258. Wiggle Regatta

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann and Alex Cox. This week's challenge, share some lesser known YouTube channels.

Smarter vitamins, caffeine, L-D-A-N-E made with MCT oil. Dietary supplement Cleaner, better, smarter Caffeine is found in the coffee And helps

Speaker AIn the coffee

AlexCaffeine is found in the coffee And helps by providing energizing effects And wakefulness MCTs are fast-acting sources of energy From coconuts L-theanine neutralizes the oh the generate effects of caffeine without reducing mind energizing fat burning features wait is this a diet product now too i just want caffeine pills okay so it's got 200 milligrams of

caffeine and 100 milligrams of l-theanine so okay i'm gonna take one while i'm waiting for merlin i'm to figure out what the normal amounts of coffee is per day. And keep in mind, I have had two shots.

Oh, 400 milligrams a day. No, no, no, no. well okay okay so i had one of these really glad i did not take two of my smarter vitamins caffeine and altheanine but this monster energy drink all right monster energy blend taurine. Love it. It's classic. L-carotene, caffeine, inositol. Caffeine from all sources,

140 milligrams per can. So this isn't like off the charts. Cool. Oh, come on. That's kind of obnoxious. Like, this is a big, big ol' can.

Maybe that's the point. They need to fit all the L-t- taurine gaffeine insetols into this. 370 milligrams of sodium. Good heavens!

But, hey, good news, everybody. Only two grams of erythrit So, Merlin thinks he's here. Good God in heaven. Goodness gracious me. All right, we're going to restart this call.

Are you in the room? I think you're in the room. Welcome to the meeting. Technology.

MerlinYay. Good morning. Good morning. How are you?

AlexOh, that's right. It's morning. there. What's happening?

MerlinWhat is happening? I always click. I always click. I always click on exactly the same thing and then you tell me it's not right. I'm in a different room with a different they.

AlexOh, gosh. Yeah, I hate... You must identify yourself on Zoom and in a program I'm in. And I always forget to change it.

MerlinNo, I know. We talked about this. You gotta have the premium account to be a they. All I'm saying is that thing pulls up and it always says the same thing. I'm in their meeting room and they'll let me in. I'm in the waiting room. I wait, I wait, I wait. And then you say, I'm here. And I say, I'm here.

Speaker AHow am I ever going to get my CPAP machine this way?

AlexOh, God. Oh, boy. All right. Sidebar. I was just listening to. Oh, there's so many.

MerlinAlex, this one, you know what? You want to guess?

Alexto spit some bars?

MerlinIt's called, this episode's called

Speaker AWhoops All Side Bars. All I have is so many questions. You just sent me, I said, I think I'm in the right place. You sent me a link about Joe Rogan and the Holocaust. And I said, I think what I said was, let me see, I said, Jesus, Alex, what's the thing that I say to you on? Which is like, even your mistakes are sad.

Oh, God. Oh, my God. We need a pre-show.

AlexOh, man. Well, I had my own little pre-show where I started researching.

MerlinIn Bacon Ray, that meant taking a dump.

AlexOh, oh. Well, for me.

MerlinI got to go have a pre-show. I got to go have a pre-show.

AlexSee, that's always like a bio break or a bio delay. No, there needs to be a better alliteration.

MerlinYou could call it a toilet injection.

AlexI don't understand that joke, but I don't like it.

Speaker ABecause you're injecting the toilet with poop before you play on stage.

AlexI don't know. I see. So it's really a jab. That's what we call it. Jab. You got to get the jab. Toilet.

Speaker AYou got to get more poop in arms.

AlexOh, boy. Sidebarring. Sidebar. Oh, no.

Speaker AOh, no. It's going to be one of those.

AlexOkay, okay, all right.

Speaker AI have so many question marks from many lands in here.

AlexGosh, I was just listening to another program that you do with Bean Dad. I'm sorry. And both you and Roderick of-

MerlinYou know what I call him, Emperor Cheeto?

AlexOh, God. You and Roderick of The Great Show-

Speaker ANow do Melania Trump.

AlexRoderick on the line. We're considering purchasing CPAP machines or...

MerlinBlack market CPAP, baby.

AlexYes. And well, my lovely spouse, Matthew, has been going through a similar thing.

Speaker AThe third show where I'm talking about this.

AlexHere, that's fine. That's fine. Because we've talked on this show about hilarity behind deaths and the humor about it and how it shouldn't be too callous. And I did not finish this episode of Roderick on the line, but both of you are definitely going to suffocate yourselves. There's no way you're going to survive this.

Speaker ABut, I mean, there's YouTube videos. You're absolutely going to die.

MerlinI don't think you understand. Once he goes to Pualup or wherever to buy his black market dead man's machine, there's many beardos in YouTube videos. Hey, guys, this week we're going to talk about how to clean your electronic elephant nose.

AlexYou ever seen what a CPAP looks like?

MerlinYou probably have.

AlexYeah, my dad uses one. That's hot. And Maddie might need to get... Oh, God. Oh, 60 years old now. Good God.

MerlinWait, your dad's 60?

AlexYes, my dad is 60.

MerlinAre you fucking with me?

AlexNo.

MerlinYour father's five years older than me.

Speaker AWe don't speak of it. We don't speak of it. Oh, this is a very strange new frame for us. Something I don't like.

AlexWe don't speak of... We don't speak...

Speaker AOh, no. I've been asked.

MerlinJohn and I, as long as this is going to be the thing I talk about on shows, and also... What are we calling those? Whoops, all sidebars? I also have a sidebar about discussing this with my family that I would like to mention. As long as we're here. Can we post that? I'm going to put it on the list between... Let's put it between Cuckoox and Cuckdevice, which is a home... do these. CPAP talk. And I'll tell you, man, there's no sense. If you're not a rational person, it's crazy to marry a rational person. I don't know if you've had this experience.

AlexNo, because I did not marry a rational person because I'm not a rational person.

MerlinBut does that make them more sympathetic to your rationality? Because I definitely... Absolutely. Okay. John and I can't breathe and we snore. And like apparently everybody I follow on Twitter who follows and follows me, like everybody snores and their partner hates it. There's a folly ado happening in every king-sized bed, which is that there's somebody

Alexwho snores and somebody who hates it. Yes, I'm the hater. Yes. I'm going to turn this into a

MerlinRobin Hitchcock song. But the point being that John and I both need, we know we need a CPAP machine. Thanks to Nelson's wonderful internet post, I've learned I need a CPAP machine. And B, we both don't like, really don't like bureaucratic, especially bureaucratic medical rigmarole. We both find it if anybody's ever listened to the Roderick

AlexAs opposed to the people who are jazzed about it? Well, you

Merlinshould sleep in the king-sized bed I'm in because that person just is so fucking horny for bureaucracy and

Alexforms. Oh, like how I'm horny for logistics. Okay, that checks out.

MerlinI mean, okay, let's go back to forest and trees, right? It's like, I'm sorry, there's a sidebar in the sidebar at this point. Sidebars, here's, it's early. Also, I'm wearing three different colors of gray.

AlexWe used to record this show two hours earlier. I want to hear about...

MerlinAlexandra, I have been such a gentleman about brain school.

AlexI know. You have. You have. Very much.

MerlinYou done? I've adapted my schedule. God damn it. I've turned Thursday into a minor sleep-in day. Okay? So I can sleep till 9. I'm allowed to sleep till 9, I decided. But that doesn't mean you know that i'm gonna always you know land it just on time also i slept pretty well last night which is good i watched a lot of things about the house of windsor last night including going back to s1e1 with the great jared harris boy that guy just doesn't get a break in shows does he anyways and i was up late watching that and i was trying to find some interesting

youtube videos um for reasons okay wait oh so you let's go back oh sorry hey everybody we're gonna start the show in a sec let's go back to where this started which was you were listening you were not done listening to a podcast about men in their 50s trying to buy unlicensed medical equipment. Correct. That may or may not have been fucked by a dead man. The, oh God. No, the meningitis is in your spine, but you get it through your dick. It's called the debt ceiling.

AlexGod, I just realized, yes, because it does the sucking. Oh God. Is it just a McElroy joke that

MerlinI think of all the time? And I'm especially thinking of this month. And one time Travis on the show. And this is not funny because I can't say this in the way that Justin accidentally said it really funny. But Travis is quizzing them. This is before the play along at home. But this is just back when he's asking questions about... The part that I remember was the anatomy of the penis. And he says, what is the hole in the man's... where the pee comes out? What is that called? And I think Griffin said, I think that's called the urethra. And Travis says,

no, the urethra is the tube. What do you call the hole? And I will not do this justice, but Justin goes, it's called the debt ceiling. It's so funny to me that he called the pee hole the debt ceiling. And I think about it. The way he said it, I think about it all the time because he sounds like a guy who's had two and one half drinks in a bar and thinks he knows everything. The debt ceiling.

AlexIt's almost like he's really smart and funny. He's funny.

MerlinI like him.

AlexOne of them isn't. The, here's something interesting.

MerlinC-pap, C-pap, C-pap.

AlexOkay.

MerlinBono calls it scatting.

AlexYou've got, you're looking for a, oh God. I'm, I'm, I'm nervous to listen to the rest of this episode because you seem like. The one you're recording right now? You, no. I mean, well, this is, it's always a waking nightmare.

MerlinI swear to Christ, if I could make, if I could make your goddamn household, whom I love so much, if I could make you please worry about me approximately 96% less.

AlexI don't.

MerlinDon't.

AlexI don't think I do, or at least I don't vocalize it until.

Speaker AI can tell Matt's getting nervous for me when he sends me more dogs. But then I started getting the pictures of the Basset Hound parade,

Merlinand that might have changed everything. The dogs in fancy hats might have changed everything in our house.

AlexOh, good Lord.

MerlinI really, I may need a dog in a fancy hat, but along the way I'm definitely going to need a Basset Hound, lots of lady baths and fancy society lady hats.

Speaker AAnd they're all together in a parade. And they look at you like, oh my God, who put this hat on me?

AlexEverybody Google waddle parade and you'll get- Waddle parade.

MerlinOh, really? That's what, yeah, okay, waddle parade.

AlexYep, yep. I think they have a trademark on it, actually.

MerlinThat sounds like six drunk girls peeing in a parking lot.

AlexI know. This- That's a promise.

Speaker BThat's a promise. That's a promise for every friend's forever. That's a promise for every friend's forever.

MerlinWell, how about we make it for nine, and then you make your beeswax to be there on time? I can't do it later. I got something that day. Michael Ian Black. Did you know Michael Ian Black? he improvs that line?

AlexI feel like he improvs all of his lines in a good way, in a very good way.

MerlinThe camp counselors were talking about meeting again in 10 years, remember? And they talked about this day in 10 years, and then he says something, and they're like, well, we'll do it at 11. He goes, I can't. I already have something then. Okay.

AlexAll right. CPAP. CPAP. Oh, gosh. You, have we even explained, CPAP, it is a machine that helps you breathe.

Speaker AI thought that was the Republican conference.

AlexI couldn't help but notice that as Roderick and I was trying to find, I don't know, navigate this world of medical devices. Neither of you seem to want to participate in a sleep study at all, which is what it's terrible. It's so shitty.

