408. The Sweat & Chafing Vertical

This is Do by Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge, watch just HBO. Hello. Hello, hello. Hello, hello. Oh Captain, my Captain! Welcome! How's it going? It's going great! Yeah, I'm having a very Merlin adjacent morning. I've had a Merlin adjacent week, really, even though we haven't Well, it sounds like you want me to ask about this. No, I don't. I was just sharing join the program. Yes. Okay. That's what they call teaser, Merlin teaser. How would I know that? How would I know that? Because you podcast, you're an experienced, one might even say a veteran of podcasting. Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Alright, well Alex has teased us. Hot. What's on your what's on what's on your mind?

What's going on your next? Oh I'm used I know the thing is I now I know and I don't I don't make a big deal about it, but uh but I know. Sometimes you start saying things and you don't know what it is you're talking about. And then when I ask you what is you're talking about, you come up with what you think it is that you're talking about. No, what I am not talking about is And the really the challenge and my immersion in certain types of media and mindfulness within media. And right before we started uh talking What is it exactly you said? What is it I said? Um No, it's not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen. There's no way I wouldn't do I I wanna do it, but I'm not gonna do it. Why not? You need it I don't know if it should be me, but somebody needs to do it.

Who who What we're talking about what we're talking about is that I said to Alex I that I would like to give them a um I said I'd love to give your electronic life a makeover. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. If you'd if you'd love to do it, why why not? You're telling me all the things in life that I'd like to do I should just go do. No, you should specifically do the things that I am consenting that you would love to do, which is give me an electronic makeover. I don't know if I could do it remotely. I feel like Uh I feel like it would help a lot if I were there with you. I don't want you here with me, but I would like to be there with you. Maybe you know what? Maybe a telepresence bot? Maybe one of those rolling iPads.

Ooh. But I want it to be an iPad Pro. I want my face to be like ridiculously like Tom Cruise large. Like I want my head to be huge. And I'm until it grip to punch you in the face. I I don't think they can you know, punch but 'cause of union stuff. Yeah, but if you're do if you're shooting if you're shooting in Southeast Asia, you can get away with a lot. The order was sent from Hollywood, so I'm not sure if maritime law comes into that or how that works. We're talking about the move. I think we're talking I I'm talking about the movie Tropic Thunder. I'm not sure if you are I I I wasn't, I was thinking. What did Tom Cruise say? What was Tom Cruise's only r thing where he said, yes, I will be yes.

I will be in your funny movie, but I have one request that is not negotiable. Do you would you please tell our listeners what his request was? I d I don't know. You wanted his hands to be huge. He won a prosthetic giant hands, which they accommodated and it made it so much funnier. This is just a beautiful irony, I think. I don't know if I'm using irony right, but for Tom Cruise to know what he wants, which isn't to be taller, but to have bigger hands is beautiful. All right. Well okay. Because you almost did a headline. No, what what headline was I doing? So you're gonna talk about the shoes. I don't know about the shoes. I'm so glad that we are here and I would love to help you with your electronic makeover, but that's not gonna happen.

No again. Well, cause uh Alex is not as simple as saying, try not to read the news and don't get don't look at things that upset you. Like, you know I mean any don't do that. I truly do not. How do you know all this stuff? How do you know so much about Ben Shapiro? How could you possibly know this much about Ben Shapiro? What's going on with Ben Shapiro The last time I thought about Ben Shapiro. Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, the last time I the last time I thought about and watched Ben Shapiro is when he had a fairly Fairly, uh, I wouldn't say valid, but an interesting when he was a drama when he was a girl from drama club talking about le uh lame is when he was talking about wicked and he didn't call them songs, he called them numbers.

I love that. I it's it's like when uh I also I love it when Wes Anderson calls a movie a picture. Like people used to in the forties. Putting together. For some reason he can pull it off. A lot of people can't. Understand? Master of the house. I don't know the worst of this but um bum bump. Uh I don't know the worst of it. Borat sings it. Yeah. I like that Borat and um Oh I know this uh Helen Abonum Carter. Who's always very funny on Graham Norton. You should watch more Graham Norton. You know what? Here we go. Put in that in the T-Bo. Do you pay for f do you pay for no ads, YouTube? No. See, this is the problem. I pay for no ads YouTube and so I post a lot of YouTube and it only occurs to me periodically that most people aren't paying for no ads YouTube.

So I'm guessing when and I hear that they're you're getting a lot more ads these days. Oh boy. Is that true? Okay. So I'm I'm I'm this is a privileged thing, I suppose, where like I now I realize, oh, there's there's yet another reason that people don't like things I post. Because like If you want to just go watch this video about the police, first you're gonna have to like sit through an ad for what what are the ads like? Like what are the ads are they political ads a lot, I'm guessing? It It totally depends. I on the content. Okay. Hold on. Okay, sorry. I will occasionally, like every other month. treat myself and pay for YouTube premium or whatever it's called because you can't do a big old batch of here, give me the entire year and s some of my Christmas presents, because I'm still a teenager apparently, my parents will be like, here, here is Disney Plus for a year.

And I'm like, oh thanks, mom, thanks dad. I guess I talk Like Mickey Mouse when he gave me Disney Plus. But YouTube you need to pay uh uh just an exorbitant uh amount every month. And uh well exorbitant if you don't watch it much. I watch four hour video. That's that this was my week of YouTube. All I watched was YouTube. Whoa whoa was that no wait this was your that was your HBO this week? Yes. No kidding. Oh wait but you watched it with ads Mm no no no I treat yourself. Thank you to uh Okay. Here is a tell me something that I can understand. I'm trying to still have it. Well you don't have the look I've given you the wheel, but at least let me, you know, d drive from the back seat a little bit.

There were a lot of suggestions. Just so you know how to do that. Just so you know, just so you know. I'm gonna do that now. And and you're gonna be reminded in a minute why it is that I jump in so often. Okay. All right. This week challenge. This challen uh this week's challenge was to only watch HBO and or a single source of media. Is that kind of the spirit of the challenge. Yeah you can interpret it anything you want any way you want. The the the way it's written and I kinda like I like specificity. You can always change it later, but uh I think it was something like watch what only only watch HBO. And then like like just to reiterate what you just said, or the idea is the way I I think the way I put it was consider I if you like watching TV, and I'm assuming people like watching TV, and I assume that a lot of my friends watch it on Apple TV I think in my head I'm thinking like uh either become very aware of what your default channel is or consider changing what your default channel is.

The thing that you're most likely to turn on at a certain time of day, for example Yes. Right? Like I mean an example for me for a long time was well well, it's not a great example, because I would listen to MPR anytime, but I got hooked on MPR uh first through morning edition and then later I would listen to I didn't even know like the schedule and stuff. I knew Car Talk and I knew um And I knew morning edition. And like you can listen to it anytime, but you know, like for example, when I come home in the uh evening, sometimes I'll flip on uh, you know, cable news just to see if anything blew up. a lot of the evenings, like I'll tuck into sometimes to a long movie or a series with the family, but I end up w at night I end up watching YouTube a lot.

Does that make sense? Like it it's also I feel like you can adjust it Like all these Alex, it's just to like learn something about yourself ultimately, I think. You know? But you did YouTube and so you but you treated yourself For for the no ads. I didn't. I uh wanted to see what it was like for the first half of this week to be fully well I I genuinely okay, so YouTube is the default place for a lot of people to go. This isn't headlines, this is No, especially children. Yeah. No I don't know children or at least I don't know. Oh goodness, you're so hostile. Why every time I try to help you with something you get hostile. You have to understand there's some things about people and there's something there's some things about people and there's some things about ideas.

