Jeff is on Spring Break, so Christina and Brett keep the show going with a heavily tech-oriented episode. From security back doors to complaining about Apple software, it’s all the tech talk you could want.

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Transcript

Bad Apple

[00:00:00]

[00:00:04] Brett: Welcome back to Overtired, which has become once again, a, um, kind of sporadic, uh, release schedule, but that’s just, it’s spring break. We’ll be back into the swing of things, uh, shortly. In the meantime, um, we’ll, we’ll just keep putting out kind of random episodes. I kind of wanted to put one out. Oh, hi, by the way, I’m, I’m Brett Terpstra.

[00:00:26] Brett: I’m here with Christina Warren. Um, I kind of wanted to release an episode last week that had an intro and then was just a rickroll, um, and like play the entire song and then, and then just like play the outro music. Um, but I didn’t, because that was probably, there were probably copyright issues with that.

[00:00:47] Christina: Eh,

[00:00:49] Brett: I could probably get away with a 30 second snippet though.

[00:00:52] April Fools Day Fun

[00:00:52] Christina: yeah, probably. I saw one good Okay, so April Fool’s Day was What day was that? Was that like, Monday?

[00:00:59] Brett: It [00:01:00] was on April 1st.

[00:01:01] Christina: Well, no, it was last Friday. No, I know, but I was trying to think where we are like, like, like day wise, like I was trying to think of what day was it this week? And it was Monday. So we’re recording this on Saturday.

[00:01:12] Christina: So it was Monday. So I was trying to figure out when it was. Um, and April Fool’s Day as, as you know, the internet has ruined it. I think we’ve talked about that before. I feel very complicit about my own role. Um, in ruining the day because of, of my time as a blogger, um, especially at Mashable during like the height of brands being extremely online and terrible.

[00:01:36] Christina: But there was one good, well, there were a couple of, of good ones that I saw. Um, I think, uh, I don’t remember what the, the second one was, maybe it’ll come to me, but the one that actually got me to laugh was, um, somebody, um, Uh, and I knew exactly what it was before I saw it and I saw Mr. Macintosh, uh, tweet it and it was somebody who was like, hey, I got a way [00:02:00] of getting, you know, full, you know, modern, um, Mac OS, um, running on old power PC Macs, you know, click here for more.

[00:02:08] Christina: And I knew it was like, Oh, and then you click on the thing. It was like, Oh, you know, click, click, click on this link, you know, to get more information or whatever. And I was like, Oh, I know exactly what this is. Before I even saw the YouTube tool tip, before I even saw that, I like, I knew exactly what I was setting myself up for and I still sent it to someone.

[00:02:23] Christina: Um, and, um, and it was one of those things where I was just like, yep. Okay. This, I was like, you get one, you get one Rick roll of an April Fool’s day. And this is, this is a good one. Cause like, that’s, that’s it.

[00:02:34] Brett: I saw a meme that said, Happy April Fool’s Day, the one day of the year when people critically assess information on the internet before accepting it as true.

[00:02:45] Christina: is very true. And it’s also like very awful that it’s like, we acknowledge, it’s like everybody’s a fucking expert on April Fool’s Day. Um. And, and then, yeah.

[00:02:57] Brett: What was your favorite April Fool’s [00:03:00] prank as a kid?

[00:03:05] Christina: I don’t even, I don’t even know. I, I used to buy like, um, stuff from, from, from Spencer’s. Um, there would be like, joke stuff. And I’m trying to think like, what I had. I think I might have had like, fake vomit or something.

[00:03:18] Brett: Do you remember back when sinks, kitchen sinks used to have like a spray nozzle that you could pull out on like a hose to like spray your dishes down back before, like everything was just part of the faucet. I used to, my favorite prank was to rubber band the lever on that. So when you turn on the sink, it sprays you right in the chest.

[00:03:41] Brett: Um, that was my go to April Fool’s prank that does not work anymore because nobody has faucets like that anymore.

[00:03:50] Christina: Um, okay, I did

[00:03:51] Brett: Also, I’m an adult now and I wouldn’t do that.

[00:03:54] Christina: right. Okay, and I actually did, I did find like, the one like, really good April Fool’s thing that I saw. This was funny. Okay, [00:04:00] so. And this one, um, this one almost got me. Not that I thought that it was ever real, um, but I thought that it might have actually been by the company it’s purporting to be because I didn’t, I didn’t clock the URL at first because it’s very good.

[00:04:13] Christina: So I’m going to send you, um, uh, I’ll let you read it.

[00:04:17] Christina: . I’ll put it in our chat. I’ll put it in our chat link. Um, okay. So. Um, and I’ve already, like, told you this is, like, fake or whatever, but for, for, for listeners who, uh, might, uh, not be old enough to remember, uh, and even some of those who are, uh, Gmail famously launched on April 1st, 2004.

[00:04:36] Christina: Um, let that sink in. And, and we all assumed it was kind of an April Fool’s Day thing because, like, it was a gig of, of, uh, storage and, you know, for free email for life and, and everybody was like, And at the time, you have to understand, I think Hotmail gave you like two megabytes, and I think like Yahoo Mail was something similar.

[00:04:53] Christina: And if you didn’t log into your account, like religiously, like they would fucking nuke all of your messages. And [00:05:00] so a gig was like, Unreal. And now, of course, they give you, I think, like 15 gigs. But, um, Google has, you know, over the years, uh, made a lot of questionable decisions. And one of the most recent ones was with their domain registry.

[00:05:15] Christina: They launched zip and mov. Um, Domain Extensions. And, and the security people were very mad, especially for zip. They were like, this is going to help with the spread of malware, this is going to be bad. So, go to this, this, this website, and it looks like the, it’s done to look exactly like the official Google blog.

[00:05:32] Christina: And it says, Google Registry. Execute your best ideas with Google. Google Registries, exe, Top Level, Domain. And then it has, you know, it says, you know, following the success of zip and move, we’re adding brand new extensions to the internet for everyone. Um, you know, whether you’re learning to code or deploying a helpful tool or starting a new community, exe has you covered.

[00:05:50] Christina: Here’s some examples from our developer community. Mydoom. exe, your gateway to digital innovation. Iloveyou. exe, transforming online interactions with love. [00:06:00] Melissa. exe. Empowering women through digital community, and those are, of course, three very famous viruses. And what got me laughing at this was that I didn’t look at the, I didn’t clock the URL at first and I was like, clearly this is fake.

[00:06:15] Christina: I was like, but maybe the registry team just has a really good sense of humor. I was like, damn, they’re like really self aware at Google. And then I clocked that the, that the URL is, is G O G G E L and

[00:06:27] Brett: Oh, I, I was looking at it. I’m like the, how is that not okay. That’s funny. That’s funny.

[00:06:34] Christina: So it worked twice, but what was also really funny about it is that the share, like the share button, they, um, they changed the share URL so that it actually went to the official Google blog.

[00:06:44] Brett: Oh, that’s funny

[00:06:45] Christina: So yeah, this was like a good one and, and this was like, this, this, this, this, this, this was like a really good one.

[00:06:50] Christina: I was like, okay, I’m, I’m down with this cause this is, I genuinely at first thought I was like, You know, for like, you know, 15 seconds I was like, [00:07:00] Oh, Google is actually self aware. I’m, I’m a little surprised. And, and instead it was like, no. Um,

[00:07:07] Brett: be, to be fair. Dot app is a TLD, um, on the Mac side, but it doesn’t have the same implication ’cause an app is a bundle and it wouldn’t have the same implications as an executable

[00:07:20] Christina: well, right. And I think the other thing too is just like more malware is like, if we had as much Mac, um, not like malware, like if Mac was, if Mac mattered, right. Like, well, I mean, just being honest, right? Like, in terms of an attack service, if it mattered the same way, I do think that would be problematic.

[00:07:36] Christina: Um, but also, and I wonder your thought on this, the fact that we don’t see file extensions on macOS, do you think that that

[00:07:45] Brett: I turn on file extensions.

[00:07:48] Christina: Sure, but like, for, you know, like, even if your applications?.

[00:07:53] Brett: Yeah, I do. I’m looking at my screen right now. I got dayone. app, debughelper. app. [00:08:00] Um,

[00:08:00] Christina: I have, like, I have

[00:08:01] Brett: don’t function well without extensions.

[00:08:04] Christina: I have extensions on, not for app, but I, and I, um, I, whatever the default is, which is, you know, mp4, png, whatever. But there’s some things that like, but by and large, like you can even have like a world in like macOS where like you don’t have. You know, you just give something a filename and it’ll show up, you know, as like a document file and you don’t know what it is.

[00:08:24] Christina: That’s not a thing in Windows. Um, so I, I wonder if that has any kind of role in it too. Um, that like, even if you, like, even if people used, like, targeted Mac the same way, if the fact that like, most people don’t realize that app is the bundle name, you know, that So I don’t, I don’t know if that would, if that would matter.

[00:08:43] Christina: Cause I think, I think a lot of people would be like, what do you mean, what do you mean by dot app file? Like if I said that, I think to even like experienced Mac users, they’d be like, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What the fuck is the dot app file?

[00:08:54] Brett: I don’t, I don’t have no data to say that’s true or is not true. Could be, could be [00:09:00] entirely true. I don’t, I don’t hang out with experienced Mac users, I guess.

[00:09:05] Let the Apple Bitching Commence

[00:09:05] Brett: Um, so anyway, um, while we’re talking about Mac, um, before we get into any kind of mental health corner, I wanted to say Messages. Logged me out on my Mac, and it will not log me back in with any of my Apple IDs or, um, or a phone number.

[00:09:29] Brett: Like, I go through the process, I get the password correct, guaranteed, cause I use a, uh, I have a secret system. I have key bindings that insert my different passwords.

[00:09:42] Christina: bindings? Seriously? Um, you?

[00:09:46] Brett: It’s a sequence. It’s a very secret sequence, but to be fair, most of my system passwords are stored in the key bindings dict file, um, as plain text. So it’s super insecure, [00:10:00] but I just don’t. My Mac, the one that that’s set up on, nobody else touches. Um, and it’s very well protected network wise, so I don’t worry about it.

[00:10:11] Brett: So anyway, I know the password is correct and it’ll spin for about two minutes and then it’ll say an unknown error occurred. And it will timeout. And I cannot get messages working on my Mac, uh, for the last three days. Now I’ve talked to other people, including yourself, who are not having issues. Um, this isn’t a system wide problem.

[00:10:34] Brett: Uh, but I have had people contact me previously with the exact same issue. Um, and I don’t know how or when it clears up. I I’ve rebooted, I’ve restarted. And it’s, I’m missing, I’m missing a lot of messages because when I’m working at my Mac, I don’t know, my phone doesn’t

[00:10:56] Christina: It doesn’t. No, totally. Well, and yeah, oftentimes that is a thing, like, it’ll be [00:11:00] like, oh, if, if we’ve sent a message to one thing, we won’t others, and it’s other, it’s just a context switching thing, right? Like I, like, I find I’ll miss things because I often have like do not disturb turned on on my Mac, but my phone still won’t send me messages or I won’t get them the same way.

[00:11:13] Christina: And I’m like, all right, fine. Whatever.

[00:11:15] Brett: It’s a little opaque how that works, but yeah.

[00:11:18] Christina: very opaque how that works because Apple wants to make everything a fucking black box. So while we’re bitching, let’s bitch about that too. No, I’ve had that issue before. Um, it’s been years, but I have had that issue before where like my, my max of just hasn’t worked. And then it’s usually cleared itself up.

[00:11:33] Christina: But that’s the, this is the frustrating thing is that it’s like, there’s no way to get any insight into this. All you can do is like file feedback. I’ve got to file feedback about a fricking notes app issue. Um, And, um, where the note that I see, a collaborative note that I see, um, on my phone and my iPad is different than what it is on my [00:12:00] Mac.

[00:12:00] Brett: What?

[00:12:01] Christina: Yeah. Where, like, the one on my phone, I see actual, um, oh shit, it is also fucked on my other Mac where I’ve never looked at this before. And so I’m, like, literally got this thing where I made a bunch of edits And it looks one way on one of my Macs and it looks a different way on every other device. And so I don’t know, and it’s a shared note, so I don’t know what the actual point of truth is.

[00:12:27] Christina: And like, yeah, um, I talked to somebody about this and they were like, file a radar

[00:12:33] Brett: What app is this in? In

[00:12:34] Christina: notes, notes. So it’s an iCloud sync thing, clearly, um, where it got a version wrong. And because The system is the way that it is instead of being like a, you know, in my opinion, sane system that would treat people like adults and, and be able to also, um, explain context and in a way that you could do it in a very user friendly way and say, Hey, we see two [00:13:00] versions of this.