MerlinOh, my God. I'll tell you what. I'm going to get out of the king size bed and you can climb in with my wife. and you can hear all the same things that I am hearing about this. It's like, you know, I forget if I said this on a show or two, I might have said this on the show, but like if you, yeah, yeah, yeah, I said on the show, if you cut your finger on a knife while you're washing dishes, it wouldn't take two years for you to get a band-aid. If you go, hi, I have everything that tells me I need a CPAP machine. And it's my understanding that like, it's mainly on main on-label uses for people with, according to Hoyle, sleep apnea.

But if there's, there are various people with various problems breathing at night that evidence in things like sleep apnea, or in my case, maybe sleep apnea, but definitely snoring. I just want to put the elephant on my face so that I don't wake my lady friend and then get a lecture about how good our health insurance is.

Speaker AWhy would you be on Craigslist? You have really good insurance. And so you know what I said to her?

AlexOh my God.

MerlinI said, you don't listen to my podcast, do you? And she said, no. I said, I know. And she says, yeah, but you don't understand. You don't have to do all that. You've got really good, we've got really good insurance now. And I said, do you listen to my podcast?

And she said, you know, I don't. And I said, okay, then. Now we're at an impasse. Because what I'm trying to tell you is that I don't, all I want to do, I want to be able to do it blindfolded. You know what? One hand in the dark. I want to run a credit card. And then the next day at 10 a.m., I would like there to be a CPAP machine. Maybe one that has been fucked by a dead man. I want that at my house to strap it on me. And I'll clean it first. I got YouTube, as you'll see.

AlexOh, I'm sure you do. But I, we, I'm the, I forgot my joke. Did you drop a thread just now? That snore is so fucking loud. The thread is just in the basement. No, no. Matthew, we do not have a king size bed. we have whatever the small stakio one is and the they lecture is always it'll never be funny

sorry I'm going to shut up and I'll drink this coffee

Speaker AI just made read this Joe Rogan article you sent me

Alexwe gotta watch it the video is just so you meant to send this to me well I put it in the doc

MerlinI figured it was just in your clipboard

Alexwell yeah I was sending it to many people

Merlinyou would not believe the thread I sent it to Dan Benjamin yesterday.

AlexI feel like I could believe it.

MerlinOh, my God. It's one of my better. The best one I've ever sent her, of course, always was Syracuse. But the one with Dan was really good. And I'm always thinking like, oh, God, I'm so scared to go reread this thing that I just sent to the wrong person because I hope it's not really. I hope I didn't rag on them. Yesterday at 1242 p.m. my time, I sent the message. This really made me want boiled eggs. And then there's a link to a YouTube video about how to cook boiled eggs. And then after that, I said related colon heading up early today to do chores and make din din. The next message is, oh, hi, you're not my wife because I'd send it to Dan Benjamin.

But it did make some fucking awesome boiled eggs. Thank you, J. Kenji Lopez.

AlexI'm OK. Bar to this side sidebar. Boiling eggs like of the hard boiled kind. Like what? What the heck?

MerlinYou know, there's that stuff. Let me write this down. We need a name for this. There's this stuff that like, I'm just going to call this the constellation of things. This is not addressed to you. This is to the earthly you. It's like, you care too much about this. And that could be Philly cheesesteaks. It could be how to lace shoes. It could be gay marriage. There's being against gay marriage. But like these things where you're like, you know, you care too much about this. You need to fucking pump the brakes. And when it comes to boiling eggs, there are so many different here's the secret tip tips.

and J. Kenji Lopez throws all that out and says here's what you do you boil some water and you put the eggs in for nine minutes now I took out a lot of the delight because you couldn't see his very good dogs or his weird feet but like in that instance like it's a whole thing

Alexthey're not weird go ahead don't talk about feet on the show because everybody's going to go to wiki feet right now and

Merlinwhen you're putting on the instagay you just got to make sure you get your feet in the picture not your balls Such a good show.

AlexSuch a good show.

MerlinOh, my God. Poor Carrie. That's my whole work.

AlexThat's my whole work.

MerlinIf he gets night... I didn't want to write this on the internet because I didn't feel like being in a discourse. I swear to Christ, if for whatever reason Night Nurse doesn't happen again, I'm going to be so mad. Let him have this. Let Carrie have Night Nurse.

AlexSo did you not see the stinger after the credits of the...

MerlinI guess I didn't. I don't even remember. I downed them so fast.

AlexLet's just say March 13th is a date that the film might start to go into production. Oh, good.

MerlinWatched Tropic Thunder all the way through again last night.

AlexI love this show so much.

MerlinOh, the other two? It's a very good show. Like I say, I think this season has become more conventional, but I do think it's settling in and it knows what it is. I like the weird, the utter weirdness. I guess this is a weird season, too. When he and the not gay guy walk out onto the red carpet in those outfits with his eye jewels. Oh, my God.

AlexHey, you is in the earthly you. Watch the other two. It's on HBO Max.

MerlinWe should make it a challenge. It's a good show.

AlexVery easy. I think we did. It is. It is my. OK. I don't know how familiar folks are with my best friend Kara Fagan, who I don't even know who has been on this show, but has talked about.

MerlinFounder of Cox's Cucks.

AlexFounder of Cox's Cucks. My sister in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia love. the other two are like if Matchy and Kara had an unholy union and they had immaculately concepted a show it would be the other two because it has like you use the R word no less than 50 more times but also it's so wholesome

MerlinI'm so sorry I keep cloning my throat I apologize that's really gross I don't know if Quinn can save that it's early and I'm still the more they are, the cuter they ain't.

AlexThis is what I wanted to... So getting out of the bar that's from the side, have you gotten your throat checked just... And has it been suggested that you just might need your tonsils out?

MerlinNo. I have to go to a doctor for that. Can I do it myself? Is there a home test I can get?

AlexI mean...

MerlinMaybe I should go up to Puala and get a used tonsil removal.

AlexYeah, just get a...

MerlinSomebody fucked.

AlexListen, if you're okay with a dick being close to your nose, there's a reason it's ear, nose, and throat, Doctor. The dick can go in any of those holes, and it should be fixed.

MerlinBut it's a dead dick. It's not a current dick.

AlexWell, I didn't... I mean...

MerlinI mean, a dick's been on everything. Do you not read Urban Dictionary? So, where did we start? You asked me a question about this, and then I made... I remarked about my family.

AlexOh, I didn't ask a question. I made a statement that I will mock you for definitely dying if you buy a third party.

MerlinAnd you're going to say because it's dirty with dick meningitis or because I got the calibration and cleaning wrong?

AlexNo. Yes, you're just going to suffocate yourself.

MerlinNo, I got plastic bags for that.

AlexOh, true. And also, you got to get, as your lady friend. That's not a horrible image. So your they buddy is going to say, yes, take advantage of that health insurance. Like, go balls to the walls.

MerlinOur insurance is so much better than it used to be. I mean, I think our health insurance that we have now is, I think, approximately as good as health insurance used to be, which is to say it's fantastic by today's standards.

AlexOh, like when you used to fly in the 60s.

MerlinMainly it's just so different from what we had even a couple years ago where, you know, I've told you Madeline's had at least two major, like seriously important misdiagnoses with our old insurance. Because as my shrink likes to say, my libertarian shrink likes to say, for once, I mean, he's like a stop clock. He says, well, maybe, you know, you don't want the one that rhymes with Schmeiser Schmermanente because you don't want the people who decide if you should get care to be the same people who provide that care. And then he told me an anecdote about a surgeon who fell off a Segway and got misdiagnosed.

He went through the whole Harrison Ford thing and they misdiagnosed an egg sized lump behind his ear. And then he lost some of his brain power and couldn't be a surgeon for a long time. Did I mention that he worked for Schmeiser Schmermanente?

AlexGood God.

MerlinA surgeon for Schmeiser Schmermanente was misdiagnosed by another doctor.

AlexMother of God.

MerlinAnyway, I don't have a way to track that down. He's a libertarian. You're right. I'll die. I'll die. And it'll be funny. Like we've talked about. Oh, I did trip over a croc like not 10 minutes ago. It was really, I guess now 30 minutes ago.

AlexYeah. Both my upstairs, well, okay. I don't think we've talked about how, yes, we have. My upstairs neighbors and my downstairs neighbors both work in some sort of healthcare. Like they are very loud and they do karaoke Saturday, every Saturday. But thank you for your service. And I've noticed that their crocs.

MerlinAre they, how do I ask this in a way that's not offensive? Are they straight and non-Asian? Or is it that they're gay or Asian?

AlexThis is a thing, I don't know the...

MerlinI don't think straight people, I don't think straight white people do karaoke every weekend.

AlexNo, no, no, that's the problem. Yeah, they're the most basic ass bitches. Like, I don't think...

MerlinOh, no, so is it like Celine Dion or like Michael Bolton?

AlexOh, they're more like, oh, God. They're a millennium and not a 60-year-old man. And so it's Kelly Clarkson. We got some Paramore. Like, no shade to them. Of course, Green Day. And then sometimes we join them.

MerlinI only learned about Paramore because of that one Adam Neely video. I'd never heard of him before.

AlexWhat? I had no idea. I'm glad that you know who Paramore is now.

MerlinBecause in the video about the Adrigo Relivia song that I like.

AlexI didn't even know. I didn't even know about the controversy of Olivia Rodriguez. That's the one.

Speaker AShe's sour.

AlexYeah. Well, and so it was. Good record. The hashtag discourse was that she had possibly stolen a song, right?

Merlinand then there's a song by Paramore that is

Alexit's not a similar song

Merlinwell I had an internet tweet about this where I said this is the beauty of Adam Neely he's not the 80-90% YouTube person who goes this song sounds like this other song he explains how it sounds like this other song why it sounds like this other song and why it's not the same as this other song and it's so well done but yeah her song Good For You sounds like a Paramore song from like 10 years ago

Speaker Abut then he dilderals down and talks about how the paramore song sounds like a green day song

Alexand stuff like and it's three yeah and it's it it's three blind mice and they all sound like a taylor swift song yeah yeah and it was and and i'm a ding-a-ling who likes like basic ass pop punk which is why i enjoy all of those songs i thought we talked about this aren't you gonna stop doing this i don't think so okay what oh my hashtag discourse no i just you know i don't know

Speaker AWho are you helping?

AlexI got a little salty on Twitter, but often on this show, people can tell if I have my period because I get a little salty and I just get super bitchy on Twitter. But also more honest. But, you know, that.

Speaker ADid you just commit a hate crime against women? Perhaps. No, I was talking about myself. Now, when a guy says it, it sounds like he's being mean. I'm speaking from my lived experience as a menstruator. Oh.

MerlinYou know what I'm saying? Now, if I say to you, hey, Alex, what's up? Sounds like you're on the rack. Like, that's a hate crime. When you say, you can tell when I'm hysterical because I bleed.

Speaker AI can't ride horses or swim.

MerlinWhy'd you bleed on me, Alex?

Speaker AWhy'd you bleed on me? Oh, God. I thought you considered a horse to be majestic, then you bleed on me.

AlexOh, a Palomino. They're beautiful. Lord. Beverly. This is why I enjoy putting show notes or show links in a certain order, because if somebody really, really wanted to, they could maybe understand this podcast episode.

Speaker AYou know, if we had a staff, if we had a staff and the time, it would be different.

MerlinBut like, you know, I mean, my formative podcasting experience, as I never tired of saying, was MacBreak Weekly, where we had to pretend like everything was live, even though it wasn't. I thought that was great training. And in some ways, a second big piece of that for me is Back to Work, where that was kind of the next, not big podcast, but you know what I mean.

