for me when it would normally feel like drudgery.

But I have to tell you, like Peloton commercials really stress me out. Maybe it's the fast editing or something, or it's like I don't understand what they're doing, or that fitness mirror thing. I don't know why, but those ads freak me out.

AlexWait, are you talking about like internet ads? Okay, well, see? See? Okay, what the fuck are you talking about? I'm a millennial. I don't know what commercials are anymore. I see. Do you see ads? I see. I try very hard to not see ads on the Internet or my television. And I don't I don't know because everything is upsetting. When I watch Survivor Live, I'm like, I don't know what why you want me to buy these things. I don't I don't know.

And I don't think I've ever seen a Peloton ad.

MerlinI just don't want my shit stolen. I just don't. It's just crazy. Okay, so fitness. You're getting fit.

AlexOh, no, no, no. No, no, no. I just want to be alive, I think. That's...

MerlinA little bit privileged. Not everybody has that.

AlexI know.

MerlinDo you know how many literally billions of people are dead?

AlexI don't know. Okay, what the fuck are you talking about?

MerlinI'm not going to look it up, but I'm guessing probably a lot.

AlexI bet a lot of people are dead from what I understand and how life works. But there are some people in my life who would like me to stay alive as long as possible. So really, I'm just catering to them.

MerlinOh, I see you're doing it for others. Maybe you did get the manual. Oh, so my kid. OK, she texted me. She realizes that Spock is in The New Boys in the Band. And now she's into it.

AlexOh.

MerlinIt's got Spock. It's got Old Sheldon.

AlexOh.

MerlinGot some other people. And as you know, I loved that movie as a teen. And now they've remade it with Old Sheldon and Lil Spock.

AlexI still haven't seen it, but I, you know what?

MerlinIt's probably problematic.

AlexWhy? I was wrong about Mrs. America.

MerlinGay men in 1970, line dancing. I mean, they're going to, as they said, I think it was, it might have been Ken Quampus said, oh, Greg Daniels said to Angela, wow, you really made a meal of that. That one line you had, you really made a meal of that.

AlexNo, no, I've seen the original. Yeah.

MerlinOh, it's okay. It's very, you know, it's very campy, right?

AlexYeah. Yeah. It's a delight. You know, I don't want to speak for the gay man community, but.

MerlinI like that one guy with the rolled up sleeves.

AlexOh, yes, indeed.

MerlinI want that look. I mean, I can't pull off the Fosse. It doesn't stop me from trying. But if I could have that rolled up sleeve look, woof, that's a good look.

AlexHonestly, when anybody, and this now happens a lot, when anyone mistakes Maddie and I as a couple of gay men, I consider it a huge compliment. And I'm like, oh. For everybody, really. Exactly, exactly. I'm like, oh, you think I'm well-dressed enough to fit that stereotype right now? Yeah, okay, all right, sure, sure.

Merlinyeah here's my flag life is complicated that's for sure so so we get are we clear on the stack i've got things going on you're eating paper i got i finally set up my arrow oh no tick tock

Alextick tock keep that powder dry no no i'm just looking at my paper here and all things i write down so you write things down as well as having a google doc so what's the what's on the paper is it a secret i i mean i have a piece of paper but that's like for writing show notes because

Merlinyou don't like to hear this it's not actual literal paper it's envy ultra beta because i'm a beta but i do have paper here i i uh i have this um notebook right here that i that i write in throughout the day and it's it's become um a boon companion for me what all right i gotta ask

Alexwhat what notebook what notebook oh sure sure absolutely hang on it's you know i don't really

Merlinuse the structure of it and it's not super high quality ah ah everything is catching on fire i also got clipboard um cambridge limited uh something something i'll find i'll find the link for notes um um oh god the other thing i've done oh shit you know what this is boring we should have a separate show where we talk about technology because you know i'm always i'm always pushing the boundaries of technology. You know that, right?

AlexI really liked yesterday's back to work. Knock on.

MerlinYou did? Did it make sense?

AlexOh, yes, yes. I mean, and not just because you said boobies.

MerlinI feel like it wasn't very articulate about the exciting times. I think people could misconstrue what the boobs are about. It's about protecting children from boobs.

AlexIt wasn't boobs. It was boobies. I don't know.

MerlinNot all boobs.

AlexWhen any adult says boobies, it's just really, it's like an adult saying wiener. I can't say it. It's just funny. I don't know why.

MerlinI do. Oh, God. Because it sounds like a wiener. Wiener. Oh, my God. It's wangs all the way down.

one thing I did what happened was okay so I'm not sure why I did this I don't know why I'm buying all the premium subscriptions but in addition to popping for Guardian Pro I don't know why but if this is doing a thing where you got to pay now and I was like sure I mean it's worth it they've been good to me so I popped for that it's kind of a pay what you want within reason thing. So I went

back in. I turned off or deleted. I mean, I step on my own dick so often with overlapping technologies. The Eufy camera has settings. The HomeKit that hosts the Eufy camera has settings. The Synology surveillance station has settings. There's all of the settings and it's so easy to the camera is not coming up and I don't know which rule I made caused it. And you know, it even says in things like the WeMo app. God, can you imagine somebody from 15 years ago listening to this. This sounds like gibberish.

This is why I said this the other day. I said I never thought, I couldn't imagine saying to my internet phone, Google robot chicken Star Wars. That sounds like a cognitive distress test. Can you repeat them back to me, Mr. President? Google robot chicken Star Wars.

AlexOh, boy.

Merlinthat's but uh so uh so anyway i'm trying to clean that up but i'm also trying to extend things and you know what i did i did was an old one that i refreshed with some new with a new angle as you probably know well you're you're all in on um the home pod you don't you're not a uh oh yeah

Alextube family at all that's actually why i it's a point of contention right now because well because

MerlinBecause the Amazon product works. I have the nicest watch with all of the things. And if I say anything to that lady in the watch, it takes three to seven times as long as saying it to the lady in the tube. It's maddening.

AlexI've stopped even saying things to my watch and just holds the button down on the side of my phone. I know. Like a caveman.

MerlinLike a fucking caveman with a watch. Blah, blah, blah.

AlexYep.

