223. You’re Stuck with You

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. This week's challenge, use a keychain.

Speaker CHello. Hello. How are you? I mean, I'm all right, which is a

AlexThat's an interesting thing to say. How are you?

MerlinI cried a little today, so I'm a pony. I'm a little horse.

AlexDid your crying and you can return null, did it have anything to do with the ceremonies this morning?

MerlinYeah, I mean, I had a lot of big emotions as we record this. It's Wednesday, January 20th, 2021 at 1136 Alexandra Standard Time.

And yeah, I mean, you know, like they say in Equus, you know, moments snap together like magnets. You don't get to pick what you want to fuck and you don't get to pick what makes you cry. And Joe Biden made me cry today, of all things. Okay, so setting aside that the first time you saw the video for, I guess, probably Poker Face, would you have guessed Lady Gaga would be as her friend of the show, Alexandra P. Tries, wearing her Hunger Games outfit. Would you imagine her singing the national anthem as Donald J. Trump was leaving office?

That was weird.

AlexI mean, it's always weird.

MerlinNo, but it's just, it's all Grandpa Uncle Joe. By the end of his swearing in, I was crying. I was crying because the guy just, he, oh, God. I said to my lady friend this morning, for today, I'm going to be a proud, centrist, neoliberal. There's not any problem we can't solve with technology. Andrew Yang's got an app for that. Oh, boy. Okay, it's all going to work out. Just for today, just for today, I'm going to be a normie, like all of my Macintosh friends, I'm going to be a normie, centrist, like, you know, resistance, pussy hat wearing orange Cheeto guy.

And I'm going to be really proud of that fella for being so goddamn boring and so fucking earnest. You're a Catholic. Just be a little move, to be honest.

AlexI didn't think it was going to get me. Um, the, I was like, okay, that's a really old Catholic Bible. That's really cool. Although I bet a bunch of pedophiles have touched it, I bet.

Speaker ABut I said to Madeline, is there a witch in there? Doesn't it look like it contained a captured witch?

Speaker BIt's just, it's just an old Bible.

Speaker AOnce the clasp ye open, there is no turning back.

AlexOh God. I mean in fact I literally tweeted like a minute ago none of my tweets are good but I'm like I don't care if it's Normie Lipschit I am here for it as they say

MerlinI already broke my rule because now I'm being yelled at about Amy Klobuchar who I guess everybody loves I'm going to tell you a secret Alex I want to hear the rest of your story about the Bible but you know there are some people I'm going to say some names I'm going to name names I'm back to watching cable news and I'm going to be off cable news Oh, no.

AlexOkay, good, good.

MerlinI think they should give Amy Klobuchar, Gloria Borger, Claire McCaskill, and Rick Santorum their own show. And I think it should run all the time in such a way that they never appear on my TV. I don't want to see Claire McCaskill on my TV ever again. If I see Amy Klobuchar coming out and doing her fucking tight five one more time. I said to Matt, I'm sorry, I'm telling you a lot of things. Because we've been, I'm usually tired because I haven't been up for long. I've been up for hours.

It's just that I'm kind of emotionally exhausted. And I said, Amy Klobuchar seems like the kind of person who memorizes a pun and then explains why it's funny.

AlexI always see her as a middle school teacher who isn't the worst, but you still kind of need to just grin and bear it and just get through it.

MerlinShe reminds me of the sort of person who, let's just say, runs a children's preschool and thinks they come off nicer, funny or smarter and wise than they are.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinAnd I'm just so tired of her. I'm tired of her hair. I'm tired of her anecdotes. I'm so fucking tired of her hair flopping around. I'm tired of her anecdotes about standing in the snow in a way Trump never would. Aren't she? I'm just so fucking. Yes, I understand. She's in the inauguration committee. Oh, boy. But she's not fucking Johnny Carson hosting the Oscars in the 70s.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinGet off the stage and stop standing next to everybody.

Speaker AIt's not an anti-woman thing. It's an anti-Amy thing. I think she sucks.

AlexI will say I disagree in that. I do think that she is self-aware enough that she gets what she's doing. She just doesn't care. Like, she doesn't care that she yells at her staff.

MerlinShe's doing like the equivalent of dad jokes, right?

AlexYeah. she's like I'm gonna throw staples at my staff like

Merlinoh yeah have a little binder scarecrow I'm the witch in the bible title

Speaker Aoh no oh no that's it they said hey it looks like you can open this huh yesterday and they opened it and Amy Klojar came out she's eating salad with a fucking comb

Alexhello and turds welcome back I realize I'm cancelled

Merlinthis is gonna be my David my David Reese impersonation

Speaker Aum actually you know she's the head of the inauguration committee and a very powerful woman

Alexyeah you know what else she's fucking annoying get a show oh god she well i i mean we do know how that worked out the last time we gave someone with even a deezy tiny tiny tiny bit of power and influence a television show so i am not going to endorse that idea be careful what you ask where

Merlinshe and Rick Santorum might run for something together.

AlexOh, that, see, that's okay. The, the upsetting thing is that's not,

Merlinwhy is he on CNN, Alex? Why is he on CNN? Balance, fair and balanced. Is that what we're doing? We report, you decide.

AlexI thought we were going to be a nor, I thought we were going to be normie libs today. And, but you're Duncan on the cloabster and, uh, you know,

Merlinokay, sorry, sorry, sorry. Hang on. Um, uh, leave all of this in, please. Um, producer Quinn and, please run the jazz at the beginning.

This is Dubai Friday, a weekly challenge podcast hosted by Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge, be a centrist neoliberal.

I'm just glad that there's a return to decency. Mr. Trump, sir. Mr. Trump, sir.

AlexGoodbye, Cheeto man. Oh, yeah.

MerlinLook, a gold toilet with your tan and you and the ham birders.

AlexLet me. Ham birders. I just need to check in on a friend of the show, Jeff T. Drick.