Speaker AYes, it was.

MerlinWell, anyway, the point is that's the next podcast I did that people would know. And Dan famously, like he will cut out something that was an egregious error. But the goal, as with MacBrick Weekly, is to do not assume we can edit anything. But also we're going to flip this sometimes in less than an hour. Like when Dan's like super staffed up, like we could flip a show super quick. And in that case, you don't have time. Like, my show notes have to be pretty pithy because I don't have, like, even when I do have a week to do it, it takes me forever to do that.

I'm sorry. I'm complaining about an awesome job.

AlexNo, no, no, no.

MerlinDon't bleed on horses, you guys, you they.

Speaker AOh, you know what else Kenji Lopez-Altz says that I think is kind of, it's 10% annoying but mostly 90% sweet.

MerlinWhat does he say? Guys, gals, and non-binary pals. I think that's kind of a sweet thing to say.

AlexOh, oh, yeah.

MerlinThat's his sign-off. His sign-off is guys, gals, and non-binary. I never heard that until yesterday.

AlexOh, really? Yeah.

MerlinOh, my God. What are we feigning? What are we feigning?

AlexNo, no. It's because you watch a lot of YouTube. You watch a lot of YouTube. That's a common sign off. And it is. It's sweet. I like it.

MerlinI like to. You know, for this season with so much changing, I want to really just pull the room and find out, you know, when I say, hey, guys, how do people feel about that? It's a different time.

AlexOkay. Can we fucking talk about that for a second?

Merlinholy shit well i like i like both of those people i like evie a lot and i like uh gay trans husband a lot i like i like both of them a lot but i think they gave evie a little bit of a villain edit there because they're trying to sauce something up and i'm not sure what do you know

Alexwhat i'm talking about yes uh i am very excited because the first season you're a survivor ganger am I

Speaker Athe love child of you and Casey is on there

Merlindo you see I know anybody could see so what I said on the internet Twitter was that this is this very very fun very cool I like this this this this group on Survivor I think it's a fun group but um there's this person called Evie who who's I so my kid of course who's the shamer of these things I'm pretty sure that later in the show Evie had said something about being non-binary, I feel like. Did I ever hear that right? Because at the beginning, Evie refers to themselves as a woman.

AlexYeah.

MerlinWell, I got label shamed by my kid about this, and I was like, look, I'm just trying to, all I'm trying to say is that I think this is, if we would all just go with my term that I have for all of you people, which is the best term, which is queer. This is a queer person. And it's like the ceramicist codicil, where like, title, where If you want to learn more about this, you can. If you want to know more about Alex's transition or you want to know more about my job, I'd be happy to tell you. But I first need to gauge how much it's worth both of our effort and attention to go into this.

But anyway, Evie. So Jeff comes out. I've got to say, I thought this whole thing was very cringy. Jeff comes out and says, come on in, guys. And again, I just want to congratulate myself. that's the single greatest name for a text chat group ever was our survivor group called the come on in guys and i still don't get the credit for that that i should yeah jen shame on you jen i should have gotten way more credit for the come on in guys and jeff says hey here's my catchphrase since 1922 come on in guys things are different now time's up am i um am i should i should i say

something different and evie and then i thought it was also a little cringy there was because you you wonder how many people said something or nothing but they focus on evie going hey i just

Alexwant to say I think it's fine. I don't mind it at all. They might as well just have slow panned to the queerest person. And they're like, I mean, it's just how you say it. It's just...

MerlinI just want to ask a question to the whole group. Do you think most people should have equal rights regardless of how the patriarchy has historically treated them? I mean, it's yes or no or whatever. It's an essay question. It's a blue book question. How do y'all feel about that? You know what? I I would like to see equality if it's not inconvenient for people. And then they come back. It was a two-hour show, so they came back probably 20, 30 minutes later for the next challenge thing. And I do think that guy's cool. I think he's a guy to watch. The gray-haired guy. I was very confused. So they have a foster child.

He and his trans. Oh, this is a good one. Sidebar. Okay, so there's a guy.

AlexAnother bar?

MerlinA cis gay man, I believe you would say, right? He's a male at birth dude. who likes dudes, as far as we know, and he has a spouse. And they have an adopted child, but is it not transmasculine? What is his spouse's situation that that person is pregnant? Is that right? Did I catch that right?

AlexYeah, I don't know what the... I don't think they're currently fostering a kid, but he was like...

MerlinDid you see that sweet baby, though? The cutest baby ever? With the black hair?

AlexOh, you might be right. You might be right, yeah.

MerlinOh, that baby's so cute. No, but they said something like, I feel really bad leaving because we've got a kid to take care of. And I'm putting my own words here because I don't want to get it wrong and be hurtful. Was that, you know, something like my...

AlexMy trans husband.

MerlinYeah, is pregnant and that's very rare or something like that, he said.

AlexYeah. Oh, well, yeah.

MerlinIt's like, yeah, rare's a word for it.

AlexYeah, that's factually true.

MerlinIt's like, you know, a bumblebee becoming president or something. Like it's really, you need a different office.

AlexI'm actually going to put in notes It's this amazing episode of a podcast that I've mixed feelings about. But it's an interview with the guy who was like sort of known as the first man who's pregnant. And he capitalized on that so hard in a self-aware type way.

MerlinOh, like a brand building exercise?

AlexYeah. Well, yeah. And he's like, yep, yep. Cover. Oh, you want to buy my story? Yep, yep, yep.

MerlinWhat if you were the first? What if you were the first previver? What if you're the first pre-vivor? They talk about you in medical schools.

AlexBut then, yeah.

MerlinMiss McCarthy would say, I'm not going to say I survived. I thrived. Oh, God. And that dolphin spoke to me, I assumed telepathically. Broke a lot of shit.

Speaker AWelcome to Do My Friday where we like things.

AlexNow I'm waking up.

MerlinI forgot to take my Vyvanse. I forgot to take my Vyvanse, so I've rediscovered iced tea. I'm microdosing. I think that was the woman who played Ethel on I Love Lucy. I am microdosing iced tea, and it's working out good, good, good, good, great.

AlexMicrodosing? Whoa, whoa. Microdosing iced tea?

MerlinOne of the problems with alcohol, especially things like your more high-proof drinks. And you know this, but for you youngsters out there, this is a word of warning that you won't listen to. But one problem with things like the classic example, obviously, is something like Everclear or I guess tequila can be in this, which is that it's really it's not difficult at all. And the jokes of just to put one foot outside the room. If you if you have Everclear and this is, I think, a big problem with the whole like let's get the college girl drunk is if you make a tasty beverage with Everclear, it's really difficult to know how quickly you just drank so many units of alcohol.

Like if you have a beer and you have six beers, you might be a little drunk, but that took, you know, an hour and a half or two hours or whatever. Right. But if somebody makes you a big like novelty sized purple drink with Everclear, you could have alcohol poisoning in like 30 minutes. Do you know what I mean? Like you got to be really careful with that shit. And I'm not even talking about like deliberately creepy, you know, assaulty dudes. But what I'm saying is you have to be careful. I had a girlfriend once that didn't know what Long Island iced tea was. And she was served.

She thought she'd ordered an iced tea but was given a Long Island iced tea. And she's a really smart gal, so I'm not sure how she couldn't realize that it had all of the alcohol in it. But she had two of those.

AlexYou know what? Maybe she happened to be 30 years old and confused about what it is and then ordered it at brunch and then ordered another one. You know, who's to say?

MerlinShe was a 21-year-old vegan with hairy legs from Maryland. But could be. Could be. It could be – she's come from big McCormick money. The spice must flow, if you know what I mean. But here's the thing. Maintenance drinking, which I don't know if that was a Hemingway thing, but like you can – so like if you make like a little drink and have a little drink and then a little more drink, like if – I know you talk like Shirley after a while. If you do that, like you can have a couple drinks in the afternoon. You won't fall asleep like I normally do, right? So the idea is you can have a little –

AlexOh, I thought – sorry. I thought you were still talking about Everclear. I'm like, wait.

MerlinI am, but now it's iced tea. Okay, okay. If I make an iced tea, and I could talk about my method for iced tea because it's really good. And I make iced tea these days. I make it most days at the office. And I put lime juice in it. And I've got an ice machine, so it's nice to make nice tea. Nice ice, nice tea. And then I just have that through the day. I went home at 3 o'clock yesterday because I had shit to do at home. Oh, my God. I felt great. For the first time in months, I felt good at 3 p.m. Because I've been microdosing iced tea.

Challenge.

AlexOkay, this is an actual. challenge really good challenge because think about what if you had a way of deploying

Merlinnot just caffeine but any of your energy providers what if you'd made a maybe you already do this but what if you made because you know i've made a study of day of through the day intraday energy has been a study of mine for years maybe a challenge where you um micro micro dose tk

Alexmicrodose something. Yeah. Quinn, do this sparkly to what I was talking about for about 15 minutes before, but just the good part. Was that on this show? Because this show, this show, I...

While I'm waiting for Merlin, I'm going to figure out what the normal amounts of coffee is per day. And keep in mind, I have had two shots.

Oh, 400 milligrams a day? No. No, no, no.

MerlinAnd this episode of this show, you were talking about this.

AlexWhile I was, while you weren't in the room.

MerlinI must have had a fugue state. Oh, before we recorded, before it was a show?

AlexCorrect. Oh, we were recording.

MerlinIs this before or after you sent me the Joe Rogan link?

AlexThis was before the link, before Joe Rogan, but after the... No, no, no. This is after Joe Rogan, but I was still waiting for you to come in because Zoom sucks. Or I suck as well, but it's fun to blame software. And I'm just looking at the types of caffeine and the amount I should and shouldn't have because I always forget. and apparently 400 milligrams is what the FDA deems safe and I didn't get a ton of sleep last

night so I've had two shots of espresso which again tastes worse than malort I hate it so much um and then a oh gosh you know what it's in uh what is oh the smarter vitamins caffeine L-theanine, 200 milligrams.

MerlinBy how much have you exceeded?

AlexI don't, that's the thing is, I don't know. I'm trying to, I was trying to find out how much caffeine is in a regular.

MerlinPlease tell everyone your BMI and we'll, we'll email you about it.

AlexThe, no. Okay. Okay. So the, wait, why am I doing, no, no. I was supposed to do that for you.

MerlinNo, no, no, no. Maintenance Phase had an episode about that. It's a podcast you can check out. Like and subscribe. So you were talking to Quinn about this, maybe microdosing energy.

Alexthings. Yeah, because I, it's, it's zero or 10 with me. I know. I know. I don't know. I don't

Merlinknow. That's so funny you should say that because I, you know, there's always a running joke about running jokes. And the thing that I first heard at New College that everybody who's been around drugs has heard is there's only two doses of drugs, not enough and too much. Yeah. And I said that literally yesterday because I was like, it's so rare for me to have exactly the right amount of energy where I'm in a jolly mood, but I'm not frenetic. You know what I mean? We don't say crazy anymore.

We got a lot. Can we, should we step out of some of our sidecars? Cause we also, okay, so we've got microdosing.

AlexI think we've closed the bar. You might die. The bar of you might die with a, um, by a, a dick CPAP.

MerlinOh, I see what you're saying. Uh-huh.

AlexYep. We, we, um, established that I don't like the guy that was like, well, Well, actually, despite what Evie said.

MerlinOh, so you don't like the gay guy? You don't like him? No.

AlexI mean, I-

MerlinAt all?

