252. Confusing Balls of Meat

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

God, Zoom's the worst. Zoom's the worst.

MerlinHello?

AlexAm I maybe not hearing you?

MerlinI'm trying with computer audio.

AlexOh, oh, wait, wait, you're muted audio?

MerlinDubai Friday!

AlexDubai Friday! Welcome to Dubai Friday. They've already heard welcome to Dubai Friday. But I had, you know what, Merlin, I have a lot more empathy for everybody, you know, so all of the entire, every person with internet access. Because I have never been in a Zoom meeting that I haven't started when it was recording. so I the other day got on one and I didn't realize how like sort of halting and weird that this

session is now being recorded or whatever it was I was like oh

Merlinthere's a lot of um I've started noticing hello I missed you I've started noticing things that what's weird Alex

Alexsorry for interrupting I missed you a whole lot

Merlinsorry what was that sorry for interrupting you don't say things we both know aren't true

AlexI know. It's really true. That's why it's weird. I don't know if it's a bit or maybe really honest. Hello. Oh, God. No, we're not using Zoom. Zoom's the worst. What were you thinking about about Zoom?

MerlinHow's your day? You having a good day? Oh, yeah. OK. But it's funny because you're right. When did I notice this? I've been noticing when it takes me way more clicks to do something than I would like. I mean, I guess that's kind of an obvious thing to realize, but there's certain things where I'm like, man, I can't believe this takes so many clicks every time. And that's definitely an example of like getting from I'm not doing anything to I want to talk to my friend Alex. there's a lot to do

a lot to do, a lot to click, a lot to agree you join with computer audio you allow this and then yeah, so isn't that odd though that you've been on the one side of that and it feels so different to be on the other side

Alexit does and it's

Merlinit's like a Stanford prison experiment but you know with the internet

Alexwasn't that a turns out sort of thing

Merlinas it turns out yep, yep, yep

AlexIt reminds me of a, well, you continue to say the phrase, I don't want to sound like I'm saying anything radical, but, and then say something incredibly nuanced and good and true. And just the last episode of Reconcilable Differences talking about nuances and harm and how just, God, it's just so good. It's so good.

MerlinWhat did I say? I don't remember. What did I say?

AlexUm, that sometimes people are nice to you, but they do not have the best interest, your best interests at heart.

MerlinOh, right. Were we talking about college? No.

AlexYou were talking about college. You were talking about service work. And then you're talking about, you know, afterwards, knowledge work.

MerlinOh, yeah. And my dumb, my dumb, privileged white guy idea that people benefit from.

AlexNo, it's not. It's not. That's the point. It's not. That's why it's radical.

MerlinOh, boy. Sorry for interrupting. No, no. I missed you. It's nice to be back. Wow. Um, okay.

AlexBut I think the more salient, as you'd say, the more salient point is sometimes it's just not about you. Sometimes someone is just constantly a dick and it could be for your best interest.

MerlinAnd yeah, this is covered on the reconcilable differences that's coming out in the next couple of days in some of my my my my vacation results. And one of the things I realized was, again, kind of an obvious thing. I said this to Dan the other day, but I think when you, especially on a trip, but also in life, it's important to realize, like, whose event it is, whose trip it is, whose thing it is. Because if you agree to go, and the example I gave is, like, I don't like being around in strip clubs. So I can either go to a strip club or not go to a strip club.

But it's not cool for me to go to a strip club and whine about being in a strip club.

AlexOh, that's a really good example.

MerlinYeah. Well, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And even though like my girlfriend's like, well, no, like three of my friends are going through college doing this. We have to go be supportive. And I'm like, no, I'm a feminist. And I'm also uncomfortable around sex. But but but I think it's true in life. Like if somebody else's wedding, you would be unless you are, you know, a relative of the bride and wants to drive that person crazy or any grooms persons. You they groom they you should shut the fuck up and and go along.

get along because it's somebody else's event. So me realizing we were committed to a trip that didn't turn out too great before we left. But once you're there, what are you going to do? Are you going to be a drag the whole time? You know what I mean? I don't know. That gets to that point, though, of it's not always about you. I don't know. But then even as I was saying that, though, Alex, I was realizing, and you don't need to soothe me here, that is a very privilege is the wrong word but that's you know like you say to like could you say that to like

like a cute 15 year old girl like hey you should go work at this restaurant where you're going to be abused and not have humanity it's like oh well actually you know that's a formula and a recipe that i'm mostly trying to avoid but i'm glad somebody kicked my ass a little bit i am this

Alexis not a self-soothing it is a it's a merlin soothing factual yeah yeah you you are self-soothing but it's not always about you and those are situations that some people you are never going to experience it but uh a lot a lot of people have like just being prepared for being sexually harassed whether it be at a mcdonald's or at a fortune 500 company and i i don't have that experience with a fortune 500 company or uh working at mcdonald's um yeah if anybody wants

What are Fortune 500 companies anymore? Is it just over, like they're valued at over 500 billion or something? I don't know.

MerlinI mean, I think it's what it says on the tin. I think it's a company. So there's the Fortune N companies, like Fortune 50, Fortune whatever. And it's my understanding that every year they evaluate which companies. I don't know if it's income or profit or what, but like here's the top 500 companies. And it's just something douchebags say. So, look, if you feel like you don't know, don't worry. I think a lot of people don't.

Alexit's a very it's a seat one a-hole kind of thing yeah i think there are also the people who decide who are the 30 under 30s and now i i've failed i'm no longer did i fail if you could if you don't

Merlintruly don't want that i don't i don't know i think my only hope is going to be in like the 250 under 250 the oh god man because i mean i need a high number like an implausibly high number and a lot of slots. And to do the bit, they have to be the same number. I do feel like, and just to take this from an angle, something I said before, but I have really, surprisingly, as somebody who's not real into American military might, I have really enjoyed working with people who are veterans, or people who've been in, actually joined or were drafted into the armed services.

It's difficult to explain without sounding like I'm saying, thank you for your service, but And I don't know. There's just there. It seems like there are certain kinds of folks on that spectrum of like on the one end, like just give me a shovel or a broom and point me. Like tell me what to do to make this good. Thinking about the team and the goal. And I'm not talking about like Navy SEALs here. I'm like talking about like a friend of mine that went to VMI and then served out his, you know, term in the Navy to like basically pay off free college. But, you know, and he was kind of he was a little too colorful for his own good.

AlexOh, so personality in the military?

MerlinWell, but for example, in our office, this is not the kind of thing you were really encouraged to do, is he had discovered, I think through me, that there's an app you could get for your Mac that would let you associate sounds with almost any event on the Mac. So like, you know, if you got into office mail, it might go, you know, Petit Lavash or whatever, or a lot of money. But he associated a, I'm probably going to say this wrong, so apologies for my Second Amendment ignorance, a machine gun being shot with each keystroke.

AlexOh, wow.

MerlinSo, you know, but like he wasn't doing it. He was doing it to be annoying. He wasn't doing it to be threatening, which is because it was a different time. It was the 90s. But like I always like that. And why am I saying this? because I think there is something, you know, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman is going to get your mind right about understanding, like, you're not even allowed on this obstacle until you can be part of this cohesive unit. You know what I mean? And, like, that's the part I mean is, like, at the other end of that spectrum, though, is people, like, to be honest, me, who left to my worst devices will try to figure out, oh, interesting, a thing happened in the world.

How do I make it all about me? And that's just, I don't know. I don't think it's wholesome, and I don't think it's helpful. And that's really all. But I got this new Zoom, so we'll see how it goes.

AlexA new Zoom?

MerlinThat's what I was trying to tell you when you kept saying you couldn't see me. I was sitting there in your waiting room. I'm sorry. I was in the waiting room. I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait.

AlexYeah. Okay. What was the issue, Jazzboy?

MerlinThat was a Fugazi reference, Alex.

AlexYeah. A Fugazi?

MerlinYou've heard Fugazi? I'm sorry.

AlexI have, but...

MerlinOr as you say, Fugazi?

AlexThat's what they do. That's what we call it in the lifestyle.

MerlinWhoa, really? Oh, Fugay. Oh, that's funny. That's a cocktail. I like that.

AlexOkay. Low bar. Low bar.

MerlinLow bar. Welcome, low bar. I am low bar.

AlexThat's also a place in the lifestyle.

Oh, all right. I'm genuinely, I'm back on the Zoom a whole lot these days.

MerlinWhy?

AlexWhat? Oh, because, all right, let's go into, oh gosh, I should open the dock. I make the joke that every episode is someone's first episode, but it turns out that that's true. And then I'm like, oh boy.

MerlinPeople are still giving it a shot on occasion?

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinThat's fun. That's nice to hear.

AlexAnd I'm like, oh, oh. and um and a lot of times it is like i know merlin won't see this but will you also tell tell him uh he he's really great and and i like the show you're not supposed to tell me things

Merlinlike that i thought we had i thought we had a accord a meeting of the minds i know i said no

Alexno i'm not going to i'll let him know that lots of people think his face is stupid i feel like

Merlinyou just i feel like you just did that yeah no no no no you're zooming in in a way no no oh i've

Alexgotta zoom in okay hold on after after fucking show i have a zoom question are you writing all

Merlinthis down alex because i am not i'm not writing all this down are you writing all this down i am

Alexindeed putting i'm not uh i'm talking about zooming in well let me just open a z i feel like you're

Merlinsliding down a a great very tall slide of open parentheses right now yeah i'm like oh it's like

Alexi'm at um what was it not adventure land um yep action park yeah and you're gonna get decapitated

Merlinin the swirly. Oh, God.