And we oughtn't confuse those. Uh what's what's the idea? You're not ready for this. When I when I detox you from whatever the fuck is happening on the screen to that phone, you've got to change your background. Oh my god, it really does not work with this lack this transparency bullshit. Are you on the current beta or is this the previous beta? Yeah, this is control center is a lot better. I gotta say. It is. It is. And that's really one of the places I hang out. Yeah. I know that's I know that's like one of my default channels too. It was a fun l little stack of I'm like, you know what? Uh well I'm just going to embrace it while it exists to see like all right. I'm here for the fun. Yeah. Yes.

It genuinely is so much fun. This is one of my favorite. So you had you decided at the time that it was gonna be YouTube? w with your ad situation? Had you like when you did you know going into it, A, that it was gonna be b YouTube and B that you were still gonna be getting ads? Yes. That's really brave. I couldn't do that. Because they've gotten really tough on blockers too, right? they have uh the m popular blockers. But I hadn't seen a lot of YouTube ads for God so so long because I tend to use the more popular blockers like Magic Lasso. Thank you, Magic Lasso. Or there are a bunch of apps that help you get around it and there's a lot of I mean I I love one blocker for ads. I don't run all the one blockers.

I like one blocker. I love Lasso too. They do a great job. And also I think Stop the Madness, our dude tries really hard to keep up. You know, with the various things, but you know, in the end it's it's i that's a tough that's a tough thing to lose against a company with that kind of scale. Or it's tough kinda tough to win w with a company with that kind of scale. You know what I mean? Yeah, especially if you're just using it in Safari or God for forbid cr uh chrome. Uh and I mean it it has the sort of hostility that I've done. Well they watch your CV ads, that's why they put the videos up. Oh w okay, no no I know, but I it it used to sort of have this illusion of hey, support our your c creators to watch the ads and now just premium like alright we're not even pretending anymore whatever that's fine yeah but I really hadn't seen ads in so long they're not going to be able to do that.

Yeah. I I well I try to get I try to not see as many ads as Mm possible. Thank you, Magic Glasso. It's not that I'm against advertising. I think advertising is a perfectly fine idea Um, the problem is we're as soon as we start talking about that, we're gonna get into some gradations that make a lot of people uncomfortable. One thing I sometimes have to remind people who do add related things for things that I do, I sometimes have to rem remind them in a way that feels kind of mean, but I be given that it's become a reminding thing, uh the message hasn't gotten through. Programs I do, we we happily offer advertisements, um, but we've never offered endorsements. And we I don't offer endorsements on on what I do.

And anytime you want me to say something in first person about a product, that's an endorsement. That's not that's no longer an ad. It's no longer something that just anyone could read. But then the deeper thing when when one comes across as anti-advertising, I'm not anti-advertising, I'm anti-spyware. And in the case, but honestly, also just aesthetically in terms of YouTube, I I Would not be able to enjoy YouTube the way I do if it was getting sliced up by ads for like city councilmen and stuff like that. I get a lot of Sudan. Many, many many, sweetie. Yeah, I've there's there's many s Sudan sweeties that are you're supposed to give money to help the famine in Sudan, but then there isn't a link or it's a charitable Now is that a PSA or is that a paid ad, do you think?

Uh it it's a it's a paid ad because there are you know charitable like it there's a lot of Yeah, like any of those like I mean honestly like St. Jude's or Shriners or any of those like please help us with this charity cause They're not just like MSNBC's endless find a mentor, the more you know stuff. Uh they just run those in blocks of three or four over and over. They just don't have ads. I think they just run PSAs most of the time on MSNBC. It's because really funny. Circle back. I've I've discovered I have a take about podcast ads. Because I kind of enjoy them. This seems to be I enjoy Podcast Edwin. When the when the copy's good and the person's good, it's awesome Yeah, there someone um I I think it was on the relay Discord said this is like why is it that I Don't mind it when someone I know who is a podcaster reads an ad, but if it's someone I don't know who has a podcast suddenly like for me that would be a celebrity.

Those DII DAI ones that get dumped into so many of the network shows that I like. I mean, I'm not even touching the those are a disaster for everyone. Well but for example, like like no such thing as a fish. Um uh is a show that I really like a lot and they have a very distinctive style of doing, you know, DJ reads or ad you know, ad reads. But like sometimes before you get to the ones where they say where they do it in their voice, first you hear one that's for like I don't know, the Stanford credit card for hospitals or something. You're like, what what what is it what you know, that kind of voice, right? Yes, and w we all know. It's that time you're gonna be sweating down the slides and you're chafing on your thighs.

I don't like the thigh chaf the chafing ads. You ever see thigh chafing ads? You ever seen that lady that rubs you? Well now they try and make all these ads on cable news that look like what I assume TikTok videos look like, and there's this whole like sweat, um, sweat and chafing vertical And there's this one Zoftig lady who uh over and over again is shown hyp hiking up her skirt and applying this uh this poultice to her um to her thigh insides Maybe I'm not seeing as many adults. Titled Sweat And taking vertical. I I keep trying to think of what it looks like in my head. You did describe it well, I think, but I can't. Like a railing, like like you know, you let's say you're universal and you're out looking at the big castle.

And like you're like y you see you put put one l one foot up on a railing, you hike up your skirt, you take out your poultice and you just start and but then they show show her doing that in all these different places. Then there's that one lady's the Lumi Lady. Remember the Lumi the Lumi Lady? She used to be a doctor and now she she tells you you can put anywhere in foot a foot under boob, pits. She's actually I think she says the word crotch even though she's an MD. The loomy lady. No, I like her. She seems nice. I'm I'm fairly uh biased and I enjoy ads that run on relay. I'm not trying to chortle the balls of my friends. I'm sorry. I guess I will chortle the balls. Uh ATP and shh shh shh. Okay.

But you don't need to talk about our friends' balls. There's nothing I necessarily do. Yeah, not necessary, but good. Well, I think that's when there's mercy for you is at an end. Go ahead. When there's a podcast ad Someone has been doing podcasting ads and spot reads for a very long time. They know the craft of an ad and they've uh still made it sustainable to work with an advertiser. in order to be like, this is the type of copy that my audience will listen to, otherwise no one's gonna go to your affiliate code and everyone will be sad and whereas, you know you pop up a little thing on your phone and you start reading about vapes, it's not even off-putting because it's an ad. It's off-putting to me because I've appreciated the way so many people have made ads.

Like it's it is a I don't know. A ad spots to me are a craft. I don't care to see When Ryan Reynolds is r you know shilling mint mobile, it's like, okay, yep, that is his job to sell mint mobile. And there's a difference. The oh does he really? That makes a lot of sense. It's pretty good at selling. He owns that, he owns the aviator gin, he owns part of uh a foosball team. I knew about the gin and the foo what they call it? Does it call it that over there? Yes, boost foosball. Uh but the uh like if he suddenly popped in on armchair uh uh expert or something, it would feel just uh a uh kind of like a bummer because I know how difficult I mean the birth and death of podcasting has happened so many times, but I think about uh you know, m MailKimp and I I I mean I don't know.

I bet there would be a situation in which I would go visit a VPN if uh still makes an ad read special and what makes certain ads special because I oh well I don't know, like i it's a It's it's not just it's a living, but it is uh can be like not just harmless, but beneficial, I suppose. I know that I'm just being like mm ah, capitalism But I guess I miss the craft of different type of ads and maybe that's just because I've made them before and it's been a positive experience. I don't know. I also like when um a company does something like commission a rock opera as a way to exercise. blank check, where their ad reads are so fun and where in a way that I admire and if I could say I've tried to do in the past, they do stuff like like first of all, I would love it if I got anything I did got sponsored by Mobie I love movie.