Speaker ALike in camp when he's talking and doing stuff?

AlexHe's already just being like, I don't know. They're suspicious. I don't know. They're suspicious.

MerlinOh, you think he's a little bit of a stinker? I think JD's a little bit of a stinker.

AlexHe, I like the, what did she call herself? The mercenary minister or whatever? The lady.

MerlinOh, the African-American lady?

AlexYeah. Yeah. And she's like, oh, my God.

MerlinThe pastor. She's so cute. Oh, my God. You know who she reminds me of is that wonderful woman on Top Chef. It was on for a few seasons. You know that light-skinned African-American woman with the giant eyes who was wonderful on Top Chef? I know you know. I have no idea. No, I like her a lot. I would be in her – we don't say parish. I would be in her – parish is for you people. We call it a congregation. I would be in her congregation. I wish she was my youth minister. I would love that.

AlexOh, she's going to go far. She's got some game. She's got some game. Already she does. She's playing everybody.

MerlinIs it clear that we're talking about Survivor?

AlexI, you know what?

MerlinIt may not be clear we're talking about Survivor.

AlexWe're talking about season 41 of Survivor, which is only 26 days.

MerlinIf anybody out there knows how to code in Python and is comfortable with tabs, I would love to see. If you could post a gist of an outline of the last 38 minutes of this, I'd be grateful.

AlexGood God. Oh, God. Oh, no.

MerlinInclude once. Library.hashtag.

AlexThere's a good Python IOS app for notes.

MerlinI think we can leave off Russell T. Davies except to say that would be fun.

AlexRussell T. Davies is kind of fun.

MerlinWe've got a lot in here is what I'm saying.

AlexYes, yes. I went a little stir crazy with some links this morning.

MerlinI saw. Well, because you send me a lot of things. And you keep talking about, thank you, by the way, you keep talking about context. And I was like, woof, this is a week I need a lot of context because there's Quooks, there's the Cuck Device, the Music Man. And I actually have three, in addition to all these question marks I have in here, I actually have three questions I would like to quiz you on regarding the topics of the week. Oh, all right. Oh, this is fun. You know what? this could be a fun hook to hang a bit on.

AlexYes, yes. I'm hanging on the hook.

MerlinAnd the section is called Los Preguntas. Okay. It's time for... I don't want to do... This is the loudest thing in the world. Welcome to... Bienvenidos a Los Preguntas.

Well, okay. So before we get to my questions, you can talk about... Is cocks and quucks different things? No.

AlexOh, it's different. No, they're the same thing. Quokes. They're the same thing.

MerlinOkay. Q-U-X. You can talk about quucks. We can talk about these other things. The questions I have for you are regarding the music man, the concept of what my wife calls jean jean, or in this case, me wearing three different colors of gray. And the third question is about the pregunta mark in Espanol.

AlexOkay. There are so many things that you said that I don't quite understand involving Spanish.

MerlinLet me ask you this. Sidebar. Is the cucks thing going to be interesting? Because I saw this a couple weeks ago and I didn't click. Because I figured it was going to be dumb. And we would be very pussy hat resistance to be going, look at these guys. Right?

AlexOh, I mean, I'm definitely going to put it in notes.

MerlinIs it funny? Is it actually funny or is it just a dumb blog thing?

AlexWell, it's developing to whether it's going to be a dumb thing or the next parlor. Yeah, let's table it because they just reached their goal on Indiegogo. And yeah, the QUX network, that's an Apple TV slash social network.

MerlinLas tres preguntas. I will say to you, por favor, deseo bistec con ensalada y sopa y de postre fruta. Please, corta el pelo, detrás de las orejas, if you would please keep track of quarks cookies because we're going to be coming back to it

Alexbut oh yeah I signed up for their

Merlinmailing list okay I'm most especially happy that you are I'm was so I saw so I hadn't been on the internet yesterday morning oh sorry uh so you said you were the first person to tell me about the music man

Speaker Aso I woke up

Merlinand the first thing that I saw when I picked up my phone is one of your context-free things you shared with me. First thing I read with my eye holes, apart from the time on my iPhone, was this from Alexandra. Quoting here from a New York Times article, the headline of the article, at least in the thumbnail, is Stephanie Grisham's book details Trump's terrifying temper. And this is only kind of, it's maybe 30% a Trump thing. It's just mostly 70% of what the fuck thing. At one point she writes, I'm stealing Valor because you sent this.

At one point she writes, Mr. Trump's handlers designated an unnamed White House official known as the, not quote, the music man, as the, quote, music man title case, to play him his favorite show tunes, including Memory from Cats, to pull him from the brink of rage. So that's, I first read that and then that just made me really happy for some reason.

AlexIt's just.

MerlinHe's a what? He's a what? Ah! You gotta know the territory.

AlexI've tried to sort of take a step back from a lot of, you know, the Trump news.

MerlinI don't even care what it's about. I'm just glad you took a step back.

AlexYeah, I just, you know, backwards is always better, as they say. But when you hear that our deranged president had a music man camel case, and that one of his favorite show tunes is memories and that he likes show tunes there are so many

Merlinlayers to this i am not at all surprised that he likes show tunes and well we've talked about how

Alexgay he is like genuinely actually all the stereotypes of gay uh but that doesn't really

Merlinsurprise me at all because like you know people of certain age that that's that's the music that was in jazz that was the music that's on the radio that was like you know everybody owned a copy of uh of Camelot you know at a certain point or like the world used to be smaller and Broadway used to be bigger so that that part did not particularly surprise me how is it that I know the words to the music man because the eight track played in my house constantly who asked for it me um but uh No, but cats, boy. Memory?

I mean, sure, fine. Whatever. But, like, it's so funny to think about, like, you know, what else could it have been? You know what would have been fun? One day more. You know?

Speaker AOh, my God.

Alexoh my god i can just hear it like when he when he got one tear a single tear Oh, God. I've dreamed of you all the time gone by. Oh, man. I hate admitting that I miss it.

Speaker AI got the horse right here. His name is Paul Revere.

MerlinIt'd be funny. Now, Guys and Dolls, I think Guys and Dolls, we kind of lost that one in the lights, but that's a really good musical.

AlexThat was the first musical I was ever in. I don't remember anything about it. No, no, no, no. By in, I do mean in the crew.

MerlinOh, basically they gave you a Stanzo fedora and sent you out, huh?

AlexNo, no, no, no. Not even. Not even. I was wearing black and changing up the sets and doing the lights.

MerlinMy ex-wife was the mayor's daughter in the Music Man. She got to sing Shapoopi.

AlexOh, God. That song. It's not a good song. It's a great song. It's a great song, especially when performed by Seth MacFarlane in the independent show Family Guy. But you see, there's a thing.

MerlinThere's a thing about musicals from the 60s starring people like Robert Preston, Rex Harrison, where all they have to do is sort of talk in a rhythmic way. Is it rap? It's not rap. Is it crap? Coley, trap the door and drop the... But that was a thing. You know, like Rex Harrison. That was his whole bit. Right?

Speaker AIn My Fair Lady? Mm-hmm.

MerlinMm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What was his big song? Oh, oh, oh, The Rain in Spain. No. Was that his big song? Boy, Quinn's going to be banging on the board.

AlexNo, no. Yeah, that's what it, yeah.

MerlinHer big song is, her I Want song is, Wouldn't It Be Love, Loverly is her big I Want song. And then there's The Rain in Spain Falls, mainly on the plains. It's not important. Anyway, it used to be much more acceptable.

AlexAlso covered by Seth MacFarlane in the indie show, Family Guy. I don't know if you've heard that.

MerlinI am going to... What did you say? I'm going to step away from this because we don't have the... Okay, so... Tic-a-tic-a-tic-a. Pregunta uno. Pregunta uno. If you had, and as I stipulated on the internet yesterday, I think the music man is a 29-inch tall homunculus who's kept in a closet until he's needed. If you had a music man, and it does have to be a man, if you had a music man, when would he be deployed and what would he be playing for you?

Alexhe would absolutely be like a oh oh fuck i know i know exactly who it would be and he's on youtube he is this like shy i don't know if he's a child anymore but he all he does is like put together um medleys of pop punk stuff like but but like strictly like blink 182 some 41 in green day

MerlinOh, and so it's not that it wouldn't calm you in a conventional sense, but it would make you feel sort of centered, do you feel like? Or it would be familiar and fun like a mashup does.

AlexWell, yeah. I mean, why would Trump want-

Speaker AI'm not criticizing. It's my fucking pregunta.

AlexOkay. Yeah, yeah. It would just be like a little boy coming out with a strat.

MerlinOh, that's so sweet. I love those kinds of stories. A little boy coming out.

AlexYeah, yeah. And he's got his little foam green squire strat and he's like, hello. and then just does the same six chords over and over and over. And then I'm like, hmm, hmm. I like that. Yes.

MerlinI think mine would be, I saw a very good video yesterday I'd never seen before of Serge Gainsbourg watching a performance of one of his songs by a children's choir and all the children are dressed like him down to like, I'll find it for notes, but down to like they've got, they're like unshaven and holding a glass of liquor and singing a Serge Gainsbourg song dressed like him. like 10-year-old kids. And then almost the entire video when they're not cutting to the kids is just Serge Gainsbourg trying to keep it together crying.

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinSo what I want, I would like to have the Goldberg variations played for me, but my homunculus would be a 29-inch high Glenn Gould impersonator.

AlexOh.

MerlinA little Gould.

AlexInteresting.

MerlinLittle Glenn? Glenn?

AlexGlenn? Glenn? Gary? Glenn? Glenn?

MerlinLittle Glenn. Little Glenn. He would come out. You know, he'd do that. That's a beautiful piece of music. Now, the recording you see a lot, the 81 recording that you see on YouTube is very good. I am somewhat partial to the more jubilant and youthfully exuberant 50s version. I mean, technically the 80s version is better and it's more mature, but I do like the Eddie Van Halen nature of the 50s recording,

the famous one. But anyway, little Gould, he comes out. He's my little homunculus. Little Canadian guy wears gloves and an overcoat, and he has his one stool. Have you ever seen that documentary about him?

AlexNo. What's it called?

MerlinOh, I don't know. 35 short films about Glenn Gould or something like that. Look it up. Go look up Glenn Gould documentary. Find out what it's called. Let's go look.

AlexI've got the loud keyboard. Glenn Gould doc.

Merlinyou memory oh genius within that's one 32 short films about Glenn Gould and yes that's where the Simpsons comes from Simpsons title and genius within that's what's in there

Speaker Aoh oh that's so cool

Merlinyeah oh I like that but like seriously if you ever need like just some it's like just in the sweet spot between going to sleep music and like getting centered with what you're doing right now in music but I mean it's like saying you like jazz check out kind of blue by Miles Davis it's like This is the album that everybody owns, if it's not the Neville Chamberlain. Neville Chamberlain, is that his name?

Speaker AWho's the guy who did Mozart? Neville Mariner. Oh, my God.

MerlinThat's so funny to one person. Sir Neville Chamberlain doing Mozart. He did the soundtrack for Amadeus with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and I confused him with the guy who negotiated with Hitler, who's not the conductor of Mozart.

AlexOh, yep. I don't say different people.

MerlinHere's the thing. Say what you will about Neville Mariner, but he never annexed the Sudetenland. Moving on to pregunte dos. Gracias por su pesos.

No, the rest is boring. The rest is noise. I accidentally wore three different colors of gray today.

