349. Work Wife

This is Do by Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. With Alex Kunks and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge: Try Good Tasks. Hello. Hello. Good morning. Hello. Hello? Good morning. Good morning. Hello. Hello. Good morning. Hello. You have reached customer service. I was trying to avoid uh I was trying to avoid the motorcycle noises and touch nine If you're a motorcycle. I don't know if it's a bit. If you're a motorcycle. Okay, wait, I heard motorcycle. Okay. Touch nine. I think you meant to touch one. Touch one. I think that People have figured it out. I love you. Again. Again. I love you. Did you know that he's doing a movie with um Somebody really interesting. Oh, he's doing a movie with Emma Stone.

Have you heard about this? No. Um. It's it's this is a whole separate topic, but my god, ever since Mastodon I just don't see fucking anything anymore and it's glorious. Oh no, it's it's it's uncanny, Alex. I said this yesterday last night. Uh I'm having so much fun lately. Um, but I got home a little thank you. I got home a little after five last night. Mm-hmm. And Mella goes, Wow, how about what? And I go, huh? And my wife repeats, haha, you see? For the fraud thing? I was like, what? 'Cause I I I saw like sometimes I I like to I I don't I don't shoulder surf. Like I want her to have her own life. But sometimes I will just like unintentionally like she set her phone down with whatever the fuck she was looking at and I'll go, huh, online shopping.

I didn't know there was any fraud thing. I said, huh, what's up with uh Mr. Trump? Because I could see that she was on the New York Times homepage. And there was a big Trump like el election sign a and him or something like that. It's like, huh, what's going on with Mr. Trump? And I'm just walking around I've had a good day. I've didn't I've been doing my job and not feeling like all day long. I come home and it's it's awesome, you know. I We're we're gonna have dinner and it's fun and we're gonna watch uh oh god, we're gonna watch episode four of Station Eleven and oh my god. And I'm just I'm in a great great mood. And I go, What is what happened? And and she goes, You didn't hear about the she goes, you didn't hear about the fraud?

And and I said, No no God, what happened? She goes, Oh. That Letitia James lawsuit about Trump org, they've already preemptively decided that he committed massive two billion dollar fraud. So it's no longer a question of whether he did it or not. It's just a question of how much control of his business he loses and what he will be fined for it. I go Huh, I printed out four John Syracuse, so I'm not exactly sweating it. I know the words on in business But I don't know any of the other people. I mean I don't know because I think you lie I think you're a fibber. I you know I love you, but I'm a little fibber. Um, I kept up with the strike stuff a little bit, just Because it was a good thing. Oh, not on Twitter.

No. Well that's why that's what I'm saying. Is that like the other two which is the first two seasons of which are good. The other two um Still look at Twitter. And I'm not I would never say this anywhere except I would never say this as a way to try and like go, ew. You know, I'm not you know you know I'm not being that guy, right? But it's it's so fucking weird how ever since I moved to stop stopped doing Twitter and s started spending a ton of time on Mastodon, it's it's really funny how my appetite for Toxic Bagatelles has almost completely disappeared. And in fact what used to be just uh it used to take like eight minutes of MSNBC to make me furious, it now takes about ten seconds. Not furious, but I would just go, oh shit, what am I do?

This is the kind of thing I yell at Alex about. What am I doing fucking looking at this? I think I did fib. I'm I'm a little stinker because I do No, it's okay it's okay, but I'm just all I'm trying to say is that the s my system does not have leaks Oh, I see. Well, I'm not I don't like dip into threads to make sure that like somebody I didn't like in high school sent me a message about Night Ranger or something. I'm just still logged in to the Dubai Friday account. That's fine, it's there. Do you feel me though? Do you feel me though? Like I w can you I can't even imagine a month ago coming home and missing half a day of Trump news. I think I've been on this train a little bit longer than you, but it also it's a Twitter jump it on and off.

I don't look at Facebook, I don't look at Instagram, I don't look at TikTok, I don't look at anything else. I made a bubble and I love it. I mean I have people on the ground, I suppose. Like Matchie will let me know if something wild happens that affects Oh you see, this is why you need fewer friends It just makes life confusing when you know dream people. There were rumors in our little s circle of very a very small front local friends of like Did Maddie and Alex like are they fighting because I don't po post on Instagram? I I wonder a couple times if you guys broke up. I wonder a couple times if you guys are. Oh my god. Oh my God. Um but I just because I don't post on Instagram. There's just a lot of stuff he didn't know about and I was like, Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah. Huh. I guess like The title I'm your work wife I think I'm Polly then because I have le you're you're like 0. 75 of the wise the the the the aunt the aunt from Huckleberry Finn? I I have not uh reading. See, I won't even particip I won't even participate in dumb relevant bits anymore. It's always gonna become about something more interesting and I'm loving this change in me. I don't have anything interesting to say. I don't follow local Things I just Wow, I thought you were I thought you were Jim's ally. Do you want to use the whole name? I uh uh no Did you read that book? It's a pretty good book I don't think Winston Churchill wrote it. Nope. I do remember someone did a uh Kickstarter years and years ago where they changed That word robots.

Oh, I see. Fuckleberry hen, that's gotta be a thing. I'm I'm going to send you a a screen. No I'm not. I Nope. Never mind. Never mind What what do I not like, Alex? No, voice to text. King-handed things. I know. I almost mailed you something. Well, pff mailed. I almost got Maddie to mail you something. Yeah. Yeah. Huh, look at that. Recycle. Mute. Oh. I just think that voice detects on iOS. Both of us, that's all I do is play with computers now. I can't go back. At this point I can't go back, Alex. And now I've I've barked about it to other people so much in the last couple weeks. that that it may caused me, importantly, because I'm the most important person, i i importantly it's caused me to ooh jeez, I almost said the thing.

I almost said the blackjack term that I hate No, it's caused me to um increase my usage of it because you can only you only really want to double down when you've got two aces. And oh my god, Alex. I f I feel like a fucking caveman if I've gotta type something and like I still get of turns into if, I still get live love turns into live. I still get these things over and over that don't happen when I use my voice. I think I've uh figured it out. Yeah. It was the stainless steel. I have not been able to tie it. No, seriously. I Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it Joe Rosensteel's new nickname? It's so, so it wasn't. That was funny, I'll acknowledge that. Do you know Joe? Uh no. You know Joe worked on water.

You don't know Joe? I do I suck your mouth. Joe Rosensteel is is a VFX guy who worked on Watchman and he's our friend. I know. And his and his boyfriend Jason always has letters over his face. Read a book. Yeah, uh golden hour No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But no. No, no, I thought you were unmasked I thought you liked Omni Focus. I got a twist for you, buddy. I got a twist for you. I was falling asleep last night. I went to bed late because I've been staying up late working on John Sarkisa and listening to music and writing on Mastodon. I'm having so much fucking fun. And um And I was uh I was fixing to go to bed and I remembered this is gonna be this is way before your time But um I think it was before the election in 76.

It might have been 77. But you know, Playboy magazine w a big feature of Playboy used to be these these interviews they would do with celebrities. Um, like a really famous one was the John Lennon one from nineteen eighty where he talked a lot about who wrote which songs and anyway, it was always this famous part of Playboy was there being a celebrity interview and famously there were always like these three black and white photos of the person. Anyway, it was very iconic when I was a kid. And when they interviewed Jimmy Carter, there's a line that some people know, one of the lines people associate with Jimmy Carter was from this interview. When they talked to him about his faith and we're talking to him about, you know, his sort of values, something all of us know and love.

Hey Jimmy Carter, I'm glad you're alive for now. Um Going. Yeah, he's going. Yeah. But I mean, Jesus Christ, what a fucking life. Sh show me a better after-presidency life than what that guy has done. He's so basically decent. And um but they said, you know, well, but you know, you're he te you know, he still like until like fairly relatively recently, he still taught Sunday school like once a month. He's a really cool guy. And I'm not I'm not a giant fan of Baptists, but I I like I like Jimmy Carter. And uh that's controversial, but I think Jimmy Carter's kind of cool. I mean, for presidents, I think you said i i what did you say? It it was a great way to describe uh c post presidency. It's like mm, he was the leader of the side.