AlexLet's just say, right now I'm typing, zooming in on picture from Merlin. What? Of me. See, I'm making it all about me.

MerlinFrom Merlin. The one of us on the street? That one?

AlexNo, no, no. But the...

MerlinWhat are you talking about?

AlexI've been in... Okay, all right. Let's close.

MerlinDid you just put a pin in that? What was that?

AlexThat's for the after show. actually for the after show. But okay, all right, let's close the parentheses on why I'm on Zoom a lot. But first we need to... Hi, my name is Alex Cox. And right now I'm...

MerlinHas Matt been looking concerned about you lately? No. Out of curiosity?

AlexWell, some people might notice that sometimes I talk real fast and don't make a lot of sense.

MerlinWell, you're Zooming a little bit and that's not really my concern. But give me some paper out and I'm going to write things down in case I ever need to testify in court.

AlexNah, that...

MerlinTell me a little bit about the events of a Wednesday, August 18th.

AlexDid that start out as a typical day for you?

MerlinYeah, it did. It was pretty straightforward. And then my friend's ass just slid down so many open parentheses. And I don't think they are going to climb back up the parentheses.

AlexOh, boy. I'm going to do a scoot back up. It'll be fine.

MerlinYou do you. I'm totally here. I got lots of pictures of tall women.

AlexOh, I didn't realize the context. in which that was. I just thought you were looking.

MerlinHere's what my concern is. I just put this on Twitter.com. Don't worry. It'll probably disappear by the time you hear this. But because and I'll tell you about this. Well, if we talk about it and why this interests me. But what's crazy is that like some of these photos. So basically, I came across. No. I just said to my friend, Matt, do you come with a ladder?

Anyway, that's pretty funny. I just made my own joke again here. laughed about it in my head. But what's crazy is like, so there's the toot where I said, oh my gosh, I'm prepping for a dude on Friday and these pictures of three actual photos of three tall actresses with like small to normal sized men, including the friend of the show, Harvey Weinstein. But in discovering these photos, I think I just searched for tall actress, thinking like who am I missing here? I definitely got Brienne of Tarth. I got the new Princess Diana. I'm already jumping ahead,

aren't I? And this other woman who's very statuesque. Now, I know in that case, Sarah Jessica Parker is not a tall person, but it's still pretty bananas. But that led me into this thing. And so, you know, there's like the thing on the Internet, the sexy thing of like guys who like very, very large women, like giantesses.

AlexYou know, that's a thing, right? I didn't until I opened that lovely Google. And it sure is. It's like a thing more than a feet thing. Well, yeah, we talked about that.

MerlinIt's the dirty feet that bother me. I mean, a foot can be fine, but I don't like the dirty feet. But anyway, there's this photograph here where somebody's done a little work, and it's the actress and singer Zendaya with the actor Tom Holland. And they've had some fun with the Delta between them. Did you happen to see it? It's on the internet, so I'll just send it to you. And this is where I'm saying this is the day that I realized Zendaya is actually three children in a trench coat.

But it's really, it's kind of upsetting to me. and I think that gets to why I find this stuff so interesting is that it is upsetting. Now that's a, here's the problem though. Other ones, far as I know, were real. This one, far as I know, is not real. I don't, Tom Holland is a gymnast, but I don't think he's that small of a gymnast. We'll put this in show notes.

AlexI see what you're saying. So yeah, he's about like Tom Cruise side.

MerlinThree feet tall? Is he three feet tall? Because I don't think she, how tall is she?

AlexAlexa, how tall is Zendaya?

MerlinFive, nine. got him one she's 5'9 and there's a photo of her 130 130 5'9 130 she looks like she weighs about 90

Alexpounds the statuesque is she's very light she's very slight as my family used to say

Merlinoh my god those and i'm not trying to shame her she's very attractive but i just have to

Alexlike i think about wearing those i think you mentioned this wearing those fucking heels and like you have to next to if you're in the Spider-Man movie.

MerlinDepending on where you check. So what's happening is they announced some casting for the next season of The Crown. And so the queen will be played by Dolores Umbridge, which is awesome. And McNutty! Isn't that her name? The lady with the angry mean pens. Isn't that her?

AlexNo, I got ahead of myself. I'm just very excited about McNutty.

MerlinMcNutty? McNutty? Yeah. one for your narrow Irish ass McNutty is going to be Prince Charles and Princess Diana we had heard this casting if you're following the crown like I do in the trades there was this super cute girl in the last season who I just fell in love with I loved that actress so much and we'd heard at some point that this other actress whose name is escaping me had been cast and that she's very tall so that's a thing they're working with what I didn't realize is she's 6 foot 3 inches tall the same height as Brienne of Tarth

which is tall. And then I don't know who this other lady is, but unless that's a fake, well, the Zendaya does not look real to me. But can you imagine being 6'3", and she does wear a lady's high heels sometimes. So she's, I think she's, can you imagine, I said this to you yesterday. Remember what I said? I said to you, can you imagine being a woman who is 6'3", you'd just be running into stuff all the time. And you'd just be so, and especially if you're like super, let's be honest, super cute like this actress, you must just get gawked at constantly. I'm gawking and I'm here in California.

AlexYeah, that's well, someone I my cousin is six, two, a female, a female birth person. Yes. Yes. And she was like, you know, I mean, when I'm not wearing heels, it's fine. But when I have to wear heels because she's a big, fancy business, literally a big, fancy business.

She's like, it's just like being in middle school all over again.

MerlinYou're not doing it as a power thing. you're doing it as a dress code thing. Same with Famke Johnson. Famke Johnson. If you ever look at her in those X-Men movies, she's always in like a kitten heel. Because I believe she's six feet tall. Hugh Jackman is 6'2", even though Wolverine is supposed to be 5'2".

AlexHe's a little baby. A big fat baby.

MerlinWell, he's supposed to be 5'2". And so that bums me out a little bit.

AlexThat's right.

MerlinOh yeah, he's a little guy. But because of his adamantium, he actually weighs I think like 1,000 pounds now.

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinI'm not shaming. I'm not shaming. But I did want to talk about large people and why I find it so fascinating.

AlexI mean, I mentioned to you, I have I literally can't count the number of friends I've had who have not like.

MerlinDon't use the word. That's like saying the N word.

AlexIt's not the same word. That's the worst word.

MerlinComparing it to a word you can't say, that's the worst word.

AlexOh, gosh. I hope John Mulaney is happy. He's a tall boy.

MerlinI do, too. I do, too. I saw a thing on Google News that he's doing some kind of multi-night stand, record-breaking multi-night stand. I hope he's happy, and I hope he's never canceled.

AlexI considered going to that show until America decided the pandemic was over, and then – I don't know what that noise was.

MerlinWell, to quote Chef from Apocalypse Now, a movie I like to quote sometimes because I'm a middle-aged man, and I can't use Fight Club all the time, Never get out of the boat. That's my feeling at this point. My feeling is never get out of the boat. I'm staying in the boat forever now. I'm going nowhere.

AlexYeah. Oh.

MerlinBecause remember, he gets attacked by a tiger. No spoilers, but he goes in the jungle and there's a tiger and he gets freaked out. And then he jumps back in the boat and says, never get out of the boat. Never get out of the boat.

AlexNever get out of the boat. I did. I mean, I ordered the big boy masks because, you know, we don't know how. I don't want to make it.

MerlinAre you talking about like can't? We got a bunch of KN95s. Is that what you're talking about?

AlexWe have a bunch of KN95s.

MerlinWhat's a big boy mask? Is that like the helmet you like to wear in funny photos?

AlexNo, that's a great one. But no, like the N95 OSHA approved because, I mean.

MerlinSometimes I'll be that guy and admit privately to my friends that I find it very difficult to breathe. Well, that's the point. When we had to fly, we were wearing them on the flight. And I found myself at cross purposes, like basically grabbing the thing off the bridge of my nose and being like, you know. Oh, also, by the way, my friend Nelson wrote this great post about going on a CPAP machine, dealing with a sleep apnea. I think I'm going to do it. I'm pretty pumped.

AlexOh, interesting.

MerlinI'll send it to you. I'll put it in notes. Nelson wrote this great post about it, and he made it sound like something that's doable. And it includes, in a Matt Howey-like way, includes product recommendations, which always gets my attention. I took you way off what you were doing. I should close the Zendaya thing. That probably shouldn't be up.

AlexNo, I'd love it.

MerlinShe's in The Greatest Showman. She is lovely. She's in that. She's like a trapeze girl in that.

AlexI still haven't seen that. You know what? I love Wolverine in almost everything he's in.

MerlinHe's great in Oklahoma. Wait, no, you hate West Side Story. You don't hate Oklahoma, though, right?

AlexI don't hate West Side Story.

MerlinYeah, you do. But do you like Oklahoma?

AlexFor what it is.

MerlinIt's July and we're running out of ice. You know what I'm saying? When he comes sweeping down the plane?

AlexI love Sondheim is what I will say.

MerlinDicks and Ducks. He didn't write that.