Um, it's one of my favorite streaming stations. I uh uh and but like for example there was I don't know how it ever started, but a bit started on black check. years ago with movie ads where there'd be a knock at the door and David would have to answer the door and do you remember who was at the door Uh it's the Sini-assed cow. Moo. And it's the it's the cow who loves movies. And so he works he there's a character they made up for Moobie. The Sini-assed cow. Which first of all the phrase Siny Assed Cow is really funny to me. So hearing it over and over for years makes it funny and they add a little funny effect where it sounds like Griffin's on the phone. It's just an on-air read. But then they, you know, uh, they put some stank on it and it becomes delightful.

I I yeah, I I like I like a lot of that stuff. I'm the what I don't know, apart from my own preferences and taste, is I don't know what's effective. So it's difficult for me to say, well, that's a dumb ad because I don't know what's effective or not. There There is a part of me that goes like I'm not the smartest person in the world. There must be some reason people do what they do. And with I mean, I I don't want to get too deep into podcast stats, but But with advertising in general, you have to weigh, I guess, like what the cost of it is, the effectiveness, and how much you can measure what that effectiveness, how effective it's been for like what your goal was. You know, I so I don't I don't know.

I it's sort of like, you know, like I don't listen to the radio a lot anymore and I especially don't listen to like, you know, commercial radio much anymore, but like at Christmas time or whatever, like it's just how overwhelming the the ads that are on always have been. Like, you know, it used to be AM radio had the bad ads, but like the ads on everything now are so It's just like people's like stern warnings about lawsuits and slip and falls and like it's just also it's also dreary. I didn't know how much compensation I was entitled entitled to until I listened to Storm. Some of that money's been set aside. Were you serving in the Marines at by any chance in nineteen eighty six? I can't recall.

It's funny you should say, this is really dumb. This is not even worth sharing. This is one of the myriad kinds of things that I just don't share with people that I write. But like right before we started recording. I happened to completely apropos nothing. I was I was thinking about the ads that are on cable news and how how bad they are. And uh and I had this thought this morning that like This isn't worth writing up as a piece of fiction, but like what if you just tweak the knobs just a little bit and instead in this dystopian world. You know, there's this things like in f what's it called? What was that episode of Black Mirror, fifteen million credits? Yeah. You know, like fifteen whatever it's called.

But like were you the way that you get credit for stuff if you're one of the underlings is you have to watch so many ads in order to accumulate and I've I've I think I think that's probably not the first time idea someone first time somebody's thought of that idea, but I thought that was very well done And it is kind of provocative because how different is that, obviously, really, from like being forced to have unskippable ads on Hulu, right? We're like, and like I'm I'm I'm old enough and crabby enough to say, well, you must not be very proud of your ads because I can't rewind during an ad. You don't you think I'm gonna just go Try to get back to the TV show. I want to see that cool ad you just showed me, but you don't think enough of it to let me watch it again.

That is a huge Oh gosh, I mean you told me YouTube ads where I did want to watch it and I was like, Oh, I want to link to this silly ad. Oh wow. I had one I had one the other day on Hulu because Hulu's ads, so when I'm watching Hulu a lot of the time It is I'm watching, I'm flipping between MS MSNBC and CNN, which takes six clicks. That's fine. But uh it it I'm I'm watching and but these ads will be on and they're a lot of them are are pretty terrible and a lot of them are about pharmaceuticals, but anyway, just quickly. What if we invert this just slightly and what if one way I don't know, I'm just imagining some dystopia where you have to watch ads for pharmaceuticals all day? And and they c they occasionally cut in very upsetting news updates, but then you get right back to watching the ads.

And it's like it's not really that different from what's already happening. It is a lot about You know, you're sitting your uh you don't know you're sitting on gold with your insurance policy, uh second mortgages, and just so many pharmaceutical ads. And like there it is like in this like this 14-year-old boy idea of a dystopian fiction, the idea of like for some reason or other TK reason you're compelled to watch these ads a lot. And then but the news updates, instead of thinking of it as I watch the news and there's occasional pharma ads, we're not really that far off from I just watch pharma ads all afternoon and sometimes they tell me something upsetting for a few minutes. Mm that was a s that's cynical, but that's how it feels.

I think there's a difference now though, because it feels dystopian whereas before I mean, uh I at least my experience with seeing uh my grandparents luckily they don't re do this as much, but they used to just have Fox News on in the background. Like they were those people. And that's just what it was. It was it was No nobody I know does that, but everybody I know's family does that. And for my fa for my family sometimes that's sports just on all the time and loud, always loud. Or honestly like HGTV or w wine wine throwing shows. on in the background and like so many things on cable now almost everything's always a marathon. Like there's always like six episodes of The Office or six or like all these episodes of Seinfeld like the stuff I like, right?

But then there's also be like, you know, 14 episodes of uh of swabbing the deck. UK or whatever. I don't know how how I feel about di i I don't think HBO has this, but Disney Plus has marathons of the Simpsons and uh I think a few other cartoons or long running. Yes. And it isn't a collection. Right. Because I know those have existed for a while. And I'm really a good collection. I thought since the beginning that Disney's pretty good at that kind of stuff. As well as all the like extra material, the fly through of the Millennium Falcon. I always thought that stuff was not going to be sustainable, but I thought did differentiate them in the beginning a lot. Absolutely. Behind the scenes of all the Marvel shows.

Like it makes sense. If people like Disney Like watch the uh the the the the that wonderful documentary about the guy who wrote all the songs, you know? Uh like that's that's you watch that, right? Yes. What's that guy's name? Uh Alan Sherman? Alan Alan. No, no. But the guy who wrote the Beauty and the Beast songs and it's all really sad and Alan uh But but something like that or again if you enjoy WandaVision? That's a show, right? Like you you would enjoy seeing a behind-the-scenes thing on that. I think that's really and all the ILM stuff they put up, I think a lot of it's I think that's It's it's neat. It's just that I already own all the movies on Disney that I want to watch. It would have been great when my kid was five, but like I just Disney would be so easy for me to cancel right now It well feel it feels weird because the way that they are making a lot of the behind the s scenes stuff is because S almost every Simpsons episode has three uh They have the plant, but we have the power.

Wait, is that from uh the That's from um the last exit to Springfield. Oh god that oh my god. Where's my burrito? Where's my burrito? Where's my burrito? It's such a coin but also at the be the very beginning where they they're showing you the movie And it's right Rainier Wolfcasser Castle inside of an ice sculpture, remember? And he bursts out with a machine and goes, eyes to see you. Scoy you look like a jacket makes you look like a homosexual. What it does That episode, along with all of the Disney Plus episodes, now have the weird little a pause for what used to well Uh there are two pauses. You know, there used to be like the stinger that was ah break for commercial. Oh yeah, like a little fade out.

Yeah. And Th that it's like okay normal and then i if there is an ad in the middle of that on Disney Plus or whatever, oh yeah that that makes sense. But with the Wait wait should the show on ads on Disney Plus? Yes. What? Yeah they're yeah. How long have they been doing that? Oh, since I've uh six months. No, they have a unlike Amazon, they have a paid plan and then a free plan. credentials again to log in because he's watching that one show. The uh it's it's a show about like a like a queer king guy and l with lots of cameos. A queer. Apparently Stephen Fry smokes crack in it. Um there's an article in New York Times about it. It's it's a m isn't it a musical? It's or something, it's a play, it's it's it's uh it's uh you know about the the the gay king guy I need to look at more headlines.