So they they they talked to him about his faith and they talked to him about, you know, the kinds of things all of us Sinners struggle with. And anyway, th the the takeaway line that I think has been slightly misunderstood over the years was he said uh something like I I'll admit that I have had lust in my heart. Oh fuck, that's good. That's a famous line. And I as I was falling asleep last night listening to L C D Sound System, I was thinking, you know what? I I think this week I have peanut butter in my heart title. Oh. Yeah, 'cause I didn't know. There's a lot of levels to that, but I like it already. You're a lot of levels. I This is a good episode, isn't it? I've I've uh w which one? This one?

No. The one you did with ma uh Max Sparky? All the other ones. Sure, let's talk about my life. Oh, let's talk about podcasts. The one we're recording now, Alex, the one you're on. I think you're on. I think so. You can hear me, right? Did you end up touching nine or not? Touching nine? Remember earlier when you reached the call tree? Because you had a motorcycle? Um, everything is great. Oh god. How are you doing? I'm doing well, except for the beginning of the call where I w tried out a mute switch and it apparently did not work. to adapt to it. Yes, absolutely. Oh my god. I was out getting sunshine this morning and I read something down that I I'm I'll need to workshop this a lot more. But I was thinking about my relationships with my podcast co-hosts, you know, privately, but as long as you're here.

Uh if I have to be the sane one, I also get to be the funny one. And if I have to be the normal one I'll start over. If I have to be the sane one, I also get to be the funny one. And if I have to be the normal one, I also get to be the earnest one. Was that ever up for debate amongst Any of your codes? Do you want to take a minute and think about what you just said and how much sense it makes? I we we've talked a bit about this. So you that's something you were aware of with that particular wording, is something that you've had in your mind for years? That you are. Everybody else already knows about the Flintstones, is that a No no no. That you uh that you amongst your co-hosts are perhaps the most mentally stable, at least on air.

And I'm the most emotionally stable. Which makes it even worse, yeah. Yeah. And um I I I guess y I didn't think about how you were the funniest one. It was No, it's not the funniest one. And like in a really upsetting way. So don't make me be the sane one. No, I'd rather be the weird one. Run laps or around uh us. You know it's gonna say I scoot laps. Scoot scoot lapshine. So you didn't know about that, right? Uh I didn't know. Tell our listeners about this. Are you inter aren't you interested in this now? Aren't you b admit it, aren't you kind of interested in this now? Oh incredibly interesting. Can I kinda tell our listeners this? Please. If you wear an op Apple Watch, and it's not I have an ultra, but I don't think it's I think it's I think it's most Apple watches, regardless.

The Apple Watch that I have has a feature that I did not know about until the last month, which is that Provided I I don't know the details of this, but it obviously on some level, if it has exposure to the light where you are. In other words, it's not covered up by three layers of San Francisco. Um, your Apple Watch will be able to tell you how much time you spent in Sunlight each day. Or, most saliently for me, to be able to tell you how much time and sun sunshine you didn't spend today. Are you following me? Yeah. So like it's just making me feel bad. Well, okay, but like here's the thing. Well but like you can go you can you can always choose to like try to be better at that, right? If it makes you feel bad.

Here's what I I noticed is that once I went and looked at that in Apple Health, I immediately went, Whoa. I mean, this is an old Merlin thing, but like One reason I love various kinds of personal tracking is it tells you who you are instead of who you'd like to believe you are. Yep. So something like rescue time in my case was extremely educational to me. about how I spent my day. And Rescue Time is a little demon, an app that runs on your Mac and tells you everything you do. It tells you this is how much time you spent in not just in TextMate, this is how much time you time you spent in Textmate. files that were in this folder. This is how much time you spent on this website. And when you look at that in the aggregate after a week, it's sort of like your battery on iOS.

Where you go like, oh, I guess I listened to quite a lot of Spotify more than I thought. Or in my case, I looked at Twitter more than I realized. Um And so if you're in the sun, purportedly, it will detect that. And Alex, I have a fair number of days where that number is like three. Oh, I don't I mean I'm what am I gonna do? I'm I'm what I'm out you know mountaineering? No. Well you have the ultra It's extremely ruggedized. But I go to I go to a place and then I come back to the original place and sometimes I go to Walgreens. So what I did was uh last week I gently inclined myself toward a new idea. And you know, again, this is you know put this on my money. I don't it doesn't matter to me if you like this or agree with this.

It matters to me that you know this. Every morning before I go to the office, I get on my scooter. And I ride around the neighborhood in direct sunlight for at least 20 minutes before I go to work. And that purports without regard to the Apple Watch and the Apple ecosystem, being in sunlight in the morning, having sun on your face in the morning purports to have health benefits. It's why I have a sad light, meaning seasonal affective disorder, is that if you don't get enough sunlight, it throws off your body's clock, it can hurt your production of vitamin D. There's all kinds of things we're being in a little bit and again I live in San Francisco, so right like right now it's like I don't know 65 outside, 68, right?

But like and It's so remarkable though. It's kind of like when I got a bike and suddenly my my activity in a day quintupled or septupled. And like now, instead of three minutes a day, I've got 30, 40 minutes a day, and I got all that, all those points on the board before I even go into my little troglodyte dungeon. I am Do you think you'd want to try that? Just as an experiment, just start paying attention to that. Wouldn't that be interesting? Oh, I'm absolutely going to try that because I uh got a little bit too proud of myself when I would hit a certain number of steps, but then I would look at the Nike run app. Not not because I am super inter I hate running. Um, but because I just wanted to see No, I mean I know I know what you mean though, but like if if you can measure it Syracuse, measure.

If you can if you can measure it, you will tend to start then noticing it. Yes, and I realized as Um I uh as I started to need more mental health stuff, I wasn't really I w I wasn't going to my normal places and I wasn't like walking in uh li I I wasn't walking as a question question question yes when you say you weren't going to your normal places I can I i infer that that could mean something like I was like, that could respect that could respect an anhedonia of a certain kind of depression or inward turning thing that we all you know, sometimes suffer with, right? It like I don't go anywhere. But couldn't that could that also be the other thing, like the riding on the trans thing? That's not one of your usual places except when it is.

It's it's yes. It's seeing uh irregular uh patterns. Like uh every day I try to look at the chimneys and I have this little park that I walk around and then Oh I love that. How far is that pretty close to where you live? Yeah, yeah. And uh, you know, I play my Pokemon. Can you walk on your feet, right? Yes, yes. Um How many phones you got for Pokemon Go? Just one. Just sh mm well You know that reference, right? Uh it it our You know Tina's got Tina's got Tina Syracuse has three iPhones. She absolutely oh she throws them she just throws them in a bag. She doesn't even put she doesn't even put them in individual little bags. She doesn't have a pouch for you to each one. She doesn't have a pokey pouch.

I call it the couchy outchy. I can tell which phone she's using sometimes because we exchange it. She's a way higher level than me. Yeah, no, she runs away with it. No, she's the very best. r um renew office haggrid, so you're you're all welcome. Oh go Did you see the Tom Felton Uber Eats? Commercial? No, I don't I don't think so. What I know about Tom Felton is is that he matured faster than the other kids, which got a little weird because n Neville continued to look like such a complete dork. And he was obviously it was kinda like my best friend John, who was almost two years older than me. And it was when you're a s like when you're twelve. versus ten, he's twelve, I'm ten, that's a big difference.

And then when it's he's sixty and I'm fifty eight, it's not big it as big of a deal. But Tom Felton he seemed and I remember hearing that He um plays golf and enjoys golf. And I remember hearing that he's been a little bit frustrated with the kind of typecasting problem. That's what everything I know about Tom Felton. I hope he's nice. He seems like a very nice m person. I I do not n know him personally, un unfortunately. Fortunately, I don't know. Um but he Read another Hogwarts. Yeah, I know. Um, but he just was in a very weird Uber Eats type thing. But I know what you're talking about. Uh yeah. Why don't they use Cut there's use the dynamic eyelids? What you know, that is that is so fucking unethical, Alex I there's exactly one restaurant in town, and I'm not gonna say what it is, but it's a town, it's a restaurant in town that makes a thing that I like that's difficult to get delivered.

And it's the only place in town that delivers from this particular place. And so I I'm constantly going there. It's always just currently unavailable, not accepting orders, all that fucking bullshit. Because you know, they're one of those real edgelord cases, edgelord case, where They're not like officially officially officially on the app, that kind of Postmates bullshit where they just scraped something. Right? Yep, people. And so it's very and it's probably a handoff, you know, one of the classic Chinese restaurant handoffs title Where like, oh, it's not really Uber Eats is delivering it. Right, whatever. But they they've reached reached a provisional separate piece about that. So every day I look to see if that place will bring me the food I want today.