AlexI know. That's.

MerlinHmm.

AlexOh, boy. It's fine.

MerlinI watched all that jazz on a plane with the sound off. It was amazing. Oh. I love that movie. You ever seen it?

AlexNo. I'm thinking of, wait, all that jazz. I'm thinking of.

MerlinYeah, directed by Bob Fosse, about Bob Fosse, starring Roy Scheider and Ryan King. and it's a very interesting movie.

AlexIs this a documentary?

MerlinNo, no, drama film? It's basically about him, his life falling apart and having a massive, massive, massive heart attack. And Jessica Lange plays an angel in it and it's very interesting. The music's great, the dancing's great, Roy Scheider's great, Showtime folks.

AlexOh, 1979.

MerlinYeah, yeah, yeah. Because he'd been directing a lot. And it covers this in the movie through sort of a Romanoclay. Like he's editing the Lenny Bruce movie. You know, he did Cabaret. He directed that, I believe.

AlexOh, the Pajama Game. Damn Yankee. Oh, I forgot.

MerlinOh, yeah, but that's back when he was a dancer. He was a dancing man. Tiny dancing man.

AlexA light and low for his dancing man or literal dancing man? I don't know. Oh, he was a choreographer. Wow.

MerlinThat's his gig, yeah. And that's where he met Gwen Verdon, played by that lady. and he was Sam Rockwell in the Hulu show about them. Fosse Verdon.

AlexOh, God. Old moves are crazy.

MerlinWe need to bone you up. We need to bone you up on Bob Fosse. Want to be boned up on Bob Fosse?

AlexThis is a man who can pull off a fedora and there's like six people who can do that.

MerlinIt's interesting. He gets, understandably gets a lot of the credit for that look and that pop. He understood that this bowler hat could be, you know, like sort of like a, not a fedora with safari flaps, mind you, but like this bowler hat and these gloves and like, and the angles, like you can create these really kind of outlandish high contrast things. But I also know for a fact, for example, that Gene Kelly deliberately wore, and maybe Fred Astaire, but definitely Gene Kelly, I believe wore slightly high water pants with white

socks and black shoes so that you get, you know what I mean? The shape, the outline, the pop of like seeing his body.

AlexYeah, yeah. I don't know why I know that.

MerlinI aspire to dress like Bob Fosse, though. He's very into cuffs. He'll do a big cuff with a boot for pants. He'll do a big cuff rolled up with a shirt, and he's just smoking, smoking, smoking all the time, Bob Fosse. Roy Scheider's great in that movie.

AlexI am a big cuffer. Big, big cuffer.

MerlinI'm a big cuffer. I'm a big cuffer. I bought some Safari, not Safari Flaps, but those shirts, like SPF 50 shirts because I burn like a baby.

AlexWait, a T-shirt that has built-in UV protection?

MerlinYes, but not a T-shirt. They're more like sometimes they're called a fishing shirt or a beach shirt. But like if you go Google SPF shirt, you'll see these. And I always get those when I travel. I needed some new ones. And they come with those like kind of Indiana Jones style. Like there's a loop to hold your sleeve up.

AlexOh, I love these.

MerlinSo you look like you're just that belongs in a museum kind of thing, you know.

AlexWell, this also, I think, would make me look as if I worked out. And like this is.

MerlinAnybody who does that looks kind of tough. Yeah.

AlexYeah, exactly. And it's like, yeah, I might be a douchebag, but I'm not afraid to wear this in public, especially like one of one of them with the with the hoods.

MerlinThat's a hallmark of the douchebag is not being afraid to wear it in public.

AlexOh, it's true. It's true.

MerlinI took you off your point, didn't I?

AlexI don't remember what it was. What did you were talking about your fancy news? Oh, I was talking about why I'm on Zoom a bunch, because the hospital program I'm in is all over Zoom, because what I'm doing is considered...

MerlinIs that still efficacious for you?

AlexYes, which is very... Hi, new listeners of Dubai Friday. Sabbatical from work for mental health things, because bipolar and membrane chemicals weren't great. Were awesome during the pandemic. Not awesome. Better than normal during the pandemic. But happy...

MerlinOh, yeah. I mean, I'm becoming much more comfortable with admitting that I like the pandemic better.

AlexYeah.

MerlinIt's not even a thing I'm going to try to cover up anymore. Yeah. No, not at all.

AlexThere's dozens of us. Dozens.

MerlinYes.

AlexBut, and my brain sort of broke even more when I lost my, I don't know if I've talked about it on this show. I lost my tolerance for being stared at and my tolerance for slurs and for being doxxed. And if you're listening, please stop writing fag on our door or on our garage door. It's really hard to get off, even though it's chalk. It's really hard. I will pay you. I'm going to tap.

I should tape $20 to my garage door and say for fags only. That'll work. Anyway.

MerlinDo you suspect it's – I mean, because I hope nobody's canceling important events to make time to write fag on your door.

AlexI mean, that's –

MerlinThat seems like a not particularly healthy or busy person.

AlexWell, I mean, kids aren't in school, so what else are we going to do?

MerlinIs there an action you feel is supposed to come out of that?

AlexOf what?

MerlinLike, are they, is that, it's not like it says, hey, F word, you know, get out of town. In a real threatening kind of KKK way. It sounds like it's just a way to say, like, this particular door likes men.

AlexIt is a kids being kids who are probably particularly shittier than most.

MerlinWell, you guys should stop doing that. That's not a nice thing to do. They should stop that.

AlexYeah, it's not a nice thing to do. No, no, no. The whole death threat things have stopped. But, oh man, having a therapist just who knows what Gamergate is, is like the best. It's like, okay, listen.

MerlinOh, that's so interesting.

AlexTo explain what is happening in my life, it goes back to 2014 and the far right.

MerlinRight. But like, it must be, it must be, this seems like, and I'll just tell you something you must already know, which is that, I guess maybe it's always been this way where there's these generational divides, where like, for example, take as recently as a few years ago, at least circles I run in, you're still having these huge debates about kids and screen time. And now I, for one, am like, oh, God, thank God for screens. And don't be an idiot. Like, screens are how we do things. Like, it always has been, but now we have been forced to admit that. So what about you and your screen time?

Does that mean like you don't do work over Zoom anymore? But your kid has to be, you know what I mean? There's that stuff. But in your instance, like if you would, well, somebody, I'm not trying to talk about you here, but somebody your age could go in and say, oh my God, there's this crazy stuff happening on Instagram right now that's making me extremely uncomfortable. And it's not cyber bullying, you know, because that's a term you learned 10 years ago and now you use it a lot. But like what you, I guess, call parasocial stuff, but where it must be difficult to try and explain how just because you don't understand my life doesn't mean it's not my life.

Like, I know you think this thing is strange and exotic and easy to just stop using or whatever, but that's not really viable and it reflects your own biases, probably slightly from an age and class standpoint. But like you don't you don't get this. You know what I mean?

AlexYeah, if you're a 40-year-old man who's never worked in, like, tech or games, it's just not, well, it's not something you've experienced, but it's also, it comes across as, there must be something wrong with you if you just talk so glibly about this. like i i don't know i don't mean it like that um i guess casually like things that were it's it's not that it's terrible it sucks it totally sucks but unfortunately it is such a common thing like

we used to uh during gamer gate it was like oh you lost your death threat virginity congrats because that's that's the way that was just the way to deal with it is when there was no physical like there was some very like horrifying things that when people were doxed and you know trying to swat one another um but yeah you know uh the and it's just horrible but um because anyway because

I'm on this sabbatical from work, getting all of my meds adjusted, and it's been great.

MerlinHas it been going since our last check-in? Do you feel like it's going okay?

AlexYeah.

MerlinWe had your slightly concerning incident, what, a month and a half ago, something like that? Oh, yeah. But you feel like it's going okay now?

AlexYeah. I'm okay calling it a nervous breakdown at this point. because stop telling people what they can call. I'm going to get in trouble. But no, my brain.

MerlinI showed you when I sent you that photo of me setting up a little desk in our quote unquote hotel room that was working on updating my list of wisdom, which I've decided is a project for me. And it relates to our project or excuse me, our challenge, or as you say, topic for today. I'm using that to put my wisdom list together. And, you know, one of the things I said in there that I really believe is something, I put it better than this because I'm a better writer than speaker, unfortunately for you guys,

but something like, you know, be careful how often you tell somebody that their negative feelings are wrong because people don't like being told they're a liar.

AlexYep.

MerlinEverybody likes you. What do you mean everyone likes you? Jerry, who wouldn't love you?

AlexYou never call.

MerlinYou see the world wrong because it would make me sad and doubt myself if, you know what I mean? Stop telling people their feelings aren't real. Feelings are real. I put it on. I put it on. I put up a gist. I temporarily put up a gist, but I'm going to put it fully in Obsidian.

AlexOoh, you know what?

MerlinIt's a gist. I put things in gists. Gists.

AlexOoh, gists. I've been doing the same thing, but with, um, like, uh, a lot of the stuff for, um, like, like I, I, my brain, my brain broke. Um, I was like, I would like to be in, uh, in, uh, not quite a hospital, but I need to help. I need some help fixing the brain, please. And I finally, like my big boy psychiatrist was like, I think that you would be great for this program.