MerlinI'm sorry. We used your juice. I'm sorry. We used your juice. I know you already did the previous intro. but you know the thing is when you're a normie centrist neoliberal you know there's a technology

Speaker Asolution for everything i'm gonna make an app yeah okay you're gonna make an app you're gonna

Merlinmake an app to show that everybody whether or not you've had your vaccine in the last two months

Speaker Ayeah that's right it's gonna be on an app and you can just run the qr code okay so how's that information get on the phone i don't know that's someone else's problem i made an app hey look at

Merlinme i'm in swift fuck you sorry this is do by friday a weekly challenge podcast where we're

Alexwe resist pussy hat oh welcome to the resistance mitch mcconnell this is do but oh boy may may i read to you uh jeff tdrick's two latest tweets from oh wow one hour ago he has not tweeted for one hour um but he says friend of the show at jeff tedrick holy fucking shit the vice president of the united states is kamala harris holy fucking shit the

president of the united states is joe biden and i really think that mr sir sir cheeto man should just just go quietly into the night wow he's gonna have to really sit with that huh yeah i i'm a little bit genuinely worried about him like he keeps being like please support my website remind

Merlinme is he is he the is he the like semi-official trump reply guy he is absolutely it's like one of the t-h-e i probably i probably muted him five years ago but he's one of those one of those mr

Alextrump sir reply guys yes he i've sent you a photograph and i'll i will send you the okay

Merlinbut i i so are you not familiar this looks like this looks like the person who plays fake steven

Alexspielberg on tim and eric oh yeah uh yeah yeah but the first time i saw it i thought it was like a joke steven spielberg like impersonation account because when adam when adam used to have the icon

Merlindid you ever do you remember this adam had an icon that slowly yes yes the violinist on the sign slowly turned into him over months it was amazing oh god it was so there's a violinist on a sign there's a violin for a while he was robin williams eating a sandwich by himself for obvious reasons but there was there's a musician on i've seen his musician on a sign in la and he looks weirdly he looks like if adam and yakov smirnoff had some unholy violin baby oh i don't like that

Alexi know that that's in my oh no oh no who's the bossy bottom who's boss oh i mean abriel oh he truly is what a country oh i the the two things that got me this morning was basically when biden was starting his speech and you know i i was like i'll be i'm still here for his you know normie speech but then he's like he basically started off with i know this is gonna be cringe everybody but i was like oh okay there's some self-awareness in here it's like this is probably

Merlinall nice to say well like when you're when you're when you're when your kid is sick and your kid does not like taking medicine, you sometimes have to be that person who says, look, you feel bad right now. You're going to feel worse after I give you this, but you really super need to take this. And if you have an ear infection, it doesn't matter how much you don't like antibiotics. This is what we've got for you. And I think that's in some ways... See, I'm making it sound bad, but the truth is, in my heart of hearts, the reason I cried

a little bit was a combination of oh yeah i don't hear more about the bible and catholicism but i cried a little because like it was as everybody said on normie twitter it's like i feel like i'm exhaling it's like holy shit you know like john mulaney's tweet says and stay out

Alexyou know i watched that clip a lot this week i was watching i was forgetting like the wonderful

Merlinbit inside the bit where he's like you know and sometimes you don't hear from the voice because that's what we think of it is like you know as everybody said like at least we used to know what's on his mind because you can't help but say it yeah right um but it was that and it was also like you know it was so striking now i'll just be claire mccaskill for a minute it was so striking to think about like he how consistently he has sort of beaten this drum in the best way possible of like of honor and decency and respect and like equality and like

saying all of these things that if it came out of the mouth of any other politician especially a male politician in this case you would laud that and you would say that's that's exactly what what our country needs to hear all the time we need to constantly be reminded to be as good as we think we are everybody needs that but the whole thing with trump all along it's just been it's power and strength and power and strength and power and strength. But it's not about American power. It's not about American strength.

It's about his utter pants-shitting terror about his lack of power and his lack of strength. Now, I'm going to get into whether Fred could have hugged him more or he could have hugged Junior more because I think those are important things. But it's just, I think Joe Biden really does try. I think when he's sniffing hair and touching people, I don't think he's trying to be a weirdo. I think he has a lot of feelings. And I think he, I believe him and I think he believes him.

And if that makes me a Klobuchar stan, that's, that's, that's okay. So where did, tell me, tell me about your emotions, where they came from and the witch Bible.

AlexOh, um, I guess it is, uh, his family Bible. And I didn't read too much into it because it was the times. And then it was like, please, I was on, I don't know. There was too many things.

MerlinOh, you're on your last article. You get Bloomberg.

AlexThis is your last article.

Speaker ABusiness insider.

AlexYeah. And I got to the part where Hunter, God, Hunter Biden is genuinely very attractive.

MerlinI spent 20 minutes trying to figure out which of the two daughters I'm going to stalk on.

AlexIt's like, oh boy.

MerlinI think it's going to be the one. I think their names are either – there's like Finnegan and O'Douly and Maisie Bell and the one with the jacket who looked like the girl from San Junipero. Woof. Oh, my. First of all, the coats. We've got to do a whole separate podcast just about women in double-breasted coats. Oh. Holy shit. But the girl with the little Christmas ornaments on her tweed coat.

AlexOh, I know. Well, but that's the other thing with the coats is I'm like, as soon as Biden's speech was done, and I apologize, I really said Hunter, and I meant Bo Biden. I'm sorry. I apologize for my service. But the-

MerlinWait, wait, wait. Are you talking about it's called Where's Hunter, or are you talking about Major Bo?

AlexDid I- wait, Bo Biden.

MerlinTalk about the guy- no, Bo is the one who passed.

AlexOh, New York Times. You got a big oopsie doopsie.

MerlinWell, Hunter is the Bruce McGuire with the wife who kind of looks like Meghan Markle with the amazing double-breasted coat. Laura Bush with those slash pockets. Whew.

AlexCall the cops. What a look. Yeah. I mean, oh, my – well, everybody is just – I mean –

MerlinThe women – oh, my God. Well, the men look great too. But like even with a mask – oh, shit. And the ones with the coordinated masks? Oh, my God.

AlexOh, it's so cute. It's so cute.

MerlinSo cute. Oh, oh, Dr. Jill? Oh, man, she looked great. And I don't mean like in a sexy way. I mean like in, oh, my God, you look so classy and put together. You look awesome. Now, I'm being creepy about Hunter's daughters. Let's be honest.

AlexOh, yes. I mean, that's what we are here for. Oh, God, no.

MerlinI wouldn't throw them out of bed for eating charisma.

AlexNo, no, no, no. Oh, Hunter, you are just, oh, here's a picture of Bo.

MerlinHunter, he's a slice of beefcake.

AlexLook at that guy. Oh, my gosh. Wow. He is every podcaster's dream as it's been established.

MerlinYeah.

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah.

MerlinKeep, keep, keep.

AlexI mean, I keep, I have a lot of feelings about Joe Biden as a human being because like you said, I don't think he's trying to be creepy. And I also, I believe all of the terrible things that he has done. But I also wonder if he's the kind of person who goes to sleep every single night thinking about all of the mistakes that he's done. And it's probably self-delusion on my part.

But I'm also like in the back of my mind, like, what if he just goes on full like socialist like dirtbag left everything that Republicans fear because he is so strong in his faith? I'm like, what if? What if? It's kind of this, you know, little little like fan fiction that I've been playing out in my head this morning.