MerlinSo here's what I did. Here's what I did. I went in, I tweaked some things. I went and there's, there's already like existing recipes people have made for this. But so when I hail my lady in a tube and I say, add XYZ to my shopping list or add XYZ to my to-do list, like a lot of people, I've set that up to push into reminders

Alexon iOS.

MerlinBut then I went in and I made, I found and kind of tweaked, what was it? Oh, I made an, I tweaked an AppleScript automator thing that will take the contents of any reminders list and I've converted it into dash space, you know, per line that I can drop right into the task paper. So I can talk to my dinguses throughout the day. I get a reminder to go in and call my inbox. It's called inbox, in reminders. and then with one little Apple script, it grabs it all and I can paste it into task paper.

AlexHmm. Why? Why?

MerlinBecause the lady in a tube is everywhere and hears me well, and it's fairly easy to add that to a list. I mean, I could add a tube.

AlexOh, no, I'm sorry. Why reminders then to task paper? Just because you, I feel like I missed a step.

MerlinWell, okay. So like there's this ambient, I have a need for ambient collection of unspecified items. And I could take the time to just go to OmniFocus or I could take the time. Unfortunately, again, I'm still on editorial on my iOS devices because I'm an idiot. And of course, when I open it up in editorial, I have to wait for it to sync from Dropbox because it can't do in the background. um but the the real the dream to me is i have the most transient unimportant thought

right it could just be anything it could just be do something with shelf and garage and all i have to do is yell into the air hey dingus add shelf in the garage to my x list and then that is very much an inbox type thing for me like i will process the meaning of that later on but I want to be able to keep cooking. I want to be able to keep cleaning, whatever it is that I'm doing. I want to, you know what I mean? Like, I just like being able to yell into the air and know that it's going to go to the right place. Does that make more sense?

AlexOh, it does. I was only confused by like putting it both in reminders and test paper, but. I mean, if, I mean, I mean,

Merlinmy HomePod, I moved from the house to my office. and honestly, because I thought I'm going to use this a lot more for the Siri purpose. But I discovered a couple of things because there's always a couple of things with me. One is, wow, I really miss having that in our bedroom as a speaker. Like it's a really good speaker and we don't have a really good speaker now. I can't like blare music or, you know, get a podcast going. And to make matters worse at my office, like it's nice to have a speaker here.

But I mean, I already, you know, that's not hugely important, but it doesn't hear great. And on top of it all, this is so fucking boring to get my Wemo shit that I like my legacy Wemo bullshit that I have at my office from when I wanted to have a hubless lifestyle at the office. Wemo by Belkin has never been super duper, but it has really it's really gone to sea. It is hot garbage. No matter what, the devices just sometimes don't show up. So what do you do? You buy their bridge.

You get the Wemo bridge, which supposedly makes it work with HomeKit, which it will do for a little bit until in a couple hours it just loses the connection for some reason and has to be hard rebooted. So when I yell, hey, dingus, lights off, it may not work at all. So I'm hoisted by my own batard. Are we going to get new HomePods? Do you think I should sit on getting another one, right?

AlexYeah, I would wait. And I think, I hope at least with the new HomePod will come new software as well because, yeah, yikes. But you have everything on lockdown in terms of stuff on your computer, but your, like you said, like your ambient computing life is mostly through Amazon. So doesn't that like skeet you out? I don't know.

And I don't know.

MerlinThe short answer is kind of, but not deeply. What is it that I should be more skewed out about regarding Amazon?

AlexOh, I just get concerned about the amount of data they have, not just about what I've purchased. Like I've given up, just accepted my fate with that like I have with Gmail.

MerlinBut just that they're one of those big companies that's triangulating stuff about your life.

AlexYeah. I mean, I don't know.

MerlinHow about that article? We talked about it super briefly last week, but we should find that article for notes. Oh, yeah. The outline? Where was it?

AlexI think I put it in, goodness. Yeah.

MerlinBut it was basically about these folks who made a tool that goes in and looks at all the trackers that you may not be aware of on a site.

AlexMm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

MerlinRight? Was that the idea? And like the opening, I showed it to you because the lead was so upsetting to me about a person, a trans person making a website for people, a very basic website, it sounds like, for trans people in the military. And then discovering that there were all these trackers that they didn't even realize had access that was, was it something like that? It was along those lines? You tell me, what was it?

AlexIt was a just like a support group for folks who trans folks in the military or I think anybody who's queer in the military, but not out yet, because this woman had successfully transitioned and was like, hey, I want to share this information. And I also want to make sure that, you know, people feel like it is a safe private space. Oh, God. Oh, no. and through no fault of her own i i i think uh ink or like the article i think proves it no fault

of her own all of these things are being tracked and god who i mean i don't know how the military works but like think about us just like some guy scrolling through instagram and then you're getting advertisements for uh like some i i i don't know like instagram ads are gendered and uh

Merlinyeah the war the war that i keep having about this because again this is all very nuanced and we have no idea if we're actually doing anything if you could you see if you can put your hand to that article um i feel like it's very frustrating to me that um whether it's with vpns or whether it's with um just all the various ways that things happen i mean i i i'm i am at this point on the verge of angry with getting yelled at about quote unquote running an ad blocker

that is it's such fucking bad faith well first of all what is it admiral or admiralty or whatever it's called. You go to a website, you click on some fucking bullshit, you know, the best double dongs for 2020 updated, whatever, you go somewhere and it gets the pop-up and it says, it looks like you're running an ad blocker. You know, you got to turn it off to do the thing. I would like to say, I would like to ban that result from ever appearing in Google again, because no, I'm not going to turn off my quote unquote ad blocker. It's so bad faith to say, boo, you're hurting independent

people because you won't see their ads. That is such bullshit. It's not the ad that bothers me. Ads can be annoying. The small annoyance that we've all had for years is ads getting in the way of why I'm here. But you know, okay, fine. Let's go help the independent people. But no, it's not the ad. The ad is fucking fish food. The ad is a lie. The ad is what you call the thing that's going to gobble up as much data about your shit as possible. Have we not learned yet that Facebook is not,

they're making some money selling ads, but they're making huge money selling data. And like, why are we still arguing about this? Who has the temerity to yell at somebody about ads at this point when it's not the ad that's the problem? It's like not being clear about what this shit is doing. How much time do I spend every day saying, no, I don't want your newsletter? Yes, I live in California and you can't track my cookies. All that shit, all the dick bars, all the sticky things, all that stuff every day just to like go look at a fucking website, one page of a website.