And this is the first time in my life I've done group therapy where they recognize the outside world. Like the last time I was in group therapy, what was going on? It was definitely, the Iraq war was definitely still happening. the second one afghanistan war yeah the who remembers these days there's also like you know shootings but he was like the outside world didn't exist and there is a time and place for that when you're getting physical or mental health um but the like program that i'm in which is called php

not the annoying language uh it's called partial hospitalization program which basically means you are um in therapy and working with doctors all day and in my case um like especially brain um like chemical chemical stuff um but also it's first time i've ever had a thing where we like i can't imagine going into therapy and not talking about covid and that is a thing apparently that people

Merlinare still experiencing like um they're in in the sense of like they don't want to talk the therapist

Alexdoesn't want to talk about it no no no it is discouraged from being talked about yeah i don't i realize i'm not explaining this because it's just absolutely wild to me give a sense of why why it's discouraged um it is it is because no no no there's there's the idea of well focus on you because you can't control the external world. Yeah, I did not. I'm only being vague because I feel bad at talking about an experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MerlinYou're not supposed to. What happens in PHP stays in PHP. Oh, no.

AlexNo, that's the thing. Because it's like, yeah, I'm not going to disclose anybody's personal

Merlininformation. Who's doxing now?

AlexYeah, exactly. I know, I know.

MerlinYou were born in the

Alexharassment. I mean, I will.

We've talked about PTSD and a decade ago, I was also voluntarily hospitalized. I was like, hey, my bipolar brain broken. Help, please. And it did not go well at all. So I was a big scaredy pants to do that again. But it's been wonderful, especially because my biggest PTSD thing is being like physically being at a hospital.

MerlinSure. Oh, my God. And that affects your the things in your hallway and stuff like that. So I'm not trying to be triggery, but no, no.

AlexAnd oh, God, that's that's one of the best things we can. we recognize that triggering is triggers are is a dumb way to say it it doesn't make sense like it's not it doesn't make sense but it means something different now yeah no it's it is a it

Merlinis a i mean it's a bummer that there's something god i it sucks to be a word guy um but yeah it really um it's a bummer that that's become the thing that like leads to all the eye rolls and it's just more like well you think of it another way you know one reason we don't use that n-word is because that's a, when you say that to somebody, like, you're re-traumatizing that person. You know what I mean? Like, and I'm not trying to, I feel like I'm doing that little sort of Hitler come up with the Godwin's law thing here or whatever.

But no, I mean, like, just don't do stuff to people that make them have to re-experience crummy stuff that's happened to them. Like, that's a reasonable thing to do. I'm trying to figure out how to do it. I don't know. I'm trying to figure out how to do that in a way that's really, like, useful.

Alexit is it's important though that's the thing it's hard because it is there are very things there are various things that are obviously upsetting to people like uh watching the noose

Merlinsometimes when i was a little kid and you go to a disney movie and parents die yeah pretty much every disney movie and like i i had a couple things you know uh kind of go the wrong way for me as a kid and i'd find that very upsetting i don't know if i call it a trigger but i did not treasure going and seeing things where a young boy's father died it did not it did not please

Alexme yeah i can't imagine why you know watching well no no no but i'm not i'm not trying to you

Merlinknow i'm not trying to be dramatic about it but i mean no that's the that's the you know what i'm

Alexgonna go go all therapists you know how we do i do the gender i'll do the emotional labor thing of like saying that you have PTSD all the time is like saying you are hungry all the time. And also I didn't steal this. I came, I was thinking about this last night because I'm like, no, I don't actually have any PTSD because it's not my every waking thought how much I.

MerlinDo you think that's what it takes?

AlexNo, it doesn't take that because it's like saying you're never.

MerlinI imagine it's extremely situational.

AlexYes. Yeah. Which is why I'm getting help for that because yeah, that's a silly thing to think because there are degrees of everything just like there are degrees of triggers and um the word that this program uses is uh like if something activates you in which also sounds super dumb like i recognize the winter soldier yeah yeah but but it's like but it's also like both ways like someone who say is quite manic and talks really fast on a podcast because they've had

some caffeine and also some Claritin D. But or something that you realized was upsetting to you. And that was you are like, oh, I don't want to talk about this in group therapy. I want to talk about it to my main person.

MerlinIt's also it's also hard for I think for people to realize or accept. Oh, God. Again, I watch so much of The Office in my quote unquote hotel room and includes the one where it's the one where there's the guy in the turban the it guy and and i forget it what it's from a really good run of the office but michael's saying something like you know like what's your religion and the guy's like well i i like to do this and i like to do that and i like comic books but you know i'm i'm a seek he goes okay so he's a seek the whole point of what he just did was

like like trying to like distill this guy down to the one like how are you most different from me kind of way. But in that same way that we come up with one label for people, I'm not trying to sound deep, but like I think, and then thinking of another comedy thing I saw recently where somebody said, I'm going to sue you. And you say, you guys says, you can't see me. I'm already being sued. That would be double jeopardy. Well, that's not what double jeopardy means. That's the joke. And that's why it's funny is that, well, just because you have one thing doesn't mean you don't have another thing. You know what I mean? It's, you can have, in my case, like realizing that,

hey, it's not just that I've got anxiety. I've got anxiety and I've got depression. And I've got other health problems that are chronic. You don't just have this one thing and then, I don't know, I'm not sure if this is making any sense, but I'm not even trying to get to the complexity of dealing with a multi-system problem. It's just more like, hey, we're all really confusing balls of meat. And just because you found the label you find most convenient for your sorting box does not mean that I should feel compelled to perform in a way that conforms

Alexto that. And if that doesn't make sense to people, I think that's not sad or not that there's a judgment against it. But if you if the only communities you've been a part of have that sort of, you know, rigid definition and you feel like you have nowhere else to go. And I'm not even

Merlintalking about queer communities where you just define peace people mostly by why we exclude them

Alexfrom the tribe right yes exactly like um especially god i mean i feel for young dudes right now so much which is a very problematic thing to say but um how do you mean it's uh because people are like well there's no privilege and it's like yeah but do you really want a kid this long hauler who like does that privilege is awesome let's use it so that you know oh god the socialism just

fully coming out oh um you oh merlin you also say i don't want to sound like an rand or that sounds like an rand and then then you say something that's nothing like an rand you give yourself

Merlintoo little credit anyway um well i'm doing that i'm partly doing that thing where i'm trying to preemptively excuse myself from people who will deliberately try to misunderstand me, which I should know is a fool's errand. But sometimes I do it anyway. Everyone should follow my friend Allison. And one day I'm going to officially, even though I am personally acquainted with her and I'll hang out with her, I will eventually figure out how to pronounce her last name. But I think it's a ghostie. But boy, she's such a good follow. I'm trying to get my kid to follow her. And I think if you don't, you should. Oh, my God. Let's see. I have to take some sexual harassment class for work as though I don't already know how

to do it.

AlexOh, those are my favorite.

Merlinit. This one's terrific. Ever notice that when you're single, all you see are couples? And when you're in a couple, there's a procession of spiders and rats and crows that follow you around until you break up?

Inception is a great movie because it's about a bunch of hot dudes taking a nap together instead of going to therapy.

AlexShe's so good! God.

MerlinPutting that in notes. The other thing I was going to find for notes, oh yeah, Nelson and his sleep machine. that sounds like a children's book i'm putting allison in here um i'm probably gonna do the wrong bit and you can throw it back to me if you want to do the real bit about money are you ready okay okay um hey alex where would people find show notes for episode 252 of your due by friday

Alexprogram oh i mean i like to think of it as our our program together equally distributed

Merlinum and you can find that doesn't stop you from having the unicorn lady on to make me on a screen

Alexapparently the uh yeah that was afterwards i'm like oh no no no no no no i'm joking hey oh no okay fine in the game in the game yeah um if if you uh don't want to just have a a sims version of merlin man and you actually enjoy listening to this show every week uh you can go to our patreon which is oh that was okay i thought you're gonna throw me for that i was just

MerlinI was doing the other bit. So you go to Dubai Friday.

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinTell people why.

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah. Show notes. No, go ahead and do it.

MerlinYou're better at it. Go ahead.

AlexNo, I'm not. I'm, oh gosh. Go to Dubai Friday. No, what is it? Patreon.com slash Dubai Friday. Or an easier thing to remember, giveusyourfuckingmoney.com.

MerlinGiveusyourfuckingmoney.com. We got the dot com for that.

AlexYes. And it's.

MerlinIt was joeroganpodcast.club. What is it?

AlexYes. I just keep buying.

MerlinHe has very upsetting nipples. I don't like to shame people about their bodies, but I don't know. What are you going to do?

AlexSome people should be ashamed.

MerlinSee, I believe that. I got in a lot of trouble a week or so ago for believing that when people are terrible, they should sometimes be told that they're terrible. It's not a thing I do a lot, but I do think there are times, especially if one feels, as I did in that instance, a lot of hostility. And it's the thing I'm trying to teach my kid not to be a dick, but to go like, hey, just be aware. There are people in life who are going to try to push you around and get you to be somebody whom you're not. You've got to be careful of those folks.

AlexI remember when we all got in trouble for laughing at the statue of Trump that had a tiny dick. And it's like, OK, yeah, it's really fucking funny. And I still think about if I ever met.

MerlinOh, we need to talk about your racism about micropenises.

