230. Consensual Disruption

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. This week's challenge, reboot your sleep.

MerlinHello?

AlexYou know, I don't believe in excuses, but I do believe in explanations. and I just experienced something that has maybe happened about four times in in you know our good good old corn how oh happy corniversary well maybe I it's my corniversary uh but it felt fell sleep in my desk and well I mean well I'll save it for the challenge but wow wow big old peanut butter this week oh boy hello sorry I'm late how you doing Merlin good good morning coming in hot

MerlinAgain, is this how it's going to be now? Is this the new thing as you come in hot?

AlexNo, I...

MerlinBecause I can do that. If you want to come in hot, nobody comes in hotter than Daddy.

AlexI won't disagree with that.

MerlinWell, let's keep it friendly. Good morning, Alexandra. I know mainly if you're not here with most of my other co-hosts who are monsters. So, you know, if you or John Syracuse don't show up at the appointed time, I'm not going to say late because we don't use that word anymore.

AlexI'm a person of time.

MerlinWell, okay. Pants of brown. Yes. You know what can be late? You know, I'm going to say movie watching in periods. And then other than that, we don't say that anymore. If you or John Syracuse aren't here at the appointed time, I assume there's a good reason. You're telling me, I saw something on Twitter where you posted a screenshot and it looks like you didn't get a lot of sleep last night.

AlexOh, that's not a screenshot. that is me me in my bed you should meet my you should meet my wife because i think you both

Merlinwould really enjoy missing my point in order to be uh pedantically correct you know john sirkison maybe you guys could start a podcast together is that i use the right word podcast

Alexdo we still say that he's you know what i don't want to have to deal posted a thing and then get three hours of sleep am i getting it partially right oh yes but i i never click i don't click

Merlinthrough i don't zoom i only i see things going by let it wash over me like a christopher nolan movie

Alexwell actually now i'm wondering uh since i fell asleep at my desk i wonder if i picked it up

Merlinin my experience the apps that i use um they may not but what's weird is and we're getting over our skis a little bit here but with the apps that i used to track sleep i have a funny phenomenon where Sometimes a time that I know I was asleep at the non-sleep times, it didn't get. And other times it might be too sensitive and it thinks I was asleep at 9 o'clock and then woke up at 11. But part of that depends on when you set the window for when it should look for sleep.

AlexOh, I don't have a window because of desk incidents.

MerlinWell, you know, these apps, I went through this with Pizzizz yesterday. We're like, Pizzizz is kind of back. I think. There's a lot of really good knobs and buttons, but there's a lot to figure out, a lot of radio buttons. They did it with these sleep apps. And in fact, Gruber, I just saw in my feed bin, that Gruber was talking about why you do or don't get the, hey, your watch is done charging thing. Oh, why? Interesting. Well, this is a classic-ish computer, especially Apple,

especially iOS problem, which is you have to have the sleep stuff configured in the watch app. And now what's the reason I mentioned that here is when it comes up, it just you see like an icon of a bed and it says, do you want to configure this? And but you don't see what radio buttons you get. A lot of questions there. Well, until you've configured it, you won't even know there's an option. Right. And so with this, I think it's difficult. You need to really dig in the UI for settings on a couple of these apps that I otherwise love are pretty confusing. So I use,

I mean, I have, as with calendar apps, I have a bunch that just run. So Sleep Plus Plus just runs. I don't consult it a lot, but Sleep Watch and Auto Sleep are the two that I look at most mornings to see how I did in the video game of sleep. And one of those, I can find out for you.

AlexLet me go look. Oh, you don't like games. Is that why? I thought you loved sleep. but you don't like games.

MerlinHello?

AlexI'm very confused. I'm sorry.

MerlinLet me go look at one of these. No, a lot, again, like John Syracuse or my beloved wife, I try to help you, and then you throw it in my face. You do that.

AlexI was trying to clarify.

MerlinYou throw it in my face. It's in my face right now. My face is covered with whatever you've thrown at me.

AlexI was.

MerlinDon't love that.

AlexYou would not. No one would. Oh, it's called a gush and flush.

Merlinoh boy the gush but there's a lot of interesting commercials now there's the one where they talk about periods in the gush and there's the one that's all like lady um ladies underarm hair that's a new one but the breastfeeding one that was i have not seen any of this i you should see the breast the breastfeeding one is wild alex i was we might have been during the big game it was during some recent large event oh one of the awards shows probably they had a whole commercial of ladies legit breastfeeding on TV. Boobs and all.

And I thought it was amazing. Because I'm from a generation where you think those are mainly for me.

AlexYeah.

MerlinAnd I don't mean my mom. Tell her I said hi. You want to come in hot? I'll come in hot.

AlexI, are you just referring to the commercial where it supposedly shows real, whatever that means, Is real period blood going into a pad?

MerlinNo, it's always blue. It's always blue.

AlexOh, oh, no. See, see. See, I always thought yucky stuff was always blue.

MerlinLike in the, I think I want to say in the ad with the bears, the sweet bears, I'm pretty sure the poop is blue and usually periods are blue. Are you telling me there's a legit russet flow on television?

AlexYes. And I...

MerlinA legitimate gravy streak?

AlexYeah. No, no, no. Not gravy. a hawaiian punch as you like to say a little bit of clotted hawaiian punch it's not isn't it's not

Merlinusually it's not usually that punch color is it it's uh well that's that's why i said clotted i

Alexthink of it more like being a beef gravy it's a you know people contain multitudes including fluids with with nubbins and bits like they scrape the pan oh that's true yeah at the end it is kind of like just you gotta your body's trying to flush or and gush have to snatch that delicious gravy god i'm trying to find it i swear to god this wasn't a fever dream it i it felt like it at the

Merlintime i'm pretty sure they're usually blue alex i don't want to tell you your job but i'm pretty sure they're usually blue like in the day back in the day when they show you like a scientific instrument like what like a flask there's only one kind of flask and that's erlen meyer but But you get a flask and you want to show how good this – oh, what's the toxic shock one that was little?

AlexTampons? Wait, what?

MerlinOh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Go look up Google tampon toxic shock syndrome.

AlexOh, I read a story about that in 17 when I was like eight and it was terrifying because I knew that there was a product. But that can still happen apparently, which is just terrifying.

MerlinIf our memory serves, we had a visiting author in my first year of college who got the toxic shock syndrome. oh no i'm saying natalie goreman i don't want to talk about her russet flow but what they do is you show a flask you show brand x and then you show the other one and you have this like it looks

Alexalmost like windex yeah exactly oh no i found it oh wait did i i don't oh i don't know it it was oh here we go here we go oh god tss tampies oh no no i found um it's called, well, I think it's unilateral flow.

MerlinBut this... You know about iSpot? You should use iSpot. You try iSpot. You know about iSpot?

AlexNo. iSpot.tv? You know what? You should talk

Merlinto John Syracuse and my wife. I try to help you and you throw up my face. It's a very useful... It's very like IMDB or like Box Office Mojo where they're always trying to upgrade you. But there's a really cool site called iSpot. So whenever I want to figure out a song I heard, like Sky Rizzy, you know, nothing is everything, which it turns out was written for Sky Rizzy, even though it's a very good indie pop sounding song. You go to iSpot, you can search for the commercial and then browse through for the one you were looking for. So you can stalk an actress, right?

Oh, good. Yeah. Like you can go find out who's the lady in the cat litter robot ad who's dressed like a nurse. So you can find that. Or you can say, what's his hip hop song? you know no no it's a terrible product but we um uh yes you can do that try a spot so you're sending me here kotex breaks tradition and uses blood like liquid oh reading series i hate it i

Alexhate it let's see let's see let's see kotex kotex it's not period liberation to see blood like this is such a it's like when razor companies show trans guys shaving like hooray okay like your pad still cost 30 i don't i which is whatever why are you so anti-trans i oh it's mad oh god no no it keeps auto-playing does that make you a surf is that what it's called you get the bangs no that's pierce morgan is the surf i i would be a

Merlinturf okay that's it i'm out of here but what about the one where the tall trans looking person is dancing with the man in the aids commercial in the aids drug commercial i think that's a very

Alexsweet ad that makes me very happy i don't see ads anymore alex representation matters i don't see

Merlinanything anymore i don't i don't i don't normal is that oh no i'm not clicking this yeah exactly

Alexexactly it's oh god it's up again oh no stop instagram is it presented in a very tidy way

Merlinbecause I'll bet you it looks too tidy.

AlexNo, no, no, no. That's the thing. It is gross.

MerlinI used to have to clean out the bathrooms at a restaurant. So I've seen some stuff.

AlexThere's, I would say that third way.

MerlinSome people pack it up real tight. They cover their shame and they make it real little. Like when you're a little kid and you try to fit all of your lunch garbage into your milk carton and smash it down. Right? They do that. A lady will do that at a restaurant. But then some ladies, I think they just, they kind of, they throw it like gambit. God, God. And it just hits something, you know? Blood normal. Blood normal. I guess we'll put that in there.

AlexI'm, I'm, yeah, this is a blood normative period commercial. But the thing is, I, hot take. I just, oh, this is also explaining period poops. Okay. Why, I don't understand how to Google things anymore. Or more to duck, duck, go things.

MerlinWell, if you ever find micropenis and can tell me about it without an image.

AlexOh, every time I'm tempted. Every time.

MerlinI've known ladies I have known who have talked to me about the russet flow and most have, you know, that's part of the intimacy I feel like is that.

AlexIt's also part of the job, I would say.

MerlinOf being a boyfriend?

AlexYeah, of being any partner. You never move.

MerlinI have a very healthy attitude. I have a very healthy attitude about menstruation.

AlexLike if you want to work an area, you have to respect that working area because it needs space.

MerlinOh, you mean like you're saying your woo-woo is an active working area? Don't put something there.

AlexWell, around the whole... Consent, right?

MerlinIt's Oberlin rules. Is it okay if I do this? Is it okay if I do that? Can I put my roast here? It needs to set for 20 minutes. No, that's my underpants. Don't put that. It's an active working area. Don't put that there.

AlexYeah, yeah. And don't move it. I mean, your best worst friend, worst best friend, I don't know what we call it anymore.

MerlinAlex, it's a play on the phrase best friend. John Syracuse is my worst friend.

AlexI'm sorry. I just keep looking at a literal pile of blood.

MerlinYou didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I saw the screenshot.

AlexAnd oh, it wasn't. Oh, God, this micro penis situation.