[00:13:02] Christina: You know, which one do you want? It just is a failure where it appears one way on

[00:13:10] Brett: guessing. It’s just showing you, it’s showing you random versions. Sure.

[00:13:14] Christina: Right, and it’s like, okay, well, like, that’s exactly what I want out of my fucking notes app. Are, like, are you kidding me? No, you have one job, literally, you have one job, which is to be the same everywhere.

[00:13:26] Christina: And you can’t do that. And we accept this sort of shit from Apple, and I don’t know why we do, because every other company that fails even the slightest amount, we rightfully, like, Bitch about them and they get terrible reputations. Like, like, like, you know, like, like, like Office, I think unfairly because I think the offline or not offline, but like, you know, like the, the standalone apps are actually very good, but like people shit on Microsoft Office a lot.

[00:13:50] Christina: And I’m not going to lie to you and say that the real time collaboration stuff is as good as it is on Google Docs. It’s not as fast or whatever, but it is better [00:14:00] and certainly sync on, um, every other platform. Every other platform is superior to what Apple does, and yet, like, if, if, if, if, if, if Dropbox, if Google Drive, if OneDrive, like, if any of them had any of the sync issues that iDrive, or not iCloud, still has.

[00:14:19] Christina: Fucking almost 15 years into its existence. Genuinely. Like, it would be the talk of, it would be like a constant joke. Like, nobody would accept it. I don’t understand how Apple gets away with having such piss poor, like, just genuinely, like, amateur tier, just like, bad, like, full blown unacceptable sync performance.

[00:14:42] Christina: I don’t understand it.

[00:14:44] Brett: Bush League. Yeah, no, I, I don’t.

[00:14:47] Christina: and they charge so much for it, right? I pay 38 a month or whatever it is for Apple One Premiere, my family plan, and it’s like, and that’s fine. It is what it is. And like all the services, none of them are best in class. Not a [00:15:00] single one. Not a single one.

[00:15:01] Christina: Apple Music is not better than Spotify. Apple TV is not better than Netflix. iCloud is not better than Dropbox. Um,

[00:15:09] Brett: wait, wait, wait, wait. You can’t, Apple TV versus Netflix is, do you mean like versus like, um, like Roku or?

[00:15:18] Christina: I mean like Apple TV

[00:15:20] Brett: Oh, oh yeah, okay. Okay, I thought you meant like the Apple TV

[00:15:25] Christina: no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because I’m talking about the services that you get in Apple, uh, One Premiere.

[00:15:30] Brett: yeah, okay.

[00:15:31] Christina: So like Apple TV is not better than Netflix, uh, Apple Music is not better than Spotify, um, Apple News is dog shit, um, uh, Apple Arcade is not better than, um, I guess the next closest thing to that would be Game Pass, and that’s a real, like that’s not a, uh, competition that Apple wants to get into because, They will lose on every fucking level, um, as they should.

[00:15:53] Christina: Um, uh, you know, um, again, like, uh, iCloud is not better than Dropbox or Google [00:16:00] Drive. Um, it just happens to be more convenient because they can, you know, build certain API. Right. Well, because, because they can now give them self entitlements that they won’t give anybody else. Um, you know, like, like health, who fucking cares?

[00:16:14] Christina: Like, or fitness plus or whatever, who fucking cares? Like, it’s one of those things, like genuinely.

[00:16:18] Brett: It’s just there to make you feel bad. You’re paying for this as part of your,

[00:16:22] Christina: Right, right. Yeah, this is like a

[00:16:24] Brett: you’re not using it because you’re

[00:16:26] Christina: using it. Right. Well, you also it’s like people, well, but Peloton, there, there are other alternatives, right? Like, so it’s just, none of these things are best in class at all. And, um, yeah, they, they charge what they charge and everybody’s like, Oh, Apple’s the best.

[00:16:39] Christina: I’m like, no, they’re really not. Like I, I am in the ecosystem because I, I’m going to be a Mac user and I would never even consider another phone other than an iPhone. Yeah.

[00:16:48] Brett: why, why, uh, do you think it’s just marketing? Like they’ve positioned themselves as like untouchable yet forgivable? Like [00:17:00] everything you’re saying is true. Like, I don’t disagree with anything. I just don’t understand because there are a lot of critics in the Apple world. Why is the general population so willing to forgive these shortcomings?

[00:17:14] Christina: I think, if I’m being completely honest, it’s because the original, um, products were so good for so long that there has been two things. I think that one, there’s like a reputational, um, halo that has, that is no longer accurate, to be honest, but has persisted. And I think that it’s also a thing where people don’t realize how much worse it’s gotten and what the capabilities of other things are.

[00:17:43] Brett: I think, I think because it is an ecosystem, because once you have an iPhone and a Mac and an iPad, you are by default using Apple services. And I think a lot of people don’t have a point of comparison.

[00:17:57] Christina: what I’m saying. That’s what I’m saying. They don’t know. They don’t. That’s exactly what I’m [00:18:00] saying. Like, they don’t actually know, like, what the options are for other places.

[00:18:03] Brett: Yeah, that makes sense. I don’t, I don’t generally, like, I don’t use iCloud for much. Um, I use it if I’m sharing a Pages document, which is rare because I don’t use Pages much. Um,

[00:18:17] Christina: would you?

[00:18:18] Brett: right. So, because again, it’s not best in class. Um, I do, I do like Pages. Numbers is a joke. But, um, Anyway, like, I don’t typically use iCloud for much.

[00:18:32] Brett: I use Dropbox and Google Drive, um, and I don’t, I haven’t dealt with the kind of issues you’re talking about with your iCloud sync, um, because I, not because I don’t think

[00:18:44] Christina: No, totally.

[00:18:45] Brett: because I don’t

[00:18:46] Christina: Well, and well, the thing is, and it’s like, I haven’t had like massive issues in a long time, but they do happen from time to time. And when they do, it’s like a black hole because you can’t force things to sink and you can’t

[00:18:56] Brett: with no It sucks with notes because honestly, [00:19:00] the new version of notes in Sonoma is very good. It’s a great app. It, it, it sure locked a bunch of ideas. Um, and, and, you know, fine. That’s, that is what it is. That’s Apple’s ammo. Um, but. Yeah, it’s a, it’s a good app, but if it’s not reliable, uh, between platforms, which is kind of the whole idea, right?

[00:19:26] Brett: Like,

[00:19:27] Christina: whole idea. Yeah.

[00:19:28] Brett: that sucks. That sucks.

[00:19:30] Mental Health Corner

[00:19:30] Brett: Anyway, do you want to, do you want to do a quick mental health corner before we continue bitching about Apple?

[00:19:35] Christina: Yes. Let’s, let’s do that.

[00:19:38] Brett: I will kick it off. So I, I had that three months of insomnia, right? And, and I was, I was losing my mind and I tried multiple drugs. And then, um, my doctor finally gave up on the FDA approved, um, sleep beds, cause none of them had any effect on me and we switched to large doses of [00:20:00] gabapentin.

[00:20:01] Brett: I’m taking like 1, 200 milligrams of gabapentin a night, and I’m finally getting some sleep. Um, I talk a lot, apparently. Um, and, and at first, anything over 600 milligrams was causing sleep paralysis. Have you ever had that? Where like, you’re, you’re awake, but your body won’t move because Your body’s still asleep and your brain is like, just desperately trying to like get your body back in motion.

[00:20:29] Brett: Uh, you’re trying to like snap your fingers or kick your leg.

[00:20:33] Christina: think I’ve had it like once.

[00:20:35] Brett: Yeah. I

[00:20:37] Christina: but, but it’s not a common thing.

[00:20:38] Brett: it used to happen to me on occasion, especially if I fell asleep, like on the couch in the afternoon, uh, it was, it was more likely to happen. But first time I took 900 milligrams of gabapentin, it happened, um, within an hour. Uh, and then For three nights following that happened every night.

[00:20:57] Brett: So I went back down to 600, [00:21:00] um, and, and that was working okay. Uh, but then it kind of stabled out and now I’m up to 1200 and no longer getting sleep paralysis. So I am sleeping. I got into, uh, like the sleep medicine department of Gundersen clinic. Um. But they can’t get me in until July 30th, um, to do like a sleep study.

[00:21:24] Brett: So it’s just me and Gabba Penton until then. And yeah, I should, the other thing I wanted to say was, so I’ve been doing IFS therapy, which is all about like, um, finding all the different parts that exist within like, that you are a kind of legion. Um, and, uh, my My couple’s counselor suggested that Ella and I go on like a part state where we talk to each other’s parts instead of like to each other.

[00:21:56] Brett: Um, and that went pretty horribly at [00:22:00] first. Uh, but there was one point where like, I was feeling, uh, like My ADHD was making it impossible for me to research something fully. And then when Elle with her autism did research it, um, they were giving me all kinds of facts and I was getting frustrated that I didn’t know this to begin with.

[00:22:20] Brett: And I felt really shitty about myself and that made me defensive. Um, and they were like, Can you figure out what part of you is angry right now? And so I did a quick scan. I, I talked to this part that came forward and realized that like, my anger around my ADHD is not necessarily part of the ADHD itself.

[00:22:44] Brett: Like ADHD gives me some disabilities, but my frustration level around that Is a part that I can like deal with that. I can like talk to you and step in, like, there’s this like instant, like relief. [00:23:00] Um, and I suddenly wasn’t mad and our evening wasn’t ruined and it was, it was pretty cool. So props to IFS.

[00:23:07] Brett: And that’s my mental health corner.

[00:23:10] Christina: That’s great. I think that’s, I’m really, I’m really happy for you for that. Um, Grant takes Gabapentin, um, uh, to help his restless leg, but he still has massive restless leg stuff, and so he has massive sleep issues. But, um, I don’t think he’s on I have no idea actually what he’s on. I just know he takes it.

[00:23:30] Christina: Um, I don’t have much of a mental health update. Things are going pretty well. Um, I, um, you

[00:23:37] Brett: Your last, your last couple have been, um, pretty, uh, I want to say concerning. Like you’ve had some serious, so I’m glad to hear things have stabled out.

[00:23:48] Christina: yeah, yeah. I

[00:23:48] Brett: how long has it been since we talked? Like three weeks?

[00:23:51] Christina: yeah, but I think even last time we talked I was fine. Like, I don’t know. Um, it, it, you know, it’s been a few months since I’ve had any, I don’t know. I’m [00:24:00] fine for, you know, nothing really, nothing really to add of note. Um, but yeah, you know, just kind of same old, same old.

[00:24:08] Brett: I like your beanie. Um, in, uh, Riverside here, it’s showing up backwards. So it looks like the prism is turning into a single beam of light. Um, for, for those listening, it’s, uh, it’s the Octocat from GitHub in the middle with a beam of light going into it and a prism coming out the other side. Uh, but if, if you read the mirrored version left to right, it looks like a reverse prism, which confused me at first.

[00:24:35] Brett: And then I realized, Oh, I’m seeing it backwards.

[00:24:38] Christina: Right, right. That’s funny.

[00:24:41] Dimspirations Again

[00:24:41] Brett: Yeah, so, uh, let’s see, what topic do I want to direct a source next? Um, I just want a quick plug. Um, I made this thing called the Dimspirations Cube. Um, if you go to dimspire. me, um, you can click [00:25:00] on the Dimspirations Cube in the menu and It is a 3D spinning cube that every time it goes around, it has different inspirations on every side.

[00:25:11] Brett: And I finally got the, um, uh, set delay or set time out with JavaScript to actually, um, stagger so that the image on each side changes while it’s in the back. of the spin. So you never see the transition and it just constantly updates. It will kill your browser if you let it run for about 10 minutes. Um, it’ll eventually, you’ll get the note that says, this page is slowing down your browser.

[00:25:42] Brett: Would you like to kill it? Um, in, in any browser, um, which I want to add, uh, Uh, kind of, uh, caveat to the text on the page that says, Much like, much like life. If you, [00:26:00] if you exist too long, it will die. Or something dim. I want to do something dim. Um, I’m working on that still. But, uh, also the Demspiration store.

[00:26:10] Brett: Has a bunch of new merch, so if you need depressing t shirts or coffee mugs that will upset your co workers, uh, check that out. That’s my plug. I would love to hear, I would love to hear about XZ though, so I’m going to turn it over to you.

[00:26:25] The XZ Back Door

[00:26:25] Christina: Okay, so there was a massive, um, backdoor, there’s a, a, a potentially cataclysmic, um, security event in the last, um, uh, a week or so. Um, it wound up not being, um, cataclysmic because, um, frankly of a, a confluence of just like luck. Um. Um. But xz is the, is a compression algorithm. And, um, xz utils is, is, you know, kind, kind of like what, what, uh, manages that.

