208. Meta Lesbian

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. This week's challenge, find the perfect pencil.

Good morning. Hello. Hello, I've spoken. Oh, I'm I'm Oh, Oh, Oh, I'm loud. I'm less loud now. Oh,

MerlinOh, check your pre-PC. Mine's a mess.

AlexI don't have a pre-PC. I got the, I don't know, the...

MerlinIt's not a DAW. Don't call it a DAW. DAW is software, Alex. I have a friend now who I think has considered it his or her job to now tell me, I have a second friend to tell me all the things I get wrong. I'm noticing.

AlexOh, interesting.

MerlinOh. Well, I know at least he approved my headphones.

AlexI have to say, I think I'm right in that most men, most good men, basically turn into stereotypical lesbians as they get older. You know, the more, more fashion.

MerlinAll right. I'm listening. Okay.

AlexAll right. All right. Just, okay. More, more fashionable.

MerlinHave you ever met a lesbian?

Alexa metal that's that's the thing it's like there should be no I said have you ever met okay I'm writing that down

Merlinoh my god you might be a metal lesbian

Alexthat's well right right I because my spouse is kind of like a meta gay man like he's brought upon a lot of gay things about him and is super gay but like I mean right now his uh fine I'll say it my wife's super hot

MerlinYour partner's cute. Right? Your partner's gotten very cute.

AlexI mean, we haven't done our driving with grandma segment in a while, but yesterday I was talking to my grandma because we can't be in the same car. And she said, oh, my goodness. I forget how handsome Matt is. And I was like, yeah, yeah.

MerlinMatt has very good features. There's good bones in that face.

AlexAnd then went on to say, you know, I just never expected you with such a handsome young man.

MerlinAnd what was your response?

AlexI was like, neither did I. And then there were some problematic things that a loving grandmother would say who's 84, like, just looks so much better as a man than a woman and all that. You should have stopped. Yeah, you got it in one. I was like, I'm like, but I was able to be like, yes, that is because he is happy. Anyway, but my grandma basically said my wife's out of my league.

MerlinAnd I'm still laughing at it. Wow. Oh, my God. That's such a compliment.

AlexYou know what? Yeah. I was like, you know what? I will take that.

MerlinYou don't sweat much for a fat girl.

AlexI'll take it. Yeah. Oh, I'm skinny fat.

MerlinNot you. I just that's my favorite uncompliment. I want to hear I want to hear about how Mark is a lesbian. But yes, I also just wanted to say last night I introduced my kid formally to a phrase. Now, I met a comment here. There's a thing that I have to do in my house, which is when I say something and it's obvious to me that the other person is not listening. I do an in the moment quiz.

And I did that this morning and my wife blew it. All right. Understandably. But I said to my kid last night, have you ever heard the phrase closing the deal? Do you know what that means in sales? She says, yeah, of course. And I said, what's it mean? She said, it's like, you know, when you're selling something, I'm like, no, listen, listen. Closing the deal means the phase of the sales funnel where you are finalizing your arrangement for somebody to give you money for something. I said, and there's a phrase in sales that's very important. You've heard me use it, and I'm going to tell you exactly what it means now.

What they say is, don't sell past the close. I said, do you understand what that means? And she said, of course I do. I said, and of course she didn't. She kind of did. I said, the idea is that once somebody has agreed to buy the thing that you are selling, stop closing.

Because when you're still trying to persuade them at the point after they've already agreed to buy it, you're probably not listening either. That's fine. I'll quiz you in a minute.

AlexDo it. I'm ready. I'm ready. I literally have taken notes.

MerlinIsn't that a fascinating idea, though? I mean, I first heard it, I don't know if it was from my mom.

AlexQuiet keyboard. Sorry. Yes, go on. Sorry, listening again.

MerlinSo basically, there's a television program my kid and I have been dying to watch that is absolutely inappropriate. And so we had it on our list of things we watch after mom goes to bed. Okay, I need to know. And she's terrible at keeping a secret. And so I got provisional. She's so bad about it. She's like, oh yeah, we were watching educational TV last night, mom. Which is fun, because that's our little inside bit. But I was also like, you're selling past the clothes. Mom has already tacitly agreed to let you watch this. don't tell her when a part's coming when Carl Urban spits blood on an invisible man

to make him appear so that he can beat the crap out of him and then the kid that looks like social network can electrocute him because of his carbon skin don't the boys is very good and there's no way I would show it to my kid

Alexno no

Merlindon't sell past the clothes grandma sold past the clothes a little bit grandma really landed that Concord but then kept driving right into the terminal yup

AlexI don't want I'll take it Well, all right. So closing the deal, you can't sell past the close. Why would anybody try to do that? I don't.

MerlinOh, really? I'm sorry. Fain surprise. Fain surprise.

AlexNot fainting surprise. Because I know.

MerlinOh, I am. No, I do that. I do that. Well, here, because here's why. And I'll give you, this is a real life example that we've all suffered from. And this is one of those tricks of one of those things you pick up in early to mid adulthood. That's a skeleton key for understanding other people. Okay. So ring, ring, ring. Ring, ring, ring.

Speaker AOh, hey Alex, how's it going? I'm good, Merlin. How are you? Oh, I can't come to your party tonight. I'm really sick. Also, I have to go to a job interview. Also, I don't have any shoes. also my car fell over and i don't feel good give exactly one reason for anything you ever do in

Merlinlife if you give more than one reason for anything you do in life you're obviously full of shit i consider that a flavor or maybe the vegan version of selling past the clothes i agree

Alexbut but you this this this is not fair you are using it as as a metaphor and and your kid just

Merlinthat's that i get points off for that too faint surprise and using it as a metaphor well i don't

Alexknow i'm like so who who's like calling someone up and being like oh okay i when i said it i'm like yeah comcast and as i now know uh verizon so like you you got me you got me already please stop

Merlincalling me please okay well i'm gonna take it and turn it i'm gonna flip it and reverse it think about this if somebody is selling you something there's there's only one answer well of course salespeople are trained to get around even the one answer but i mean if you if you speak with a salesperson and they say hey we want to sell you on this upgrade to your verizon or whatever and you go um no thanks i'm not really interested well they're trained you're still talking, right? At that point, you're still talking, so they're still closing. As long as

you're talking, they're closing. And I mean, apart from hanging up the phone, which can be very rude, I think if you just say the phrase, I don't have any money, over and over, they'll eventually give up. Because they'll say, oh yeah, well, we have a great line of credit. I don't have credit. I don't have any money. I don't have, so of course I don't have any credit. I don't have any money. I don't have any money, right? But as long, you know what I'm saying? It's like you, but if you go i don't have any money also i already bought a bmw or whatever like two reasons give somebody it hurts your credibility okay you think no no no disagree with me change my mind should you be

piling on reasons why you're not doing something to increase credibility counterpoint no but that's

Alexnot that's not the literal phrase i i i don't know i i just i think what they share what they

MerlinClichére is, there's that wonderful phrase, thought-terminating cliché. I think it's a conversation.

AlexYes, that's a phrase that everybody knows. What?

MerlinReally?

AlexNo, yes. No, I am much less intelligent than people perceive. What is the phrase that you just said?

MerlinWow, weird flex. Okay.

AlexYes, people think I'm smart sometimes. Okay, now that I have given myself some self-confidence, let's suppress that right now.