MerlinI think it's a super nipple is my guess.

AlexNo, no, it's not. Which makes me want to.

MerlinIs it like a clam? Is it like the inside of a clam?

AlexOh, no, that's the thing.

MerlinI imagine it looking like sea life.

AlexHuh?

MerlinWell, you know what I'm talking about? See, when we see a micropenis, I don't think it's a chode. Yes. Now, a chode is a thing, you know, like Taffy Lee Fubbins. A chode is my understanding. It's a penis that's wider than it is long.

AlexOr a bad human. But I, okay, wait.

MerlinYou mean like Bar Harley Jarvis?

AlexI'm going to agree with that joke and hope.

MerlinThe back of his head is almost completely flat.

AlexOh, I didn't Google that one. Oh, yeah.

MerlinDidn't need to do the oral. chode see some people today the modern spilling is chode in my head back in florida it was ch-o-a-d oh oh well but we got a lot of things wrong in florida um not gonna pretend otherwise still are

Alexoh no i hate this i hate this i hate okay okay did you look at micropenis i am aware of what a micropenis looks like and it is fine is it a super nipple or a clam no oh it's fine it's just

MerlinBut I mean like is it like – and I'm not trying to be ableist here. But is it something where – is it to scale and it's just little? Because I'm imagining there's something about it that's upsetting. I'm thinking about like we're not talking about like a little boy with an acorn. La, la, la. I imagine we're talking about a super nipple or a clam.

AlexIt's – I mean it's – I don't know. It's a tiny dick. Like I don't – or –

MerlinIs it proportional, Alex? Is it proportional?

AlexI don't – well, I'm not an expert on this, but it seems like the testicular area is average, whereas the stalk of the plant, not so much. But I mean – and I don't know how these function.

MerlinWe're talking about diameter though. So it is more like a clam.

AlexNo, it's definitely sea life. Like I could see this floating –

MerlinOr like a big pasta? Could it be like a big pasta, small penis? Oh, interesting. When you hear your family? I call them chips. Oh my God, there's a TV Tropes on this. So first of all, I did search for commercial blue liquid.

And the first return is a bustle.com article. Second return is the one you sent me from the Canadian website. Third one, TV Tropes. TV Tropes is a TV Trope called Oh Alex We got show art TV Tropes Which I love And I'm always trying to get my daughter to look at Because you learn a lot There's a page called Blue Liquid Absorbent

AlexYes

MerlinAnd they're putting The blue ruin right onto a A panty panel

AlexTitle The thing that's always sort of visually and mentally upsetting about the the blue ruin is that i don't know of a consistency like i i don't know of a liquid that comes out of the human body that has the consistency that is it's supposed to be representing in this basically i'm like i don't know if penis come but it's uh

MerlinYou talking about at the end or at the beginning?

AlexIt doesn't look very viscous. Right.

MerlinThat's the thing. And this is why I say if you're going to put stuff in. By the way, thank you for listening to Dubai Friday, the show where we talk about body liquid simulations. Now, blue, we know that's the blue is the color of my true love's eyes and the blood of crabs. We know that. Then when they extract the crab blood, that's blue and that's for science. But I'm saying here as somebody who's like maybe a 202 level at best as re periods is that I think and I don't want to get I don't want to get to Randy here.

But I think it's not just a question. So a lot of a lot of guys think, oh, you know, like especially if you work for NASA, you think, oh, this lady, it's like we've opened a wound and she's going to have a shot glass of blood every five or six minutes. Let's give her 100 tampons and it's going to look like red blood. You know what I mean?

AlexYep.

MerlinYeah. What you get though, it's not. And it's a little more chunky.

AlexIt's just, I will just, every, every period is different.

MerlinYep.

AlexBut I, and I have not looked at many other people's discharge. I don't even know what to do.

MerlinOh, wow. Easy for Alex.

AlexCan you tell that it's fine? Fine.

MerlinSpider-Man, Spider-Man.

AlexOh boy. I just, see also water is blue. Is that a trope?

MerlinWater is blue.

Alexthat's another trope i i've seen blue water like what like well did you click through yeah yeah

Merlinit's it's saying it's a girl it's a girl from kora right is that isn't that the kora girl

Alexno no no no no that is oh gosh um that is from avatar is that soph no who is that no what what's

Merlinher name the one soph is from miyazaki toph is from avatar and this lady's shooting blue period

Alexwater it's toff toff toff uh even matches her outfit and her eyes uh okay color-coded elements

Merlinthis this actually is very good oh because that's her element that's her element yes

Alexthis is actually an awesome website she's a water dragon okay this is a great website this is a

Merlinreally good website it's so useful do you pay for imdb um i did a long time ago i don't now if i knew if i knew i'd get bigger photos i might sign up right now that's that i'm getting more and

Alexmore not not even ads but just like welcome to imdb and well i used to get the upgrades and i was like you're viewing imdb and the the i don't know i'm just like i will happily pay for the service just tell me why and i will i will and it feels like youtube at this point youtube red or

Merlinwhatever i realized that imdb was imdb much as it is now before amazon acquired it but it continues

Alexto suffer from a what it fucking all right i'm sorry i'm sorry i i didn't know they were acquired

Merlinit bums me out but hey years and years ago yeah well it suffers from the amazon retail site problem in my mind which is like for being as important as amazon is the ui is hot garbage and the theme for me with, and sorry, I have friends who work there. I have a friend on Twitter, hi friend on Twitter, who I talk to about IMDb and how I would like to see it improved.

None of that is in place, but I feel like Amazon suffers. Here's a classic. The classic is what I, my lady friend, refer to as the tab problem. Which is, like, even when we get past all the stuff where Amazon's pushing certain promoted products or their own products or whatever, you go in and do a straight legit search on Amazon. Now my impression is, okay, Here's a good example. You go to – you know there's those kinds of products where there's a single product page you land on. But then there are multivariate aspects to it.

This could be something like – think about shoes where shoes come in a size and a color. Like all size. I'm told. Yes. And so you – but the thing is you land on – OK. Here's these like blue Nikes in size nine and a half. And you're like, hmm. And you notice you tend to land on the one I feel like. I feel like you land on the one that has the quickest delivery or availability. Another way to look at that is like the special of the day at the restaurant is going to be the thing they have the most of, right?

That makes sense. But then you get into what we call the tab problem, which is say, oh, these are really cool. Now, my size isn't going to change, but I might like to try a different color. and the problem is you it seems so simple to click on one of those little boxes that says you know red and you click it it goes oh it's red now it's probably still nine and a half but as you would probably know that could be a completely different seller with completely different conditions and costs for shipping and things like that now now shoes actually end up

being a fairly simple example because let's say you land on mrs meyer's uh you know grapefruit cleanser thing well is that the size you want is that the quantity that you want and when you click that tab you fall down a hole sometimes and that's when you end up especially my lady friend you end up ordering the wrong thing or you order i was about to order some reporter's notebooks from a chicago-based brand that i like a lot and i was gonna get two of them and it was it was 24 for the notebooks and $20 for shipping. And I went, hmm, that seems like kind of a lot. And that happens

Alexon Amazon if you're not careful. I'm a little grumpy about that. Come on, guys.

MerlinWell, it might be an oopsie. Maybe they're doing stamps.com, stomp on my stamps.com.

AlexOh, I hope so. Let's see if that's available. I bought a lot of URLs.

MerlinSo that problem is also going on with IMDb. The way I define this back in the day when I used to think about these things. I was not a content strategist, but I did have some involvement with UX and IA work. I would describe it as a very, very, very old problem with websites from the time when I started doing websites is the bios and bullshit site where somebody, your contact with the company hands you a bunch of Microsoft Word files on a disk and a bunch of photos and says start with the team photo, the C-levels, and basically the bios and bullshit, right?

And then they want you to make a website that reflects how they think about their company. So however they silo information and power is what the website should look like. And that's what websites used to look like before they became more useful and standardized. Do you know what I mean?

AlexYep.

MerlinSo like if I just want to go and find the manual for a Canon camera, time was, you'd have to go through. And it was like contacting somebody about buying a CMS. You had to make sure your call got routed to the right local person whose time it was to get the lead. And in this case, you have to go in and say, are you in the U.S.? Like, do you want – we think about our business this way. There's this camera part and there's this printer part and there's all these other parts. Each one of those silos historically has been owned by a certain business unit.

AlexI mean, we've talked about the Kinkos and FedEx issue in which some people who work at FedEx in the shipping area still don't know that FedEx is now, I don't know, printing, whatever the fuck it's called. And that's still a thing, which is why, I mean, it's not their fault.

MerlinBut it's definitely confusing. And like if you work in a little dock in a box inside of a CVS, for example, like I don't think – you might be able to help somebody find the filler paper or the period products, but that's not really your gig. You're a registered nurse who draws blood or whatever. You don't really work for the CVS aisles. Anyways, my feeling with Amazon, my feeling with INDB, and this is just my reckon, is they both really feel like very old-fashioned sites that are pretty rickety in terms of, well, there's these assignments of which business unit or group or team owns these square millimeters of the page.

But there's not a ton of work being done to make that all work together. So in the same way that you could be using Windows 95 and then find yourself at a DOS shell because you hit the wrong thing, I think with some of these websites, including IMDB, it doesn't feel like there's been an effort to consolidate all the most valuable stuff in a way that is like a really top-down UX rethink of how to do the site. Because it's just easier to keep going along with like, oh, I'm with the part of the company that owns Goofs and Quotes.

And that works different than this. and I don't know. I wish the photos were bigger. I wish the photos were bigger. John Roderick told me that an acquaintance of mine has a father who's an actor that I know and I had to keep zooming in. I could zoom, zoom, zoom. Because the thing is, when you go to an episode of, we just started Law & Order from the beginning. My kid wanted to watch.

AlexWhoa, wait, with the SVU or just nothing?

MerlinNo, I, well, we watched some SVU just so she could see what Christopher Maloney was like really like.

AlexOkay, good, good, good.

MerlinWhen he's not Gene.

AlexGood.

MerlinBut you go back to the beginning. Oh, my God, this one episode we were watching. We were watching, it's the sixth to come out sequentially, S1E6, but it's actually the pilot. It was the first thing they shot. It's super gritty, super grainy with this amazing cast because it was the first episode, executive producer Dick Wolf. This rat king of that guy actors. And so what do you do? You land on a page, Greys. Greys is a terrific example. Like nowadays when you're watching TV, you can just hit your –

AlexOh, Grey's Anatomy. Okay. Wow. Wow. Everybody is pulling in Alex Cox today.

