243. The Bottoms Are All in Progress

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann and Alex Cox. This week's challenge, fix and automation.

MerlinHello.

AlexHello. How are you?

MerlinI'm very well. How are you?

Alexi am great just great the pleasure is mine well welcome welcome back i was doing uncle jack thank you thank you which uncle oh there we go it's not how uncles touch their no no you've uh

Merlinyou've you've uh dove it into uh bloopers gags multiple takes right not really welcome to dubai

Alexfriday everybody where we talk about it's always sunny in philadelphia we're talking about maureen

MerlinPonderosa, bitch! Wild card!

AlexOh, such a wild card.

MerlinDid you see the doc? Did you see what I did in the doc?

AlexI do see what you did in the doc. Oh, I'm not in the doc anymore. Put in a photograph

Merlinof Maureen Ponderosa. Oh.

AlexWell, okay, before we get into... She's gonna have to face a guy

Merlinwho is an expert in bird law. Oh. I love it. I love it so fucking much. Uncle Jack, so what I love, I'm gonna send you, I'm gonna write this down. Oh, let's do a new sheet. Oh, God, I'm really full of beans. I'm gonna have to

Alexreally keep it reined in today so it says really soon you should eat as in present tense what when is soon what that mean what like it says really soon you should eat you just said really soon you should you you merlin man i didn't say that let's roll that back oh gosh quinn make a make a

Merlinsqueaky tape squinn make a squeaky tape noise and play that back oh let's do a new sheet

AlexI'm supposed to have faster internet apparently now. And the data suggests.

MerlinSave it for the, you have so much good follow up. You've added challenges. I've added challenges. I am full of beans. I'm in a great mood.

Speaker AOh, that's so great.

MerlinIt's my kid's last day of school. So we celebrated by watching the middle of the big short and the beginning of Pacific Rim. But that did make me a little late. So I'm sorry.

AlexSchool is in quotes though, right?

MerlinOh, Jesus. It's never been more in quotes.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinWhat am I writing down, Alex? We're going to talk about what? I'm Maureen Ponderosa. Oh, I'm going to send you the blooper video.

AlexThe bloop. The bloop. The bleep bloops. And I just want to quickly go over. Always say bloopers. Last week, this is the first follow-up I think we should do.

MerlinOh, you drive. I'll get in the trunk. You drive.

AlexAll right. Just real quick, hop in the trunk. Real, real quick.

MerlinJazz day. Jazz day. What do you like to be called? What's your preferred jazz pronoun?

AlexI don't. Can you still be there?

MerlinIs it okay? I know you're fluid or trinary.

AlexYou are really hung up on gender lately, aren't you?

MerlinYou are.

AlexBecause it's rape. Well, it's always two genders with me.

MerlinAsk me about my last surgery. I had the ultimate top surgery. I had all three of my wisdom teeth removed. Yes, three, because I don't have four. And if the devil is six, then God is seven. So my remark, what was I saying? Always sunny bloopers, funny eating. Oh, I was just saying I'm going to write that down. I'm going to send you the bloops. Now, here's what I love about these bloops. The bloops are very funny. Oh, oh, oh. I also want to send you a brand new spanking new within the last week interview.

AlexSpanking? What? I didn't.

MerlinI also looked up alternatives to master and slave. We need to get back to that. No, because I need to talk about my slave light today. And I need a better. I need a more woke name for that. My daylight.

Speaker AOkay.

MerlinI'm going to put it. I'm going to put it in the document. I'll put it in the document. We have to talk about alternatives to master and slave. Okay.

AlexI already got one.

MerlinOh, okay. Top and bottom.

AlexDo we want? Wait, so what are we talking about? I really think that we should bring surf back into the kink lexicon. Because what if you've only agreed to do it for a certain amount of like-

MerlinWhat's the word surf?

AlexSurf. Like in the olden times.

MerlinSansphobic extreme bangs.

AlexLike an indentured servant.

MerlinLike a serf.

AlexWait, no. Serfs are, yeah, yeah.

MerlinYeah, serfs up. I get it. You're saying you've got a serf and you've got like, you don't want to say landlord. Who bosses the watchman? Who's the one who's the head of the serf?

AlexI guess I'm going to have a Diet Coke. Oh, it's so good.

MerlinYou already have, you have a manor or you have a plant. Oh, I got a plantation.

AlexOh, did you see the veils? Oh, man.

MerlinNo, the veils.

AlexOkay, that's an after show.

MerlinIs that Game of Thrones or Night of the Veil? What?

AlexThe thing is kind of. Well, more true blood.

MerlinOkay. All right. Save it for the show. Write it down. Put it here in News and Topics. We got seven items now. So you can still use the Express line. Always sunny bloops. Oh, here's what I love in the bloops. Oh, also Mac.

AlexHandsome Mac video. He's always handsome.

MerlinIt's always handsome in Macadulphia. So he gets interviewed. and the interview, it's one of those phony baloney made up high end interviews. First of all, Mac, I should send this to you just so you can see what it looks like right now. Oh my God.

YouTube history. Boy, I'm really, I'm kind of all over the map already, aren't I?

AlexI am very excited.

MerlinIs this a good show or a bad show? Be honest.

AlexI, what was it that we talked about last week? Each other's velocity. I actually really, really enjoyed last week's episode, which is.

MerlinOh yeah. Was that last week?

AlexOh, I don't know. Last week I got up my butt about forgiveness and morality. But no, two weeks ago, Velocity.

MerlinIs that this show? Are you sure that was this show?

AlexI am positive it was this show. I get the messages.

MerlinOh, boy. Why do you get the messages?

AlexI welcome the messages. I welcome the messages. Oh, boy. But what was the last thing that you texted me after the recording? Or wait, no, no, no, no.

MerlinWhat is the... I texted you this morning? about what is it about the thing i texted you about this morning yes okay um first of all i'm gonna send you this link you don't need to watch this video right now but just look and click it and look at the thumbnail um what i texted so i i updated the cursor resting area spent 20 minutes

Alexon that it's very good it's the best cursor resting area i've ever seen have you seen that

Merlinnew app that lets you draw with ascii oh it's like it's not just a draw with no hang on because todd I think Todd or someone pointed to this to make fun of Casey's terrible diagram. But it was probably Todd. But so this app. So there have been apps in the past that would let you draw with ASCII. So basically it had the simple kind of tools you would get in like on an old Mac app, like a Mac Draw kind of app.

AlexBut it was essentially like Microsoft Paint, but it would fill in the characters, right?

MerlinYeah, exactly. But now get this. I mean, it's come so far. You get many different multiple kinds of choices and sizes for the font that you want. I'll find it for you. It's on my other machine, but I'll find it. And, oh, but guess what? It also has layers and locking. And it's got layer effects. So you can, this is all with ASCII characters. So you can draw a box and then you can draw another box. Like say you're trying to be like Casey. Instead of Casey's approach, you want to make something other people can look at and understand and read. And so you can obviously have labels and stuff.

But you can have a box over a box and say, okay, I want this box to be regular box on box. Or I want this box to drop out for a few characters. So you can see that this one's on top and stuff like that. Then you can do a fill. And it all has layers and locks. So you could say, I'm done. If I'm doing like an ASCII newsletter, challenge. Challenge. Please capture ASCII newsletter.

AlexYeah, yeah, ASCII. Forget app. No.

MerlinAnd then, but then you can do all kinds of cool stuff with drawing. and like I said, then you can lock. So you could say, okay, like you would in a drawing program or say an acorn, like a beloved Gus Mueller acorn flying meat app.

AlexOh, oh.

MerlinLove that app. Love that app. I love that app too. That's what I use. It's my app. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. So you can lock a whole bunch of stuff and say hide that away. And then for your asking newsletter challenge, then it won't mess up when you have an area you do things on. And then we can distribute that as a .txt file. How cool would that be?

AlexThat would be very – oh, oh. Oh, see.

MerlinASCII newsletter would be so fun.

AlexI mean, I have, okay. Why is there pings coming out of my computer? There's, nothing's on.

MerlinBecause your internet broke. Did your internet break again?

AlexNo, the internet were, oh, it wasn't my, it was my phone.

MerlinMy wife's computer, my wife's work computer is in our bedroom and it makes noises at night. I can tell when something's blowing up on whatever colleges use for Slack. Oh, they use 365 Team Builder or whatever it's called.

AlexMe, me. I'm triggered. I don't even want to say it. No, I don't want to trigger our listeners.

MerlinI hear bloops, bloops in the night. Oh, I love the bunnies you sent so much. Going through my faves.

AlexWhat's right before the bunny?

MerlinRight before the... Oh, so anyway, I'm sorry. I got distracted, didn't I?

AlexNo, no. This isn't the same thread.

MerlinNo, no, no. I'm sorry. No, no. I was looking through my faves to try and find some. Did you look at Matt? You see how handsome he is?

AlexWhy don't I have a thumbnail on my fucking messages in...

MerlinYou probably worked on a different device that you don't have anymore. Let's see. Oh, so you, you, this is easily the most exciting thing that we're going to talk about. I have no, I have no trouble believing that there's one thing we're going to talk about that involves Maureen Ponderosa that I'm very excited about. I said, the cat lady, question mark, exclamation point. And you said, yes. And then you said, I've made a remark about Matchy. We'll save it for the show. And then I said, Ivan Reitman's daughter. And you said, oh. And I said, the resemblance is uncanny. So if you look at Maureen Ponderosa next to the great Ivan Reitman, it's adorable.

They're so cute. You said Canadians are awesome. And then I said, I spent 20 minutes on this and I showed you the cursor resting area. And you said you turned an area into a home. And then I said microwave purchased October 6, 2013. I can't read the rest because messages is clipping it off. And I said, I think we're ready for an update. And then you sent me the bunnies.

AlexWell, and I just was like, you know what?

MerlinYou didn't even question it.

AlexI didn't. I didn't because I thought, okay, if Merlin has more to say.

MerlinOh, so you're saving it for the show. Oh, you did. Oh, my God. You literally saved it for the show. You didn't remark on my odd behavior. You just, oh, my gosh, Alexandra, you're such a team player.