[00:26:52] Christina: And, and it’s, it’s, it’s used in, um, uh, like a, it’s, it’s a compression utility that’s basically used all over, uh, [00:27:00] like Linux systems. And it’s actually like a, um, a dependency in a lot of projects, including. And, um, it’s a, it’s an important project, but maybe not like a very sexy one. And it’s had like one core, you know, maintainer, the guy who kind of created the, the, the format and has maintained like kind of the, the utility or whatever for a long time.

[00:27:20] Christina: Um, and he’s, um, but, but he’s the only guy and he doesn’t do it for And, um, it doesn’t really, you know, have a lot of time to add features with it. Um, and then there’s this other person who, uh, the, the name that they were using, uh, to contribute was, was Jia Tan, and they’ve been contributing, you know, for about two years.

[00:27:39] Christina: And, you know, making some patches, doing, I guess, some other work off list is, is what the original developer said. And, um, This person was actually eventually made a maintainer. Now, a little bit of background about why this person was potentially made a maintainer. On the ex emailing list about two years ago, there were some kind of [00:28:00] fly by night, um, posters who now, it appears suspicious, but it’s, I don’t think we have enough information to read whether they were socks or not.

[00:28:11] Christina: Um, basically we’re, we’re badgering the maintainer to do more. We’re basically like, if you don’t have enough time and resources for this, then you need to just give this project to someone else. And, you know, you’re, you’re not doing enough. And he was like, well, you know, I’m not paid for this. And, you know, I’ve had mental health struggles and I have been working with this other, you know, person off list.

[00:28:29] Christina: And so, you know, they might even be taking a stronger role in the project, you know, stay tuned. And they’re like, well, I’m sorry for your mental health struggles, but. You know, basically, if you can’t, if you can’t do this stuff, then you need to just like, you know, pass it on because this is not acceptable, blah, blah, blah.

[00:28:43] Christina: And, you know, just kind of shitty, typical entitlement that a lot of open source people have. Um, and, and not just open source people, to be clear, like just a lot of people have. But it, but it is kind of a common, Um, you know, it’s not like when I, when I read through that interaction on the mailing list, [00:29:00] um, and, and there’s like some good rundowns that have this entire kind of timeline of things.

[00:29:04] Christina: Um, nothing about that particularly stands out to me. Here’s, here’s what we do know though. So this, this person who’s brought in as a code maintainer and who, uh, in January took over, um, the, like the webpage, which was put on GitHub and actually made the first kind of releases directly under themselves.

[00:29:23] Christina: They inserted a backdoor into XZ Utils that would, would allow people to basically be able to SSH into other machines without any sort of authentication. And so it was like a, uh, as root. And so, This was, this was a bad, bad thing. And the way that they inserted the backdoor was obfuscated. So if you just looked at the patch, you wouldn’t really be able to tell what was happening.

[00:29:48] Christina: And they’d made some other changes to some other code, like they inserted in a typo into one of the, the original maintainers, like the creators. Commit that wound up, um, I guess like, uh, like blocking a certain [00:30:00] security check or something. There were a lot of things that they were doing that would have made this very, very hard for anyone to pick up on.

[00:30:06] Christina: Then what they did, they released like one version and then they released like a point release. They went and they talked upstream to all the big Linux distros, you know, um, uh, uh, Fedora and Red Hat, uh, uh, Sousa, um, uh, Debian. Um, they, they were in talks with Ubuntu, um, about going ahead and upstreaming.

[00:30:25] Christina: that latest release into their distros. None of the mainstream, like the main release distros, long term support or official releases, adopted it. But like OpenSUSE, Tumbleweed, which is their rolling release, Fedora 40, which is at this point like Fedora is a bleeding edge thing, and Debian Unstable all did adopt it.

[00:30:47] Christina: And so, um, but it was only there for maybe a month. Um, OpenSUSE basically says to people, if you were running Tumbleweed, At this point, we think you need to do a complete system restore, um, just to protect against [00:31:00] everything. And then what happened is the code was there for about a month. It was never, um, acted on to anyone’s knowledge.

[00:31:05] Christina: Um, but, um, a Postgres developer, he works at Microsoft as his day job, but in his no night job, like, he’s just like an all around nerd, noticed that, um, That SSH on his machine, which was running Debian Unstable, was slower than it should have been by like a fraction of a second. He was like, what’s going on?

[00:31:24] Christina: And so as he was looking into the performance reasons for that, he realized something had changed within XZ, which as I mentioned before, is a dependency on OpenSSH. And he went further into the code and further into the code and realized what was happening. So, uh, But the thing is, is that this person up until inserting this backdoor had been an innocuous and, and fairly good committer.

[00:31:48] Christina: Like this, there was not, there was no flags that, that would have let this go on. They’ve been working on the project for two years. So, so it had to be state sponsored. Like in, in my opinion, there’s no way that this was [00:32:00] not a state sponsored thing. There’s no way. Um, the, the person’s name, they apparently had very good OPSEC.

[00:32:06] Christina: They, they did log, um, their names maybe a little bit different. differently a couple of times for their Git commits, but there’s no like reference to this person anywhere else on the internet other than, you know, the, the few, you know, like, um, uh, other kinds of related, um, uh, open source things that they made, um, uh, um, commits to.

[00:32:26] Christina: So this person did OPSEC really, really well. Um, there’s, there’s, you know, I’m sure there, there can be forensics and, and people can get involved, try to like, learn more about like where this person was, like. I think that most people assume because of the name that the person was, um, uh, Malaysian or, or Chinese, um, but the, the time zones they worked in makes it seem like they possibly could have been based in Eastern Europe.

[00:32:50] Christina: It’s unclear. Like, the whole thing is though, like it’s a, it’s a cypher, but it probably, it almost certainly was state sponsored and it’s opened up a lot of questions. In the open [00:33:00] source world, I think a few things, like one, it’s like, how many of these are out there, right? Like we caught this one, but how many of these projects are out there?

[00:33:08] Christina: Because if you were doing a state sponsored thing like this, you probably wouldn’t target one. You’d probably target like a bunch of different projects. So how many of these things are out there? And, and I think that’s like a good question to have. And like a scary thing to consider because there just isn’t enough, like open source, a lot of it runs on trust.

[00:33:23] Christina: And, And it’s easy, it’s easy for people to be like, Oh, well, you should demand, you know, a W 2 and like a social security card and like a photo ID from every person who commits to your code base. That’s not how this works. And that’s never been the culture. People use, you know, um, acronym, you know, like aliases all the time to contribute.

[00:33:41] Christina: You know, people never meet each other face to face. You have people who, that’s just not how it works. And pseudonym,

[00:33:46] Brett: sure. And if someone is contributing valid code, you know, over two years, if someone is like, that’s how you build trust in open source is you, you make, you make solid patches, you make solid commits, [00:34:00] and

[00:34:00] Christina: you take over

[00:34:00] Brett: people are like, this guy knows what he’s doing. Yeah.

[00:34:03] Christina: you take over for a maintainer who has already been put upon and hasn’t been supported. Like, there’s like a lot of, um, you know, yeah. Like this was a really long con. So, you know,

[00:34:15] Brett: pretty

[00:34:15] Christina: of this. It’s really insidious and it’s really scary to think about, but I think the bigger thing, like other than just like how many more of these instances are out there, because there are many of them.

[00:34:25] Christina: And, um, just like with Heartbleed, which was almost exactly 10 years ago, you do have the usual sources who are trying to be like, yeah, well, this is why I don’t

[00:34:31] Brett: years.

[00:34:32] Christina: 10 years. Literally, it’s 10 years tomorrow. Um, that Heartbleed, you know, the, the, the big, the first real famous, you know, um, uh, vulnerability.

[00:34:42] Brett: vulnerability.

[00:34:44] Christina: Um, oh, that was SSL, but yeah,

[00:34:46] Brett: Oh yeah, yeah,

[00:34:47] Christina: but like, but you know, which I think the only reason that was mitigated so well was because they made it, you know, they gave it a brand, gave it a website and, um, But, you know, I’ve seen some people make, you [00:35:00] know, comments, well, this is why I don’t trust open source software.

[00:35:02] Christina: I’m like, well, okay, first of all, your proprietary shit is not any better. Don’t get it twisted. Also, you can’t escape it. Like everybody, like, you know, something like, like 60 something percent or 70 something percent of code, like from when they do audits, like all software is like made up of open source libraries.

[00:35:20] The Future of Open Source

[00:35:20] Christina: Um, it’s just a fact. But like, for me, the bigger thing is, Okay, so you have this important dependency, this project that all these people rely on, and it’s just like with, with Heartbleed, with OpenSSL, where in that case you had this incredibly important project that was made, that had one full time employee.

[00:35:38] Christina: In this case, you have one person who’s been the maintainer, who’s not paid for it, who’s not supported by anything, and it is yet this crucial project. And, and it’s just kind of Okay, well, like, what are we doing? Like, it’s great that the code is all out there and that people are willing to volunteer and do stuff, but companies make, like, real money off of these things, and, and what are we going to [00:36:00] do to create sustainable environments for people to, um, you You know, contribute.

[00:36:06] Christina: And what are we going to do to like audit and make sure that these really important projects like that you don’t just have like one guy with burnout who, to be clear, even if he hadn’t had burnout, like this sort of situation could have caught anybody, right? Like you could have had a really, really strong, you know, complete system.

[00:36:23] Christina: And if somebody had built enough trust, this, this sort of thing could have gotten in, right? But, um, It makes it harder when you have people who like, you know, millions and millions and millions of things depend on this. Um, maybe not millions, but definitely hundreds of thousands, you know, packages depend on this thing.

[00:36:43] Christina: And it’s not like a priority. Like no, no, like if nobody used you to check in and be like, Oh, should we make sure that we can have support contracts or that we’re giving money to this guy or that we’re making sure that like, this is a sort of thing that has support so that we can. Check on this. Or at the very least, like, [00:37:00] we should do, you know, audits every five years on the, you know, X number of, you know, dependent upon packages.

[00:37:06] Christina: I don’t know. I just feel like we have to have, like, broader conversations about, like, how do we support people who do this and, um.

[00:37:14] Brett: Yeah. It gets weird because like I run the Oracle DevRel GitHub org and the whole reason that we have a separate, uh, organization for DevRel is because we want to make it as easy as possible for people to contribute. Uh, for people to contribute working non production example code. But in order to make it easier, we have to circumvent a lot of the security measures.

[00:37:46] Brett: Like we have kind of, it’s like a buddy system where we have to, we have to trust one maintainer who has to review every pull request and approve it. So there’s like an audit trail, but every repo has [00:38:00] a different. Maintainer, and we trust them because they have an Oracle email address, um, and that’s basically all it takes to become a maintainer on any of these repos.

[00:38:12] Brett: So, um, this is, this isn’t like core libraries that are going into other code, but it is code that is being executed by, you know, thousands of people who are using it and, like, It’s that trust issue. Like the, I don’t, I don’t think that open source could maintain the forward momentum it has if we had to restrict it.

[00:38:46] Brett: With additional security measures. But based on this, I don’t know if there’s another way, like this is, this is a big conversation to have.

[00:38:55] Christina: well, and the thing is, though, I don’t know if the security measures here would have helped necessarily, right? Like, I think it’s definitely one [00:39:00] of those things where, like, it, you, you can make an argument that, um,

[00:39:05] Brett: Sure. Like even if he’d met him in person, it sounds like the guy knew everything he had to do to build up the necessary trust.

[00:39:13] Christina: right, right. I think, I think for me, the bigger thing is, it’s just like, okay, what, what do I need to do? Like, what, what do we need to do to make sure that, like, we don’t just have these single, these single projects?

[00:39:27] Brett: sure, even if, even if you had someone that truly was trustworthy, um, and a state decided to pay them enough money to turn that trust into a vulnerability,

[00:39:41] Christina: Oh, that’s

[00:39:42] Brett: um, So like you could have all the security, you could have someone completely vetted for maintaining a project and enough money, enough, uh, threats, enough, you know, whatever a state sponsored attack [00:40:00] would look like, um, you could probably turn a trusted, uh, operator into, uh, a vulnerability that, yeah, that’s messed up.

[00:40:10] Brett: Because you’re right, like, this code, these open source projects are the basis, the foundation of so many, um, even, like, corporate projects, like,

[00:40:21] Christina: Oh, yeah.

[00:40:22] Brett: uses, Oracle uses a lot of open source, like, and, and

[00:40:27] Christina: Everybody does. Everybody on the planet does. Like you can’t not at this point, like it’s, it’s almost impossible not to, you know?