MerlinYou've got CGP on the brain is your problem.

AlexYeah. Oh, wait. Why? No.

MerlinYou're always wearing their shirt. It's weird. It's like you're in a cult.

AlexNo. Okay. All right. All right. Here is the thing. If you wear just a plain black shirt, people think you're weird and all Mark Zuckerberg-y. If you wear another plain-

MerlinWho thinks that, Alex? Who thinks that? Have you been told that? Have you been told you're Mark Zuckerberg because you have black clothes?

AlexYes.

MerlinI would assume you're Marco.

AlexBut now he dresses himself very well and that's the problem. All of these lovely people and our friends are starting to dress like normal humans and, you know.

MerlinI want to tell you about Trunk Club.

AlexAnyway, Grey's Anatomy.

MerlinBut that's Law & Order. Grey's Anatomy. Like there are so many YouTube videos of like people you never realized were on Law & Order. And so you may remember for a while back, but when you could still see my old tweets, I would sometimes have a thread of like, oh, my God, I totally forgot this person was on Law & Order, which is a fun game when we were doing some Law & Order watching. But my point being, I think a use case here is – okay, and I said this to my friend when I was interviewed for the thing. I said here's the thing. One of the use cases of IMDb for me is I'm watching a TV show.

As usual, I'm way more interested in what I know that person from. And so I go and I somehow find my way through. And on a modern device now, you can click on your little diving board dingus and it'll say, okay, this is Law & Order, S1E6, everybody's favorite bag man. And so I can go and find that fairly easily. The interface is not great for getting through seasons of a TV show, but I know that's a complicated problem. But then you land on the page, you see George Zunda, Chris Noth, you know, the guy who used to be on L.A. Law, who I like, Dan Florek.

This is off the Dome, by the way. I'm not looking at anything. And then I see, okay, who's that one guy? The young black guy who they picked up in Harlem who might have killed the councilman. And so what do I do? I pinch a zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. I get in there. But if you see all those tiny faces on a page and you have no idea what the person's name is, what are you going to do? You have to click through every one of those to land on a page with an image of them that might be like the Estelle Getty problem. It could be them like last week or it could be them from 40 years ago.

AlexYes. Oh, God, yes.

MerlinAnd those photos are terrible and seem almost as random as Wikipedia. What you really want is what was that person in? And yes, there is a small section that says known for, which is kind of useful. And of course, you're going to say, oh, of course, that was Socrates in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Socrates, they called him. Or what have you. What I'm saying is I want bigger photos. Grace is back, I think, tomorrow, right?

AlexYou don't like to Zoom.

MerlinTomorrow, right?

AlexI don't know. I had to stop watching the COVID stuff. I was like, I'm going to tap out.

MerlinSo many of our good watch things have been cut short because the other two-thirds of the humans have decided that it's time to bone back up on Grace. So we're only one episode into Daredevil. We're only three episodes into.

AlexWait, wait. The Charlie Cox version?

MerlinHoly shit. It's so good, Alex.

AlexIt's so good.

MerlinOh, my goodness. I forgot how good it was. How much do you love Foggy? How much do you love Karen?

AlexOh, my God. And I thought, I thought, I went in so skeptical. So very meh, meh.

MerlinBut from the beginning, when he's in, but like when he's, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I talked about this with Dan yesterday. But when he's in the confessional at the very top, the show opens. He's talking about his father. And like his father would lose, but he always lost on his feet. And they say the Murdoch boys have a little of the devil in them. I was like, huh, huh, huh?

That's daredevil.

Alexthat's one of my favorite incarnations of what i guess is called gritty superhero things now because it's not gross it doesn't go out of its way to be dark i i think it's based i i'm not

Merlingonna look this up but i was telling my kid again i'm sorry i did talk about this on another program

Alexbut like i'm sorry for stealing ben ben ben ben's valor

Merlinbut the um uh but uh but uh but uh she's saying are there are there there's like pretty good daredevil comic runs too right and i was like yes there's like i get to give at least three extremely good runs of daredevil both in terms of writing and art and i think given the fact that daredevil like iron man at one time is not was not a marquee marvel character like iron man used to be pretty second string at best until robert down the robert downey movie came along but um but daredevil man there's so i won't go into it because who cares but there are many very

good arcs of that and um i think what we're seeing here is that brian michael bendis bmb got his own sort of imprint inside of marvel because he's such a big deal there and there was a uh there was a series a series of an imprint inside marvel i think was called marvel i want to say marvel max but that's where we got like Jessica Jones that's where Jessica Jones got her own comic and it was by design more as they say gritty so I think what we're seeing is

if not directly related to the BMB stuff it's very much a similar like this is not for kids not just in terms of violence and sex or whatever but in terms of like it's not just going to be a bunch of explosions the fight scenes are incredible but there's a lot going on with feelings And, you know, it's I think that I mean, that's a really good first episode.

AlexYeah, it's in the second season. I hope somehow it comes back. But I oh, God, I don't know.

MerlinThe reason I wait, aren't there already two seasons of Daredevil?

AlexThere are. But the second one, it's clear that they thought there was going to be a third one.

MerlinOh, I see.

AlexIt doesn't really end super well.

MerlinI think that's – isn't that super dead in the water? I'm almost surprised they're still up.

AlexI don't know. Yeah, because they're on Netflix, right? Oh, gosh.

MerlinYeah, yeah, yeah. But they did that terrible Iron Fist. Why do I say terrible? I say terrible because the project before Hawkeye that Matt Fraction and David Aja worked on was an amazing run of Iron Fist, which was so fucking good. If you like Hawkeye, check out – yeah, I think that was David. Yeah. But it was pretty definitely Matt Fraction. But there's a really good run. I think it might have been Rick Remender and then Matt Fraction. But anyway, that run of Iron Fist is really quite good. And then the one they did for Netflix was not good.

I don't know if it's anybody's fault. I don't want to blame that actor. But – and they did The Defenders, of course. And they did Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. I like those.

AlexYou are truly Merlin Mann. You have –

MerlinWait, don't I talk about infrastructure?

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinI'm going to flip your clam.

AlexYou're taking photos in your garage again? oh yeah i'm back baby yeah you're doing clubhouses shut up oh early 2.0 did you did you ever see blue room no i have not uh did you see green room yes hell yes nazi punks you're fucking off okay

Merlinwell then okay how about this did you did you end up watching it's okay if you didn't did you end up watching um i care a lot no i don't think so oh well you will recognize that actor that one actor from all that director's movies is uh in at the very top of the first episode of uh what's his name macon dixon mason jones what's that guy's name so are you aware of this guy's movies there's this director and that actor okay so the director's name is we're talking about um jeremy

Solier or something. And the actor's name is Macon Blair and I love him very much. So he's, like if you saw Green Room, he's the guy who works for Professor X that kind of runs the place that's not the guy from Stranger Things. He's not the big guy. He's the kind of deep voice, short hair guy who like meets the band and all that stuff. I fucking love that movie.

AlexGreen Room is incredibly underrated.

MerlinIt's intense, but it's so good.

AlexIt's one of, I don't think we should say anything more than just, is Green Room streaming? I have to say, though, was genuinely a little bit, it just looks a, there is, spoilers, a literal Green Room.

MerlinChekhov, Chekhov is great in it. Maybe is great in it. The other two guys in the band are great in it. It's so good.

AlexIt's one of, I don't know if there are going to be films like this for a while because it's so small.

MerlinYou know this is on my list of like up there with like Game Night of like, please, every couple months, could I please have a movie like this accidentally find its way into my life? It's difficult to describe. It's kind of from my genre of what I call weird movies for weirdos. But like, you know, Green Room, Game Night, there's a lot like this where like I wish something like this would come along and I wouldn't know anything about it. But I would just accidentally like with Game Night, I thought I knew what I was getting into. And I had no way.

Well, you know, it's almost like, OK, how about Kiss Kiss Bang Bang? A movie like that where like, what the fuck is this movie? That's a weird movie. I really like movies like that.

AlexHave you seen Sorry to Bother You?

MerlinOh, yeah. You know what?

Alexi think it didn't finish it i don't know if it's uh yeah that's the one in oakland that's the

Merlinoakland one right yep among other things yeah with the store front yeah i i don't think i finished it

Alexbut i really liked i love that actor the uh yeah it's got um boots or sorry it's directed by boots riley um but uh it it is uh i i acquired um the the the prop keyboard from that film which is uh I thought keyboards were cool before it was cool. So, yeah.

Merlin$7 will get you a cup of coffee. Wow. So, Green Room. Check it out. It's real good. I thought there was a third one. Because he did Gerald's Game, which was, I think, a little problematic. Hush, The Invitation, Blue Ribbon, Green Room.

AlexOh, he did Hush?

MerlinHe did Hush.

AlexOh, my goodness.

Merlinooh that looks creepy

Alexyep

Merlinso where's Green Room streaming Green Room is on Hulu we'll add it for notes Alexander where would people where would people find show notes for episode what are we on 230 maybe

Alexoh yes I think so yeah

Merlinwhat show is this

Alexwhat show are you you know you know merlin where where'd you find um the the notes for the other show that you do

Merlinchallenges for oh i'm sorry are they topics relay.fm slash um R-D-R-R.

AlexRecord. Record. I don't know the words I just said.

MerlinDifferentially reconciliated. It's round. There's that. I'm closing this tab. But you can also support the show directly. You can help support what we do and give us money by going to our Patreon, which is patreon.com slash Dubai Friday or give us your fucking money.com. Which I just renewed not too long ago.

Alexuh or uh stomp on my my stamps.com which is something i just bought yeah well it hasn't

Merlinredirected yet doc you got the dot com of that yeah yeah yeah whoa i know very i could see a dot biz coming up but that seems like something that would be you know the germans would have had a long time ago well i don't i i guess that'd be dot dk i don't even know that's denmark what am i

Alexthinking of i i i don't know i was disappointed to learn that dot o n doesn't seem to be an easy one to find maybe it's because it's a preposition maybe that's why it's like

Merlindon't end in the first domain i ever bought i i put off buying domains into the 90s oh wow

AlexWell, no, no.