But that I don't know. That's I'm I now I'm so rarely like this with stuff, but I am a little miffed that like I I used to get Amazon Prime and it was fine. But the idea of like anything I want to watch on there, I think I might have told you this or Syracuse this, but I finally took it out of my array. of like places that I watch because I just I'm tired of it showing up and just being something with commercials. Sometimes it'll be like when you do it, you know what I'm talking about? You do a search on Apple TV and you say find this and such movie. It's like okay you can buy it on Apple TV, you can rent it on Apple TV or you can watch it on and then you'll see like Freevie or TubeFuck or or or Jiz Mag.

Or Amazon Prime and you're like, yeah, I I know that's just gonna be like there's just gonna be so many Geico ads in that. I prefer to be a good one. Oh, I wanna tell you one other thing though. I was watching um I finally, finally, finally unplugged my actual television set from the internet. And everything goes through Apple TV now. And so I don't know how that'll affect it in the future. The VPN that I use does nothing to obscure location, right? So it's still, I mean, that's not why I use a VPN personally. Um, but anyhow What I said a minute ago about how you can't rewind. I was watching TV, I think this past weekend, and just out of the corner of my eye, I saw the I don't know. I'm I've been incepted and there's so many things in life now where I watch it and I I see something and all I can think of is some comedy show that I love.

And honestly, a great deal of stuff that comes across my transom does remind me of Tim and Eric. And a Tim and Eric almost style, like not in terms of like, you know poop flying through the air in dynamite, but in terms of like the staginess and stiffness and artificiality, it's an ad that pops up for, of course, a realtor. in my literal n like neighborhood. And to show it's my neighborhood, they showed a map. So this is some kind of a dynamic thing that comes in. And I I get this in podcasts already. Like I say, I get I get ads for stuff in the Bay Area all the time. I'm not sure what to do about that. But it was so fucking and this guy pops up. He looks like some kind of a Trump aide. You know, in his and he's got his little one of those one of those uh hairless men who works for you know like a Stephen Miller type.

And he's um anyway, no no no, he's standing there in his blazer like with a shit eating grin talking about how he's number one in sales. Everybody's number one in sales. And it was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And it went bit. And I tried to go back. It wouldn't let me go blah blah blah. And then once the ad break was over, because what happens is You'll see up usually normally up in the corner when you're watching Hulu'll say add in a little yellow block, sometimes with a countdown, often with a countdown, which I think is cool. But and you so you can't do anything inside that stream while an ad is happening. And they have recently really locked this down to where I feel like it's gotten slower as an app because it feels like the first thing it does is check whether there should be an ad on right now.

And that is even that amount, 'cause like, you know, and with the beta right now, it often says like uh locked content or something like that. It comes up anyways. So then when the ad's over, I'm like, oh, I gotta go see this. And I try to go back. No, I think it was a thousand percent DAI. And doesn't really exist as a Hulu ad. I bet it was just a spot that was either left open or claimable when needed by a local ad. But it I don't think it got it wasn't like you know what I'm saying? It wasn't like recorded. It was so weird. very s this idiot was railing against AI in just the most obvious and annoying way and then, you know, just right into an ad for not even a good LLM, just you know, one of those GPT rappers.

And uh ooh, that ooh, good sniping. Is this your first time joining time dying a GPT rapporte? Well, my name's ChatGPT. I'm here to say I'll say say things back to you in a condescending way. Or maybe I suck up. I suck up to you. I claim things I know real well. But you know I don't do that fact. Checking on a head Rapper. No. No. I'll cut that out. Do you want me to shi do you want me to ship you some Adderall? I really like Adderall. Uh that's right. I forgot. You're on Adderall now. Uh no, I didn't take it this this morning. Am I not checking my Adderall? Yeah, fuck you. You wake up every morning, no you could knowing you could take an Adderall. Don't act like that doesn't make a difference.

Yes, it absolutely 100% 100% makes a difference. My I have never been you wake up and you say to yourself, maybe there's a chance Today. There's there's uh there was a chance of a workout. Yeah, there were there was maybe I'll get to be me today. It was much w worse when it was, oh, am I going to is is today going to be a limictal day? Like when can I, you know, do a lot of insurance. Yeah, it's I i I don't know. It w yeah, it it makes me uncomfortable and I have the privilege of knowing that I will have eterol and lamictal and it it it makes me happy. And I was saying Something about oh just eight hours later I went to try to get the dynamic just the funny clip of the dynamic ad And the podcast because I'm a jerk.

And nope, no more. And I hadn't deleted the podcast. I I guess I no longer know. On some level isn't that very weird. Isn't that very weird on some level It uh uh I mean w well weird in that uh I d night. It's like it didn't even exist. It happens like and I think about stuff like in Apple News sometimes where god forbid I'll be scrolling down and I Right as I I'm about to like, you know, swipe back to the list, I see something I wanted and then I go back to the article and try and find it and it's gone. There's just all this material that And I'm I don't mean to invoke the algorithm that everyone finds so upsetting. But it is it is weird how impermanent so much information is right now in some ways.

That's what I wanted to do. I just sent you I just sent you Red, White, and Royal Blue is the name of this. Uh Billy has finished one or more books about this, I think. Yep. Does that sound familiar? Yep. Okay. The books on I think you've read two of these books maybe. Yes. There are it's uh Yeah, oh yeah, I've read the books. They're how do we describe it? Gay king? No. So pretty so Close. And then American Diplomat. I didn't know that Stephen Fry was in this though. And I think uh the uh the extra Zuma Thurman might be in it too. Yes, yes she is. Oh, I'm gonna watch it. Uh uh I really respect the little lord's media choices, although I hope that because he's read the Murderbot books that he gives the Murderabot show a chance, I was wrong.

I I was wrong. I just interested. I just can't get into it. I've tried like four And I keep thinking I'm I'm just No no it's and well I mean but like should like no no it's I of course I blame myself because I like I like the way Skarsgard is. I think he's an unconventional choice for almost everything. But I like how he is. Like for example As you may know, his documentary now episode, the Vermegosog one. Like, but like I I could see somebody who loves Werner Herzog. Or is into what they think is Werner Herzog watching that and going, This is stupid. I don't understand any of this, but particularly he doesn't sound like Werner Herzog. Which I think makes it kind of extra funny because he's he's he's not trying to impersonate Werner Herzog.

He's creating a different character who that's very Werner Herzog-like in all the important ways. But he doesn't, he's not trying to like do an impression. You know what I mean? Or you know, I loved him on I loved him on succession. I thought he was so effective on succession as an Elon Musk type. He oh god the beads for some reason the beads do so. Going to the tree house. Yes. Wonderful. Okay I'll give it a I'll give it another try. I really I like that lady with the deep voice. I like the couple. Oh and I love, you know, you know I love that guy, that one guy, the guy from uh The guy's name I don't know. Uh Late Night Late Night with the Devil, he's in Suicide Squad, he's in Dune, he might be Armenian.

Or Russian, the guy with the dark hair who seems like a robot. What's his name? You know who I mean, that actor I like. Garotho- Yeah, I don't know the actor. But go but I like Garothan and his little cyborg port uh in the back of his head. The you know the Utopian Neuralink version. He has a bad haircut. David Dust Oh boy. I really love this guy's work, so it's gonna kill me to just massacre this guy's name. David Dast Malchin And I reference one of his characters a lot in things and no one knows what I'm talking about, which is fine. But he plays a character in Suicide Squad that I think about a lot. Did you ever see Suicide Squad? Which which is the good one I have. The good one is the one um by James Gunn.