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinIt looks like a man made of butter, a gold butter man. Gold butter man.

AlexAnd it's because he... It's funny. I can't believe we have to explain a joke. It's funny because this is something that one of the biggest bullies in the world is so self-conscious about, but still hates other people and thinks that manhood is defined by a dick. And if I ever met him, I would just say terrible slurs to him because you can't reason with someone like that.

MerlinDid you see Allison's video with the dogs in it?

AlexNo. Oh, good dog.

MerlinSee, she showed it to Machi if you haven't.

AlexAnother good dog. Oh.

MerlinI'm going to send this to you. I'd like you to look at it. That's you. I'm clicking. So there's a new thing I do. When I'm doing a podcast with somebody, I leave in the background the messages with all the different people in it. And then I click, click, and I open you in a new window. And I have just you in the front and bigger than the others.

AlexOh, wait. You can do that. Oh, there we go.

MerlinYeah. So I don't actually send stuff to my family and stuff like that.

AlexOpen conversation. Separate window.

MerlinI'll put this in notes too. When you realize your friends are toxic, but you just have to get through this girl's trip. It's like in notes.

Isn't that a sweet face?

AlexI just love what these, like the zoo men on the retrievers.

MerlinYou guys can go see this, but there's two huskies on a bed howling balefully and a, what would you call that? Not a golden. Golden retriever. Golden retriever. who's just like, huh, she's just like smiling.

AlexI was like, I got this, I got this.

MerlinNow, via Darth, did you see the dog at the laundromat? Did you see the dog who sits on the washroom?

AlexYes, I did.

MerlinAnd then it has a friend. It has a friend. I discovered it's in San Francisco, like I think Darth is. I'm not going to find out. But we were going to go there. We're going to see if we can go find the dogs at the laundromat because I need those dogs.

AlexI love when places have dogs.

MerlinI do, too. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

AlexLike, I know how we can escalate to a Silicon Valley situation where everybody has a dog. But nuance, people. There can be nuance.

MerlinJust look at the stallions.

AlexOh, God. And then what's her name?

MerlinGort. Gort. Is that her name?

AlexGort.

MerlinGort. Gort, right? I love her so much. I love those glasses. Oh, my God. Well, let's see where we are. We should allow some time for some after show. I don't think we have time to get too far into large women. I just wanted to say, all I wanted to say, apropos of nothing, I wanted you to see these large women, large adult women, because I think it's very interesting that they're so large. And I just wanted to say that I've had a lifelong fascination with, well, you know what it is growing up with the Guinness Book of World Records? I was obsessed with, you know, extremity, I think.

AlexOh, that is.

MerlinRobert Pershing Wadlow. You know what I'm saying? Robert Earl Hughes. Later on, Walter Hudson. You know? Lucia Zarate, I believe her name was. Remember the Mexican girl, the woman who looked like a doll? Do you remember her?

AlexNo.

MerlinNo. Oh, do you?

AlexI do remember the woman with the longest fingernails, which-

MerlinOh, no. I hated that.

AlexAlways upset me very much. I mean, I'm very impressed with her and her accomplishments, but that is not-

MerlinI was obsessed with Walter Hudson when I was in college. There was a Parade magazine feature on Walter Hudson, and my friend Chris and I, who were smoking a lot of pot at the time became utterly obsessed with Walter Hudson. And I can still tell you what he ate every day.

AlexOh, this guy.

MerlinYeah, when his family would go and get him food at McDonald's he'd have four Big Macs, four double cheeseburgers, eight large orders of fries and a quarter Coke.

AlexOh, wow.

MerlinI committed it to memory. I couldn't remember much about Plato's Republic, but I remember that quarter Coke.

AlexOh.

MerlinGoogle Lucia Zarate.

AlexWhat is it?

MerlinL-U-C-I-A.

AlexYeah, Z-A-R. Z-A-R.

MerlinAnd it'll fill in.

AlexPops up right away. Good images.

MerlinThis is a fascinating person. This is, now we're into some serious, like, Ricky Jay territory.

AlexOh, yeah, this is, um, she is.

MerlinShe was 24 inches tall.

AlexYeah, a character from American Horror Story is based off of her.

MerlinOh, is that right? Okay.

AlexYeah, and now I'm realizing that Walter Hudson is probably the inspiration for Bart being like –

MerlinYep, when Bart's got that, I wash myself with it. Yes, that's absolutely right.

AlexRag on a stick.

MerlinHe would – I memorized the entire Parade article essentially. And then my friend and I, we had a Fisher-Price Pixel Vision camera that I got and we went to the grocery store and did a short documentary on Pixel Vision of what Walter had eaten a day. And yeah, so he would read the Bible, and he would braid his hair like his Native American ancestors. And they called him Uncle Pappy. They loved him very much.

AlexGosh, I know that I've truly stopped caring if people are mad at me.

MerlinHave you?

AlexOh, I have stopped caring if people are mad at me, but thinking about people being disappointed in me.

MerlinYes. Oh, so disappointing.

AlexThat's the thing. Like, just. And so, sorry for disappointing people for thinking that Walter Hudson is very funny. And also that he seemed.

MerlinI'm not saying that it's funny. I'm saying it's fascinating.

AlexBecause, no, it feels like he lived his best life.

MerlinThe cancel comic, who had the joke? It must have been Louis C.K. Had the joke about, like, I'm either going to have to lose a lot of weight or find a way to find this fascinating.

AlexYeah. No, he's just. I'm like those twins

Merlinand then they died magically. Bobby and Billy you're talking about. Yeah. But this guy just sounds

AlexI am fascinated. Because that was

Merlina photo from Guinness Book of World Records. That's why that's a Simpsons reference.

AlexThat is also a Family Guy reference that I didn't get until

MerlinBecause they would ride those little motorcycles together.

AlexYeah, the little tiny guy. Oh yeah, they do do that in The Simpsons too. Do do.

MerlinDo do that. Anyways, I'm just fascinated by extremity. And so, you know, you got Sandy Allen. I mentioned her. Split Ends have a song about her because she's from New Zealand.

AlexDo you have an arm thing? Okay, when I say an arm thing, I mean there are sometimes people with arms that contort in a certain way that some people find extremely upsetting. You're talking about Carl Havoc? No, no.

MerlinI'm just... Carl Havoc's arms are funny

Alexto me. What?

MerlinHave you been watching I Think You Should Leave? The one where the guy goes to the shopping mall and he's all dressed up in the makeup?

AlexI've been banned. I have to wait i i know but but what i uh was watching late last night um i got a well quote late i'm trying i'm trying to do a lot of things with my sleep but uh you're like white lotus and i i was just

Merlini was gonna mention that to you because oh my god um i mean i don't know first of all i had no idea that that was the guy from survivor that he did it all he wrote it except for starring it he wrote it he produced it he executive produced it he directed it the guy from the my famous gif i share all the time good luck him with the uh the glass of wine remember that when a couple other people decide to go out searching and he's drinking red wine getting a little drunk and he holds up the glass and goes good luck good luck oh um mike white because oh my god the emotional

labor like the stuff between jennifer coolidge i'm only on episode i'm partway through episode three on my wife's recommendation i'm i'm on episode one oh good okay but have you met jennifer

Alexcool it yet yes and i every i cannot yet explain why i adore it oh i know it's weird well the guy

Merlinfrom looking the guy from looking is amazing oh i know him from the casper movie i think the guy

Alexwith the mustache uh oh no wait who is he the like concierge guy yeah yeah yeah the guy who's

Merlinlike the head of like yeah yeah the concierge probably concierge he um he was in looking with King George, Jonathan Groff.

AlexOh, yep.

MerlinLooking at the show about the gay man in the Castro. And I think he is a real life gay man. And also, according to my wife, yes, he is actually from Australia. So he's been doing all that stuff with the, it's been American accents all the way down. Now we get to hear his real Australian accent. I love his character.

AlexI wonder, see, that's why I'm excited about McNutty. Like, I, we won't get to hear his real accent, but

MerlinBut also the woman, Lonnie, the woman with the stain on her blouse and like Her panic attacks. Oh, my God.

AlexShe is in another show that I recently discovered. Thank you, Mrs. Soup. Have you seen Superstore?

MerlinOh, not. I've seen a little bit because I'm a Kids in the Hall fan. And it's also got that guy from – it's got the guy – it's got Ron LaFlam's on it also, right? Okay.

AlexYes, yes. It was out of like –

MerlinDo you remember he's in the famous Mad Men scene where Don says to him, I never think of you? Do you remember that?

AlexI feel bad for you. I don't think about you at all. that's the dream

MerlinI think that's him that's Ron LaFleur

Alexyeah yeah yeah god there are so many people who like snuck into Mad Men dude how about

Merlinhow about the guy who I was never aware of until on Becoming a God in Central Florida the guy who plays what's her name's boss and he's also in Community he's all he's in one episode at least of Community we've gone back to Community finally it's so good but you know that guy the guy the balding kind of like big guy with the beard. Do you know what I'm talking about? He's also in... Oh, you know what else he's in? He's in... He's in... Shoot, shoot, shoot. Oh, Better Call Saul.