And that's all I have ever used Uber Eats for. I fucking hate Uber. I hate Uber Eats. And I despise the fact that Uber Eats gives me so many notifications about stuff that I should be doing. Including When I go to the place, get the favorite done this, you go to the place and it's not open, and 20 minutes later you get a pop-up says, hey, are you still hungry for bleep bloop restaurant? Try these other places. Uh well, I haven't because uh I I don't feel as strongly about Uber Eats as you do. Your Uber show with Joseph Gordon Biden Levitt, it makes me really not like Uber as a c company. Right. Well and and that's why I actually uninstall Uber Eats, not because I'm like, meh, that's a good thing.

Well because the notifications Stop and I'm like, oh, I'm not sure. I would f I would fully I would turn off everything and fully quit the app the second I arrived wherever I was going. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it's stop It still got through. It still got through. And I didn't finish the David Gordon Jesse show, but uh God, I love him. Why don't I know his name? Uh Joseph Gordon Love It. Yeah. So I'm I'm I'm repeating him a bim bam bit. I'm sorry. The if That's something Griffin Newman says sometimes. Uh oh. Just supporting Biden Levin. I await me laugh. You know actually his name is Barack Hussein Obama. A lot of people leave out the Hussein and it's really important. Yeah. It's it's racist and uh Nazi.

Your heart is filled with with peanut butter. What are what are you doing? Oh no, no no no no. Just but should we talk about daylight? Shut the fuck in. You're getting the pure uncut shit today. There's no fentanyl in Merlin today. You're getting the pure Did you hear that podcast about fentanyl? Um the next what's next one or the Well, I mean like I I I I don't you know you only listen to Mountain Goats. I only listen to like two podcasts now. But like yeah, it was one that was about why fatilis it it was probably a slate ish podcast, but it was Oh yes. Sir a search uh search engine where PJ vote asks why is exactly but But it was fucking fascinating. Yeah. I still haven't listened to part two.

Part one is why is fentanyl he asked such a good question. Um why is fentanyl such a big problem? V-a-vis, why is fentanyl in so many cut into so many drugs given that it is so powerful and so easy? I mean, if you enjoy your fentanyl You can keep it. That's what Barack Hussein uh Obama said. But but if hypentanyl is so easy to unintentionally overdose, like letally overdose on. And the the crux of part one is from the standpoint of like the marketplace, yes, the marketplace. Because even it's still a business. Why would you put things in your product that kill the people who need and buy it from you? Mm-hmm. Right. And so they talked about the history of opiates and opioids and it's It's really expensive to make heroin compared to fentanyl.

And they just c they're cutting it into everything like it's fucking baby formula or laxative. Did you get to sort of the answer, which is a very good thing? No, part two was talking to an actual uh drug professional, yes? Yes. And his A drug worker. He he and uh a couple other people Said, well, even if one of our customers dies, ten more of our customers hear that we have the highest high. Oh, that's the best. Yep. So it's almost like the way that like you go to Hollywood to become a star and you're like, hey, like if you won't get my latte and blow me There's eleven other men who will. Yep. Right? Yeah. Like you know, it's fine. Just it's okay. Actually, it helps me to know that faster because I'd really rather have somebody here who is exactly what I want.

Even though or especially when it kills them. Because then it gets me to the fresh meat, cheaper meat faster. Yeah. It because at at that point you you know Did the person sound smart? Uh uh I mean did they sound wise or did they sound like a fucking dingling? Uh th there well that's the thing, there were a couple people because at first you're like, no, why would anyone cut uh uh weed with fentanyl? That's just uh that's b batshit. And then weed Oh, you're talking about the 'cause edibles had some. Didn't weren't there trace amounts of fentanyl even in some over-the-counter edibles? Uh not over-the-counter that ha anyone has found. Um but scared daddy. Yeah, no, but you know, um It's part of my process.

The yeah, not not uh I might listen to Melvins tonight if I don't have the edibles. I want you to keep posting about the eagle. Oh, I'm going blind! Oh no no no! Oh my god. They're very mild, Alex. Everything frightens you, Alex. It's just definitional. It either concerns you, frightens you, or makes you sad. And this is why I'm here. I'm here to guide you. I'm your manic pixie dream, Merlin, to try and guide you onto a path to things that will in the fullness of time make you less of those things and then eventually at the very end of the third act at the very end, spoilers, uh you'll realize you you could have decided to do that all along. I uh I know. So when I when I see you pursuing things that don't make you happy, it's my duty as Manic Pixie Dream Merlin to to make fun of you.

in a wholesome way that makes you realize that that that's an option and a choice. Really that's it. You're a public service. I am well. It's another thing that would not make me happy and I choose not to do. Really choose not to do. It's like catch advice five cents. Boy, how about that watch face with the penis with the Snoopy on it? Can you imagine if uh the the people who worked on that watch face just uh uh worked on like the UI from well but but just something l like the f the sets of how about how about you consult with the Siri team not about the technology behind Siri which is apparently beyond repair but in like what kind of user experience I would want from a failing system, go work the bring some delight to that w but not a way of going like, ha ha, I am Siri and I don't know how to do things.

This is taking too long. Like add some fucking delight, you shith heels. Every no and not everyone. I a lot of folks will uh I uh Define a lot. I like it. I like it. Fine woven, am I right? More like ultra fine woven. 'Cause it's like the LG Ultrafine monitor. Did Command F and wrote that into Mastodon and I'm like Well, this is the one thing that did carry over to Twitter. Hitting save and perfection. I made this Same joke in twenty four hours. I made I made iced tea last night. I I made it a little bit too strong and boy is it ever good. You know, what's my favorite you you claim to be such a fan of mine. Um what's my favorite oblique strategies card? Oh no, I don't oh crap, no. I have yes, please.

Okay, just no, just really propulsiveness, okay? Um honor thy error as a hidden intention I also I have to say I really do like the use of the odd archaic word thy because it sounds like a commandment. Honor thy error as a hidden intention. What if you started looking at things that happen Okay, this is a thought technology, like all oblique strategies. But like, what if you open your mind to the idea that things that feel like a frustrating mistake right now were actually a hidden intention? So what if I actually didn't I didn't realize it? This is sort of like you know CGP Grey and you are too. Uh what if it turned out that I wanted stronger Iced T and didn't know it? Why do I keep forgetting and leaving three three bags steeping?

Yes or yes or three bags steeping. Why do I accidentally leave three bags steeping for an hour while I paint John Syracuse's silver face? Maybe that was a hidden intention. Back to you. Mm-hmm. Alex. I uh well uh I don't make the assumption, but I worry that most of my quote Mistakes. The challenge for this week is to start noticing the vowels or excuse me. Start noticing the verbs you use the most. Oh, hi. At least I'm not out. I'll do it in D script this week. Okay. Stements from you and what verb is used. I then what adjective, you know? Uh well, I mean and assume. Oh boy, you ever look at your filler word count? Oh no, it's a lot of things. Oh my god, it's so depressing. Right? Right? Right?

Right? I sound like one of the seagulls in finding Nemo. Mine? Did you honor that was that an error? Did you honor mine error? Yeah, I honor the error. Maybe your hidden intent was to see all your I was supposed to become a seal? Right? Right? Right. What I just did. I'm sorry. Oh, right? Mine? Mine? It's an underrated Finding Nemo joke. That's an underrated Pixar film. It's a good m it's a really it's a it's a good movie and it looks so good. I love the Australia angle. The girl with the braces. Oh my God. There's so many things in that movie that you don't get until you've been to Australia and you know How weird it is. Yeah, because uh I mean it they have to go fucking around the continents and it's like how far could this fish actually get?

How could this current actually carry them? And it's like, oh Fuck, these turtles, that's they live a hundred years because they need to circle the continent to lay their eggs for some reason. Yeah. Wait, is he into turtle eugenics? What? That's I I thought you knew this. Uh John Syracuse is one of the foremost turtle eugenicists. Oh yeah. He he used to do it with them. He used to do it with amphibians, but he didn't like the fan noise. That's why you can't watch baseball, too much fan noise. But which I mean from the fans. Jokes. That's not that funny. That's not that funny. Can I can I owe you an apology? Is it okay if I apologize now? Uh oh okay, yes Well, okay, give me your verb or give me your adjective.

