281. The Dignity of Easy Math

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge, get back on the horse.

Good morning. Good morning. How are you? I'm great. I put you in the corner in the meeting room. I apologize um oh that's right you don't use zoom you don't know what that means never mind no i i

Merlinaccept your apology um also what um did you put me in the corner or did i just like find my way into the corner because it feels like that's kind of the point of zoom is like zoom it's like a recalcitrant child who wants to keep playing hide and seek well into the night and you're like you know you probably should have gone to bed a long time ago and they're like first you have to find

Speaker Ame. You might not be home. I might be in the clown van.

AlexOh, I don't like it. Tyler!

Speaker ATyler!

AlexGoing to the clown box! Tyler!

MerlinOh, let's give you a hand-drawn maze.

AlexI miss that show. How are you, Merly Man? Is this the show? I don't know.

MerlinI'm fine. No, I mean, it's, you know, life is really it's really worn the grooves off all of my gears. I feel permanently... Remember I said... Yes, of course you remember. You have a great memory. Remember me saying that the two-hour time difference is worse than a three-hour time difference in some ways? I don't know. There's just certain things in life that, you know, how odd numbers... Odd numbers I actually find kind of pleasing. I like odd numbers better than even numbers. Even numbers seem like a lie to me.

But you know how there's things in life where, like, I don't know quite how to describe it. I think John Roderick described this once or six times as how he like really his body wants it to be like a 26 or 28 hour day, something like that.

Speaker AWhich sounds silly because he's like, oh, I wish I had more hours for all of my things. I want to finish my scrapbook.

MerlinBut it's really more like, no, no, no. I would give anything in the world. It's like your people, right? It would be so much easier just to be, I don't know, something typical. It's not a choice one. makes in life to have the tough

Alexpath. I'm the one who hit my head. What's happening? You got me

Merlinwrong, Mike. I'm the hunted one. What I'm trying to say is, what I want is that my body or my something, my soul, like in the same way that John's Velt and Chong wishes that the day were more than 24 hours, why does he wish that? Well, yes, he'd like to get more things done, but I think part of what he's saying, if you really listen, you, if you really listen, is that John's saying, no, no, my life is on that cycle. And I am, and to spoil the ending here, like I think there are times in life where there are,

how do you put this? It's another one of those things that's difficult to talk about because it sounds like one's really high. But like the shape of the year, you know, John thinks a year is shaped like a hand. I think a week goes from right to left. John thinks a day should be 28 hours. I think we all have these little secret things that if we, ooh, challenge. It's sort of like, it's kind of like secret weird things people do, but it's really much more like improbable things people think and don't realize they think. I feel, when I start feeling like a little bit behind, I often feel like something has happened

and I didn't adjust my clocks. And I'm, I don't know how many hours capture the spirit of this. Maybe I'm like, ooh, like 110 minutes behind all the time.

AlexOh, that sounds like a nightmare.

MerlinI don't even get the dignity of easy math, which is a great guided by voice's EP.

AlexI, well, you know, I'll put it in a challenge, Doc, right now. I would love to, I, I, me, would.

MerlinIs that an I statement or a me statement?

AlexThis isn't, this isn't.

MerlinWould you like to tell me about your favorite VPN?

AlexMy. I think it'd be interesting as a challenge for myself. Is this the show? I think it's probably the show.

MerlinIt's not going to get any better.

AlexIt's no.

MerlinWe keep trying week after week.

AlexWe keep trying. It's a little downhill from here. Which is a good, oh, this would have been funny if I knew the band, Good New Found Glory album. The, yeah, Catalyst. Anyway.

MerlinIs there any chance in the last week or two you've hit your head?

Your texts have gotten a lot longer. I don't know if this is related, but you've started sending me the longest text you've ever sent me. And I'm wondering if you're something like your hypothalamus broke or something.

AlexAccording to, well, hi, Berlin.

MerlinAlex, have you ever had feelings like that, that there's something, the way that I used to put this, and it sounds like I'm trying to be cute or clever and I'm not, but through my, I'd say adult life, But from my post-high school life, I've always felt like it was a manual everybody got that I didn't get. And not that that makes me like an outcast or something, but I always feel like in the same way, like it's on Gilded Age or Downton Abbey, where you don't know which one's the oyster fork and which one. You've got to put your oyster fork back on your spoon, and that goes diagonally, and you move the other boy's coat down to your peg.

And there's all that stuff. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Did I have the flu the day that everybody learned this thing? and I feel like there's stuff about my soul that's like that too. I didn't get the soul manual.

AlexThe manual soup for the soul. I have always felt like that. Not at any particular time. Just always and forever. And just to clarify,

Merlinit doesn't necessarily mean like, oh, big bad world trying to harsh my mellow. It's just more like, you know, okay, like for example, like the first time you ever get onto a, Okay, you've been to Chicago. When you're going through terminals, it's true in Atlanta. It's definitely true in that beautiful United Terminal. No, I actually really do like the little ride. But the first thing you ever ride on one of those moving sidewalks, you're like, hey, free walking. And then everybody else is like, could you please move to the right? Because people who need to catch a flight are on the left. And you're the only person in the entire Chicagoland area who does not know that the gawkers and standers go to the right and walkies go to the left.

Right? where it's like you can recover from that and people aren't doing that to be mean, but it's nice to know that. It's nice to know you don't just go like walking into a Japanese family's house with like poopy shoes on. You know, those kinds of things. Whether it's mores or time or things like that, I just sometimes feel like I'm perpetually behind. Always have, always have.

AlexYeah, that's...

MerlinI'm that self-involved, Alex. I could actually think that there's... It's not like it's a conspiracy or something, but it's just like the cumulative like uh you know slings and arrows you know you're just like twisted my ankle sleeping last week it still hurts what wait no it happens it happens don't worry about that point being like i've got i've got all this these like i should today should be a happy day like let's not bicker and argue about who killed who but like i got some cool stuff coming today but like i've got to deal with it and like the our car got hit so like in the middle

of the night. No, it's all right. It'll be fine. It's just a car. But the car got hit and for two weeks we've been dealing with the insurance company and the place that will theoretically fix it. And it starts to feel like this thing where it's like slow motion shit Jenga.

Nothing's terribly wrong. Nothing's unrecoverable. I recorded later than usual last night. I went to sleep. I got up. Oh, I had a dream about I watched that terrible Uber show. I caught up on that last night and I had a dream about Travis Kakananik and except of course it was played by Joseph Gordon Levitt Biden in my dream as well and it involves something, it might have been something from that sand game that Syracuse likes but there's something where I had to get some flags and put them

into the right, yeah it's called it's not Destiny it's the other one Journey is a band from LA they say they're from San Francisco you know about that right? you know that song Lights? when the lights go down in the city. You know that, right?

AlexYeah, I didn't know it was a Journey song, but the...

MerlinJourney had a song in their, not early, early days, because Steve Perry sang it, so that would play circa 78. And there's a song that goes, when the lights go down in the city.

And then the song goes, and the sun shines on the bay. Right?

AlexOh, is that fake news?

MerlinThe sun does shine on the bay. I mean, like, but that's not really what we're known for here. Maybe it would help if you knew that he changed the lyrics to that. Because the original lyric is, and the sun shines on L.A.

Speaker AOh, fuck.

MerlinThink about that for a sec. Doesn't that make a little bit more sense?

AlexThat, ooh, ooh, that feels, I don't know why it feels gross.

MerlinNo, I mean, that's like having somebody living. Maybe somebody you actually still cohabitate with. like having the tattoo of their name change to the name of another person. And they're like, hey, didn't that used to say Sally? Yeah, it did. Now it says Sassy.

Her real name is Tiffany. But anyway.

AlexJT Leroy.

MerlinOh, Leroy Jenkins is the joke.

AlexI've been mostly off of the internet For like a week Because it's a very boring story

MerlinThis is supposed to be the start over episode I fucked up We're starting over

AlexThat's why I said get back on the horse

MerlinBecause we've got two weeks of not being around We've got to talk to the people about

AlexWe've got to start

MerlinDistributing all the puzzles

AlexWelcome to Dubai Friday Last Thursday Previously on Dubai Friday That would be funny

MerlinThat would be funny if we did that.

AlexNow it would. Now it's happening. Previously on Dubai Friday, I was taking a walk around the park. I'm trying to do morning walks. Well, I was trying to do morning walks because it feels wholesome, right?

MerlinThey're so fat when they take a walk around the park.

AlexReference to jokes manuals that I did not get.

MerlinOh, sorry. Meat move. No, no. It's a version of Yo Mama. You mama so, I'm sorry, I don't want to speak in the vernacular. Your mother is so obese that when your mother sits around the house, she literally sits around the house. Is the thing you say to insult somebody's mother, regardless, without regard to their obesity. You know, it's like Franklin said, you know, you know, make fun of someone's mother every day. If you don't know what it's for, they will.

AlexSee, when you said mother that sits around the house, what I picture is Jake the dog from Adventure Time, just stretching himself out around the house. Maybe I have become more wholesome in the past week.