MerlinYou're saying if he goes like – when you say socialist, you mean like goes like liberal Catholic? How do you mean?

AlexOh, yeah, like full-on Catholic lib. Like, yeah, let's – health care for everybody. Yep, let's get rid of debt. Like just open the floodgates of what Republicans see as terrifying. and I know that it won't happen but I just let me have a half hour of this every four years well you know it's

Merlinit's unfashionable unless one has been cancelled it's become unfashionable to admit not even to apologize but to admit that I'm going to put it in a problematic way to admit that we're proud of ourselves for being less of an asshole I'm proud of myself for being less I'm still a dick, but hopefully I'm less of an asshole. And what he did with Anita Hill was and probably is inexcusable. It's terrible. The way that he participated in treating her was very, very bad.

And I think it was very politically based. But, you know, okay, he did that. I do think he's a different person now.

Speaker BYeah.

MerlinAnd I would like to think he's the same person, but he's a different person because you don't get a choice. You don't – unless you go do like a Hannibal Lecter and like move to Venice with a fake mustache, you're you. You're stuck with you. You don't get to just reboot. We've all fucked up and like –

AlexAnd this is a big old fuck up but this is also a big person in the – not the literal – big joke.

MerlinNo, no, no. But it's a big turnaround. Yeah. And I think it would be very unseemly for all of us to announce, especially in this environment, but even not in this environment, it's unseemly to talk about, you know, like fucking Mike Lindell who has turned his crack addiction into a brand, right? It's like, okay, fine. Now you're basically just another TED Talk douche who's got your failure backstory. But like an adult person and ideally realizes where they could be better.

And I think to always make it about some kind of performative public bullshit where you get out there and like, you know, wear your Beatles wig and talk about how, you know, you're really woke now is gross. It gets you claps on Instagram. but I think it's really gross. But like, I've been Joe Biden. I've done some incredibly stupid shit and I don't know if I've always made up for it, but I have definitely tried to stop doing this shit that was dumb. And like, I don't think he's being overly callow.

I think he's a man who's nearing the end of his life, who's really trying to do some good stuff there. He's had plenty of opportunities.

AlexThat's the other thing, yeah. He doesn't have anything to lose, really.

MerlinAnd really not that much to gain.

AlexYeah, exactly.

MerlinHe's putting his kids, his kids getting dragged through all this shit. He hates that. I think I do believe the stuff with Bo is real.

AlexYeah.

MerlinAnd I do believe it weighs on him. And I think it's practically a specter in his life. And every time I see him standing there with that look, I'm thinking, you know, I've had that feeling when I when I when I was getting divorced, when my wife divorced me. and that was a thing, that's when I decided I had to make some changes. I decided I needed to probably move and I got a job and stuff like that. And the small victories that I achieved,

small, very small victories, in the midst of that utter heart-rending pain, that other dissolution of life, like we talked about last week, something's about to happen that I can't handle. How will I get through this? And when I managed to have a couple small victories, the part that made me cry was that the one person in the world that I wish that I could share it with was the person who was least suited to sharing that with and it was if you've been in that position in life you know how heartbreaking that is and when he got up there

I think it was yesterday and said I wish it was Bo up here and we were making him president I fucking lost it because I believe him I don't think he's doing that for clapping I think he really believes that

AlexHis texts were literally leaked that were like loving conversations between him and his son who has very much fucked up.

MerlinHe's very supportive of his son who's losing his shit. Oh, my God.

AlexAnd look at that.

MerlinHe has family dinners at such a small table. What a creep.

AlexYeah. Yeah. Like, it's.

MerlinI think we look at him. Some of us look at him. Some people, maybe me. I think a lot of people look at that and go, there's no way this is real. we've all we all have so many you know you know the slings in eras of outrageous romance like so much shit has happened to us we have we bear those keloids every day and it seems impossible to look at somebody who fucks up but is doing their best but deeply loves their family and go there's no way that real he's got to be donking some of those people and it's like i don't think he's donking anybody maybe dr jill i mean i think it's all real i she's hot she's really she is very

Alexvery hot uh this is man if this is the one where i get canceled i am i'm fine with it save it for the app in the after show we're going to talk about who's hot i well i i i actually jeff tudrick is he hot oh no that man's face makes me want to vomit he looks like a man who he looks like a man who would eat the fries off your plate when you go to the bathroom oh yeah not just that like he's he's the one who immediately asks about your kickstarter or your patreon just to bring up his own and it's not doing oh my god so i've had many a luncheon of that um god i'm i'm just on

tara reed's wikipedia page just like just being like this this makes me absolutely nauseous but also the uh yeah yeah the um who alleged that oh is she in the big lebowski and the one who passed She – no. Tara Reid is who Biden allegedly assaulted in 1990, I believe. Oh, OK. And she was Vicky in American Pie and it was like really – like she also –

MerlinYeah, she's the girl from – OK, American Pie. There we go.

AlexAnd I – I know her. There was a – there would be a time in my life where there was no fucking way I would vote for Joe Biden. um and actually virgil texas i don't know if he's on chapeau anymore um but of the bad yeah i don't

Merlini haven't listened in months but well that's yeah i mean certainly there's two-thirds of this show at one point made that very clear that there was some there's some some uh majority of this program that said they're not going to vote for non-bernie or perhaps they might not vote at all oh i oh i would

AlexExcuse me. One third. One third. I am.

MerlinYou never that was never you.

AlexOh, it was me. It was. I don't know. And I but it was Virgil Texas, I think, who said like because he just kept evading the question of like, are you going to vote?

MerlinHe's not he's not the funniest, but he was my favorite.

AlexYeah. Yeah. And on his new podcast, he's like, you know what? I truly believe in voting for voting your conscience. and for some people that means voting for joe biden and for some people that means being unable to and i under i i understood when people felt that way about uh clinton i mean less so because i you know i was like i mean he's probably not gonna win never miss an opportunity to vote out

Merlinbush yeah exactly like oh you're talking about are you talking about um uh hillary about both

Alexboth um because you know he the definition of his career before that not definition but um i didn't know this at the time as a near infant uh no like four i don't know um but like so much of the of hillary's career was defined by no oh not gonna take the last name oh cheated on again

Merlinlike and i don't she thinks she thinks cooking uh making cookies is beneath yeah and yeah and and

Alexjust i don't think that i would have been the person who could ever vote for um bill clinton and if four years ago i do not think that i could have in good conscience voted for joe biden um but uh that that was one four years ago two totally like totally thought trump was going to win this time and I would not have been able to live with myself if I did not vote for Joe Biden which is where my conscience took me for better or worse I hope it's for better but um I mean

it's like okay if if I am at the same point like emotionally and politically four years later is that a good thing probably not like I mean I I don't know it's it is it is really there's there's

Merlina fear. Boy, I'm feeling super deep this week. There's a word that is important to me, alongside wholesome. There's another word that's important to me, even though I'm using it in a different way than most people would. And that's the word integrity. So integrity we use as this douchebag thing of like, you know, our company's got integrity. And I mean integrity in terms of wholeness. I mean integrity in terms of like how much you are intact. And I think most of us have, Most of us are so fearful of losing personal integrity or, put another way, of becoming somebody we used to think we're not.