When Jimmy goes to the bar and he meets up with his old partner, the guy who does the $20 bill on the bottle. I love that actor. I didn't... This guy had no place in my life and now he's in like... Well, I guess somewhat importantly he's in three things that I really enjoy but I love him in particular in all three of them. So it's the episode of Community where Ken Jeong, he gets fired because they're learning never actually knew how to speak Spanish, let alone teach it, and he becomes a security guard. And he's working for that guy with a serious Minnesota accent. God, that show is funny. That show is so goddamn funny.

AlexAll the great shows. I'm actually now looking at Jared Harris, who is Lane. Still obsessed.

MerlinStill a little obsessed.

AlexI just, wow. That guy. Oh, that is one of the... There's a certain scene with Lane in Mad Men, and actually a whole episode that is one of the darkest and funniest.

MerlinOh, I'm sorry, Jared Harris. I apologize. I'm so sorry. I was confusing him with Jared from Silicon Valley. You're talking about Richard Harris' son.

AlexI like the other guy too.

MerlinRichard Harris' son, Jared, who is in Chernobyl in Mad Men and meets the same fate. He's the only actor I've ever known who's met the same kind of odd fate in two different things he's best known for.

Alexwait really oh oh okay i thought you meant like in real life i'm like remember how do you remember how chernobyl opens uh no i haven't seen chernobyl oh shit dog oh i got another one i got all right

Merlinnever mind sorry oh well it happens in the first like the first scene oh my god did you watch on

Alexbecoming a god in central florida the i got halfway through and then it disappeared from whatever

Merlinoh my god this cast is bananas i always forget cody bonar you remember the the the young guy who's like the...

AlexMm-hmm. That go-getter guy.

MerlinOh, my God. He's amazing. I think he's from, I want to say Quebec. I think he's totes like French-Canadian. The guy I'm talking about is named Mel Rodriguez and he plays Ernie and he's terrific. Oh, and there's a Skarsgård. Alexander Skarsgård. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. No. Doesn't quite scan. He's a Skarsgård too? Are they all related?

AlexNo.

MerlinIt can't be. His father's Stellan Skarsgård. He's Dr. Dr. Dr. What's his name? Dr. Selvig. He's Dr. Selvig's son from Avengers. Who's also in Chernobyl.

Do you know who Stellan Skarsgård is? Do you know who I'm talking about? No. Stellan Skarsgård has a son named Alexander Skarsgård.

AlexYes, he's the vampire.

MerlinThere's many things he hasn't done. There's many things he hasn't barred. Alexander Skarsgård. Now I got nothing. Stellan Skarsgård. You know what I'm putting in notes? I think you might need to watch you. Emma can't... Well, Emma's been a good sport about it, But I shouldn't talk out of school, but she doesn't like apocalyptic things, especially nuclear war things.

AlexOh, yeah. Especially when there's many things going on already. And yeah.

MerlinWell, second day of eighth grade today.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinOK. Watch Chernobyl. That's a Merlin. And that's in notes. And we should probably get to our challenge because I'm already running out of steam. How long have we been talking?

AlexThis audio hijack. Where are you? Oh, hooray. Hooray. This week's challenge was to, I think I said crack Obsidian just because I thought that was funny.

MerlinThe nouning and the verbing. Because it's a stone?

AlexYeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of the gay alien stones, too.

MerlinI wouldn't put that on your LinkedIn, but I'll allow it. The jerk store called and they're running out of you.

Alexthe obsidian is a note-taking app that um you know all of the cool tech kids are are using and i just kind of thought oh this is gonna be another notion where i try it and then i'm like this isn't for me but the thing with obsidian is it is a note-taking app completely built on Markdown files, individual Markdown files. So you can...

MerlinPlus other things, but like if you use and like Markdown, it's worth at least looking at... And I'm sorry, I totally interrupted you. I apologize. Go ahead.

AlexNo, it's just if you've been taking notes in Simple Text or Markdown for a decade, it is an awesome thing to use.

MerlinAnd so far anyway, it doesn't screw them up.

AlexIt hasn't for me. Like I tried to screw it up.

MerlinI mean, like back in the, I remember like, for example, back in the day, you know, I did all my web starting in 95. I started doing all my web page building in BBEdit. And then not long after that, some of the initial sort of WYSIWYG files or apps came along. I think starting with, I want to say, page mill, Adobe's page mill. You would get eventually front page by Microsoft. God, how do I remember these?

AlexDreamweaver.

MerlinOh, boy. Dreamweaver. Oh, my God. I had Dreamweaver. I had the one where you could do access databases with it.

AlexYou had the expensive one. My, my, my.

MerlinYeah.

AlexLook at you. Fancy.

MerlinWhen I steal, I steal well. Yeah. But the problem was, though, especially with front page, it would put so much garbage. And it used to be so cool because with some of these, including BBEdit and I want to say go live, you could do what was called round tripping, which was very novel at the time, which is you could build this stuff by hand, mostly by hand in BBEdit. And then you could make changes. You know what I mean? This sounds insane because it was a different time, but having a file open even or only just in two apps was either unheard of or one of the worst ideas you could imagine.

If two people were accessing the same FileMaker database, it might get corrupted. So the idea of having this open in BBEdit as it's open in another app would cause all kinds of clobbers to happen and confuse both of them very much. So what I'm getting at here is like, and so that's one of those, oh, lessons learned. Don't mix these things up. Like pick one. But now on a Mac, there's so much stuff like that. So you could, I have so far not run into a lot of clobbers or mess ups.

It does, unfortunately, when it syncs, it only syncs like when you open it. It does that like Apple Notes annoying thing. It's not really syncing in the background, right?

AlexYeah. Oh, I'm going to get yelled at. If you use Obsidian Sync, it does, which is their proprietary. I'm just using.

MerlinOh, yeah, I did that. I'm paying for that.

AlexOh, it should sync in the background.

MerlinNo matter what I buy, they want me to buy more things. That's one thing. It's encouraging me. I'm already like a silver tier guy for stuff and a catalyst thing.

AlexBut I love that. I love that.

MerlinYeah, no, I'm happy to pay for it. I don't know how this happened, but I got accepted to the sought after glass app today. I didn't really care, but I thought, oh, I should sign up. It's like, you're number 7,000. I guess, I don't know, somebody there who works there is nice and let me in. Thank you. But the first thing I did before I even opened, the second I opened it, I paid for it. Like, I like giving people money for software. It's a thing I like to do.

AlexEspecially if then that lets other people who can't afford that software still use it.

MerlinI don't even need a reason. I just, like, you know, I mean, I wish, I can't tell you how many copies of Weezer's First. I don't care if you like it or not. I like it. I can't tell you how many copies of Weezer's first album I've bought. Sometimes just because, as I've said with Amy Jane Gruber, sometimes I just don't want to go to a different room to get it. I'll just buy it again. I'm so happy to give Jonathan Colton money. Even if I didn't like Jonathan Colton anymore, I'd still buy his albums. Ted Leo, always going to buy his stuff. Just bought the new album on Dinosaur Jr. from Dinosaur Jr. a couple weeks ago from Bandcamp.

I love giving money to indies. It makes me happy.

Alexuh have you heard of the show about the show i'm trying i'm trying i'm pausing to try and understand the bit it's not i'm just curious i'm literally just curious no i don't know about the show about okay because it sounds like a bit it doesn't i'm i'm putting it put putting a pin in it um okay but the uh i i don't know i um we've we've kind of always talked about well you you have always talked about um just uh having everything live in plain text because it's

easy to find it's fast easy it's portable it's forgiving yes it's it's it's just uh it's one of

Merlinthose things where like you know everybody needs to find their little system for stuff and that's my little system and i was trying to think about this and like i guess we'll kind of well can i

Alexjump in for real quick on something do it do it i am here this is literally a challenge because i

Merlinwanted to hear you talk about oh no i mean i don't have that much to say but i um i had discovered this you talking about and i feel like david sparks has talked about a lot but the way that i most and i opened it once and went okay hmm i'm not really sure this feels like one of those i don't mean this as disparagingly as it sounds i almost need just should on the spot come up with a better word than junk drawer and everything app this isn't like an everything app this is kind of like this wants to be sort of like a dev and think or a curio or one of those like john

dickerson apps or one note you know what i mean we got everything in one place and i'm naturally a little bit um skeptical i guess the word is about those kinds of apps especially if they you know lock up your stuff especially if they're varyingly good or bad on different platforms you know what I mean I'm always like there's just a lot of stuff where I've played with those in the past and I do end up going back to text files and I'm not saying that as some kind of flex it's just that basic markdown and text files really does work for me and I love the idea of stuff like a

personal wiki and things like that but also like every bit that I add to this desperately pure system is something that could break in the future I mean the most catastrophic thing I run into and It's surpassingly rare these days, mostly, is Dropbox makes a copy and says this is a conflicted version of this with that. That's the biggest problem I get with my system now. And so, again, I don't have to go all the way back to BBEdit and PageMill to know that you can really screw yourself up. But, you know, the thing that got me interested in it, I'm going to talk him up again.

It's a pity we did not think to invite this man onto the show this week. If you're listening, Gabe from Mac Drifter, you are single-handedly the one that got me excited about this.

AlexSingle-handedly. You're the only one who did. Oh, God. I'm so glad his blog is back. So good.

MerlinWhat are you? What are you? Syracuse? What was that?

AlexI'm sorry. I want to be known for one thing. People know about the Flop House because of me. One thing. One thing. One thing. Flop. One thing.