MerlinJust to say that even though I've been using the internet for at that point probably at least three or four years, I was very intimidated by buying a domain. And then I'd heard about the .nu domain, which is one of those country domains. And they decided to make it. I think it's like a – is that the one that's like an island nation, like really small? But anyway, they said, hey, look, this is a cool domain name you can buy. And so I got Merlin.nu and Baconray.nu. and those are the first two domains I ever bought.

AlexIs it? You know I got it. Zooming, zooming.

MerlinA lot of it's still on archive.org. The BaconRay site still looks pretty good considering.

AlexNot .mu.

MerlinWhat am I doing? .mu is a Steely Dan cord.

AlexI'm using the quiet keyboard. BaconRay.nu. B-A-C-O-N-R-A-Y.nu.

MerlinWell, I'm sure it's got to be. I'm not going to look. It wouldn't make me too sad. But it's got to be like a laughing lady eating salad parking thing at this point. Best salad. Hot smiles. Lady network.

AlexOh, backup. Time machine's supposed to be off. Why are you failing? There's not enough space on time machine? That's the point. That's the point. You just get rid of the old shit. But isn't it pretty smart about it?

MerlinThere's that explanation, which is not totally lucid. But it basically starts removing very old.

AlexYeah.

MerlinLike it keeps recent things, tons of recent things, a handful of less recent things, and some old things, but not many old things. Yeah, I know there's some smarts behind it.

AlexYeah. But I just – I mean this is why I still use Super Duper and Backblaze and all the great backup services.

MerlinI upgraded my Blackblaze today. Oh.

AlexDid something new happen?

MerlinNo, no. I just saw that I didn't have the latest version.

AlexOh.

MerlinAnd I upgraded my Synology also. I didn't go to 7 yet. Not ready to go on the beta. But I did go to... It's weird. It didn't update automatically. It's like a February update and I didn't get it automatically. Still having trouble with one of my certificates. And I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

AlexHave you upgraded to Sir Big Daddy? Big Daddy Sir?

Merlinserved it? I got it up this morning. It said there's one installing tonight. I'm on 11.2.2 here on my iMacintosh. Oh, wow.

AlexWhat am I?

MerlinI don't get a lot of benefit out of that on this particular old Macintosh, but it's nice to be up to date. You know what it was? It was like all the things in the past where I finally got to the point where there were enough... Well, first of all, I kept noticing stuff that I wasn't using but wanted to use. And it would say, you know, Big Sur only.

But then I started getting some of like, well, if you want to get the benefits of the new version of this, like you got to – like they just – as Snell just pointed out, DaVinci Resolve came out with an M1 version today.

AlexOh, wow. Which is cool. That is very – the reason I say it's interesting is because that is not exactly a software known for frequent updates or what the hell are you talking about they have a nightly they have a nightly build uh but but uh in a what am i am i just thinking of the other black magic software

Merlinyeah no i mean i could i could be wrong i'm i'm having my i'm having some time away from my camera thing other things but um yeah i was i was getting um uh to the point of frustration was getting a nightly the beta that's been out for a while has been m1 friendly i think that just finally went

Alexyou know gold master or whatever i well i you know what i will steal some back to work valor and ask why you've made uh you you seem like you've gone away from the visual stuff a bit and just a break just a break yeah i mean i i am taking a break i'm very much i very much enjoyed our visual episode uh last last week two weeks i don't know i did too emma liked it too she thought was very sweet oh good and and i i lots of folks liked it and i i i say this with as much i don't

know how i say this it's really fucking hard it is really hard to do entertaining things on video

Merlinfor more than an hour at a time well especially if you want it to also be good audio yeah yeah

AlexYeah, I think we got maybe 70 to 80 percent there. And I highly recommend that folks go to the You Look Nice Today YouTube page because the audio is good. But it's just a totally different experience. And I enjoy it quite a bit. And I mean, I look at people's faces all day, every day, and I don't like it.

And there are actual studies being done on Zoom fatigue, which I find very interesting.

MerlinI've seen a lot of articles about that lately.

AlexYeah. At first, it was just takes. And now it's like, no, literally, like our brains are broken. Everybody's brain is broken. But this is one way, which we are.

MerlinWe're asking things of our brain that our brains were never meant to.

AlexYeah. And I like the novel because video stuff is no longer a novelty. I think I have become less interested in it. Well, and because it's part of my jobby job.

MerlinAnd also just the vocabulary and the visual. I don't just say, but like, yeah, just just like the style of like YouTube videos. oh i can't fucking stand i oh god i well because i'm out there and i'm trying to you know learn how to do these things with you know sonology and actually those are some of the most digestible and well done things but like god just that that i don't know what it's called i keep talking about it but whatever that style is where you cut out everything that's not somebody

currently talking a jump cut like the i guess but whatever there must be a name for this i would not be surprised if there's a plugin where you said take my dumb video scale it down so that every time so every sentence or so cut something out and then change the level of zoom and you just get this like completely anarchic like i've got to keep you interested in this by making you think there's something new happening all the time and then you watch a set through that ski video and it's like this is why he's the king he's actually genuinely amusing and doesn't need to like drain

all the air out of this bag in order for it to fit in the stupid freezer.

AlexZe Frank Bo... I don't know why I'm trying to laugh less. Probably because it makes my throat hurt.

MerlinAnd then you apologize to Quinn. I've never understood that.

AlexOh, for blowing out audio?

MerlinYou're not blowing out the audio. Don't you have a limiter?

AlexYeah, but...

MerlinI know it's probably just a bit, mostly, right?

AlexI don't know. I don't know what's a bit anymore. I don't know what's real. I feel like everybody's getting vaccinated and no one's getting vaccinated. Like it's it's core. It's core anniversary. It feels weird. Everything is is weird in a different way, which is weirdly refreshing and also still scary. I don't know. I don't know.

MerlinI think I feel a similar way.

AlexWell, definitely the waves of shaming, individual shaming have come back.

MerlinBut when you hear that the percentage of people, of adults, especially older adults, who have gotten at least one vaccine shot, it's really cool.

AlexIt makes me so happy.

MerlinBut the number of I saw I saw a very poorly labeled infographic that was still interesting, which is so poorly done. But basically it said, here's Trump supporters of this of all adults. Here's Trump supporters. What percentage got it? Biden supporters. What percentage? And then ditto for like people in their 60s and people, 70s and up. And of course, it completely tells the story why people like my mom will never get the vaccine. But it's pretty wild. Like people who want it. Like I noticed a headline pop in, you know, from Florida today about like, you know, you can go to Publix and get vaccinated now in Florida.

That's really cool. And the sandwiches. Woof.

AlexYeah. You got to. I mean, that's that's the problematic thing is the Publix. And I'm told actually they have great senior hours, which made me happy.

MerlinOh, we did talk about this. I just sent you two links. I sent you a link to.

AlexOh, oh, oh, oh.

MerlinSo the Bacon Ray is from 2000. Merlin.new is from that one's from 2000. 2002. New audio? I had a very restrained style.

AlexOh, Merlin

MerlinD-Man. But this is before we standardized websites. This is back when you still do your own thing. This was when

Alexthe web was fun. Look at those tables.

MerlinThose tables and that din middle shrift. Oh, that looks good. Oh, that's

Alexon purpose. That's not something that changed. Oh, Merlin resides in a foggy district of San Francisco, California, and earns a living by building products to use on the global internet examples of this work are available for your perusal at no cost or obligation how much of that is a bit and how much is it like i just always regarded myself as funny i i'm as as you as you should um i like i like a certain style products oh this is oh there's a resume there's a printable version of the resume yeah there's a print oh oh

oh i'm so happy okay i'm sorry this isn't the show oh my site flow is not up oh because it doesn't do pdfs oh that's good oh yeah no policy violation that's why i'm loving craft um the

Merlinoh there we go okay oh it looks like we got a 452 policy violation

Alexoh no my policy

MerlinSeeking a fast-paced company that thrives on small teams and rapid development. Possessing peerless ability to meet business goals within available resources. Offering creative project skills to a growing company that needs results now. Boy, I'm so full of shit.

AlexYeah, I was wondering how much of this is a lie.

MerlinOh my God, look at my skills. I really thought a lot of myself. Oh my God.

AlexOh, yeah. I'm like, how much of this is a Adobe Go Live?

MerlinThat's what Bacon Ray site is Go Live.

AlexYeah. Yeah. I forgot about this. Oh, my goodness.

MerlinThe Bacon Ray site with the monkey boy. Did you see that one?

AlexYes. No, I love the monkey boy. Can I download?

MerlinYou can probably download it. Download.

AlexDoes that live?

MerlinSave image. Yeah. Way to go. Save image to download.

AlexOh, this is very exciting.

MerlinI used to like doing the FAQs. That was fun. how oh oh you mean like a javascript menu javascript menu god i'm such a baller

Alexi genuinely enjoy when people take pride in in their work old and new like i'm not proud but i can't hide it i would if i could why why i mean i don't um because because because of all the usual reasons um oh all right the the problematic um has this milk gone bad question if you have to

Merlinask yeah by all means you know i'm really looking forward to sniffing your milk thanks yeah but um no i don't know i don't you know whatever it's you know it's it's it is strange like that's already an artifact of like a completely different time the way in my experience the people who do or can get jobs rarely get them from a resume on the internet oh yeah no no no well you don't what I mean? Like, I guess you go to LinkedIn now, like everything has become so, as I say, siloed in some ways. And like, like I just discovered this site via somebody, either

probably Snell or Grouper, because I subscribe to like four RSS feeds. But, but it was this site was called something Teapot. Oh, it was the guy, it was Greg linking to the guy talking about how he uses drafts as a text editor. And it made me so happy because it really, I'll find it for notes, but it's this guy who just has like, he's got a blog. Like we used have a blog he's got a blog and he writes on his blog and it's good and it made me so happy and it's like it makes you really want to go out and find more people who haven't like taken a shit into a bucket and called it facebook like it's just it's something with pot in it pot oh oh well go no nothing

like that don't make it weird but i'm sorry i made it weird you love you love making it weird i just

Alexenjoy i i i have to say i have kind of come around on not silos in general but how people are embracing silos in different ways and that really yeah uh i was talking to a friend of the show what does that what does that mean for you not everybody is putting everything on snapchat And yes, Snapchat is back for the use, which is super cool. And not everybody is like Facebook isn't the Internet anymore.

Instagram isn't the Internet.

MerlinI'm very happy to hear that.