And I get that. I thought I was going to be, I guess, a Marxist essayist for The Atlantic, however that would work.

AlexOh, save it for the after show. Oh, boy.

MerlinNo, no. That's what I wanted. I still have my rejection letter from The Atlantic. I still have it. It was on beautiful linen paper. But the point is, dude, you've got to change. What are you, 14? Right? Like, if you don't change, like, what the fuck? Like, would you be really proud if you'd say, well, no, the thing is really I've had the same opinion. I never – it's like, wow, that's really conservative in the truest sense of the word. It's like if you're going to spend the rest of your life trying to be somebody you never – trying to pretend you're somebody whom you never actually were, what a sad life.

Somebody deserves that life more than you. You're a bad person. Right? Right. And so as far as this, the Biden thing, you know, I, I, here's the way I look at it. Dinner party. Think about, think about if you were stuck on a road and your car didn't work and the dinner party started and there was marauding people coming to attack you or continuing to like kill your family or take children away from their parents. and Joe Biden comes by in his pickup truck and says, hey, chief, you want to ride there, Jack?

You go, yeah, get in the fucking car. No, what are you going to say? No, I was hoping Bernie would come a year ago.

AlexYes, yeah.

MerlinGet me away from the fucking dinner party. Yes, please and thank you. Listen to whatever station you want.

AlexLike, I am still by far wholeheartedly complete Bernie bitch, but you know who was at the inauguration? You know who's been doing this for-

MerlinThe first meme, the first delicious good meme. of the Biden generation is Bernie in his mittens made out of recycled materials

Speaker Bsitting with the envelope

Merlinof whatever that he brought with him. He brought an envelope. Is he going to get some photos signed? No, I bet he's got stuff to read. He's a busy man.

AlexYeah, he's like, I'm still going to be here. Like, I mean...

MerlinThis is not a day off for me.

AlexYeah, he's like, we've got to go back to work.

Speaker AI've been hearing good things about the second season of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania. Maybe I will go home and watch that.

AlexOh, gosh. And like there are all of these things of like, oh, he's wearing the same jacket from his his most famous meme. And I'm like, I I mean, I don't know if that's like me. I don't think it's like good or bad whether or not it was intentional. Like I think that's adorable and funny if it was intentional. But also the guy doesn't have a ton of coats from what I have observed.

MerlinYeah. You know, Madeline, who is from, you know, Rhode Island, she said, oh, man, Bernie is so Vermont. And I said, well, I just said like I love how extremely Jewish he is. There's something to me that's very delightful about a certain kind of Jewish person that you mostly meet, you know, on the East Coast. But other places as well. But like he's just so like has so many of the characteristics of like just a classic really cool Jewish guy. But also she says he's very Vermont. Like they're very – they've got a little taste of that sort of hardscrabble New Hampshire thing combined with, you know, this independent streak and stuff like that.

And she's like, oh, man, that coat – Bernie's whole deal is so Vermont.

AlexIt's so true. And I mean, I'm no Vermont expert, but I do know that I was very much like, ooh, the guy I like is really voting for guns, huh? That's, and then it's like, oh, no, this is just a weird Vermont thing. And Bernie has changed. Bernie Sanders, you know, the lord and savior of the left. And I do have a poster of him on my wall.

I'm just putting everything up on my wall these days.

MerlinI love that. You don't care. You're over that.

AlexDougie be damned. I've just stopped giving fucks, which I had hoped that – I mean my theme for the decade, if you will, is not to be like, nah, I give no fucks, but to put my fucks where they should be.

MerlinOh my god. That's good. Remove fucks from here. Put fucks there.

AlexYeah. Like I just want to reallocate my – I'm an emotional socialist.

MerlinThe reallocation of fucks.

AlexYes. Spread it around equally.

MerlinI think that's part of the Nicene Creed. May I please issue a correction slash clarification?

AlexPlease.

MerlinI've sent you two photographs. Just to clarify for you for visual aids. Tara Reid, first of all, she is alive and she was in The Big Lebowski. I don't have a position on Joe Biden's allegations against Joe Biden. And below that is the actress Brittany Murphy. I was thinking of the late, great Brittany Murphy, who is kind of of that vintage.

AlexYeah. But I'm like, why are you making me sad here? I know.

MerlinI didn't send the pictures where she's way too skinny. I sent the classic Clueless.

AlexI love that movie. Oh, gosh.

MerlinI love that movie so much.

AlexOh, my God. In line with the same genre of movie from, not that time, maybe a little bit later, but in, I think, oh, it was Rami and Michelle's High School Reunion. And this, I think, is kind of in line with what we're talking about.

MerlinThat was at the height of Mira Sorvino fever.

AlexYeah. Loved it. one of the first r-rated movies i i had seen uh but there's a something that i'm sure i will misquote right now but uh one of the characters is like everybody made someone else's life hell during high school but you're not gonna find out until at least a decade later and i keep thinking about this of like uh who who made joe biden's life like genuinely like what joe biden has a lot

of bad shit been done to him and who knows obama could have made his life hell like what like he bullied him a little bit yeah well i mean who isn't bullied by their boss like i didn't know until 2020 that that's a thing that's funny. Say it. Say I'm a little fat girl.

MerlinSay it. I'm a little fat girl.

AlexI just oh. Daddy. Daddy.

MerlinGo and get it.

AlexOh goodness.

MerlinYou know sorry. Another character I love. I don't know if you've seen that TV show Mythic Quest. I love Jo. You know who's supposed to be Cricket's assistant but she's like obsessed with iron. And like always egging him on and provoking and causing things to happen that he'll have to deal with. And the whole bit she goes through about how she made her bully's life hell. Do you remember that scene? She's like, and I got her. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And it's so obvious that she was the bully and she thinks she was the one that was bullied. It's so perfect.

AlexI, yeah, I, I don't know. Like this whole year, no, past four years, I've been thinking about just what the word bully means and its relationship to power.

MerlinOh, boy. Don't get me started.