[00:40:34] Brett: Yeah. Oh man, this is

[00:40:36] Christina: So it is problematic, but yeah, but I just, I hope that we can do more to like hopefully help like, I, I just feel really bad for the original maintainer who was clearly burnt out and, and wasn’t, you know, nobody, nobody seemed to care.

[00:40:49] Christina: Right. Um, and, and, and it wasn’t even on anybody’s radar. And I mean, it’s also one of those things that it’s like, you know, I don’t know, I If there are these, even [00:41:00] when I think about trust, I’m like, and this isn’t to any way knock any people who work on these projects, but if you have these, these dependencies that are incredibly important and that are incredibly insidious, maybe we should be doing audits of them.

[00:41:09] Christina: Like that’s like open SSL was, was one of those where nobody, you know, I found this thing that I wrote 10 years ago about, um, open source and says, you know, you know, Heartbleed exposes a problem with open source, but it’s not the one that you think. And everything that I wrote, like, unfortunately.

[00:41:27] Christina: Completely still accurate today. And, and it’s just, it’s disappointing that we haven’t found a way to make those things more sustainable. Especially when people make money off of this. And, and it’s, there are things we can do. Like I know we’ve internally at GitHub, we’re trying to talk about how we can maybe do more to Surface what some of these important projects are, but we’ve gotta like do that where we have to do some more serious audit trails.

[00:41:49] Christina: And like, certainly I know the Linux kernel is going to be taking a lot of steps to probably, you know, beef up what they’re, you know, willing to do and, and at the [00:42:00] distro level, right? Like, I’m sure there are a bunch of conversations happening now from people about, okay, like, are we accepting this new code version or not?

[00:42:07] Christina: And what are we doing and, and what, what sort of auditing are we doing because this. Yeah, it’s really bad.

[00:42:16] Brett: All right. Well, that was a, we have a lot of complaints today.

[00:42:19] Christina: We

[00:42:19] Brett: Complaining about Apple, complaining about open source in general. Wow.

[00:42:24] Christina: complaining about people abusing stuff, I don’t want to complain about open source per se.

[00:42:29] Magical Keycaps

[00:42:29] Brett: Yeah. So before we get into Graptitude, there’s one topic I want to know if you have any experience with. Um, have you ever bought resin key caps for mechanical keyboard?

[00:42:41] Christina: Resin ones, no.

[00:42:43] Brett: so I’m holding up a key right now that has. It’s like an interstellar key that’s clear resin. And I have ones that have Koi, I posted a Flickr image in the Quip Doc. [00:43:00] Um, I have ones that have Koi swimming around in them. One with Mantis Ray, I’m getting one that has an astronaut inside of it to be my hyper key.

[00:43:09] Brett: Um, some of the ones I ordered, I accidentally ordered SA profile instead of OEM profile. So I lost like a hundred dollars worth of. Because they’re like 40 bucks a piece for these keys, uh, 20 to 40 bucks. But Etsy is full of crazy ass resin keycaps. And by the time I’m done, my, my, I want my keyboard to be, um, symmetrical and cool looking, but I keep trying different different creators and different resin keycaps trying to find the one that I want to like proliferate around my keyboard.

[00:43:44] Brett: I love the Koi ones, but they don’t backlight. Um, and so they look dark on my otherwise backlit keyboard. And like, I have all ceramic keys now. I’m really loving this. And, and now just as I’m getting this keyboard [00:44:00] put together, I started looking into like lily keyboards and, and like, Like the newer versions of Ergo Docs keyboards.

[00:44:09] Brett: I have an ergo docs I need to update, but like some of these that are, that have like a splayed thumb key, uh, organization and, and, and very minimal like actual keys, like everything is done with layers. Um, I am going nuts with keyboards right now, but these resin key caps, oh, by the way. If you want to get into crazy ass keyboards, but you don’t want to do a bunch of soldering, go to Etsy.

[00:44:42] Brett: There are creators on Etsy that will give you pre soldered keyboards of any of the like crazy cool, even the ones that like curve up. Have you seen these? It’s like splayed and then the keys, like the whole thing curves up and. [00:45:00] Yeah, it’s, it’s nuts. I’ll post some links in the show notes. Um, and I really, before I invested in one of those really crazy ones, I would want to try it.

[00:45:12] Brett: But I live in an area where there’s like, no meetups, there’s no meetups. And I have like no friends that would have this kind of keyboard that I could try out. So I might look in Minneapolis, see if I can find like a meetup where everyone will bring their crazy ass keyboard and I can see what actually feels good. Um,

[00:45:32] Christina: I hope. That’s cool. Yeah, no, I do know Etsy is a thing where you can do some of that stuff, but no, that’s fun.

[00:45:38] The Future of Blogging

[00:45:38] Christina: Oh, did you want to talk about your blog? About how blogging sucks?

[00:45:41] Brett: Yeah. How much time do you have?

[00:45:43] Christina: Let’s do it.

[00:45:44] Brett: Um, yeah, so I, and I, I, I posted, uh, uh, kind of just opinion piece on the state of, um, blogging in, in 2024, [00:46:00] um, and I feel like it could have, I could have, um, Steel man some of the arguments, um, by offering some actual numbers and I may go back and revise the piece and try to organize it a little bit better because it was very stream of thought, stream of consciousness.

[00:46:17] Brett: But, um, I have watched mine and Other blogs that 10 years ago, like we were, we were sharing each other’s links. We were getting mentioned on like Lifehacker and News Hacker, uh, Hacker News, and during Fireball, you’d get fireballed once in a while and it would all result in, uh, Increasing your readership.

[00:46:42] Brett: Um, you would see it in your traffic stats. You would see it in your RSS stats, and that is not happening anymore. Um, my blog has gone from about 20, 000 page views a day to more like 20, 000 page views [00:47:00] a week. So. What’s that, a 70 percent decrease? I don’t do math well. Um, but, like, traffic is down. My, I have about 35, 000 RSS readers, and that number hasn’t grown for like 5 years.

[00:47:20] Brett: Uh, despite like projects like Bunch get written up in fucking German print magazines, blogged all over the place, mentioned on like, uh, Automators with David Sparks, and I get like a lot of downloads because of that. But the readership does not increase. Like, it used to be, like, Mood Blast. Back in the days when Tuas started, when David Chartier at Tuas started covering Mood Blast, like, I watched, I watched my, my daily traffic go from, like, a hundred visits a day to a thousand visits a day.

[00:47:56] Brett: And that sustained. Like, that was sustainable. And [00:48:00] then you’d get Doug. You remember Digg? Of course, you remember Digg. You have a fucking didactic memory. Um, so, like, you’d get dug, and those people would stick around. But now, it’s like, now instead of newsreaders, people are using social media. And we share our links of interest into social media, where even our own followers have a hit or miss chance of seeing them because of, you know, The algorithm, quote unquote.

[00:48:28] Brett: Um, and like people are, they’ll make one visit and then they’ll go back and expect the next cool thing to show up on Twitter instead of, um, you know, adding this cool site to their RSS feed. Like nobody, that’s just not a thing anymore. Um, so there’s no way for an independent blogger to build reliable, sustainable traffic.

[00:48:54] Brett: Not in the way that it was 10, even 20 years ago. Um, so that’s what the [00:49:00] piece is about. It’s, it’s just, it’s accepting things have changed. Like the header image for the post is Clint Eastwood from Gran Torino. Uh, because it really, by the time I was done with it, it felt like a real get off my lawn kind of post.

[00:49:17] Brett: Um, but it’s not. It’s just, I don’t have the hustle. I watch people that succeed, like on YouTube and TikTok, and kind of these Newer platforms and medium and, uh, what’s the sub stack, which everyone’s fleeing from now, but like people who succeed on those platforms have a level of hustle that I just don’t, I just, I don’t have that energy.

[00:49:44] Christina: Well, I wonder if that’s what the difference is, if I can be, like, bold enough to maybe, like, question that. Right? Like, I don’t disagree. I don’t disagree with, like, the core of what you’re saying. Like, the way that we discover and get content now is different. And blogs, like, if I were to talk to somebody today and they’re like, oh, I want to [00:50:00] start a blog today, and they’ve never done anything else, I wouldn’t, I would say, maybe have a newsletter.

[00:50:06] Christina: Right? I would say, like, you know, maybe you can still do your blog, but maybe do a newsletter, and I would say, you know, you’re going to have to be active places like, you know, like, uh, Threads, or, or, you know, Mastodon, Thread, Threads is much more normally focused. Um, You know, potentially look into, you know, doing some video content, if that’s the sort of thing you want to do.

[00:50:29] Christina: If it’s just text based though, like newsletters, uh, for at least the last like six years have been, um, a much, um, more common medium for, for people to kind of get used to and it kind of took over blogging. But I think the secondary part, like you said, like people who like you said, have the mediums and the sub sacs and all that, they have a hustle.

[00:50:47] Christina: I think, I wonder how much of it is that, right? It’s that like, you know, You’ve done this consistently for a really long time, and so you have your core audience of people, but if you want to grow that audience, I think, I don’t know, I [00:51:00] think there’s an argument made that like, there is a certain amount of hustle you have to do, and you probably, you had that hustle when you started, Getting into this stuff like 20

[00:51:07] Brett: but I’m 45 now and I just don’t, I

[00:51:10] Christina: Yeah, and I don’t blame you I

[00:51:11] Brett: energy to start again.

[00:51:13] Christina: I don’t blame you. I but I just I just I don’t know I feel like that’s the real thing is that the the hustle never stops like some people can you have to be content with okay? Well, then my audience isn’t gonna grow.

[00:51:25] Brett: So the other point in this post though, is that even those who hustle, um, the, the revenue stream is heavily geared towards the platform now, um, where you are hustling to make content that you don’t own. You know, the platform you put it on owns it and the platform that you put it on monetizes it and you see a fraction of, of ad revenue come to you.

[00:51:53] Brett: Um, and so in order to succeed, you need a million plus viewers,

[00:51:59] Christina: Um,

[00:51:59] Brett: [00:52:00] you can

[00:52:00] Christina: we’re going to be very targeted and what you’re doing and and have loyal audiences and be able to do like if you’re not

[00:52:06] Brett: Patreon or

[00:52:08] Christina: Right. Yeah. Like Patreon, um, or be in markets where people like, you know, uh, brands will recognize you. Advertising right now is bad and digital, um, for everything, basically everything but video and, and even video, the rates I’m, I bet are, I don’t know this definitively cause I, I don’t, I don’t have any, um, uh, knowledge on this and, and the video CPMs are, are, uh, a weird black box anyway.

[00:52:31] Christina: Uh, YouTube really doesn’t like to share that. And, and weirdly Influencers, and I think this is to their detriment, um, don’t share like what sorts of money they get from sponsors and stuff. Like it’s not a discussed thing, even amongst podcasting and stuff, right? Like it’s, well, which is so stupid because we do talk about salaries now, like levels on FYI, you can see exactly what you should be making, um, in a tech job anyway.

[00:52:55] Christina: Right. And they, those exist for a lot of industries. We finally got to the point where we’re willing to talk about salaries, [00:53:00] but yet we don’t talk about like, okay, what are you getting paid for a sponsorship? And. Um, and for advertising, when you have those direct relationships, I’m not talking about programmatic, which is a completely different thing and is bad and will always be, you know, to the bottom, right?

[00:53:15] Christina: Like, those rates will never be good and it’s always a volume play. But, um, I think that the only place where, you know, uh, like advertisers are really willing to spend money right now, because digital advertising in general is just really taking a beating right now, is on video. Um, but, but on that, right, like you’re right, you are dependent on the algorithms, you’re dependent on the platform you’re on, you’re dependent on, you know, what you can get, and, and it’s hard to build, like, loyalty around that.

[00:53:44] Christina: Um, And, and it’s sort of ironic because you have the people at the first wave of the web, right? Like, you know, people like you and John Gruber and Neil Dash and, you know, like Merlin and people who were like all part of this early wave, like did really well. Um, and, [00:54:00] and, you know, most people kind of succumbed the, or not, not succumbed, like were able to, were, um, able to resist succumbing to the, um, you know, um, I guess, Lores of those big platforms.

[00:54:13] Christina: But yeah, I think that’s just the world that we’re in now. And if you do want to stay at it though, you have to

[00:54:20] Brett: so my. My point is that that world that we’re in now is geared toward platforms and not creators and that and that things have changed and it’s not to the benefit of original content on the web.

[00:54:38] Christina: No, absolutely not.

[00:54:39] Brett: So yeah, so you agree with my thesis.

[00:54:41] Christina: completely agree with your thesis. I totally agree with your thesis. I think I just only, my only disagreement a little bit is that it’s just almost like

[00:54:50] Christina: the It’s definitely harder than it was 20 years ago, and the circumstances are different. But [00:55:00] there is, like, and you’re not wrong that even if you put in the hustle, your returns would not be what they were back then. But I feel like, no, I think, I think you nailed it. Like, what’s happened is, is what’s happened.