AlexYeah. Right. And I mean, it's not like, you know, we're going back to RSS or anything. But well, you know, it all will actually myself. I've gotten a few questions about our show and like its existence on Spotify. and I'm like, well, you can find it here. It's weird. Not like, don't listen on Spotify.

MerlinI hate to be the kind of guy that says I didn't want to do that, but I didn't want to do that.

AlexYeah. No, yeah. It happened automatically.

MerlinDid you ever get those stats, Alex? Did you ever get the stats from three years ago? They were sending those stats along? Yeah, they did.

AlexThey did.

MerlinHow are we doing?

AlexFrom a year ago. But have you ever gone into Spotify and swiped over to the podcast area?

MerlinI go to Spotify probably at least three times a week to go listen to music. And I can't not see podcasts. They really want me to watch or listen to podcasts.

AlexYep. And the.

MerlinAnd it's mostly just like totally bullshit, celebrity bullshit.

AlexInteresting. Because for me.

MerlinNo, it's the kind of things I would never in a million years listen to. It's like it's like three three male actors like talking about, you know, comic books or whatever. And it's like, OK, that's fine. But like, they're not the jolly teapot. That's it. But they're not really in it because they like that. They're in it because somebody told them they should do a podcast. Oh, I would like to think that Jason Manzoukas likes podcasts because he's so good on podcasts. The thing is, he's so unplugged from the Internet. And that's part of what makes him so fun. But like a lot of people, I just I don't think you're into podcasts, dude.

I think somebody I think your agent or your manager told you to do a podcast. And sometimes that's something great. Like that the history, the history, oral history of the office was terrific. my first time I ever broke my Spotify rule was to listen to that and I don't regret it at all it was wonderful and now they're trying to get me to listen to a Creed podcast they're trying to get

Alexme to listen to another podcast Creed is in the band no Creed isn't Creed Bratton I oh it smells like death oh the guy okay there we go all right I would listen to a podcast about Creed very interesting history but i i kind of poke around in the podcast area just because i'm like what is you know are if people are listening to shows in this way like how does it work and i

Merlinshould i feel like i probably should to be if i'm being honest i should know more about what they think i'm not gonna say what people want what they think people want in their offering you know what i mean yes that would probably be good for my career i don't know exactly i i don't know

AlexSo I go in and search for Merlin Man and I think Doop by Friday – I probably subscribed to Doop by Friday and it popped up. But what also shows up is a number – what do you call it? The hashtag – what is it actually called?

MerlinOctothorpe. Pound sign? Pound sign, yep. It's called Octothorpe, yeah.

AlexSo it's Octothorpe, Merlin Man.

MerlinBecause it's got eight lines, Octothorpe.

AlexPodcast topic.

Merlinand fuck me why are you

AlexI cannot get through to you enough

Merlinhow much you need to stop telling me about things you just stop making me sad and you stop hold on I don't want to be noticed

Alexum the which who's a uh who's a uh oh let's let's uh do try Starly Kahn yep um

Merlinwhich would be funny for lots of reasons

Alexyes I know I wonder

MerlinI was listening to the Britney episode today

Alexuh oh so so good

MerlinI love her

AlexOh, yep. As soon as I type in Starly, you know, Mystery Show comes up. But also, Amper, Octothor.

MerlinMystery Show is still up. So good for them.

AlexYeah, they're still making money from it. Awesome. All right. But it has her as a as a podcast topic. and then you go in and it has all the like instances well some most of them of things that she has appeared on like um the episode 23 of long form and uh like i i don't know i find that really interesting so i was of course typing names into everybody i i know and it it well

found an interview that you did that i didn't know about and i i don't well yeah no it's it's It's fucking weird. But also, I don't know.

MerlinI used to try and manage that when I was more actively trying to have my own website. And so I think I created an area. I want to say on Squarespace for appearances. And I was trying to work it out. I wanted to do something like the way Pinboard used to work. I wish there was just an easy way to drop in. And also, we should talk about Pinboard at some point.

There's interesting things happening there. But what I used to do for Roderick on the line was I would create links in pinboard, use a tag, and then I could do an embed on the website. To me, a very cool, lightweight way to handle show notes.

AlexI mean I've been told that I need to put a real website up and I'm like –

MerlinBy whom, Alex? Who are these – are these voices in your head? Be honest.

AlexYeah. Oh, I mean, no, the voices in my head are not helpful.

MerlinBut you've always got an example of somebody who's up in your shit. And I want to know who these people are because I'm wondering if it's always the same person. Is it a Welsh troll?

AlexI wish. You need a website, Alex. just uh oh my god so i i just went in to mike hurley and of course there's mike hurley as a topic but someone has made mike hurley's keyboard club lo-fi playlist i don't know what this means

but that's super interesting oh wait oh yep do buy fridays and there see it's it's not that i'm like yay listen on spotify i'm i'm i just i i want more stuff like this i don't think shows like

Merlinours matter over much if we matter on spotify it matter it matters mostly and this is just again based on my own experience with spotify really wanting me to listen to podcasts which is really Of what is there, they're pretty good at figuring. And, you know, I think I have listened to an episode of our show on there at some point for some reason. But I think the benefit or the value is that if you are somebody who is a slightly more veteran listener of podcasts, it feels good to go somewhere and have it realize, oh, you probably like this thing too.

So it isn't so much that they're like, oh, it means a lot to us for you to listen to Dubai Friday. They do want more hours of people listening in their app, whatever it is. I doubt they care a ton, but I bet it's a useful way to like say, oh, yeah, that's cool. I do like that podcast story. They figured out with their special sauce that this is something I might like. I bet that is as useful, at least as just dropping a bunch of celebrity bullshit into a horizontal gallery or carousel or whatever.

AlexThe only reason I bring this up is because we're talking about, you know, the Internet days of old. And it was much easier – not easier, but just there were – because there were fewer things, it was easier to find your niche and the nice thing you wanted to see, listen to, whatever.

MerlinAnd there was also just less out there. Like you had to kind of – Right, yeah. You had to spend more time turning over the mulch of these different things you weren't sure if you liked. Like you may know you like this and you know you like that. But like if you wanted more stuff in your Net Newswire, you were going to have to go out. And I think a lot of that happened. Part of the beauty, I have to say, definitely a benefit for me and my stuff was if you ended up in somebody's blog role or you ended up in somebody's linked, you know, remaindered links or whatever we used to call it. Like that was a great discovery engine.

Because Andy Bale liked it. There's a good chance I wanted to check it out. But it wasn't like there was 10,000 sites to choose from. It was going to be Robot Wisdom and Brunching Shuttlecocks and Kotki and stuff like that.

AlexI still look at Kotki like every day. It's, oh, people should listen to the Cocky Ride Homans hosted by Jackson Bird. It's very good. But even Apple Podcasts does not have that level of discoverability the way that Spotify has, nor does Stitcher. And I get why, like, Stitcher and stuff doesn't, because they want to specifically, you know, hawk their main shows in the same way Spotify does. But I am surprised. I don't know. And I know it's a very hard problem to solve, but I don't know.

I just want people to find the things that they like. And I worry that it's going to make it it's going to be harder and harder as the these things are siloed, but also as the algorithms change in a gross way that it's like, oh, yes, you if you watch this, you will like this YouTube original. No, no, I really wouldn't.

MerlinI totally agree. I would like to make a remark that I'm going to bracket as being, I know this is snarky, but I'm going to make the remark anyway. And I wonder how much of this spins out of the fact that I run a VPN.

So like if you run a VP, I don't, I cannot quantify this, but let's put it this way. One way that I noticed my VPN, sometimes you get to flip off your view. Like I flip off Guardian if I have to do a lot of HomeKit stuff because, you know, sometimes it just gets confused. I flip off Guardian. Just if something's not working, I'll flip it off. And sometimes I forget to turn it back on. I can't prove this, Alex. I'm pretty sure I get fewer, probably fewer, but definitely different ads running a VPN. And I think Marco has talked about this.

But there are a lot of shows that I know, I feel like I know, have ads in the spot where they left a spot for an ad. And I frequently do not get ads in those spots, not even on Slate that I pay for. But like it's weird. It's weird. But then it's so fucking crazy. It's like then I'll hear something or an ad for something at Stanford or in San Francisco. And I'm like, I'm going to check. And you know what? I forgot to turn Guardian back on.

AlexYep.

MerlinSo I want to just before I get snarky, I want to bracket the fact that my observation could come out of the fact that I run a VPN all the time that I remember to have it on. and maybe that's why I get observation such shitty ads I cannot believe these companies that like are all in on like being bid podcast I can't believe how on the one hand the sponsors everybody's having a hard time right now no one wants to talk about it but it's gotten

difficult sponsors have gotten more demanding

Alexwhich I don't understand I mean well there's people people don't want to talk about money I understand sorry Go ahead.

MerlinWell, no, I do too. But especially if – like who wants to be the one to tell their boss that the line is moving the wrong way? Nobody wants to do that, let alone whatever. Fine. But like I don't have a strong stand on that. But I am frankly shocked that places one suspects have either a dedicated staff of ad people or a relationship with a dedicated staff of ad people. I sometimes can't believe, here's the snarky observation, I can't believe how many ads for podcasts that have been around for a long time sound like what they could get the second week they ran ads.

AlexMm-hmm. I don't think that's snarky.

MerlinIt's like, oh, yeah, OK, that's cool. But then you also run into stuff like Causality. John Chigi is like I think exclusively sponsored by Minitrix, a ton of whose products I use, including like, you know, Witch and like – I really like Minitrix. They're a great company. I love that they sponsor him. And I feel like David, you know, in some of his shows, Sparks gets relationships like that. But like sometimes I'm just – I mean do you ever encounter that? Like I know you listen to a fairly broad range of podcasts.

Isn't it sometimes striking like how lame the products and the reads are?

AlexYeah. Well, it is not – it used to be striking. But it feels normal now when I am listening to a show that's my go-to, all the great go-tos. I am hearing hosts reading ads and it is different now in COVID times, obviously. But it's still so much different than any ads on like, I don't know what we'd even call.

MerlinGriffin Newman. Griffin Newman's ad reads on blank check are a gift.

AlexYeah. And even when it's something that I don't care about, at least it's something special.

MerlinBut he has such a snarky urgency. You just go on, you get it. It's just like – but you could tell he – like on this week's episode, the latest episode of Blank Check, you could tell that he had done the ads all by himself before or after. Because there's always a bit. He has bits in – even though it's a no-bits podcast supposedly. It's so funny because he's like, David, David. Stop talking. I want to talk about stamps.com. You don't want to have to go to the post office. You've got to go to the post office and like, oh, you should even save money on UPS. And he's so good.