AlexWell, you never have odd behavior ever. No.

MerlinThere's no I in Alex.

AlexNo I in Alex. There's the they, but no I.

MerlinCome on. You can make that. I think we talked about this. We're not going to keep making that joke. I can make that joke.

AlexOh, I love triggering the, what are they, sissets? The breeders? What are people calling them?

MerlinYou gave me a note that I love, which is we can't do a they title every week. And I was like, you're right. It's just, it's always funny to me. It's always funny in Alex Delphia.

AlexOh, it is always funny, but it wasn't, did you give my reasons for why? I did not. No, I'd love to hear. See, it is not that I don't like to make fun of pronouns. And that is because I like to make fun of myself because I'm dead inside.

MerlinYeah, you just don't want to do a bit. You don't want to do a Windows of Syracuse County.

AlexOh, exactly. Exactly. If you're going to make pronoun and gender jokes, they need to be the best. That's why queer people are the, in my opinion, best comedians.

MerlinI needed to hear that. I needed to hear that. Fuck you. You just Merlin manned me, you son of a bitch.

AlexNo, no, it's not. It's a hat on the hat of gender. Like, it just needs to be. And I think we do have some great they titles. Wonderful.

MerlinNo, you're right. You're right. You're right. You're right.

AlexNo, you're right, you're right. It's not that they were offensive.

MerlinWe should put them in.

AlexIt's just that they were not funny enough. And I'm like, no, no, no. If we are going to make fun of my gender.

MerlinNo, no, no, no, no. You're selling past the clothes, Alexandra. You were, you're right.

AlexI want to take it just, oh, just.

MerlinYou're right. I was wrong. I was wrong.

AlexDestroy it.

MerlinLooking for the ASCII drawing app. Oh, I fixed my, my email was broken for two and a half months and I didn't know how to fix that yesterday.

AlexOh, did you get in back zero? Okay, moving on. So I read the microwave purchase text, and I'm like, you know what?

MerlinIt was a problem with my DNS zones. At some point, I accidentally did a C name for my MX and not an A name.

AlexWhat was the C name?

MerlinI have not. The C name. You don't want to say that anymore.

AlexOkay. I thought so.

MerlinIt's called Kunzilla. She's my daughter, and I love her very much. um the thing is uh i haven't so i have this domain name merlin man.com and there's a couple things i don't know why i told my fucking wife this because she did not

think it was as funny as like really irresponsible i guess she didn't say but she gave me the look usually she'll laugh along just to like get me out of the room she's doing her stretches

AlexOh, I'm familiar.

MerlinI had gone to, I was, I was, I was expecting some money. And so I went and searched for two, you know, me and then from PayPal.com. And I went, huh, huh. Because the latest return I got was March 50.

AlexWait, no, you should have gotten one last night.

MerlinNo, you did. No, no, no, you're not hearing. Okay, sorry. All right. When it rains, it pours. and you've been so good about that I told Emma, I said, you know, Alexander's been great about this so anyways so I went huh, huh, and so eventually I got to merlinman.com and it'll surprise you to know the last email I received was March 15th so info, hello Merlin other addresses at merlinman.com, I have literally not gotten any email

since March 15th Okay, so that's pretty weird. But you want to go ahead and guess what the pretty interesting part of that is?

AlexNo.

MerlinI didn't notice.

AlexNo.

MerlinI did not notice. And then when I fixed it, all of a sudden, because you're not going to get the old stuff. The old stuff's donezo. But suddenly I forgot, oh, that's right. My wife had put down my Merlin at Merlin Man address for the school news blasts. And suddenly I get this surfeet. You just spent $2 on Amazon. You, hey, you know, end of the year is coming. There's a thing you don't need to read here. And I think she was pretty disappointed in me, both that I, maybe a little bit that I broke it, but really disappointed that I hadn't noticed.

And I said, no, listen, listen, the Gmail account that I used, I still get all of that. Also, I get notifications from PayPal and whatnot on my phone. It's like, I don't, I'm kind of weirdly proud of not noticing it in like a way that I should be really embarrassed about.

AlexYou had inbox zero. Oh, God, this is 8th Dimensional 73 folders.

MerlinOh, you're talking about I've got a Galaxy Brain Zero.

AlexYeah.

MerlinInbox Galaxy? That's really nothing. No, it is. I want to find this app for you. I'm trying to look at my history. So if I go to Command Y and I hit A-S-C-I-I, will I get it drawing ASCII boxes using pseudograph boxes? Oh, yeah, I found several very good links about this, too. I'll find it for you by the end of the show, but look for the bit where Todd was giving Casey a hard time about his diagram. This is a bad diagram, let's be honest.

AlexOh, wait, wait, wait. My arch nemesis, Casey Liss, or is John Gruber likes to say that fellow?

MerlinJohn Syracuse is my worst friend, but Casey is everybody's nemesis.

AlexNo, exactly, exactly.

MerlinComing Fridays on ABC. he got confused about HDMI cables and then he couldn't fix the tables he dropped the left join and couldn't wake up I had Irish breakfast and I got a little bit I don't know

Alexwhat that is does that mean booze I don't know what is and isn't

Merlinoh wow wow wow what are you trying to catch a leprechaun we watched that one this morning too

Alexsee I held back I almost said is that a John Mulaney breakfast and that was mean. That was so mean.

MerlinWow. No. I don't have cocaine until at least 10.

AlexI know.

MerlinThe thing is, and Charlie tries to menace the leprechaun with the snake. Do you remember that?

AlexNo.

MerlinThey confuse three different Irish stories and then, you know, they got the Patty's wagon. I'm going to find this. You know what? I'll find it later. We need to move on with the show. We have a lot of things to talk about. I'm in a good mood. This is Dubai Friday. Thank you for tuning in. This is a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. and we talk about it's always sunny in Philadelphia and other things. And Masters and Slaves. You have THE DOC in all caps. I have a feeling something this week is eventually going to lead to you telling me I have to do VR. I just have a feeling.

AlexNo, but oh, oh. I mean, there's a... Well, okay. No.

MerlinBecause you love VR. You should marry it.

AlexAs we show... Oh, God, if only. Not yet, as we say.

MerlinIt's called a truffle, a truffle. But how do you explain that to relatives? Well, actually, now there's three of us that are married. It's my husband-ish and I'm something. And also the concept of VR shares a bed with us. Meet Moop.

Oh, I might have it. I came right to the link. Monodraw.

AlexMonodraw.

MerlinIs there a chance the track could bend? Not in your life, my Hindu friend. Go to, oh, I'm sending you the link because it's kind of wackadoo. monodraw.healthtone.com. And I think you're going to get the gist even just looking at this page. I'll put it in notes.

AlexOh, this looks, it's not that I expected it not to look cool.

MerlinLook at the left rail. Look at the left rail. You've got, you've got groups. You've got groups.

AlexThis is wild. That's insane. I mean you explained it in a way that made it sound very powerful but like like a bottom you know like a power bottom is not really powerful but this is oh my god

Merlinjust go get it and look at their demo document did we put that on the sheet let's put it in the sheet asking newsletter I'm gonna put it in the sheet right now oh again with the knives that's line 572 we have 573 lines in our challenge document asking newsletter okay that sounds about right ask you anything become beta cox again with the knives okay uh

Alexagain with the knives was i oh rick and morty okay save it for the show this is for the after show merlin where could people find the after show oh thank you alex it's kind of you to ask

Merlinoh by the way i started supporting adam neely finally yesterday i forgot i hadn't supported him so he's on my patreon he has a patreon oh yes yes question and answer time with adam neely

Alexhe may have inspired one of those challenge suggestions

Merlinis a lick exactly like I could do the Margaret McPoyle thing

AlexI hate when she does that

Merlinit freaks me out so much and so if you wanted to support the show and hear our after show that we do you know we've been trying to trim back on time I don't think that's going to happen today I think it's going to be another Daddy Loses His Voice episode and then the other episode. So you can go to...

AlexWe don't make enough money for you to lose your voice. And thank you for your fucking money. It's not that it's not a lot.

MerlinNo, no, no. We just need more people to be that generous.

AlexOkay. So really you're... Oh, God. This is basically our only... If you want to hear Merlin just become humanity horse in real life vocally. Oh, God. I guess I'm goofy.

MerlinYou think you can just blind me. But if you blind me, I'll still hear the other horses. so you got to cut off my ears. And then eventually you cut off the legs and pretty soon it's just the torso. You have to touch them if you want your mother to come back. And so this is Dubai Friday and we have a lot of fun here. But if you would like to support us, which we are always extremely grateful for, like I say, I've stopped sandbagging. I need the money. Thank you very much. You can go to patreon.com slash Dubai Friday or the memorable giveusyourfuckingmoney.com.

Now I worry that some of you think that's a bit. And it's definitely a bit, but it's also real. It's a real bit. Otherwise, if it weren't a real bit, how could I do this?

AlexAre you doing a magic trick right now? What's happening?

MerlinNope, doing a Letterman bit. I'm doing a bit on a bit. Okay.

AlexI just watched Bill Gates on Letterman this morning.

MerlinWas he talking about disease stuff?

AlexNo, it was when he was trying to explain the internet to...

MerlinOh, gosh, really? I do find myself, as my love for Jimmy Simpson, Jimmy with two eyes, like most people, I guess he has two eyes. Jimmy Simpson, I do find myself returning to Lyle the Intern fairly often. And if you haven't looked at Lyle the Intern in a while, friend of the show Don Giller, the ultimate letterman.

AlexYes.

MerlinI've talked to him on Twitter. I've talked to Don on Twitter.

AlexSeriously? Oh, shit.

MerlinI've talked to Don Giller, dude.

AlexOh, that's really fucking cool.

MerlinDon Giller has all the tapes. And he's the guy who can whip up a letterman thing. Like, Charles Grodin dies. Whoosh. That's for Charles Grodin. Like, that kind of thing. But he has the collection of all of the Lyle the Intern bits. And it's Jimmy Simpson is a goddamn genius. If you like Liam, which one is he? Liam or who's the other one? If you like the McPoyle, if you like the McPoyle that Jimmy with two eyes.