That hello, hello, you have reached Manic, Pixie, Dream, Marlin, are you? If you're if you are concerned, touch one. If you are scared, touch two. If you are sad, touch three. You are Alexander. Just pin all three at once. I owe you an apology and I'd like to I wanna I owe you an amends. Uh you were absolutely right about something and I was absolutely wrong about something. And when you corrected me on it, I continued to um You know, hold fast and you are absolutely right about something. Do you want to guess what it is, or do you want me to just tell you? Oh, I do not want to guess. Are you concerned? Worried? Scared? How does this feel? Just the worst. Now you're right eye. Better or worse.

Horses, horses, horses. You were totally right. You were totally fucking right, you piece of shit. You were totally fucking right. I just got it confused because it involved Meg Ryan singing. Yes. So what what had happened was I I've always thought I I I like Meg Ryan. I always thought she was so like she's so and when I say she's cute and she's pretty, what I mean I mean she's cute and she's pretty, but like it's reflected in her abulliance. in when Harry met Sally, the like when she talks about why there's no underpants that say Sunday, it's the funniest thing in the world to me. I think she's she uses everything everything that she has in a way that is deceptively simple. And I I just think she's a wonderful actress.

And and I also enjoy her son. Tell tell him I said hi. And there's a scene in when Harry met Sally when they're at the Sharper Image and they see Billy Crystal's ex, whose name escapes me at the moment. And it's while they're singing karaoke. Do you remember uh Sharper Image, right? You remember that. I thought that's where that comes from. They sing Oklahoma. It's very oh god. Someone staring at you in personal growth. Um but and so I was and I always thought it was so cute. What I'm remembering is pfft, I I for some reason in my head because there's horses in the song Sorry with the Fringe on Top. from um Oklahoma and that's what they're singing. There's horses in that song. But there's a point in w in a in in a Meg Ryan movie where she's singing and she's sort of like Uh in my head I remember her sort of idly like maybe like while she's driving a car or something, she's singing jingle bells, I think Yes.

Is it jingle bells? Mm-hmm. No one is able to find the horses, horses, horses Meg Ryan song. I'm starting to think it might be one of those sing bad things. The well Or or or Winnie Mandela. Like because but there's a s I recall a scene where she's sort of idly like I feel like she's like driving a car, she's doing something she's singing to herself. Now she hang through the snow in one horse open sleigh. And at one point she goes, horses, horses, horses. And I just think I think it's so cute. And you said that's in Uh it's sleepless in Seattle. You said that's in sleepless in Seattle, and I said, Oh, Alex. No, Alex. No, no, no. No, it's not like there's three Meg Ryan movies that are basically the same movie.

It's not like Sleepless in Seattle. It's not like Sleepless in Seattle, you've got mail and uh when Harry Metelli are kind of the same movie. Um you were absolutely right and I apologize. I apologize that I got that wrong. I apologize that for the for the harm that I've caused and that I didn't I didn't believe you because I thought I was right. I apologize for that. That was my full Dan Harmon apology, you cunt. Um I like a full Irish breakfast but with a beard. I thought it was that you have uh slandered me. That's the verbal one, right? Yeah. Um Well you've been telling people that uh th yes, you you've been slandering me a across multiple programs. that I I had a problem with the funny because I don't slander you at all.

I That was my Don Draper impression. No, I mean I You know that's Richie from Silicon Valley, that other actor? Yeah. He's got the guitar in his office. Richard! Richard. What's his name? Not Richie. Not Richie. What's his name? What's his lawyer? What's his name? Oh I don't know the look of the Richie Andy Daly as the doctor. No. He's great as the doctor. Andy Daly of course is great on review with Forrest McNeil. Um he's also great on season seven of V When they hired the wrong guy to run the campaign. They literally, she was confused about who someone was, and they hired the wrong person to run her campaign. Oh yeah. Oh God. Cracking that whip. Go ahead. Slanders. Oh you've been slandering me because I had a problem with the good for the slander's good for the goose.

That I had a problem with you putting your Apple Watch in the tub. No, I do not have a problem. And in fact, and don't worry about that, you got a problem. I keep talking this is that. I have many problems. I do not have a problem with you. I got stubborn! Mo Great, watch it, my Michael That's my Hyman Roth. I wanna watch that movie now. It was so bad. Mm-hmm. I uh don't tell Syracuse of this. I don't tell me what to do, Alex. The new please I'm asking I'm not going to be able to do that. Well, don't tell me on the day. I tell him every workfriend. Title Title Title Aunt Polyamorous. God, that's stupid. I I ask you to uh break this to him gently if he ever cares. Probably not, but I kind of enjoy the cut.

that's in chronological order. I know it's Oh gosh, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, X. Just real quick. What the fuck are you talking about? The Godfather the cut where the Godfather saga. It's called something. There's a couple there's a couple of them, but what happen what had happened was in the eighties they wanted to show it on TV and they knew they'd have to like cut a bunch of shit out of it. And Francis Coppola in his usual like apocalypse now style bluster is like, oh, I'll do the whole thing. So I'll do the cut of this. I will do the edit of this and on top of it all I'm gonna interleave both of the Godfather movies in cut interleave the scenes in in truly chronological order plus add new scenes.

Yeah. Which are actually pretty cool. Do you remember when we meet do you remember when at um oh shoot, what's the name of the olive oil company? Genko. w when uh y young Hyman Roth comes in to Genko Olivewell Company. That you we meet young Hyman Roth in the Godfather saga. Holy shit. He added some really cool stuff. We see I don't want to sp well fuck it. Um you see Uh Michael's revenge on the guy who killed Apollonia. You see Michael Michael travels to I want to say Chicago and he's just sit he's sitting in a car. And you see this have you seen this? And you see you see the guy like walking out of like a pizza restaurant where he's got a new identity. Se uh uh seven hour Godfather Epic, but it's the first two in chronicle chronological order.

There's two of them. There's yeah, there's Saga and there's another one. It used to be on VHS, you could get them. It's this one is I'm I'm going to try to find it for notes, notes, notes. Did did you notice last week I was all in on um F uh I I edited last week's episode on Fairrite and with D script and I w I liked it a lot. Um but the Godfather there's yeah it's still on okay it's on HBO it's on Max now. We don't do that. We don't say that Max we don't say we don't say max anymore That was meaningful. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday, Friday. Oh god. I uh I in I enjoy that. And it is ca because I was like, Chicago. It's Chicago. The Godfather. Am I remembering it mostly right? I I've only I only remembered having seen that particular scene maybe once or twice.

I I gotta I think I I I watched it on TV, obviously like a million years ago, but 'cause it was they would I feel like they would show it on like TBS or something. Or you know, let's say. I saw the newer version of the other. But isn't it interesting that he would go like, well listen, if you're gonna I don't want somebody nobody else says I'm I'm Francis Farcopola, I am literally the titular American Zootrope. You are not allowed to butcher my shit. Well, unless of course you want to cut out the beautiful the beautiful multi-multi multi-feet dissolves and and treat this print like a fucking two dollar drug worker. It is my portalette and I'm gonna sit in it. That is wholesome daddy's honey bucket.

My honey bucket, I sit in it. Sometimes I sit on the rim and sometimes I get right in there with all the content. You know what? I'll take it and turn it. I it's wholesome to find original film stock precious. Haha! Haha! Okay, I'm done. Um, I think that it's also wholesome that you use your Apple Watch as it's intended to test your backwater. And as a as a watch and for all of the S and to track daylight and steps and all the other amazing things. And I I think the Apple boxes are not a good thing. Well, what is that you're underrated? I was concerned that you use the Apple sport loop that has the hook and latch technology and you keep it in the water for so long and I was just and I know that you also wash your hands a lot And I am conceived, concerned about your well-being and all of the germs that live on you.

I'm so sorry, I misunderstood. No, it's not damaging. Uh you can damage the hook and hit and latch. I had one literally fall apart because I cleaned it every day. I could I it's uh you're not allowed to say Velcro. No, but what you would say is hook and loop, but that's all right. It's not a match, but that's fine. I like that I like that band you got. It's that hook and latch. No, it's hook and ladder. It's a 9-11 thing. Never forget. It's it's what it's some of the best Apple Geek I don't change bands very often. I do like the Oh see? That makes me feel better. Okay. See? Th the germs. You're worried about germs? Yes. What the fuck are you talking about? Yes, germs that build. You're worried about germs on my watchpad.