AlexYeah. And I just keep thinking, man, again, like when I saw that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, I'm like, wait, seriously, though, everybody, we like in charge of the most weapons in the world. Really? Really? We do that? And yes, I enthusiastically, I not enthusiastically, but but I I wholeheartedly voted for another man who's going to be in charge of the most weapons in the world.

but like, I don't know, people contain multitudes.

MerlinIt comes with a job, dude. It's not like Catholicism. You don't get to just pick the parts you want to do.

AlexYou don't just get to diddle all the boys. You got to...

MerlinNo, you got to stay focused. It's called grooming and it's an effort. You got to write stuff down and do things.

AlexGot to know their schedule. It's a lot.

MerlinYeah, it's a funny thing how the people whose entire public brand is about how much they're bullied by society are so uncannily good at bullying other people. maybe into removing a song from a podcast Alex please explain and did you notice in the doc

I don't know if you looked at the doc did you notice how this challenge was posed

Alexoh okay all right Okay. Okay. Well, in the doc, it says, do by Friday, up to to to the keychain challenge in double quotes. What would you call that, Mr. Mr. Writer Man?

MerlinThank you very much. I have a text expander shortcut and the trigger is IAQ. And so what happens is when I copy a string of text and I type IAQ, whatever I just copied is pasted between two sets of straight quotes. And it stands for ironic air quotes. So I've been trying to socialize an idea for a while. So it used to be for a while people would do that like withering thing where they do the up and down case. It doesn't really work.

So if I do it visually, see what I'm doing right here where I hold up like I'm saying the number four with my fingers. Think about how you do ironic air quotes where you make bunny ears and go doop doop.

AlexYes. Okay.

MerlinNow put up all four fingers and go doop doop. But do it hard and lean forward. Doop doop. You see? That's ironic air quotes.

AlexYes.

MerlinBecause it's quotes in quotes.

AlexYes.

MerlinIt's quotes all the way down.

AlexWell, in –

MerlinWhat's it say in IAQ?

Speaker BIt's not that funny, but it is. Oh, God.

MerlinYou're so goddamn mean. And then you provoke people on the internet and you make them scared. You guys, are you going to not do – What's it saying? What's it say, Alexandra? What's it say?

AlexIt says the key chain challenge with what's what's that? Is this camel case where, you know, capital T, capital K, capital C. But in our in our challenge sheet, Google Sheets, Doc, whatever the heck. Google Sheets, Doc. But well, well, well, well, I. Oh, how did I write it? I intentionally wrote it differently.

MerlinOh, I didn't notice that. It's called the challenge spreadsheet.

AlexThe challenge. I'm in here.

MerlinAnd it has, I think, over 300 lines.

AlexOh, it has over 420. Nice. All right. So there's the key chain. And then there. Did I? Ah, wait, wait.

MerlinDid it get sorted? Oh, there it is. Oh, 402. Yes. Oh, shit dog.

AlexThere we go.

MerlinOkay. And you know what? Oh, but then. Okay. Bad on me. But when we talked about it, I don't know. Are you gaslighting me? You might be gaslighting me. I will check revisions. Before I start Reconcilable Differences, I always check revisions to find out what he snuck in somewhere. That's how he gets me.

AlexI did not want to hurt the integrity of this doc that you so beautifully put together every week. But if people were subscribed to our Patreon, they would know that it wasn't the keychain challenge. The challenge was to use a keychain. Very, very different, I think.

MerlinYou know what we'd say in the South about a person like you? You know what we say in the South? Butter wouldn't melt in your mouth. Come on, really?

AlexI was a dick, but I wasn't an asshole.

MerlinThat has no credulity.

AlexI mean, it was.

MerlinYou know what you did.

AlexYou know what you did. Oh, yeah. I was. I mean, talk about attention fishing. I just was reeling them in.

MerlinBut I think we somewhat agreed that. Well, I mean, let's spoil the bit. The bit was the long time ago. This was posed as a challenge. Everybody knew at the time that it was lame. And it became a running joke on the Dubai Friday podcast that you'll know it's the last episode of this program ever if we ever have a keychain challenge. That's how you will know the show is over. If we've been abducted and we need to let you know, we will talk about a keychain challenge.

Right? So because we're like, what the fuck would that be? Like, that's so stupid. But I think, you know, let's get real for a second here. Imagine me turning my chair around and getting on it so we can have a rap session.

AlexAll right, Captain America.

MerlinWas that, you know, hey, this show. God, I remember one of the first episodes listening to the recorded episode while I was waiting for jury duty. Because apparently I'm always on jury duty. And it was one of the ones with Sean Spicer, the gum man. He's made of gum. A line I still think of all the time.

AlexHe's made of gum. Made of gum.

MerlinThis show has really tracked loosely. I mean, the show did and didn't launch on certain days for the first time because of the election and concerns about like what's going to happen. And is that weird? And who knows? And sorry, I'm monopolizing this. But the show is tracked heavily with the four years of the Trump administration. And it was hoped last Wednesday that that's what would be ending properly on the 20th, which is the day we record now. And how can we not talk about that?

So it's a key change.

AlexIt is. You always say verb the noun.

Speaker AThe show's not over, you guys. Alex is fucking with you.

AlexIt's not over. It is. It is. It is indeed. You wish. You wish. I know. I don't. I don't wish that. I would never wish a pox upon this household like that. But I. No pox. I do think it. I mean, just last week, two weeks ago, two months ago, who the fuck knows, when the Capitol was temporarily seized. Oh, I remember that. Yeah.

MerlinInsurrection. Yeah. Do, do, do.

AlexLike, as folks were committing just some light treason.

MerlinI may have committed some light treason.

AlexYeah.

MerlinWhere are they counting the vote?

AlexUh-huh.

MerlinHang Mike Pence.

AlexOh, boy. Like, like there are multiple times that we have not not quite stopped recording, but like mid recording. It's like, oh, real time follow up about the crumbling of our democracy for the past four years.

MerlinI know. I know.

AlexIt's the show.

MerlinThe show is the show. And what's in it is in it. What do you do? What do you know about me? It's always two things. Right. You show up, you show up every week. You do the show. Do your best on the show. And so whether or not you are a nominally funny podcast – well, if you are a nominally funny podcast, you've fucking got to do it. Like that's – you can't just – if you start canceling your show every time something sad happens, there's Cub Scouts with a better work ethic than that.

Even the Protestant ones.

AlexOh, even –

MerlinWear something loose. So, so –

AlexDo you still have a – I promise this is going somewhere. Do you still have jubilees?

MerlinUh-huh. Yeah.

AlexAnd the idea being like, all right, this is –

MerlinNot jubilee in the sense of we're going to let everybody out of jail.

AlexI mean I'm –

MerlinDid you start EPM yet?