It's gross.

AlexI am so confused as to why someone who knows enough about ad blockers to like how they work to condemn someone for using it. Like what? Why?

MerlinYeah, but that brings up such a good question to me, which is like, well, okay, let's interrogate this a little bit. So you're either saying that it really is just an ad, that you like, maybe it's an ad you host on your own site. Maybe it's an ad you're getting from somewhere else. Do you honestly believe, do you believe or not care what kind of shit is happening behind the scenes there for your readers? Like, do you really, are you that disinterested in it? You're far more interested in the activism of yelling at people who don't want their shit triangulated permanently in the future.

AlexOh, are you talking like the blue check boys being like, hey, please turn off your ads. It's how we.

MerlinTurn off your ad blocker.

AlexGod, yeah. Yes.

MerlinOK, so did you watch the very good BBC for 20 minute segment on what the Trump campaign did with data?

AlexNo. I don't want to spoil it, but did you watch it? No. Oh, fuck.

MerlinYou need to see this. Of course, we get another round of, I don't know who needs to hear this today, but cancel your Facebook account. Yeah, that'll work. But long story short, basically, I guess they got some hacked campaign data.

So imagine a database or a spreadsheet. I think it was 220 million Americans with extensive data on their political affiliation, where they lived down to some UUID stuff on devices they owned, what propensity they had to be disposed to this candidate or that candidate, how enthusiastic they were about voting.

Did I mention where they lived? What their personality type is? Oh, and by the way, did I mention their race?

AlexI was going to, I'm like, I wonder where this is going. Spoiler warning.

MerlinSpoilers. Basically, they took this data and were able to serve. So the big part to identify was people who were on the fence, but mostly supporting Trump versus people who were on the fence, maybe supporting Hillary, but especially black people in that second group. And they were able to target extremely specific ads to suppress the vote of black people. They were able to target extremely specific ads to encourage the votes of white people.

And then on top of it all, apparently there's a certain kind of like a stealth ad that you can get on Facebook that like, I guess it comes and goes, it disappears. I don't exactly understand it, but it's crazy. And so this wonderful reporter comes to America, and he actually goes, because he's got the addresses, he goes to the homes of some of these people that were targeted and asks them how they feel about it. And it's a hell of a thing. I'll put it in show notes.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinSo, you know, okay, that's why I'm talking. Here's my question. How, so data, I mean, obviously some of that is public record, I imagine. But who fucking vends that? And it was put together by Cambridge Analytica, I believe.

AlexBut that data came from somewhere.

MerlinI mean, it didn't just it didn't just it was not just voter roles, the personality types. I mean, that's what I'm talking about, man. That's fucked up.

AlexWell, that's that's why I get freaked out about because I would say for better or worse, I'm not a very private person on the Internet. But I also have somewhat security through obscurity because no one wants to know what I have to say, which I am all in favor for quite honestly. But what happens when a bill is passed and insurance companies have all of the data that fit?

I mean, I've tried to burn that Fitbit account to the ground, but I don't know where that stuff has gone.

MerlinI totally agree.

AlexYeah, I mean, like, all of my weight. Oh, the medical data that I mean, I do have like everything in Apple, like my medical emergency stuff, like all of the medications I'm on, and you can very much guess all the things that are wrong with my brain based on that. And it, it scares the shit out of me.

MerlinI got some hints and clues and guesses. But yeah, I mean, I don't know how much of a cuck I am that I do trust Apple more than others. But yeah, I don't know. I'm assuming I can find this video. I've mentioned this. I must have mentioned this before. But I read a book, I think in, possibly after college. But it was a fucking game changer for me. And now I look back and I say, oh, you sweet summer child. like what a different time there's this book called the naked consumer it's probably out of

print and if it were still in print like it wouldn't matter because a lot of the information is probably pretty old but i mean maybe i was just primed as my my you know sort of you know 10 speed marxist idea of like how life works to come across to come across this particular book could you capture that please um but basically it goes through the way and this is the fucking dude, it's like the 1980s. It was this really interesting book where it's basically about what companies can learn about you through data

because there's data about you out there that they can learn things about you to market things to you. This was a relatively new idea, at least to my mind, in the 1980s. Two examples that jumped out. One is that Procter & Gamble put a lot of money into trying to capture the market of basically new mothers.

So new families. But people who just had a baby, you're very vulnerable, you're very exposed, so what do you do? You work with hospitals. So you work with hospitals to basically have a deal where you can get pampers or formula in front of that person.

So you go home with a spastic full of stuff from Procter & Gamble. Hooray, new mom. But another thing that they do is they know enough to know the times when a woman is most like, a woman who's struggling with breastfeeding is most likely to give up and go to formula. And they are able to know when to most heavily market to you in that time. And it also introduced the idea of what I think are, you don't want to say chronographics, which is if you know when somebody was born, you know how old they are in their life. And you can start marketing to that child, that young person, that adult.

This is in the 80s, Alex. This is before the internet was big, like before anybody had the internet.

AlexThat's what I keep thinking. I was like, oh, my God.

MerlinBut sometimes it backfires because United will send you a letter and say, congratulations on graduating from high school. Here's a discount for a flight. And the father writes back and says, actually, my kid died on a United flight a few years ago.

Anyways, but that was a big one for me.

AlexI mean, I was lucky enough in high school to have literally our entire AP English class was assigned the same like the same paper topic, which was American health care. and i look back on that now being like oh oh you sweet spring summer because i was going back i can't even find uh the name of the book but when i was at my parents house i was like looking

through it i'm like oh it was even it was even worse and it's just getting worse like they're they're like they might start uh there was there was like a paragraph about how they might start charging women more for birth control um this is in you know 2009 i'm like oh

Merlinand women are paying more for dry cleaning and haircuts oh boy griffin newman uh mentioned on blank check an early episode of blank

Alexmerlin don't listen to this hey hey everybody um i wouldn't admit this but you should really start start listening to the beginning of blank check like the first episode it's it's super worth it

Merlinokay sorry what were you saying when they when they establish the premise let's see have you

Alexlisten to some of it? I don't know what you're talking about.