And this is your quote unquote concern? Yes. Yes. You sit in the toilet all day. What? I sit in a toilet all the time. Of your own design. You chose it. You built it yourself. It doesn't work very well, but you just like being near the content. I've got I I I settled on whatever this kind is called, uh for sure. Like this is absolutely my favorite. And the main reason I like it is uh it's easy to take it on and off. And I developed a method for doing it with one hand for somewhat obvious reasons. Because I'm masturbating. It's my most personal device. And apparently I'm having an arrhythmia. No, no, no. What I do is I'll be wearing all my San Francisco layers and I get home, I want to take off my watch.

I take off my my nice watch. And I put it on the stand, I take off my old watch and put it on. You know, and I want to be able to do that with one hand while I'm wearing like a sweatshirt. So I So what I do is, and this is um Because of the hook and latch mechanism, what I'm able to do is just kind of rest it. Kind of almost if you think about it's not my wrist yet, it's more like the base of my left thumb. It's still kind of my actual hand area. So with one hand, I lo I loop uh latch it, I loop it, a looper, a caddy, I put that on my hand near the thumb, it's not on my wrist yet, right? And then I just very loosely attach hatch it so that I can then pull up my sleeve with my right hand and then um I'm able to put it in the right place and properly hook and latch it.

I'm trying to do that. You can't do that with any other band that I know of. I can't. I bet it I bet it won't work with the stupid fucking fine woven new s stupid latchy ps stupid green stuff. But uh this makes me just DC you saw some my joke about the uh chipotle box? Uh yes. Because the whole time, every time I from the very second I saw Fine Woven, my first thought was I don't know how to describe this. You know, there's good packing and there's bad packing in life. Like when you receive a product, and I have a product arriving today, I'm very excited about, as you know. Uh after after show, no I truly don't remember. It's the my latest Patent medicine snake oil stress reduction device. Oh did you tell you this in text?

Oh oh I think this oh anyway. Okay, okay. Uh and so uh you know you like for ex okay here's an example. Like, you know, Apple I don't know. I don't I don't know if they pioneered this, but at least in my perception, Apple was one of the first companies that put a lot of effort into making the getting one of their products feeling a little bit like an event. Where like when you received your iPhone, you take it out of this beautiful box and it's nested and it didn't have unnecessary crap. Whereas like If I buy a bunch of pint glasses from a country in probably Southeast Asia, it comes in this weird kind of cardboard we don't even have here. And that weird super shiny tape. And there's always it always involves weird cardboard, super shiny tape, and for some reason little beads of styrofoam.

This is this is this is my impression of opening almost everything I've opened in the last thirty years. It's like ugh gross and it's all dented and you know talking about though and there's like the styrofoam is shitty, this the cardboard is sh it's all shitty shitty shitty. And it's so joyless to open. Whereas with Apple stuff, you open it up and like I keep all of my boxes. I reuse them for different things. Because every box for like whether it's an iPad, an iPhone. AirPods, I keep all or watch, I keep all those boxes 'cause they're good for something and they're sturdy as hell and they look beautiful. Right? But then like the next level down from that, you then there's companies that like that was obviously like their whole deal, like D T D T C companies where down to clown companies.

that would just like want to make like, oh look at it, it's beautiful to open, but it's horseshit. But then like the slight slight step down from that that I love even more, pound for pound, is like you buy a Synology. Or similar, or uh uh you buy a uninterrupted power supply by a good company and you take it out of the box and it's buffeted on the two sides by that molded recycled cardboard that is it's very sturdy. It looks really recycled, but like it's it looks cool, but it looks solid, but it doesn't look like you're there trying to be cute about it. But that nice cardboard that you get in a well packaged product, that's what the fine woven case looks like to me. It uh and when I got Chipotle when our family got Chipotle the other night, the box that my my three tacos in which my three tacos were transported, immediately reminded me of what at least from my appearances, what what um my my observations, what the fine woven looks like.

It looks like a Chipotle box. I I would have zero problem if that's what it felt like. What if they started what if what if Chipotle started giving you a free phone case with your barbacoa uh tacos? Oh I could make the avocado joke, but I'm sure it's a good thing. Uh the uh scale. I don't care. I don't fucking care. I don't I don't have that phone I'm not getting that phone. I'm a cultural commentator, Alex. Oh, oh, that's right. That's I'm I'm a student, but I'm also a teacher. Teacher of the drums. Thank you, Mr. What else did I have here? Horses, horses, horses. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't want to sound sweaty about it, Alex. Do you accept my apology for wronging you? About the horses. Oh god, I've already yeah yes.

Oh my god. Well, because owing to your organic brain disease, there are a lot of things that you you think have happened that haven't. So Or or not, the opposite of that. Whatever the opposite of that is in your brain. So sometimes I I will say things and then you say, Well of course that happened. Then I say, Okay. Also apologize for talking about your organic brain disease. Do you do you accept my apology? I accepted it 35 minutes ago. I'm Osimondius. Oh my god. Yes, Merlin, I accepted it before we even got on the call. What are you talking about? That's scared. No, I don't want to talk. Um I know, I just deliberately concatenate. Oh my fucking god, I'm funny. I just concatenated two different felines.

To make a joke, I just joked about Alzheimer's cat and I also made a joke about the cat from Saga. So you could say that I took those creatures and concatenated them. Ah, look at you! I like that. I wanna wait, I'm a- The call's coming from inside the terrible cat. I I wanna aww Oh should we you're you're on quite a good Have you seen you ever seen those videos that's like a Japanese cat cafe? You've seen those, right? Oh, yeah. Or like the Fox Island where you can go and like see all the foxes. You've seen these kind of things. One of my favorites I recently found is a cat cafe. That's a you know, a cat cafe, like we've been to a cat cafe. Um it's fun. You go and you like have tea and and shitty cookies and you get to look at cats and do that hold that weird magic wand with a rubber band on it that everybody has when they're in the cat community.

It's fucking weird. A cat shows, that shit is real. There's a lot of magic wands for cats. Oh, there are indeed. And so the uh there's one that's a cat cafe, except there's also a cappy borough that lives there. No Alex Ross Cox it's And here's the thing. You do you get I mean like I don't know do you hate copy bars? Because I know you hate pandas. No, no, no, no. Copy baras are famously to m at least on the internet, they're just very chill. And the uh the even way beyond my beloved central uh central bearded dragon bando, the the ultimate hmm face is every capybara all the time, where their faces going, hmm. Right. And and then there's a tumbler that I used to enjoy uh that was uh things things sitting on copy bars and it's a lot of times it's a bird and the bird's just standing on the copy barra or it could be a monkey.

And of course everybody's favorite, it's when a copy bearer stands on another copy bar. Oh and both copy bearers in that case, you know what their face says? Say what their face says. Hmm. Hmm. Right? And It's Cat Cafe, except there's also a copy barra that lives there. And just and just like in my my my deepest, most sexualized fantasy They get along fine, but they don't hang out that much. It's perfect. Sometimes the copy bar goes over here and the cats go over here. But Alex the highlight of this video, I swear to God I thought we watched this. the copybara decides that he wants to go sit somewhere else, and the place is chock a block with Japanese cats. Just fucking wall to wall cats, right?

And the copybara walks over and very slowly, very s very slowly, very gently, sits down on a cat just a little bit. And it's so cute. Not not in a hurtful way. But copy baras in this case, I don't I don't know about all Japanese creatures, but copybaras, I think they're from South America. I know Mr. Fish Oder has one. It poops a lot. But the copybara is a lot bigger than your standard garden variety cat. Oh. The copy the copybara sits on the cat just a little bit. It's the cutest fucking thing in the world. I am. I'm only finding the orange. Well, this is why you should git launch bar, not you, but the listener. Hello, go to get launch bar and start creating things called custom templates. And you can also do regular bookmarks.

One of my most used bookmarks, for better or for worse, is my YouTube history and then a search of my YouTube history, which I can do very quickly from launch bar. I do the same with Raycast. Capibara. Oh, I you know what? I didn't put cat cafe in it. There we go. Well I'll have it in a sec here, I think. Capibara and cat cafe in Japan. Oh, there's so many. There's so many now. Oh gosh. Okay. There's No no. Hang on. There's there's a particular one. I don't think it would be that beneficial to watch or to like watch it. for the show right here. Oh not at all. That timestamp's about two thirds of the way in, but you get the idea. Oh man. Ox, look at the feet. Look at their feet. Look at the feet on the copy barra.