AlexThe Westworld, he's a Westworld one or the Mythic Quest one?

MerlinNo, no. I was thinking of, I was thinking of, you know, basically when he does McPoyle. The McPoyle who at the Ponderosa wedding massacre. like that that guy um he did a bit on letterman and i haven't exactly time stamped it but it must have been right around the beginning of sunny but they come back from commercial dave's at his desk and they pan slowly left and there's this complete douchebag hipster kid sitting in the chair smoking a cigarette and it's jimmy simpson as lyle the intern and he's this over familiar in turn who's

always trying to like get letterman to go to clubs with him and you know tacitly hitting on him a little bit it's very funny letterman handles it very well so anyway um and and what we do is after we record this record more of this so you know the food's terrible and the portions are small and it's expensive it's like the opposite of the bellagio oh

Alexif if if we were a chain of hotels or a single hotel what would this show be holiday inn I don't think we're that.

MerlinOh, Ray Charles. It could be Howard Johnson. It could be Hojo. But the reason Ray Charles always went to holiday inns is because every single holiday inn has the exact same floor plan.

AlexNope. Not anymore. Not anymore. You think that would be true?

MerlinI don't think they even have holidays in.

AlexThey do have holiday inns, and that is why I like them.

MerlinWell, they're probably doing that thing, that Ace Hotel thing where they buy hobo hotels and then renovate it and put green apples in the lobby and stuff like that. Yes. A W-type situation. Did you look at Rob McElhaney? what he looks like? See how handsome he is?

AlexOh, yes. He's incredible.

MerlinAlexandra, that's six days ago.

AlexYeah. Have you? Oh, so do you not watch Mythic Quest anymore? He's fucking jacked. He's like, oh.

MerlinI do, but I'm saying like as of this week, he shaves. You can see his coffee maker and his really nice sink. And I'm so envious of his sink in the background. And so basically they say to Rob McElhinney, what are your, I guess five or whatever, favorite lines of yours from Sunny and Mythic Quest? and then he goes into how they got to it. Like the scene where he and Mac are in the van and Mac is woofing down the chips and Charlie wants the chips. And he says, if you wanted chips, you should have bought them at the hamburger store.

Okay, that's a funny bit. Going with hamburger store is so goddamn funny because as he says, it's actually a callback to a previous episode where, what did Charlie call it? He called something.

AlexOh, he calls so many things stores.

Merlinand then in the Pixar cartoon there's the wedding store and the baby store

Alexoh

Merlindo you remember the one where they each imagined how they would save the day during the robbery

Alexyeah yeah and Diva becomes a

Merlinbecomes a butler on a TV show it's a really good show I love this show so much it's so god damn good so let's do by Friday and if you want to do that it would be awesome oh you know what I didn't do follow up did you okay can we do a little bit of sunny content here Can we do a Sunny Content Corner?

AlexYes, yes. I have many things, but I don't text you anymore.

MerlinI cannot wait. I'm so excited. The only one of these I caught on, so last week we had said, Alexander has been trying to get their pal, Matchy, to get into Sunny.

AlexYes, my good pal who lives to me.

MerlinAlexander, you change. Your pronouns are pretty stable, but Jesus fucking Christ, the way that you refer to people terrifies a person.

AlexWait, why?

MerlinDo you always say husband?

AlexOh, I never say husband. Gross. No, no, no. I've literally...

MerlinDo you say partner? Like, what am I supposed to... Is there a thing I can always call matchy that won't keep me in trouble?

AlexOh, you can... You're not going to get... Okay, anybody...

MerlinYou're not answering the question.

Alex...in trouble with is obnoxious.

MerlinYou're pushing back on the question. What do I call matchy?

AlexI am. I am. I'm a pusher now.

MerlinThe one who's not a VR concept in Alex's bed.

AlexNo, you can't prove that. You can't prove that. Oh, we're actually not sleeping in the bed right now. Everything's fine.

Merlinthe follow-up for after show oh sleep is hard oh man it's hard to talk i you were trying to get that person who shares a house with you mostly except when there's follow-up that person in

Alexoh my god hi hi dear dear listeners um you wanted to get matchy into it's always sunny in philadelphia

Merlinand you were having a struggle the struggle that anyone would have it's a difficult show to get a normal person into and i think i think what i had said i believe in the i know it's in the after show last week, I said something I don't usually say, which is I asked for input. And I said, hey, any of you on our Patreon who are listening to this episode or people who stole it, which is fine, can you suggest what would be a good starter episode or starter concept for Sonny, knowing what you know to get Matchy into this? Now, before you get to your huge news, big news, big week.

AlexOh, this weekend. Huge weekend.

MerlinThe only one I saw was on Twitter, and that was dear friend of the show, Joe Rosenstiel, making some baller suggestions.

AlexAmazing. Yes. Amazing.

MerlinYes. Including solving the gas crisis. You want me to play a bank or what? There's a Muslim stealing the rape van. Did you happen to look? I have not because I usually know. I'm not being mean. I just forgot. Did you see any good suggestions on Patreon from our listeners? Because we'd ask people to say on Patreon or elsewhere, Or did anybody besides Joe Rosenstiel step up to the plate and make a matchy suggestion?

AlexYou know, one should.

MerlinYou didn't look either.

AlexNo one did. No one did.

MerlinOh, I'm Alex and I always read the comments.

AlexOh, the problem. I don't. I just realized the other day that Patreon, I've been working with some folks that Patreon just sometimes doesn't work. And I just noticed, oh, you can leave comments on Patreon posts. What? So I was just messaging people this whole time in the messages app. And so, yeah, you can comment. Yeah.

MerlinA dilly of a pickle. I'm going to go log in with Dubai Friday. If you see a male, it's me. Don't make me prove this device. Oh, good. I don't have to prove the device. Okay. I'm going to post. I'm going to publish. I'm clicking.

Speaker AOh, look at it.

MerlinKevin's such a good artist.

AlexRight.

MerlinMade for your heart. Great title. And then we go in. I'm clicking. Oh, did you see the Olivia book? Olivia? In the morning after she gets up and moves the cat. Oh. And runges her teeth and combs her ears and moves the cat.

AlexIt's on its way to my knees.

MerlinWe have one suggestion from listeners. We only have one suggestion. I'm very disappointed in almost all of you. Listener Eli says, always on the introduction episode, the waitress is getting married. Was Eli's suggestion.

AlexOh, Eli. I don't know. I think that's a lovely episode.

MerlinBecause there's so much history with the waitress.

AlexYes.

MerlinYeah.

AlexAnd yeah. Well, we'll get to it.

MerlinThank you. Thank you, listener Eli. and a pox on all of you who did not, because I know you're out there and you're listening and you're probably scared. Maybe you think we're going to yell at you or I'll respond with, I just want people to be happy because you know what that means.

Alexandra, you shared some news with me and it tickled me. So can you tell me about your news and your journey?

AlexWell, I thought that the way to get my spouse slash wife slash life partner slash just always use spouse if you're confused. Like that's a gender neutral whatever.

MerlinI'm not confused. The problem is I'm not confused. The problem is I think words mean things, but I want to say the right word that means things. It's not going to get me in trouble because I like to know if I'm in trouble.

AlexYeah, no. Husband is just a gross, like saying like I have a husband to either of us makes us go like,

MerlinYou're still not a wife guy, huh?

AlexOh, no, no, no. We call each other wives and spouses. I don't know what that, I'm not, I am very much a wife guy on Twitter.

Merlinlike we question question what was matchy's comportment at this point did matchy know because i think matchy has occasionally listened to the show was matchy aware that you were about to do uh you do a a full frontal uh attempt to get him into the show yes uh this this has been years in the making so so yeah this is just an update on something that's been happening a drum

Alexbeat of of philadelphia and well i said i'm like at least a hundred people know now that you don't like this show and you can't have that right because you don't want people to yell at you

Merlinon the internet oh you need to you need to fix that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and it's like not like maddie don't email me please have you seen buffy now i haven't seen oh the first nine seasons are terrible but there's one episode in season 45 but you have to see the other ones when's the

Alexlast time someone asked you to see or like when's the last time someone yelled at you to watch buffy

Merlinuh actively yes is this a grudge no it's more like a background thing it's more like a background it's really a hole in my in my permanent record but we've watched a lot of veronica mars which

Alexwhich seems like it's probably better uh detective versus vampires both amazing shows

Merlinwell do you remember do you remember like the poker game where the money gets stolen or the carnival where the money gets stolen so many good episodes then you got harry hamlin that guy's a piece of shit harry hamlin's character is a real piece of shit listen if my spouse didn't sometimes

Alexlisten to this show i would say that veronica mars is a better show like hills and valleys what am i saying it's a way way way better show but uh he does so i'm not gonna say that but what i will say is that i thought that the way to get him into it's always sunny in philadelphia must be all the gay jokes. And by gay jokes, I mean the... God, I don't even... One of the characters... Spoilers, one of the characters is gay, but he is not out. There's innumerable

Merlinvideos that I have watched about this because it's a question I ask myself. And there are so many good YouTube videos about this. Actually really thoughtful ones in some ways, which is like how in the hell is Sunny not only still good, but are you...

AlexIt is the most progressive show on TV. I will say it over

Merlinand over and over. Well, yeah, but also like getting better getting better in some ways every season. And for example, there's one, this one guy did, I'll forget his name, but I'll find it for notes. He said to be able to find it in Descript. There's the one video where the guy basically goes through the season before this one. And so, but he touches on, he goes through by saying, okay, there's gonna be spoilers here. But like the thing with Dennis is out and he's replaced, you know, by a sex doll that Mac bought. But he also talks about like, you know, look at the way they do a clip show versus the way anybody else would do a clip show.