MerlinYeah. Have you gotten to the point where Griffin talks about the paper that he wrote in, I think, middle school, maybe high school? No. So you know enough about to appreciate, like, Griffin's

Alexbit, his sense of humor, how he is.

MerlinWhat? The paper's called Back in Blackface. Or, Can You Minstrel Show Me the Way to Racism Street? Oh!

Alexию Dream Episode II JJ

MerlinThe early episodes of that show are so funny for so many reasons, not least because it's before they've learned to self-edit what they know is going to go on the internet. Kit Fisto.

And so you found this article called The High Privacy Cost of a Quote-Unquote Free Website. It's on themarkup.org. It will be in show notes.

Alexit is one of those heart it's one of those heartbreaking things of uh i think the vox and like um oh fuck what's the uh vice they tend to be like i i i think sort of um would be the word like they catastrophize a bit much sometimes yes and a little like over over dramatizing it scary violin music shit like that yeah like kind of like last night how

at first i'm like nah he didn't say proud boys did he not no that's that's no and then this morning like oh okay uh but this article super is like yeah uh here's a real world example and also here are the other times for example mayo clinic being caught key logging cure information oh and And, you know, if you've never talked to your doctor or like like hospital about the software you now have to use to schedule your appointments and like refill your prescriptions.

Just just ask about about that because they won't know what the fuck it is or even that you're doing that. And it's not it's not their job to know. But whose job is it?

MerlinBut that's such a good point. that's another one of these like fucking butter wouldn't melt in your mouth type situations in this in a similar way to like what me steal your data with my beautiful ads no it's like it's it's you know alex same thing in the schools like who in like a public middle school has the technical skills to vet these kinds of decisions like who at what level in like i guess in the it department

Alexthey do but they're making our kids use zoom it's still so crazy to me yeah i i on some level i am happy that zoom is in the spotlight in in that like you know before before this the folks who were using it um would like people sort of knew about the gross stuff they were doing in the background but it's like yeah they're like oh whatever and now that this has become just the universal application of our lives uh i i hope at least but if you're an adult who's choosing to use

Merlinthat for a cocktail party exactly that's that's that's you if you're a business that's forcing people to use that to put their fucking home yep into that screen that's a little fucked up making a five-year-old kid turn the camera on exposing the house dad yelling at one of his employees in the background mom wine mom sobbing like it's so it's so fucked up to force that on a kid it's

Alexi i just someone i i saw someone share on on reddit uh just it was an older sister who's the caretaker of their three siblings and they they live in a studio apartment because you know what are you gonna do it was foster care or live with this older sibling and all three of them are on zoom in separate classes uh like it was like third grade fifth grade or eighth grade and it's

like i i would love it if remote work was a option for some people it would be great but let's think through this a tiny bit just a tiny tiny bit like i uh privilege yeah yeah i mean but like i just

Merlinthink about and i'm we've talked about this so often in the past is like um we don't want to accidentally become that white knight that comes up and speaks for somebody who never asked for us to speak for them like let's not do that but at the same time like um i i can just know from my own feelings, my own shame in life, my own like, let's put it this way. You know, I always had my own room as a kid. I was a single child. And regardless of how modest our means and settings were, I did have my own room. It was a mess. I was embarrassed about what a mess it was.

I would not want my messy room to be something that my people in my class saw. But you know, it'd be even worse, revealing the fact that I don't have a room. Because maybe we don't have a lot of dough. And so guess what? It's a bunch of people screaming around the table. If you have lucky to have a table, if you're lucky enough to have internet. And it's just, it's so galling to me to think about how some, I mean, again, I'm not trying to be a white knight, but like, it's really galling to me to think about, um, being a kid that's like being compelled into this situation. And then like, you know, you just, you gotta, you gotta show the world your ass in a way that's

like it's so unfair it's so unjust to like force somebody to to put their room in a place where

Alexkids they may not have you ever met because to see it it's weird and this is another interesting side effect is that co-workers um you know again assumptions aren't something you should always make but suddenly you start to see sort of the implied wealth disparity among co-workers Oh, absolutely.

Which, oh boy. Oh, oh boy. Some bosses did not think that through.

MerlinWell, I'm trying to find something. Oh, here we go. Okay. Yeah, this is good. Friend of the show, Dan Sinker, wrote this for Esquire. There's a couple. So I've actually started a new folder in Instapaper called COVID. Because I had this idea that I might want to start, like, I don't know. I don't do this on main. but I would like to start sharing good stuff I've come across without trying to be an influencer.

So this is called We'll put this in notes by Dan Sinker. It's called The Crushing Reality of Zoom School in Esquire. We're only a few weeks in. We can't keep doing this. Can I read you a little

Alexof this? Did you read this? Yes, please. Let's do this reading series. I have not seen or read any of this.

MerlinOkay, it opens with a quote. Are you muted? The first thing my five-year-old learned in kindergarten set up at a tiny desk in the corner of our dining room, this may make me cry, is to always stay muted. It's probably the wrong thing to teach a child, but not everyone remembers, and then life bleeds in. Zoom school becomes a portal into worlds you never see as a parent making awkward small talk at pickup. You can hear a mom working at a job doing collections for medical billing, call after call. A dad who calls his sister on speakerphone, they fight most days. Grandparents

asking how long it's going to take, there are babies wailing. TVs, so many TVs, and endless buzz of TVs, the weather, the news, game shows, talk shows. Are you muted?

AlexOh my God.

MerlinSo this one, where is it right now? There was one, it's just, it's just, it's a really good article. And it's basically saying like, everybody knew this was going to be a disaster. And that's, that's, that's exactly what it's turning out to be. Returning further down, making school work in September required vision, action, funding and resolve on the part of people far above your teacher or school board member in the spring when everything shut down. None of it came. The entire point of the shutdowns was to buy time, to make plans, to lay a foundation for a return that would work. All that time got flushed away by a president

more obsessed with hyping miracle cures than doing the hard, thankless work of grinding out a workable plan with scientists and educators and then funding it at a level that could make it actually feasible. I feel like this man has access to my brain. That's what happened in pretty much every other country on the planet. None of them are foolproof, but they've done better than just the state of Florida alone, which had more than 10,000 kids under 18 test positive since their aggressive push for school to be up in Las Vegas. Should we start the show? well let's start the show how's it going everybody challenge ourselves um what else do you have what

else do you have we could talk more i think i've just gotten approval from my friends in philadelphia to put out this episode of the show.