MerlinI like when he wants to be a mailman.

AlexOh, I like when he... He's so cute.

Speaker AYou know what I love? I also love his little family.

MerlinDon't you love his little family in the hat and everything? Oh, man.

AlexIt's a good show. It's a very good show. Daddy.

Speaker AOh. No.

MerlinNo. I'm not allowed to have nostalgia for a chosen show.

Speaker ANo.

MerlinNo.

Speaker AMute. And the show is beginning.

AlexLast week, I went on an early morning walk. And by early morning, I do mean 7 a.m., which, you know, to some people is like the afternoon. And other people, it's for me, it's like really early. And I'm proud of myself now for getting up at 6 a.m. But yeah, time dilation. So some people are like, wow, it takes you that long to get out for a walk? Other people are like, oh, God, that's so early. You're walking alone in a park at 7 a.m.?

Yes, I was. And yes, because there's literally no one in this park at 7 a.m. So I just slipped.

MerlinAlex was walking Lord Sheldon, dropped their breakfast burrito into the creek. That's the problem with Ramsden Park.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinAnyway.

AlexI was started.

MerlinCan I just say one thing real quick that you can cut out? Can I say this real quick? We haven't had a show out for two weeks. And the reason is that we kind of skipped a week because of scheduling things. And then last week we had a terrible cock up on my end, which I think I know what happened. And I can explain what happened if it would interest you or the listeners who didn't know that something happened. Flash forward, it's 7 a.m. Central. I love when people say stuff like Central Standard Daylight Time. They just keep saying words.

7 a.m. Central Time. Ooh, it's a brisk Chicago day. And Alexandra is taking their life in their own hands by walking the Rams at Park. What happened? We on a scooter? We on a scooter, Alex?

AlexNo, that's not a scooter. Were you playing Pokemon Go, Alex? Okay. Yeah, I believe it was, God, what was it, Monday? Where you're like, hey, we should let people know that the show won't be out. And I said, I agree. But I can't record today because I need to go for a follow-up to make sure that my concussion. What did I say? Like, make sure I still don't have a concussion?

MerlinYou played it off legit in a way that was very funny from an Alex standpoint. It was like, I think, yeah, it's not this, but like this. He said something like, I just need to go make sure that my concussion isn't as bad as we hope or something. You're like, I might be slightly concussed, but I need to. and oh and also by the way i haven't told my spouse i know that feeling yeah well what are you supposed to do i'm the i'm the mayor of shame i i have a sash that was made for me that i just

Alexwear all the time welcome to do by friday we haven't been here for two weeks and man the the reason is merlin was celebrating jubilee and then the and oh man jubilee is great and

MerlinWe got a little Acura doll. It's that lady with the eye patch from Evangeline. What's her name? I think her name's Acura. Yeah, we got a really nice doll in Japantown. Doll in Japantown also very much sounds like a Gatabai Voices EP.

AlexIt does. So it's Acura, not Akira.

MerlinNo. Or Acura, which I thought was even funnier. That would be an upper middle class car. We're starting over. Alex, what happened last Thursday? at 7 a.m.

AlexI was going to say, this sounds like a diet supplement. Well, last week, there was a fun, I would say like a- Boo, Michael Pollan.

MerlinBoo.

Speaker ABoo.

AlexBoo. Boo. You know what? I know that you disliked Michael Pollan before it was cool. I hated Joe Rogan before it was cool. Like a pure fire, like if you go back early in our show- I get confused. He was on, he was on,

Merlinnot Third Rock, he was on News Radio, right? Was that what he was on?

AlexI forget.

MerlinI think I know I'm mainly from TV. I keep confusing him with the guys from um of totally erroneously confusing him with the guys the girls with boobs on trampolines show but i think that's adam carolla and jimmy kimmel yes the man show the man

Alexshow totally different looks okay i told people forget about the man show and i'm still like that was really gross even for memory serves the dancers who the women on the trampolines were

Merlincalled uh juggies if memory serves i was like at least i think they're called juggies

Alexwait no you can look it up

Merlinbut I'm pretty sure they're called Juggies

AlexI have lost the Merlin guidebook the uh is this real I'm looking up Juggies you should have gotten the PDF when you had a chance I'm in trouble Oh my god, it's true It's true What? You're concussed Oh my god, remember the man show ended with every

Oh wow

MerlinGirls on trampolines, that was the bit

AlexOh god, that's actually pretty funny Okay, this is funny

MerlinMTV was weird for a while.

AlexThis is very good humor. Never mind. There's a Ludo song I love called Girls on Trampolines. The sort of like.

MerlinGirls on Trampolines. No, no. Girls on Trampolines. No.

AlexNo, no.

MerlinGod, that Turin Tran record came out like eight years before you were born. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You were born in 1990. Is that right?

AlexYes. I used to be someone who used to This is the worst show we've ever This is the worst podcast

MerlinWe can start over Do the music, here we go Do Bye Friday

Speaker AThis is Do Bye Friday Weekly Challenge podcast

MerlinNo, I was doing I think we call it a piano trill What would you call it? What kind of cuddlingus do you do? Jesus Christ Read a book besides Harry Potter.

Speaker AOh.

MerlinYou see that chick, man? She has got a fucking Harry Potter. Okay.

AlexOh, boo. Hiss, hiss, boo. Tomato, tomato, tomato.

MerlinAll right, let's bring in the juggies. Y'all ready for this? Okay, here's your option. Option one. Option one. We stop right now, and this becomes the before show. And now we start a fucking show like Gentlemen.

AlexOh, God. I wish I had. Oh, goodness gracious. Well, that's part of the after show.

MerlinNo, that was the before show. And now this is Dubai Friday. We'll be a challenge podcast with Alice Cox, Merlin Mann, Herman Goering, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis.

AlexI still think that's a funny bit. Shirley Jones, David Cassidy. i still think it's a funny bit after the rock band kiss mama cass elliot i couldn't help but notice hey merlin man good morning uh good morning

Merlinalex wait ready ready ready ready um hang on oh oh sorry three two Last night was my first time I noticed because I have a new computer and I'm doing a thing. Wait, wait.

AlexIs this the start of the show?

MerlinNo, this is still the pre-show. Okay. And what did I notice? Oh, oh, oh. I noticed something pretty high in CPU. My many, many, many CPUs and GPUs and things. I noticed messages. God. I am really like a some kind of Turing complete guided by voices bot. messages blast door service do you know messages blast door service no i didn't either sure um it's it's uh it's a thing that apple introduced i kept this process was going a little bit crazy called oh it's camel case messages blast door service um and and i i just i talked about this

with syracuse i asked him if he knew what this was and uh it's a thing where like do you remember when you could, there was that weird time when like there were those rogue messages you could send to iMessages users and at first it was like, oh no, this is a .piff or this is a weird PDF malformed, blah, and it was bad. But then there was the one where you didn't even have to see or open the message and it was like a zero day. God, another guy to buy voices title, zero day. Anyway, they introduced

something called Messages Blastdoor Service And Blast Door is like almost like a DMZ where incoming messages have to like be looked. It's sort of like, you know, like when Kane, you know, overrides Sigourney Weaver and lets the people in the ship. Well, this is like you cannot, you're not allowed onto the Nostromo until we are sure that you're not here to be an asshole. And so it's like a DMZ where it has to like, it can't, I don't know if DMZ is the right word, firewall is not correct.

But like it's a decontamination chamber. The blast door is where it like holds incoming messages in situ if it's not sure if it might have something weird to it. And I just learned about that yesterday. And I'm like, yay, Apple. Good for you.

AlexOh, this has been going on since last year. Yeah, I think that's right.

MerlinIsn't that kind of interesting? I hadn't heard of that. I don't read the trades.

AlexI really wish it was called. I mean, is it a play on Backdoor Edge? uh back i'm sorry blast door and back door is just a funny term it's a you know what it's a

Merlinjackass episode you know can i can i can i help a little bit first of all no absolutely not uh second and blast door i think of as being like a spaceship thing and i think you're you're concatenating confusing or uh perhaps illuminating two completely different things and i think what

Alexyou're trying to get land on is uh ass blasting no no i mean yes but what's better to have a gun

Merlinjoke or a poop joke what did you think what what play what play on what words did you think blast door service means but like a like you're the one who uses words what what are you talking

Alexabout you're talking about getting ass blast door like you're like a blast door like basically an anus that lets it free like let's are you saying you still got the tight gaskets of a young person yeah and that holds your message okay oh i don't know if your memory is great but i continue to share that uh like pissing myself or shitting myself remains a like i i am it's totally survivable alex i promise it's totally oh no no and that's the thing is like i almost want it it's because it's like waiting for your first period i've thought about it i've thought about

Merlini've thought about doing it more well like it was like me shaving before i needed to shave

Alexbecause i heard it would grow thicker i was like should i should i wear i how will i how

MerlinI ever get a beard at this rate. It's called a merkin. Read a third book.

AlexI mean, you know what? If people I've heard that people like landing strips.

MerlinWhat about memory?