Like you've seen clever clip shows, but you've seen shows where people have fun with making fun of clip shows with the wavy lines and everything, but like to actually introduce an entire fiction around how memory works. Now, I went to liberal arts school, so I have that kind of conversation, but like while you're watching the episode, you're just like, holy shit. Or as Mac said in that interview, when they, like the one where, do you remember where Mac, I forget what the dust up is, but then of course they broke it into teams and matt goes to charlie and he goes i have a way i'm

gonna do it i'm gonna play both sides i'm gonna play play your side and their side i always play both sides because i always win he tells everybody that he's working both sides and he's like he says well we've been everybody been getting into game of thrones around that time and we were really into this idea of like you know playing a game of chess where you're thinking four five six seven steps ahead it's like wait a minute so what would these idiots do if they thought that they were being cunning like what would that look like and it's like it's but it's it's brilliant but then the one of the master strokes is talking about mac and like just at the point you're like okay guys

the the the funny bit about how mac you know seems to be gay and doesn't know it and increasingly is extremely gay and doesn't seem to know it he hates gay people he hates gay marriage it keeps going on and on and eventually at a certain point you're like okay you know this is like a they joke like it's getting a little stale and then boom they like hit it out of the park with max gayness

Alexand i would say it's the exact timing like yes it was getting a little it's like all right we get it

Merlinlike he's clearly gay no no no i totally agree but also like no spoilers but like when they do like address it like head on it's unimpeachably like arguably the only like tear shedding sweet moment on the entire show ever the show you're like no no hugs no learning right but uh but that's that's i see what you're saying though but the jokes do get a little bit but still like when he has mac day and he wants to go and oil up the bodybuilders that's pretty funny the exercise bike oh i still have not seen how the the earliest one i've seen is when they have

to go hot as a drink quarantine but there's one where they have to go in the bedroom and they see the bike but is there one earlier where he first demos why there's a dildo on the bike i don't

Alexthink so no i don't oh the first time i remember it i thought it was the body built or oh what are

Merlinthey selling the milk uh oh the crow crow milk uh yeah yeah i'm not sure fight milk well i think so

Alexi'm i'm doing i'm watching it merlin man style where i've been like jumping around to to find

Merlintrafamadorian style yeah so you thought start sorry i'm gonna shut up now you hope uh you start Your first thought is, okay, maybe I start with the gay angle.

AlexYeah, because, you know, my spouse, spoiler, is also pretty gay in many ways.

MerlinIs it okay to say queer when you're talking about this kind of stuff? Is queer better?

AlexIt's either way.

MerlinThat's how I refer to my kids sometimes, and I don't have a preferred thing. But if you say, I don't even want to commit somebody too much to a thing, but just saying, and is that weird? Am I being exclusionary by saying that? Because it feels inclusive.

AlexAnybody who will say that it's exclusionary probably doesn't know what they're talking about or is just trying to make someone feel bad.

MerlinTo me, it's like the difference between women's lib and feminism. Like women's lib was an idea of, hey, look, we should get the same pay and rights as men. Whereas it wasn't until well into college and I'd had an actual little bit of book learning. Oh, shit. Feminism is a different thing. It's a philosophical difference in how you think about the world rather than how you play catch up to a bullshit system that nobody should have ever wanted.

AlexYeah. Or at least in the second and third wave. We'll see what this fourth wave becomes.

MerlinPut in the sheet.

AlexBut I forgot the secret combo, which ended up being the secret trio, which is an episode that has one cats, two, lots of gay stuff. And three, an actress who is one of his favorites because she made the show called Working Moms on Netflix. It's not for everybody, but it's a delight.

MerlinWhat, the Reitman girl? Yeah. Oh, so was it the court episode or earlier? Is it back in the Dennis period?

AlexIt is. It is the Mac fights gay marriage. It's the two part one.

MerlinOh, right.

AlexDennis gets divorced.

MerlinYou said that. Now I see what you're saying. Okay. Yeah. Oh, God. Yes. And she's got the dead tooth.

AlexYeah. Yeah. And it was like, oh, and it's slow. It's also not the funniest episode. Like, it's a good episode.

MerlinIt's not the joke machine. that some episodes are. That's also the one where Charlie, where they're cracking each other's backs and Charlie wants insurance and stuff.

AlexAnd the reason, oh, that's the fourth one, insurance.

MerlinOh, that's right. He wants to get Danny DeVito into a domestic partnership so that he can get insurance.

AlexYes, yeah. And it's honestly one of the most logical.

MerlinNo, Mac makes this same point in the one with how Aristotle's a bitch and all that stuff. He's like, this is the thing that these idiots, and he keeps calling them these idiots. These idiots do. is they unintentionally make a really good point, but in the dumbest way possible.

AlexYeah, yeah. No, and like they use to talk about like the word queer, they start talking about like, okay, so are they gay or are they trans? Like what? And they end up getting to great, they accidentally like do a little like a Pride 101 type thing

Merlinthroughout the episode. And it's just so funny. Oh, by the way, happy Pride.

AlexOh, kill me.

MerlinI changed my logo for you.

Alexoh god kill me um the the skittles bank of america boy they they're woke as shit have you

Merlinseen their logo oh my god f4 shortened b is some rainbow shit it just has become

Alexpride capitalism has become like a joke in and of itself like it's it's too many hats on hats

Merlinat this point like i mean a lot of them really do almost seem like an april fool thing where you're like, really? That's really so empty as a performance.

AlexWell, it goes both ways. There's always two things with capitalism. The gays also like to profit on the other gays and you know what? It's a lot easier to buy gender neutral underwear or whatever from Amazon than it is from like, yay, happy gay 101.com calm here's all this rainbow packaging and uh and like clearly would out someone who was ordering it and it's overpriced and uh anyway um happy pride everybody happy pride everybody i get you these skittles

MerlinListen, listen, if you're going to finger bang in a bar, that's fine. Just don't do it where I can see it. Have a Skittle. Have a Skittle instead. The delicious fruit explosion.

AlexYeah, just explode. Let the rainbow explode in your mouth as God intended. Poor butt. Oh, was that pulling out or pushing in? That was an interesting noise.

MerlinOh, that was my felch.

AlexOh. A felch.

MerlinA little, a little, a little. My Santorum.

AlexOh, this. Oh, I don't. Oh, I don't like. I don't. oh don't like that uh anyway uh he has in has started to and afterwards he was like okay i think i like that and and i don't i don't i don't want to put words into his mouth but like the sixth season in general is kind of a good starter one like they need to go look at what that is there's there there's the one with um the who got deep pregnant uh what else is in here

like again not the best but if you're like what the fuck is this show oh it's got the christmas

Merlinit's got the christmas episode oh my gosh yeah and i mean to the couch because you need a place

Alexwhere frank is crazy but not like as crazy as he gets we watched the gang buys a boat last night uh that's well that's that's like the first time where you're like oh okay and you get like what Dennis is and that I think is another good like not that's a good third that's a third date it's always sunny

Merlinepisode that's a good way to put it yep yep yep yep

AlexI spend a lot of time on this show

Merlinyou made it through one of them and then so at the end of the episode you know so it's me you know I'm really thirsty sweaty about this stuff and I'd be like did you like it did you like it like how what was the response after the Maureen Ponderosa episode

Alexwas oh alright let's let's keep watching it so now i've been uh picking and choosing later you know doing the merlin man watch picking and choosing certain episodes like the wonderful ones joe rosenthal suggested but i the the thing the the biggest mistake i made was realizing oh the reason that he doesn't like a bunch of people just shouting over each other like he doesn't find that core

concept funny is because he has to be around that with my siblings and that's just his existence

Merlinwhenever we get together at some point as dessert you should go to the gang wants an award the oh

Alexthat's so it's one of my just a bunch of people yelling at each other

Merlinoh this show's good i'm so glad to hear it and so is it is there further interest at this juncture

AlexOh, there is further interest, mostly because we're down to the last season of Hulson Catch Fire, and I know that it's going to be an emotional roller coaster, and it's, oh God, we're re-watching Friends, too, and that's a whole thing. So yeah, running out of good TV. You know what this world needs? More Netflix originals.

MerlinMore zombie movies. More zombie shows.

AlexYou just want people to be happy.

MerlinOr shows about sensitive girls in the UK.

AlexUh-huh. Oh, vampires.

MerlinOh, you know, the Bo Burnham, though. That's a thing. Woof.

AlexOh, is it bad?

MerlinNo, it's transformative and sad and hilarious. And yeah. Yeah, because my kid was primed for it because she's a big fan of Bo Burnham. And of course, she's the most extremely online person that I know. And she's like, well, yeah, apparently there's lots of like, you know.

Alexhere's a phone number to call type stuff the oh yeah no that uh that's why i am told i'm not allowed to oh that's not that i'm not allowed to watch it alone but maddie and i wants to

Merlinyou need to watch it with a phone in your hand and all the numbers but the last one oh god oh god

Alexum but no he is i know it's not cool to love bo burnham but i remember the first time i heard art is dead and it's shirt not the funniest or best thing but and it is on the nose but that is oh i don't know i think he's great i love him he's chip macape he's so attractive too oh gosh yeah

Merlinhe's really good looking yeah yeah yeah i think you would enjoy it also from a tech standpoint because you know he did purportedly he did every everything in this he yeah well he started off on YouTube and there's no I just mean I just mean in terms of like how he in this one room how he makes things look different how he lights it like how he does all the different things in this hugely constrained environment where he's you know he's the camera person he's the director he's the writer he's the performer he's the editor where he has to do all of that during during the pandemic during

Alexlockdown basically it's amazing I'm going to put I'll put this in the notes too oh our texting isn't notes but uh there's a great piece in fast company about him directing eighth grade i gotta watch this i never watched it i heard it's really good it is shockingly good as in the kind where you walk out of the theater and no one's saying anything because like what did we really watch in a no no in a good way less than a lady book or lady bird way and more in a book smart way

if you've seen either of those.

MerlinLove, love Booksmart.

AlexYes, it is closer to that. It's not a romp, but I like it quite a bit.

MerlinSo did you watch any more? And then we're almost done. So you guys, you guys, you they, I swear to God, we're almost done. Did you watch any other ones? Did you watch any other Maureen Ponderous? Did you watch the courtroom one?

AlexNo, not at all. Well, at that point, my spouse had had some, we'll call them gummies, if you will, and then got a little sleepy. So we did. And he liked them very much. But I'm not sure if that will correlate to actually enjoying.