AlexI'm very.

MerlinI got fat pants. I got fat pants. Remember when Max told me about Levi's commuter pants? And I bought some when I was heavier than I lost a lot of weight. And like I, I weigh like 10 pounds more than I used to, but it's just distributed in the most awful ways where even sweatpants make me feel like, I mean, I'm like a shut in at this point. I just don't want to wear pants. But I got one pair of pants I like and you can call me fat pants, but they are my pants pants. Because I'm fat and I wear those and they're comfortable enough. And then I always wear this. God, I wish they would make this thing again because I can't tell you how many people want this shirt once they see it.

It's this really cool marine layer shirt that looks kind of like just like a standard flannel shirt, but it's also got a lining. And it's got hip pockets. It's got two like slash pockets on the side to put your hands in. They're also lined. It's probably the best shirt ever. I tried desperately to buy one for my niece, Molly, because she really liked it. And I think they're not making it. And that's kind of grayish. But I got to my office and I was hot. Hot. hot. I take off my marine layer and I realize I'm wearing a Roderick on the Line Cotton Bureau shirt.

So I'm wearing three different articles of gray clothing that are just slightly different colors and I look insane.

AlexI mean why?

MerlinI'm wondering why. Why do I have to wear pants?

AlexNo, why does it look insane to wear three? Oh my god. I don't know. I guess I'm just projecting because I'm wearing, wait, one, two, oh yeah, three. I've got three well I guess you could call this maybe black I don't know

MerlinI'm going to give you an example of what some people call the Canadian tuxedo or what my wife calls jean jean I like hers better and so like if you see somebody who's wearing a jean jacket with blue jeans I mean sort of like Paula Jones in impeachment even if they're different shades like a classy person like there's something kind of weird about that okay now here's another one I'm not trying to anything shame anybody But if you saw a guy or a gal just rolling down the street in a full-on gimp suit where your entire body is covered in leather or another –

AlexThat's not the same thing. All right. So all right. I'm picturing the gimp suit.

MerlinDid I mention this is a pregun to dose?

AlexOkay. All right.

MerlinOr another kind of, as they say in the community, super skin. Like you would go, oh, that person is probably into that as a thing. And then you'd say, oh, that person is probably from Canada because they're wearing all denim. Like, and I don't want you to talk about me because I want you to talk about you. Like, based on how you dress, what would people think your weird fetish is?

Speaker AOh.

MerlinNot weird, but you know what I mean? Yeah, weird. You're weird. You're weird. You do that.

AlexOh, definitely.

MerlinI mean, gimsuit, you really, you want to get some, probably not baby powder because that can be bad. But if it's going to be like, if you're here from Germany and you brought along your later clothes in and you're going to spend, it's going to be, you know, you're here, let's say, in October. And you're like, Octoliber, it's going to be, I'm not going to wear my shorts. I'm going to wear my full-on Das Süden Auf Gimp.

Indulator.

AlexWe're doing a lot of languages. And you're skater. You know, typically I think if they saw, like I've got my gray Allbirds and then my dark gray jeans.

MerlinAllbirds are shoes?

AlexYes, yes. and they're very like Silicon Valley Instagram ad type in the same vein of like Adams. Yes. Yeah, exactly. God, they're making Bitcoin. They're my favorite sneaker and I'm like, oh.

MerlinThey're making Bitcoin out of Adams, Alex. Is that right?

AlexThey are making the shoe company Adams.

MerlinIs that an NFT? Does that count as an NFT?

AlexI don't know, but I know that you can't buy the Bitcoin edition of Adams with Bitcoin, which I find very funny. But yeah, I've got a very gay Silicon Valley style, I've been told. So speaking of microdosing, I bet people would be like, ah, there's someone who goes to a key party, but instead of keys, everyone puts little tablets in a bowl.

MerlinOh, like you got a picture of Michael Pollard on your wall.

AlexLike a farm party, but more expensive. Yeah.

MerlinJust like John Syracuse.

AlexOh. Okay.

MerlinBut that really, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I just, I feel embarrassed when I'm wearing things that are too close into the same color. I'm one of those people where you've got to, like, I'm no Jason Snell. I don't type as fast as him and I see colors, but, uh, but for example, like I, I sometimes can't tell if I'm being gaslit when somebody says that's not black. It's Navy blue. And I go, well,

Speaker Ain that case,

MerlinNavy blue is black because, and it is said, it has been said that, that women have, uh, uh, uh, female at birth. Oh, calm down.

AlexEveryone needs to calm down.

MerlinOh, it's everyone that needs to calm down?

AlexDoes that include you, Al?

Speaker AEveryone needs to calm down.

AlexYeah, that does include me.

MerlinShould we all stop excusing ourselves for things we didn't do wrong, do you think?

AlexYep, yep. Could we do that?

MerlinWould that be a mitzvah? Third language? Fourth language. Technically, bitte können Sie mir wagen will. Later. Bitte können Sie mir wagen will. Later, house.

Meine later, boy.

AlexAll right. Your fetish.

Speaker ADas Tuxedo auf Canada. In das Denem.

AlexI think a good example is the new purple iPad, which is definitely space gray purple, but I was like, yes, this is exactly what I want. I want to pretend I liked a real color.

MerlinI don't know who would have ever asked for that color blue in the iPhone. Yoinks.

AlexOh, it's gender reveal blue. I love it. It's so nice.

MerlinThe Pregunta Trace, as you see, and you might have heard this a million years ago, is that I'm a big fan of the Spanish usage of quotation, or pardon me, of question marks. Yes. So like in English, for those of you who aren't native speakers, when you ask a question, that means the sentence, there's certain kinds of punctuation marks that have semantic things. Ideally, all of them, they have semantic things. You can look that up in the dictionary. But when you're asking a question, you end the sentence with a question mark.

When you're on the internet, you end it with an exclamation point. And then otherwise you use a period, much like Alex right now. Now, you only need the one period because that's just a way of saying this sentence is over and then another one will begin. But in the case of exclaiming and questioning, I think it's wonderful. I think it's fucking beyond wonderful that in Spanish, the sentence also begins with that piece of punctuation. So you're entering into the sentence knowing that you're about to ask a question or that you know that you're about to do an exclamation, which makes all of the sense.

How fucking crazy is it that we don't know that a sentence is a question until we're done reading it? That's insane.

AlexI still don't really know what gaslighting is, but it feels like English sentences or any sentence that does not have punctuation at the beginning where it is necessary. It's kind of gaslighting.

MerlinI don't think you need a period. I don't think you need a period at the beginning.

AlexRight, right. Then that's a little redundant, I think. Oh, what about a semicolon, though? Oh, shit. What would you do in that?

MerlinUpside down semicolon? Oh, let's capture that. I got to think about what that would be for. But the thing is, a semicolon and a colon are both sort of like interstitial inside because you don't end a sentence with those.

AlexYeah, but then there's the, hmm, I don't know.

MerlinI mean, excluding the internet beloved Interobang, I think there's only really those two. But I just think that makes all of the sense. And the way that I started deploying these, forgive me if you've heard this, was that I think this is actually crazy useful, which is the way that I am about calendar stuff. I don't put anything on my calendar unless it's like a settled thing that I have to do. See, also everything I've ever said. But if there's something in there where like I'm over 50 percent sure that this is going to happen. But it's, as we used to say, in pencil.

That means so I say, you know, call with Alex and then that will end with a question mark. But then it also begins with a question mark.

AlexOh, shit, dog.

MerlinBecause now I have a way of, first of all, I think in a useful day-to-day way, glancing whether there's anything on my calendar that begins with a question mark. And if you stop for just a second and think about that, that's actually insanely useful. Because first of all, is there anything on my calendar? I could do a search. Is there anything on my calendar in the next month that I'm pretty sure I'm doing but I didn't finalize? Well, that needs to change right now. I either take off the question mark because it's settled or I delete the item. Nothing should stay on your calendar with those two. That's a way of like semantically and semiotically like knowing the status of something without needing an extra bit to flip.

AlexI'm so upset that you've never mentioned that. Oh, this is so good.

MerlinSee, this is the problem. This is ATP t-shirts all over again. I feel like I've said that so many times that I'm just stupid. But I mean, OK, so A, can I just get my back on this? Isn't especially a question mark at the beginning of the sentence? Isn't that a great idea?

AlexAbsolutely.

MerlinOh, sorry. And the context here is we don't need to talk about this, but this is kind of an optional fun one is the way I'm using it here in our document.

AlexI mean, I have.

MerlinWe don't have to talk about Russell T. Davies, you know.

AlexWhat is something with or do we need it in English?

MerlinOh, no. I was just being cute. I was being cute. The question I'm trying to ask is what is another thing like that that we could really. Are there other things like that that we could use in English? not just... For example, because I'm an English as a first language person, it's always seems strange to me that in German a table is a boy and that in Spanish a house is a girl. This existed in 7th grade. The first time I had a language class

in 7th grade, I'd read books about learning Spanish when I was a kid. My first formal language class was 7th grade. And that was my introduction to female, male, and neutral nouns in German. And I just thought it was so goddamn weird. You know what I'm saying? Who decided? I mean, I'm sure lots of people could explain this, but it just seems that part I do not find useful. Just as I do wish there were better pronouns for describing in an unambiguous way who you're talking about.

I think we could really use a whole new version of that right now, jokes aside. But like, is there anything else like that that we could really use? Like, maybe a semicolon? Is there? I don't know. I feel like I do like, I mean, like people have joked about this in the past, like using, oh, like the way people do wacky uppercase, lowercase to indicate what a crazy thing to say, for example. You know what I mean? On the internet. It's the equivalent of like googly eyes, of like rolling googly eyes. Or are there other things like that that we could use in English, especially now that even in as much as video and image means have become a thing?

Like there's lots of times where like I want to italicize something. But I think Markdown looks a little cute to do that on Twitter, for example. I don't know. I'm just talking. You struggle with English.

AlexYeah, I struggle as I struggle with most things. But I think a lot of this is being replaced by emoji or not replaced, but people are really leaning hard into emojis. And then I words mean things. And at times, emojis apparently mean things. And then I don't know when I get confused because I'm old, I guess. I know that like a crying, laughing emoji is a thing that boomers do in millenniums.

MerlinOh, doesn't that mean a lol or raffle or la mau?

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinAnd I really wish adults would stop using this. I know it makes me sound sour and old, but like I think I get it. But really, you guys, la mau and lol. It's really not lol. It's really, really. I mean, and no, I know I sound like exactly who I am, but really think about it. Do you really need it? Do you really need to start with lol or lamow?

AlexI will say I've never done an lol that I didn't literally. It's so fake casual. It's fake casual sat Twitter. Fake casual sat Twitter. No, no, no, no.

MerlinLol, now do milan.

AlexNot all lols. Lol. Not all lols. Lamow. I literally have. Okay, I guess I've never lamowed or typed lamow. But I am an LOLer.

MerlinOh, my daughter lamals me all the time.

AlexAnd she loaves me.

MerlinShe loaves and lamals.

AlexOh, man.

MerlinThat's her I want song. Lows and lamals.

AlexHow do we feel about a sarcasm indicator of some sort? God, people have tried to do it.

MerlinWasn't there a pitch for Tilda? I want to say, was it Tilda?

AlexI don't remember. It feels like Esperanto. A thing that just keeps failing, but people just keep trying to do it. Kind of like late-late capitalism, right? Yeah.