They're so good. And the face is just like, hmm. This is the relationship I aspire to have with most people in my life. Like comfortable, small. Which one are you? I wish I was as cute as a capyboro, but I would say that's a good thing. I mean they're they're kind of weird looking. If you looked at just the the central third of their face, they kind of look like a horse. I know that sounds weird. So like do this use your fingers. Are cute. They're majestic creatures. Use your two index fingers. If you're doing it like me, here do it like me. Squint your left eye. Okay? And just look through your right eye. Uh unless you don't have a right eye, in which case that was ableist of me. And then you gonna use your two index fingers unless you don't have any index fingers, in which case you'll have to use uh probably a Ticonderoga pencil.

And what I want you to do is cover the outer left and right third of the copybar's face, not on your screen. Don't touch it, that's ableist. The middle of a copy bar's face looks like a horse. Now, move if you have fingers, move them east and west appropriately, and suddenly the copybarrist face looks more like an actual rodent. Now you see the rodent. We see the horse inside the rodent. Inside of every copy borough are are a horse and a rodent. Here's the problem. Yes. You're so right that it make Oh you can't see. You've made me sad. Oh no no no no no no. Have you ever seen one in person? It is it seems like have you ever seen them having a spa day with all the oranges? Yes Yes. And then remember the one that stands up and then it's got an orange on its head and the crowd like goes goes oh and then it falls off.

And everyone goes, oh, yeah. Oh my god. This They do some weird shit in Japan. Not an original take, but like some of their weird shit is so wholesomely weird that I it just makes sense. J I don't know, it's just a as I say, a weird flex. I've lost my taste for those fancy travel videos where people go on Emirates Airlines and complain about the wine pairings. I just I kinda But like I still sometimes watch train videos and I just watched one the other night that was actually fucking incredible, which is about this Japanese capsule hotel. You know, like where you go and you basically get like a train berth almost to sleep in. It's like and it's really it's really like down to earth. It's not like a resort or something.

It really is, it's like a Japanese building. But like they have all this, they have free food and drinks, they give you slippers. There's like a steam room and you get a locker and it's like it's just it's I love stuff like that. That's the kind of weird that I can really get with. Is people trying really hard at something that's a little bit rustic? Yes. And i i it's something that uh again, this is why I have someone on the ground watching. TikToks for me and then giving me the wholesome things. Like it's like a what'd you call it? Like a street team? It's uh yes, yes. And by that I mean Oh you know what it is. I'm sorry, you're no uh to to to use a re reference for the second time this week, you're Varus.

And you've got little birds. I d I do. Right. You've got two. You've got those little stabby children, no spoilers, we've got little stabby children out there like finding things out about the grand about the Maesters and then they report back to you. That's good project management if you have Yes, me. It's it's uh, you know, a friend of the show and founder of Coxus Cox, Kara Fagan, um, has been out of town for a while and I that's kind of I bet that's why I don't know anything with Trump. I don't know what So she's not only the founder of your cucks, but also the like um so what would that Would that make her like, oh, maybe, okay, how about this? You remember the Maester? The well, he used to be a Maester, and you know, the guy who who makes the mountain?

That wonderful character actor who's in the world. He's like, I'm sorry you have to die in such a like a dark lonely place. Yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, that's it. I love so sh so would you please tell Kara that whatever the name of that actor is who's in Andor He's great in Andor. He makes a meal out of his Do you remember have you seen Andor? Not yet. Oh, it's really good. And he plays So here the part of the thrust of Andor that makes it so interesting. I mean the take-home for anybody who's hasn't watched Andor and would like to be persuaded is that it's everything you love about Star Wars without the stuff you hate about Star Wars. And one of the things that they do well in Andor is that there's this planet that is under the control of you know the bad guys, the Empire, whatever they're called.

Right? So there's a planet that's under their control. But here's the thing. They manage so many different, they have so many different they're like the br so imagine being like the British Empire. Where there's no way that we can run England, Scotland, Australia India, Canada. There's no way that we can run all of that with our own people. So what do you do? You outsource. So the Empire, I'm not even fucking kidding. The Empire has outsourced the management of some of their less important, or in some cases their extremely important properties. To an outside management agency, they don't call it that. But like Andor, which is and or only it's a beautiful, like a gorgeous verdant planet uh full of these like o amazing aboriginal children of which Andor is one, Cassian Andor.

And so you outsource this to this This fucking it's like Anderson consulting or whatever. You hire this company or you know Deloitte Touche. There's this company then that goes out and runs your shit for you. And so the planet the Cassian is on is under the management. It's owned by the Empire. It's owned by the Queen, right? But it's run by this incompetent, shitty company. And here's where it gets good. And don't imagine that this is just all gonna be about political intrigue, because it's really not. There's also a robot with dementia that's the with is uh D Dudley Dursley's mom has a robot with dementia that's one of the greatest robots in all of Star Wars. You mean a droid, but it'll come mm-hmm.

The robot can't charge as much as it used to, and it feels bad about that. Oh it And it kind of wheezes a little bit. It looks like a wally Um and so he's on our planet. So it's run by these like thug idiots. You know, it's sort of like imagine like Renacops almost. But there's this guy inside that organization. Oh, and here's an interesting one. So this guy who's one of the the main protagonists of or sorry antagonist of Andor, his boss is played by Uh who's the Maester with the cool beard? Bolton? Was it Lord not Lord Bolton, but sorry, not Ramsey Bolton. Um the the guy who's in House Stark that has the the funky little beard? Or the guy who no no the guy who trains um Robin Aaron. Oh that actor um it's one of those it's one of those one of those from the great rat king of Game of Thrones actors.

He's like the boss of this guy and the boss of that guy's gonna go out of town. Well it turns out that Cassian has killed these two dickheads. security guards that were hassle. This is how the show starts. These two dickhead security guards that have been hassling him. And so now the the boss, the guy from Game of Thrones, is like, well, pfft. the the ambitious guy who has made his own improvements to the uniform because he's a dandy, he's like, I'm gonna go after these guys. And the boss says, No, you're not doing that. I am going out of town. I have things that I need to do. And you just really get the sense he's doing that thing that happens in terrible fascistic organizations where he goes, we're just gonna, it's like a cops, right?

A lot of cops, we're just gonna let this go by. Don't you do anything about that. Well guess what? He goes and pursues it anyway, and that propels the action of the show. And so and but then the Empire is still involved, right? Of course, because ultimately they hired this shitty company to run this for them. And the guy who plays the the disgraced Mountain Maester from Game of Thrones, he's the boss of this team of people who guess what? On top of it all, now they have their own internicene feuds about who runs which area. of the section under their control. And no no no you can't go do anything. There's this ambitious, wonderful woman, this actress actor who's like She's like, well, we gotta go fix this.

We gotta do this thing. Like we're not doing our job. And then the guy's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, pump the brakes, sweetheart. Like that's my area. And and then but then the guy from Game of Thrones he turns out to be like a person who really likes kind of like watching them fight it out and and see who makes the better argument and who's actually the dickhead and or is very good. You know else is in it? Stellin Skarsgard. Who who? Stellin Skarsgard's in it. Oh shit. Dr. Dr. Selvig. Mm-hmm. The the the the the the guy from also the guy from uh I'm not gonna say anything, but the guy from uh Girl with the Dragon tattoo. The dogs and your scars. Yeah. I ev every time you or any anyone talks about it.

I'm not trying to brabeat you about it, but I am saying like it's good Star Wars. It's very it's arguably the best Star Wars. Yeah, I think that's a good thing. Yeah. Ooh, wow. Well no, Alex, I love that for nostalgic reasons, but I'm not gonna just pick ThinkPads. Sometimes I have to pick a motion keyboard. Easy. Because they made all the keys out of butterflies. Oh here's the spa day one. Mandarin oranges on head. Oh wait, wait. Is this before Rogue Rogue One or because Oh shit, I fuck it up. I think it's Well, I mean I think because they're still Yeah but like remember do you remember what happens in Rogue One? Yeah, so it's what happens if this is immediately before Rogue One. Yeah, because it yeah because it would be hard to make and so good.

Digger digger dig I also can't believe Rogue One exists. It's one of my favorites. Uh digger. But they left out that line from the trailer, which still makes me mad. Remember what she said? No. When she was when she said, I'm a rebel, I rebel. That's what she said in the trailer. That wonderful actress whose name I don't remember. She says, I'm I'm a rebel, I rebel. And then they they didn't include it in the movie. They cut it out. It was only in the trailer. No, my hand of God. Ask anybody. Ask Dan Moran. Oh no, I believe you. That's just why I'm not. I'm a rebel, I rebel. But do you see what she did there? She used the same word as two different parts of speech. Which in that case is creative instead of stupid.