MerlinOh, I see. Got to check back in. Give it some time.

AlexYeah, yeah. If you have had some substances, and this is a great show, as long as shouting doesn't make you anxious. But, you know, when you grow up around shouting, it's like, or if you're a woman or queer.

Most of the population is used to be shouted at. Never mind.

Merlinum i'm so happy to hear that that must be a big relief to you i mean you at least like you you you at least got on base it might not have been a home run but you got on base right

Alexoh for sure for sure like i i'm going for the grand slam but you can't you yeah you gotta put

Merlinthe work in you're there and the time that's a good point um are we doing uh are we doing i think it's are we still doing phrasing but are we doing phrasing what did i do am i in trouble Oh, follow-up item two. Dig-a-dig-a-dig-a.

AlexDig-a-dig. Oh, did I close the dock? I think I closed the dock for more important things. Wow. Including just pictures of Mac being hot.

MerlinIt's so hot.

AlexThat's normal.

MerlinShown off his tats.

AlexOh, I thought those were fake. And apparently they're-

MerlinMy daughter said the very same. Because we were re-watching Mac Day yesterday. And everybody has no sleeves on their shirt. and she's like god do they have to do his tattoos for i was like i'm pretty sure all of mac's tattoos are real i think charlie's unfinished tattoo is not real but it is very

Alexfunny i think it's i think it's real because that is so funny and real uh you think you think you

Merlinthink charlie got a real tattoo that's not finished on his arm yes uh oh god that was so funny what does it say it's like he didn't couldn't finish the word charlie day tattoo because then he has

Alexthe kaiju tattoos in uh pacific rim bad new that's it bad new bad new um we're on reddit so clearly that's not that thread archived for contact uh oh my god is it real wait a minute

Merlinoh oh what wait a minute wait no what does charlie day's tattoo mean no they're referring i think to his character does charlie day have a tattoo asks somebody on reddit does charlie day have a tattoo he wrote bad new on his arm in the episode yeah yeah yeah fairly certain the tattoo is a legitimate homemade stick and poke i learned about stick and poke i learned about stick and

Alexpoke this morning for my daughter oh wow really online uh but yeah that's what that's what makes me think that it's real because but it's stick and poke tattoos like a prison tattoo uh i well used to be primarily in prison yes um is it permanent uh yes and i don't know god it would be even funnier if they it was like one take oh we should get it you what do you have do you have a box right i have a box and a microphone um and i listen i followed your rules yeah i would wear a

t-shirt of either of these every single day for the rest of my life so the next one's going to be uh involve cgp gray somehow no it's not it's just oh i got this dragon and i got a metaphorical dragon no no no no i am not the cortex cult i just like a shirt a simple oh i know you look at tribal oh i listen to a listen to a podcast every three months that it comes out oh me

Merlinoh they gotta pass the edits back and forth don't you want me to be happy do do second or fourth takes don't you want me to be happy i do i just want people to be happy if i'm being honest what's the oh so skipping freezing well you go to whatever you want for follow-up and then we got i have i This is an interesting challenge this week to me because I didn't even have to do the challenge because I'm always doing the challenge.

Speaker AYep, yep, yep, yep.

MerlinThat's a sad reality of my life. I fixed my podcast menu. Apologies to who's the Mac guy that made podcast menu. I don't know. Is it Gigi Rambo? I'm sorry, Mac guy. Maybe?

AlexOh, I mean, he is a guy.

MerlinWe'll find podcast menu on GitHub. Yeah, so it was bad on me. I said that I was having trouble with it and I wondered if he fixed it, but it was all my fault. I just hadn't turned on the right accessibility stuff. Now it works again.

AlexLove me a good Mac OS completely locked down.

MerlinPodcast Menu is a podcast. It's an app, a menu item, as we used to say, made by, I don't know, who's the guy? Isn't he the dude? It's Guy Rambeau, right?

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinGuilherme Rambeau made this, and it's a menu thing that sits up in your bar, and it not only it doesn't it seems kind of easy which is you get the overcast web thing so you can listen to overcast easily on your mac without having a browser open or having a dedicated browser open but it also works um with your media controls so if it's playing podcast menu meaning you're listening to overcast uh stuff like uh stuff like the play pause button works it captures your media

Alexkeys and i love it very much i'm i'm still mostly a like an overcast user on the mac the m1's mac

Merlinbut it's i i can tell from my friends and from the creator of overcast that i'm apparently the only person that frequently uses it on the web smart smart speed smart speed gotta love it it's that's a sin smart speed is a sin well smart speed i i have smart speed on for some things but like i just you know those those multiple x people and this has they have speed things but

Alexjust not smart speed right list uh there there are speed things 2x plus yeah uh 2 2.9 is the highest it'll go without ios freaking out i guess who would ever need a faster podcast than that

Merlini mean okay never mind you know what i i don't want to argue with people i'm in a great mood

Alexpeople am i people are you people me people uh did you well i just keep watching it's always the sunny and thinking wait your kid can handle this show or or rather the the challenging content in this show is not as challenging as archer this is also a rewatch we're doing it's so good i mean

Merlinit sounds like a huge cop-out and it probably is but every every kid is different and almost as importantly every parent is different every dynamic is different and sometimes if there's something that's making me uncomfortable making me uncomfortable to have my kid watch it and ditto for my wife like that's when the alarm bell goes off and you could just fast over it's just it's so much of the basis of archer as well as being animated and like very like you know fast moving kind of thing i don't know no yeah we could you could you're saying i'm a bad dad because we don't

Alexwatch archer no no no i'm just yes i'm telling i'm saying you were terrible terrible parents no i that's how you get ants like it you actually a long time ago on the show shared uh i i did actually call you out and be like wait a second you let your watch let your kid watch a bunch of stuff with violence but not sex stuff and my parents were the same way like why that's silly

MerlinIt depends on the sex stuff.

AlexAnd, well, you...

MerlinAnd it depends on the violence stuff.

AlexYeah. And you made a... God, I hope I can find it.

MerlinOh, personal violence? Personal violence? Because our rule was, like, one reason we never watched Hunger Games, which I had a feeling she would really like, is it has too much of what I... And this is another one of those things, like, performative utterance, performative statement that I'm using wrong. But it's just too much, like, it's one thing to see a stormtrooper, an anonymous stormtrooper, bloodlessly die. And another thing, for there to be a threat of sexual assault at knife point. that kind of thing. Like, I don't, I don't, I've tried to steer away from a lot of that stuff. Whereas, but we'll watch Handmaid's Tale because she needs to know about men.

AlexMm-hmm. Yeah, that's.

MerlinThat's important.

AlexYeah.

MerlinThat's a much more, that's a much more teachable program than Knifee McRape Man, you know?

Speaker AThe. Title, title, title, title.

MerlinNo, we can't have that title. We'll get canceled.

AlexOh, wait. So, oh, I also had Concella. Oh, that's right. Oh, yeah, that's pretty good. But the other thing you said was I don't want to show her anything that makes assumptions about what sex is. And I was like, galaxy in box zero.

MerlinYeah, because the stuff that I was raised on, and I guess, I mean, if I'm being honest, the kind of stuff that I unintentionally or unconsciously probably picked up on, before we even get to like gender roles, but just that whole thing of like that the women are a thing to be acquired, briefly acquired and conquered. And that like, you know, it's just like Syracuse and I go back and forth about stuff like John Hughes movies, because he's much more performative than I am. But like, there's a lot of stuff in there that's still funny.

AlexThe first sex scene in, in she wanted, Oh God.

MerlinShut up. I don't think he even knows what he's talking about.

AlexShe was totally into it. She initiated. I, that was why I was like, fuck, I'm going to love this show because this is not an abusive power dynamic. This is an very interesting.

MerlinShe's a horny punk rock girl. What does TV need more of? My God.

AlexEveryone watch Halton catch fire. I take it back. It's a show for everybody. Uh, sorry. Uh, jazz boy. What?

MerlinWhat? So, uh, no, it's, and it, it always, it's always changing. It's always a moving target. But, you know, even setting aside all of my very wise things I've said about this over the years, there's a thing that I think is true for everybody, which makes it maybe triple true for a kid in general, which is like, is this worth it in terms of the payoff? In terms of, you know what I mean? Like, I guess one thing I haven't said in a while that I do think is true is I think it's a really shitty, lazy, liberal parent thing to say, well, they can watch public TV or they can do this.

you can have or like you know like um h.i mcdonough in uh raising arizona you know one hour one hour tv a day you know sesame street or football like so you don't miss out on the finer things and it's such a fucking because what you're really saying is what what am i comfortable what am i comfortable telling people i've parked my kid in front of so like you know i happen to really like elmo and mr noodle and mrs noodle i really happened i liked a lot of sesame street a lot i hate to say this But what was on public TV when I was a kid, when she was that age, wasn't all great.

I mean, like, Dinosaur Train was fun, but pretty stupid. Sid the Science Kid was pretty condescending in some ways. And Caillou is a hate crime.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinYou're basically teaching your kid to be a little shit, to quote Griffin Newman. And, like, it's, I just think it's, maybe I'm probably being unkind. Because, you know, everybody should do what they think is right. But I think it's like instead, why don't you go like, well, so what is it you love about this show that your kid likes? And it's like, OK, are you sitting there and watching it with the kid? Because as shitty as a parent as I am, these are all shows that I will watch with my kid. Not just to go like, is this OK or appropriate or edgy, but also just like I need to like it.

I mean, if I hate it, I don't want my kid to have worse taste than every kid already has. But like left to their own devices. And she's old enough now to make her own terrible decisions. So I stay out of the way. But yeah, I think that's, I just, there's something that's always bugged me about like, okay, I'm doing this as a, as a flex, as a parental flex to say, oh, oh, you just let your kid like stare at the iPad all day or blah, blah, blah, screen, screen, screen, screens are bad. Well, thank Christ we've had screens for the last year, not just for fucking quote unquote school, but as the only way my daughter can interact as a 13 year old kid with other kids.

Thank God for screens. If you've had that same philosophy over this whole time, maybe that worked out great.

AlexYou probably had a very large house and your kids are smarter than you and are somehow accessing screens.