Uh that's got I guess do they all have John Cena? No. It's it's got uh it's I it's the Suicide Squad and the Suicide Squad. And you want the one that doesn't have Jared Leto in it. Okay. That's way easier to No, James Gunn is also easier. Anyways, I won't spoil it. Yeah. If Jared Leto shows up, I won't spoil it. No, yeah, you'll know, you know. What did you did you did you pick up anything, learn anything? Did you have any insights from your uh your experiment this week? Other than wow, the ads are worse than I thought, and I uh did a bunch of stuff to na to work around them. I probably will get myself a treat and eventually get rid of the ads again. But I I don't know. I used to feel really weird about the YouTube algorithm, and I'm still a little bit cautious ab about it, but I I used to do the experiments that you didn't like where I tried to see how long it I'd like watch right wing med uh media until it took me to some wild QAnon stuff.

Yeah, that'll that'll never turn out bad. The I can't at the time. I know. Well I just went to again whenever I was like I would like to do it. Oh my god. I was just going to YouTube and that I wanted to also watch Or listen to podcasts there because normally my default is going to my overcast key. Yeah, right. Like, no, no, no, it's gonna be It's gonna be sleep all the way. Yeah. And some of them have video, you know, like there's Amy Polar and Conan and um Oh I don't like it. I don't. And Hard for Connor. Oh you don't like you don't like Amy Poe and Connor O'Brien? No, I don't well I don't like watching um Oh, or like Flightless Bird? Speaking of um But yeah, uh Flightless Bird has usually at least some live video part.

Mm-hmm. And uh I they they also do have RSS, which is nice, but no, I was all all in on YouTube. I've listened to upgrade this week like I do. And I guess it never occurs to me, so the the vid the they put out something on YouTube where you can like see both of their faces the whole time? It sounds like that. Yes. I was not aware of that. And Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well it's a good idea. Should we do that? Will we get more popular? No, no, will we get more than three views? Should we turn on our cameras? That's oh I feel like They have uh I want to see your mustache, but I don't want you to see my very unfortunate haircut. I probably will put my very skis Did you do it yourself? No, I d I did not. I uh Oh you asked somebody to do it too.

You said shave me. I I I go to the the uh supercuts by my house and I always say, Hey Speaking of Treating yourself. W what? What's wrong with SuperCuperCons is fine. Oh no, so look how old I look. Pull it up. But you just pull up the screen where we're recording, Alex. Oh, the screen where we're recording? Oh God. See I had you uh c talk into a little corner. Oh, that's so you're so very handsome. Look at that. Oh you can see I cut my own. I don't know if you I feel this in my podcast, but I I cut my own hair uh the other day. Anyway, so here's my hair. Yeah Oh fuck you. Oh my god, you did a good fate? Oh my god, fuck you. I'll turn off the camera. Hey, thank you. That was nice to hear. Thank you.

I didn't have my normal lady. What's wrong with Supercut? Do you get people at Supercuts who've worked there for a long time? I don't know. It's always a different thing. Well I like working. com and I'll go get a good haircut. But I can say I have three catch rumors. Send you one of mine. Uh I do have a trimmer and uh in the summer I often just shave my head and kind of do like a fresh restart. But what number do you do? Oh, when I shave my head a zero, but typically that's crazy, Alex. You would look like a nut. You like Siddhare, fuck that. Yes. It's very upsetting, but then I wear a nice hat. I wear a St. Jude hat. You can't shame me for that. It's a very nice Yeah, I mean true, true. I mean absolutely I can.

Like why why would you need to show off that you helped a kid with cancer? It's kinda weird. Yeah, it's weird flex. It's it's it's it's it's not. It's mostly because it's a good thing. I just hope that your child never gets cancer. Because look at this hat and the people that I am helping. Must be nay. That's how we say congratulations in my family. Must be nice. Great great success. Um d do you want to l uh hear how many I'm just gonna tell you. Six ads in a one hour podcast. Six ad breaks. Six yes, six ad breaks. And it was just it made me very sad because I know that this is also I s I I think that these are uh I I don't wanna say tamer ads, but th th they're not um I I I don't know, maybe because of all of the VPNs to try to uh obscure uh not like obscure my data just to get rid of the annoying uh the the annoying bullshit that slows websites down.

I get much more neutral ads than uh one would on Instagram or something. But if you're watching a m-bout that oh god. Yeah, it's weird. Um but if you're watching, you know, like a Mr. Beast episode or a three hour World War One. Yeah, I was just thinking, I'm gonna send you here's a screen grab of what my my current screen when I open up YouTube on my Mac this is what I see. And like, okay, the Fred Armison interview with Ted Danson, I could see ads in that. Live Tropical Fuckstorm, Beethoven symphonies, five hours of Beethoven symphonies. Um certainly my all-time favorite music documentary, Born Fighter, by Rock Pyle, or even just, you know, highlights from Broad City. Or or or hope to shout the 13-minute version of Sarah by Fleetwood Mac.

Like there's a chance if I pop that on, there's a chance they would just put an ad in the middle of Sarah by Fleetwood Mac. Is that right? Probably grotesque. Well, it depends on if you are monetized or not, or the YouTube partner. You know what I could do? I could log out and see Yes, yes, yes. Man, I don't know man. What if I can't get back Hello? And you're just cursed forever to see an ad in the middle of the yeah. I wouldn't watch as many things. I'd have to read books or something. Oh yeah. I'm well, I I'm a monster and I listen to that. I'm reading I'm reading the tuberculosis book now. Oh He's such a good writer. He is. I really, really, really like him. Well, for action for for example, the Green Brothers have turned off all mid-roll ads and so you'll get one at the beginning and most YouTube videos now have like a what do you call an end cap?

What what do you call the uh an ad at the end of the end yeah no there's a name for that. There's been out of the business too long. I don't know what it's called. Yeah yeah yeah There's a little an ending which I don't uh uh understand because you can just click click click away anyway data. Well it also it depends. I mean there are some like uh like the rest is history. I really like the ad reads those guys do But unfortunately it's it's also, you know, poisoned a little bit by weird DAI ads. They do an ad at the end that doesn't bother me. Um I think also, you know, at least in Overcast you can set the beginning an end time, which I've set for several podcasts, honestly I don't I th I don't mind in fact sometimes I like those like an end like hey thank you to our sponsors but I just I I just don't want to hear Bill Simmons doing that bro voice again.

Like I I can't I've had to stop listening to a lot of podcasts on that network because it's Becoming so self-reflexive. The Ringer podcasts are becoming so self-reflexive and so broy to me. I would be Self-reflexive mostly. There's like you know how you know me, I love a little world. I was thinking about this earlier today and with regard to ads in particular. I don't know why I was thinking about this before we recorded, but um so much about ads and stuff, but Like I'm um never mind. I'm just carrying on. Forget about carrying on. Sorry. I think it but I I want to The underscore that I am not complaining about. Like weirdly, I am. You're not saying people shouldn't make money. It's like I didn't know.

I'm also not saying people shouldn't make ads because they're they can be really, really good. And uh I I don't want or need them to be good, Alex. They need them to be effective Yes, but uh uh I I feel that uh there was a oh god, I'm gonna do the there was there was a time. But um no, no, there there still are times where uh a host red ad will really make me be like, oh, oh cool. Like in oh in fact The P app that I'm obsessed with now, I didn't realize that you did an ad for that on Recdiffs. And then I went back and listened. I was like, oh yeah, P P app, which I uh which is not an endorsement, but I will endorse it. That was a third or fourth take. Oh my. That tells you I was if you could hear me laughing in the first one or two.