AlexYes! Yes!

MerlinWe had some drinks.

AlexWait, wait, I gotta show you, oh, Past Alex, I love Past Alex so much right now.

MerlinOh my god. Past Alex. Yeah, Past Alex made a very good choice.

AlexP-A-S-T Alex? P-A-S-T Alex. I, oh, Alex from a few weeks ago was very, very smart. Because I, just like we we do our like funny funny like alex is a nerdy stoner bit but i typically don't oh oh dear oh dear what just happened what just happened oh i turned my watch on um i don't know how to respond to that stop stop it stop it sir i don't know how to to make do you say hey

dingus stop uh put your hand over the i i did it i just took it off because i got confused and

Merlinscared well well i'm sorry i don't understand what's happening normally when anything happens on your watch and you want to stop i know you know this you put your palm on the watch and it

Alexstopped does that not work oh it did it did not work um but i am still on the watch beta so well i'm i you know what i'm on i'm on the beta so say love you uh wait wait wait wait wait wait post seven you're on like a 701 or something no isn't it still at seven i don't know i always assume well how's that a beta it's public well yeah but it's the it's still i'm still like on the dev beta like i have what uh 14 point is it 14.2 that's out now for ios so confused watch

oh i see what you're saying okay that actually was confusing i confused myself you sent me a

Merlinphoto of a box then this goes the live photo i can see your balls so so oh oh is it really

Alexso i i really don't uh enjoy marijuana as much as i would like to and i'm like should i should should i really just gotta find the right thing should i get this uh big old chocolate bar for my birthday this this big peanut butter pretzel alex people can't see what you're talking about

Merlintell tell people tell people what you're what you've shown me here this this photograph i sent

Alexyou is just uh this candy bar called incredibles like like an ed uh marijuana edible i see what they did there edibles and i'm like and it is the peanut buddha buddha

Merlinthe master bought you peanut buddha buddha what that means i don't know i cannabis uh cannabis comma peanut buttery pretzels i would have given this a second pass incredibles is cute the the credible edible incredibles peanut buddha i think i think they're

Alexputting a buddha on a buddha here yes uh now i'm not really oh i get it it's it's buddha buddha it's not i i okay oh buddha buddha yes okay like that club in the sopranos i got it yep all right god that show i don't know if you've heard it that shows really shows really good anyway um the peanut butter butter you've seen the wire cannabis peanut buttery pretzels which is misleading because they just have like pretzel

Merlinbits in it it's it's just this is definitely missing some punctuation yeah yeah it's but uh yeah you guys don't design high yeah oh that's the thing sketch high sketch high edit sober this

Alexis this is what drafts is for drafts is where you put your your tweets not not in the twitter drafts like like not the twitter app drafts right in case in case they're still in case they're still too stupid yep yep nope you want to put that in drafts the app by mr greg thank you

Merlincameron you really you really want to do that uh but yes i love the birdhouse ad so much it still

Alexmakes me so happy i watch that like every okay well now we are talking about the application birdhouse or the former uh application birdhouse that was just created by adam lysagore and co aka lonely sandwich for uh just holding on uh all of your tweets the drafts for your tweets

Merlinyeah in case they're still in case it's still too stupid yeah yeah yeah uh now i gotta go watch i

Alexnow i gotta go watch it um i know i know anyway i bought a giant uh a chocolate edible for myself and uh i was like this is gonna end up in the garbage and then after the debates last night which which i knew i was going to watch i i knew that i was going to be sad i i was like i have to do it otherwise i'm going to be on twitter reading all about it i will not have that self-control I was that person who created a Slack channel

so I could complain and be sad about it and bother everybody.

MerlinOh, right. So you started that.

AlexOh, yeah. No, that was absolutely me breaking my own rules.

MerlinI don't know we're allowed to start channels. That's good to know.

AlexI actually didn't know that that was... I still don't know how Slack works. The rules change very often. But I... Yeah. Anyway, the rest of my night was real pleasant. I watched Adventure Time and pet my cats it was lovely oh which one oh both both of them they secretly like each other now it's very funny um both adventure times oh it what oh i'm sorry when you said which one i thought you meant which one which cat did i pet i uh i realized i'd never finished adventure time i thought it ended

Merlinyeah i don't think i did either that picture you sent of you and your dumb cat with the with the

Alexpaw on you is so sweet oh oh my my little precious angel who's an absolute monster um yeah when people say cats are bad i can't disagree they're awful they're just the worst but everything's the worst yeah yeah yeah anyway um i i would like to say though and i'll put this in notes um a friend of yours john dickerson wrote a like oh what was it what to expect from the debates or like what uh i basically he like he did like point by point exactly how the debates

would go 20 24 hours before the debates oh really i don't know if i saw that was it on twitter or

Merlinwas it in the i think it was really it wasn't okay i gotta find i didn't i don't know how i missed

Alexthat i gotta get back in the discourse i gotta get back in the mix yeah i mean i just didn't gosh, what an attractive man. I really hope he never sees this show.

MerlinHe's so attractive. Every time I show my kid a picture of us together at my office,

Alexshe's not nearly as impressed as she should be. He showed me his hipster PDA. Oh, God, it's so cool. It's so cool.

MerlinOh, my God. He's such a good person. He quoted somebody. God, those pencils are beautiful. They're a little bit light for me, but they are beautifully designed.