MerlinWhat is the phrase you just said? Squeeze that down.

AlexLet's get that right out of here.

MerlinThis just harms my emotional bulimia.

Alexyour grandma sounds cool she is she is super super cool um she sounds like she's trying she is a is a delight and asks so many questions a lot about ellen degenerous as i think we've

Merlincovered um you know that's that's kind of her peg that's her way in that's her way in for this

Alexconversation well it's it it started with anderson cooper and then it he's so handsome yes it is oh my goodness oh that what was the interview that is great hair that guy's got great hair ah silver

Merlinfox he's he's he's what mike pence hopes he looks like oh no you're right oh no oh no now i can't now i can't could you see them together at the uh like at the farmer's market like carrying their little Ted Leo tote bag around. That'd be cute.

AlexI'm sure I could if I focused on it more.

MerlinI carried my Ted Leo tote bag today. I have a Ted Leo tote bag, apparently.

AlexOh, a teddy tote. Oh, a teddy tote.

MerlinThat's so cute.

AlexIt's like a little comfort. I don't know.

MerlinSo she knew that Gloria Vanderbilt's son from the TV was a little bit different, as my mother would say. It was real different. They were real different.

AlexLight in the loafers is a thing that was said in my family for a very long time.

MerlinOh, my God. That's a running joke in our house because that was one of the many code phrases of my youth. And now my daughter thinks it's hilarious. A little light in his loafers.

AlexI do think it's very funny.

MerlinWhich is double funny.

AlexIt's, uh, oh, oh, well, I mean, talking about, um, meta gayness, uh, or in our super secret private slack, uh, Marco was, Arment was nice enough to, uh, well, actually you and say a duh is.

MerlinHe's trying to save me from myself. He sharpens me like a knife.

AlexAnd, but I, I was the one who was in the wrong because I did, I did not correct you on the spot, but mostly because I wasn't positive.

MerlinOh, welcome to the club. Why don't you help John Roderick with his computer? Why don't you help John Roderick with his computer? You know, I have now been harassed by all three of the hosts of ATP. I've been publicly and mostly privately harassed by all three of them. And it stops now. I'm a strong meta-lesbian woman, and I have a right to misuse terminology. That's my lived experience, is what it is.

AlexSince I'm on a fuck-you basis with Casey, what did he do?

MerlinOh, you know, he's very hung up. in a sweet way on those.

AlexOh, no, no, no. Let's cancel. Cancel hard. What was it? What was it? Don't hold back.

MerlinNo, no, no. I'll tell you. There's lots of them. Oh, good, good. It's the classic, do you wash your legs? Is a burrito a hot dog kind of thing. And he has a very strong position on the graphic interchange format pronunciation.

AlexOh, yes.

MerlinTo which I have, because of people like Casey List, I have now capitulated. Having said it the right way for 25 years, I have now stopped because I cannot take the harassment anymore. I don't know. It's not okay. It's not okay. No. Trust me.

AlexThere we go. Anyway, Marco, you dress great. Keep it up, buddy. What do I know? Matthew has told me you dress great.

MerlinI'm just sorry about his red hat. That was a good hat.

AlexI had the foresight of this because I don't want to buy anything red. Nope. Because it's geopreneurized ish. I'm just like, nope.

MerlinThat's so interesting because guys with red shirts are also bad guys in the wonderful new Showtime program about John Brown. The red shirt guys in that are bad. I watched two of those last night and it's good. Which one is that? Ethan Hawke as crazy effing John Brown, the abolitionist. But it's almost like a Tarantino meets Coen Brothers kind of movie.

AlexOh, okay. Yeah, I actually have this in my queue. And you're going to love it.

MerlinThe kid, I won't say anything except to say that the kid in it is, the kid will get an Emmy nomination.

AlexOh, that's delightful.

MerlinCan I read you something? It's pretty short. You ready?

AlexPlease.

MerlinInternet Science Site, Thought Terminating Cliché. A thought terminating cliche, these are good, also known as semantic stop sign, a thought stopper, bumper sticker logic, or cliche thinking, is a form of loaded language commonly used to quell cognitive dissonance. Depending on context in which a phrase or cliche is used, it may actually be valid and not qualify as thought terminating. It does qualify as such when its application intends to dismiss dissent or justify fallacious logic.

And so, you know, the way it's very, to me it's a very, so this guy R.J. Lifton appears to be the main dude behind it, but it's very Orwellian, not Orwellian in the 1984 sense, but in the, you know, his essay about fascist language kind of thing. That kind of idea, yeah.

AlexWhy would I know, but I really like that phrase now, but no, it's not something I drop into my...

MerlinIt comes from 2 Thessalonians. I thought you would have known it.

AlexNo, I'm...

MerlinYou're a basic Old Testament bitch.

AlexNo, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm a basic Luke bitch from the New Testament.

MerlinYou're not a John girl.

AlexIt's fine. It's fine.

MerlinLuke was a doctor, but I feel like John's the thinking man's gospel.

AlexI know. Well, that's why.

MerlinDid they teach you that? Were you taught any distinction? At what point... Let's put it this way. At what point... I'm just going to say I'll stipulate that as a youth, as a youth youth, It was basically Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John. And it was like, same story, same thing, Jesus rules. And then as you get older, you get the sense that there's different things going on, different versions of the story, some included not. There's some good tables out there where you can see which anecdotes about Jesus were or weren't included in each book. But by the time I was in college, the sense I got was that most people thought John was kind of the best one.

AlexI think I enjoyed probably the social justice-y bits of Luke Moore because that's where the Beatitudes come from.

MerlinOh, blessed, blessed.

AlexYeah, yeah. I really, really like the Beatitudes.

MerlinI like the Beatitudes. I had that on a card as a kid. Sure, I had that.

AlexI like them. I mean, well, actually.

MerlinThat's the good Jesus. This is like not Jesus with a beard showing up to fight himself in an alternate timeline. This is an extra beard. A beard on top of the beard.

AlexYes.

MerlinA hat on a hat. Christ on a king. A king on a crutch. I'm going to stop now. We should talk about the Bible. Marco.

AlexWe've covered Marco. He's a basic meta lesbian.

MerlinNo, no, no. This is my way of popping the stack, as Professor Acusa says. I'm working back through where we were trying to close my parentheses.

AlexLet's circle in back.

MerlinI think we had a – oh, I've got to put a pin in it. I think we had a couple things here. Oh, you have a reading series.

AlexI do.

MerlinSo you see the news and topics. Jump in anywhere.

AlexOh, wait. Do I have home screen follow-up? Okay.

MerlinWell, it just seemed like we were still getting submissions. You were still wonderfully continuing to insult our friends in a way that's been really delightful. just want to say like so we covered last week you did a whistle stop tour of some listeners home screens I just didn't know if you had anything more to say about it

AlexI am doubling done I'm doubling down on boomer screens because oh you are all basic bitches no no meta gay home screens over here

MerlinSo you had me and you lost me. You had me and you lost me. What is your Boomer obsession?

AlexIf you, I don't have an obsession with Boomer.

MerlinIt's like your file card. You're ticking off your file card. Boomer, Boomer. Oh, Diet Coke, that's Boomer.

AlexOh, how dare you? How dare you, sir? Excuse, how, oh, I'm going to turn into Jeff Tiedrich right now. Ugh.