And David, David, let me finish. And it was – but all three of the ads on the show were like that. And I – people say this sometimes. You look forward to the ads. I don't hate those ads. I like to see where they're going to go with it. Same with the brothers. I like to see where they're going to go with the ads. And I guess it must work.

AlexI think I'm a bit more cynical in that regard and that I don't know if it works and I think it's like

MerlinYou mean like the kind where you have to read it and it's like a hostage statement and you hate yourself for reading it? That kind of thing maybe?

AlexYes and if you're not the top earner you're the hostage

MerlinPlease don't give me ad copy. Never again hand me any ad copy in the first person. I don't know how many times I have to say it Yeah. I will not say it and I will rephrase it in a way that's very awkward because you know I don't accept first person ad copy anymore. It got abused. It got abused and I tried to be cool about it. But now if you tell me that I'm supposed to say what I do with your product and I not only don't use your product but don't care for it very much and would not recommend it.

No. I mean I'm enough of a privileged priss that I'm not going to blow my reputation on your desperate plea for users. It's like if your product rules, you don't need me to say that. Like I'll tell you I really actually do really like Squarespace. I really do like Mack Weldon. Like there's a bunch of stuff that I really actually do like. And I know, you know, as my 43 Folders ad partners used to tell me that, you know, this is how advertising works. They need to find people who aren't using that thing.

AlexYeah. And the – I think – I never thought that I would turn away any amount of money. And this is when a small company was like, hey, here are some ads. Here's a little bit of money to do the thing. Here's $50 for 30 seconds. And typically I was like, oh, heck yeah. And then it'd be, yeah.

MerlinLike if you're Searcy and you don't have water, you want water. Any amount will do. When you're thirsty, to pivot to my old thing about the day you put SiteMeter on your site and you get your first visitor, you just had a 100% increase in visitors. It does not matter that that's one visitor. And if you get 10 by the next day, that's a huge deal. And it's really cynical to look down your nose at that. Getting paid anything for doing something that you enjoy and would like to get paid for is it's not something – it would be very cynical to say, oh, that's not worth it.

Because it's worth it for somebody. Everybody just has to make their decisions about what's worth it.

AlexI, I'm at, I'll say it. I'm at a point where I don't know how much money I would need to ever do an ad for, uh, what is it? A Nord VPN. Like at this point, they just.

MerlinOh, I like Nord VPN.

AlexI, I don't, I really, really don't like it.

MerlinWhoa, whoa, whoa. Really? Should I not be, that's what I use on my Mac. Should I not be using that?

AlexNo, I just think it's gross. I think their, their copy is gross. I think the way that they present themselves as a service is gross.

MerlinAre you sure it's Nord that you're thinking of?

AlexI'm pretty sure this is the, you can go to Hulu and you can watch a bunch of stuff.

MerlinFor reasons that one could infer, that is not who you're thinking of. And I'd like to leave it at that.

AlexOh, all right.

MerlinCool. You're thinking of another VPN company.

AlexAll right.

MerlinI will type it with words.

AlexOkay. All right.

MerlinTalking about British, British Netflix Doctor Who? Japanese anime?

AlexMaybe. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. See, there was a time where you had to figure out how to pirate your stuff. Yep. Yep. Yeah. No, I think, I forget why I don't run Nord.

MerlinOkay. Alright. But you're thinking of the one

AlexI just typed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I...

MerlinI like Nord, because Nord lets you pick, do you want, like, what do you want to focus on? You know, if you ever figure it out, tell me why. Because I try, I don't end up running it that much just because I worry it's going to step on podcast quality?

AlexOh, it was very much...

MerlinIs this like a torrent freak thing? You should read something bad about them in that article, that annual article or the spreadsheet?

AlexNot bad, but it kind of had the same problem with Tunnel Bear, which I loved. But it just worked so differently on mobile. Actually, I don't even know if Nord has a mobile one. I think they do. um but um yeah oh yeah i like their website oh this got a lot better i'll tell you what bugs me

Merlinum i don't know this is this is again i'm the asshole right because i'm gonna point this out but if you're trying if you're trying to as my friend chris's dad used to say latch the screen door and you just want to be a little bit better and you get a vpn and you're doing stuff like saying like i prefer you not know my ip address because if you know i i was actually talking to my lady about this today. I got her on Guardian and she's talking, she's remarking on why I always think she's in Santa Clara. And I said, well, let me tell you why, because there's a server there. But like in my case, Guardian makes people think that I'm in Parsippany, New York through a server

in Santa Clara, uh, Parsippany, New Jersey. Sorry. But anyway, um, here's what I don't like is you go in and, and guess who hosts a ton of popular, well-known SEO enabled wizard sites for like testing how well your VPN is working. Guess what? VPN sites.

AlexOh.

MerlinThe places that, but like go and try this. Like if you want to go and see if you're getting DNS leaks or if you're getting, you know, whatever, the web RTC things, whatever it is you want to go and check, go to any, go search for, you know, a test, test VPN or whatever. And you'll land on a well, usually a well-known site. And like, it's like, it's trust your mechanic again. It's like when's the last time like you went to the dentist and they said you're good? Or when's the last time you went to your mechanic and they couldn't find a single thing wrong with your car? You go to these sites and it says, ooh, you may be having a problem here and you're definitely not running Bob's VPN.

You should be running Bob's VPN and there's a big red stop sign because you're not running Bob's VPN. And if you go to any of those sites, there's always a big red stop sign that says, well, you're not using Alice's VPN.

AlexDo you know what I'm saying?

Merlinit's really cheesy and it's like it's implying that whatever you're using didn't work but we can't sometimes we can't exactly tell you why but you're not getting the best service you can from this that's i think that's great i get why they do it but i think it's a little bit gross

Alexwill we talk about infrastructure in the after show uh interest oh interesting so yes because people have to pay for merlin man 2.0 yeah yeah yeah see i'll do the gross thing yeah this if if you want classic vintage merlin man i didn't mean it like that i just meant yeah i i i meant it like that you can go vintage my knees hurt the the uh i have to say i've uh this this year seems like maybe it's because i'm turning 30 and like a lot of people i know are turning 30 but

aging without grace doesn't isn't a good look like unironic angry like

Merlinaging without grace that you're not pulling that you're not pulling off in the way in the way you think is a bummer sometimes and now like whereas with me i'm like i can honestly say this like i there's all kinds of things as you know i've got i got a lot of things that weigh on my mind i i have as this old country song used to say i have a tangled mind like i am fucked up about a lot of stuff but it is it's comforting to me that yeah pounce on privilege whatever but like i um i don't

want to die but i'm gonna die okay like i'm gonna everybody's gonna die and i'm i mean i'll do what i can the de minimis stuff to have that not happen i'll try and be sensible and sane but i am neither that worried about dying, nor am I that embarrassed about getting quote unquote old. Every time somebody says this, I've said this before, this has been in my bird, my, my, what's called bird deck tweet, tweet house. What's it called? This one's been in my bird house for many, many, many, many months, which is, you know, everybody's, everybody's thinks it's such an insult to talk about somebody getting old.

And every time somebody says that, I legit think of all the people in my life, I wish got to be just a little bit older. And you're such an asshole for saying that. Like saying that getting old, I mean, I've done that before. And it's not just because I'm sensitive about it. I'm the opposite of sensitive. I honestly don't care. Like whether I get old with dignity or not, I mean, I don't have a strong opinion about any of that except that you have a stronger opinion than you're letting on when you think it's an insult to say somebody's getting old.

And I'm not even talking in an ageist way. I just mean in the sense of like you have not really thought this through because there are two options in life. dead or not well it's not life well yeah you there's there's one alternative to quote getting old yeah and i don't think you've thought over much about what happens when when that's your solution what are you fucking james dean you gonna wrap your car around a tree like i mean that's

Alexthe we've we've talked about this before because you're turning you're turning anyway you're turning 30 you're turning 30 oh i turned 30 uh well no no no just i i don't know i think i come the same way in and we've talked about it before in that i never imagined living past a certain age for many reasons and i'm like these are just bonus years that i am cherishing the fuck out of because i have um thankfully fewer friends than um that have passed away than a lot of queer people because

AIDS and the I said it I said that was like an ad AIDS do you want to watch Hulu god damn it no challenge

Merlinevery night every night since there are very few things that have been a thread throughout all of my young person's life it's not my young person

Alexare you saying you own a woman

MerlinI own all the women they just don't know it yet

Alexcan't prove merlin's not my dad i got on the shirt i make them wear it in the well

Merlinuh you know what this is dorky but um forever one of my um uh duties one of the things that i do i make dinner a lot of the nights or i acquire dinner a lot of the nights and when we're sitting down to go watch tv and eat dinner together i always bring my daughter a glass of water except for the nights that I forget. But like, you know, and I probably should remember that, but that's my job is to like bring her a glass of water. And it's difficult to think of something that requires less effort, but like, I'm so glad

she still wants me to bring her a glass of water. And like I could, she can make her own water and she often does, but frequently she'll kind of, I'll get this glance from her and I'll go, oh, I forgot to give you a glass of water. And I go and I get her a glass of ice water and bring it to her. And then sometimes I top it off. Why am I saying this? because I want you to like me and think that I'm humane. No, yes, sure, whatever. But the main point is there's going to be so many days for the rest of her life where it never even occurs to her that she'd like me to bring her a glass of water. And I have such gratitude for every evening

she wants me to bring her a glass of water. And I never want to be a dick about it because I look forward to it. Like when, like, each one of those little teaspoons of days that we get to dip into is like, I don't want to be a dork about it, but like, there's so many of those things in your life you'll never have again. I can't tell you what those are, but you know, and like, and I'm not trying to be lachrymose about this. I am trying to say that like, you know, life is precious and God and the Bible. And, and, you know, it's nice to figure out

what kind of pleasure, peace and gratitude you can find in a glass of water in life. that's all I wanted to say about that

Alexlet's do the challenge

Merlinyou didn't have to pay for that do you want to bring a glass of water don't ask if somebody wants a glass of water always just bring a glass of water

AlexI hate it we had a challenge one time make your co's cry

Merlinoh I love that one that was great remember the English guy who got the people out of Nazi Germany and everybody stood up oh my god when they stand up

AlexOh my god! Okay. Be a doctor. This week's challenge was brought to you by Merlin. I'm your father.