AlexI did. And when they talked about the idea of Trump just pardoning literally anyone –

Speaker APardoning the entire United States.

AlexOh, God.

Speaker AOpening the jail doors.

Speaker BI mean. Yeah.

MerlinYeah, we do. We still have jubilees. I didn't mean it in that way. I meant more in like the queen's 25th anniversary since she was coronated. You have an entire year long. And for us, that usually just means a long weekend.

AlexWell, I think that this week should sort of be a jubilee, not for cancellation, but for any sort of cringe or feeling that you might – not actions, but like – no one should be sad about their feelings today. I mean, nobody should feel bad about what they feel ever, but welcome to the world.

MerlinYeah, like a lot of times when people leave a stressful job, they take like at least a month off because, you know, first of all, their family's probably falling apart. All their relationships are dead. Their health is bad. There's been times where we're like, even at the dot-com job, we finish a big project where we've been working very, very long days and weeks. And it's like, you just, you gotta have a few days off. Just not because you're lazy or lack of work ethic, but because you can't function until you get the fuck out of that place for a while. We'll get back to work soon, as they like to say. We'll carry on with the business of America soon, but I'm with you.

It's like a friend of the show Anthony Starr from The Boys said yesterday, let's just be nice to each other for a week. Don't we deserve that? I'm not doing a very good job today, but I'll try. I'm still working into it. You know how long it takes me to get into vacations?

AlexOh, God, yeah. I mean, that whole, I think it was, oh, yeah, it was, I don't know if CGP Grey was the first person to come up with this, but he made a video about, like, weekend Wednesdays, how, I don't know how that would really work, but the idea being that people should take, or some people, if you're, like, self-employed, should take Wednesdays off, because you can't fully get into, like, get in or out of vacation mode after five straight days. like after five days of work i like the weekend is just sleeping for me you almost got like too

much almost too much momentum sort of you you have exactly you've you've too much momentum and you don't got your brain isn't a tesla you can't stop on a dime like it's just going and going and going and i i like i mean everybody jokes like oh i just wish my vacation was like three days three days more but it's like no that's actually your brain like the the like synapses and the bleep loops and goopy parts of your brain actually needing it yeah i it's more it's more a way of

Merlinfor me it's more a way of saying like i wish i i wish i had gotten into this three days earlier

Alexoh yeah i'm sorry i'm drinking diet coke because gotta pour one out for a real one that's fine i'm

Merlindrinking i'm drinking water there was a moment because we've been watching this we were all up pretty early and uh wanted to watch it together before school starts um before computer starts and um so we were all in there and i was like god what are they gonna do this is a lot of time to kill before noon but it was kind of fun you could see everybody walk around you could see the outfits it was really it was like red carpet for dorks that was fun and you could see cliburn hanging around he was cool and all that but then they started showing the scenes of like all the cars arriving and all the like SUVs with the flashing lights and everything.

It's like, oh, and that's going to be the Supreme Court justices. And that's going to be the vice president. And like I had this, I'm sharing a dark thought. There's this one shot where they take this right turn around a fence and, and just for some fucking dumb reason, it looked like a shot from Dealey Plaza. And I, I said, you know, Dallas, November 63. And I, and I said to my family, I really hope to God, there's not a moment in this that we have to watch video of over and over for the rest of our lives yes i mean i i kept thinking it's like my obama thoughts all over again i i dare not say it at

that time and i dared hopefully not too much say it now these last two weeks have been a fucking some white knuckle shit oh yeah and it's just like one drone comes in cliburn goes down you

Alexknow it's like fuck as i mean as soon as biden was done talking i'm like can we just be done And everybody, like, pandemic aside, because I'm sure all of those folks have been vaccinated, or I hope they were, but a lot of double masks going on, even in the...

MerlinYeah, I feel like, am I not wearing enough masks?

AlexYeah.

MerlinShould I wear three masks?

AlexRight?

MerlinTo make up for the times I wore one?

AlexI mean, let's be real. Is it that kind of Catholicism? I mean, it's the, you know, like, chastity belt of aerosol spray, I guess. But, like, why couldn't we have done the rest inside? Like I just like, I mean, I know the tradition, but like after being sworn in, like why not just a live feed from inside?

MerlinYou know, go bounce. Just fucking bounce. And listen, let's just get everything cleaned up. I mean, like if there had been, you know, it would be like continuing to have your wedding reception like on September 12th. I'd be like, you know what? Let's either put this on hold or let's go someplace. The air is not good. The band is coughing a lot. We should bounce. Later. and and that's with this i'm like you know what let's can you guys just all be the cowards i would like you to be and stay way the fucks out of everywhere and safe no more pomp no more

circumstance no more pageantry until we get some shit seriously locked down yeah yeah and i mean

Alexyou know they uh i i was god when wait where uh okay so i've been up since oh god 405 a.m gracious gracious um but you know like seeing the shots of like as uh like watching the sunrise on dc basically and seeing it as um you know as we've seen it the past uh two weeks two months whatever as looking like a total police state and it's it's terrifying like even if um even if you

fucking love and adore the cops not that i will share an opinion on that uh but but like it's it's really fucking scary looking and i'm like oh some like a a black asian woman is gonna be like up there and you know like dog and you get dog out of the deal dog oh i yeah i'm like oh man

Merlinthere's there's a whole lot of guys go you know be safe like you know go somewhere please go somewhere indoors with lots of walls yeah let alone like this morning dude dude dude i have to ask if you had this thought i know i'm the only dark horse here you know there's that thing i don't think it's a law i don't know if it's i think it's a policy it's definitely a thing which is that the elected president and elected vice president never are on the same flight in the

same plane for you know for dark reasons which is if one of them you know something happened The other one would presumably be okay. Did you – there's a lovely event that happened this morning. Were you aware of the lovely event that happened this morning?

AlexIsn't that the, like, traditional walking through? Maybe not. I was just looking at horrifying outside footage.

MerlinWell, like, you know, our new president is a religious man. And he invited – this is so cool. He invited the majority and minority leaders of the House and the Senate to join him for church this morning, which I think is lovely.

AlexAnd totally unnecessary.

MerlinBut do you see any problems with that, with the five most powerful people in America being in the same small place?

Speaker ADo you see anything that could be a problem with that?

AlexOh, I mean, when I saw how in the aftermath, I was like, OK, this seems like a very well-guarded situation. It can look at across the aisles.

MerlinThey got those big doors, too. That's a cool church. That's a scary church.

AlexIt is. I want to go to D.C. Mostly like to see it, honestly. Wow. I love it so much. Seriously, becoming more Catholic than gay. What the fuck? But I mean. Good for you.

MerlinYou can always come back.