Merlin1985, Whitney Houston said, Diet Coke, you're going to drink it just for the taste of it. I was in high school. I was in high school when it came out and got popular.

AlexIs that problematic?

MerlinDiet Coke is so boomer.

AlexNo, it's not.

MerlinIt's what everybody's mom drinks. You should drink Fresca. That would be counter-revolutionary. You ever had a Fresca?

AlexYes. My great-grandmother loved Fresca.

MerlinRight. It's only old people that still drink it.

AlexRight. And, you know.

MerlinWho said that? That was on EPM. I think they said this. It's like if you had Sprite, but with an actual fruit taste to it.

AlexYeah. Have you ever had Squirt? it's the it's a real thing only when i'm having a flare-up oh i i uh i mean i also have some uh whole follow-up uh but but the boomer boomer screens

No, I'm just... What makes a screen a boomer screen?

MerlinIs it the red badges? Is it the basic you don't use folders? No, who would use folders? What really jumps out in a blink sense? You look at it and you go, oh, boomer.

AlexYou use all the stock apps. You haven't really changed anything. There's no widgets, which is why I was quite surprised that you do not have a boomer screen whatsoever.

MerlinI'm not a boomer.

AlexExactly.

MerlinI'm close to boomer, but I'm technically Generation X is what I am.

AlexYeah. Gen X got the best name, and it's very upsetting.

MerlinAnd the worst generation.

AlexYeah.

MerlinWe didn't do anything.

AlexSome really great Broadway stuff.

MerlinWe didn't even get Steely Dan at the right time.

AlexGood few years for musicals, though. Got that going. But then they died.

MerlinOh, my God. You're right. Yeah, I was listening to I had an all Husker Du morning. And I have had a great day. Had a great day. Had a good night's sleep. I'm feeling good. I've settled into my COVID identity at this point. I want to send you a photo of how I look right now because it's just unbelievable what I look like right now.

But you know what? I'm living my best life. And I was listening to Husker Du and Bob Mould this morning. and I had a real good, I'm wearing a Franklin, I'm wearing a four and a half shirt from Fantastic Four. Oh. Like a Scott Pilgrim. I'm wearing my ratty jeans. I got my Adams shoes. I got my lesbian nurse shoes. And I feel great.

AlexWait, both on at the same time?

MerlinWhich one?

AlexAdams and the nurse shoes? The professional shoes.

MerlinI think they're very similar. I think, well, see if I'd gotten the black rubber with the black upper, then I think I'd be rolling you know full lilith oh that's another one hard to say full lilith i gotta write that down i've been capturing phrases that are hard to say yes i want to hear some want to hear them yes yes okay full it's along the lines of you know the rural juror full lilith full lilith okay this is one from a listener i edited it say it i edited it i say it like you say it's just it i edited it

AlexI edited it. No, no.

MerlinHerbal bourbons.

AlexHerbal bourbons. Wait, did I say it wrong? Herbal bourbons.

MerlinNo, it's just funny. It's from a dream that I had about a Scarlett Johansson plant helmet. And then one that I heard in an editorial, I can't stop saying this phrase since I heard it over a month ago. We have this local series on local public radio where people, it's called Perspective, where people do this like two-minute commentary. It's almost always like a freelance writer from Sonoma or whatever. And this woman had an interesting journey. But the phrase that she used to my wife and I can't stop saying, my disordered eating.

My disordered eating.

AlexMy disordered eating.

MerlinMy disordered eating. So you're better at it. You have harder consonants.

AlexI, yeah, I think you're right, because both friends and listeners have begun making compilations of words I say.

MerlinOh, come on. You know, there's a lot of these. I think my mouth is wrong. I have trouble. And I only know this because I utilize Siri with Apple TV. So, you know, that famous phenomenon of like, oh, I know this person from the Internet.

AlexYep, go on.

MerlinPhenomenon.

AlexMm-hmm. Go on.

MerlinBut you know the phenomenon?

AlexI'm so happy right now.

MerlinI'm going to open up the script after this and make some magic. No, but, you know, were you like know of somebody or, you know, a word? Like maybe you eventually become like online friends with somebody, but you literally don't know how to pronounce their name.

AlexYep.

MerlinAnd then when you say it, you're like, that was me with. I, until I believe a day before she was kind enough to be on our program, I pronounced it Alexander Petri. And I'm glad I asked.

AlexYes.

MerlinBecause Petri, but so things I don't find myself having to say very much, I now realize because I've said them a lot to Siri. And so if I say, hey, dingus, play Saturday Night Live on YouTube.

Speaker AIt's hard for me to say Saturday Night Live. Hmm.

MerlinDo you think I have some kind of an issue, like a neurological thing?

AlexNo. I think, huh, this is interesting. I think that you use the Amazon Echo more. So perhaps you have sort of tailored the way you talk to all of the cylinder and balling

Merlinglasses. Oh, it's trained me.

AlexYes.

MerlinOh, shit, dog. That's really good. I had not thought of that.

AlexWell, that's why in our apartment, Siri always works more. I think it's because both of us just have like the Chicago type. I don't know. Siri just. Yeah, I don't know. I took the whatever it was, the little like local linguistic quiz that the New York Times put out.

MerlinOh, yeah. The New York Times thing. That was so interesting.

AlexIt was and wasn't.

MerlinIt thinks I'm from Aurora, Illinois.

AlexIt thinks that I am also from Aurora.

Merlingoing on the list Aurora my disordered eating

AlexAurora disordered

Merlineating we all sound like Tom

Alexbroke up and well I just realized like disordered good lord oh my god like that is a thing that I've written often because you know me I'm one of those assholes who does activism and bullshit but it's never something that I've said out loud. Wow. Wow.

MerlinI mean, I have to say, I really like that phrase. I mean, I don't know a ton about this thing we're making light of for no reason. Because it's

Alexreally scary and it affects a lot of

MerlinIt's absolutely horrifying. Did you hear? Did you hear? Did you hear? Did you hear? Part three on your wrong about. No, I'm only

Alexon part two. I didn't know how bad.

MerlinOh my God. What they did to Princess Diana. Oh my God. It's amazing that that candle could stay lit and in that wind for so long.

AlexWe had to stop in the middle of part two and turn on adventure time.

MerlinThe drugs and... But so like we see eating disorder, this is probably from a clinician standpoint, I don't know if there's any difference, but when you call something an eating disorder, it becomes this like more of a sentence than a diagnosis or anything that's useful per se. Whereas you say like my... I am disordered. You know, the reason I like it is I love the phrase disordered thinking. I think that's such a good phrase. It's like it's not that you're stupid. It's not that you're absent-minded. It's just that your thinking is disordered. And I think there's lots of places where that applies.

Disordered is a great word. It should be easier to say.

AlexAnd it also makes it, I know it's not a literal verb, but it makes it not an identity, but something that is.

MerlinYou're putting it better than I did. That's exactly what I'm trying to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like why we sort of have, I feel like there's been a movement to move away from, like, for example, to stop saying, stop using OCD as an adjective.