AlexI don't know if you. Yes, you remember that my one of my not a fear and anxiety of mine is shitting my pants in not even in public, just just having it happen. Truly like a geriatric period situation. Because I know there are solutions. I know that despite the stigma, there's truly no shame to it.

MerlinOh, there's shame.

AlexNo.

MerlinThe difficult mind is, well, no, I used to shit my pants as a result of my medical disorder. The thing that sucks about it is being somewhere where, well, the result will be, oh, I'm stuck on this subway car.

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinBut then the almost as bad feeling is the like, oh, no, this is going to happen and I'm going to be stuck on this subway car for the anxious person.

Alexyou know that's worse i don't know and so did you poop yourself when you fell down should we start the show oh yeah on hey merlin man on thursday morning i was taking hard break

Merlinhard break ready hello oh good morning merlin man alex i have i missed you it's been so long since we visited it's nice to be here having a normal conversation with you.

AlexNormal is a word for it. You know what? How was your Jubilee week? Because we took a week off of the show, as we've said many times in the before before show, but you had, I think most people call it spring break, but you have a Jubilee week with you and your kid.

MerlinYeah, it was terrific. And it was a nice combination of things. we had, you know, my my kid's mother has been working really, really, really hard at home for two years and is like a little bit, not burnt out, but kind of like over, like the constant you know, the din of things. And we, between us we kind of, I won't say funded, but we encouraged and helped set up a hey mom, hey moms, why don't you go have two or three nights to yourself? You can keep working if you want. You could do, it's a true vacation

in the sense of it's not about whether you're sweating around relatives, but instead it's like, I want you to have full runway to go do your thing. And it was good timing because, you know, mom got to have a couple nights off and the kid and I had a really good time. Went to Japantown, ate some gross food, watched a lot of the Pirate Show over again, watched a lot of Peacemaker over again. Yeah, we had a really, really nice time.

AlexWhat's the Pirate Show?

MerlinOur flag means death.

AlexOkay. Go ahead and show notes. I don't know what that is.

MerlinThis is going to be such a funny soundbite in six months.

AlexI don't know that show.

MerlinI'm not going to spoil it.

AlexOkay, please don't.

MerlinNo homework. No homework. No homework.

AlexOh, it's on HBO Max.

MerlinThat's almost a decent streaming service.

AlexOh, this streaming show.

MerlinThis streaming pirate show.

AlexOh, man. I'm very excited. Oh, look at all these people.

MerlinOh, no, it's great. You get the guy from Transpotting. You've got Hodor. You've got – Hodor's big, man. That guy is tall. Right. Oh, man. And Reese Darby, whom I've seen in things like Flight of the Conchords and I think insurance commercials. But my goodness, what a breakout role for him. Steed Bonnet, or as I call him, Steve.

So we were away, but now we're back. And, you know, I sent out a mea culpa to our para-pals.

AlexYou don't need to use the word.

MerlinHere's the thing, though, that I both admire and, if I'm being honest, despise about you. It's like, you use a phrase, a Griffin phrase, like, off the dome. Like, you will sometimes just say something that really is basically a mistake and then you commit to it. And I kind of love it and I kind of hate it. And so, but you, you, when, when, um, you know, it's like a Cole Porter says, you know, uh, anything goes, you know, uh, authors now who wants new better words now only use four letter words, writing prose.

You've got better words in, in your, in your skull holder, but then you, you keep saying things like scoot, scoot or meep, meep.

AlexNo, it is beep, beep, vroom, vroom. Or if you, if you have electric car, it's only a beep, beep. I don't know. There are too many infants in my life now. I'm sorry

MerlinI'm trying but we were away and then but let's cut to the chase here the other thing the unexpected wrinkle on top of the wrinkles was that Alex what happened last Thursday if you could say

Alexwell it was a bris Chicago morning it was a night just like this oh my bris shit

Merlindo I understand correctly you had a 7am bris in Chicago is that correct

Alexwere you performing

Merlinthe cock cut

AlexI was just an observer but after the bris I went for a walk

Merlinlike one of the blue helmets from the UN kind of thing Like Jimmy Carter going to watch your Central American election.

AlexI'm trying to take more walks in the morning instead of looking at my phone, which is very much a cliche.

MerlinWalks in the morning and walks at night can both be really therapeutic. And every time the kid and I take a walk, either in the morning or at night, more often at night. But either time, we're both kind of like, I mean, me more so. But we're both kind of like, why don't we do this twice a week? This is so fun. It's so fun to go out at night and, I don't know, steal stuff off the street. Or to go out in the morning and then remark about the condition of the park.

It's a nice time to talk to somebody when you're not looking each other in the face. It's a power move.

AlexHonestly, that's a huge part of it. Oh, man. I used to admire Steve Jobs' walk-in talks. Not really because it's like, oh, that is a power move. And also that's such a like, he was like, he wanted it to be known for one thing. And it was for his walk and talk. He did it before Aaron Sorkin thought it was cool. But it's the fact that you don't need to make eye contact. Like any sort of meeting, I never.

MerlinI told you the stratagem of mine, right? We talked about this a couple weeks ago that it's true of a teenager, but it's really true of everybody. It's very much a you are not in trouble kind of thing. where like if you hold someone's hands in your own and you look deeply into their eyes, it's like it's really, I think it really puts people on the defensive, would put me on the defensive. But if you're just walking and hanging out, especially if you don't have like a, no, wait, hang on. Now you're, you are walking by your lonesome, right?

AlexYes, yes. I typically.

MerlinBrisk morning walk.

AlexMm-hmm, mm-hmm.

MerlinNo Pokemon.

AlexBecause, no, because, well, normally on my morning and evening walks, I play my perhaps now favorite video game of all time, Pokemon Go.

MerlinMore like Pokemon Go to the polls. Oh, God. That was when I was no longer still with her. You know that Pete Buttigieg song? They designed that dance on purpose. Shame on you.

AlexShame. It's like doing the guy.

MerlinAnd it got the disco.

AlexIt's like a journey where they changed LA to by the Bay. Oh, I see. Yeah, that is a fact. I came up by myself.

MerlinI see. You sit in your chair and put your arms in the air like you don't care.

AlexOh, God. Well, I took a walk, and that's usually before I do the show links and whatnot. But during my walk, I slipped.

MerlinAnd at this point, then it probably does help to say, as I would be happy to discuss later, even though it's really boring, I had grave technical problems last week that were all my fault. And so we had this really screwed up main episode. And then we couldn't even get five minutes into the after show because my internet was so bad. But you soldiered on.

AlexAnd it's a fine episode. It's fine. It's got moments. Fine.

MerlinDidn't I do a reading series that was good?

AlexYou told me to cut it. Good. That's smart. But then I did basically a monologue about Syracuse for 15 minutes for the after show. And then I was too embarrassed to do it.

MerlinIt would be funny to just throw that in the feed for absolutely no reason.

AlexMaybe. We'll see. It was pretty gay for Syracuse. But then. Well, it's not going to work out for anybody. No, it's not. It's really.

MerlinWhat was the weather like? Was it was it was the day fair? Was it clear?

AlexWas it snowy, icy?

MerlinNo, it was rainy.

AlexIt was rainy, but it wasn't icy. So it was slickery?

MerlinOh, no, it wasn't slickery.

AlexI wish I could say that it was the weather's fault or a tree's fault.

MerlinThere's no way to look up the weather, so you could have just said, but I appreciate your candor.

AlexYeah, no. Anyway, I was on a walk. I fell backwards, and I hit my head first, and then I hit my shoulder, and my elbow was like... I got up, and I was kind of dizzy.

MerlinWhoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Beep, beep, beep.

AlexOkay.

MerlinSo you're walking along. Are you on a sidewalk?

AlexYeah, I'm on the sidewalk.

MerlinOh, okay. So let's start first principles, Clarice. Do you pretty much, as far as you know, remember what happened? Do you remember the moment where you felt that, oh, no, I'm falling down? The very distinctive feeling of falling down. Do you remember that? Or do you remember being on the ground?

AlexNo. I mean, that's the thing. I fall a lot, and I know the feeling you're talking about, and sometimes I have that feeling, like a Mr. Magoo, like, whoop.

Merlinor like a yeah yeah yeah like when you pass out you get the tunnel vision and you're like oh i

Alexthink i'm about to pass out i've never had that and i have passed out a lot recently it's an uncomfortable feeling yeah no like be when when you're on different like psych meds and stuff you you pass out a lot and i never got the tunnel vision i would just have the wake up

Merlinwell it's nothing dramatic it's i mean like the passing out part i'm not a physician but it's my understanding that like that that is it's something where there's been a rapid change in like blood pressure in particular right something's happened like if you stand you ever stand not you one but the listener stand up and you're like oh i feel just a little tipsy for a second you know and that's basically my whole life oh i need you know like when they first started like doing like ada compliant bathrooms with the railings i basically need those and ramps and and hand grabs everywhere

AlexOh, God. They're so good. I love a good hand grab.