[00:55:13] Christina: I just think that, like, at a certain point, like, I don’t know. I guess I’m more jaded because I just, I’ve, I’ve seen this evolution happen over the last, like,

[00:55:20] Brett: Well, you’ve been part of it. Yeah,

[00:55:22] Christina: Yeah, but it is disappointing. Um, I think, I think what sucks though, is that for the average like Reader or listener or whatever, like, on the one hand, the platforms made it easier for them to maybe find and discover things and have to do less work, right?

[00:55:41] Christina: But then on the other hand, like, I, I wonder how many people, like, cause I’m, I’m guilty of this myself, right? Where they’ll be like, Oh, I used to read this person. I used to do this thing. And then you fall off, right? Because you don’t see their content recommended anymore. You don’t see their, you don’t

[00:55:54] Brett: Yeah. And, and newsletters, newsletters show up in your inbox and, and you keep up with them. And I think [00:56:00] newsletters are a valid, um, a valid way for creators to expand their audience. And every newsletter that I’m part of asked me to. You know, become a Patreon subscriber or whatever platform they’re on. Um, and that, that seems to be a way to make money.

[00:56:15] Brett: Um, in a way that trying to break into like YouTubing that takes, you need, there’s an investment to become like a well known YouTuber.

[00:56:29] Christina: Oh yeah.

[00:56:30] Brett: you, you don’t do that without a team, without equipment. Like there’s

[00:56:34] Christina: don’t want to say that about a

[00:56:35] Brett: an investment.

[00:56:36] Christina: You don’t necessarily have to have a team, but you do need to have time and equipment and hustle. Like, you cannot do video without hustle, and it’s a grind, but I have watched channels go from very small to very large over the course of a year. And, People who are, you know, not, like, being funded outside things, like, that’s definitely possible, but it takes [00:57:00] a lot of work, right?

[00:57:01] Christina: Like, all

[00:57:02] Brett: of hustle.

[00:57:03] Christina: a lot of these things take a lot of work, whereas, I think 20 years ago, it was one of those things, you had a blog, and everybody else who knew about blogs would find you, and that’s just not the

[00:57:12] Brett: and all you had to do is make good shit and, and you would be, you would be rewarded for making good shit. Anyway, um, quick sponsor break. This episode is brought to you by nothing. Um, are you overwhelmed by choices when it comes to your disposable income? Try nothing. It’s inexpensive, and if you try it, you’ll be surprised how much you don’t miss something.

[00:57:37] Brett: Head to dimspire. me and follow hashtag dimspirations for more cooking tips.

[00:57:44] Grapptitude

[00:57:44] Brett: Um, so that brings us to, uh, Graftitude. Are you prepared for Gratitude? I, I kind of picked mine last, last minute. I’ll, I can go first if

[00:57:56] Christina: you go first.

[00:57:57] Brett: while I

[00:57:57] Christina: yeah, you go first, because I’m trying to, I’m trying to think about what I wanted [00:58:00] to choose, so go

[00:58:01] Brett: Um, my pick for the week is Screens, which I don’t know if we’ve talked about before. I’ve lost track.

[00:58:07] Christina: have, but, but, but talk about it anyway.

[00:58:10] Brett: Um, they, they recently pulled out of, uh, Uh, I think they were on set up, but I had

[00:58:17] Christina: are only in the Mac App Store now.

[00:58:19] Brett: yeah, and I believe they’re subscription only now. Uh, which,

[00:58:23] Christina: But you can pay for a lifetime for the thing of, it’s just expensive.

[00:58:27] Brett: I get it. I like, I got a free lifetime license cause I’m that cool.

[00:58:32] Brett: But, um,

[00:58:33] Christina: I paid for mine. Um, I think, I, I think, and I, I was trying to do the math in my mind if it was going to be like worth like doing the lifetime or doing the yearly. I did do the lifetime, but yeah, but I think it was for a family, it was expensive, but well, not expensive. It’s good. It’s good for what it is, for sure.

[00:58:46] Brett: yeah. Screens is in my opinion, the best VNC client. Um, I. Don’t know what happened with, um, you know how in, on a Mac, when you load [00:59:00] up a server, there’s a share screen

[00:59:03] Christina: Yeah.

[00:59:03] Brett: button. Um, I just, it, I, I hate the built in, like what used to be remote desktop, like. Screens fills in all the blanks, all the password saving, all the shared clipboard, all the file drag and drop.

[00:59:20] Brett: Uh, you can mask a remote screen so that people can’t see what you’re doing on the machine you’re controlling. Um, so in like, uh, shared environments that can be really important. And, uh, you can, uh, If you’re sharing a screen with somebody who’s active, you can like share control of the screen or, or take full control of the screen.

[00:59:42] Brett: And all of these things that kind of, I’m pretty sure remote desktop used to be pretty good at.

[00:59:47] Christina: Yeah, and, and they haven’t updated a remote desktop in like five years because

[00:59:51] Brett: do you even get remote desktop? Is it part of like, yeah, okay.

[00:59:55] Christina: have to buy it, and it’s in the app store, but it’s like 75 or something, or 150. It’s [01:00:00] more than, it’s more than screens. So screens for family, like the lifetime, well no, family is included for all of them, so screens is 79 for lifetime.

[01:00:07] Christina: Apple remote desktop, let me see what this is right now, um, or it’s 25 a year, um, So, uh, I think when I talked about it, uh, back in December, it had just The Screens 5 update had just come out. Yeah, Remote, Apple Remote Desktop is also 80. So they’re the same price, but it hasn’t been updated since, like it’s had, like it got like a point release update like five months ago, but it’s been at the 3.

[01:00:34] Christina: 9 series for, for seven years. Okay. So, so it is not an actively, like this is one of those products that Basically, like, I think the only valid reason at this point to buy Apple Remote Desktop would be if you were doing a lot of management of, um, Macs, like as a, as like a Mac admin, where you’re needing to install a bunch of service, um, patches and other sorts of things.

[01:00:58] Christina: And in that case, I’m going to be [01:01:00] honest, you probably have better MDM solutions. Um, then that, that would, that would work better than, than what Apple Remote Desktop does. So if you’re not like a, a Mac admin, if you don’t have a fleet of Macs that you’re trying to manage, that it is no longer like a program that you should buy, in my opinion.

[01:01:18] Christina: And, um, for regular users, when Apple, uh, nerfed, you know, kind of like the, the, the easier way for people to be able to remotely log in and they kind of, you know, like, like fucked a bunch of that stuff, like screens really stepped in. Um. to its, um, to its shoes. And I certainly think that for, the fact is, you know, you can also use it on iPad and iPhone and access things that way.

[01:01:43] Christina: Like it’s a really, really, really good app.

[01:01:45] Brett: Can, can remote desktop, uh, connect to Windows and Linux machines? I assume it’s a VNC. No. Cause screens, screens can. Screens, screens can connect to any VNC server. Um, and I run, I [01:02:00] run multiple Macs in my basement that have no displays attached to them. And I control them entirely with screens. Um, and I can have like all, both of my Mac mini servers and my local desktop all up at once.

[01:02:14] Brett: Um, and I can just drag files between them and, um, my key bindings still work on remote machines. And yeah, so that’s my pick. Sure.

[01:02:24] Christina: and I think screens is, screens is really good. I really like screens a lot, a big fan. I use it all the time. So, um, I’ve been looking at, speaking of like servers and Mac Mini’s and whatnot, I’ve been doing a bunch of research. Uh, I don’t know, maybe I’ll write about it. Who knows? For, um, Like, uh, kind of like, um, I guess OSs or, or kind of front ends for home servers or I guess, uh, other things.

[01:02:53] Christina: And so there is, uh, there’s one called, um, uh, RunTP. Um, it’s, uh, uh, R [01:03:00] U N T I P I, uh, dot I O. And, um, there’s one called, um, I’ve been making a, I made a list. Let me find this. There’s one called, um, Cosmos, and there’s one called, um, Casa OS. So there, there are a couple of these that I’ll put in, but I’ve basically been kind of like investigating various, so basically what these systems are is they’re just easier ways to run and, and kind of launch like Docker containers and, and apps on your home server server.

[01:03:39] Christina: Thank you. Without having to be completely just, you know, in, um, Docker Compose and Ansible Runbooks and stuff. So, um, these are, uh, some of the things that I’ve been looking into. I don’t really have a pick yet as to which one, like, I think is like the best, but I’ll have some links. I don’t know if you have any, um, [01:04:00] experience with anything like this, but

[01:04:01] Brett: No, I, I do it all the hard way. I would love to, I would love to explore this stuff. So yeah, sure. Sure. All your links

[01:04:08] Christina: Yeah, I’ll share all the links to there. Yeah, because yeah, because there’s CASA OS, there’s, uh, RUN, TP, um, there’s Cosmos, um, uh, Cosmos, and they all are, you know, open source. They’re varying degrees of, of, um, I guess, you know, activity and development and whatnot, and some of the things definitely are, um, probably, like, better maintained than others.

[01:04:30] Christina: There are always, I always have kind of, like, security kind of questions about some of these things, but I, um, I like, I like the idea of, um, these types of projects to make it easier for people to self host things. So,

[01:04:46] Brett: God, the CASA OS webpage is very cool.

[01:04:49] Christina: yeah, it is.

[01:04:50] Brett: Nice. I’m jealous. I gotta figure out how to do some of this stuff.

[01:04:54] Christina: Yeah, yeah, and that one has got like 21, 000 stars on GitHub and, um,

[01:04:59] Brett: one [01:05:00] thousand.

[01:05:00] Christina: yeah, and, um, Cosmos has, uh, 2, 600 and RunTP has 6, 600. So I guess the big one, obviously the biggest one is, is CASA OS. So at least in terms of star numbers, but, um, but I don’t know what, what that is saying about anything. But, um, I don’t know.

[01:05:21] Christina: Anyway, I’m a fan, I’m a fan of this type of stuff. Um, I’ve been thinking about getting, I have a bunch of Raspberry Pis, but you can actually now get like, um, an N100 box. Um, Andrew at Ars Technica wrote a review of one and Jeff Gerling has done some reviews of these things too. Basically for like 150 bucks, you can get like a very tiny little box for like a mini PC that has like Windows 11 Pro on it.

[01:05:43] Christina: Um, but of course you could, you know, nuke it and just put Linux on it or whatever that is. Very capable. That is way more capable in most aspects than a Raspberry Pi for about the same amount of money. So, so for people who are just wanting to play around with stuff like that, if you don’t have a random PC around and [01:06:00] you know, because this is an area where like I have some older Mac minis, but at this point like I think one of them I have Proxmox on, I’ve been playing with, and then one of them just like whatever the latest version of Mac OS it can support is, which is old, but like Yeah, it’s something like that.

[01:06:15] Brett: No, I think I got, I think I got mine up to, uh, Catalina.

[01:06:21] Christina: but like, but you know what I mean? But like in, in, in those instances, it’s one of those things where it’s like, okay, um, Mac is great. And if you have a Mac mini that you want to dedicate to those things, that’s, that’s fine. Like, and if you have like for, for your purposes in your basement, you’d like to drag and drop files with, um, You know, using screens, that’s excellent.

[01:06:39] Christina: It is not the ideal platform for anybody to buy into for managing a home server. It is not designed for that. Um, it, the, the best apps won’t run well on it in, in a way that we can actually do things the way virtualization on macOS works, especially for, for Linux derived apps is pretty shit because they don’t allow nested virtualization.

[01:06:59] Christina: Because again, [01:07:00] you know, these are things that we all find acceptable, but are not. Um, and, um, So, you know, and it’s expensive, right? If you wanted to get, like, something with, like, enough RAM to do what you’d want it to do, like, you’re looking at spending over 1, 000, you know, on, like, a Mac Mini, and you’re like, Okay, or I could just buy this very cheap, like, Windows Mini PC.

[01:07:24] Brett: I mean, to be fair, you can get old Intel Mac minis for fifty to a hundred dollars. Um, but, but as you say, they’re not, Yeah, they’re not capable of a lot of things you want to do.

[01:07:38] Christina: No, and really what you want to do on those is like what one of them because I got a couple of them from Um, one of the old guys from Mac. Um, yeah from Orchard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

[01:07:47] Brett: Mac Orchard. Something

[01:07:49] Christina: it was Mac Orchard or something like that Yeah, I bought I bought um some thing that when he was doing up with his kids last summer I got a couple of Mac minis I think for like I tweeted about it, or I posted about it on [01:08:00] Mastodon and basically like gave them massive sales boosts, um, which, which excited the kids, which I was happy about.