MerlinNo, but his writing about it. And I just. Okay. Also, I just want to say, as long as we're passing and passing, is that I'm very, very glad that Gabe is writing at Mac Drifter again. I can't even tell you the... I'm not going to name names, but let's just say that over time, there's a real paucity, a real lack going on in my RSS feed, as more and more people have basically just given up and turned it into ads for other things they do, or their sponsors. It's like, I'm down to it. I mean, I'm almost down... The two that I look forward to,

not solely. Everybody, unknot your niggers. But Dr. Drang and Gabe. Gabe is my favorite person writing a blog right now. He's great. He's so good. You go to Mac Drifter. It'll be in notes. He's really, really good. And he's just, he ends up, he has, there's two people like in the last little while that I've really identified as, if I start noticing I'm starring and marking as unread a lot of one person stuff, that's a sign that I really look forward to what they're doing.

and Gabe and Dan Morin, Dan on Six Colors mostly, those are two people where I can't believe how often I either favorite Markazone Red or put into Instapaper and return to it. Dan, through all of this iOS 15 and this latest cycle since WWDC, he's been my favorite writer on that stuff. Gabe just always, I think we must be somewhat in a caress or a grandfilling because he's just always,

I mean, he's more technically adept than I am and he uses, like he can do Python things and I can't. But, you know, I just want to say Gabe because I think you used to listen to the show. Hi, Gabe. Somebody tell Gabe. I love him. And I'm really grateful that you wrote about this. But he had three posts I think I highlighted in our document here where, you read those, right?

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinHe makes a case for like more than just like, oh, this is another cool thing you can waste a day on. Like he really talks about like, this is how I think you should do a theme. This is the plugin. He doesn't say, it isn't one of those shovelware, shovel blog things of just like the top 35 tricks you didn't know about.

AlexThe top 15 plugins for Obsidian. Why Obsidian's better than Rome.

MerlinBest DVD ripper is DVD fap. Thanks, DVD fap. It's interesting that you put yours at the top. Oh, did you know that Handbrake can rip straight off a DVD now? I did not know that. I thought you still had to do Make MKV first.

AlexOh, I see.

MerlinI was trying to rip some SCTV yesterday. It didn't go great. but I was able to you could just use handbrake you just point it I didn't is that new because I feel like it used to be make mkv plus handbrake the handbrake took the dot whatever dot ts or dot

Alexyou know mkv or whatever has it always done that I don't know it's still easier to steal directly

Merlinanyway Gabe I'm so I'm so happy that uh rather than just stealing off my library's dvds but um hey, Gabe, you made me excited about this. Isn't he good?

AlexIt's so well. Just the angle he comes at things. God damn it.

MerlinHe's very sensible and focused, and I like his style of writing, and I like that one of the million reasons I would choose not to brag a lot these days is I know I would find myself constantly doing what we do on the show, which is incredibly annoying,

Alexwhich is constantly like, okay, no, I know you're going to think, But just so you know, what I'm about to say is...

MerlinI wrote with abandon in 2004. And now today, it would mostly be the throat clearing about please don't be mad at me.

AlexI... Roadhouse.

MerlinRoadhouse. Roadhouse?

AlexBut the... Nope.

MerlinPatrick Swayze? Tears out the esophagus.

AlexHe also just comes at things with a... You're right. there's no throat clearing but the things that are bad he's just i i truly don't this is the kind of writing from a different time but not in a problematic way he'll just have an opinion he'll

Merlingo like i like this blackbird i like this blackbird theme i think that's the good theme and you can also copy a bunch of text off blackbird from github and you can use that to test your themes done out boom handy cool plugins you know he likes the meta edit plugin that's all you gotta know And the Templater. Like, he's not going to go through, like, a million. He thinks that, but he does say, like, Templater is the one that, like, makes this thing go.

AlexMm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I just, I mean, I really don't know the, isn't the last thing he, wait, what was the last thing he posted? Maybe about.

MerlinLast thing he posted. Obsidian Templater. Wait a minute. I didn't even see this. Oh, shit. I hadn't seen this yet. Obsidian Templater. Fun. Because I need to, can you make a menu with templates? how do you make a just a like like sort of like you would do server-side include in bb edit back in the day how do you how do you can you make a menu for like a section i think you can but i'm still it's probably through templates because when i put templates in it makes it as it's like basically like paste values essentially it's not getting it doesn't retain its uh templateness

Alexthere's a built-in template where it's you know just insert template and it doesn't yeah it's fine but i believe the template plugin i grabbed the template i have so many plugins have you played

Merlinwith the mind map yet yes because mind map mind map works with h's and it works with bullets and it's so fucking cool so you can have a section of like i've got an h1 here's h2s h3s right you keep it keep it hierarchical but then did you notice it also works with like i know you're a dasher and I'm a bulliter or I'm an asterisker. But like it'll also work with –

AlexI'm a dasher because of some dumb – No, no, no. I prefer asterisks.

MerlinWell, now I'm a dasher because it gets confused with bold versus italic and I'm realizing I probably should become a dasher. I've always been an asterisker.

AlexI've never really been a big highlighter.

MerlinWell, you mean like for – oh, not ULs, but for like emphasis versus strong.

AlexOh, yeah. Just in Marktown in general. I don't know.

MerlinOh, I am. I love an italic. I love an emphasis.

AlexGosh.

MerlinFirst email I ever wrote to Gruber was about how I disagreed with how he handled that. And he wrote me back. I should say this one like that.

AlexOh, who hasn't written to Gruber? I disagree with him.

Merlinthat's not my first email ever with Syracuse I keep all of them

AlexI don't think I've ever deleted an email actually

MerlinI don't delete many on purpose

Alexhow do you accidentally

Merlinso you got obsidian and basically it's pretty powerful it does a lot of stuff and it doesn't so far anyway doesn't step on my existing system so there's this rant that nobody needs to hear from me and I don't really need to offer about I used to get this perceived blowback of oh my god why do you have so many calendar apps on your phone and because people do say that sometimes and it frustrates me and I'm like well it's synced as long as it's syncing I can use

anything I want. Like, why would I not want to have different size screwdrivers, even though they're

Alexall just screws? It's like having one clock. I just, I mean,

MerlinI don't know. Or like one box. We already have a box, don't you? I guess. But so what that means for me is like, I'm still, I've still got to crack the nut on iOS because I'm still using a little internal.

I would love to be all in on drafts, but as previously stipulated, I need my test paper files here on my Mac. But basically I think I asked you about this, I forget. But I just, basically I did just, so I signed up for all the things, doing the sync, and then I just pointed it. So it's a little confusing because there's vaults and there's collections, and I can't seem to figure out how to get out of my Obsidian Help library folder on my Mac, but that's bad on me.

AlexOh, just the bottom left.

MerlinNo, I can't figure out like how to move it so that I don't have all those. I guess I could just delete the folders and it would recreate it.

Alexbut I see what you're saying.

MerlinI have not, I've been focusing on using this rather than figuring out how to configure it and make it work because happily it does mostly work. The main thing I've run into, which is not a problem at all. Totally understandable is that not all plugins work on all platforms. So like, I still haven't figured out how to use Markdown printifier, even though I'm looking forward to using that. You can basically like roll your own.

AlexWhat's that?

MerlinOh, you know, like lint or anything where you like, you see, you got code standards or certain ways that you like spaces versus tabs, et cetera. You can do a lint style thing. But no, but mostly it really it does work.

So the thing I was going to say that is not required at all, but I just wanted to share this with you because I was trying to figure out, like, especially with a junk drawer app or an everything app, like how to philosophically approach that in a healthy way. You know what I mean? Why am I telling you this?

AlexBecause I want to hear it. That's why.

MerlinWell, so when I'm trying to decide whether this is a thing that I want to spend some time on, not whether I'm going to go all in and adopt it, like, what am I, 40? I don't do stuff like that anymore. But I ask three questions. It's always three things with me. What does this thing potentially offer that I need, that I know I need, but I don't have, right? So sometimes you're really attracted. This is the classic story, I feel like, with to-do or task managers of like, oh, you know, none of these sync used to be the problem.

And now, oh, this one syncs. Well, of course, it was that kind of sketchy guy from Poland who was releasing new dot releases of that. Remember that guy back in the day competing with OmniFocus? And he would have like a release a couple times a week, and he added syncing in like over a long weekend. But then it fell apart, and he bounced. He disappeared. Remember that?

AlexYes.

MerlinI think that might have been a little bit of a mania. But like, so what do I need that I don't have? Well, syncing would be great, would be an old one. Or like currently, like a way to, the way I would state this is to be able to continue using a or the Task Paper app on my Mac and then being able to do stuff on iPhone, which sounds easy, except last time I checked the Task Paper app on iOS was not good. And that's why I'm still using Editorial instead of All Drafts Because it needs to be a free-floating, this is an actual text file.

It can't be inside of a soup, right? So number one is like, what do I know or think I need that I don't have? And the corollary, what does this potentially offer that I didn't realize I need? I think that's the real artfulness with these, is going in and like, instead of just how do I make this a slightly different version of what I had before, as you and I, I think we've talked about this, how do I learn how this wants to be used? How do I learn, instead of trying to impose my own will on this,

if you're going to use, back in the day anyway, a 37 Signals app, you've got to go into it thinking a little bit like Jason Freed to get the most out of it.