MerlinWhat about late-stage capitalism? Have you thought about that? Are you using sarcasm? You know, the use of irony to mock or can make.

Speaker ALola Mao, Lola Mao, Lola Mao.

MerlinYes, your ass has been laughed off. So I see. Thank you. You're 40? Okay.

Alexokay okay all right so what's what's the lamau cut off well i guess really what i'm talking about

Merlinis lol and lamau used as the equivalent of if if if not being funny and being like an undiagnosed depressed person if that was a punctuation mark with which you began a sentence lol i'm so dead inside. LaMau. I'm out of touch. I guess I don't

Alexencounter those. When you begin a sentence with Lola and LaMau. Stop it. Oh, no. I am not feigning surprise. I don't think I've ever received I have received

Merlinat the end. Go to Max's 2019 Twitter list. It's just...

AlexOh, that's different.

MerlinThat's only the people who are doing the first draft of history. What the fuck are you talking about?

Alexso all the angry MSNBC tweeters like I don't

Merlinoh you're talking about Rachel Maddow style sometimes the news gods just hand you a day like this you tear up the script and throw it in the air that kind of thing meow cats are like

Alexmeow

Merlinthey just do a cutaway she's frenetically rolling her eyes at the camera and they just cut away to like a little tad just looking at his paws

Alexsometimes I want to like text her and be like you okay you alright me too

MerlinSometimes when I get home, she used to always be in the lounge on the west side of the house in the sun in the afternoon. I used to always come home, and I put down my backpack, and I'd say, Savvy, what are you doing? And I keep thinking she's going to be there, and she's not.

All Madeline ever really wanted, apart from taking care of her, was just one time. One time, Madeline sets down her food, just all she's ever wanted, more than a healthy child. She just wanted the cat to look up at her once and go, wow. and she never did it because she could do it she had all of the equipment to look at madeline and say wow and she never did and now we'll never hear that wow well you look that is a very sad sad

Alexthing but i think things die that the the solution to this or at least not the solution but a band-aid for this. Pass it out.

Speaker AIt's called the dribble parade.

AlexThe waddle parade.

Speaker AThey got their underwear around their ankles when they're waddling around.

AlexGod, I am quite allergic to most things, including dogs. So I'm like, I'm going to pass on this one. You enjoy. Because it...

MerlinLook at the big feet. They have such big feet.

AlexThey have alarmingly large feet. for it. They're so short. And they're little black toenails

Merlinwith this giant... Oh my God. Oh my God.

AlexI mean, they're the grotesquerie that is intentional. Their ears just... Ugh.

MerlinA friend sent me, a Twitter or a pair of social friends sent me a tweet a couple days ago of some kind of Basset adjacent account. And this Basset hound has the biggest feet. And I showed it to my whole family. Of course, my kid, because she's a monster, was not into it. But I looked at it and I I was like, that is about the cutest thing I've ever seen. I will find this.

AlexI mean, I see about 50 dog pictures a day. So, I mean, I feel... No, no, no. I would... I love a good dog picture. But sometimes it's like when I get excited about an iOS feature. Or Tesla. I'm like, Maddie, Maddie, okay. I get excited about Tesla for many different reasons.

Speaker ADid you see that Elon and Grimes broke? Oh, I'm so excited. I'm so excited.

MerlinI did. I did. And then there was another thing. he was being a little bit of a stinker yesterday.

AlexOh, no.

MerlinWhat? Sometimes I think about that kind of overused, not very funny, but sometimes very funny tweet format of like, men will X, Y, Z, one, two, three, rather than go to therapy. And like, I think he's kind of like an example of just that meme in motion. A guy would fly to the moon rather than go to therapy. Or Mars, rather. You know what I mean? Like, dude, pump the brakes. Like, why are you not, is there no one around you who will tell you to pump the brakes?

AlexWell, yeah, I'm like, I truly believe that billionaires just have there's no way anybody can tell him a thing that he will believe or do if he does not think it is in his best interest, because the other option just like doesn't exist. This person is just, oh, they would be like me.

MerlinSort of like an all or nothing. Like either this is something that greatly benefits me or it's actively working to undermine me.

AlexOr or. I mean, is that mean? Not even that. No. Or it's just it's it could be that it's just neutral. Like it's like, oh, you think I should stop tweeting about this because of like because of the government? Nah, it's fine. It's fine. Because it will be fine. It is always fine. We have yet to see it not be fine.

Merlinand it'll always be fine is such what feels to me in the mindset of that's such a silicon valley mindset which is like you know oh god what is that from from the simpsons can't someone else do it the whole like you know i'll i will come to palo alto and like i will shit on the streets and like it'll be fine though we're disrupting street shitting and then but if it does go wrong somebody

Alexelse will take care of it move fast and break things this may this may need to be the show art

MerlinI just sent you a tweet and I encourage you to click it and to zoom.

AlexOh, Oh, this is a,

Merlinplease look at the feet.

AlexHoly fuck.

MerlinOh,

AlexOh buddy. You okay. Oh my God. It's like the material. It's okay.

MerlinLook at those eyes.

AlexOh,

Merlincan you imagine having this? Cause like I was explaining, and look at the ears, look at the ears. I was explaining to my, my, my lady friend, how like I sometimes have this idea, like, you know, I used to pick up the cat at night and put her in my lap and, and pat her most nights. And I have this thing where like, I keep imagining a notional, Basset Hound title in front of me, kind of like a perpendicular, like old black man on the bed. And I'm imagining I make forklift hands with my arm. I put my hands down. I imagine going, boop, boop. We'll be backing up. I go forward.

I put my arms under an improbably long and improbably heavy Basset Hound, and I pick it up and put it on my lap like I'm a forklift. Wouldn't you love to forklift a Basset Hound? I have. It would be so heavy. I bet they're so dense. They've got to be so dense.

AlexThey're so dense. Yes. They are just.

MerlinThis looks like a 40 pound dog. Oh, at least. The way that I. Here's how I know 40 pounds. I knew 20 pounds as a kid because that's the home weight set that I had was 20 pounds. That's why I'm ripped now. Now I know 40 pounds because 40. Oh, see, this is sad. 40 pounds is the weight of the bags of kitty litter we would get. And so I have an extreme familiarity with carrying something that's 40 pounds up two flights of stairs. So like, you know what I mean? It's almost like the old butcher and the roast beef, which is one of my favorite folk songs.

Speaker ADown, down, down, down, down, down. Yeah, the old butcher has a roast beef in his hand.

MerlinBecome a bitch for a party year, then you can do it to forklift your basset hound, basset hound, 40 pounds kitty litter. Now it's more of a square dance. But I know from 40 pounds. Look at that face. Look at those feet. Look at that neck, chest area.

AlexThis is for sure a Rottweiler and Basset mix.

Speaker AYes, you're right. The coloration.

MerlinOh, my God. You know the joke. Of course you know the joke about a Corgi being a Corgi in another dog costume. This looks like a Rottweiler in a Basset hound costume.

Speaker AYes, yes.

AlexOh, the little. But he still has the little white in his eyes. I bet his feet are soft on top.

MerlinAnd look at the nose. Do you see? And it looks a little bit freckly. I may need to go get this dog

Alexhere's the thing Basset hounds are not hard to adopt because they're just I mean they don't have like problems to the degree of like being a special needs dog they just you know need their

Merlina Sharpay or a

Alexoh well those depends but like you know

MerlinSharpay's got like got all the infections and hip dysplasias and stuff

Alexyou know what I'm not sure like I know most purebred dogs because they are inbred.

MerlinAre you telling me that people, that this becomes, the basset hounds are too much work for some people or is it not a good fit for their family? Why do people give up for adoption their precious basset hounds?

AlexOh, yeah, like it's tough to clean their ears and like, you know, they got goopy eyes and stuff like that.

MerlinOh, okay, sure, sure, sure. And it's not a dog-shaped dog, so dog racists like John Siracusa would never have one.

AlexYeah. He's like a dog eugenicist.

MerlinHe's a eudogicist.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinLet's talk about the challenge. Thank you so much for answering my tres preguntas.

AlexTres comas. Si.

Speaker ADo you know Russ Hanneman's on Community?

AlexWhat? I feel...

MerlinWhat? Remember the German foosball guys?

AlexThe... The...

MerlinThe pink ball guys? Foosball. Well, one time, it's... It's a crazy... You're not crazy. I'm the douche. It's the douche who used to date Leslie Knope. One time it's him. What's his name? Why can't I remember his name? Nick Kroll. One time it's Nick Kroll and the other time it's Russ Hanneman as the head German.

AlexOh, my God. Oh, my God.

MerlinHe's so funny. He's so little. Oh, my God. He really is. I love when they go to the wrong school. He threw us out of this school.

Oh, Russ Hanneman. Trace Comas.

Speaker ACiao.

MerlinWait, I might need a break. Hour 14. No, no, no, no. I'm good. I'm good to do this all day. But like, it's so, what is it here? It's 76.5 degrees at my desk. Oh, gee, baby. Plus or minus what I call the Eve room 10%. And it's 53% relative humidity, which is not too bad.

AlexOh, 53 sounds, hmm. I don't, San Francisco weather confuses me.

MerlinIt is confusing. No, that's in here. I also have the Eve Outdoor. I just, I'm not looking at it right now. I hid it somewhere in my private office.

AlexOh, okay.

MerlinDon't get the internet out of puzzles. Okay, that's Jack. Jack is the name of that dog. I think that should be our show art. No, wait, no. What is Mockler Bassett's?

Speaker AOh, wait, it's a whole account of Bassett Hounds? Oh, my God. Oh, it's also got a pregnant lady. Oh, look at the ears.

MerlinAlexandra. I'll put this in show notes. I'm on the account. Oh, the bow ties. Oh, look at the bow ties. Oh, my God.

AlexOh, God. Look at the...

MerlinNow, do they have a wriggle... What's it called? The wriggle regatta? Do they have a wriggle regatta for... unfortunately okay something you know what after show i want to talk about what makes me not follow

Alexan account that otherwise is exciting me uh okay all right i have criteria i have criteria

MerlinI mean, it's all the same criteria that probably you have. They post too much. They retweet. They quote, tweet, or retweet congratulations to them too much. They say, oh, here's my sound clock. Or then, obviously, the cardinal sin. And this is the whole, like, oh, go check out. If you're interested in leveraging Bitcoin or blockchain in the enterprise, be sure to check out this T-shirt or whatever. Like, when they do, like, the totally paid posts.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinThat just makes me call into question their entire existence.

AlexNo, what's worse is when it's a retweet to be entered into. I'm like, oh, no.

MerlinOh, no, no. You get two of those a year.

AlexI get a lot. I mean, that's a big old mute for.

MerlinOh, absolutely. And yet you listen to people say lol la mal.

AlexI don't. OK. You never.

MerlinIt's your generation. When is the cutoff?

AlexWhen's the cutoff? When? The cutoff?