AlexYeah, for sure. And I think I was absolutely guilty of that. And also being like, oh, man, I'm so bipolar today. But also because sometimes I am literally bipolar someday. but there's that's the thing with um a lot of things uh like we need better words for depression

Merlinand anxiety or or like better words for everything i have an entire running file of things we need a

Alexbetter word for oh it's just it's it's it obsesses me is it a file or a spreadsheet i mean well is it

Merlina text document or a spreadsheet good question no it's a it's a dot it's a dot md oh and it's very it's a words I yeah so it's a .md it's called usage I dislike and the deck is an epicenter of wordsmithing for the enterprise words that are ugly, dumb or overpriced signage when you mean sign, enterprise when you mean company entrepreneur if you mean business owner artisanal if you just mean fancy epicenter if you really just mean center or origin or start, wordsmith if you mean good writer

then we've got words that I call discount conversions which are when we You've sloppily, you know, kind of moved one part of speech to another experience as a verb. Yes, I use it. I try not to. This one, this one really gets up my ass. Ask as a noun. Can you just say request? It's a big ask. Is it? Is the ask big? Huh. Hopeful as a noun. The democratic hopeful. Well, first of all, you're not using hopefully, right?

Speaker ARight?

MerlinI mean, when you say hopefully, what you ought to mean is that you... I don't have time for this. Ouster. Don't like the word ouster as a noun.

AlexThis sounds like a cult from the leftovers.

MerlinOh, we lost her to the ousters. Yeah. Now she's selling flowers at the airport. Yeah, she's a cult hopeful. Pen as a verb. Stop doing that. Detail. Detail is an intransitive verb. He was detailed. No, he's not a car. What the hell is wrong with you?

AlexI can't even imagine. Please, use that in a sentence incorrectly.

MerlinWell, no, I mean, it would be something like it's sort of, I think it might come from the military, but it certainly made its way into business. When we onboarded our new hire, we detailed her on the Henderson Report.

AlexOh, yeah, no.

MerlinWhich means we took a toothpick and cleaned out all of her crevices for crumbs. misuses and malaprops unchartered territory no it is not unchartered it is not that you failed to get a tour arranged it's that there is no chart for where we are this one's big finally things that need a better phrase can't recommend it highly enough that's terrible because you're beginning with the negative you can't recommend it highly enough or you say couldn't recommend it more i mean i everybody says that because we don't have a better one okay this one went missing

Alexgone missing that person went missing what the fuck does that mean uh oh i i see what you're yeah i i think maybe you have perhaps you were the pebble in the pond because a lot of these i

Merlinhaven't heard in a really long time actually no no no i'm i know i believe me i've been i've been taken to task about this oh by the way take to task stop using that broke his silence what the fuck does that mean? Broke his silence about the divorce. Broke his silence? I mean, I guess there's times you could say that Mark Felt broke his silence about his identity as Deep Throat. If it's something this person has not talked about in 20 years, broke his and has deliberately

famously not talked about, I'm okay with that. But if it's just somebody I've never heard of on Instagram, like, you know, drop their dog off a cliff doing a selfie.

AlexI see.

MerlinYep, yep. And then, you know, long word, this is really dumb, but it drives me crazy. To describe something as having been done quietly. Oh, yes. Bill Barr quietly closed the investigation. You know what it is? It's all about, it's a real blogger thing to say. It's a very blogger-ish thing. Oh, this person quietly removed this press release. As opposed to what? Put out a press release about removing the press release? you're just making you're trying to make yourself sound like an insider and it's stupid stop that

Alexthis this i i don't know if it's that that similar but i very much have an adverb problem i'm much better with passive voice um or not using passive voice see i i words uh but it is believed that the chair was kicked but i am a uh very very person and i've been trying to stop that because like what does very good mean like uh i i don't know i i have a theory on this because i realized i do it

Merlintoo in my quote-unquote writing at least in the past i've struggled mightily which is an adverb to try and stop using unnecessary it's sort of like an exclamation point inflation in text messages where it's like, you know, how much will we escalate this? And I'm not trying to be over-prescriptive about this. I understand that things evolve. I understand that. And like, so yeah, John Syracuse, as I've said, is now the only person, well, really, just about the only person with whom I type like I would prefer to write with periods and things.

Right? Because if you don't use the exclamation points, people think you're mad. Even if you just leave off the period, you know what I'm saying? People get mad. But like, but like, I, I, I'd love your take on this because I think this is a very woman thing and a very me thing, which is I want to soften what I'm saying right now by adding adverbs that give this a little bit more air.

AlexYep.

MerlinThat, that, that, that meal was really amazing that, you know what I mean? So the sorts of adverbs that I would use in speech or informal Twitter-style writing, I would prefer not to see those in written writing. But I think, well, that's my theory. What do you think? Is it possible that we do that to soften the thing that we are saying, to add some air, and to give us some room to seem more like a person than an opinion bot?

AlexOh, fuck yeah. especially when let's just get email responses people respond to me oh here's another one I can't say faster is that right people respond to me much faster when I use stupid fucking like hi there hey how's it going

Speaker Athanks thanks

Merlinwith an exclamation point Like I'm driving away in a Conestoga wagon and waving.

AlexCheers! Exclamation point.

MerlinI know.

AlexI know.

MerlinYou better be English. You say cheers, you better be English.

AlexYeah, I know.

MerlinThat's a bad one.

AlexYeah, I don't like email. And I'm not like Merlin Manning this. But wow, you give just a little bit of money to Bernie Sanders and the DNC. Wow. Oh, actually, here's my favorite from this morning. um oh oh since the last few minutes uh kamala harris subject uh subject line let's be frank comma alexandra um wow you know my name that's so cool barack obama uh this is this one's really

good subject line this is the last time i'll email you today boy please please stop and but

MerlinBut it sounds like the ones, you know, it's funny because I had to get into Patreon last week. I had to go into our email account and I forgot about the thing where everybody can send their email to our email account.

AlexYeah, just don't go in there.

MerlinSo a lot of people have signed up for like Republican stuff and REI and all that. But my gosh, the emails from the campaign for the president, et cetera, get a little thirsty.

AlexIt's not just.

MerlinThere's going to be an 8X. There's an 8X match tonight. signed Don Jr. Will you disappoint my father this afternoon? My father is very disappointed.

AlexAll right. Now that I've got to pop in to this inbox later because I do want to see what the Republican spam is like. Because I can only imagine... You see it on political Twitter.

MerlinA lot of people like the Dave Weigel's of the world are on all of the mailing lists. and that way you can begin your tweets with inbox colon

Alexi mean i'll save it for the show but like black wings that has now sent me a lot of

Merlina lot of emails oh boy i can't wait to talk about that the only thing i want to say is you know you don't need to be on time for anything god bless you for being how you are just god made you why should you try yeah um so you're a series i believe all right well i

AlexThere was an article that you posted on Twitter that I really enjoyed about being on time.

MerlinOh, no. Why are you doing this to me? Being on time. That was supposed to be a drive-by.

AlexAll right. We won't talk about the article. You've said a lot. You've said often, wow, I am so self-conscious about talking right now. Not because of you.

MerlinHave I said it very often? Extremely very often?

AlexNo, Mr. Kologe, my junior year AP English teacher is just in my mind right now. And it's not it's not the time where he called me fat that I was upset about. No, I'm just like, oh, he took he took points off every time in any paper, in any context when you use the word is. And oh, OK. After that small.

MerlinOh, because you're supposed to use a more descriptive noun.

AlexYep, yep, yep, yep. But you've talked about often how it's respectful to be on time. And for some people, that's really, really hard for a lot of reasons.

MerlinEspecially the people that are always having to deal with late people. It's pretty hard for them.