Some I was gonna say, a writer wrote that. Yeah. A beta? No, uh a writer wrote that. See what see what I did there? Yeah. That's right. I didn't do it well enough. No, you didn't do it at all is the thing. I I know I tried to do it, I did not do it. Whoever wrote that wrote that. Should do should we try a second take? Oh three, two and one. Yeah, well that that that that person really had the right stuff. Oh, boo, no, boo, boo. W So at that point then, I guess I would invite you to do yours? I'm sorry, I apologize. Let's hear the funny one. Oh make your make your make your pun on the word right that's funnier. Go ahead. I could do this all day. I'm like Steve Rogers or Rogers Cable. Um you know, I can't see I can't see you know, I can't have Bonnie see me struggling with this cheese.

It's a tandem kayak. She needed two people. A rotator cuff. They don't have a rotator cuff. You did I t tell you this? My dad's name is is Dave, so now my entire fam Yeah. And and my mom's fault, that's like the Bart Simpson problem. That's horrible. Simpson Yes. I go by party Jig Jug, this week's challenge. I re-listened to the after show. That was the challenge. It was kind of the challenge was to try good or or no no no to to use good task. But uh I don't I didn't re I try this is r I really d uh this is I'm I'm I'm having so much fun. I really don't want to do this. Um yeah, I think the challenge last week was I was talking about knowing me, maybe I was referring to the fact that I'd been talking to Max Sparky for a future episode, maybe.

Yes. Is it possible? I don't remember. Um challenge this week was I mean the titular challenge, the peanut the the the the lust in your heart challenge this week was to try Good Task, which is an app that runs Alongside and a top reminders. There is no good task without reminders. Apple reminders that get synced and do all the things. And I think you one could are at least for me, I will argue argue that reminders is one of the most uh if not full full fledged, full featured, it's one of the most dependable parts of the Apple ecosystem, especially with regard to voice assistance. And so Good Task is something that runs on top of that. I don't know how else to say that, except that you can go in and open this app called Good Task and do stuff.

And it it gives you affordances for doing so much more with your reminders than just Apple Reminders gives you. I mean I to I guess it uh I'm missing the really obvious example here, which is Fantastical. There would be no Fantastical without other calendars, mostly. It's just that I mean it's not a perfect example. But no no no, but I mean like a c y why do you pick a calendar program? Well you pick a calendar program because it works does the things you want to do. Okay, but like do you have to go all in on their system? No, it works with all the calendars. But like because if it's an ICS calendar, like it this app can grok it. And in this case, correct me, go ahead. No, I like I I s see how there are some similarities, but It's not just there's like you you can indeed use Fantastical without I bet you could run that with just on my Mac calendars.

Yeah, you can you can yes, you can use Google Calendars. You can now use Fantastic. Yeah, and and it doesn't I mean good good task doesn't break anything that reminders does, but uh uh fantastic. I don't understand why are you struggling with this? It it doesn't do anything that harms reminders at all. It's not capable of doing that. It's it's You can fuck yourself up if you made the wrong shortcut and didn't know how to use it, but you can't break reminders with a good task. You can't break it, but it makes things some things easier like subtasks that are i e a- For me it's all just like the date stuff of having a thing that says here's the thing I call follow-up and when I click on when I do that this is what follow-up means Or like you know, I I those kind that that's what I mainly thought it was for.

I I mean I I just find reminders to be the most R I mean you you you kind of said it is the most reliable, especially when it comes to Siri and a voiceover and any voice to text stuff. Yeah. No, no, I mean like like you mean like you're talking about you're doing like hook and latch voiceover? No, but even if you are using another app that pulls things out of reminders. So not good task, but if you're using another app like Omnifocus or Todoist or Things that just it does fuck with reminders in in a way that you want, pulls stuff out. That feels more reliable than the the like changes you make in good task because I s I still don't know how to find when a reminder was created in the regular old reminders app.

Like it's in good cast. Yeah and and yet also, of course, Alex, thank you for that's a perfect thing to bring up because if if there's any problem If there's any beef I have with reminders is that it either is not tracking when it was created or before I got good task, more likely that it's not exposing. that. And I thought, oh, surely Good Task will do this. And Good Task has all these innumerable options and I kept looking for the option so there's the option of you know, sort by name, sort by priority, sort by flags, sort by super flag, sort by bold text. You know I didn't find a sort by created date. Because I don't think it's not if it's it is exposed in good task, but it's not addressable.

Well yeah. There's lots of taps involved. It's like buying an electric car, you have to pour gasoline on the battery or something. It's like, well, that's that's not why I got this. Like I got this because it's this other thing. I thought you guys would take care of that. Yeah. I uh assumed that it would be like uh uh like I would go in and it would just have all remi my reminder stuff kind of set up and uh you could uh like you are. Okay, like welcome to good task. You're somebody who needs more than reminders. Cool. Here's a tour. And then like oh by the way, here's a way a lot of people use our app. Isn't this kind of interesting that you can do this as a grid or as a list or like you know what I mean?

Like one of those like hey Like I I should immediately grok the familiarity of my concept I should immediately grok the familiarity of my stuff, even as I also immediately grok that my stuff is now being presented in a novel way that I find useful. First run, right? And instead I feel like I've stepped into the cockpit of a 747. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Did I make these? What are all these buttons? Yeah. Okay. It just like So that's the peanut butter of my heart is like not only am I now on Omnifocus again. But like that's good for somebody, but like it feels like you're like in you're you're Harry Dean Stanton. and Yafakoto down in the in the bowels of the Nostromo, like trying to figure out what's like this is not a a luxe experience.

Mm-hmm. I it It's I can tell that it's for someone. It's just it's not for me. And yeah. Uh but what I've or what I used to do and now what I do again is just Say uh hey Dengus, um add uh blah blah blah to my uh reminders inbox, and what that does is put for the first one. That's the Omnifocus one. Oh wait, no. Yes. Is that is it yours for Omnifocus? Yeah. You can have it just default to reminder. No, no, no, no, I I know I'm sorry. And just for our listeners you have a in the same way that for in a similar way to how Google has like as many calendars as you want, but there's only one special calendar. And the special calendar is the U calendar. And like there's very special things about that you will benefit from learning.

Or conversely, it's beneficial for you to learn what you probably don't want or do want on second other calendars. You know what I'm saying? Same same deal here. You have your main thing where if I say, hey Dingus, remind me to send Alex this picture of a seal in 20 minutes, that goes on a list. And in my case, it's called my reminders, which I realize is not very cool, but If I wanted to go on to the list of TV and movies to watch, I say add it to my watching list. If I want to go on my grocery list, I say groceries, right? That kind of thing. Yeah. I I only use reminders now for my sh shopping list because that's shared between Matt and I. Oh so the the other benefit straight off the dome is that Obviously, so if you want to do something, this is the part with the incantations where you've got to learn to say the right thing.

So if I want to watch uh first thing I said a lot over the last six years, um, hey Dingus. Uh play MSNBC on Hulu. Right? So it needs to know the really important part there in some ways is the play part. That means watch a program. The Hulu part is important. That means utilize the app Hulu. That sounds silly. I'm not trying to treat you like an idiot, folks, but like the Hulu part is important because that knows what app to address. And then the MSNBC part is sort of the attribute of like, well, what do you want to do on Hulu? And that kind of incantation, when you get into voice stuff, you realize it becomes so important. If you like it doesn't always have to be in a certain order, but you learn a way that you will learn if you do this stuff as much as Alex and I have, you will learn that there are ways to have better success.

Than then less. Like if you get frustrated completely understandably with voice assistance, uh this is not criticism, but like it might be because there's a c incantation that But so if you want to add stuff, and this was real frustrating for me with n this is not Omni Group's fault, but at first with Siri I was like, oh my god, this is gonna be incredible when Siri kind of I was like, can you imagine? Like do you remember do you remember the custom the wack-adoo language for being able to send an email with a subject line that had a bunch of greater thans and pound signs in it. Do you remember that? Yeah. There should be a whole language for you can send with in the subject just the subject line.

could send something to Omnifocus and you because of this this language of symbols you use, it knows that what project it's for, what ta what uh context it should get. what note to add and they removed that at a certain point. I think it was probably a lot to manage. But you do the the other beauty sorry, I'm I've I've had a lot of iced tea. The benefit of using your primary Reminders list is you don't you need much fewer cantrips to be able to get stuff into that. Yes. Mm-hmm. And I'm I'm probably Honestly, just going to switch back to to that because every once in a while you get it even with like sh shopping, if it's not Remind if it's not remind me, it will kinda get it could be like a lot of people.