[01:08:05] Christina: And they basically cleared out all of their stock. But like I got them, I don’t know, maybe it was 35 or 50 a piece. It was cheap. Right. But like, but like I said, one of them I have macOS running on it just to have it running. The other one I have Proxmox on, like I literally just turned it into a Linux box.

[01:08:20] Christina: Cause at that point, like the hardware is so old, like it still has like 16 gigs of RAM. And like they have, they put in, you know, SSDs and like. Very capable for just running containers and stuff, but it’s not one of those things that I would use Mac OS in any Mac OS way for. So, um, but yeah, um, anyway, those, those are my picks.

[01:08:38] Christina: I just, I’ve been looking at Homebox or Homelab, um, OSes. So

[01:08:43] Brett: What are we going to call this episode? Should it be Apple Bitching? Bitching, bitching about Apple? The Anti Apple Apple Podcast?

[01:08:52] Christina: I, I kind of like that.

[01:08:57] Brett: Apple is dead. That’ll be our title. [01:09:00] Um, anywho. Anyway, um, thanks for joining me. We miss Jeff. Jeff will be back after his, uh, his spring break. Um, and, you know, I, I might rickroll everybody next week. Who knows? Be prepared. Be prepared for, uh, you won’t laugh when it happens. Nobody will laugh. They’ll roll their eyes.

[01:09:24] Brett: But, that’s never stopped me before.

[01:09:27] Christina: No. Why, why, why, why, why would it, why, why would something like that stop you? Right? Like just do, do you like share your truth,

[01:09:36] Brett: Thanks to all of our, thanks to all of our sponsors today. Um, Christina, get some sleep.

[01:09:42] Christina: get some sleep

Erin Dawson, fresh off her latest tour, joins the gang to tell tales from the road. Plus the much-anticipated picks of the week!

Sponsor

Hims is changing men’s healthcare by providing simple and convenient access to science-backed treatments for erectile dysfunction, hair loss, weight loss, and more. Start your free online visit today at hims.com/overtired.

Show Links

• Genital Shame
• Pittsburgh City Paper review of Genital Shame
• Genital Shame on Bandcamp
• ‘Weaponization of 311’: Speculation swarms after Brooklyn’s Saint Vitu…
• Dimspirations Store
• Build your own URL shortener
• Typeface
• Jupyter Lab
• Jupyter Notebooks in VS Code
• Los Angeles Times Jupyter Notebooks
• Monodraw
• AppCleaner

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Transcript

Latent Cheetos Smell

[00:00:00]

[00:00:03] Brett: This episode is brought to you by HIMS. Stay tuned for more info on how they can help you with men’s health. Welcome to Overtired. We are back. Couple weeks off. I’m Brett Terpstra. I’m here with Jeff Severins Gunsel and Christina Warren and special guest Erin Dawson. Welcome to the show, everybody.

[00:00:22] Jeff: WelcomeErinon.

[00:00:25] Erin: Thank you,

[00:00:25] Christina: Erin.

[00:00:26] Erin: Thank you, Christina. Thank you, Brett.

[00:00:29] Jeff: I just want to thank everybody.

[00:00:31] Brett: Erin, introduce yourself.

[00:00:32] Erin: have something to say about hymns first.

[00:00:35] Jeff: Hmm.

[00:00:36] Erin: Um, I think I know what hymns is. And do they also work for, like, lady boners?

[00:00:45] Brett: Well, it depends on the type of lady, I guess.

[00:00:48] Erin: Right, well, ladies that could nominally achieve, like, how’s that work?

[00:00:54] Brett: That’s a, that’s a, it’s a fair question. Uh, we may have to contact their ad department to [00:01:00] find out how they want to spin that.

[00:01:01] Erin: What we may also have to do is start this episode over. I’m so sorry. I probably

[00:01:08] Jeff: Whoa, Brett, no, we don’t have to start over, but Brett, did you just play the intro bit?

[00:01:12] Brett: no. That was, it’s the same voice. Um, my, my website just generated because the current giveaway ended at noon. So it generated the like this, this giveaway is over post and every time it finishes generating, and this happens to me on conference calls all the time, it, it says in Zarbox voice, bam, generated.

[00:01:38] Jeff: Wow, that’s cool. I like it.

[00:01:41] Brett: I love, I love Zarbox. Anyway, Erin, Erin.

[00:01:44] Brett: Aaron,

[00:01:44] Erin: let’s make this about me. Um, hello, my name is Erin Dawson. Full disclosure, I work with one Brett Terpstra. Um, that is what I do for a living, which is to work with Brett. Um, but

[00:01:57] Brett: so than you used to. We’ve kind of moved to different [00:02:00] teams, but yeah.

[00:02:01] Tales from the tour

[00:02:01] Erin: I hate that. Uh, but in my real life, my waking life, my sober ish life, I am a musician, um, and more specifically a black metal musician, uh, with a project called Genital Shame for which I just got back, um, from a tour a couple weeks ago.

[00:02:21] Erin: Uh, started in Chicago, played my hometown Pittsburgh, went to Montreal. Baltimore, Brooklyn, Boston, and ended in Cincinnati. And really, like, it was kind of uneventful. Usually with tours like this, you’re spending six hours on average a day in a van with, you know, boys with, you know, may or may not have Stomach issues.

[00:02:49] Erin: So that,

[00:02:50] Jeff: good smells.

[00:02:51] Erin: that could be a, yeah, uh, an atmosphere creates in the van where you look up and you can start to see cloud formation. [00:03:00] Um, but I’m happy to say like, by the end of it, like I want to spend more time with these people. Uh, my backing band is a band in its own right called Stander from Chicago. But when we we’re on the same label, um, so when we tour, uh, they’re my backing band, but, um, yeah.

[00:03:17] Erin: Highlights include playing Brooklyn. We played St. Vitus, this I don’t know if you’re familiar.

[00:03:23] Jeff: Vitus.

[00:03:24] Erin: Yeah, it’s it’s, uh, I don’t know if you’re familiar, uh, Christina, but it’s it’s sort of a, like, metal institution in in Brooklyn. And, like, two days after Genital Shame played, they were shut down. Uh, hopefully temporarily, they still are for noise ordinance stuff.

[00:03:41] Christina: Damn. Okay. And like, what part of

[00:03:43] Erin: right under the

[00:03:45] Christina: What type of, what part of Brooklyn is

[00:03:46] Erin: green point?

[00:03:47] Christina: Greenpoint? Greenpoint? Okay. So, all right. So it’s been gentrified a lot, but still to get like a noise ordinance complaint, that’s impressive. Uh, honestly, like that’s, that’s,

[00:03:57] Jeff: My, my brother owns two bars in [00:04:00] Greenpoint in Williamsburg next to each other and he has to have the neighbors, he has the neighbors numbers on his cell phone. They call him directly instead of a noise complaint and it happens all the time.

[00:04:10] Erin: At least,

[00:04:10] Jeff: talk them down.

[00:04:12] Erin: like, that’s cool to keep the cops out of it, like, directly

[00:04:15] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I was

[00:04:16] Jeff: That was his thing is he’s like, Hey, can we talk about this?

[00:04:20] Christina: Yeah, right before I moved, they, um, there’s like this backdoor area from like this restaurant that was right next door to us, like right next door to us. And I didn’t like mind so much. It’s just that it was like the patio area, like during the weekend, fine. But like during the week, I’m not going to lie.

[00:04:38] Christina: Like I kind of felt like I was becoming like an old person because, you know, if, if it’s like two o’clock in the morning. And there’s a backyard full of people just like partying. You’re kind of like, okay, I don’t have any choice here. Like, can, can, can you not? But I still, never in my mildest dreams, like, I could never even conceive of calling, like, the police for noise complaint.[00:05:00]

[00:05:00] Christina: Like, it’s

[00:05:00] Brett: I have, I have called the front desk. Um, one year at Macworld, uh, Mac, Mac stock, um, I was trying to sleep cause I was resenting the next morning and it was so noisy. Someone was just having a, a riot. So I called the front desk. I’m like, Hey, I’m in this room. Could you please, um, ask the people in this room to quiet down?

[00:05:21] Brett: Turns out the next day that it was some of my best friends. Like, at the conference, and I had like, I had called, essentially called the cops on them, which

[00:05:31] Christina: Well, I mean,

[00:05:31] Brett: I admitted to. Sorry.

[00:05:33] Christina: mean, I mean, I mean, the thing is, is like, it’s okay to like, be told to like quiet down when it’s annoying as if somebody asks you if you can quiet down and it’s after like 11 PM and you won’t, then I think it’s like, okay, now you’re a Satan. And now actually like if the cops are called, I’m actually completely fine with that.

[00:05:51] Christina: You know what I mean? Like, um,

[00:05:54] Brett: you’re out.

[00:05:54] Christina: Well, no, I mean, the thing is like, we had an incident, um, uh, where, where I live, I’m like, I pay [00:06:00] way too much in rent for this stuff, but I’m on the seventh floor. The only thing above me is the roof deck. And so we have really high ceilings and there was like a massive party happening.

[00:06:08] Christina: And I think like, it was, I was ignoring it. Until I think like 2. 30 and the thing is, is no one’s supposed to be on the roof deck after I think like 11 and, and then, and like they would not shut up and then they were like rude about it and then they were like taunting about it and I was like, okay, I’m, I’m actually going to like file a complaint with the, you know, building that I paid too much money for.

[00:06:32] Christina: Um, I think Grant called the cops. I would never call the cops still because, you know. Fuck that, but like, um, also everyone there to be, to be, just, just, just to put it out there, everyone at the party and everyone who is like, in the building is extremely white and extremely privileged, so there’s like, no risk of, you know, all you’re doing is wasting the cop’s time, which, I mean, honestly, who cares?

[00:06:53] Brett: Okay, so you played, you played the last show, as far as, as far as anyone knows, [00:07:00] the last show at

[00:07:01] Erin: Yeah, yeah. A band called Genital Shame. Um,

[00:07:07] Christina: it.

[00:07:08] Brett: I, uh, I played a show at a place called Nightingales. I can’t remember what borough it was in. It was Queens or Brooklyn, I think. Um, and they told me the next day that they were closing, um, indefinitely. I don’t know if they ever came back, but as far as I know, at least in the year 2000, I played the last show at Nightingales with the

[00:07:31] Christina: Nightingales in Brooklyn, but I probably had it wrong. It’s probably, I’m sure it’s a completely different place, but there was a Nightingales in Brooklyn. But yeah, so, but I’m sure now that was probably a different spot, but congrats, Brett. You, you

[00:07:41] Brett: I, that can’t, that can’t be an uncommon name.

[00:07:44] Christina: No, it can’t be, but yeah, but

[00:07:46] Brett: probably a Nightingale’s in every city. Any other good stories, Erin?

[00:07:54] Erin: It ended, the tour ended unceremoniously in Cincinnati, where [00:08:00] undergraduate’s, uh, floor. And I had bruises on my legs for that, from that, for a while.

[00:08:08] Jeff: That’s ceremonious. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh

[00:08:12] Erin: bruising ceremony of Cincinnati

[00:08:14] Jeff: heh

[00:08:15] Erin: Um,

[00:08:16] Christina: it’s a new song.

[00:08:17] Brett: do you get groupies?

[00:08:24] Erin: I don’t, I don’t kiss and tell. Uh, not really. I, I think like, genital shame is, you know, I’m trans. Like, maybe some of the themes in genital shame, uh, are about, uh, being trans, though not really. Uh, but even Even that little bit of, of information does attract trans listeners, um, and there, the trans community is very incestuous, for sure.

[00:08:52] Erin: Um, but on the, on the road, I keep, I keep an arm’s length, really, in the green room, in the Greenpoint green room. Um, [00:09:00] but, yeah, yeah, not, not really. I, it’s funny, like, My, I am like quite silly in, in real life, but I, my music is not. So it’s, it’s a hard balance for me to strike. And it’s something I think about a lot.

[00:09:15] Erin: Um, like, just like what I say between songs, right? Like the sort of like crowd work you’re doing in, in Brooklyn, actually, uh, before. Our last song, Mike, my guitar player, broke a string and had to change strings on stage right before our last song. It’s just like the, the like, the most nerve wracking gig.

[00:09:38] Erin: Um, but like, so I had to vamp for five minutes and like my eyes rolled back in my head and I just like did bits and uh, like I think I even said like, this is like an anxiety dream in real life. Where like, you’re on stage, the lights are on you, many people are looking at you, and you’re expected to entertain, and you have nothing to [00:10:00] say.

[00:10:00] Erin: There is no script. Uh, but it worked out. Um,

[00:10:04] Jeff: Awesome.