AlexYes, it is. And I just...

MerlinWhat about my disorder?

AlexIt's... oh oh dougie's calling oh yeah you know what actually i think also the painters that are here

Merlinto paint the office have arrived too the uh painters can't be quiet is that racist uh painters can't be quiet no that's like that's that's like rule zero of painters club that's i don't know how

Alexif if you're painting quietly aren't aren't you kind of doing it wrong i'm no painter i don't know

MerlinThat's a really good point. It's like working outside and not smoking. Like, what's the point? Yeah. Did you need to go deal with Dougie? Want to do a jazz break and we'll come back?

AlexNo, you know what? I hit decline because if he or not, actually, I probably shouldn't have done that. I should have just let it go wild. But because I have Do Not Disturb on the Mac, but not on them. He'll call back if it's important. But it just signals to somebody, I think, especially if. Being late? No, just honestly being on time because it is normal to be late now. I really think it is.

MerlinThat's really interesting. I think you might be right.

AlexIt's normal, I think. Or I don't know who needs to hear this, but normalized lateness. But when-

MerlinCertainly like it's tolerated in a way it didn't used to be.

AlexBut when your superior shows up on time, then that indicates it just it gives you a lot of information. You know what I mean?

MerlinOh, 100 percent. It says it says they know how. Well, I don't need to tell you, you know, it says they respect people. They know how to manage their time. Or at least it suggests that they don't disrespect people and they don't not manage their time because you don't accidentally show up on time for things. You do it because you're an adult.

Alexand i i don't know it's like i have done some pretty terrible things in my life because of neurodiversity which i really i also want there to be a better word for that because i don't want

Merlinto be it's an okay good word but not better but it's better yeah yeah we're not quite there yet

Alexyeah we we gotta go back and workshop that one i got i gotta workshop meta lesbian but i mean

MerlinNeurodiversity seems to describe a population, but it doesn't describe a person.

AlexMaybe that's why people think I'm smart. Because at one point, some bio somewhere, I was labeled neurodiverse, giving a talk about mental illness.

MerlinOh, so you get one of those, oh, she has good days and bad days. We're real proud of our little gal. She's a special gal. She's a metal lesbian, and we love her very much.

AlexAnd people are going to correct you because you're not using they, except you're doing a character who's not using they.

MerlinThat's what they would have said then.

AlexExactly. Exactly. Like, I've been a little.

MerlinWhy would anybody want to bother to figure out what the bit is? What's the point of humor if it has to be figured out?

AlexI really wish Trump had. I wanted Trump to make comedy fun again, but.

MerlinDid you read that article? In Slate?

AlexNo, I have not. I'll find it. Please do.

MerlinOh, boy. Here come the garbage cans. Oh, boy. I think the painters are about to go into full force. My favorite part of the painting, apart from the yelling, I also love, do you guys do like the big scaffolding? There's like a law here about like, you got to put a pole like scaffolding and cover up the scaffolding and like, it's a whole thing.

AlexI'm sure that it is a law, but there's not really any high-rises by us.

MerlinI love the one to seven days of just building a scaffolding. It just goes on and on and on. Please take up the whole sidewalk. It's not like anybody needs to roll their scooter down here. I almost got clotheslined by a tree today.

AlexOh, what? I'm not feigning.

MerlinBut it was way funnier than that. So it would be funny when I think of a clothesline. A clothesline is a wrestling move, but it's also that idea that, let's say you're in a Coen Brothers movie, trying to run away after a bank robbery. You run into a clothesline. It hits you below your chin, hits your neck, and you go ass over tea kettle, right?

Speaker AOr a branch on a tree

Merlinif you're the comic character on a horse. Were you on your scoot-scoot? Mine was even worse. There's this one tree I fucking hate. There's one tree these people, they park with the ass of their car practically in the street, and they have a house, or excuse me, a tree with branches that cross over. So it basically becomes like an Atari video game to try and get around the car and under the branch. And I navigated it pretty well today, but I was running late, going faster than I'd like. And it just lightly, the leaves lightly brushed the top of my head, which should be fine,

except if you've ever ridden a scoot-scoot, you know that it doesn't take much.

AlexOh, it does not.

MerlinAnd then I actually said this. Oh. And because I'm very dignified, holding my Ted Leo tote bag, I pulled myself together. I sat down, I had a good cry. Okay, okay.

AlexSo you've got, what shoes were you wearing?

MerlinAdams.

AlexOkay.

MerlinBut I also have my pants rolled up really high. So I get like a little bit of a fossey.

AlexOkay, okay.

MerlinBut I'm wearing a white sock like Gene Kelly did. Now Gene Kelly, he would wear a dark pant and a dark shoe with a white sock because that would really highlight what his feet were doing.

AlexYeah, I don't like that.

MerlinFred Astaire had very small feet. Not a lot of people know that.

AlexI don't like that. I don't want anyone to notice my feet. I don't know.

MerlinDo you like a Bob Fosse look? Do you know what I'm talking about? It's just an extreme cuff, right?

AlexIt's not like a full-on biker's cuff, but...

MerlinHe wears cool boots, and then whatever pants he's wearing, he'll do two or three big cuffs above the boots, and it looks so fucking cool. I could not pull it off. I would like to see Marco pull that off. Oh, my God. Oh, challenge. Oh, boy. Oh, look at that. Something's going on here. Oh, I think they're power washing the interior of that house. That actually

Alexsounded, I was like, are you peeing right now? It's a gusher.

MerlinIt's a gusher. That was definitely

Alexa squirt on that bar washer right

Merlinthere. Or a fresca.

AlexChallenge? Challenge. Ding-dong! Our challenge this week is not one I expected to get super into, but it was Merlin's challenge. Please share, share. This week's challenge

Merlinis mine, and it's depending on what you want to call it, find the perfect pencil for you. Find a pencil that you like, find a pencil that you enjoy. It could also be pens. It's just kind of a writing implement challenge. Just a chance to talk about what we like with our writing implements and why. All right.

AlexI took this very seriously.

MerlinGood. We need these kinds of, Alexandra, we need these kinds of little projects.

AlexWell, I think we do because I don't know how I, I have so many opinions about pencils, but I still don't know what I don't know.

MerlinYou also, it's difficult to know. I mean, like, this sounds so stupid. It's sort of like what I was saying with my GaragePand Opticon, how it was trying to find a mouse with a camera, is that it was interesting because what other occasion would I have to use five cameras that have been sitting in a closet and to see how each one operates under very similar conditions? And unless you're a dork, you probably don't have seven kinds of pencils right now, unless you're really weird. Keep them in a deli-tainer next to your Buddha and your Ewok. But having several pencils and being able to do a little test,

I don't know if you did this, doing the little test on paper, you go like, oh, you know what? I actually really do. This one makes me feel good. This one makes me frustrated a little bit when they're right next to each other. You know what I mean? Like it's an unusual opportunity.

AlexYeah, I don't like drafting pencils. And I don't know why anybody who does not need to draft something would use a drafting pencil.

MerlinTalking about like a mechanical with like a very fine.

AlexOh, yes. I'm sorry. See, I already am now assuming that people know.