MerlinYou know, it's one of those rare things where I not only can see the privilege in that, but I can experience that feeling of, oh, must be nice for you. Because these are the kinds of things you don't say unless you live in a hotel lobby.

It's kind of shitty. And just as a flex, though, I think it's unintentionally revealing. and perhaps but anyway if that works for you that's fine i just want people to be happy but um but the thing i was going to say though is like is the payoff there is the trade-off there like i know there is some there's some violence and stressful situations in star wars but like i think the trade-off works there like saw the first saw movie is really good but in that instance the payoff is not there the exorcist which i watched again last week is still

one of the great films she'll be fucked up for life i i saw it at 12 and i was fucked up and but like that's a very like the stuff that regan's doing in that is really upsetting and am i making a point here it's just that i think you have to like one thing you can choose to do as a child tender is to go like okay well like a parent what was that because it could be anybody it could be somebody who's watching a kid or guardian a kid oh like any character okay

Alexi was genuinely confused yeah it's called a groom

Merlinthat's it i'm i'm not trying to piss from the high ground and go like oh you know like i'm anything. But just like, I think that, I think that the, the part that makes some of this stuff so awfully painful is that you're always fighting the last war, which you'll, you'll always lose every war, but thinking you can fight the last war is,

is not an affirmative way to go through life and trying to like avoid your own anxieties is not a way to go through life. And I'm not just talking about TV here. I'm talking about anything like, you know, kids do have to fall down sometimes and kids do have to be freaked out and Think about all the Doctor Who fans that were basically scarred by Daleks and Cybermen when they were kids. It's a famous English bit. James Thompson's talked about this. Like, everybody or Guy. Like, where you're like, everybody watches this hiding behind the couch because there's parts in Doctor Who that are so unexpectedly terrifying.

But now they're the biggest Doctor Who fans in the world. And I don't know. If you had to take this to a completely illogical straw man extreme, if your kid has a steady diet of Caillou, who's great in that situation? At least watch Curious George. Curious George is so good.

AlexI enjoy the hats. Those are the good hats.

MerlinBut William H. Macy is a great narrator, and the writing on Curious George is top-notch. Something happened in there. Something monkey-related. It's very funny. We still say that in our house.

What's your niece like to watch? You're not supposed to show a baby anything until they're two. No screams they say. That's what doctors say.

AlexI don't. Honestly, whatever is on my Apple Watch or my phone.

MerlinYour iPhone. Really, your iPhone. You hand them your iPhone or watch, and then that's their Caillou.

AlexWell, yeah. I don't know. She's really good at pressing the buttons. She gets upset when she – I mean, real talk, accessibility. It's hard for a six month old swipe up.

MerlinCan I ask you I want to ask you a question that sounds sarcastic, but it's actually a real question. Do you worry about getting locked out of the phone or watch? No, because it's unlocked and you can tell you're watching and it's staying unlocked. You're not going to get into a multiple try situation.

AlexWell, you might. And I have. But I think it was it was probably John Gruber who covered this a long time ago. like when it's like try again in nine minutes and then do it again it's like try again in like

Merlin90 minutes like i would have to try again in like a year yeah by the time you get to number eight

Alexit's it's getting rough yeah it would be also it's all backed up that's true that's true um

Merlinhave you watched hacks yet have you started watching hacks no i need to watch hacks i need watch devs i need to i i i i i bounced on devs because i got some secret intel from my worst friend that it that his concern that it doesn't pay off was it didn't actually pay off but i love the i love the production design i'm just saying hacks hacks is hacks knows what it is oh this is

Alexthis is different than i expect oh oh hello and it's got sweet tea sweet teas on it oh oh man i I really hate paying for HBO Max, but HBO Max is really good sometimes.

MerlinI hate you. The app is just downright hostile.

AlexWell, now because everybody is watching the Friends reunion, it just doesn't work now.

MerlinYeah, what happened with that? Where Mayor got like, did it get like fireballed and nobody could see it?

AlexYeah. Well, it's not just that. Like, we'll be watching something completely different and the app just crashes. I've never had an app fully crash, like go just right back to the what is it? It's not springboard, but like whatever the home screen is.

MerlinYeah, I know what you mean, though. But like some kind of a page out. We're just like, it's like, that's it. We're done.

AlexYeah. And like sort of had that happen where, you know, you need to go into like it won't play. And then you go into another app like you go into Netflix and you start playing something. And then Hulu works.

MerlinOh, I'm a big quitter. I'm a big quitter on the opposite of that lady on Vine. I'm a huge quitter on Apple TV.

AlexOh, that's right. Because you have a real TV.

MerlinHulu gets fucked up fairly often.

AlexOh, boy, does it. And in every version or plan, they say.

MerlinI can't play this right now. I can't do that. I can't do that. All right. Okay. So is there anything else that you'd like to cover here? You have other things in here. Oh, something with your, we should probably save it for the after show. But, oh, Master and Slave. Let's cover that real quick.

AlexSure. Sure. What about Master and Slave?

MerlinWell, because we're trying to say, because like, okay, so.

AlexNew words, yes.

MerlinHere's what I want to, in the challenge, this is a teaser for the challenge.

AlexUh-huh.

MerlinForgive me, because I've used this word, it's the word that I know. Okay, so one of the things I'm going to introduce to you, I'm spoiling this a little bit, is that if you have devices that don't play well with others in all of the places, like you sometimes need to do little tricky things. Like if you're totally in on Hue, like every device you've got is a Hue bulb or is a Hue dimmer switch or a Hue tap switch. Like you're going to be like okay. And the wonderful Hue sensors. Like the truth is Hue makes a bunch of stuff. You don't even need to use HomeKit.

You can do that all right in the app and Bob's your uncle. But like what if you've got some stuff on Hue and you've got some stuff on iDevices. You've got some stuff on Fibaro. You've got some stuff on Eve is the one I'm going to come back to. Well, then what do you do? Well, now you kind of need to do HomeKit, but you're still fine in the sense that if you're using HomeKit to do everything or the home app, you're fine because that's all HomeKit compliant. All your scenes are going to be fine. But like, what if you're me and you're also doing Home Assistant?

And Home Assistant has stuff that it just, even from the same vendor that it won't or can't do anything with. Eve devices, famously, they're amazing and they're like pretty secure and like they work great with HomeKit. Now, they've got thread capability, but they will not. You need to basically move to something like MQTTT, which I am not ready to get into yet as a big thing.

AlexI don't know what those letters are.

MerlinIt's the Mosquito Protocol for controlling Z-Wave and Zigbee devices.

AlexOh, Zigbee. Okay. Okay, never mind. Never mind.

MerlinBut I think it's MQTT. It's short for Mosquito. And anyway, but I'm not ready to get into that through a user-exposed way. If there's something behind the scenes doing that, I'm fine with that. But I increasingly love, love, love Eve devices. I used to be at my office. I used to be all Wemo because it didn't need a hub. And back then that mattered to me. Wemo is fucking hot garbage. Like it's such a shitty system. It's so unreliable. You have to buy a goddamn bridge to get it to really talk to HomeKit in an effective way. And even then it just takes a dirt nap twice a day and you have to even restart the bridge.

It's garbage. I wish I could have more Eve stuff. But at the office, I've got Eve stuff, and some of those include Eve outlets. Is this making a little sense?

AlexYes, but not in a good way.

MerlinWell, I've been switching out Eve's, taking out WeMo plugs and replacing them with Eve plugs because they're so much better. And the app and the service, everything in Eve is so much better. And it has Thread now, which I'm really looking forward to seeing more stuff with how Thread works. So recently I switched out two WeMo plugs for Eve plugs, which is great. Except here's the problem now. Like if I want to, this is so fucking convoluted, but long story short, I want to be able to control my lights with my stream deck.

To do that, my stream deck has to be able to get to the companion app. Companion app needs to be get to the home assistant app, and home assistant needs to have all the stuff in it that can be gotten. If two of my lights, what are now lights, instead of thinking of those plugs, think of them as lights if i hit the button for turn off as lights off how will the eve things be turned off you do it through a slave so what you do is you say when desk lamp is on so you're doing

a condition in home plus or whatever you say when uh when when uh left desk lamp powers on set this HomeKit scene or turn on all of these. It's just easier to do a scene. But so my all office lights on scene gets triggered by that turning on. Hence, the master is the lamp and the slave are all of those outlets. They get controlled by a handoff that's automated, not inside of Home Assistant.

And that's how I control my Eve devices. So, or my iDevices, iDevices makes these sockets. So like a socket you could put into a lamp and then turn it into a smart lamp.

AlexMm-hmm. And that's what I, well, we'll get to that.

MerlinBut iDevices is not going to play well, you know, with stuff outside that system. And so I can say at home, turn lounge lights on. And in that case, when overhead, Hue light turns on, also turn on iDevices socket to 22%. And that's where I have to, I need a word for that. And what we're trying to do, we're trying to avoid saying master and slave because owing to what happened for something like 400 years in America, that's not a cool thing to say. We need better words for this.

AlexYeah, it's fun to remind people about the greatest sin of humanity.

MerlinWell, come on, let's not go crazy. But do you think top and bottom is less problematic?

AlexThat is really funny, and I was going to suggest that.

MerlinBecause, no, you already did suggest that, didn't you?

AlexYeah, I don't know. Where am I today? I'm trying to think because like that's but that's not the trigger it's like see top and bottom is so much better. Well like it's almost like the last so that's the last in the train right like so it's it's like the caboose of the thing like I don't I don't know because there's so many layers it's a labyrinth of lights and outlets I don't know.

MerlinOn the website All About Circuits, which is the first thing that came up, here's some of their suggestions. And I think these are almost all terrible. Primary and secondary. That doesn't really get to it.

AlexThat doesn't.

MerlinPrimary and replica. I guess they're talking about data.

AlexIs this Battlestar Galactica? What? That doesn't.

MerlinRight. I have all this octagonal paper. Primary and standby. Leader and follower. Conductor and follower. Source and sync. Oh, that sounds very Halt and Catch Fire. Source and sync. I don't like any of those.