Merlinnever when what are you doing all right all right okay sorry let's do it let's look at it take it and turn it oh if you're young and say lola mal you're impressing whom you're impressing

Alexyou're not rogan we're not doing it for claps uh i hated the challenge this week so much with a

Merlinfiery passion me too okay in that case let's do it quick and then take our our break i just i said to my lady last night i was actually saying to yeah to madeline and emma last night they were fixing to go to bed and i was like oh i really want to watch the crown but i want to go back and start the crown again but i'm supposed to do youtube things and i was i showed emma all my i was going through my subscriptions on my laptop and like oh my god i'm so basic i'm incredibly basic i follow the community channel what could be more basic or like or like bands i liked in the

90s like i i think that this will mean nothing to you denzel and freedy johnston like owe me a coke because i'm like one of the 23 followers that where they posted nothing for nine years but i'm still

Alexi'm basic yeah i'm i'm subscribed to uh mark hoppus uh but i thought that i did i don't know i and i enjoy trying to trick elder thumbs uh challenge this week was to challenge this week

Merlinwas to like well i think what we ended up with was uh be prepared to share some things you love on youtube and with a special at least to me my idea was for myself try and find obscure something that other people may not know about like i'm not gonna i'm not gonna be out here talking cgp gray adam neely and wendover productions because you probably know at least two of those lock picking lawyer you know about that but like are there some that are just let little further afield and the ideal ones obviously would be to find something incredibly obscure that

they may not know about but you adore. Yeah couldn't couldn't do it. Sort of like me in the Republican calendar like I know it's a popular account but at 5 p.m. every day this one account posts some wackadoo I don't even know what the Republican calendar is but it's like today's the day that we celebrate crocuses or horses or justice and it'll be some wackadoo like you know 17th century uh engraving with it i love shit like that that's the twitter equivalent i i have

Alexuno preguntas uh yeah or two uh well then i'm gonna throw down and have you draw a quattro that was an uno joke alex i i i know it's also a tiktok thing apparently

Merlinkiss kiss la significant day kiss la significant day draw i'm sorry come see do you say draw

Alexdo you go to youtube like the main page or do you you go straight to your subscriptions

Merlini don't go to a page hardly ever the only way i ever look at it on a computer i will periodically look at it but it's almost always to add something to watch when i get home on my tv because i watch things on my tv occasionally i will if i'm putting together notes for something right i'll need to like verify this is the good version of this, that kind of stuff. But the main way I watch YouTube is it's the last thing I usually watch at night when I'm fixing to go to bed and I watch it on my Apple TV. So I go to home, which is just, I get really different recommendations on Apple TV.

AlexOh yeah.

MerlinReally? Okay, because I don't know why and as all, anything Google related, you should always begin by assuming it's something fucked up and weird about yourself before you blame anybody else. Look at these Google returns. that says my father is great.

You know, okay, so I'm just amazed sometimes at how persistent, first of all, it's the top row on Apple TV that always gets me the most consistently wrong based on fairly recent behavior in a way that non-Apple TV viewing does not. And I'm keen to hear, given what you said earlier, I'm keen to hear what you think, but that's one. I'll go to subscriptions sometimes and just go see what's up there. but the thing is like one out of seven on the top row of home will be really really good and I'll find something

great like if I've just watched something about cooking fried rice in an indie rock band and then the very first thing will be like oh this one's even better version of that will be there like when I go into my anthill casting videos I'll find a really good one but then so much of it is like you know here's all the things to stick up your ass in Disneyland and it's been the same recommendation for two weeks and it's like go away but I'll also frequently get bubbled up like if I didn't go to subscriptions that's top rows where I'll notice like oh new Adam Neely

on like what's the slowest tempo or whatever

Alexhave you noticed though that sometimes Adam Neely just doesn't show up for whatever reason

MerlinI have a guess and a gander about that that's totally unscientific

Speaker Aproceed first of all I signed up for

Merlinwell I'm sorry I'm talking a lot I signed up for Skillshare slash Nebula yesterday, which is frequently the sole sponsor of a bunch of people's videos. Now, I have not checked this with science, but I got a feeling people like Adam Neely and maybe David Bennett? No, who are the other ones that are big? Wendover? I have a feeling that a bunch of the Skillshare and Nebula crowd may not be taking,

Speaker Aa lot of them are not taking traditional ads like they used to.

MerlinAnd I have not verified this by seeing, well, is there a blah, blah, blah, you know, promotional link with the money hand? That icon with the hand receiving money is so, like, fuck you of YouTube to say. Like, I received money to do this. But, you know, I'm pretty sure Skillshare is something that, like, it's like United Artists. I think Skillshare is something that a bunch of YouTubers created together because they think YouTube sucks. and like if you're really worried about monetizing and not monetizing well how is it that some people

play an entire fucking beatles song and then the poor guy with the beatles channel can't play any beatles songs is is that the monetization it's the fear of like i i won't be able to have ads here

Alexi don't know because i that that's definitely a fear on twitch because it's like any whiff of like this could be a thing you're taken down and it's the same of youtube but well it's not that

Merlinit gets taken down though right because otherwise how could rick beato or whomever or like there's some there's some channels where they just play a song and talk about it and there's other ones i told you this there's a guy with a beat a channel about beatles vinyl and he does not play any beatles songs so he's comparing six versions of the blue album he can't play fucking any of them all you can do is put up a waveform and show vinyl spinning on a turntable it's like why do you have this why do you have this channel if you feel you can't play music by the beatles

Alexbecause people like their their things but that's also it that sounds like a how are some people playing the beatles alex this is my question because uh some people or some some artists can monetize other people's videos. So like if you're doing, you're talking about a Taylor Swift song.

MerlinYou mean like according to terms? According to terms?

AlexLike it'll just happen. I should text a friend of the show, Chris Lawley about this. It's...

MerlinGod, this is so... And there's also this thing that happens in the Disney clusterfuck circle jerk community where everybody's stealing everybody else's videos without credit. You can obviously see. There's only so many home movies of Eastern Airlines as if you had wings from 1976 at Disney World. So like a fair number of those, including the Extreme Ultimate cut. They're all taken from the same shit. Totally uncredited. Nobody gets in trouble for that because they're too little. I don't understand fucking YouTube.

AlexWell, that's the other thing. YouTube can demonetize your video if it has been taken from another. Like if you reposted someone else's.

MerlinBut demonetize simply means you will not get ads put on here that you make money from, correct?

AlexCorrect, correct.

MerlinSo if you have another revenue stream, you're still good. As long as you don't get a strike-worthy, you know, bad thing. You know what? I'm going to shut up. I don't want to talk about this anymore. Is it depressing?

AlexNo, that's the thing. I don't know. But it's the way that YouTube has sort of devolved into this disgusting algorithm machine that like has has fucking filmmakers.

MerlinYou get this so much worse than I do. I cannot even tell you how much worse you get this than I do.

AlexIt is. And I don't I don't I don't know why.

MerlinI get bad taste, but I don't get gross stuff.

AlexI get like I mean I it's like I watch I watched one Mr. Beast video five years ago and now it's like oh Trisha Paytas Trisha Paytas Anna whatever I don't know what any of that means Alex I wish I didn't know what that meant I wish who's Trisha Potatoes it's exactly is she related to Gabby burrito i'm so confused i i just youtube is basically i mean so so many places it's the

same story of a platform is holding people hostage because it's like where the fuck else are you gonna put but it like sure like i love using vimeo but it's for like a niche little like hey here's it's

Merlinfor 12 people yeah but that's bullshit alex that here's the problem it's like and this is exactly the fucking problem with so much on the internet from every single direction, which is there's this unstated, like, there's a third rail we're never allowed to touch, which is, like, I don't want you to know how callow I am about needing strangers to like me and see my shit. Okay? If you take that off the table, Vimeo is fine. If you take that off the table, a million different things are fine. But you can't have your cake and fuck it, too. You can't be like, oh, it's so

sad, there's all these capricious rules about free video hosting forever. Oh, boo-hoo. It's so sad how they're so mean to me about the station. I have a YouTube channel where all I do is complain about what's happened to the Walt Disney Corporation. There is literally, I've watched too many of these guys' videos. This guy's video. He's super annoying. And basically all he wants to do, he has such a fucking hard-on for the guy that's running Disney Parks right now. And it's all he does. Okay? So anyway, but people like that. Like, what's your basis for your problem with this?

It's just like I need Facebook for my work. Yeah, that's what they said at Nuremberg.

AlexLike, yeah, they had to do that for their work. Yes. That's what Joe Rogan said. That's, oh God, there's the picture of, oh God, the tattoos. But what, then, all right, you are a, you're a filmmaker. Where are you supposed to put your shit to share it? Okay, then who finds it on Vimeo? People who like your work. How do people even know who the fuck you are?

MerlinAlex, you're proving my precise point. It's this bizarre entitlement that I should get to have the nicest fruit stand on the highway all the time. It's like, well, first of all, the highway is not a place for a fruit stand. If you really cared about meeting your customers, you'd put it somewhere where they could pull up. But there's not enough traffic there. So there's just always this implicit, like, whoever, whatever incredibly deranged, successful, bullshit company is running, the only place that's left to put stuff, then we all go merr and we kick it the ground

because we can't have our Beatles videos there. And it's like, well, you can go fucking host it yourself. And it's just like, but that's the third rail, Alex. The third rail is I expect whatever I do to be accessible. I need you to do the heavy lifting of bringing people to me because you put everyone else out of business.

AlexWhat? Okay, that makes sense. if you have the access and ability to create, like some people have really, have big issues with GitHub and how their thing is,

Merlinhow they're monitoring. I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying, Alex. Do you understand that one of the major ways a grocery store makes money is selling different areas for placement, right? We all know this, right?

AlexThey put the milk in the back, yes.

MerlinWell, time was, okay. Time was, that's very funny. time was that what you put on the end cap was what you had the most of and need to clear out before it goes bad and I think in the fullness of time as the margins on groceries especially food got shittier and thinner you started selling placement and you'd say like if you want your Count Chocula to be where a little kid will see it and grab it it needs to be here but you know what I wouldn't do is be somebody who hasn't tried very hard to even make one box of cereal and then complain about Safeway's

usurious policies of charging for placement. It's like, you're sad because the business is having rules about how it works. And now you're mad because people can't see your cereal. It's like, well, if you're going to play in that area and expect that level of other people taking care of providing your, your traffic and free hosting, I'm not trying to defend YouTube. I'm just saying, I'm, I don't know what I'm saying, Alex, go ahead. I'm probably being, I'm probably being insensitive to, uh,

aboriginal peoples or something.

AlexWhy isn't anyone talking about this?

MerlinIt's just so strange to me that like my $40, and I know I'm an old man, but my first shared hosting account was $40 a month. And basically if I put anything anywhere on an FTP, like web accessible server, my bandwidth was gone in an hour for the entire month. So the idea of like 4K HDR videos hosted for free somewhere, and then like you're like oh yes but like we love the baron who gives us all the things but but their their patterns of business are so capricious to us it's like oh dude move to the country

Alexi there's something to be said for okay going to that store and being like oh sure yeah sell my stuff cool cool cool my stuff is getting you getting people into your store and then it's like ah okay just kidding now we're just now we're gonna uh charge for admission to the store like

Merlinyou would you would not have a store in which to sell stuff if it weren't for people like me right

Alexyeah and and then i my big beef like i god it's like fucking 15 a month for youtube red which i happily pay for it because then I don't need to see ads. And, but YouTube is saying, yeah, this, like, just say that this is what, like, this is how we make money now. But YouTube is like, oh, and it's distributed amongst the creators this way. And then when a website's telling you, yes, subscribe, hit that bell, and then basically hides that shit from you because it doesn't keep

you on the website longer it's like forget about the creators like the users of the site it's i

Merlinmean i have i have so much i have so much more sympathy for the people who are on that fucking ridiculous train because it's so pathetic it's so pathetic how often you you have to go and say something about a bell like you're an adult what the fuck are you doing but you know who i think has it even worse and doesn't even realize how terrible they have it people on substack oh they're fucked well they were fucked to begin with well all i'm trying to say is this which is like again on political twitter in case you missed it here's my latest bleep blorp on zips up and you're like

no i didn't miss it i see it every time you put it up but like it's so wild how the the tuppence that you get for being on substack has created this army of people posting a url that ends in substack.com. I mean, I think pound for pound, person per person, user for user, link for link, I'll bet there's more bullshit generated on the internet about Substack than YouTube. And understand what I'm saying. I'm talking about per capita here. Per capita. I'm talking about, you know what I'm saying? I'm saying, well, YouTube's one of the biggest

things in the world. Of course you see it a lot, and it's great. But like, Substack, there's just all these people making the Taika Waititi face going like, I remember me showing that That GIF from what we do in Shadows where he's like, he's like grimacing and trying to be smiling. That's everybody on Substack to me. It's like, I know this is already beginning to fall apart. And I know all of the income is based on shitty people I never want to be associated with. But now I'm an independent journalist, in case you missed it.