Alexwe need to have a pencil challenge at some point i i'm gonna put that in the doc i have capture that absolutely yes i'll put that in drafts right now pencil challenge see folks this is how the magic happens um yep yep yep if you subscribe to the after the show after show

Merlinyou get you get like a little bit of this every every week i don't even know how people get the

Alexafter show personally oh well well funny you should say so merlin you can go to give us your fucking money.com which will take you to patreon.com slash do by Friday and that's where if you would like you could give us $5 a month or $10 a month to support the show because we don't track your ads or give you ads that track you I don't know we don't do dynamic ads

Merlinto quote my friend Marco I don't want your data I do not want your data it's important to me to not have your data I don't want it

AlexPatreon will ask you for your email address. And the first time I signed up for Patreon, I made a fake one. But however, they have kept their promise not to send me bullshit. But you do have to uncheck everything. Anyway, what we will send you once a week is an after show, which is basically this show, except we're either more manic or more sad. It depends, week to week. and and oh uh sometimes we send out special treats but i will not be sending any physical

treats out this year because wow mailing right now not the best in case you haven't noticed

Merlinbut uh yeah don't i mean it's already we're getting so much political stuff in the mail now and you know what else is weird is like the the arrival times of mail it's it's so insane like in the past let's just well i don't think this is bobsack but in the past week we have had mail arrive it usually arrives uh usually like 5 or 5 30 p.m which is crazy because when i was growing up you always had the mail by noon but whatever different times um the uh so mail will arrive as late as 8 40 p.m and as early as 11 35 a.m but mostly closer to 8 p.m it's

Alexreally weird my spreadsheet covers all of this i i consistently now it it seems actually like 8 40 uh i actually have a shortcut to i i'm doing the same thing because i'm like is our like a guy working overtime i i've never seen the any of the male people male carriers uh in our neighborhood like i just i've seen trucks i've literally never seen a human being oh i have i have relationships with with most i would like a relationship with mine there was one that was speaking of problematic

Merlinthere was one we had for a year i i called him jay-z he was really he was really nice he was he was very kind and he looked like jay-z and um you know in the sense that you know he was tall

Alexand uh you know what if he didn't cheat on beyonce he was a better person than jay-z so really i think you're insulting him i'm sorry for interrupting not at all uh i think that

Merlinobviously this is a cooked up quote but a quote that john digerson made up that he posted three days ago. Wow. Time. As I wish my grandmother had said, with so much good food on the table, why would you take the bait?

I don't know if I exactly understand that, but I think I do. If you sat down, let's put it in a more obvious way. If you sat down to a beautiful fish dinner, why would you go straight to the worms?

Of course, he's having fun with the word bait. And this has become a bit that he's doing now that I think is really interesting. Don't take the bait. And that's what I kept saying to myself fucking over and over last night. And maybe they know things I don't know, but the biggest, Joe Biden, just stop talking. Do not, do not interrupt in return. If America gets to see the president argue with Chris Wallace for two hours, that's going to have a higher impact than you saying, hey, Jack, come on, man, like to join the fray. Because as much as he did it

so much less than Trump. It's still, today now, all the fucking discourse about this is, wow, that was really chaotic. It was mostly Trump, but really everybody came off bad. Fuck you.

AlexIt was, I mean, it went exactly as I thought. I honestly thought Biden did better than I, I mean, well, no, Biden did better than I thought he would. Like the one time he just addressed the camera.

MerlinI think he did as well as he could given those circumstances. I don't think anybody, I mean, that's not entirely fair to say, but I mean, because he has his troubles like we all do. But like, I don't know how anybody could come out of that looking good. And like it occurred to me around minute six, probably. And I tweeted this, but I also, at first I'd said it to my family. I was like, holy shit, he is going to treat this like one of his quote unquote press conferences where he just yells everybody down until they're exhausted by the whole thing. And I was like, this is insane.

It's, I mean, not insane, but insane. Like, it's just, I don't know. Fuck.

AlexI mean, it's not problematic to point out that a person is clearly unwell. The person who has literally the most weapons in the world is definitely, I'm comfortable saying pretty sure that guy has some really bad mental illnesses.

MerlinHe was extremely moist last night.

AlexWhy are they all so moist? Like, I am a person.

MerlinCan you imagine what the waistband of his underpants must feel like? Because he's probably wearing briefs, and I bet it's so moist that it almost squeaks. Like when he sits down to enjoy his Diet Coke, I bet parts of him squeaks.

AlexAre you familiar with Swamp Butt?

MerlinI mean, I feel like that might be kind of a trick question, but I'll say no.

AlexNo, this is actually something that I learned about from my cheerleader friends. because when I was younger, I did not sweat as much. But sometimes when you're working out and you have like a sweaty lower back and it kind of goes down your butt crack and then it looks- Oh, I see.

MerlinYou're saying it takes the path of least resistance. It's riding the rails. Okay.

AlexAnd I just sometimes wonder what goes on. Or if there are diapers in place, not for incontinence, but just for how- Aesthetics. Yeah, like maybe his suits are getting darker just to conceal some of the liquid coming out.

MerlinBut like, for example, I bet he does not wear Spanx.

AlexI don't know.

MerlinBut I bet he would happily wear something like Spanx. Well, what's up with those fucking like chimney pants? Those Kim Jong-un pants he wears?

AlexI think he does. So upsetting. Okay.

MerlinThis is all covered in the podcast that might go up in the next couple of days.

AlexThe, I mean.

MerlinI described to John and Amy James, I described the sides of his head as looking like a special needs eagle.

AlexChallenge! The hardest part of video at this point is just knowing where to look. Because I, oh, I should show you the camera I am using.

MerlinAlex, Alex, Alex. Alex, the people listening don't know there's video right now. Yes.

AlexThere's editing.

MerlinAlex, Alex, if they're not. Alex, Alex. This is why all of this is bad.

AlexTwo things we've got to challenge.

Merlinsecond thing i've capitulated to alexander's request uh patreon viewers can watch this segment of our program video taped okay it just is not if people are listening they're not going to know they're not going to know why it suddenly got really lame because we've introduced video to

Alexan audio podcast this is hey challenge not a video podcast we are doing a video segment of a podcast because podcasts aren't whatever. Merlin, I think it was your challenge this week. Was it my challenge? I don't know.

MerlinI'm pretty sure it's your challenge because this is hell. Alexandra, no, it's hell, nor am I out of it. Alexandra, what's your challenge for this week?

AlexThe challenge this week was to eat paper. Eat paper is the challenge this week. Yeah, I told you to interpret it however you would like, and I suggested some products. I am now, dear audio-only listeners, I'm holding up some edible paper. Incredible edible paper. And I have not eaten any paper yet. Oh, see, I like the foley noises. Did you eat some paper, Perlin?