MerlinSo you're walking along. You're minding your own business. You're thinking about having a nice little morning constitutional. And then you'll go try to save the very screwed up Dubai Friday episode. And then what's the last thing?

AlexIt was fine.

MerlinWhat do you remember?

AlexOh, no. I just.

MerlinBecause you fell down hard.

Speaker AGo boom.

AlexYeah. I fell backwards and I hit my head first. And that's the thing I remember is my head like falling and bouncing. and that is super bad for you apparently.

MerlinThat is such a disconcerting. To hear that hearing, to hear that hearing, to hear that, to hear and feel that when it's happening, like the way your mind works, it's like, oh no, that's bad. Thonk. That thonk was Chicago. Like the ow. What did I, I hate that feeling.

AlexNo, well, that's the thing is that didn't hurt, but like, you know, the elbows are like, it's, I don't even have a cool bruise. It's super upsetting. So you fell back. Yeah, I fell backwards.

MerlinIt's none of my business, but you fell back, your head hit the sidewalk or similar

Alexand you didn't land on your hands,

Merlinyou landed on your elbows?

AlexWell, I landed, the first thing to hit the concrete was my head. Oh, God. Alex, that's not good. Well, but very quickly then my butt and elbow also hit the ground

MerlinThat was one of my favorite pubs in London, the Button Elbow.

AlexAnd initially, it's just the brief second of, oh, God, this again.

MerlinI've said to two different people privately in the last two days, Alex's brain just can't catch a break. I said it to Syracuse yesterday, and I said it to Madeline this morning. I was trying to like, like in the rough, the rough pigeon that I could manage, I was trying to explain your whole like Alex's brain and cut this out if I'm saying something I shouldn't say. But like, don't you, aren't you in a situation where you got like your one situation and don't they need to like look at your brain on a kind of like a regular like annual-ish basis just to make sure it's what we think it is and not something else?

AlexYeah, basically I have a bi-annual.

MerlinYour flavor of bipolar might mask organic damage.

Alexis that it basically i i have a like biannual bipolar checkups to make sure that i'm still crazy and i don't have like a tumor biannual bipolar huh pan pansexual pan pansexual pan religious pan i'm just thinking of pansexual pandas and it's like sexualizing a teddy bear and I don't like it. A very dumb, dumb...

MerlinI'd hit it. I'd hit it.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinAll they want to do is get those leaves, and they just want to get in the basket.

AlexI mean, that's why they're in danger. They just don't communicate well. No! Mother fucking shit cock! Oh, my God.

MerlinOh, God, I've lost you.

Yeah, Super Friday!

AlexI think at this point, the universe just wants us to do a key chain challenge and just end this show and burn it to the ground. Well, the universe can suck an order from nuts.com.

You've made orders from nuts.com, right? As recently as last week. Genuinely really good. I'm going to go to nuts.com.

MerlinI got three kinds of fudge last week.

Alexoh oh fancy good good afternoon but i like i do like they're nuts too yeah i like they're nuts

Merlinif i were the sort of person that eats like you know gorp and dried foods i'd be really into it i'm not a huge fan of those things um which is to say i don't care for them but i've been craving fudge i love the word fudge you know you know two of my favorite words and they work all together There's fudge and bucket.

Speaker AFudge bucket.

AlexFudge bucket. You know what? I respect your word combination choice.

MerlinBoost line. Fudge.

AlexBut look, I don't know if this is a new discovery or just one that I put in the back of my mind, but nuts.com has a complete drop-down menu for superfood powders.

MerlinOh, my God. We haven't talked about powders in so long. Now, are these – Oh, man. I'm not going to click. but are these the kind of powders that like so they're not like Alex Jones like boner powders but is it like you put in like it's something you do to like make shakes and stuff like that? You know what, I'll click it. I'll click it. It's a pretty photo. It's a pretty photo.

AlexI mean I'm pretty sure that most powders come from the same place and it's just rebranded but who knows? You know I trust the nuts.com people.

MerlinOh, and that owing to the fact that was it Max? Somebody figured out that like, or figured out, I guess it's not terribly difficult, but that, God, I'm going to get this wrong and be embarrassed, but that Alex Jones and Goop

Alexwere basically selling the same canister of powder. Yeah, yeah. And like, it's like getting that one, the SM58, there's a bunch of like knockoffs that you can get for like 15 bucks that are made in the same factory, basically the same microphone, but they just don't have, yeah thanks china china china um the guy on snl the the guy who just joined this season

Merlinhis trump is did you watch snl uh this weekend it's okay i don't want to say i don't remember but i truly don't remember no no it was uh it's that guy it's that guy that wonderful comedian uh who has the specials on hbo and he just had the special where he comes out on stage and shot by Bo Burnham. Bo Burnham directed his special. What's his name? I should know his name.

AlexI forget, but I know the guy you're talking about.

MerlinHe has... He's really, really... His stand-up shows are weird. But he's definitely... It's really closer to performance art. But in some ways, he's closer to Spalding Gray than, say, Lenny Bruce. I mean, more of a storyteller kind of person.

AlexYeah. I haven't seen any of his specials, but I saw a couple SNL things and saw a couple Trump impressions. Oh, my God. Or I just, whoo. Yes.

Speaker AYeah, I saw a slap.

MerlinThat guy, it's uncanny. Like, he captures in this. You know, James. Sorry, what's his name? Who's the guy I like? Shawnee. He does a really great Trump, too. His Trump also is extremely good. Very heavy on this thing.

Shawnee. he's great and charmaine um but the guy on snl oh my goodness that guy is good and why am i mentioning this to you because the the bit the kate mckinnon the game show is my brain okay thing did you see that it's everybody's favorite everybody's favorite post-covid game show is my brain okay and it's like it's it was just really funny um you know all the ways in which like you know what's a good way to start a conversation with people and one of the contestants and starts licking the panel.

And what is this thing? They're showing a wheelbarrow. And it's like, oh, what is it called? I feel like it's called a yard snake. But all that stuff we've all been doing, like, what month is it? And they go, ding, it goes June. No, we would have decided February, March, April, or May.

AlexThat's kind of good now.

MerlinIt was a good episode. It definitely had some skippable stuff, but I didn't, but there were some funny bits. Why did I bring that up? Because you were talking about falling down.

AlexOh, yeah, Merlin, we have not done Dubai Friday for two weeks. Yeah, it sucks. And it's very weird. It's very strange to hear your voice for the first time in two weeks. It is like the cliche that folks who listen to podcasts at ridiculous speeds like I do, like, oh, man, you sound so drunk in real life. but it's not that you sound drunk you just sound like a normal nice human being i got them all fooled oh i wish uh we were talking about powders from nuts.com oh yeah five-year-olds i also want

to talk more about five-year-olds oh did you fight more of them like that old lady no you know what

Speaker Ano let's let's skip over anyway the point is the show is back now now let's let's let god oh also

Merlinwe were going to talk about how um fate or god or something doesn't just doesn't want us to do the show anymore yeah yeah really oh long story short i think what happened last week and i can't quite figure out what happened but i think what might have happened was i had this habit where occasionally if i look in on eero um my uh era network i'll see it like a unknown device and like almost all the time it's just an apple thing that has done that thing where it reverts to private address you know what i mean oh shit is that what's going on well here's the thing like

okay so normally like if everything is just rolling along and nothing has changed that i know of everything's fine all the ios devices you know watches computers whatever personally i uh people should know that you can change this per you know wi-fi access point or cellular or whatever, I turn off private address, you know, for all my own stuff. Because I like the fact that Eero will say, hey, this is your laptop hooked up through the anchor thing in Ethernet.

This is your laptop hooked up through Wi-Fi. I really like that kind of stuff. And not to, this is boring, but that also greatly assists in things like port forwarding. So if you're trying to do something like screens and you've got port reservations, you want to give all your devices, you know, a DHCP reservation. and then you want the ports to be right for those things. So it just bugs me. And also, I'm allergic to seeing stuff that says unknown device. It drives me bananas. And sometimes, and I'll even forget that I did this, sometimes I'll just block.

You know what I'm talking about, right? If you see a device on Eero and you don't know what it is, you can block it.

AlexYeah, except I use the shitty TP link or whatever, but it's essentially the same.

MerlinI think what may have happened was, and this is the closest thing I can figure out to what happened last week because it does explain it, but I still don't completely understand what I did. Because did I have the new computer when we recorded last week?

AlexI don't think so.

MerlinI don't think so. We got it. No. No. Because Wednesday we took off so that I could go to Jubilee and I bought it a week ago today. Okay.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinI think what I might have done, and I'm just saying this because it explains it. I think I might have banned an internet connection, but not a Wi-Fi connection for my main computer.

AlexOh, weird. Oh, so if you had turned your wired connection, fuck.

MerlinYeah, yeah, yeah. So that would explain why on my 17 up best situation I can be in. This is so frustrating. 17 up over Wi-Fi.

It usually does fine with Cat 6A. Yeah. So that might have been it, but it was, boy, that was frustrating.