And but I thought, you know what? There's no reason not to share that with people. I don't I don't I don't what is it uh I well it might have been Marco who said this or he might have s gotten it from I don't know, but like you know, it's just let me just put it as as neutrally as I can. Um you can As long as you're saying truthful things, you can buy an ad for your product on my show. If you're saying untruthful things, I'm gonna I'm gonna look a scance at that and probably refuse your ad. Because even if you think what you're saying is true, sometimes I know what you're saying is not, and sometimes I make advertisers go away because of that. It's made me extremely unsuccessful. Um but you People know that though about you.

That's a statement that I know you're gonna be like, how do you know? But you can ask me, you can a I mean but like You know, it's just it's weird. Uh, you know what, now I'm just complaining. But it's frustrating because like I I know there's ways to be at least what I would consider to be creative, and I know what what makes me want b interested in something. But like, you know, it when just saying stuff like have fun and riff about it, well, if I've never used your product, what is there to riff about? Like it just I'm here you what you really feel sometimes what it really feels like they're saying is make up some nice shit to say about us and make sure it's positive and put it in your first person voice.

And here comes Holden Caulfield again. That was never on offer. Now if I want to say something nice, because I do love Squarespace or I do love uh I believe you call the app Log P um then I I will feel free to do that, but that is not for sale. You know, you can you can you can buy the space, but you can't buy my arder. The harder they come, the harder they fall. Oh, you made it better. Well you kept we were pausing because I was you were trying to think of something. I thought I'd jump in. Uh no, I I th I thought you put a uh a jazz break there because it was uh No, I don't do jazz breaks anymore. I don't have time for that. Should we start redoing real human voices for the beginning? I don't know because I think it's a good concept is wearing a little thin and I always try to pick what I think is an appropriate voice and I I still love like the old black guy.

I love you know who talks like this, you know. But uh it'll probably be better on voice. Um if I provide you with different voices that that are uh yeah if you use the whisper product and like to do uh bleepy some bleep bloops Um sorry, not Whisper, uh or what's it called? Whatever Eleven Labs is calling its own. Yeah, I don't know. No, I I I would have no way of doing that. This is all done in D script. No, I I I know, I know. And eventually it trickles down to D script typically, but I'm I'm liking D scripts again, I finally went back and mild I I can't do I couldn't do what I do without it. I uh was s pleasantly surprised at how you can go if you like go deep into YouTube. There's still a lot of weird shit.

Wait, are we back to the are we back to the challenge? We're um I'm st I'm taking the back the back the wheel. That's uh because this is the only other thing I s have to say about YouTube. Uh because I mean it I suppose it's like seems counterintuitive. Like why would you decide oh it's that's so many people's default and it really hasn't been for me. But the thing is okay. I don't mean in terms of ads. I mean why you're there. I don't watch, God, I I realized I I am so becoming Holden Caulfield. You know, first of all, I don't use ChatGPT the way most of you do. And I think that's one reason we disagree about what what it's good at and what it's for. I also think I don't use YouTube like a lot of other people.

I use YouTube like a dad. I'm not using it to watch people do reaction videos about reaction videos. I'm not anything w anything where the first thing that pops up is stock footage or the speaker's face, I tend to bounce. Well none of them look at it. Not always, cause it depends. I But like, you know, um a lot of times if I want to get serious about it, just go over to Nebula because it's there's more stuff, it's more fun. Like if I can see Maggie Mayfish has a new thing coming out I love Lindsay What's her head. I like Jane Nicholson. I love Philosophy Tube. Um, these are all the ones that I really look forward to. Oh, and of course, Becon Rewind. Like I just She it to me is the master of that kind of format in some ways.

And I just I've watched enough of these enough times to know To get a a vibe sometimes for like, oh yeah, this is this is somebody's shticky YouTube channel You know, I'm not saying it all has to be like stolen movies or something, but you know, there's there are some people and I would be happy to again illuminate the five or six YouTubers who I think are to my taste, absolutely outstanding at what they do. And I have laundry lists of reasons why I think those people are better at it. It doesn't mean people should do things differently. It doesn't mean you as a person should like it differently. But I just want you 'cause we keep saying YouTube, YouTube, YouTube, that means so many different things to so many different people.

I have a feeling when I say YouTube Go ahead. My thing f I'm I'm realizing more and more that YouTube is a search engine, pretty much for me, because I know what I like and a lot of the I think everyone that you listed, I enjoy their stuff and now I will go spelunking for something weird I want to see like a World War One documentary or some really n niche like ps cybernetic three D printing shit and s that is what is that that algorithm has gotten pretty good. But if you just go straight to YouTube the same way that I y will go straight to the HBO pay uh like the main screen and be like uh oh okay cool what's here the pretty much the front page of YouTube is unusable uh uh for me even though I'm subscribed to all of the people I like but also it helps to Div well, I'll I can speak for myself.

Um I have learned to like YouTube a lot more by using it in a certain way. And like one of the things includes like frequently adding things to watch later. Like anytime I run across something, like I'm forever doing a long press on Apple TV to add to watch later. But honestly, that same long press. Unlike HBO, the long press means add, not Alex not disappear. I don't know. That's the weirdest I I was so amazed when you said that because I figured I'm the only person in the world that's had this problem. But like 'cause like on HBO the thing is if you want to pick back up And this topic's kind of boring, so she wouldn't we shouldn't talk too long about it. But but like doing a little like the thing is normally like you you pop back up with HBO and HBO it's gotten better about this, but for a long time I think we talked about this on Rectifs a couple years ago or more.

Uh HBO seems uniquely bad at remembering or intuiting where you left off with something. So like there was like three different things that could happen. You jump back into like some series you've been watching, or maybe a rewatch especially, and it's like well, will it remember that I was at the end of this Game of Thrones episode? Will it automatically start the next one? Because I'll bet I'm not the only person in the world that's just hit the continue button and I'm like, wait a minute, I've never seen this. What is this? Or wait, this is two episodes ago. And so but then you th I think like okay I'm gotten so used to stuff as you say like long press on YouTube. You long press on your like your currently playing list, if you long press on something in that row, it removes it.

from your to watch on HBO list, which is crazy to me. And the only way I know of to get there, and it's not that bad, but like if I'm watching like I caught up on Gilded Age before the new season. So let's say the S2E9 or 10 or whatever, the last episode is up. Um you've got to click that one, continues playing. Like, this is this is the fastest way I know of to get to the TV show The Gilded Age is to click on the thing that's playing. Then I see the end credits or the after credits stuff. At that point you can hit back or up. And that will take you to where that episode is in that season. And then you gotta you gotta deal with their little weird season. horizontal menu, which sucks. Um, but it's in that way the HBO app is not great, but in a lot of other ways it is really good.

I don't love the shovels, shovel wear of all the Zaslov shows. I wish I could kind of make those, you know, not be amidst the other things, but there's a lot to like in the HBO app. I I like that it's got the equivalent at least in mine when I pull it up, be like, hey, here's what's quote live on HBO right now, because that's how I watched HBO my whole life. And here's what's next. Like At six o'clock there's gonna be a new at Sunday. There's gonna be a new episode of the show and the last episode that we aired plays before that. I think that's super smart. And you can do that with HBO or HBO two or HBO Ladies or HBO mocho or whatever all the different verticals are. HBO Ladies, is that what it's called?