MerlinWell, I think people who know a lot about pencils are going to laugh that we're even trying to do such a gloss. Exactly. People who don't love pencils don't care. Yes. I mean, I feel like, at least generally speaking, what it comes down to mostly is, do you like the way this pencil feels in your hand? And do you like the features of it? Like, you know, the kind of eraser and stuff. But I feel like arguably the most important part, apart from like the sort of, you know, Ticonderoga speak out there, is like how soft or hard is the lead? You remember when you took an SAT,

they said bring two number two pencils. And you're like, what the hell's a number two pencil? Like, that's the pencil everybody uses. that's a certain hardness or softness, right? So your big options are you get a classic pencil pencil or you get a mechanical pencil. They got the Pentels. I've got a couple Pentels I like, but those benefit from having a very kind of anal retentive lead system that's very precise. That's too fine for you. Too fine, too sharp?

AlexYeah, and sometimes you order a pencil and they just don't include the lead. Okay. I think it was...

MerlinThat would be like not including a charger with a phone. Very weird.

AlexIt is weird.

MerlinHere's a phone. It should be good for eight hours.

AlexI'm going to do something dangerous. This is not a guarantee. But if you message us on Patreon and you're like, I don't have an Apple, not a USB-C charger. I do not have enough USB-C charger. But if you're like, I don't have a USB-A charger, I will happily mail that to you. I actually measured it. It's like five cents. You don't need to pay. I just want to get these the fuck out of my house.

And when you throw it away, when you, sir, you, sir, throw it away, I will feel less bad about the literal seven pounds of chargers that I have.

MerlinWhoa, you're a hoarder.

AlexUh, yeah.

MerlinHow many, how many cars are you taking off the road?

AlexI like Lisa Jackson.

MerlinI do too. But like the, the funny thing about a statement, like a statement, like we're using less. So we're using less packaging. It's a thinner phone. All good. All good. They talked about this a lot on, on relay, I think in a really smart way, but like, um, but okay. So let's just, let's just stick to the one part. Yeah. It's really good for the environment to not include this, uh, a charger for the cable or the headphones. And every year, that is the environmental impact equivalent of taking 450,000 cars off the road, which is amazing.

But if you're like me, then you go like, wait a minute. What about all the other stuff that you're still doing? Oh, my God. When you hear those big numbers, it kind of can't help but make you go like, all right, how big a slice of the pie is that? That's terrifying.

AlexYes, yes, yes, yes.

MerlinAnd by the way, it is going to, I apologize. I'm so sorry. I think it'll just be this week's episode, but it's, I got a note from my landlord. They're coming out today. Yes, the painters are here and I think it's going to be loud. I'm very sorry. I just want to get that out of the way. I'll say it once.

AlexWell, it's still going to be better than my mic technique. So it doesn't matter. I'm trying so, so hard. There's tape on the floor now. I mean, it's kind of a bit like I go back here to laugh, to try to make Quinn's life easier and people's uh you know editor producers Quinn Quinn's life easier by not having to you know tamp down all those plosives but also not you know bleed people's ears but really they're doing a good job they should be loud if if people can't hear it then I think you should talk to your

landlord and the painters and be like excuse me Dougie senior I don't know Dougie senior I think

Merlinthere sounds to me like they might be pressure cleaning that was the sploosh okay all right so they are squirting cool so it's all about it's not really all about pencils and i have a long uh running uh love of office supplies that i i had sort of a breakthrough recently with this back to school quote unquote season which is i think my i think a lot of my ardor for office supplies in general probably comes from part of it was hanging out at my mom's office when i was a kid when she'd do floor time as a real estate agent and i'd amuse myself with office supplies

from the cabinet, but also like back to school, fresh folders. Yes. And you get fresh duotangs or peachies. You get, you know, spiral notebooks. You get a fresh 48 of crayons or whatever. It's like so exciting. And so, yeah, I really, one of the things I hope we'll have time to talk about. So like when you say, for example, I don't like drafting pencils, which is a totally valid thing to say. I think the interesting thing is that when you mess with this stuff long enough, you start to realize it becomes like in a weird way, like a toolbox. there's certain kinds of writing implements you want to use in certain situations and not in others

and I feel like some of them those decisions end up being affected by like what it is you're trying to accomplish right now or let's like to say the velocity with which you would like to be writing

Alexthings or drawing things okay I need I want to hear all of these things because I don't really get the velocity things but i i really really want to thank you adina hurley and by proxy uh brad dowdy of the pen addict like i i they they saved my asses what is adina on there now uh i think she has been on but she uh gave gave me a pencil recommendations uh and one in and her

favorite which i love uh they're multi-colored they're they're so cool and anyway uh yeah so i was able to sort of wrap my head around like okay this is why someone would you use something like this except the black wings which we must talk about uh but but thank you so much and i i nobody are you're not allowed to email me about pencils or dm me about pencils but nobody's dm and unless you will tell me why you like Joe Rogan because I still don't get it.

And I just don't, I don't get it. I'm really talking to the audience today. Wow. Maybe you should quiz me about the whole episode.

MerlinI'm sorry. I'm for the last blue shame. So you're encouraging people to message you to get chargers. The other thing you're saying is no one's allowed to talk to you about pencils unless they tell you why they like Joe Rogan.

AlexYes. I will not judge you.

MerlinAnd that's not a non-sec order, right? no I don't think so what's the association between pencils and because I know that people

Alexare going to be like you should try this pencil instead and I don't know I I refuse I refuse you will be banned but I just want to know this Joe Rogan thing I haven't listened to more of it I'm just it's an intellectual curiosity at this point or maybe I'm just lying to myself uh but any Anyway, if you are into pencils, apparently the pen addict has a lot of great recommendations, none of which I liked.

But I gave them to like artist friends. And yeah, especially the I've got this one here. The Koo Koo. It's a Pentel. Fuck what the Pentel carry since the I think it's just called the Pentel. carry but it is a capable pencil look at that i don't think it's technically a drafting pencil c-a-r-r-y uh k-e-r-r-y um and i think it's made by yes it is made by pentel um oh look at that

yeah oh but it is it is a mechanical yeah yeah so but it's um this this one was my third favorite uh my second favorite was actually another uh oh no did i drop it uh oh boy i got a whole bunch of them where'd you go where'd you go buddy um i also loved loved loved shopping for school supplies except um well by love i mean i spent hours doing it because uh it's hard to find the right thing

and it would bother my hands.

MerlinOh, so it's backpacks and phone cases?

AlexYep, yep. And luckily, yep, yep. I mean, this really was like Alex Neurosi's 1.0. It was school supplies. Oh no, that was like stuffed animals because the fabric of the plushie is very important. Anyway.

MerlinI'm so neurotic about my stuffed animals.

AlexIt's, I've got.

MerlinMy relationship with my stuffed animals was not wholesome. In a dirty way, but in like, I love them too much.

AlexOh, no, I think that's okay.

MerlinI did make out with a monkey once.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinHis name was Jojo.

AlexOh, boy. I don't know if that's a reference.

MerlinSorry, chimp. That was ableist.

AlexI'm going to put that pin in that one.

MerlinI'm so sorry. It's so loud. I'm so sorry, Quinn. I have no way to change this.

AlexI enjoy it. You know what?

MerlinDon't. No, please. Come on.

AlexCome on. Okay. Okay.