AlexI've actually recorded a number of these episodes over Wi-Fi, and I've kind of been impressed because what I do.

MerlinEspecially with Skype. Skype does a really good job with that. If it can, it'll try. It was shitting out on, like, did you ever listen to both sides? Or I should say, like, me and Dan. And basically I got that thing where like, you know how it doesn't really do robot voice as much anymore? It used to be it was robot voice. It used to be Skype would degrade. Well, I hate to say it like that, but like the connection would degrade and it would accommodate that by lowering, I want to say the bit rate to create what I, and again, I just, I don't know if these are the right words, but making a robot voice.

But in more modern times, what I get is it just goes, I'll be talking along and it goes, I'll be talking and it goes, there's that little kind of like almost like a ping sound, and then it just trails off in about half a second. Have you ever gotten that?

AlexNo. No.

MerlinThat's the way it evidences now. And then it suddenly snaps back to being live when it can catch up, and it's totally crazy-making because you're in that space where you're not even sure how much delay there is because any delay that you can gauge would be a result of you saying something, them hearing it, and then that coming back. So you really are. You've locked your keys into a series of different podcasts. It's very frustrating to try and fix. Am I out of co-hanger?

AlexOh, man.

MerlinNow we're here. And this is a turning point for us because, oh, by the way, I've never mentioned this to you. But from now on, the show's going to change. This is the last episode of The Old Doob by Friday. And we're going to be very professional. And, you know, Jeff Dean told me something once when I was working with him. He says that he got into a point where I'll probably say this wrong and make me sound smart and him sound dumb when he's a smart one. I think what Jeff had said was at a certain point in the pre-mid 2000s was like, hey, you know what?

We start by like documenting an API. Then we build the API and then we build the site. Something like that. And I was like, oh, God, that's so smart.

AlexYeah, why didn't we do that?

MerlinWell, instead of the API being some kind of bolt-on to an XHTML site, you start with explaining the functionality, then you build the functionality, and then you make the hollow husk of HTML that makes it show up on civilians' things. You know what I'm saying?

And what did that have to do with what I was saying? Tall people?

AlexThat we are doing a new podcast.

MerlinOh, yeah. So basically, we're going to write out the chapter markers first. the outline for this and your Bitteschön Deutschland because I know how y'all love your das chapter markers but that's the thing we're going to start with chapter markers and then reverse engineer a very very amusing podcast out of that so we're going to have to really hit those numbers it's going to be a real like you know what I'm saying like it's going to be like landing a landing a jet on another jet type situation

Alexoh yes piggyback put down the tarp oh boy leave it all on the tarp take the keys out of the bowl uh it is quite embarrassing and upsetting that in the first two weeks of self-employment it's just man literally falling ass backwards literally doing it like oh like oh that's that's sad for alex but the pivot the five-year-old pivot

Merlineverybody's doing the five-year-old pivot get off the cars go replace your divot it's time for the five-year-old pivot um replace your divot that's not a thing that's golf

Anyways, hello. Welcome to Dubai Friday. And we were talking about the five-year-olds. So there's that – so sorry, I hate to explain my own non-jokes. But a conversation we had here a couple months ago was that I sometimes – there are days where like everything's going along fine for – and again, I'm not like a sad, dolorous Eeyore type of person. But like by and large, for example, I feel well served mostly by the technology in my life is how this came up.

Right. Remember the context for this of like, oh, things roll along. Home assistant, it's a little weird sometimes, but that works fine. And sometimes my lights are a little weird, but who knows? And oh, the geofencing didn't work for this thing. And it's just, you know, a thousand little paper cuts that you don't really think about because everything's mostly fine.

AlexAnd then you're bleeding out.

MerlinYeah, exactly. Right. And so there was a bit, an early meme-ish thing of like, how many five-year-olds could you take in a fight? And ha-ha, that's really funny. But the point is like, yeah, you could probably beat the shit out of one five-year-old. But if it was like, and I've seen people like talk about this. Like it's easier. Some guys, some like MMA type guys would rather fight three guys than one guy because they can use them against each other. But the five-year-old thing for me also is like, I imagine them almost like the way, what do they call them? the White Walkers, like, crawl over that poor giant,

the wildling giant. Oh, yeah. It makes me very upset. Like, in Hardhome, arguably the greatest episode of TV ever in Hardhome, they were crawling along. Oh! What the fuck are you looking at? I love that guy. Is that Wen Wen? I think that's Wen Wen. I think his name is. But you think about, like, even the giant of Wen Wen's size, you know, last of a generation, he's still got to fight with these fucking skeletons and take the time to tear them apart. I mean, you know, I mean, five-year-olds, roaches, you know, white walkers.

Like, if there's enough stuff, it's going to be annoying. One flea, one flea is not going to drive you nuts. Five fleas will probably—the house that I lived in after college, it looked like the floor was moving. There were so many fleas.

AlexNo, no. Ah, ah. Anyway, moving on. We're not going to do a CGP gray and spiders thing. No, no, no. It was practically audible. No, no, no. no, okay, so the five-year-old, oh, God.

MerlinAnd so the point being, so what I was trying to say in that context was, then one day everything's not fine. And suddenly there's a whole bunch of white walkers and five-year-olds that have popped up and they all seem to be like sort of joining forces. Sugar ants are another good example. Like you see one sugar ant and then suddenly there's trails of sugar ants. Trails of sugar ants. And like that's a bridge too far. in technology the point was oh jeez are you fucking kidding me like it sucks when it takes

forever for my home kit lights to turn off that's who knows it might be on me but it shouldn't take like 20 seconds to respond and then 20 seconds to have them all eventually go off that's really frustrating Alex you know inarguably what's worse than that when they 20 seconds later turn back on and you don't know why oh that's oh we get this all the time at our house I think I'm in hand Like our lights just go on and off at the house. And I've turned off so many triggers, so many different things. That was the example there of five-year-olds.

It's like I would like to think that I can beat a five-year-old in a fight. You know, I could – they're pretty gullible and small. We probably have just about equal upper body strength. But if there's 300 of those, whether it's, you know, ants or roaches or white walkers or five-year-olds, you're going to lose. And the five-year-old metaphor – am I being clear about what it means to fight five-year-olds? I think I am.

AlexYes. And well, I think you're kind of downplaying five-year-olds.

MerlinThat's also just the – it's the existential cruft of like – to quote the great Emily Latella from the early years of Saturday Night Live, it's always something.

Speaker ASo I did injure my ankle sleeping last Tuesday.

MerlinYes.

Speaker AAnd then – because that happens. Like I slept really well, really deep, had the whole bed to myself.

MerlinAnd I woke up and I was like, ooh, she's a little bit achy. At this point, it's eight days later, and it's still like – it's even a little bit swollen. I've gotten some of those little heady things to put on it. Now, this is where we get into the five-year-olds. Well, not literally, hopefully. Well, not Scoutmaster. No, it's okay. It's okay. They settled. So the – but here's the thing. You – like this is like a thousand flowers rot because that really fucking hurts. It takes – I'm not complaining, but I'm just to say that one little –

Haha, Chris Trager. The microchip has been compromised. Compromising the microchip of my left ankle has consequences. My display that if all goes well will arrive today, which I checked, it weighs 40 pounds, which is as much as a bag of my dead cat's litter. And I know how heavy that was to pick up when my ankle worked. You know what I mean? Do you ever have a sense of time? In that case, wait. I know that a Dr. Elsie, Elsie's bag of dead cat litter weighs exactly 40 pounds.

And that's right on the edge of what I'm comfortable carrying for even a short period of time. Because I'm not a strong person. I have a 40-pound, big, bulky, beautiful monitor I need to get to the office. Did I mention that somebody ran into my wife's car at 3 in the morning two weeks ago? So we're dealing with – it's like, but this is the five-year-olds, Alex. Just even going up and down the steps, there's been another thing on the porch that I just don't even like bring it up because I have to go up 30 steps. with a bum ankle and then have the weight of carrying something and my backpack alongside of it. Not complaining, but I'm just saying there's a knock-on effect, you know what I mean, to like,

to fighting five-year-olds in life. And sometimes it does really feel like it's always something.

AlexAnd five-year-olds have no sense of consequence or justice or, I mean, That's why they're called nature's president, you know. but i i think that's uh like you said not not complaining but you were stating the like if this is hard for you and this i this is not like a uh chicken problem thing i don't think

Merlinbecause yeah just so you know i'm not trying to fish for sympathy or like make excuses or anything i'm just saying true things and like that that's the cumulative effect of these things in life is like you, I said, it said in the wisdom document at one point that, and I think this is probably one of the most confusing things to people who haven't communicated this well, but you don't understand until you reach a certain age in life that youth is an anomaly. Again, not a complaint, but a truth, which is like, if all you've ever known your entire life is youth, you're going to have to get older than younger before you go, oh, that

was anomalous. All of the things that I thought were normal, and again, I sound like I'm being bitter or blue or something but like i can't drink coffee at 2 a.m i can't order super hot thai food anymore i can't drink a lot every night i can't do all those things which is you know boohoo but that's you grow up thinking in the same way that you drive like if you're me anyway you drive like a fucking asshole because you don't have the sense of consequences but it isn't until maybe you're around your age that you go oh yeah you know i'm not spider-man i don't heal as fast as

I used to. And I have to accept that there are certain five-year-olds. Again, back to Game of Thrones. Kind of like those guys that are going to kill the maester. No spoilers. Because he's a bad man. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? Before they set the sept on fire.