MerlinThis product you sent to me is edible paper for some reason. B, it's an 8 1⁄2 by 11 sheet of edible paper. And C, you buy 100 of them. So you'll have them, oh, God, for at least a week probably. Somebody like you. I know. I've had some paper, and my daughter has been eating paper alongside dessert. If she has dessert, her dessert is always paper now. I think she wants to be like you, and that's a goddamn shame. I got a paper eater now.

AlexI'm so sorry. First, I scarred her with the suggestion of Pose, an incredibly upsetting show, which is just children.

MerlinGot any more suggestions for queer beating shows I can share?

AlexI mean, Pose is...

MerlinThat's what you have to look forward to.

AlexIt's basically Queer Children in Peril, the show.

MerlinExactly. Who wouldn't love that? Maybe you should watch Law & Order, honey.

AlexOh.

MerlinOkay, so we got edible paper. It's eight and a half by 11. Oh, yeah.

AlexBut I, you know, since it was my challenge, I went above and beyond. And I promise I will tell listeners and not viewers what this is. I found out you can get multiple types of edible paper, including edible money paper, I think. What? Or maybe it's real money. Look at this.

Merlinopen a crinkly package yeah don't say oh look at look at all that money look at all this money that is little realistic for fake money it is well i mean it's shiny but ben franklin he's not

Alexas wet as the president he is not um yeah i wonder if i crinkle it if it'll no i was trying to pull a uh bubba or i'm sorry bubbles from the wire and like oh oh no uh you know scrunch it scrunch it up and to to buy the drugs like to fake it okay have you heard of the wire when we when we are

Merlinable to go to we're able to go to movies again i would love for you to sneak some of that into uh the cinema in a backpack and so you take it out you start opening it it's real crinkly somebody thinks it's going to be a zag nut or something and they look over and they see uh see a person

Alexeating eating money it's in my keyboard now shit i don't think it's rated for that uh i'm gonna try some of the paper now i'm very well first so you just ordered the just you just ordered a hundred pieces of the the plain edible paper yes i ordered 108 and a half by 11 sheets of edible

Merlinpaper and now now finally suddenly i'm worried about what amazon thinks i'm up to i i okay all

Alexright this looks very much like catholic communion hold on oh god this is so it tastes like a host to oh my goodness oh that's delightful are you eating the paper i've got same kind yeah it's a little it's a little dry like yeah it is it is paper

MerlinOne of the performance characteristics of paper when it's functioning properly is that it's dry.

AlexListen, it's not.

MerlinBut you're saying the mouthfeel is dry.

AlexYeah. So, okay. I see what's happening.

MerlinWait a minute. Hang on. Hang on. Yes. Okay. Hang on. I'm sorry. Pop the stack. When you say it's like communion. See, now in my Protestant, sorry, my admittedly Protestant church, they give you like a little, it's unleavened bread. It's like a wafer, like the size of a chiclet. You get the kind where the religion man puts the melty kind right on your tongue.

AlexIs that right? Yes. It's incredibly pleasant.

MerlinSo you get melty communion.

AlexYes. That's the only way we get people to convert to Catholicism anymore is our- The free snacks. Yeah. The keto communion.

MerlinBut to your knowledge, this is not transubstantiation. As far as you know, transubstantiation has not been, this hasn't occurred. Otherwise, I'd have to eat this whole thing, wouldn't I?

AlexMm-hmm. Well, as long as it doesn't fall on the floor.

Merlinoh and they tilt your back tilt your head back and finish the cup

Alexthat was an actual thing I have been to many a mass where someone has dropped a host as we call it and then gone to pick it up off of the carpet the carpeted church and then eaten it because it is I'm told literally

Merlinthey get away they do so many bad things and then they get away with shit like that because we're busy, you know, we're not keeping our eye on the ball. We're wondering why the boys are sad, but also there's the whole situation of carpet food.

AlexIt's not wholesome. Where the boys are sad? Well, okay, so here's what happens. Like you, oh God. Yeah, so the priest would, or a communion bearer puts it in your tongue like this.

MerlinAlexandra is doing a self-hosted host, okay? Hosting her own files here.

AlexI'm transubstantiating myself. Oh, boy. But it should. It's not dissolving on my tongue when I put my mouth together. It's stuck on the top of my mouth right now. And I should say, the reason I wanted to do this challenge is because, as we talked about in the after show last week, I thought that you had sent me edible stickers at one point. And I thought this because I'm like, oh, they're little cupcakes that, oh, they're like meta cupcakes.

So they're cupcakes you put on cupcakes. Yeah, yeah. As one does.

MerlinIf I could just give you a note on that, I think what happened was I sent you stickers. And you assumed that they were edible, even though there was nothing to indicate that a sticker is a thing that a grown person should put into their mouth.

AlexWell, I was 26 at the time. I have learned a lot in these four years

Merlinyou know it was a different time

Alexit was a different time it was the eve of the 2016 election alright um so

MerlinI'm gonna take time to step away spend some time with my family and think about what I've

Alexdone I alright let me finish this uh so

Merlinwatching you eat things will never not be funny to me

Alexas I finish this piece of paper so I don't it's oh Benjamin Franklin is in my keyboard Oh boy What would you say this tastes like Paint a

MerlinPaint a

AlexNo no no A mouthfeel picture Give our listeners some feel

MerlinOkay let me do mine I have to say I'm a little bit disappointed With how you're eating yours Because there's only one way that I like to eat mine Oh

AlexOh no Oh, oh, oh. For our listeners here, Merlin is eating his paper with a spoon. And I have been cucked. This is the hardest I've been cucked. I mean, I'm consensually being cucked, but still pretty hard.

MerlinOh, boy.

AlexOh, my God. See, I'm just putting it in my mouth like an animal. Oh, my God.

MerlinThis one looks like Idaho. Am I wrong?

AlexDoes it look a little bit like Idaho?

MerlinIs it Idaho or Utah? Which one is that? I don't know. New Jersey. Is it New Jersey? if I turn it this way?

AlexKids need more math in schools. Oh, here's a... What's the square one? Nevada? Wait, what's the square one? New Mexico?

MerlinColorado's rectangular.

AlexI think Wyoming.

MerlinSo those kinds... It's like putting a grid in a small town. It's not difficult. Back in the days when we were just stealing from the natives,

Alexwe could make it

Merlinany shape we wanted.