This is your first time tying at HBO Ladies. We do things a little bit different here. Oh that's so funny. Now wait a minute. Okay. So it's uh it's a theme restaurant. It's at the mall. It's called HBO Ladies. Now is it is it is it is it j uh jokey enough like that could be like a 70s restaurant or or like the or like the buddy holly restaurant in Pulp Fiction. Is everybody dressed, are all the waitrons different HBO ladies? Because what would that what would that and it could be men too, but they're dressed as ladies. Well you could do uh what's that what's that one with the what's that one with the lady with the with the uh w why do you never get sick of seeing me? What's your name? Who's who's the who's the black um non-binary lady with the show?

What's that show called? Uh I's that what's that show called? You know that show? I've no idea. Get out of my car. Um uh the no, what's it called? It's uh anyway, there's that. Is it insecure? Am I thinking of insecure? No. Where do they get a load of me? Where do they get a load of me? I think that's what it's called. No. But it's what the one with the little non-binary lady on uh on a you could do that. You could be you could Miranda, maybe Miranda From you know what? They could all be Cynthia Nixon. It's all different Cynthia Nixons. They they come to your table. Cynthia's Do they show off Their k uh not not camel toe. The um thing the picture you sent. The chafing, the the uh oh god. I wasn't.

You should watch the Gilded Age. She has a very sweet dog named Pumpkin. And you seem to really not not to you, uh the royal Royal you not the red white and royal blue, but Gilded Age. He invented a clock. That's true. Oh. And then pumpkin, you got pumpkin. Also Robert Sean Leonard. Oh. You know, reminding you to have a have a have a have a good Wednesday and be yourself. I uh I learned things from all these things, Alex. Um and uh I I still the main thing I learned I think with my little dipping into this challenge was what I already knew, which is I think of the streamers, HBO is the most valuable to me. I mean, in the sense that there's the most things that I really want to watch or rewatch like are on HBO.

I I mean I end up probably pound for pound watch more hours of YouTube. But because of but again, when I say YouTube, well what does that mean? Let's go look at my history and see what that means. Like, um I have uh yeah, Tropical Fluxstorm, um, the pretender season. Now this is a lot of music. Conan, behind the scenes of DOS boot, a bunch of art stuff. Um, yeah, I mean like it really is it it runs the gamut from of my of my uh interests. But like I don't what do I watch that's like a YouTube video? Uh I mean not movies with Mikey, that wouldn't count. Trying to think of what I watch that's like what most people think of as YouTube videos. I like Eddie Burbach, who's not Eddie Baerbach, as much as I uh like uh people would consider Lindsay Ellis or Contra Points in philosophy VTube as a genre of YouTube video, which is I think RedTube or YouTube.

Yeah, like Jenny, like Jenny Nicholson. Mean mean YouTube. Yes. Yeah. I I just I I was uh I don't know, I was pl pleasantly surprised. I thought I would be really, really annoyed by YouTube and you can I don't know you can fuck around with with a lot of stuff that oh oh I am going to recommend an an an app because I love love apps. If you're listening and are like, meh, meh, ah, you should watch more ads. That's okay. There's a l a browser called Friendly Streaming and you can watch uh YouTube, Netflix, Disney Plus, what's a gold. It's And y basically it just is faster than watching in Chrome or Safari. And there are ads. Like you can log in if So it it's it's just more intuitive like the if you want to play faster or if you want to make your oh I calm down.

If you uh like me to call it primarily I'm not telling you. I'm talking my I'm talking to my I don't care. Just because you have Adderall doesn't make you normal. I'm not I mean I will continue to point out that you're so fucking weird. And just like talking fast doesn't change that, Alex. You're really fucking. Later, Q, this is a great way to do it. And you can do it in this uh li lieback mode? What's Oh no, Lib Liebok is a band. I there used to have a thing called was it Lieback Mode where like it was like, oh just let remember in the early days it was like, hey, you don't even have to click videos, we'll play them for you. Wasn't that it wasn't that a thing? I mean they still bought continuous uh no lie bot is that a German band?

L A I B Oh, so it is German. Leibach. Leibach. Yeah. Check out their song Lightning. It's learned. I've gotten my my app in, then I enjoy. Uh I didn't have too much other stuff to add I'm becoming aware. I wanted to know d when you say v value, do you mean like m monies or just no no no I was trying to make that I was really kind of trying to go out of my way with that distinction. Well what I said please continue. Oh. I mean, you know, uh a part of the presence of mind also is going like, okay, I think you've watched enough like scrolling around on YouTube for today. Like, no, that's good. There is something to be said I'm just my opinion. There is something to be said for making time to concentrate on one thing and not be, you know, flipping around and I do that, you know, or I'll just we'll just watch a movie.

Um, but sometimes speaking of the algorithm, I mean sometimes I do end up finding really interesting stuff that is very related to what I like, but it also it ends up feeding into things Maybe that are peculiar to me like playlists or ideas for other things. So you said you think of it as a search engine. Which I g I guess so, but for me it's just a search engine for videos. It's never taking me some rarely taking me somewhere besides that video. That's sorry, th that is what I I meant specifically for. But but there are a lot of times where if I believe that the thing I'm looking for in the world is a video per se. Like I have learned over time, slowly, to just go to YouTube. The cause if you go if I go to Google and I search for a thing, I'm trying to think of an example of something.

I I was joking around with somebody about something, I needed to find something. And I don't remember what. I think I was sending Todd a Faithful Findings thing. But but you like you you find stuff and it's like you go to the good regular Google search and it's cool. I like the fact there's so many different kinds of things. I'm forever going to the images tab. But going to the videos tab in Google is rarely great for me. You know? Um there's first of all, there's lots of stuff like. . yarn and things like that that want to give you the video as a jiff, but not really as a gif or tenor and you've got to still go there and do the thing and all of that. But um I um I don't know. I I as far as value, what do I mean by value?

Well, HBO, if if if I listen to the the better angels of my taste. Title. Title Title. Title Title. That's kind of a low little Lincoln twist. Um then I listen to those better angels. I go, dude, why don't you just like fucking calm down and just go watch something really good and absorbing? on HBO. You know, and there's always something there. And I'm I mean like I will sometimes still just dip into the first episode of the leftovers, or season three, episode one of The Wire. Or this, you know, or again, uh certainly like just the the Um, Elephant in the Room is I just f did a f we rewatch through season six of uh Game of Thrones, like all the way through in order, that my kid watched a fair number of with me.

And as far as that, that's what I mean by value in in terms of like if I if I the times that I spend with Criterion and Mubi and Canopy and HBO are like that's when I have the greatest opportunity to just discover something a little bit profound that takes my attention and time. You know, the snacking that I do on YouTube, I need to catch myself sometimes because I don't want to just be watching drill bit videos for like six hours or something like that. But um that that and I'm I guess I'm seeing value also in terms of like aspiration. You know, like I make fun of my family because of the vegetables of obligation that they like to store. And like I I but with me, like I I just sometimes I really You I can't just tuck into a full-on Ozu subtitled movie on Criterion.

Like that's just not gonna happen every night. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. I lo I really love YouTube. I get a lot of out of it. And I think the the biggest thing that I've realized not so much during this week, but during this episode, is I'm thinking more and more about like to paraphrase Raymond Carver, what we talk about when we talk about YouTube. Because it can mean such different things. Before we even get into the ad part, which We you have to get into the ad part. It's a fundamentally different experience if you don't have ads, which I realize is the minority. But like I don't know how YouTube would stay popular with the number of ads they put in this stuff. But um I get a lot of value out of that.