He's not the son you are! God fucking damn it!

MerlinI'm your father and person.

AlexBerlin, this week's...

MerlinLet's just do this real quick. We've done plenty of content here. We want to get to the infrastructure.

AlexSome very exciting RSS VPNs.

MerlinYou had a tough time with this challenge. Do you want to address why this challenge was difficult for you? You don't have to, but sometimes that is an interesting part. Did it just not work out timing-wise?

AlexNo, I got into bed.

MerlinChallenge this week was to reboot your sleep.

AlexRight. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and I am both of us, I think, kind of game of fire sleep. And it's, you know, it's one of those things that I think about like a vegetable and exercise. I do not enjoy both, but I accept that they are necessary.

MerlinSounds like a neutral milk hotel song. Vegetable and exercise. and their eyes became prawns and the kings became pawns upon the lake oh boy uh gamify sleep

Alexprawns and vegetables yep yep and uh i have i don't know this has been a thing actually for the past uh month in in like around mid-february my sleep i don't i really don't know how it just got totally messed up nothing changed in terms of dan talks about this like i think it's dan

Merlintalks about this every week that like everybody he knows has fucked up sleep right now yeah and i think sometimes like like our weird time dilation sometimes it's your sleep is disrupted sometimes you sleep too little sometimes you sleep too much like i don't think it's the same even for a given person but a lot of people's sleep is super fucked up right now continually

Alexyeah and i i i understand why i like because everything's different our bodies have never most of us have never had a situation where our bodies are like this that we're in the same place

Merlinthe whole time we're not getting we're not getting sunlight which oh i am not getting any that's a big part of your diurnal clock getting calibrated i've got actually got my

Alexvitamin d right here which i still i when when a doctor wrote me a prescription for vitamin d i'm like all right i'll accept that maybe this does something so sure i forgot to take it so wait no

Merlinthat's that's not the kind you get at walgreens that's like a really super good it actually works

Alexbioavailable d yeah it was like the kind didn't the the uk give get oh i almost went a whole episode without mentioning britain uh moving on moving on uh i think the government like gave them uh uh um the i won't i won't oh i watch so many the queen carries her blood

Merlinyeah no that interests me i want to learn more about the queen carrying her blood around is it kind of like the hitler pills like where there's a train and like somebody has to carry the queen's blood and corgis it's actually way less interesting blood and corgis

Alexanother great neutral no cocktail room oh uh anyway i think the uk got a but like the the government um for some reason they just give out health care for free uh but they also gave everybody the like really high vitamin d supplements that are you know like one of those

Merlinones i know there's some like i want to say a and i want to say e i know there's certain ones where you got to be careful about like how much like with vitamin c you can take it all day long because it doesn't do anything. No one safe dose.

AlexYeah.

MerlinLiterally. Literally. Literally.

AlexNo.

MerlinAnd don't get that vitamin C at the gas station.

AlexOoh.

MerlinOh. So anyway, you're taking vitamin D. Sorry. Sleep disrupted February. Sorry.

AlexSleep February. No, no. That's the thing. There's something that I realized recently in that the reason I love routines isn't just because I know that I function better around them. It's because I sometimes really love disruption to my routines because that is exciting and let's say consensual.

MerlinTo have it visited upon you or to do that by choice or how does that figure?

AlexI would say- Consensual, yeah, like consensual, my enthusiastic consent for my routine being.

MerlinConsensual disruption.

AlexYes, yes, exactly. And because that's, I don't know, if we're going to, if we're going to do the, like, I'll do like the hippie, like, take life by the horns thing. Like, with that infrastructure in place, go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com if you want to hear more about infrastructure, I guess. I guess. But having that infrastructure helps me be able to do more spontaneous things and take on more opportunities that I wouldn't be able to otherwise. Because, you know, someone taught me

a long time ago that the most precious thing we have is our time and attention. And I care about that a great deal. And also because of my, like, just being bipolar, without a routine, it just gets real bad and i i with the whole sleep thing i just don't know what's up because my sleep has

Merlinbeen weird in the whole quarantine and if you don't know if you don't i mean we could say what's caused by corn or whatever but like what does that mean you know it's it's like to actually try and find a to try and find a functional cause or set of i don't say cause set of conditions that made it easy to, made it possible and easy for it to be disrupted. Like that's kind of just the beginning of untangling it. And really rebooting your sleep in the way that I rebooted, as I will say in a second, was not difficult at all for me for half a dozen reasons, including that I wanted to

do it, which helps a lot. But like, I don't know. I feel like there's a real emotional rat king and environmental rat king of things that can lead you to that. And I don't think it's always as simple as saying, well, by fiat, I've decided to go to bed at exactly 1145 or whatever. that can't i think that can be very helpful but don't you feel kind of it's another one of those things where it's like what works for one person may not work for another right it's the whole

Alexday you know day people night people and whatnot and i'm i'm hey man he's a master of karate and friendship for a marry me yes charlie's all covered with the silver spray paint it's so good oh god i love i adore that show talk about aging gracefully that show i have to like what 14 seasons or something crazy it's so different every oh oh god anyway sleep um no they're there i don't know how they keep

it fresh i really don't uh because they embrace change and appreciate the gift that they have

MerlinAnd for now, anyway, they're not afraid to go there. I love that they go there.

AlexYeah.

MerlinI wish everybody got allowed to occasionally go there.

AlexThey use their hashtag privilege for good and embrace, but also embrace the changes in the world. And like, yeah.

MerlinBut like, do you ever think for a minute that the woman who plays Dee is that character? Do you ever think for one moment that Dennis is actually like that or Mac or Charlie? It's the implication. Well, you must be exactly like that because you said those words. I was like, no, they didn't actually, believe it or not, they didn't actually smoke crack. They're actors, and that's a bit.

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinThat's called being funny. That's called humor. Humor is when you try on ideas in a way that can be a little bit contradictory, and that doesn't mean that D is a crackhead. Not what that means.

AlexI might, yep, yep.

MerlinThere's nothing to be drawn in implications from this, but that's just a thought I had.

AlexThe implication.

MerlinI love that band.

AlexI got into bed around 1150 every night because I just can't fall asleep before midnight. And also I don't need to wake up until 8 a.m. every morning, which is, I think, fine. It's just my schedule. And because I work with so many people on the West Coast, it just works.

MerlinYeah, especially if you can know that and not stress about it. Right. That's such a nice thing. I said this to Roderick the other day, but I introduced him to that thing I say of like, there's feeling bad and then there's feeling bad about feeling bad. And I'm cool with saying that over and over because I think it's super fucking meaningful. It is such a piece of magic in your life if you can feel bad without feeling bad about feeling bad. And you won't realize it until you've done it. But when you go, oh, this is just a bus that I'm riding for a few minutes and I'll eventually step off.

Or put differently, I'm the bus and the thought is riding me. But like this is not a forever situation. Did you listen to How To, the Slate podcast, How To?

AlexOccasionally when it is recommended to me.

MerlinThe one with Ting Notaro is a not miss. Oh, of course. The one that came out I want to say yesterday because I ended up wanting to talk about it on Back to Work was about the chatter in your head. And I thought the guy said some really smart things. You might want to check it out. I will find it for notes. But, you know, oh, God, I already threw away my notes from yesterday. But, you know, the basic gist of a lot of it is that is like kind of getting OK, you know, typical like getting OK with the thoughts that are coming along. And, you know, when do you know whether to go see a professional? Well, a good, you know, is like if it's become disruptive in your day to day life, that's a good time. But like there are things that you can do for yourself if you can't stop thinking about a thing that happened in 1988. Like there's ways to deal with that.

But like one that's not as easy as it sounds or simple as it sounds is like along the lines of my I've decided not to let it bother me anymore. Like you're ruminating on that and then you feel like shit that you're ruminating about it, which guess what? Makes you ruminate more. It's like don't think of an elephant. You know, or as he says, don't think of a white bear or whatever. Same thing.

AlexLike you don't think about Roderick when you see a water fountain.

MerlinOh, when Eric, when you think of when Eric, you think of Eric telling him. Fuck you, Eric. I know. fuck you god i'm not the only one i am not the only one that thinks about roderick thinking

Alexabout eric literally tens of thousands of people now think about somebody who thinks of me now oh no yes i think about all of you yes when they think of me when they think of roderick thinking about eric when john looks at a fountain right now i have a manila folder on my desk and what do you think i'm like uh i i i don't even necessarily think of you i i just think of the 73 folders And I'm like, oh, I am cursed with every folder.

MerlinWell, I think about this. I think of myself thinking about other people thinking about me because in a very narrow slice of the pie, I think that I had an impact on the phrase turns out being something, at least in my friend's group. I think I probably had an influence on that being something where it's probably more difficult than it used to be to hear that phrase without thinking, that's the thing Merlin does. Right? Turns out.

AlexTurns out, turns out you rebidded your sleep.

MerlinAnd now I hear it and think about other people thinking about me. Oh, God. You know, Shaka Vidanyan or what have you. Sleep disruption.

AlexNo, no, you are, I think, very good at, oh, I will just say I've decided not to feel bad about taking naps because right now in my life I have needed like an evening nap like at 6 p.m.

MerlinAnd you discover if they work.

AlexAnd they've been working.

MerlinWe actually talked about this on Rect Diffs last night. We were talking about the –

AlexOh, did the toe come back? Did the –

MerlinNo, no toe. No toe. No toe, Jerry. But I was saying – I think – and I told him how like – anyway, we did some bits. But I was just saying how like I think naps are something that you have to practice. Yes. Yes. And it really goes for our challenge too, which is that – and of course I also did mention that like one of my problems with a lot of relaxation techniques, as we've talked about, is I associate that with being stressed out. If I had a meditation practice or a guided breathing practice or a whatever practice that I did every day, no matter how I felt, it would be different.

But, you know, I associate that with the stressed out times in my life and sometimes it makes my heartbeat go up. It's the opposite of the intended effect because I'm basically, I'm like the guy that took one or two antibiotics and then stopped. Like I took germ theory to the gym or whatever, or viruses.

AlexYou got the first shot and we're like, you don't need this two weeks later.

MerlinBut you do have to like – you have to find something that makes it feel like – it's true for naps. It's true for regular sleep. It's true for a ton of stuff in life is you will find something that gets the hook in that's not damaging hopefully but gives you a sense of, oh, now I'm doing this thing. And that's – I should put together all these phrases because like I'm sure it would be very meaningful to people. Shared wisdom. But now I'm doing this thing is a very mindful observation to me. So like, for example, that could be, oh, now I'm feeling this feeling.