MerlinSo you got some pencils. You do like one mechanical pencil. you like the the carry one can I address something you said? Yes. That you seem interested in? Why do this? I mean, for example, something I've talked about that might be more relatable to you and how you roll is on more than one occasion a person has said to me, I hear you use all these different calendar apps on iOS why wouldn't you just use one calendar app? And I was like, yeah, that's a totally

valid question that would have been an extremely valid question 10 or 15 years ago like it would be insane to use more i mean it would be like having five paper calendars in like five places like do you keep all those updated which one is true like when something's canceled do you run to five different calendars and delete it well it's to state the obvious uh the increasingly obvious well all of my calendars sync in the cloud which means that i can use any app anytime no shade no lemonade so sometimes well here's a here's a crazy one i often start writing my

events typing my events in drafts because i like to use emoji i like to you know make sure i add the right you know slash this calendar and all those things and i prefer to do all that in drafts because drafts is where text starts and then i send that to fantastical so it's double weird like why don't you just like click like a person well it's not it's this is i think one of the areas where there's still so much opportunity is interactions with calendars and viewing calendars especially on a phone less on an ipad but especially on a phone it's i'm picking a time

like even with a fantastic out template those things are great but even then even with the new new and improved like like spin wheel thing it's still kind of a pain in the ass you got to change keyboards you got to jump around you got to do all this stuff so why use more than one calendar Well, I mean, you know, why have more than one screwdriver? Why have more than one pan? Why have more than one bag? Like you use them for different things and they all serve a similar purpose. And oh my God.

Quinn, do me a favor. Do not cut out any of the noise. Do not even attempt it. This is how it goes out.

AlexEverything in the show is in the show.

MerlinAnd I feel like that's true. So I don't know if I made the case there. I'm not saying other people should do it, but that is why I do it, is that having those different apps are useful for different things. Because here's the thing. Again, to re-restate the obvious, if you're on a phone, some apps, it's much easier to look at a month view in this app rather than that app. It's just they're not all created equal. Whereas entry is way easier on this one. Whereas this one, like BusyCal, has special features like extra fields that the others don't have.

So does that make sense?

AlexNo, because these are analog tools. Like why? Mostly I don't understand for you and I guess people who primarily write. I mean, I'm making an assumption that you primarily write or do like outlines or something.

MerlinYeah, less less a drawing. Some some doodling, some scribbling, but mostly it's to write on paper.

AlexSo why not pens? Like what?

MerlinThis is where velocity comes into it. Tell me about that. It's hard to describe, but I noticed something a pretty long time ago that was very surprising to me. Oh, my God.

AlexNow I'm worried they have a chainsaw.

MerlinShould we keep going? You think this is going to be even usable at all?

AlexOh, yes. Yes.

MerlinI can barely hear you. This is insane.

AlexOh, really? I can talk more.

MerlinNo, no, no. Don't. No, please, please, please. It's okay. It is what it is. You know what? It's rain on your wedding day. so what's an example of this um okay so i two things i was famous for as a kid because it's always two things with me i guess now technically there's a third but um i had a filthy room that i never cleaned that my mother was very ashamed of and my penmanship my handwriting as we used to say especially my cursive was so bad that it pulled my other grades down oh apparently that's a thing you could be graded on that fuck what okay okay i'm better sorry this

is why we shouldn't teach math in school you should teach math somewhere that's not school so school can be a cool thing and then you can just go to math yes yes um but oh god my handwriting is very bad but you know the thing that i noticed that was interesting to me and i'm like this is a challenge but an idea for you to see what i'm talking about is pick your favorite implement of all the implements you have right now and um write a sentence like off the dome like something that's just on your mind and write it like you normally would. Second, write it really fast.

Third, write it very slowly, taking care to form each letter to the best of your abilities.

AlexOkay. Yeah. All right. So like,

Merlinif you do number three on college ruled paper, I have a feeling it's going to take you about 20 seconds to notice that all three of those not only produce different results on the paper, but produce different results in your thinking. You've adopted a velocity that suits the speed of your mind.

If the pen can't keep up with you, like you ever been on a keyboard that doesn't work so great? It's really frustrating. If your E doesn't work, you know, like that's super frustrating because you want to be typing faster. Well, sometimes it's great to type fast. You could be a Jason Snell and just be a real speed demon. But sometimes when you're using especially an implement, you will discover that something like, using that tool pen that max turned me on to which i'm now obsessed with everyone everybody in my house uses these now they're so smooth they're so fast t-u-l i'll put it in notes really really delightful that is very different from using the john dickerson very hard lead

Alexum black wing you produce something very different which is the dickerson because i got two uh no

MerlinI don't think they're for sale.

AlexNo, but isn't it like, is it a matte or a 602? Because there's different...

MerlinI don't know the exact ones, but I would say closer to a matte. The aesthetics of all the pencils that I have here in front of me, easily, my favorite aesthetically, is the Dickerson pencil. And I like writing with it, but it's a little bit hard.

The lead's a little bit hard for how I like to do. This would be great for like a sketch pencil, but I really prefer the classic black black wing which I think is a 4B I don't know it wouldn't matter if I knew but I like a soft lead so anyway what I'm trying to get at here is why care about this stuff well you know the beauty in life is that we get to have preferences about things that no one else needs to care about that's fun that's a fun thing in America we have so few things now let us have our pencils and again we're not even getting into the kinds of paper or notebook that you're writing on which can make a difference don't obsess

over this but you'll notice a difference so it's why a space pen is not very fun to write with because it's real gooey it's gummy but for what you need to do if you're at a rock and roll show and need to write the name of a suggested band on on an index card and hand it to jeff veen that bullet uh you know the fisher pen pen is a space pen it's perfect for that would i use that while sitting at my desk never like gross it's too small. It makes your hand cramp up.

So I'll give you a real quick. I always keep this notebook here. My mood changes, but I keep this notebook to the right of my mousing area, usually with the tool pen. And when I'm talking to you, I can write down things like the two words, meta-lesbian. Now I'm using the tool, and I can write real fast with that. But as I'm going through the day and just things occur to me, sometimes, yeah, I'll go to drafts and write it down. But if I'm at my desk, I'd be happy to talk about this. I have a system where I split a page up into like six areas. And it's not Cornell, but it's kind of my own dumb idea

for an ad hoc organization. But no, but I'll start, usually, I'll start writing from the bottom of the page on the left, for example, or usually in my other system on the right. Like things I need to get, like errands, groceries, things like that. I start at the bottom of the page and work up. All bottom half things start at the bottom of the page and go up. All top half things start at the top and go to the bottom so it fills in naturally. And with this nice, soft Palomino Blackwing, Blackwing, Halloween, you know, that's exactly, that's fast velocity. It's a fairly sharp, it's a fairly sharp point, but I like the fat, like fuzzy line. And I don't care what it looks

like. I just need to get the idea down fast. And that's where the, this, this pencil works. So, but I mean, really it does come down to, what it really comes down to is who cares. But if you do care at all, it comes down to just what feels good for you. What, What makes you feel like yourself when you're writing or drawing?

AlexDo you have, do you archive any of this? Or is it all just sort of scratch stuff? And is it like a field notes type of thing of I'm not writing this down to remember it later. I'm writing this down to remember it now type of thing.