And I love my little playlists and sometimes other people like them too. I just started one. I just started one on power trios. And uh before that I finally started one on what I consider very good live performances. These are a little bit generic by my standards, but you never know what somebody will like. I think I'm gonna make my uh uh bootleg Broadway bangers bootleg Broadway bangers playlist. Did you ever find out like what's the new place? Did you use the porn hub? Like where you where are you finding where are you finding your uh your Broadway bootlegs? I n th they they come to me in various forms. D Mm people will host them on No, no, I don't know. It's there's I just I just need to get friends who send me things.

I told them send me a screenshot of what you're gonna send me before you send me things. If you go on Reddit or and say if you start searching, like someone will say Hey, here's a link to a thing, but the problem is Dropbox has the gross thing now where it will look for copyrighted material. Oh no kidding. It scans for Uh there was a thing back in the day where it wasn't exact it wasn't an MD5, but there was something along the lines of there's some kind of a stamp thing that it could quickly grok, but I bet they got the technology now. Cause I mean that used to be the thing where like if you find a one point two three seven six size you know file called Game of Thrones blah blah right that used to So they're getting good at that, huh?

Yeah, which is why there will be uh someone who uh in either encodes it differently or just puts a tiny little watermark in the corner that's you can't develop it. are just wild guesses. There's the classic reverse the image or f flop it as Todd says. There's that one. There's the put a weird box that moves around it. Like some of them are really. Oh no, there's just that one where you like it's almost like you're doing, you know, um Columns to fix the aspect ratio, but you do things that are like kind of weird and geometric to try and confuse the engine. Oh, oh that's cool. I like that. Ooh. It's almost like a screensaver running, you know? Yes, that movement. Oh like a DVD the Waiting for the DVD to get in the corner.

The I love oh man, talk about oh mum. I oh oh I got a little too excited about it. I think we're just about done here. I started making a list of uh I'm gonna think about a restaurant called HBO Ladies. And you gotta have the dots in there for that, HBO ladies. Um I've got the channels uh trash theory, beacon rewind. I have a list of the ones that I like. Um is there anything else we could do to help our listeners this week, uh Alex? What are we gonna talk about in the after show? Most importantly, I forgot about friendly browsing. You can turn off YouTube shorts so you don't see them at all. How you just turn it's just a setting in there. Yeah. Are you sure and this isn't just the like I want less of this?

You're talking about actually turn it off. I despise looking at them. I despise when people send them to me. And I despise the fact that YouTubers who make things about landscape Media are compelled to do these asinine things. It makes me so how you were you telling about that in the after show? Yes. Ghost or fucking money. com. We have an after show. Maybe I'll take Adderall before we record the after show. Well, you know what? Let's let's talk about it now. plan so how long it took me 27 minutes how long does it take you well whoa whoa you well i'm sorry i'm sorry i don't mean to judge you're gonna take you an outer all at 2 p. m Yeah. Okay. It uh I've taken one much later and it does not make it affect my sleep.

Okay. It doesn't uh That's kinda like when people say I drive better drunk. No, it's not. How do you think? No, it's not. I've heard that though, and I thought it was just like a funny bit that like the no I drive better drunk because I'm paying attention. No, I drive better stoned because I'm more relaxed and I don't get road rage. I'm like, what the fuck? And I'm okay at 2 p. m. I uh someone cooler than me, apparently. Is it hot there right now? How hot is it? Uh much it's not that hot. I think it's like seventy something. Oh, I thought you guys were underheat though. We were just in a Uh oof oof, yeah. Only uh oh 79, but still. Yeah, no, it was bonkers. We had the three digits baby. It was very exciting.

That's nice. By exciting, I mean just absolutely miserable. I didn't leave the house for two days intentionally and your air was working okay It I well I turned it off, but because I had uh I had, you know, the not the shades, uh curtains drawn. Yep, yep. You're allowed to have curtains now, which is nice. I know, yeah. It took a long time, but yeah. And I've shown you've shown that you are responsible enough to handle curtains. Mm-hmm. It's like it's like letting your kid drive the car. But they are they are those pressure ones, so it you know, they're not like What seals your house? The no no no the p the the tension oh tension rods, that's what I mean. So you I mean those are easy to pull down.

You can also use it for sword fights. The oo fun. You can act like it's in like a we'll think no no. No, we're talking about the little rubber at the ends and the ching, the spring in the middle. Yes. Yeah, you can pull it out like that's your scabbard, if you know what I mean. Oh oh mm. Yeah, and you get a free hey, free free spring. Spring forward, fall back. I just wanted a good way to end this, and I want to edit what we've got and and and um I don't have anything do you have anything f Do we have any a funny way to end this? Because people are probably gone already, because it stopped being funny a while ago, right? Oh, uh n I think they're here for your really smart takes. Why are you Media consumption.

What do you think? Do do what? Compliment you? Would you like me to talk about chortling your balls since I already have done that to our other friends? What do what's what do you want? How can I make you happy? Um does everything. Metaphorically, I'm not going to be able to do that. Do you would you put the testicles in your mouth and then make a noise? Is that what that means? Honestly I don't know. And is it something Yeah because I'm curious, is it something that people like? It's a relay guy. There are uh Watches. Yeah, they buy fancy watches now. I th I think they're scared off the top personally. I think everyone is a fancy watch or at least like all podcasters seem to have a fancy watch phase.

Well, didn't most podcasters have a uh soda soda stream phase? That was a big you know Is it it was a it was a crazy time. Yeah, most podcasters for sure. Most I think as many as three people you know have talked about SodaStream on a podcast. Oh I maybe five That's most podcasters for sure. I've got a I've got a bell right here. I'm ready. I'm ready. Oh, oh okay. Um let's see if there's anything funny here. Uh I don't think so. Suicide Squad, HBO ladies. Uh my kid's not as smart as John Vore. Make my baby disappear? Um the first scene of the leftovers when the baby disappears and it's very upsetting. You know who that lady is Uh no, I'm not sure. Oh mmm. Okay, think about it. Do you remember her at the laundromat and in the parking lot?

You remember her? Yeah, I do, but I don't remember who she is. Kim's Long Suffering Wife. Oh no. So she is a double HBO lady. Oh, oh does Does that mean she gets like a special space in the in the m I don't know. I n but on our break while Well they do Thing you do things differently here, so I don't know. Maybe it's a different thing. Well, I'm trying to think who else it could be. There could be a lot of obscure ones. Oh, like Wendy Malik. If we go way back to Dream On, nothing wrong with that. Oh no Wendy Malik. Uh yeah, you know Wendy Malik. You know her. She was on Dream On with that guy. I know. And then uh another old one we could do once oh Sarah Silverman from uh Mr. Show. Yes, that's where people know Sarah Silverman from, Mr.

Show. I'm sorry, that was that wasn't nice. I know she's on Mr. Show. So because you don't have experience with Mr. Show, you don't know. From Silv the Sarah Silverman show from the Are you talking about the Sarah Silverman program? Yes, the Sarah Silverman program featurings. Featuring Seller Silverman. Salary Silmer Sil Salery Silmerman. You can request salary Silmerman when you come to HBO Ladies. Is I'm sorry, is is is Celery Silmerman working tonight? No, but her her twin's here. She has a twin? Um I don't know. Oh wait, really? They play Andy and Ollie on Bob's Burgers. Oh, that's really cute. Yeah. Oh. She's in a really good sketch. Uh uh late. It's a late. She was there late in the history of Mr.

Show. But there's one where um Oh, you can't even say anymore, but it's a band of people with different disabilities that are that are like really not good for people who are in a band, the kind of disabilities that they have. And you know what her disability is? She's a girl. I'll send it to you. Okay. Okay everybody, stay tuned. Whatever happened to uvulating? People don't ugly anymore. raw transcript