AlexOh, I know, I know.

MerlinYou've left the closet once, you can do it again.

AlexExactly.

MerlinDon't let it fall on you.

AlexJust gotta go back in like a tabernacle.

MerlinSomething, something, Keychain, what'd you do?

AlexOh, no. Okay. So also the reason why this came about was because I actually do have kind of, I think we do, you also have the inclination for like really wanting to get something, get a physical object right when you need to interact with it every single day.

MerlinToo much. Way too much. Yep, yep, yep. There's so much shit in life I just don't care anything about. I don't care about the quality. I don't care about – I just don't – there's so much shit I just really super don't care about. Like, you know, I forget if I said it here, but somewhere – no, I think I was saying it to Syracuse. It's like I don't want a car, let alone a nice car. But like I want my kitchen knife to be so nice. You know, if you spend – if you get the three-pack of Walmart paring knives, you're going to be sad and bloody. Get a good paring knife.

We're talking about $6, $10, ooh, $20 for something I'll use for 10 years. What craziness is that? I want such good knives because I care, you know? I'm telling you, man, get into this camera shit again. Like I got some new – what are they called? Ball – like the ball mount things. Like the ball there? Yeah, you get like a cold shoe so you can stick a camera on there. And then you get two – and with one turn of the screw, both of the balls locked down in whatever position you put them in.

And they're very heavy. It's very satisfying. The brass – the three-part brass – like the 5-8s, I actually measured them all out. The 5-8s fitting on this blue microphone arm, it's so satisfying just to hold these three brass parts and turn them around. if those were made out of like shitty plastic i would be sad so yes i agree i want the nice one

Alexi i'm going to send you it actually just arrived um this morning i and i i bought a bunch of uh i bought a bunch of shitty keychains in the past because i haven't really had a need for a keychain because i don't have a car but as we talked about last week on um did we talk about well in our the

Merlinafter show like the uh the the aesthetic of having a big bunch of keys on your belt yeah oh i've i've

Alexalways had a big i'm sorry in your community yeah yeah uh a ring of keys isn't that a thing

Merlinam i being am i being racist isn't that a thing you dress like a janitor and you got a giant key chain and then you get a u-haul moving together yes and then you learn their name yes

AlexOh, wait, wait. Hold up. Examine this keychain that I've just sent you.

Speaker AWhoa, one-handed carabiner.

MerlinOh, dude. Do you want this outside? It doesn't have to be any handle. It doesn't have to be outside your backpack. This is nice. Alex has sent me the key wrangler, and the key wrangler is – I hate that word carabiner. It sounds like somebody mispronouncing the word carabina, which is not a word. Key Wrangler is a carabiner. The build quality looks beautiful. It's made of titanium?

AlexYep, I'm back. And yes, I got a fully titanium one. I love titanium.

Speaker AThe ring is not a ring. The ring is a rod.

AlexUh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

Speaker AWhoa.

AlexAnd the reason that I need something this ridiculous is because I, I, we're now more than ever.

MerlinKeys are part of your job.

AlexUh, well, but, but that is the thing. My job has changed significantly. So I do need a new set of keys because I had, I used to have to constantly carry around my many, many keys. Here they are. Oh, oh, I'm, oh boy. Uh, and, and they were attached to a slim, uh, Tom bin wallet. I think they're called like Nick's wallets. Uh, and it was, it was perfect. but now uh now more than ever i need a car so i'm in the process of figuring out how to lease

a car which i've never done and it's terrifying and i hate it um but there are no key chains that accommodate the uh lifestyle i have that also accommodate a car also keys are huge now

Speaker Amy wife's car keys are huge they're so big why are they like the size of seven keys why do we

Alexneed keys this big is it because it goes bleep bloop i no i don't know like right right now actually um don't don't be creepy but we like you can do a long-term rental which is like uh so like rent a car for a month for a couple uh hundred bucks which is like because i need a car crazy

Merlinto go that's crazy am i nuts or have rental car fees gone way down whoa that's nuts we rented a

Alextruck overnight for $50. Yeah. Well, I mean, it depends. Like you can get, you can just be like, give me the shittiest car, please. Because all I need to use this car for is to drive to dealerships to like look at a car from a distance. Oh, you got it. You got a Metacar. Oh, that's pretty much like that's literally all this is. Cause I can't, I don't want to take the, I don't want to use the CTA to go to the place. Cause I know that I'm already going to have to be inside like i it is oh god oh you're selling past the clothes you're gonna be a breathing all

those other people i hate it uh those other non-car-owned motherfuckers yeah but but anyway this is this uh dingus that was recommended oh i don't know if they want their twitter name shared but if so i'm gonna put it in notes because they are amazing um it it fits these gigantic fucking key fobs and it has an like easy relax or you don't have to break a nail off on those stupid rings yeah yeah exactly exactly and so when i i need to it's very edc in that i can do a do a

quick little swap when necessary and i'm very i'm very happy with this big old key boy uh and like because i don't know it's uh again my my key needs are very different from four years ago you

Merlinshould put this in notes it's actually really cool it's and it's that's the the point of a key ring in some way i feel like is that like it should there is no perfect key ring for everybody there's no hardly perfect anything for anybody it's like what like what you need in the same way that like my goal in life has been to minimize the number of keys that i have and i want a ring that reflects that you know you don't start with the ring you start with the keys this is a huge thing right now Between all this gear stuff I'm doing and a lot of organizational stuff we're doing at home is like – so I think this has a point.

This is a pretty 43 folders-ish point here, which is that I think it's a poor idea to start with the shit you want to organize. And then by – well, how do you put it? Don't start with what you have right now and try to find a better way to store and organize it. instead of all that stuff before you organize go through it figure out what you actually need and you have to do this physically because you think it'll work but it won't so like your first

job here's an easy one go through your house and you could just say go find every electronics and computer cable that you own i would be more specific i got a task for you i never remember which is which usb micro is that the one that's a little taller um mini one that for one for android phones and slightly older electronics right the good one was mini that looked more

Alexlike a trapezoid and the micro had those little like claws the the one the one i'm thinking of

Merlinis the one that came with everything for a while um phrasing the the one that you you know like For example, with my Canon 7D, it's the one that you use to attach a USB thing to that. But I've needed it exactly once in the last year, and that was to turn on my Canon 7D, which is very old. So go through your house. You know your version of this. I don't need to know your version of this. Go through your house and find every one of that kind of cable.