AlexI mean, follower makes sense.

MerlinIt's not good. I think top and bottom. I'm going to change mine to top and bottom.

AlexI mean, that, it just, well, it'll be something you don't forget.

MerlinCould it be Daddy and My Boy? Well, isn't there a puppy thing? Couldn't you have a puppy? You could have Daddy and Puppy. Daddy and Puppy.

AlexWell, you could also have it for different, well, and, hmm.

MerlinOh, Twink and Stink?

AlexI'm, hmm.

MerlinSpinner and Winner? I have a good And a one-hide. I have a good, a one-hide. I have a good, a one-hide. I have a good, a one-hide. I have a good, a one-hide. I have a good, a one-hide.

I have a good, a one-hide. I have a good and a one-hide.

Merlinchallenge oh

Alexwell you just you just well sort of did the challenge

Merlinbut the challenge this week is to is to fix fix an automation and so the idea is like I mean why not we're going to get paid if you know the joker says if you go to something always get paid for it And I'm always fixing my automations. Alexander, did you fix any automations this week?

AlexOh, I did, but I broke most of them.

MerlinIsn't that the way?

AlexBut the main thing that my spouse wanted fixed was for when somebody comes home, the right lights to turn on. And when somebody leaves, the right lights to turn off. And we don't have any sensors.

MerlinIt's really difficult to get that right the first time.

AlexIt is. Oh, it's difficult. to we we at this moment as of today are completely all hue because um i'm i'm in uh like maintenance mode like you should you should have something like workers in progress like basically right now the bottoms are in progress and the top is just all the hue lights you might need you might need

Merlinto give that to me in pigs and bunnies the bottoms the bottoms are all in progress the bottoms

Alexrepresent the devices that are being controlled yes the the bottoms are all of the things in the sequence that are being controlled because i am not even using a home kit right now because what was happening is my home kit automations were just fucking with my series shortcut automations and for some reason, I started testing this.

MerlinI'm in an arguably worse condition. I used to be in a great condition where, like I say, the one that always I loved was I walk into the room and I say, hey, Dingus, play live TV, right? You know, that's why I sent you the shortcut. And so it turns on the TV. It says, okay, and then on this Apple TV, go to Hulu and then turn my phone into a remote. And then, as I said, second, then that broke and just stopped working. and the way that I fixed it was removing, I experimented until I figured out what seemed to be causing the problem, which was the now use your phone as a remote.

Even though we're on the same network and everything should be fine. But then somehow, maybe just from resetting, adding new ones, it's just started working again. But now I'm in a worse condition I've ever been in, which is it works properly 68% of the time.

AlexIt's the worst.

MerlinIt's just right on the edge where it's like, I'm sorry, I can't do that. I'm having trouble connecting. I can't do that or whatever it is. And it's like, fuck, man. Why can't you do that? Bottoms are all in progress.

AlexWell, there were so many things I did wrong.

MerlinSo you shunted away your HomeKit automations to focus on your shortcuts automations, correct?

AlexThe opposite. I took out the shortcut automations because I did a thing where I walked by my house and saw which one. They were very, very similar. but one of them the shortcuts one turned on their bedside lamp but it turned it on like 100 percent no idea why went into shortcuts and like and did it share the shortcut with matchy to get him to walk back and forth like to see why are the lights doing this thing uh and then i'm like all right

we'll just we'll just start over okay cool now all the lights work now we've uh we're we're back in progress we've got that working but then suddenly all of the home pods are now out of sync when i say hey hey lovely ball play everything and now it's yeah yeah yeah that's one of my biggest bug

Merlinaboos is getting audio to work but especially get audio to work quickly and i you know i made a shortcut for this i've accepted that i mean well it's it's really frustrating because whereas the Amazon product with their shitty little speakers is great at this. I could just say, hey, Dingus, you know, play this on West speakers. And Amazon understands that. I even made a bespoke shortcut that says get the audio, you know, get audio and then send transfer whatever it is, transfer audio to these devices.

And it fucking never works. Even just trying to gang four HomePods real quick in that dumb ass menu. Like it becomes it's like playing Tetris or something.

Alexit's so frustrating yeah it it like goes up and it goes down and they group and they ungroup and it's now you're hitting where it ain't anymore yeah yeah but uh the and so i'm like all right we'll just unplug replug sure and i had never set up uh what is it personal requests before because i was like the only one who used it and i don't really care about the music stuff but if the like good Apple music, good, whatever Apple music shit is coming out.

It might be cool. So we decided to set up a, whatever for profiles for, or people as the app says and the, in our iCloud family. And it will.

MerlinThen that's also when you start as powerful as personal requests are. And I'm sorry. It's always turned into a bitch session. As powerful as that is, that's also where I've run into lots of trouble because now once you're into the personal request zone, it's going to check to see if your phone's nearby. And that, if you're on an Eero especially, like it gets very confused about whether it can do the reminder you just asked. It doesn't take that many days of it not working for you to go, well, I guess I just need to come back when this is ready.

AlexBut also what happens when you have a very similar voice to somebody in the house?

MerlinOh, my God, I never thought of that. That's what this means. I see. Oh, no.

AlexI feel like everybody has their either Siri or Echo Ball type voice, but now, who is speaking? Alexandra! Because I also couldn't find how to...

MerlinAnd then you say that, and your Amazon device hears it.

AlexThe, uh, yes. So the, I'm so angry because, uh, I had the original Echo Dot somewhere. So I plugged that in and I'm like, let's see how this works with talking at it still with it's like decade old speaker. And it has worked flawlessly, except when I talk to the Siri ball and say, Alexandra, it's like, it doesn't know how to say it in any way.

You know when it's like, okay, Alexandra, it sounds enough like Alexa, stop, that it turns on the Echo Tube. And so then it's like, oh, no. And I don't. So right now there is a single Echo Dot controlling all of our, my spouse is using the Hue lights.

MerlinOh, my God. That's so Jurassic.

AlexIt's okay. It's been mostly a 24 hour problem and no one come and wear me as a skin suit, please. Skin scoot. Oh, if you want to put my skin on a scoot scoot, that'd be fine.

MerlinBut you forgot to smell you bitch.

AlexAnyway, that's traveling for work. So I'm going to go back into Home Assistant and I got resetting up my Synology because my drives apparently weren't fast enough. Thank you to the listener Name Redacted for helping me with that.

MerlinWhat did you have 50, 52 hundreds and you need 70 whatever's?

AlexSomething. I have the faster ARPUMS. I know. ARPUMS. Yeah. I don't have solid. I don't have solid ones because those are like crazy expensive for what I need. Yeah.

MerlinOh, no, no, no. You don't need those. Just get a red. Get the basic WD Red.

AlexYeah.

MerlinI'm all in. Well, for now, I'm all in on WD Red 6 terabytes, but I'm going to probably over time go to 8 because I don't want to run out. But then it also fucks up my backup solution. My backup solution is no longer, my current equipment is no longer doable, which is three USB cheap ass, like Western Digital, like shitty, like little external drives. I got three drives that back up different parts of the Synology every night. And I either need to get rid of some movies or find a different way to back up.

AlexOkay. I'm trying to avoid an incidental computer show.

MerlinKeep going. Get back to it. Get back. Let's go. Go back to it.

AlexWait. So why are you backing up your Synology to extra hard drives? Why?

MerlinWell, so I have three of these 8 terabyte. I think they're 8 terabyte. I have the shitty $150 8 terabyte external drives, which are connected up via a little hub to my office Synology. so all of the all of the like configuration stuff gets updated to one another one is tv and a few other things and the other the third the third one is just movies and then on top of that i need to redo this but i also do backblaze b2 backup but that's you know yeah but that's what i mean why

Alexdo you take these hard drives off site later or are they just no but if but if accidentally

Merlindeleted. I mean, I've got belts and suspenders.

AlexNo, but you don't have the suspenders. I mean, I guess you have really, really thin suspenders.

MerlinBlackblaze is my suspenders.

AlexBlackblaze, say it. Okay. All right.

MerlinYou're saying because I don't do off-site rotations?

AlexNot even rotations, but something I didn't even know.

MerlinI'm saying if a drive dies and it's going to take me a super long time to bring because it takes longer as you learned when you're just waiting for it to sort of populate and do all its things it can take a real long time oh yeah setting it up is uh is a day it's a whole thing yeah well i don't know it's actually not that hard it's easier than most nasa's actually it just takes time just yeah you just it doesn't happen as fast as you'd like

Alexthe the only reason i am shaming you um i'm canceling your backup situation right now is mostly because no see that's the thing you you don't say do you save all of your podcast audio files like what what is their other i i don't know i i've become very paranoid about

Merlindata lately so i do i do uh time okay so at my office so i do time machine i use synology for time machine which at my office means my mac mini and my just as a belt and suspenders and belt also my laptop, my MacBook Pro. So that all time machine's onto there. Now at home, that's doing, what's it doing? It's doing my laptop. My laptop's the main one at home that it does a lot. And again, thanks to Control Plane, I get that functionality where it knows to switch

over. Like, I've decided you're at home, so let's mount these things. And then that mostly works like that. But as far as the podcast files, I mean, like what? I mean, everything that I, the only show that I quote unquote edit is Roderick. So that's all already being backed up through Descripts Cloud thing.

AlexWhat about the raw files of like the Merlin show and, you know, that guy with the phone?

MerlinOh, I mean, I hope that's somewhere. I think it's somewhere. That wasn't my job. I was the talent.

AlexOh, oh, that's right. You had people for that. Oh.

MerlinYeah, my friend Ben, the genius. Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I'm no Jason Snell. Like I don't have 45 people talking about a Doctor Who trailer or something like that.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinI don't know how he does it. I don't know how he's a sane man. Did I tell you I was on the Make Rebecca Great Again episode?

AlexYou did. You did.

MerlinIt's a good group. It's a really good group.

AlexOh, my God. Let me add it.

MerlinShipley Steakhouse is unmatched for beginning ambiance. We talked about this. God damn it. What's wrong with me? Don't answer. I don't want to know what's wrong with me.

AlexI was going to say, I return null.