MerlinI still keep old like moleskins, like especially from my arduous years because as a historical document and because at that time I was using them as a crazy fun like journal. Like a like like I don't know, like some crazy guy in Arkansas who puts the stickers from his meat in the newspaper, like in a notebook and writes down the temperature all day. That kind of craziness from stickers like the, you know, the sticker from my kids orange or whatever. and it is perhaps surprisingly delightful to open that up and just see this moment in time like just

leap out it's that's wild but no with these i mean i've got just because i haven't taken out the trash lately i usually rip off one of these a day i recently shifted this cambridge notebook i recently shifted to doing a top uh spiral because in the desk area if i want to you know i don't want to move stuff around to get a fresh page you know what i mean if i flop open a regular old left spiral book it's going to flop over onto my bell and my water I don't want that

AlexI just want but I don't I don't

Merlinkeep them really although it's kind of fun sometimes I'll go back and look through and make sure I didn't miss anything it's not a system it's just paper I there's no fire there's only bell multi towers alright

Alexso really you're a power you're versatile sometimes you're kind of a power bottom sometimes you start out

Merlinyou're on top and then uh good good good for you sure okay yeah um sure i don't know exactly what that means but um sometimes i do want the fineness of now if you're gonna go mechanical i was always the the two things i swore by in college and developed a very close relationship with were the pentel the classic pentel mechanical pencil with the 0.5 millimeter lead i used that in college and loved it and i also used the varsity disposable um fountain pens in color blue So I wrote a lot of my thesis using those.

It's really weird. And the idea of like a disposable fountain pen seemed crazy to me at the time. But now, yeah, like now today I like these sloppy boys a little bit more. If you're going to go mechanical, I got to say the upgrade, the Pentel Graph Gear 1000 mechanical pencil. It's really cool. One of my favorite features is that it's got a, so like when you press the top with the eraser to come out, that pops it out. And then there's a clip that you can put into your shirt.

Alexlike a baller and that retracts it oh yeah one of these has a which one is it um the click is on the the click is on the clip which i i don't know i that's a little bit digital watch

Merlinwhere like the thing that you think about to me digital watches are like this um the apotheosis of what goes wrong when you try to have too many things that require like a medikey like you I remember as a little kid trying to program my little Texas Instruments, you know, race car watch that had one button and then the one like meta button. It's so, you know what I'm saying? It's so hard to get through the different modes. It's like setting up some really crappy like home devices where like. Oh, I didn't tell you. Did I tell you I bought one of those power tester things?

AlexYes. So did I. So did I. Yeah. The one you sent me.

MerlinMine is. Did you get the one with the four sides, like a plus sign? Yeah.

AlexIt has more wires than I anticipated. It's so hard to read.

MerlinIt's so fucking hard to read.

AlexI opened it and I'm like, this is a project for another day.

MerlinOh my God, me too. It's in a Ziploc bag. Okay. Anyway, what else? You know, you can get this stuff off Amazon pretty easy. It's one of those things where I guess like Field Notes or like Moleskine, the Blackwing people, I think, know they got a good thing with dorks who like this stuff. And so they do cool stuff like leave up pages for historical, you know, here's this pencil that we used to have, which I think is cool. But on the other hand, it can be kind of difficult.

If you want anything but their subscription or the most popular models, it can be a little frustrating. Like I really want to get those Eras pencils. They're really cool looking. But, you know, they're, of course, like all sold out.

AlexBut also they go away. Do you ever finish a pencil?

MerlinGod, no, I'm not a monster.

AlexWhat? what these pencils are like 50 fucking dollar i'm like oh my good lord i uh i mean i i will so the fate my favorite pencil which i have used since third grade i believe is the uh paper mate clear point seven millimeter and it has a clicky on the side oh you like buy like a six pack of

Merlinthem at walgreens yep yep it's yeah i know exactly one of those my kid likes those too

Alexand crazy colors and uh i i did i was mature and just got a regular black set um but it also is the twisty eraser on the top because i am bad at math and i am always very self-conscious about erasing something too hard because then with a mechanical pencil because then like oh yeah you got a big old chubby just coming right out and but then then uh the the what is it okay oh the black wing matte came and i was like yeah this is very artisty like this is not what color is it

uh it's it's dark black with the black it has a black eraser tip okay but uh the the like og as they call it oh that's pleasant um the 602 or whatever 602 at first i'm like this is fucking

Merlinweird i don't have any of those that's the one with the with the classic pinkish eraser right

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah. Hands written on the side. Half the pressure, twice the speed. Yes, I get it. It's all over the website.

MerlinI'm so sorry. I think my landlord is knocking. Can you hang on for a second?

AlexYes, yes, I can indeed. All right. While Merlin's not here, I'm actually going to sharpen one of these because I think where I initially messed up is I used a hand... Quinn if you can hear that keep the hey because that's a very meta lesbian thing to do um it's it's a meta like femme thing to do I think uh because when I'm on support I'm always like oh hey thank you so much and I don't use my normal tone of voice anyway I got a hand crank

I'm sorry I'll stop with the with the cranking jokes uh I got a hand crank sharpener and it has a selection for different levels of sharpness but I I think I was just using it wrong and I kept making my pencils too sharp but now uh I also got the uh electric sharpener that was on the wire cutter and I know the wire cutter usually sucks now but I don't fucking know what electric pencil sharpener to get um but let's see how

Merlinthe internet no no i'm here the internet was a bad idea what did you do

AlexI, I, the wire cutter did it. The wire cutter did it. I, I was all excited. I was talking to our lovely listeners and we were visiting while you talked to Douglas Sr. And I decided to try out my new electric pencil sharpener that arrived this morning. Cause I was not a fan of the hand crank one, mostly cause I couldn't figure it out.

MerlinAnd you got to kind of hold it down.

AlexYeah. I just, I was like, no, no, this is, I understand why this is very good. and very helpful, but not for me. So I got the whatever the wire cutter recommended. In fact, I think the fucking

Merlinupgrade. The second least expensive one. Welcome to second least expensive one dot com.

AlexOh, let's capture that. Yep. Oh boy.

MerlinIs it the electric or the sound? What caused it? So for listeners, if it's not clear, from my end, it appears that when Alexandra electrically sharpens their pencil,

Alexthe internet drops uh no no no the internet does not drop when i plug in my electric pencil sharpener into one of my computer's usb ports which i was i specifically got it because it's

Merlinwhat the fuck are you talking about yes my electric pencil you're using your computer to power a pencil sharpener yeah why not what are you a brookstone what why not it's one it's one

Alexoutlet that needs to be taken up. It's fine. Well, it's not fine, apparently, because when it's plugged in, it's fine. I panicked because I'm like, wait, no.

MerlinIs it a supported pencil sharpener?

AlexI don't know what that means.

MerlinIt might void your warranty.

AlexNo, they say that's part of... It's a feature, not a bug, according to...

MerlinWhat does Apple have to say about it? Apple doesn't want people just plugging weird shit into their computers. What the fuck, Alex? You have so many adapters. Why would you do that?

AlexBut it's just a Huey. It'll be in show notes.

MerlinAm I accusing the victim? Is that what I'm doing?

AlexWhat were you wearing? What were you wearing? Yes. You know what? I was walking home alone with my pencil. Oh, boy. I was basically asking for it. Anyway, plugged it into my computer. It's fine. But when you start to sharpen it, I guess it does too much of a power draw and then kicks everything else.

MerlinWell, then it would be a classic Apple product. that works great as long as you never use it.

Show notes

Transcript

208. Meta Lesbian

Show notes

Transcript

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