Another good one, iPhone chargers, 30-pin iPhone chargers. Go through and find every single one of those just relentlessly. And now your job, the second job, is to have a place where you put that for a little bit. So we've got these cool, you know, I told you about those origami shelves. These are so perfect for projects like this. Start making a pile right there. And I'm going to tell you a fucking crazy thing. You could even write down on a piece of paper how many of those you think you own. And it's going to blow your mind if you go through, as you go through this process and you start doing this for all the things you think are valuable in your life, It's going to blow your mind how much more of that shit you have that you don't need,

that you've been paying rent or a mortgage to store in your house for years. Do you start by saying, where do I put all my 30-pin iPhone cables? No. You start by saying, how much of this can I get rid of? And then the critical part, whether it is screwdrivers or whether that is command strips in our case or whatever that is, start putting like with like. Oh, should I get a container for that? No. Just start putting like with like. Now, I had a pretty good idea, which was I'm going to start a little box called something like adhesives or attachments or something.

Because I wanted all the commands. I love command strips. I like the Velcro kind. I like the sticky kind. There's all kinds of stuff like that. I'm going to put it in a box. And I also, you know what else I should put in there? All the things like FunTac. Also, you know what else I should put in there? All the things like Bulldog clips. What else? All the things. Tape. Holy shit, how much tape do we have? And by the time, so that started as, I think, a pretty good idea of putting like with like. By the time I was done, I realized, A, we didn't need a bunch of that. And B, the stuff that we did need would be better accommodated by refactoring that system in a slightly different way.

It's not all one box because guess what? Now you just have a new way to organize junk. Don't make it junk. Make it lively. You turned me on to this bin-based organizational system that I'm starting with that is very exciting. Here's what I'm saying. You have to start with what you need. Not just you start with what you have, you figure out what you need, and then you figure out to be a little bit Peter what's his head here, how that fits into your life. The life you want to lead will be afforded by having these things that you be store and organize in the next way.

I think that's huge. You don't start with the key ring you like. You start with the keys that you need. and like I think that that sounds so blindingly obvious but if you followed every step of that you would come out on the other side smarter you'd have fewer keys and you'd have better keys and then you'd have a bunch of shit you find a different place in the world stuff needs to leave your house over

Alexall of that's very good but I don't like that my spouse listens to this show now because he's going to make me throw it on my toys yeah I want my Pokemon toys

MerlinBut I got these bins for them. What about these 11 different sets of markers that we own that one or two is missing from? Or blue? Can we get just blue?

AlexI'm blue myself.

MerlinYou're blue. I'm blue myself. Key Wrangler. Key Wrangler, you told me you own this thing that I have had and couldn't find a use for. What's it called? The super keychain? I got the name for it here somewhere.

AlexThe super keychain?

Merlinum no okay so forgive me uh marker i'll be right back super keys sounds like it's like the most

Alexboring like infinity stone on the infinity keys oh oh i think there might be some there

Merlinyeah yeah i want to hear about your infinity keys uh this feels like the kind of thing i either bought because I was sad and wanted a treat or I needed to just up my order to get the minimum on pran.

And it's called, I think you said you have this, the Key Smart Pro.

AlexOh, yes, yes, yes.

MerlinAnd this is brilliant and useless. It's really, really brilliant and so poorly implemented, but very interesting. So I bought this and it's a...

AlexIt's a lifestyle.

MerlinNo, I'm doing something wrong because this shit makes no sense. It basically takes your keys and turns it into a very, very large pocket knife.

AlexAnd not a good one either.

MerlinIt doesn't – this quote-unquote bottle opener, can opener thing, what the fuck is happening with this? If you have the clip on it, you turn it, you can't – is it supposed to lock like that? It's got a built-in tile, which is nice. And it's got a built-in flashlight, which is silly. We'll put it in show notes. Key, smart, probe. But yeah, I put my spare office key that has Boba Fett on it. I put my spare office key on here, and I'm using it for a spare office. And I put my new dartboard keychain on there. So it's a key. My first joke was that I was going to make a keychain of keychains with one key on it.

But then I realized that's not actually that funny. But that's fine. I did this. But it's got here. Let's do it. Let's play the song. Let's see if I can do it.

Speaker AI'll do it.

MerlinOh, I'm on D&D. It probably won't beep. but it's got a built-in tile that you recharge it's got a rechargeable tile in it does this one

Alexstill have a uh is a micro usb type thing let me look it's a you know it's the one everybody uses now it's the one that you see okay i have a really old version oh no no i don't think it's i don't

Merlinthink it's that let me look let me look oh shit it's a turn screen i can't open it i keep doing things that break my nails and I don't like it. Ow. Ow.

AlexNever mind. Your honorary lesbian card is rescinded.

MerlinOkay. It is a... No, it's that one. It's just...

AlexThat what?

MerlinGod damn it. I'm going to learn this today. Challenge.

Speaker ALearn the different USB types.

AlexMicro USB. Is this Lightning 7? No, it's USB 45. Oh, mini. Is that it? Mini is the trapezoid.

MerlinThe one, the flat version of that. The one everybody uses for things.

AlexMicro. It's mini to micro. And then we went to letters, I guess.

MerlinOkay. But it's that.

Speaker ANo, I guess.

MerlinThe other problem is then it comes with, you put your, it's got two screws and you put it together literally like a pocket knife. And you put your keys on there and they come out like the blades of a Swiss Army knife. But they're either way too loose or way too tight. Or maybe I'm doing the spacers wrong. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I don't know. This is very unsatisfying as a product to me.

AlexI mean, once I got to a point, I used it for a while, and I think it wasn't the Pro at the time. It's still a detail, but it was like one tier down so you could take it on a plane. And so it had the bottle opener, but not a knife. But when it got to a point where I was like, I need to bring a single extra cable to charge my keychain.

MerlinThis is not who I want to be. It's ironic that it turns into a Swiss Army knife, given that, I don't know, I feel like Swiss Army knife has a couple connotations. One is, oh, it's a Swiss Army knife, as in it does everything you'd want to do. Yeah, but the other thing about a Swiss Army knife, it doesn't do any of it very well. Like, if you got the actual, actually, as it happens, I do own the official Victorinox, the knife that they give to people in the Army.

AlexYou were kind enough to gift that to me, and it's fantastic.

MerlinIs that the one, the giant one that comes with the bolts and stuff? flight that's fucking crazy now that's in my travel bag my non-airplane travel bag because that's got so much shit on there and it's the build quality is crazy but like a little pocket

Speaker Athe get get if you need a flashlight get a fucking flashlight you know it's like digital

Merlinclocks in the 80s if you gave money to jerry falwell he sent you a calculator and a clock it's like you know i got those i'm good i don't need another religion calculator oh i mean

AlexI don't know if that's what he was calculating and also with you

223. You’re Stuck with You

Show notes

Transcript

223. You’re Stuck with You

Show notes

Transcript

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