Remember Qyburn? Qyburn says, I'm sorry you have to die alone in such a cold place. And he's like, what is all this? All the molested children are here with daggers. And that is the cumulative pain in the ass part. All it takes is, you know, for one of a nail, the city was lost or whatever. Old lady who swallowed up shoe. I forget. The thing is, with this fucking ankle thing, it ends up having... Okay, it makes me realize youth was the anomaly because youth, in some ways,

you know, you get so overwhelmed with feelings that seem silly when you get older, right? But they're very real when you're young and shouldn't be made fun of. But you don't realize how much stuff you never had to think about. Certainly things about responsibility and insurance and things like that. But also the fact of like, oh, if you twist your ankle, like you'll be better by dinner probably because you're Spider-Man or Wolverine. You just heal. And like in my case, it's been a week of that. And like today I've been so excited for a month that this monitor arrives today. And like this is before the car got hit.

It's before I hurt my ankle. And now I'm like I'm going to go home and I'm going to feel like an asshole because there's a big, beautiful box sitting on my porch. and I'm going to pick it up and probably just tumble down the steps like the chef in Sesame Street.

AlexYou have a teen. I feel like this is an appropriate, hey, teen, carry it. Excuse me, you peasant.

MerlinYeah, but that teen is very much of the ilk of like, you tell me to load the dishwasher and I'm going to do it wrong. And then you'll never ask, I think.

AlexOh, it's like your old FedEx green haired guy. Oh, you remember him?

MerlinWas he said, enjoy? Is that what he said? I still see him sometimes on Terrible Street. Yeah. Oh, my God.

AlexWell, you're having like the opposite problem in that I can't get my very nice monitor delivered. It has returned to Tennessee. Alex, it's killing me.

MerlinThis was pretty good. And just for what it's worth, I think I mentioned this yesterday. Yeah. Yeah, I must have. Preparing to ship. So I ordered this. Well, if it's arriving today, you can guess that I probably got it on maybe the second day. Maybe probably the first day, but like late. I know James Thompson, but I got it maybe on the first day that was available because I knew I really actually needed this.

AlexOh, yeah. Right after the keynote, I'm like, come on, baby.

MerlinYeah. I just I cannot tolerate Thunderbolt cables falling out of my monitor anymore. It's making me nuts. Anyway, cut a long story short. So that was almost a month ago. And it's just been sitting there. Now, in my experience with the Apple company, at least with phones and some kinds of things, it tends to ship from China. And so my mindset going into this was, okay, I keep checking, keep checking, keep checking. You know, the Apple site is such an asshole about saying, oh, something's in store and ready for pickup today. And then you go to check out. It's like, Saik. It's like, no, not actually June.

You're like, well, why did you say that, dude? And, you know, because I'd given a thought to maybe I'll just go buy one at the store and cancel the delivery.

AlexThat's where I'm at. Except I can't cancel it. Okay. All right.

MerlinMine was preparing to ship, Alex, until yesterday when suddenly.

AlexOh, I'm so mad. I'm so mad. It says return. Oh, my God. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't say it. Don't say it. I'm so mad.

MerlinAlex, what happened? What happened?

AlexI'm so mad. Return to the place. Oh, it has already returned. No, no, no. So my studio display. Be honest. Is it UPS? Yes, it's UPS. Oh, my fucking God. I like wrote. Literally, I did everything in my power to be like.

Speaker ADid you talk to somebody and get help with this?

AlexI was like, yes, I was like, just leave it. I did the gross thing that I hate doing. I put a security camera to look at my door to be like, there's no fucking way.

MerlinOh, yeah, sorry. I know this. The listener does not know this. Please tell the story to the listener because it's yet another example of the whole, no, you didn't really try because I took the day off, basically, to stand and stare and make sure that not just that an attempt was made, but if there's anybody on my property, I am going to

Alexgo out there and extract a monitor from them. Yep. And so the first day I get a little sign on my door saying from UPS, like, sorry, attempted delivery for my fancy monitor. And I was like, okay, you attempted and, but you must not have tried really hard because I've been here all day and I intentionally wasn't recording anything.

MerlinBut it doesn't, I joked with you about this when this happened earlier in the week, last week. But I almost have this feeling like Green Arrow or something. Actually, Hawkeye is a better example. I have the feeling that Kate Barton is driving the brown truck and Kate's driving the truck and then Clint uses one of his special arrow tips, which is the leave and notice that we tried, which very quietly lands. And then like, you know what I'm saying? Like, how did I not see you walk?

I certainly didn't hear a knock. I didn't hear a ding. I didn't hear. Alex, at least four, I'm being really nice here, at least four or five times I've gotten a notice when you're like, you not only didn't try, I think you threw this at my door from the street. I would have heard the steps. I hear steps when people come up. This is my day. My day is making sure the phone arrives and doesn't get stolen off the porch.

AlexMm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And listen, I get it because I have had like I think it was the 13th. It was right. Like pre pandemic time. I had a phone stolen. And so like I get it. Right. Like because then it's a whole thing. But I literally I.

MerlinYou know, with good faith, everything is possible. It's with this feeling that like this is constant sense. And this is not a new feeling. Most of America feels this way that you're you really are on the defensive because there's You don't have a project manager or a lawyer who will work on your behalf in America anymore unless you hire a costly team of lawyers. You are on your own to not get the Scroogey. And as with fighting frat boys, don't do it because they do it all day and like it. If you get into a land war with UPS, you're going to lose.

But it's the bad faith that extra hurts where it's like, I blew a day on this. I was really excited and happy and ready. like you know say what you will about us let's just say it once yeah you need this expensive stuff i i think i do it's my job and stuff but um and and it makes me happy i think we should accept that but it's really frustrating to feel like you're fighting you're fighting this machine

Alexthat like it's a just a disappointment machine i've stopped feeling bad about a feeling like complaining about this because i have the like i do indeed have the privilege to be like all right I am just staying in my apartment all day. First day, okay, I'm just staying in my apartment. Great. Second day, I have a, I put a, my little loggy circle pointing at my door, like from my apartment window at my door. And then I see at the end of the day, a UPS man.

MerlinOh, and so you can get a, I have the same camera. You can then get alerts for packages, people, pets, vehicles.

AlexYeah, but unfortunately it didn't pick it up. However, I got to see a cloaking device to leave the note. No, no. A UPS man get out of his truck, slap a notice on the door and get back in his truck. And I was like, oh.

And then third day I and so I called UPS. I'm like, please, like, just say, just deliver it. Like, go buck wild. I will sign whatever you need to to be like, I won't bother you if it gets stolen. and like whatever. And they're like, okay, okay.

MerlinIt feels really dirty to spend a fair amount of money, like over $1,000 on something. And then on top of it to feel bad and guilty that you expect it to be delivered. I bought some hard drives. I bought some hard drives from a company the other day. And usually famously, usually Newegg, like those kinds of places, they're of course like they're in plastic, in a box, in the thing and da, da, da, da. And I just bought four new hard drives for my Synology and I picked it up and I picked it up with the confidence of somebody who knew that the weight was evenly distributed

because of a good packing. So I just kind of grabbed it with one hand and it kind of heavily drew to one side and I went, wait a minute. I went upstairs, I opened it up. It was four hard drives, not in a box, not in a case, merely like wrapped in plastic. Alex, they didn't even put in the phony baloney Amazon blow up things. It was a large box with four loose, naked hard drives shipped to my house and i was like are you fucking kidding me do you know how

Alexexpensive these goddamn things are and we know now from uh like all the coverage of amazon warehouses that like okay we get that how hard it is to package and it's not like you know the driver's fault for the deadlines that are happening it's like it's just like it's like a permanent like stress position as a job oh yeah exactly and i don't they're like okay so give you the track like give us the number and all that i'm like oh god they're definitely gonna like know who this guy

oh god and i felt really gross but i'm like i i do quote need the stupid monitor and then the third day there was an attempt again i didn't it's the gating factor to me finishing this setup

Merlinand being able to return to normal fucking recording yeah it's a fun project thing too but But like I'm, as you certainly know by this point, I'm self-involved enough to try and plan my life.

AlexWell, that's the issue is like I can sit around for three days. And remember, I just think about your MacBook Pro that still hasn't been delivered.

MerlinStill down the street, as far as I know. 2019, still down there, yeah.

AlexLike this isn't a lot of people's jobs. Most of their jobs is just having a computer to do their job. And like, oh, God.

MerlinYeah, and you're no longer at a place where I could send you stuff and it would pile up in the lobby and eventually get to you. Right. I don't have a doorman. I'm not in a doorman building. Like, yeah. And so it's a source of unnecessary stress. And so, okay, back to the depot type thing? Is it back at the warehouse?