AlexThis is what they call Manifest Destiny. Is this for me? That's right. This is this paper. Okay.

MerlinThey hired Sacagawea

Alexto be their guide. God. elbow room elbow room i was re-watching pocahontas and oh we were so god oh god why why

Merlinisn't there a good isn't there a good cgp gray cartoon on that there is oh yes there is and i

Alexi don't want to fuck it up but there's a video about what indigenous people who like we specifically indigenous people who used to call native americans or native indians and i forget what it is but it's like oh no everyone's wrong this is like what we call ourselves it was it was the turns out of like

Merlinwell it might not be cgp great but the one i'm thinking of is like things you didn't know about the pocahontas thing or at least the segment wasn't that and that's where they really drilled down on a couple things that didn't necessarily bubble up in a lot of the popular media

Alexshe was apparently very young oh yeah oh oh boy like an awesome like this is the thing she seemed fucking awesome and we just made her into some hot cartoon who did some mediocre anyway. And then

Merlinthey put her on a ship and took her to another continent. That's the thing we love to do.

AlexTotally normal. Usually it's the other direction.

MerlinWe like to import our people of color.

AlexAnd that was they were like let's make up for this.

MerlinWell there's a reason. It's mainstream. They call it the middle passage. How could it be bad?

AlexOh I'm regretting. Alright so okay hold on. I put too much in my mouth. I found them. These are, I'm holding up to the camera now. They're called Sticky Lickets. Oh, no. Paw Patrol Sticky Lickets? And so I've also bought...

MerlinI do not love the name of that.

AlexSo there are generic Sticky Lickets, which are eatable stickers, as it says on this package. But I figured I would get I know that Paw Patrol is also problematic now. However, the expiration date on this one was for 2021, whereas the other ones were for 2019.

So I chose this one, the calories. Did that make sense? Anyway, the other stickers I tried to buy had expired.

MerlinWell, no, especially with your particular discursive style. and the fact that you'll probably be unconscious. It'll be fun when Maddie is the one who has to fill in the form in the emergency room. What happened to your partner? Sticky Lickets, excuse me? Sticky Lickets, Paw Patrol Sticky Lickets. But just to be clear, they were not expired. So this is not their fault.

AlexThis money, I'm now eating the fake $100 bills and these are a little bit tastier. they are much oh oh hello camera that just glitched out thank you uh very professional over here did you see a flash it flashed to me anyway um oh no i'm sorry but the money is more flavorful and i think it's because that it has dye in it like it's got the the boy showed you it it looks very money it like it it looks like a a unsaturated bill ish yeah oh

Oh, interesting. Okay, so if you put it...

MerlinYou are never more alive than when you're on camera eating something that is not or is just barely food. That could be a Harry Potter egg. It could be paper.

AlexIt was an, excuse me, it was an avatar egg.

MerlinThat's the latest video on my YouTube channel, just for what it's worth.

AlexOh boy. I don't have a mute button. Yeah, so if you put it like ink dabbing, it's like distinctly different.

MerlinOh my god. Maybe I should get a dipping sauce. Oh, I could try it with soy sauce. I got a future challenge. I have some Kikumin sprinkle-able soy sauce here. I'm going to put some paper bites. I am using my hands like a monster. Oh, God, it's a lot of soy sauce. Oh, no, no, no, no.

AlexThat one did not go down smoothly, though.

MerlinI should have gotten the money. I fucked up.

AlexI, I, it is my, I, I accept this peanut butter because I did not share this money with you. But, oh, no, where do my sticky lickets go? I want to try those.

MerlinOh, no.

AlexWhat I, oh, no, my thickies. Everybody got crumbs on my boobs.

MerlinSticky lickets. All right. You got me. I'm going to find out what a sticky licket is.

AlexA sticky licket is an eatable sticker, as it says. 30 stickers you can eat. You lick it, you stick it, you eat it. I have the branding on this.

MerlinWe'll put this in notes from their website. It says, Sticky Lickets are edible stickers. Wait, what? Yes, stickers you can eat. No kidding. No sugar, no gluten, no GMO, no soy, no dairy, no peanut or tree nuts, no artificial ingredients whatsoever. They're also vegan and kosher. Sticky Lickets makes kids of all ages want to eat fruits and veggies. Does it? Wait. Just choose your favorite sticker, peel it off the page, lick the back, and stick it on a piece of fruit or vegetable.

Then eat the whole thing. Lick it. Stick it. Eat it. Repeat. Sticky lickets. Their plural agreement is a mess here. Sticky lickets melt in your mouth and make healthy eating fun. Are you having fun?

AlexNo, I haven't tried it yet. But I do think it's interesting that they're supposedly all natural ingredients because there's hydroxypropo-methacellulose, modified cellulose water, melotrexidin. Oh, coconut oil, glycerin. Okay. Let's see.

MerlinIf you get the SpongeBob pack, you get SpongeBob riding on jellyfish. You get, what's his name? Gary. You get Gary the snail. You get Mr. Krabs.

AlexAll right. See, look at how translucent this is, though.

MerlinIt looks kind of like a tattoo you get in Cracker Jack.

AlexYeah, yeah. Oh, that's just, that's two flavor. That's just sugar. This is just, hmm.

MerlinYeah, I mean, so you stick it to, in the photograph, this girl is, this young lady, this child, is putting it onto like a kiwi. Because, you know, kids will eat more kiwi if you put a paper sticker of a taco on it. There's a taco on the kiwi.

AlexAs a very reluctant vegetable eater, I do not know if this would go well on any sort of asparagus.

MerlinExtended challenge, sub-challenge. Alexandra, maybe you and your partner could put it on some food.

AlexSorry, I did not in my mind. Okay, sorry, go.

Merlinoh you're saying you're saying go downtown is that what you're saying i mean you gotta stick

Alexit i work for dj college partner you gotta lick it and stick it uh i have one dj check it out

Merlinlook down here got swamp butt swamp butt with a taco on my taco i have okay um okay no you there's like actual aftertaste for the no like an aspartame like uh like a diet coke aftertaste no

Alexhonestly like a sticker like a

206. The Money is More Flavorful

Show notes

Transcript

206. The Money is More Flavorful

Show notes

Transcript

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