[00:10:05] Brett: I used to, if that happened to us on stage, I used to start playing Crazy Train on bass only. Um, and people would be like, yeah, and then eventually the, the string would get fixed or the, the amp would get replaced. And I would stop because I can only get so far using just a bass on Crazy Train. But when you’re dealing with a bunch

[00:10:26] Erin: when he played an original. Yeah.

[00:10:29] Jeff: Heh heh heh. Oh

[00:10:30] Erin: Yeah, that’s it. That’s it for Tor, really.

[00:10:32] Brett: All right. That we are on, we’re trying to keep our, our total length down. So that’s, I feel like an appropriately sized tour report. Thank you.

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[00:12:21] Mental Health Corner

[00:12:21] Brett: Um, let’s do, uh, let’s do a relatively brief mental health check in.

[00:12:26] Christina: Okay, I’ll start. I’ll start, um, because I figured that Brett probably has things that he wants to go with. Um, unless Erin, unless Erin, unless you would like to start. Um, okay. So I just got back from South by Southwest. I was in Austin for six days, which, that’s a long time. Um, South by was good. I haven’t been in a very long time and I certainly haven’t been since the pandemic.

[00:12:49] Christina: The vibe was kind of weird. I’m not going to lie. Um, It’s big and I know it’s been big for a long time. Um, it was, but, but at [00:13:00] this point, like it, I think it’s like a few things, like they’re, they’re still kind of coming back to the pandemic, figuring out what it is. And then South by like, when you and I used to, did you ever go Brett?

[00:13:09] Christina: I can’t remember if you ever, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like when we used to go like back in the day, like it started out as a music thing, then it expanded to a film thing, then interactive. It was like this tiny little part that quickly became like the biggest part of the whole show. Then all the marketers took over.

[00:13:23] Christina: And then they got like education and health and all these other like little offshoot things, whatever. Um, and, and I stopped going. Um, this time I feel like they don’t know, like it’s too big in, in my opinion to still try to be kind of maybe like through like one like 10 day period because it takes over the whole city and no longer just the downtown area.

[00:13:45] Christina: Like you have to like, you know, to go to certain screenings for certain movies, like you have to go like, far away, which sucks. Um, and, and, you know, certain installations and certain like events would be literally all over the place. I feel like, I don’t know, maybe [00:14:00] it’d be better if they used this as a time to, I’m not saying necessarily be smaller, I’m just saying like refocus.

[00:14:07] Christina: But it’s not my, not my thing, um, to, to make those decisions. GitHub had a, had a party there, um, which was in a, a, a fun location, like a great location, but also a hard to find location. But that was fun. Um, I saw some good panels. I saw some movies. I did karaoke sober. I mean, I got drunker as it went on, but I had to do it sober to begin with, which was the most horrifying thing in my life.

[00:14:30] Christina: So like, um, I, I have so much props for you, Erin, for like going out and doing like actual, like live things, because I realized I was like, Oh, I can’t sing for shit. Like I used to have a decent voice. I don’t anymore. And you’re never more aware of that than when you’re in a karaoke room and you’re sober.

[00:14:49] Brett: I don’t remember if it was South By or CES, but I was at a karaoke bar with the N Gadget crew and Tim Stephens did Ring of Fire and [00:15:00] it was so good.

[00:15:01] Christina: Oh, he would, of course, he’d be good.

[00:15:03] Brett: yeah, and then I immediately followed him trying to do Sweet Child of Mine after a sizable number of drinks, and it went, it, I, it was, I’m still embarrassed, I’m still mortified thinking about it.

[00:15:17] Christina: Yeah, I, um, I, I started out with, with, uh, with, with, um, Taylor Swift’s I Knew You Were Trouble, and it, it was, eh, again, like, I can do that song if I’m drunk, uh, or have a little more, you know, like, liquid courage. The lyric sheet was also slightly off for, for how they were doing, like, the, the pacing on some of the, the line hits, which, like, fucked me up.

[00:15:39] Christina: Um, once I had, like, To vodka cranberries. Uh, and I was still sober. I did Madonna’s Material, girl, that went much better. But then like, as the night went on, like it was fun, but just I guess my mental health, my mental health’s. Okay, I’m, I’m still a DHD as fuck right now. Um, but it was nice to be around people, which is good for me.[00:16:00]

[00:16:00] Christina: And, um, I was able to, uh, actually run into some former in Gadget people from way back in the day. Mostly they were at the Verge now. Um, when I was at, um. South by, uh, the first day when I got in, I wound up having drinks with a lot of people at The Verge and the editor in chief of Wired and, um, some other folks.

[00:16:18] Christina: So that was nice. But yeah, no, I mean, sorry, go on.

[00:16:22] Brett: I’m sorry, just while we’re still talking about South By, was it well attended? Because, uh, both Brian Albee and David Hamilton posted pictures of their plane into Austin and it was completely empty. at the very beginning of the conference.

[00:16:39] Christina: so that’s the interesting thing and that’s I think why I have a hard time kind of like grappling like grokking like What was the attendance because I think they were trying to say, oh, you know There’s a hundred thousand people or something and and I wouldn’t doubt that But because it’s spread all over the place, I don’t know.

[00:16:55] Christina: Like I got in on Thursday night and my, I wasn’t able [00:17:00] to get a direct flight. So that says it right there. Um, and I, and I only got in as late, as early as I did because it was 800 cheaper for me to stay in a hotel longer,

[00:17:10] Brett: Mm

[00:17:11] Christina: which, okay. Um, so it was one of those things that was like, well, you know, if it’s going to be cheaper for me to stay two extra nights, I’m fine.

[00:17:21] Christina: Um, but, um, some panels were empty, some were full, like OpenAI did. Um, uh, they’re, they’re, um, uh, the, the guy who runs product for ChatGPT, who was very good. Like they should put him on stage a lot more because he was very reassuring and, and a very good speaker and like nice. And, and he was great. Like that was in one of the main ballrooms in the commission center.

[00:17:44] Christina: And it was not only packed, there was like overflow. So, and that was on, um, Um, Monday, so I think it depends. I think, I think, uh, busier over the weekend. But, but it’s hard because some of the panels were empty, some things were totally full. [00:18:00] Um, screenings for movies, because I had a platinum badge and I wanted to go to movies, was kind of a pain.

[00:18:06] Christina: If you were able to get like, they had like, kind of like an express pass. everything, kind of like the, the Disney genie pass where as long as you requested, you know, at a certain time, you could, you know, kind of guarantee your spot, but that was kind of hit or miss. So then you have to like show up and basically like, like an hour before the screening starts to get your little ticket and then wait around.

[00:18:26] Christina: And like, that’s fine. Well, but the thing is, is that like, it depends on what theater you’re at. Like if you’re at the normal Alamo draft house on Lamar, then like, okay, whatever. But like if you’re, you know, trying to do other things, it just sort of like, kind of fucks up, like. your plans to get around. But anyway, my self, my, my, my mental health update is that I’m still really ADHD.

[00:18:46] Christina: Um, but it was really nice to be around people and I had some good conversations with colleagues. So that’s it.

[00:18:51] Brett: Nice. All right. Um, I, I can go next. So, I am going on over three months now [00:19:00] without sleeping. Um, I am, um, I cannot remember at this point what it feels like to be well rested. I do not think I am manic. I do not think I’m depressed. I’m actually, considering I’m getting like three hours of sleep a night on average, um, I’m actually functioning really well.

[00:19:20] Brett: My job suddenly remembered I existed. Um, and, and I have been, I have been like inundated with work, which turns out, like, I actually enjoy working. Um, and it was, it was getting pretty scary when, for like months when no one was giving me assignments and I was just, Existing and had like nothing to report on my quarterly report.

[00:19:45] Brett: And, um, so, but I’m dealing with it and I’m dealing with life. I’m keeping the house clean. I’m cooking dinners. Um, I don’t understand how I’m doing this, which makes me think, wow, did I become like type one bipolar? Uh, [00:20:00] is something else going on? Um, I have tried three FDA approved insomnia treatments at this point.

[00:20:06] Brett: I’m. Starting Gabapentin today to see if it works. Um, I have asked my primary care physician for a referral to sleep medicine, um, to do like a sleep study and try to figure out what’s going on because I’m, I don’t have. Anxiety. I’m not having racing thoughts. I just cannot fall asleep. I fall asleep within 15 minutes of laying down.

[00:20:33] Brett: I wake up an hour later and then it’s shot for the night. Um, and I, I, this has never happened to me before. Like, yeah, I’m bipolar. I’ve had manic episodes. My manic episodes last at most a week and this is three months and I don’t know what the fuck’s going on, but it’s killing me.

[00:20:52] Jeff: And then it just like, and then it just like compounds, right? Because like the thing you need to be well asleep

[00:20:57] Brett: Yeah. Yeah. It’s killing me. [00:21:00] It’s killing me.

[00:21:00] Jeff: Maybe you shouldn’t have named your podcast Overtired.

[00:21:03] Brett: Oh, you think I jinxed it?

[00:21:05] Christina: mean, that was, I think that was my bad, actually. I think that was actually my fault, but, um,

[00:21:14] Jeff: to the you was the

[00:21:15] Brett: I remember, I remember this conversation in an elevator

[00:21:18] Christina: an elevator. Yeah.

[00:21:20] Brett: and I don’t remember who said it first, but we were both a hundred percent

[00:21:23] Christina: No, we were both a hundred percent. And yeah, I can’t remember who said it either. I think that one of us, I think said, uh, just really overtired. And then I think we were like, that’s it. That’s the name of the pod. Um, so it was definitely like a group thing, but I don’t remember exactly which one of us. Yeah.

[00:21:37] Christina: Cause we were in an elevator at the Twitter building. Um,

[00:21:41] Jeff: X. It’s called X.

[00:21:43] Christina: No, it was called Twitter then. And that’s what we’re still going to call

[00:21:45] Jeff: I just, I know I just like to troll.

[00:21:47] Christina: I, I, I know, but I like to troll back. Um, so yeah. Um,

[00:21:52] Jeff: me.

[00:21:55] Christina: No, get a, get a sleep study for sure, Brett. Cause that’s not, um, so do you [00:22:00] know definitively that you’re only like, have you like worn an Apple watch or anything?

[00:22:03] Christina: Like, do you know like how much REM sleep you’re getting or anything like that?

[00:22:06] Brett: I do wear an Apple Watch. Um, I have not actually bothered looking at stats because I look at the clock all night long. Um, like I’m not up working like

[00:22:16] Christina: No, no, no, no, no. I get that. No, but I was, what I was saying though, it’s useful. Um, if you wear your Apple watch at night, like I don’t because I baby rest. So I have to wear like the small Apple watch, which means the battery life is bullshit. And if I have to like, It’s just dumb to like sleep in it, but for me, um, and I’m not one of those people who’s yet at the point where I’m like, yeah, I’ll buy a watch to sleep in.

[00:22:36] Christina: No, I can get like a Fitbit or something. I think they still make Fitbits, but they can, um, but if you wear it, like, if you look at the stats, like it’ll actually be able to, to tell you like what amount of

[00:22:44] Brett: deep sleep

[00:22:45] Christina: sleep is happening. And, and so, um, cause that, that’ll help with the sleep study. Cause it’s bad that you’re only getting three hours of sleep, but

[00:22:54] Brett: I’m, I’m hitting, I’m hitting REM. I will have two to three [00:23:00] crazy dreams. In a night with only like a total of three hours of actual sleep. So like I fall asleep, have a crazy dream, wake up, stay awake for half an hour to an hour, and then fall asleep and have another crazy dream. And they’re so memorable.

[00:23:18] Brett: Like I remember all these dreams and I can sit and bore my partner to death with the bizarre details.

[00:23:25] Jeff: but it wasn’t you.

[00:23:27] Brett: It was you, but it didn’t look like you, but I knew it was you. And yeah, it, it was. So there’s this artist named David Usher. Uh, he was in Moist, um, but he’s an amazing solo artist. And in the U S you can’t stream anything before like the live version of the Mile End Sessions.

[00:23:49] Brett: And he has three albums before that, that I absolutely adored and can no longer find and I,

[00:23:57] Christina: his name? I’ll find it for you.

[00:23:58] Brett: David Usher, [00:24:00] I’ve looked on. Torrent sites? I cannot find it. If you find it, let me know.

[00:24:04] Christina: Yeah, I, I, I’m, I’m in private music trackers, so just gimme a

[00:24:07] Brett: okay. Um, and,

[00:24:09] Jeff: music track? Oh, we can

[00:24:10] Brett: well, so what I ended up doing, I ended up ordering actual musical CDs that I’m going to find a way to rip to MP3s so I can do this.