MerlinI'll take it if it's a dear friend. I'll take a diagnosis.

AlexNo, you don't have it. No, everything's fine. You were in a very good mood today.

MerlinAm I in trouble? It's a delight. No, come on. Don't be in front of me. You're in trouble. Oh, my God. You're usually worried about me. And now I'm in a good mood. It's my daughter's last day of quote unquote school. You know?

Speaker AMm-hmm.

MerlinPacific Rim. Yeah. Oh, I know what I need to find. I need to find how I did this thing that I just sent you. I just sent you three. I hope it's you. I just sent you three screen grabs for my phone.

AlexOh, no. You use light mode every – oh, God.

MerlinWhat?

AlexI'm sorry.

MerlinWhat did you use? Oh, dark mode is ugly. It's horrible. Don't use it.

AlexNo, it's not. No, use it everywhere.

MerlinIt's so much better on your eyes. It doesn't look like a goddamn iPhone.

AlexIt's so much better for your eyes.

MerlinAren't you – What do you – you think you're in the fucking Matrix? Like, what are you doing? Why does it need to be dark? Are you a mole person?

AlexIt doesn't give me a headache.

MerlinI mean, I don't – That's ugly, Alex.

AlexI don't – You know what?

MerlinGet a horse. I'm all in on Eve. I'm loving Eve. Loving Eve.

AlexOkay.

MerlinSo I got some new Eve things. Eve. So for one thing, I got the new kind of Eve outlet has thread. The new Eve weather has thread. The new Eve door sensor has thread. So not only do you get cool weather and sensor things, but that's also got radios that are contributing to your thread network. That's fucking badass.

AlexI'm so excited to set that up.

MerlinIsn't it an interesting idea? But I also got myself a treat that's not a thread thing. but it's still a treat. And this, this sounds ridiculous until you learn what this YouTube guy suggests. So three, three screen grabs. So this is the home kit setup page for my Eve button. And it, and I guess it like the tap switch by Hugh. One could look at that and go, you've got to be kidding me. You bought, you bought, you bought a light bulb. So you control with your voice. And now you, it's your, you can't be bothered to like talk to your lamps. And it's like, well, no,

just in my family, you know, every single one of them, we all grew up with light switches. It makes a lot of sense to not have to talk to something and to know that this is a piece of hardware is really, really reliable. So this is even stupider than a tap switch to a civilian because it's got one button in three modes. It's got a single press mode. It'll do, okay, single press to do this, double press to do that, long press to do the other thing. But go check it out. So you see number one. Now, number one, you click on the single press actions

and what do you see? Oh, guess what? When I press that button, it's a shortcut.

AlexBloop.

MerlinNow go to the third one.

AlexMm-hmm.

MerlinYou see what's happening here?

AlexYes. And I am shocked that this works.

MerlinSo this is, I totally got this from a guy on YouTube that I will find for notes. But basically, so it's cool enough. Like, for example, the one, the second one, you know, what is it? West Nightlights, whatever the, but like, you know, when it's nighttime, I can double press and that turns on a scene. But that's fucking monkey bullshit. because you can go in and the odd thing is you don't repurpose an existing shortcut. Like when you go in and it says select the scene, if you scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll all the way to the bottom, you see a button that says convert to shortcut. It's inside the E button.

AlexPlease, shortcuts team make that better. Please, please.

MerlinAnd so you say convert to shortcut and then look what I did here. Scripting. If lounge overhead is off. So here's an example of my top and bottom situation title. If lounge overhead is off, set lounge lights to on. that's a scene it's a scene man otherwise meaning if lounge overhead is on set lounge lights off it's very very simple but guess what i just added a whole bunch of button functionality to a thing with one button and it's fucking badass i haven't even spent a lot of time on the other ones

obviously but that's one i just want to hit a goddamn button and have this turn on in a smart way so it figures out if the lights are on or off and then does things accordingly and of course anything you can do in shortcuts you could do here like you could get into conditionals about like time of day and presence and all that kind of stuff you could do some you could i mean you

Alexcan do shortcuts with a button now is what i'm saying not in shortcuts oh oh yeah no you're right i'm sorry yeah yes sorry i've uh something's going on with my screen so glad i have oh no oh oh it did it again ah um the oh well this is this is the work one this is going away but uh my mac

MerlinOh, geez. Okay. All right.

AlexNo, no, it's fine. Going away. But the, just in the core, well, yeah, I'm trying, doing two time machines on a Synology, that's a whole other thing that I need to figure out. But what I...

MerlinIt's pretty straightforward.

AlexOh, it is, if you know that that's something you should do.

MerlinMain thing, with everything you always want to check, just to be a little bit anal, is it does pay to make sure you got the permissions right. Further to that, I would say it's worth it twice or three times a year, just going in and looking at permissions to make sure everything that you still have read and write for things you need and that nobody else does. Obviously, you shut off your administrator account, don't even have that on. Like there's all that kind

Alexof stuff. Anyhow, yeah. And always do 2FA. I really, really, really like how you put the, well, it's an accessibility angle, like how hard this bullshit is. And it's like, yes,

Merlinyou are making a huge ah what's your screen doing alex oh my god this is so upsetting what's happening dr portal i i i don't i i don't know oh geez oh god i hear you oh no close it okay

Alexthat is the living photograph of my screen um why are you doing that even i have

Merlinfuck if i know is it javascript like or is it hardware what's happening oh no that is hardware You bought the goddamn lamp, you cuck. How funny is that? You have my lamp. You got the monitor lamp.

AlexActually, this was suggested to me by Mike Hurley. So yeah, I think I am. Nice.

MerlinNo, you're welcome.

AlexOh, God, I am. I'm a cortex cuck. Fuck.

MerlinOh, boy. Oh, come on. Every time I've ever seen a photo of you, you're either at a ball game or in a cortex shirt.

AlexHow did you know I was at a baseball game?

MerlinYou posted it on the internet.

AlexDid I really?

MerlinMm-hmm. Kara's having some kind of novelty drink, and you're there looking very serious.

AlexOh, yes. I went to a baseball game for the first time in probably a decade.

MerlinCubs win. Cubs win.

AlexOh, no. They lost their seven.

MerlinNo, no. I was doing Harry Caray. I should have done The Voice.

AlexNo, it makes me sad. Yeah, it makes me so sad. But sometimes they play him on the big screen.

MerlinThe Will Ferrell impersonations are still funny. the one of him with Jeff Goldblum if he was a hot dog would he eat himself is still so fucking funny and so there's that you got the lamp because of my curly fuck that guy

Alexanother thing that is very very easy on your eyes and has helped many a headache

Merlinyeah I wish it was smarter I wish it had more smarts

Alexexactly

Merlinbecause I forget to turn it off sometimes and it's like well that just shows you how dependent I am other other uh we should go soon other automation things um oh oh a follow-up and like somehow related both to last week and this week i started playing more with some automations

Alexin google sheets god damn it that's a good app whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa okay hold up hold up like what like what okay okay wait do we have to save for another show i'm very excited

Merlinno no no this is quick and it's boring like me

Alexshould be an out is that the out uh everybody come to the after show to um let's see uh

MerlinSee, now when you try to think of a joke, the aristocats.

AlexOh, the – oh, no, no.

MerlinOh, tell an aristocrat's joke? That's a hell of an act you got there. What do you call it? Let's see. No, now we have to keep going because it's not funny. But be ready. Be ready. We're going to be looking for it now. Be ready.

AlexJust real quick, tell me about your sheets. Like, I didn't even know you could automate successfully. Well, successfully. Just Google sheets.

MerlinAutomate is in several sets of scare quotes there. But like, for example, I thought, you know, because, you know, I always have my mission to like figure out what time the mail came without me having to. As we all know, mails tend to come all the time. That's fast and easy.

AlexFast and easy. Good try.

MerlinBut it's cool. My combination of taking my data out of my Eve. So I spit that out into files. I spit it out. it comes out as an xlsx uh and anyway this is boring so i opened that up i csv'd it and then i dropped that into sheets and i got this data which is like uh time stamp is column one column two is motion or no motion basically i forget what it says but it's motion or clear i think and i was able to use so many of the skills i learned last week to do this so i took this it

It was almost 4,000 line thing. And first of all, I cut out every line that said clear because I don't really need to know that for what I'm trying to figure out. And I had just motion. Then I created a filter, you know, where you could go into a given column. And I said, okay, our mail tends to come between, I'll say arbitrarily, 1 p.m. and 7 p.m., whatever. So I could say only show me entries that are between. Oh, I also did a split. You know, I can do a split. So I could go in and say, take, you know, take the space out and remove everything before

or after the space. So I had just times because I don't want the date. The date's going to screw it up. All I want is times. That was cool. And then I filter all the way down. And then I made a pivot table. And I had to go in and I said, do a, I want to find out what time is most common. And so then I had to do a pivot table to say, do a count A of all these numbers. and of course in suggestions or in what's it called? Under Analyze? The helper boy? And it says, oh look, there's four times that represent a large

percentage of the times. And so I was able to narrow down and I made a scatter chart of all the times that the mail arrives over time based on the most times that it appears. It's not a histogram, but it's more like a scatter chart. But I can say all the times between 1 and 7 p.m. show me a distribution of which one there's the most of in the account. And it worked. And now in the future, I can just copy that data and paste it in. It's not really an automation, but it's really easy to replicate that. It's such, it's so powerful. It's powerful.

AlexWait, so can Candice?

MerlinCandice? Candice do that.

AlexCan Candice dick fit in your mouth?

MerlinOh.

AlexYeah.

MerlinOh. Bofa, Candice Bofa.

AlexI searched biggest joke on TikTok. Okay, okay.

MerlinAnd that was the top one. Okay, here we go. There's a good punchline. There's a good punchline, and if you don't tell the first part, it's not anti-Semitic, so stand by.

Speaker AWait, what?

MerlinHang on. Don't step on my bit. I don't know, but when you rub it, it turns into a briefcase. Nozzle top.

Speaker AThank you.

243. The Bottoms Are All in Progress

Show notes

Transcript

243. The Bottoms Are All in Progress

Show notes

Transcript

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