AlexYesterday it was back at the warehouse. I talked to the Apple person. They're like, all right, I'll get back to you and tomorrow and we'll see if we can expedite this. And now, as we were complaining about the Apple App Store app, Apple Store, whatever.

He's selling a Muppet. I'm in the Apple Store app right now, and I get at the very top, it says, Exception. Oh, my God. Your return request has been initiated for my studio display, standard glass, tilt and height, adjustable stand. And it says, please send this item back to Apple. And I'm like, what? What? No, no, no. What the fuck? But also, I cannot send this $2,000 monitor back to Apple. It is in Tennessee. I don't know what to do.

MerlinSo you weren't just joking, is it? So Memphis was first the hub for FedEx, but then as a result, I guess it became kind of hubby for other things. So it was, wait, I'm so confused. So, oh, shit, you're saying it had made it to Chicago. They claimed to have tried to deliver it at your house. Something, something, a day later, they sent it back to the state of Tennessee?

AlexThree days later because UPS apparently, yeah. They tried three attempts.

Speaker AWhat? Are you persuaded they really tried three times?

AlexNo, I have a video of the guy leaving, just getting out of the truck, leaving a notice on the second day and then leaving. And so I don't know what happened with the third day. I went full Karen on this poor UPS customer service thing. Like, please, my monitor is so sick.

MerlinI'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm interrupting you. But I do remember the thing I told you about. that every type of thing I went through with FedEx where there's something I'd had delivered, I'm sure I told you this story. But this, to be perfectly honest, this experience and the pseudo-trauma of this experience that I have in my head, I'm trying to remember exactly what happened. But for the point of the story, all you need to know is that FedEx claimed that something had not only been attempted but delivered. There's a lot of things I'm not going to get into here. Let's just say that I live in a neighborhood

that is safe in ways that almost no other neighborhood is. There's a heavy police presence near where I live. And things just, most stuff like that, like stuff that happens a block away doesn't happen on our street. Like stuff doesn't get stolen off porches very much at all, right? Anyway, long story short, something, it was something costly and the madness begins with me getting the bloop. Hey, we just delivered your thing. And sometimes I can even hear the truck pulling away, that kind of thing.

And so I go, I look out the front door, no FedEx delivery. Okay, cool. Now, I've been in this particular house for many years, and so I know the things that tend to go wrong or tend to go weird. I have the expertise, if you like, to know enough edge cases, corner cases. So the most straightforward one is the way that the numbers are on each of our buildings is a little bit weird and kind of confusing in several ways. Long story short, on more than one occasion, something that somebody thought had been delivered to our house is delivered to our next door neighbor to the north.

Sometimes our next door neighbor to the south. Neither one of those. And, you know, we all know that this kind of thing happens. So we're and we're, you know, friendly with each other. But then you get into like, okay, well, what they say this is, oh, God. And I think what they said was, they should just take this setting off because it doesn't. You ever get the one that says this, your item was delivered, not to like a utility room, a mail room. It was delivered to a mail room or dropped off with a receptionist. I think this one was, your package was dropped off with a receptionist.

AlexYes, I have.

MerlinYou've gotten that though, right? And you're like, well, I hate to not so sure about your police work there, Lou. And so, but anyway, so that's where I am. I'm like, okay, fine, fine, fine, whatever. They just start mashing on buttons, you know, handed to individual, placed in safe place, on front, whatever. I start looking around. So then I go to all, now I'm starting to move into the more edge casey things, which is like, okay, did it, did it, did they do that thing where they didn't even bother walking up the steps where they just left it on the front, the lowest step. That's a great feeling. because if it's there, well, then it might be in this bush.

No, it's not. Is it there? Is it on the side? Did they stick it in the alleyway? Did they try to put it in the garage? Is it in all these different places? I go on and on and on. Remembering this entire time that it says it was dropped off with the receptionist. And anyway, so that was all, whatever, annoying. But the part where I really kind of lost my shit was I finally got on the phone with somebody. And this guy really, God, he reminds me a little bit of Dye Beard from Peacemaker, but like not as charming but you know i can imagine the guy calling eating some yogurt

so you're saying you didn't receive it i say oh no i received it i'm just calling you because i have nothing better to do no i didn't receive it what a dumb fucking question next okay so is that this is this address correct no the address isn't correct i lied about it so you'd misdeliver it. Got ya! Yes, it's all good. Okay, well I'm looking at your house right now. Have you looked in that bush next to the garage?

And I say, wait a minute. You're like, are you trying to look me up on Google Maps? Is this a thing that is part of your job that's normal? Is you just, you creep on somebody's house in Google Maps and then try to come up with places they haven't thought to look that are, I guess, a standard way FedEx delivers things. Did you look on your roof behind the old disused DirecTV dish?

Oh, that's so weird.

Speaker AIt's like...

MerlinI mean, there are times where I don't have the most rational... I'm not a particularly rational person. I'm not a particularly... I don't always think in the right number of steps, but there are times where I do find... It's all I can do, Alex, even with people I love. It's all I can do not to point out how stupid the question that you just asked is. Where it's like, you know, it's along the lines of, you know, the things, no, it doesn't matter. Like, oh, low stakes stuff.

Like, oh, you know, your plane lands and you call somebody and they go, oh, did your plane arrive? You go, no, my plane didn't arrive. It spun around three times and went into the Korean Sea, just like with Colonel Blake.

even that's not too bad. But along the lines of, when people ask you questions in a situation like that, that seem to elide a basic understanding of human motivation, and the most basic one is, look, this could be a bank error, this could be a delivery problem. And I'm not trying to just bitch about customer service. It's a hard job. I wouldn't want it. Hi, Kara. But then, the thing is, you go, you go, well, and blah, blah, blah. Did you try this? Did you do that? And I always feel like, dude,

And remember how this call started with me saying, screaming repeatedly and quickly, please don't hang up on me? Because everybody keeps hanging up on me there, and then I have to start over with a different person until it starts to feel a little bit hostile. Yeah, the thing you ask about, I am sure about it. Because there's no way in the world that I would keep doing what I am doing. Even if I were a masochist, this would not be my tempo. Like getting on the phone, like my wife trying to get the goddamn insurance company to approve a payment to the company that's going to fix our car that got hit by somebody else two weeks ago.

It's like, no, no, I'm just doing this to kill time. You know, it's like Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross. I'm just one of those people that really likes talking to salespeople. How are you doing? yeah I'm just here hanging out no no I got it I've gotten all of them I'm just doing this to like fuck with you like I'm not Colin Robinson I'm not gonna keep you on the phone because like I just know how much you hate it it just drives me nuts

Alexoh god well I mean it's kind of the thing that we talked about in our last episode of are people getting weirder it's almost

Speaker Aoh shit that's right we did talk about that that was good

Alexit was good I'm gonna try to sell legit But the – I don't know if it's that – like, I don't know. Corporate customer service has always felt like a strange daisy chain of weirdness that –

MerlinYeah. It's like the day you realize that HR is protecting the company, not defending you. And like customer service – it's very similar with customer service in some ways. It's like customer service is like HR, you know, for people.

AlexYeah. Yeah. Well, and then it becomes worse than that, because at some points you it's like the human equivalent of the Thunderbolt just cable just falling out of a monitor. Like, you don't know why. It's like, does this help you? Does this help me? Why is this happening?

MerlinI feel like I have such Stockholm syndrome because I literally will be like, listen, hi, hi, hi, please, please, please, please, please don't hang up on me. I've gone through this with all kinds of different places, especially I don't want to say banks, but I'm trying to remember. there's one of these experiences I had about a year or so ago that was just like very Kafka-esque. I try to use that word sparingly, but it was extremely Kafka-esque. And what makes something Kafka-esque? It goes from being merely bureaucratic, annoying, time-consuming, frustrating, to being something where it feels genuinely hostile, as though the system has been tuned to particularly fuck with you in a specific way. I don't know if that's what Kafka would say,

but that's how I feel about it is like, I'm trying to be so nice and I'm trying to be so kind. And like one reason not to yell at people in life is that the person you're yelling at doesn't realize that they're the 15th ding-a-ling you've run into today. They're just somebody trying to help.

AlexBut that's the thing. Do you – I mean do they not know that? Like you've got to know. Is this your first day? Well, you've got to know that someone's being passed around. Like I mean it's by design.

Speaker ABut there's no continuity of care.