No one just dropped. And you're like, oh, my God. You're just promoting so much Substack for Nichols.

AlexEverybody went into that. It is my opinion that everybody who went with that business model knew exactly what they were getting.

Speaker ASo many good writers.

AlexRight. Whereas with things, not things, like with YouTube, it's just this strange thing of like, okay, so what would it take you to not use Amazon? Like, it'd be like, oh, yeah, I don't buy anything from there. Well, what do you, all of these sites use AWS. Like, and I mean, and it's not just like, ah, I.

MerlinI'm trying to follow because I want to test myself on this. To not use anything that's ever been associated with Amazon or to stop buying almost all of my shit from Amazon. Which do you mean?

AlexJust not, not use Amazon.

MerlinWell, I don't do things like that.

AlexExactly, because it doesn't.

MerlinIt's like all those people who stopped using any Google. Remember that 10 years ago when everybody stopped using every single Google product? Remember that?

AlexNo.

MerlinRemember when everybody stopped using Gmail? Everybody stopped using FeedBurner? Don't you remember? Remember when everybody was never going to... You don't remember when everybody, including a bunch of our friends, were never going to use another Google thing again? Remember that? I do. Believe me, I do. Was this like a protest of Google Reader?

Speaker ANo, it was just another one of those, oh, the usurious terms and the blah, blah, blah. blah and i've been really happy with fast mail except i didn't really use it anymore because

Merlinyou know oh you should really have a portable you guys did you start watching the crab games or whatever it's called yet have you started watching that have games whatever the fuck

Alexit's called the squid games what's it called i'm having a neurological event what's happening

Merlinnever mind i'll talk about it later there's a show on netflix a south korean show on netflix that's kind of weird my kid loves not appropriate but one conceit of this show that's only a minor spoiler is that we discovered that like these hundreds of people that are involved in this project are, we don't know it until we know it. Every single one of them is in impossible debt and doing this because of impossible debt. And they're otherwise, you know, all completely different people, except they're all under crushing debt. And I had this really dumb, naive thought last night, which is like, I wonder if, is there anybody that doesn't owe money to

somebody right now? Is there anybody that doesn't owe money to people who owes money to people to owes me that it was you know what i mean it's and it's like it sounds like a really naive thing to say it's like oh you're it's in your house in your house in your house jimmy stewart shit but no i mean more like is there is there anybody out there who's not terrified that they're completely full of shit right now and they're always like just like one lunchtime away from being exposed as a complete fraud i'm not talking about you know uh whatever it's called imposter syndrome I'm talking about like we all walking around act like we're doing, acting like we're doing fine.

And my gut tells me that so many people are not as fine as they seem. And so when everybody on Substack goes, well, it's a real honor to blah, blah, blah, in case you missed it. And what if they're all just going, fuck. Like I'm still paying off the debt of having gone to school to learn how to do this job that I could have really learned on my own. I've got shit to pay for. I've got stuff to do. and like nobody's allowed to walk around with their hat in their hand. It certainly would not be advisable. You will not look successful if you walk around with your hat in your hand.

And I mean like the same is true for all kinds of just like people who have extremely fucking strong public opinions. And you don't remember this, but I bet a couple of people out there will remember the five to 10 years ago that again and again, I kept hearing from everybody I know that they're never using a Google product again. I'm not imagining this. I could name three names right now of people who said they will never touch another Google product ever. Oh, no, actually, I've been really happy with Bing. Nobody's really happy with Bing. Nobody's really happy with DuckDuckGo.

Anybody who actually needs to find anything goes to Google. Do I like that?

Speaker AI do not.

MerlinBut pretending otherwise is not wholesome.

Speaker ALol.

MerlinLol.

Speaker ALol. Lol. Lol. Lol.

AlexThank you for those upbeat YouTube recommendations. Oh, God.

Speaker AI'm not a fraud. You're a fraud. No. Now.

MerlinHere we go. I'm going to talk about YouTube. Did you want to recommend anything? Oh, my shit's really basic. No, that's the show. No, my shit's all really basic. Don Giller.

Speaker ANo, I'm not.

MerlinDon Giller for Letterman Videos. I like and support Technology Connections, the Polish carpet cleaner guy. Oh, Samara Ginsberg, the woman who does the cello songs. She does like, you know, X-Men theme for eight cellos.

AlexI don't know. I have no idea who that is.

MerlinIt's a woman who plays various like pop culture songs, except it's a screen split into eight parts. And it's her playing eight different cello parts.

AlexOh, shit.

MerlinThe X-Men one's really good. stuff like that but that's all it's also basic I don't even have anything interesting what's your favorite one that you think our listeners would like that you enjoy

Alexnone they're all terrible

Merlinshow the video move to the country

Alexthat's what I say I really that's okay here's the thing I have subscribed to like humans that I know I want their videos to show up in my subscription thing and they just don't end up there. It's not like a shadow band fucking thing but then I'm scrolling around trying to find

MerlinOh, then this was your arch point about Adam Neely. I ask for Adam Neely and sometimes I'm not getting Adam Neely. What's up with that?

AlexAnd then, okay, I go to watch Chris Lally's iPad OS review finally And my entire page now is just like, oh, look at the new camera on the iPhone, which I did. I did indeed click on a video. I know that the algorithm, I know, I get it. You're blaming yourself. What were you wearing? This is fine. But I know that this is not.

Everybody has a debt to YouTube. tube to like they're they're they're sitting around thinking about the next thumbnail they need to make and how long a video needs to be not not just for to how many AdSense ads they have in there but because if their video is long enough it means their video is going to stay is going to be more likely to be featured on the front page right it's like it's like a sweet spot like a 10 minute length or something yeah to that and it changes all the time and then you're just refreshing over

and over and over again. And anyway.

MerlinIt really is like something out of Black Mirror. It is like the 15 million credits episode where it's like, oh, this system, this capricious system that I willingly participate in is sometimes difficult to understand.

AlexBut, but, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, we all know that TikTok is weird and don't understand what's going on or why it's serving us certain things.

MerlinI've looked at TikTok twice, but I am extremely aware of it because of my kid. I've looked at it twice ever.

AlexWell, yeah, and it's...

MerlinIt's my nightmare. A nonstop barrage of short things that are oddly well-tuned for me is something I need to not spend time with. That's like John Roderick getting an envelope full of cocaine. That's a bad idea for me. Because I know it would tune itself to me and it would tune me to it and it would be my undoing.

AlexI have, like, actually lost friends like because of tiktok in 2020 because it just broke them to pieces and they either became uh

Merlinnot quite cute people my kid can't concentrate on anything anymore she just she it's that freaks me out yeah it does no and i'm usually you know me i'm not usually but like stuff that yeah you're not daddy screen time like yeah no no not at all but i i mean i understand the difficulty of putting your phone down, absolutely. It's just that between a couple particular games and that, like, the machine's gotten to her. And I mean, she's a great kid, and I love her to death, but like, it's everything.

It's think about, like, when I was young, and I would have way too much caffeine and way too much stimulation just in general, and it's like everything was insufferable except the one thing I exactly wanted to do right now, which might be running around in circles. But I sure didn't want to take a minute to read the third chapter of a book. and I'm not trying to be book guy either because believe me, I'm not book guy. But what I am saying is that it's, it's difficult to ever get out of that thrall. If you never have any time away from it, like you, it's, it would be like,

you never realize you have to pee until someone says you're not allowed to pee for the next day. And then that'd be all you could think about.

AlexOh fuck. Now we need to end the show. Fuck me. Oh, I got to.

MerlinDo you have to pee? Do you have to pee? After all those energy drinks, you have to pee? I have to pee now.

AlexI have to, you know what?

MerlinYou have to pee now?

AlexI'm a menstruator.

MerlinOh, you're a menstruator. You menstruate. You know, they cut that out of the movie, but it's in the trailer. Anyway, I'm glad y'all like YouTube. It's a lot of fun. Other things, I will find things to maybe recommend. I watched a lot of things about Nirvana the other night. Oh, no, here's the one. Here's the one I was looking for just to show you this thumbnail. Oh, my God. So I was mentioning that you can tell how lame I am because my favorite Disney ride when I was a kid was this really boring free ride in Tomorrowland called If You Had Wings.

And I loved it so much probably partly because of it. But it was cool because it was free. It was air conditioned. I thought it was delightful. And my mom and I just used to love going on it together. We'd always go several times. But it's really mellow. It's just a bunch of video projections. but Alex look at look at the thumbnail for the document quote documentary if you had wings why is he making that face in a documentary about a Disney ride because that is that's the face

Alexoh yeah yeah I call I call yeah we call it the pre blowjob oh I oh pre blowjob how many that's

MerlinI'm sorry that's none of my business but is that do you think that's a face you need to make before you give a blowjob because if somebody came at me with that face the last thing I would want from them is a blowjob or a YouTube video, if I'm being honest.

AlexDo you? Wait, wait. Quick, quick, quick. Sidebar. Very quick sidebar. You know that they're in the real-time. Actually, I think they just talked about this on Cortex. There are real-time analytics with YouTube now, and you can't change the video they've uploaded. I know you can't.

MerlinI've heard you can't change the video.

AlexOh, do they do A-B testing now? you can change the yeah you can change your title human beings are hardwired for faces even if they're stupid faces we love faces and uh it's that that's so fucking weird though no whenever there's a oh like whenever there's a hassan piker clip and like his face is in it i'm like i don't oh hassan piker that guy it's really i know i feed into that like machine of hot leftist Sorry, I don't know. That's okay. Don't do it.

MerlinHassan Piker, I'm guessing, is probably a slender young man talking about technology.

AlexOh, no. Not even a little. Oh, I will recommend, actually, the sequel to All Gas No Breaks, which is Channel 5.

MerlinOh, All Gas No Breaks. That's amazing.

AlexI can't tell if you're... What the fuck? No, it was inspired by Vic Berger.

MerlinYou know, for somebody who hates YouTube, you know a lot about YouTube.

AlexNo, no, no, no. Oh, gosh. Hassan Piker's gas breaks.

MerlinLa-mow. Hello. It's funny when I do it.

AlexOkay, boomer.

MerlinHey, Grandma, let's get you here. Hey, everybody. I guess what we're really saying is maybe it's the videos you made along the way.

Thank you.

Show notes

Transcript

258. Wiggle Regatta

Show notes

Transcript

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