It's a kind of, you know, corner store mindfulness. Oh, now I'm feeling this. This is the thing that I'm feeling right now. Rather than I am not that thing. That thing is not equals equals me. Oh, this is I'm doing this thing now. And if you can get to where you go, ah, I'm taking a nap now. This is the thing that I'm doing. Well, OK, then what's difficult? It doesn't have to be difficult because now I'm doing this. What are you doing? I'm taking a nap. What happens when you take a nap? Oh, you relax and go to sleep. Oh, have you done it before? Yeah, I'm pretty good at it. Now I'm doing this thing. I'm taking a nap. You need to get to where you've gotten into a groove of having succeeded at something

often enough, despite how many times you failed. But then also, wonderful side note to that, just because you failed today doesn't mean you give up or you stop or you say this doesn't work, right? That's how you become a bad meditator. That's how you become like a Buddhist quitter or whatever. But like, I really believe in that.

AlexThat's how you become a bad person. That's how you become a bad person, by not changing. It progresses.

MerlinOh, yeah. Yeah. Or like going like, oh, you know, that made me sad one time. So I'll never have that feeling again. I'm never going to deal with that. Well, let's do mine and then take a break and we'll get out of here.

AlexNot going to reflect on those thoughts. Please. No, I do do very much. Oh, oh, one one interesting thing, actually. is is this this week uh my i you know how it says like time spent in bed my time in my sleep app my time spent in bed has always been above eight hours but my heart rate has been up the heart rate is what's yours uh last night was 102 uh oh no alex that's worse than mine and mine's terrible

Merlinbut but also you can't get good sleep if your heart's racing i i know i well that's the thing

AlexI got two hours of sleep. So I'm like, I must take an, you know what? No, I am not going to take a nap this afternoon. I am going to lie in my bed and try to relax, which is a beautiful bit of advice that I'm sure I've talked about before that came from Rachel Bloom, a crazy ex-girlfriend. I'm like, yes, because once I'm relaxed, I can usually go to sleep. So that's what I'm going to focus on more.

MerlinYeah. Really, though, that self-talk matters more than I would like to believe. It really matters. and it also matters that you lower the bar. You've got to calm the fuck down. You've got to stop beating the shit out of yourself, Alex.

AlexThat is literally just calm down.

MerlinCalm down. Everybody needs to stop setting the bar somewhere that it doesn't need to be. Who put the bar there? You did that. Don't do that.

AlexYeah. I never thought they were funny. All right, you're asleep.

MerlinI never thought they were funny.

AlexI crushed a Koda.

MerlinThe reason it was Woody Allen, that guy.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinSo my Reboot Your Sleep is inspired by something that uh danny o'brien told me a million years ago because he was really interested in the sleep

Alexhacking stuff is is this the uh uh titular roommate that is dennis oh i'm sorry all right

Merlinthe life hacks guy oh okay sorry and we were supposed to write our first book together but um but uh but uh but uh but uh but uh but um but yeah he was very interested in that and the idea of like oh god i heard the best quote on maintenance phase the biohacking is just died in for guys yeah you don't remember that woman i think was was it that or was it no no no it was the ww episode the weight watchers episode of something else i was listening to but

this african-american woman said no that's that's it was the halo top ice cream episode

Alexit doesn't make my tummy hurt because there's very little dairy in And I love –

MerlinIt's like new snack wells.

AlexThis is – I don't want trigger warning. The kind of trigger warnings I want is, is this going to ruin it for me? Because I'm okay – like I want to know if a thing is bad, but I just want – I want to know if like this ice cream is going to kill me.

MerlinMadeline said she tried it and didn't like it. Have you tried it and liked it?

AlexI do. Well, I do. But also remember I –

MerlinThe profile, the taste, the flavor profile might be more in your wheelhouse, huh?

AlexIt's because I like the texture, I think. Because it is it is it's very like light and fluffy. And, you know, I my period poops aren't as bad because, you know, there's only a little bit of ice cream, which is something that you shouldn't have before sleep. And Danny, God damn it. Sleep, sleep.

MerlinWe need a break.

AlexWell, no, but it's OK because I'm going to relax later. What did what did Danny Don say to you?

MerlinOkay, so what Danny said, and this is probably like a thing with a name, like a pomodoro, which is definitely not a procrastination dash. Anyway, it's a pomodoro. You have to do your pomodoro. Yes, I call it pomodoro. It's my thing. And Danny said like that there's a thing you can do to reboot your sleep, disposably. And if memory serves, this would be 2004 or 2005. But he said something like, so what you do is you – and I'm going to use that phrase I don't love.

You make yourself go to sleep at the same time every night no matter what. And the difficult part is not the going to sleep at the same time. It's also really – I mean I think to do this right, you need to just take out all of the – definitely stimulants. But like minimize absolutely no alcohol, no stimulants, any of the stuff that could have an impact on your sleep one way or another. and you need to really dig because there may be stuff out there you're not aware of. There may be certain foods that make it hard for you, whatever.

But long story short, black box is you're going to go to bed at the same time every night and going to minimize all of these things. And then you're going to wake up when you wake up. And you need to do this for, I think, I had heard three weeks. But if you do it for even a week, you will notice some interesting things that happen. And it's not the same for everybody. So I did a version of that. And so my version of this was, and there is an infrastructure component to this. My version of this was, okay, for the next week, and I did start it last Wednesday after we recorded, is I'm going to go, I want to be in bed at 11 and I want to be on my way to sleep by 11.15, which in the end means be in bed by 11.15.

And just to be super clear, I didn't get it every time, but it was very interesting for all the obvious Merlin reasons is like, guess what? Yeah, I want to do this. So I'm all in. What does that mean? I'm going to do all the sleep hygiene things, including like having a wind down time, spending less time watching TV before bedtime. But I also went all in on the technology. So I set auto sleep. I told auto sleep when I want to sleep. And I told my phone, well, vis-a-vis my watching phone, that I'm ready to do that bed thing.

Like I want to go all in on this. So I want the warning. I want the wind down. I want the is this charged. I want to like make my screen more difficult to interact with. Like all of those things on my watch, I just want a very dim four digits showing me what time it is, right? And again, that's as we may talk about maybe in the after show, that is infrastructure. Like if I had to like really distill it to the most useful part, there's all kinds of ways. You think about infrastructure however you want. But for me, infrastructure means make it less difficult to do the thing that I would like to do in order to achieve the thing that I would like to achieve.

And the one that's been kind of I've been thinking about a lot lately is make this something I look forward to doing rather than something I dread doing vis-a-vis. Make this something where I don't go, eh, not tonight. I don't feel like it because I really want to get some points on the sports board. I want several nights of doing this. And if I didn't do it one night, if I got it wrong because I watched three fucking episodes of Adam Curtis's Can't Get You Out of My Head. Oh, bad idea. That was Monday night. Monday night I watched a bunch of Adam Curtis.

But boy, that's good. It's so good. But okay, I fucked it up. But you know what? I can't go back on the horse, as they say. So that infrastructure part, so in summary, for me, this is something that I wanted to do. I've been wanting to do. I haven't done this long enough yet to get the sort of benefits or results that you would get from doing it for several weeks. Also, like, you know, adults don't have a lot of runway in most cases to say, well, I'm just going to wake up whenever for three weeks.

AlexYeah.

MerlinNow, spoiler alert for that. It is said that when one does that, eventually one will discover a certain amount of time that you need to sleep. If you're not all fucked up and, like, have an alarm yelling at you or alcohol causing your heart to race at three in the morning or whatever it is, you know what? You maybe don't need eight hours of sleep. You may be surprised to discover, you know what? you actually do need eight hours of sleep. Your body wants eight hours of sleep, but you could also discover, you know what's weird? My body really seems to only want six hours of sleep,

but it does want a one-hour nap in the late afternoon. Like there's all these things that are difficult to discover if you're forcing yourself into sleep and wakefulness in the way that stresses most of us out. So yeah, like I say, it was not difficult for me because I wanted to do it. I did have the infrastructure, including the tech to take care of it. the results have been incredible. Like, no, I've been sleeping more. I have weirdly gotten more into naps. One day where I slept almost 12 hours in a day, which didn't feel wholesome. But my goal of getting to sleep by 11.15 and being up by 7.30 is mostly working. But I feel

good that I did it. I feel good that it seems mostly to have succeeded or at least not failed or caused harm. And I'm glad we did the challenge. I think sometimes you need to sort of formalize something and say it out loud to make it something you actually do.

AlexDo you prepare? Oh, hmm.

MerlinYes, I do.

AlexDo you prepare your jam jams in advance? Or would you like to share your...

MerlinI put on, when I get home, I put on my dad pants, which I think you also own a pair of. I put on my dad pants and I'm wearing Crocs. and I do watch TV pretty close to when I go to bed, but oh God, I got another great infrastructure thing that we can talk about in the after show. Afternoon chores. This has been a game changer. Please remind me to talk about afternoon chores.

But I think the pattern in some ways is I'm trying to get better rest, but also capitalize on doing certain, this is a very 43 folders thing, doing certain kinds of tasks at the time. I know I have more energy, less focus, more foot, whatever, right? trying to get better about that kind of resource leveling and that's been really good but i know i usually put on my dad pants when i get home usually five um i usually that's my adhd like ebb period so the family knows to kind of just give me some time to hang out and like configure something in

python for a few minutes and not have to answer questions like i just i don't i don't really i will be super interested in dinner in a little while but like i really want to just clean out the Roomba and replace the rollers. I got this bottle of alcohol. I need to control a small area and prepare for the evening session. And I think whatever your version of that is can be really gratifying. Even if you, I know, you got a mortgage, you can't sleep, you're never allowed to be happy. Well, I'm so sorry to hear that.

But, like, there are ways to reclaim a little bit of agency in your life, and you can make that a project, and then you develop a little infrastructure to make it less difficult.

Alexinfrastructure all right let's take a a break because i gotta go gush okay i love you wait i lost the zoom button i can't i can't i can't hang up

Merlinyou can't get out here i love you a bushel and a peck a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck this meeting has been ended by host thanks for listening guys bye

Thank you.

230. Consensual Disruption

Show notes

Transcript

230. Consensual Disruption

Show notes

Transcript

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