MerlinThere's no notes. There's no nothing. and you're like you call back and say oh let's talk to Angela and they're really helpful and it's like no there's no Angela here and never has been we don't have phones

Alexhello? Yeah well actually it's kind of like when I realized I don't know I think it was on Reddit like unethical life hacks where if you want to hang up on someone but not really hang up you just put your phone into airplane mode and says call failed instead of like call ended

MerlinI would never do it but the best trick for that is to is to have you're gonna have to practice this to get good at it but it would basically be along the lines of you know you're talking to someone i hate this i hate what you're doing i hate what you're doing it's really important you cut yourself off in the middle of one of your

Alexi hate it oh god i hate this so much i hate it didn't work didn't work pretty well i hate it i mean i oh god yes it's so it's so bad i hate it i hate it oh we've complained about customer

Merlinservice we're back on the horse we don't do we have a challenge kind of have a challenge well

Alexthat's the thing the challenge was oh shit dog you're right with multiple monitors but i can't do that also hey everybody if you want to give us money for more of this we're trying we're getting back on the horse we're back on the horse uh patreon.com slash do by friday we love your money thank you for your money um i please give us your money i have two thousand dollars in the ether but i don't know what to how to get it back congratulations yeah i know ether as in the cryptocurrency no no no with my monitor because it's i'm supposed to oh i see i'm so sorry i

thought you were talking about ethereum i guess oh oh no no no and it's uh oh that's funny oh that's funny yeah no no no uh i'm supposed to send back a monitor so the way it stands right now

Merlinand I guess at probably some point you're going to check back in with your Apple friends about

Alexthis? Well, no, I actually, this might be an escalate like DM the Apple friend of like actual Apple friends of like, really, what should I do here? Because they've sent me a return packing slip. I did not initiate a return. I don't, I don't have 40 pounds of monitor to send back.

MerlinIt really, it's like something that's speaking of Kafkaesque, it really is something like, I don't know if you're selling a movie Brazil, but it really is like something from Brazil.

Speaker AIt's like, say the number.

MerlinLike, you're just like, no, I just want the steak. Say the number. Boy, that movie's good. That's a really good movie.

AlexDirector's Cut or Regular. I still have, I don't know which one I like more, but I know I like one of them more. It's like Blade Runner. I'm not sure which one I like.

MerlinI've become a much less interesting, much less controversial person. Like, for example, there's not a version of Alien I don't like. there's not really a version of Blade Runner that I hate. In some ways I like the one with the voiceover because that's what I grew up with. It's not the best movie but I like the final cut better than the director's cut for Blade Runner. For Brazil, I think there's are there three? I want to say there's theatrical, there is which is the happy ending, right? And then there is the

Speaker AI don't

MerlinI want to say that he never got a proper like director's like a Snyder cut but then there was one that was the, was it the director's cut?

AlexI'm not sure. It was like on a DVD and then it got on the internet.

MerlinI'm not sure. Oh my god, I got cucked so bad with buying, for example, I did buy the director's cut of Blade Runner which, you know, if you're going to be picky about this stuff in my opinion is not as good as the final cut of Blade Runner but, actually Blade Runner hasn't aged as well as I would like to think if I'm being honest. It's still a landmark. It's still almost impossible to enjoy Blade Runner because of how many movies have borrowed from Blade Runner. That's why I think

AlexBlade Runner has I would say aged well in terms of I don't know. I think there's two types of aging well

Merlinbecause. Oh there's the not aged well of like John Mulaney's jokes. You did that really funny bit with Bill Hader. Not the worst word. Oh yeah but like there was a funny bit. Who was it? Cicely with her head strong said to him like oh yeah you wrote that really funny bit. Somebody's on the show when he hosted a few weeks ago. He was like, yeah, you wrote that really funny bit. No, it was Tina Fey in the Five Timers Club. Oh, yeah, you wrote that really funny bit with Bill Hader. And then you did like 800 other things that haven't aged well.

This place has everything. Oh, God. But if you are... My son. That's my all-time favorite. The Anderson Cooper marriage scene still makes me happy. There's no reason in a million years... I'm talking here about Stefan. There's no reason in a million years they could have – it made sense to put the resources that they did into the Anderson Cooper wedding. Have you seen it?

AlexI feel like I have, but I don't know if I – this was a Stefan thing? I don't know.

MerlinSo, you know, this started – yeah, Stefan started as – the very first Stefan sketch is funny but different. The very first Stefan sketch is really closer to like a Tim Robinson round ball rock where Stefan is, it's him and somebody else and they're in like a pitch meeting for something. And it's basically a fully formed Stefan. The one person who I think, God, I want to say Vince, what's his head, but I'm not sure. They're like pitching this thing. And then Stefan's like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then, and coming up with all these, the insane worlds that like you would then see, you know, on weekend update.

but then they figured out him and mulaney figured out we number one we got to do this character it's going to be on on here and then the bit supposedly and i i do believe this because bill hater doesn't really break very often the idea was he and mulaney and hater would write the stefan bits together and maybe i think i know seth meyers was involved because he's the originator of hat on a hat but and but there would always be at least as i understand it anyway at least one bit that they would work in that Bill Hader had never seen until it was on a cue card and he'd have to read it

and that's when he you know about this and that's when he would like yep fall apart that's yeah and I totally buy it it's that thing it's that thing where like a midget is a bath mat and like and he'll have to like and it's and it's so goddamn funny but but but there's all these characters you know like baby bok choy and like all these um dj baby bok choy there's all these characters over time that have built up. And the final episode,

I guess it was, was it Bill Hader's final episode? Seth Meyers? It might be Seth Meyers. They did a filmed bit where Stefan's going to marry.

AlexYes, oh, it all came out.

MerlinAnd all of the characters, all of the characters are there.

AlexYes. Holy shit. There we go. Yeah, okay. Now I'm back.

MerlinIt's just, it's unbelievable. How are we getting out of this?

AlexOh, God. I don't, well, that's the thing. You UPS took my monitor. Are you who stole your monitor? FedEx? Like they they really they peanut buttered.

MerlinI it's like I say, the reason the confusion for me has been, like I say, at least with iPhones, which is the other kind of UPS delivery I would like very fervently watch. usually time was i can't say for now but time was you know in simpler times you would get a notification about a week before it was supposed to arrive and it would say it would say very specifically your your iphone x is leaving shenzhen or whatever like it would say like very specifically it's leaving that place with the mike daisy episode like it's all

is there now.

AlexSorry, I forgot about that man too. It'll be in notes. It'll be in notes. I'm sorry.

MerlinOkay, all right. And then you track it and you see it go and say, okay, now it's at Long Beach and then it's at Blonde. So I really want this fucking monitor. I saw one in the store, my kid and I, when I bought my Mac Studio last week.

Speaker AIt's so bright.

MerlinSo I bought a Mac Studio in the store last week. I bought the nice one. and I'm glassing over that so I don't have to talk about it and sound like a fancy Dutchess but while we were there of course we looked at these

Alexpatreon.com slash do by Freddy because I have a lot of questions about it Duchess okay so you saw them on I've also seen the monitor I'm so wet oh my god

Merlinit's so popping bright unless I'm missing something this is a fucking bright monitor and daddy's eyes ain't good I need it

Alexthat's the thing it's like we have both seen this display before because it is just the same one in the the iMac 5k or whatever i i think it's nittier it oh oh really oh okay okay i'm not i don't

Merlinremember anyway in any case it's it's beautiful and it's bright and i love it very much so instead of contra what would usually happen with like hey your iphone is blah it said preparing to ship fucking hate preparing to ship preparing to ship i want to see that for one day i want to see for one day i want to see like order received for two weeks i want to see preparing to ship for half a day i want to see shipped and then like that's what i want to see that makes me feel better so it was preparing to ship until like as of last so like uh i'm on pacific time we did our break

um and then did the member episode was syracuse so that would be five six seven three so as of like 9.30 your time last night, dude, still preparing to ship.

And then, eventually, last night it clicked over to Ontario. It looks like Ontario, Canada, but it's Ontario, California, which is a UPS hublet. So it went from to, like, you know, in the Bay Area, mostly.

Which is weird. And I asked Syracuse, so you had mentioned something. Well, am I talking out of school? Where you said you've heard some rumors and kerfuffle that there's some some some uh some bullshit going on with apple deliveries

Alexand cock-ups and i oh yeah what did you what did you heard like from well no just like literally dozens of people because you know a bitching a lot of people ordered this monitor yeah well well not just the monitor um with the m1 especially the airs like uh and from people who you know computers are not their jobs and they're like yeah it showed either it showed up one day or similar to me it returned to the delivery facility and it's like well what do i know now i hate it so

Speaker Amuch it's so it shouldn't i'm so first world that like it really breaks my heart when that happens like it feels so unnecessary why did this happen well that's the thing it's not first world it's

AlexLike, it's like if you... It's not first world. It's... I don't know. It's doing what you said you're going to do.

MerlinIt's integrity.

AlexIt's... I mean...

MerlinWhat's funny about that? You think integrity's funny?

AlexFuck off. Integrity Farms. You don't know.

MerlinHi. Integrity Farms remembers. Have you ever put a full cow's titty in your mouth and sucked it out real slow? Have you ever had the milky sensations of being raised around rabbit animals? Have you ever had your fancy Duchess display return to the depot? You ever wondered what the fuck's going on in Tennessee and why Stephen even laid out a tarp?

Tegredy Farms remembers.

281. The Dignity of Easy Math

Show notes

Transcript

281. The Dignity of Easy Math

Show notes

Transcript

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