AlexNot just a little bit.

MerlinWell, that's a famous line, I believe, from a friend of the show, Mike Montero, when he said that all these apps, something along these lines. This actually sounds more like something I would say, so I'm probably paraphrasing. He said all the 37 Signals apps work perfectly as long as you think exactly like Jason.

AlexI mean, it's not that isn't even meant to be disparaging backpack.

MerlinRemember how good backpack was? Backpack was so good. I love backpack.

AlexI well, I just didn't really use it. I saw it being used and was like, oh, this is very cool.

MerlinBut their main whatever base base camp was at their project. That's their thing.

AlexAnd now they just I don't think they're even 37 signals anymore. I think they're called base camp and hey, but then they got canceled. I've already forgotten. Oh, they were shitty to. Okay. Okay.

MerlinYeah. And then the third question is the question is... Okay. Okay. Then the third question... I'll be good. I think we've got really bad latency. Let me see if something's happening.

AlexOh, talk about latency. There's something that Matthew watched tonight, which reminded me a lot of what you're talking about today. And I just sent you a couple photos, or I tried to. oh that chair sheet sure looks different right now as in oh that's a bug oh dear no no you fixed safari but broke everything else come on

MerlinAlex is sending me a photo apparently

AlexI'm trying so hard

Merlinthe third one is that given a current system that mostly works what might this new thing I'm trying screw up and is it a screw up that would be recoverable

Alexoh I see oh no Alex don't but

Merlinit's not this this isn't my fault why you do this to me like why don't you do this i don't do this i do not control him no no i feel like we have such clear let me put it this way i feel like i have created very clear boundaries with you about how critical it is that you not become an unintentional security hole bringing stuff into my life that i can't have in my life and you watching my presentations you can't you are banned you are banned from ever watching okay

AlexI've done all of that 15 years ago, but I wasn't. Well, I just. What the fuck am I wearing? Well, I heard I love Evernote. And I was like, oh, man, didn't we all love Evernote?

MerlinRemember the one where you could. Gosh, I think there's one where you could make your own ice cream with it. You could. They had that one where like for iPad where you could flip the flap on your iPad to give yourself a quiz on something.

AlexGod, it was bananas.

MerlinAnd so Evernote was really good.

AlexBut text files have always been good.

MerlinText files are really good. They're really good and they're really light. I think this is a super interesting app and I do not see a reason why I would stop playing with it. It can be a little bit of a time sync for me, but I'm starting to see ways that I could see benefits from this, especially if, especially if, as with a synced calendar, I have nothing to lose by using my existing system. You know what I mean? And that to me is like, that's why wouldn't you? If it's just another thing that you can use when you need to, you know, you can, unleaded gas works in any car that takes unleaded gas.

And text files are my unleaded gas.

AlexOh, that's good.

MerlinIt doesn't matter how fancy the car is. I mean, you know, I always get the low octane.

AlexOh, that's so good.

MerlinThat's so good. What are you driving a McLaren? Relax. It's comas. So that's Obsidian. Anything else? Hour and 18 minutes. Anything else for Obsidian?

Alexmore things so many plugins doing so many plugins there's just one thing i mean everybody has

Merlinadmonitions have you seen admonitions no i learned about from gabe it's so goddamn cool it's a weird name for like here's like so imagine like in css you might come up with a package where like you can similarly format notes like for example like in a book like in an o'reilly book There's a similar format to not a call-out, but like an interesting features box where you might say at the beginning, whenever you see this note with the exclamation point, that means these things. Admonitions are these things where you can have notes, warnings, to-dos.

It's essentially applying something like a comment, and you can nest them. Go look up admonitions. They're really cool.

AlexThis already does look cool. Oh, my. Oh, oh, my.

MerlinAnd you can make your own, too, with colors and stuff.

Alexand that's why I don't really care that it's an Electron app because obviously we I guess the Apple community native apps are awesome and there's a way that a lot of people have an opinion on how

Merlinthey were talking about this on ATP and Relay have been covering a lot of similar ground and both doing a great job on both and they were talking about the Oh, you know, it's the one password desktop. That's what it was.

AlexOh, yeah, man. It was like I'm bummed about that, too. But like, guys, they're not committing a hate crime. Like, I think ATP and yeah. And well, I have not listened to all of that, but I trust them to have a level of like, gosh.

MerlinIt's good. It's real good. I hope it I hope it all gets worked out.

AlexI mean, but I often have different opinions about how an app should be made or what it should look like. And so far, like every fiddling I've done with Obsidian has had no negative consequences.

MerlinIn some ways, I think we benefit from that similarity. Do you have it on your iPhone by any chance?

AlexYes.

MerlinHow do I get rid of the right menu pane? Because on mine, I should send you a photo or a screen grab. It just like takes over almost all the screen. I don't know. I cannot figure out how to make it go away. You know what I mean? like how you've got the the three not three panes but yeah on the left you've got for example your file explorer and all the buttons and on the right you've got that like menu pane of like yeah there's all the stuff i don't know how to make that go away and it's making me crazy

Alexokay so you mean like it's popping up every time send me a screenshot of this i'm confused

Merlinwell this is like i don't can i i tried sliding but sliding left to right just brings over the

Alexleft panel. Oh, then I'm thinking of something else because I

MerlinYeah, let me send you this so you can see what I'm talking about. Anyway, not your circus, not your monkeys. You're not

Alexmy Lonnie. I'm okay with being your obsidian lawyer. Are you my Lonnie?

MerlinWhat's happening outside? There's some very garrulous people that have moved into the building. I don't have a beef with them right now, but they are very garrulous.

AlexWhat the fuck is this?

MerlinThis is me on my phone.

AlexI know, but I... That sounds like the right

Merlinperson. You got it? No, I know, but I

AlexI've never seen like, so is this what opens? Like this is the default of what opens. I must not have a plugin then because I always have it set to just open to no file open, which I'm going to change.

MerlinOkay. I need, I, we should go soon so we can still have a show. I'm very tired. Okay. what, Oh, you know, I shall go back to relearning about Zettelkasten, which is such an interesting idea.

AlexI don't understand it.

MerlinIt's a, what's her name? was that uh leah came up with that um but it's a very interesting idea but i you know i'm gonna give this my okie dokie um just because i think it's it's you can go download this you can get obsidian.md you play with it um you know it's it's easy to be overwhelmed by all the functionality of what it can do none of which you have to do but i mean for example just stuff like understand like have this split this pain the way i want like emacs style or terminal style split this pain put the markdown on top vertically and then put a mind map below vertically.

I don't know. I think that's pretty sharp.

AlexAnd I mean, I know you know that you have like 10,000 text files in a single.

MerlinNot that many, but a lot.

AlexWell, I want to, for some reason, I've never saved show notes for any of my shows. I don't know why. So I'm trying to figure out how to like scrape everything to get all of them. And like, but it's super cool now to just, I don't know, it feels like the Envy Alt days. And I, God, I'm such an Apple boomer.

Merlin2121.

AlexOh, oh. Want to talk about Afghanistan?

MerlinYes.

AlexGod damn it. That was the, that was the bell. That was, you make a, no, no, I can't make a joke about it. No, no.

MerlinThey would have called the graveyard of empires, they call it.

AlexI don't know.

MerlinThat's what I call my butt.

AlexOh, Ron Lafram.

MerlinOkay, let's keep going. Let's keep going.

AlexThis is how Comtown usually ends, where they're just saying things until it's funny.

MerlinComtown. But what's a,

Alexoh, it's a terrible, terrible podcast. They're not nice.

MerlinNo, I know, I know, I know. You guys made me listen to it. We got Nelson CPAP, Allison, Good Dogs. Did I have anything else I wanted to talk to? Oh, oh, oh, yeah. And do you see that photo? Do you recognize that photo that's in the dock? I'm not in it right now.

AlexIt's in the dock. Oh, no, I'm not.

MerlinIt's a famous photo of Andre the Giant holding a 12-ounce can of beer. And if that doesn't get you excited about big things, I don't know what will. I can just have it to you.

AlexHoly fuck.

MerlinThat's a 12-ounce can of beer.

AlexHoly fuck.

MerlinYeah. Isn't it cool? That's so cool.

AlexOh, man.

MerlinAnybody want a peanut?

AlexI think I think I think we're on the island I think we're on the island Jack Kate Kate It's the island It's always been the island This isn't funny oh lost was lost was a good show well lost had at least one good season in my opinion

and what i find very interesting about that show is it really kind of set the framework for you don't know what is happening right now and that's okay because typically in sitcoms and any sort of television in the aughts it would be that you were sort of ahead of the character right and while cable tv had kind of reached this point

where you really had the POV of the antagonist. And I do say antagonist because antiheroes, you know, big, big, big in the mid-aughts. And, okay, well, Merlin says, waiting on his, and it says waiting for the host to begin. But I'm the host. I'm the host! I'm supposed to be the gesture girl! What's happening? But anyway, Lost, I think, for all of its issues it ushered in an era where we could really be along for the ride

some people did not want to be on that ride but we could be on a ride where it's like i don't know what's gonna happen also i'm not really sure how this resolved and then it was super fun to like talk about it and stuff but alas i still don't know if they're on the island I do.

252. Confusing Balls of Meat

Show notes

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