Like it it has a concept of MSNBC, but their concept of MSNBC is an app. And I don't watch it on an app called MSNBC. I watch it on an app called Hulu. And so again, there's like like, you know, in sentences. You remember when you first learned like sentence structure and subject and predicate and verb and you know object and subject and all that stuff? um you you basically you're forming a sentence and you can have a much shorter sentence. You can just say, hey dingus, Jesus wept But if you want to have stuff go on your list for something much more specific, like you and I have a shared list of reminders that we made for a daughter. And like for me to add something, I don't even know what to say to make it add to that list, but Every time you have to say more things, it is annoying because it takes longer and it introduces more opportunity for misunderstanding.

Every word you add to the cantrip like makes it more likely to break. And I've unfortunately found that uh this is weird but I've found that reminders when actually reminding trips up more often than just adding something to omnifocus. Both it uh you can also do in terms of getting the alert Yep. And I don't know. I've been missing a lot of alerts that I've added by watch lately and I don't know why. Really? Well and I'm I'm not blaming because there's there's a couple factors here that like if this were easy to solve it would be solved. These are like when I'm making when I'm fixing to go to bed and I want to make some food. And so, of course, I'm not an idiot. I set a timer for everything. But the problem is I have DND on and I don't really want to turn it off.

Because if I turn it off, guess what? I'll probably forget that it's off. So a lot of times what I'll say is like my day-to-day, if I'm in the kitchen and just in the kitchen or in the house, I'll say, na hey, you know, hey product from Google, set a nine-minute pasta timer. And then play that racist song, right? Um if it's nighttime and it's DND, I'll just say it whisper under my watch because I don't want to wake my fucking family. I'll say, what do I say? Do I say remind me about pasta in nine minutes? I do not, because that will not break it through DD. I say set a nine minute pasta alarm. And I think an alarm is supposed to break through D. Huh. But I just I get I get hard eggs now. I guess that makes sense.

That that's very watch sometimes. No no, that d that makes sense because I I think you uh uh no. I well no, if it made s I i you can't say I think it makes sense. No, it it doesn't m makes sense. Hey let's um Well this is getting long. Let's wrap this soon. Uh what did you get from this uh the challenge this week? Oh um unless you have a lot to say, but I I I I I this is really boring. No, no, no. Just more stability in the structure of the s stuff I'm reminded to do, as well as the whole review process around GTD that uh we have talked about a million times and Sorry, they're hammering outside. The thing that we will never learn enough, or that Merlin Mann are really going at it. Um the thing you never learn enough is You can't leave out the review.

Yeah, it's there's a reason he is always talking about the review because like that is Like you'll never know if your boxes and bags and bastics have leaks, you'll never know until Sunday afternoon. I have been doing a daily ri review and that has David Allen says you need to re do do a review as often as you need to. You will know for most people once a week is pretty good. You should not do it less off I'm so sorry. You can't do it less often than once a week. That's you know I admire his rhythm though. Yeah, I was actually gonna say this is kind of a nice What would you say this? Probably about 80 BPM? The I I think so. No, I d I don't know. I just agreed with you because I assumed you were right.

And one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four one e and a two e and a three e and a four e and a five. That is up to the big thing. Let's do it. Let's do it. I'm back on Omnifocus. And do you remember the whole reason this whole Michigan started for me? Was because I like, oh, I need a fast way to add things to things. Guess what I did? I went to accessibility on my phone. I went to the triple click section and I added a triple click gesture on the back of my phone that now launches me directly into the a new inbox item with the cursor in the field. And it's also welcome. Well it's a little bit more. Yeah. But of course I talked about that on the internet and I don't want to be mad because I'm I'm operating fucking in the fuck fucking in the absence of anger.

But when I made it when I pointed that out, I got all the perfect reactions. On the one hand, what is this? And the other thing is, how did you do that? Well, I posted four screenshots that showed you exactly what I did. Oh, did you not know about accessibility? No, I never knew about accessibility. Oh, I thought you liked omnifocus. All of you people should please fall off of a bridge into a large body of water. Read the room. Read the room. Read the room. And don't bring your own joke, guys. Don't bring your own joke. The the jokes that you're allowed to the jokes you can go places with are not about misspellings. The jokes you can go places with are not about oh I read that as conolingus. um social media event for me.

Which is I I took a picture of this absolutely fucking hilarious. This is house. So you know I was riding my scooter this morning to get sunshine. And there's a house around the corner from me that uh not the Ernst Lubitch uh movie, but uh a store around the corner that has been getting a seismic retrograde with a big sign in front of it for let me check. I wanna say nine years. It said seismic seismic update. Ah, everybody make room. And there's you know, there's bollards and signs and horses, horses, horses. And like and but there's d I don't know if you saw this. Can I send you a photo? Yes, please. I fucking love this photo so goddamn much. So let's just take this red. First of all, a house that I see on the rig, because I walk by it all the time, um has B no honestly, seriously, like jokes have left the room.

There's no way it's been fewer than three years. It said seismic upgrade. And what that means here is that, like, okay. Especially here in the sunset where everything is built on sand dunes, you want to minimize the chance of what's called pancaking, which is when your shitty construction and dumb sand makes a three-story building collapse into a tidy pile. And so you do seismic updates and you like you improve the, you know, all the things that make that more likely to survive in an earthquake, especially. when you're built on sand dunes, like my entire the entire western third of town is. Right? And so, okay, cool. Well that's a thing. I mean it's it's more than painting the exterior, but like it usually is wrapped up in some amount of time.

Alex, they've had a sign outside that this is a seismic for at least three years. And I was going by my scooter this morning and again they got the sawhorses out there. There's all the stuff and there's like people in hard hats milling around. Somebody's making fucking bank off this job. Okay. And today I noticed I noticed something that's that's at least new to me, which is, I'm gonna oh I hope it's not too big. Alex, would you please check your text messages for an image I just sent you? Now what you want what I want you to understand is this is a house a couple blocks from where I live and it's Oh my god It's been getting a seismic upgrade for at least three years and I saw this out of the corner of my eye and I went I went huh And then I rolled up and looked at it more clos.

And the closer I got to it, the more amazing. I don't know how to describe this, except that it does it looks like something from a video game that involves connecting pipes. Oh god, I uh uh was thinking like a nebulous doctor who like this this is something that's in the TARDIS, but she's not. I know. Well there's a million angle there's a million angles to this, but like the more you look at this, you're like, there's no way all of this is real. Alex, can this be show art please for the week? Uh yes, oh of course. There's a lot of things. But like seriously, like just just concentrate on any like one eighth of this image. I remember that. Like this is the most and so I said something that I thought was very funny.

Because it first thought, best thought. Which is and so this is imagine an incredibly like I don't want to overstate this, but it's one of the most complicated presumably practical devices I've seen in a residential exterior environment. Like if you had if you if you look at all the exposed wires If you work a frame. Right, right, right. So like the thing is like if you were a lifeguard and the place where you changed clothes, you saw like behind-the-scenes stuff for the swimming pool. This is more complex than I've seen at entire swimming complexes. Right. So many different pipes and fittings and and and bolts and all of this stuff. And first thought, best thought, what I said was, um, whatever this is It looks like the kind of thing someone would talk my grandmother into buying.

Oh follow up and nobody reads the responses. Uh quote from my grandmother. Um, they said it would make my water nicer. Mmm. And a couple folks knew how to play. They didn't bring their own joke. They figured out what the joke was that I hadn't even figured out yet. And I'm going to give full credit here to so so don't bring your own joke. You know, don't don't don't don't come in and go uh more like Star Wars or don't do that and like d don't do that. I said, whatever this is, it looks like the kind of thing my late grandmother would get talked into buying. And user Zach Labar said, that's what the guy from Patriot sells, right? And you know what I said to Zach? Can tell you? That's a great piping sun.

Damn. That was a great episode. I'm glad I got off Twitter. I think I'm happier. raw transcript