[00:24:22] Brett: But, I had this dream that I met this girl who, like, like, like, as was mentioned, was Elle, but wasn’t Elle. So, And they agreed to, they agreed to sing the discography with me from memory while we were having sex. And it was the weird, like

[00:24:41] Jeff: Lights on, lights off.

[00:24:43] Brett: I woke up singing lyrics to like some of my favorite David Usher songs a couple of times and then fell back into this dream where I was just singing David Usher songs with a girl while we were having what I will say was unsuccessful sex. It was, it was [00:25:00] very, it was, it was laborious,

[00:25:02] Erin: Well,

[00:25:03] Christina: so, so what, what, uh, what years do you need? ’cause I’m seeing, now I’m seeing strange words from 2007. Uh, if God had gers.

[00:25:09] Brett: Yeah. God have curse and morning orbit.

[00:25:12] Christina: Okay. Um, uh, what are hallucinations from 2003?

[00:25:16] Brett: What?

[00:25:17] Christina: There? There, there’s an album called Hallucinations.

[00:25:19] Brett: I’ve never heard that

[00:25:20] Jeff: Welcome to our new segment. Find my music.

[00:25:23] Christina: yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay, well I’ll grab that for you.

[00:25:25] Brett: Yeah. Send me, send me everything you can

[00:25:27] Christina: There’s also little, little songs from 1998.

[00:25:30] Brett: Oh, oh my God. Little songs was what got me into David Usher. I haven’t been able to find that anywhere.

[00:25:37] Christina: Oh yeah, no, I found them all instantly. Yeah, I got

[00:25:39] Brett: my god. Save, save me. That’s amazing.

[00:25:41] Christina: Yeah, I got, I got

[00:25:42] Brett: made my day. I’ll shut up for the rest

[00:25:44] Jeff: We call him, we call him White Usher in Minneapolis.

[00:25:50] Christina: Other usher.

[00:25:51] Brett: Well, if you, if you search like Pirate Bay for David Usher, you get a bunch of stuff from David Guerra featuring Usher.[00:26:00]

[00:26:00] Christina: Usher, that makes sense.

[00:26:01] Brett: Oh

[00:26:02] Christina: Yeah. So, um, uh, I don’t know how much we want to, you know, just fuck it. Um, I’ve been part of these communities for two decades at this point. So there used to be a music tracker called Oink, uh, the Pink Palace, which was a private music tracker that was

[00:26:16] Jeff: Wait, is it like Oink colon the Pink Palace?

[00:26:18] Christina: Well, it was known as the Pink Palace, but it was called Oink, O I N K. And, um, and like it had a pig as its mascot. It was great. It was genuinely the best music site. Trent Reznor was a member. In fact, we talked about it, um, uh, during one of the times that I interviewed him, the Apple people were really not pleased with that.

[00:26:37] Christina: Um, but whatever. And uh, um, that was shut down by the feds in like nine months. Um, and then, um, uh, kind of a hydra of that called WhatCD launched, and that was great. And then WhatCD was shut down by various feds, um, this is all overseas and these people were dumb enough to host things in the United [00:27:00] States, um, in 2016.

[00:27:03] Christina: And then two, uh. Um, Music Trackers came out of the ashes of WhatCD, Redacted, and Orpheus, and I’m members of both. So, um, oh, uh, Redacted tends to have more stuff, but Orpheus tends to, um, have a pretty good mirror. So between the two of them, like, I can find most things. And then the, the great thing about them, especially, uh, Redacted, is that they have like these bounties where if you will do basically like what Brett was going to do, which, you know, buy the CDs and like rip them.

[00:27:33] Christina: Or if you buy the vinyl and will find like, like things that people really want, you know, people will give you like, um, amazing amounts of like upload credit and things like that. So, um, like,

[00:27:44] Brett: the BBS days all

[00:27:45] Christina: Oh, completely. It’s completely BBS days, but, but again, like,

[00:27:48] Brett: credit. I’ve heard, I haven’t heard upload credit for

[00:27:50] Christina: well, yeah, cause you have to maintain a ratio, but the ratio you can maintain as long as you just seed shit forever.

[00:27:55] Christina: But like, um, so if you have a seed box or if you have an always on computer, you’re fine, but yeah, no, all [00:28:00] of this is a throwback to like, you know, like literally when I was in college. So. Um, but yeah, long story short, um, there are, if it’s been physically made available, if there’s like a rip on it, I can usually find it, and I need to just get off my ass and rip one of my Taylor Swift vinyls because somebody wants a certain version off of one of those songs.

[00:28:20] Christina: My name is

[00:28:20] Brett: Upload credits.

[00:28:22] Christina: Dude, they’re willing, they’re, they’re, they’re willing to give, like, no, they’re willing to give like a terabyte of credit upload. Like I would never have to like seed anything ever again in my entire life. So I just have to actually get off my ass and rip that vinyl. Um, but yeah.

[00:28:35] Christina: Um, I will, I will get you the David Usher. Thanks.

[00:28:38] Brett: The last time I dealt with ratios and upload credits, it was still measured in kilobytes. I, Jeff, do you know, do you know, were you on BBS’s

[00:28:49] Jeff: Yeah, yeah, but like at the, like in 1994 for a minute, and then I just didn’t have a computer for a long time,

[00:28:57] Brett: And I’m assuming Erin, [00:29:00] you might be young enough that you have no idea what we’re talking about.

[00:29:03] Erin: correct. I apologize.

[00:29:05] Christina: No. Yeah, no. So this.

[00:29:06] Brett: avoid, we’ll avoid going into depth then because

[00:29:08] Christina: Yeah, no, yeah, I mean, I never used BBSes, but this was like a thing like with BitTorrent for private communities where like, to ensure that people don’t just like, like download and run, you have to make sure that you up, you seed a certain amount

[00:29:21] Brett: a seed. You got a seed.

[00:29:24] Christina: And that’s still the case on private communities, like I’m currently

[00:29:28] Brett: What is, what is the, what is the polite number of days, months to seed a download before you remove it?

[00:29:38] Christina: It depends on the tracker. Um, so, like, some places will make you seed for, like, two weeks. Like, uh, uh, uh, an audiobook, like, an audiobook tracker that I’m part of, like, makes you seed for two weeks. Some things, it’s kind of unclear, like, they kind of, like, really want you to seed forever, and so, you really want a seed box.

[00:29:56] Christina: Um, which, what that is, for, for, for the listeners who are either too young or too old, [00:30:00] it’s just a server. That host your torrent files, usually on, um, a box, uh, from some VPS, from some sketchy VPS, um, that’s probably hosted by a Hetzner or OVH in Europe. And then you remotely, like, use your torrent client that way.

[00:30:15] Christina: And um, yeah. And that way, like, if it gets nuked or whatever, you’re Well, okay, fine. Um, but, um, that way you can just kind of cede forever without having to have your computer connected. Um, but yeah.

[00:30:26] Jeff: Christina, what do you charge for a private consult? Because I want a private consult.

[00:30:34] Christina: Yeah, we’ll do it. Yeah,

[00:30:35] Jeff: I’m only half the way to what you’re describing in my life, so,

[00:30:39] Christina: Yeah, no, we can totally talk about it. And, um, honestly, a lot of these things are available through, uh, through the, the, the one technology that will never die, which is Usenet. So.

[00:30:48] Jeff: mm hmm, mm hmm,

[00:30:50] Brett: All right. So, moving along, and you’re allowed to opt out if you want to, Jeff or Erin, you want to give us a mental health update?

[00:30:59] Jeff: Erin, you go [00:31:00] ahead. If you want to go, go ahead, because mine might transition back into a question I have for you about your tour.

[00:31:05] Erin: Oh, okay, that’d be wonderful, thanks. Um, I went through a pretty bad breakup in August, and I’m still sort of dealing with that. Uh, pretty depress y, and my brain is lizard y enough, such that if The sun is out, equals sign, I am happy. If it is not out, and you live in Pittsburgh, I am not happy. Uh, and unfortunately I live in Pittsburgh, and so that’s been rough.

[00:31:34] Erin: Um, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about singledom, and um, how you’re sort of unconsciously or subconsciously treated in a friend group or in a community when you’re single. That like, there is a kind of invisibility. you, you have as a single person and that, [00:32:00] that invisibility is like really lonely. Um, I have as many friends as I did when I was in that relationship, but it just like without exclusion, like I Rolodex all of my, I’m old enough to say Rolodex, I guess.

[00:32:15] Erin: I Rolodex all of my Friends, mentally, and I’m like, we’re nominally still buds, nominally still buds, nothing’s changed, except it has. And so why? And it’s maybe a little reductive of me to be like, well, I’m single now. Um, but I do think the correlation is there and it’s just like, been bumming me out in a way that like, my, my subconscious.

[00:32:41] Erin: will get a like Victorian style, uh, plate and put like heaps of resentment on it and be like, Hey, how good does this look? And I’m like, damn, I’m like licking my lip, like pretty, pretty good. Uh, because [00:33:00] You know, I, I don’t know. It’s, it’s really, it feels, just to close the loop on this, it feels like, uh, a sort of defeat to reach out to these people and be like, hey, I’m kind of hurting.

[00:33:12] Erin: I’m, I’m a little bummed that you haven’t reached out. Like, have I wronged you? Like, what’s going on? I’m really lonely. That doing that feels either humiliating or, or, or something. Like I should, I should rise above that. I should hold out. But what is holding out getting me? Nothing. More resentment. So, I’m trying to be better about that.

[00:33:33] Brett: to reach out like that? Or can you just reach out and say, Hey, I haven’t heard from you in a while. What’s up? And then like, let it develop because yeah, like I would feel just as, I would feel just as weird as you’re talking about. If I was like, Hey, I haven’t heard from you and it hurt my feelings.

[00:33:55] Erin: So I’ve already done this,

[00:33:56] Brett: Okay. I believe

[00:33:58] Erin: two or three people.

[00:33:59] Brett: like an [00:34:00] obvious solution.

[00:34:01] Erin: For sure, for sure. Like, we’re all busy and Uh, without going into the very, uh, it feels like every podcast I listen to does this. We’ll like have, uh, we’ll make a point and that point is attributed to how bad capitalism is. So I’m going to avoid that.

[00:34:17] Erin: Right. Um, no problem, but we’re all busy because of capital. And I’ve, I’ve, I’ve just, I’ve like built this theory. Let me know your opinion about this, this real quick. This, this rashly assembled theory. Okay, so we all have a certain kind of, uh, a certain amount of energy. When you are coupled, when you’re in a relationship, when you’re in a partnership, that energy primarily goes into your partnership.

[00:34:46] Erin: What you have left to take care of your body, pay the bills. Go to the gym, whatever, um, you keep. And what’s left is usually very, very little. And so for single [00:35:00] people, all that main person energy that would go into a partnership is evenly distributed and available. But if you are single, but if you’re partnered, you don’t have that.

[00:35:11] Erin: So there’s a mismatch there. And so I’m trying to attribute my sort of resentment to a structural imbalance for which they, they’re not choosing to, to slight me, right? Um, so, so I’ve already reached out and, and at this point it’s like, Gosh, some people come in your life and some people leave and let sleeping kitties lie on your chest and uh, move on?

[00:35:38] Erin: Dot org? I don’t know.

[00:35:39] Jeff: Is it, oh God, nice work. Is it, um, is it, where does this overlap with the thing about almost like having to, the really terrible thing of almost like having to split up friends in a breakup? Does it overlap with that? Or a divorce? Yeah.

[00:35:54] Erin: I’d like to think not. I’d like to think not. These are friends that I had like, uh, independent, [00:36:00] um, of, of that partnership. So I don’t know. I don’t know.

[00:36:08] Brett: Jeff or Christina, have you guys ever been single?

[00:36:11] Jeff: Yes. I’ve been, I have been very, very epically

[00:36:16] Christina: long time. Yeah.

[00:36:18] Brett: I have, I have never been single for more than two weeks. I don’t, like, I consider that a problem. I’m not proud of that. Like, I don’t know how to be single. That’s, that’s

[00:36:27] Christina: You’re Jennifer Lopez. She, she, she, she has a movie and a documentary about that.

[00:36:32] Brett: Yeah.

[00:36:32] Christina: not joking.

[00:36:33] Brett: I believe you. I haven’t seen this.

[00:36:36] Christina: Um, so the, the documentary is better. The movie’s insane. It’s called, uh, this is, uh, me now. Or whatever. Um, uh, it, so she did like a 20 year, like, sequel to her album that had Jenny from the Block on it. And, uh, all about like her getting back together with Ben Affleck. It’s not great. Um, but the movie is insane.

[00:36:57] Christina: She spent 20 million of her own money on it. [00:37:00] It’s, it’s a choice and Amazon did distribute it, but they certainly didn’t pay for all of it. I feel positive. Um, and then, um, but it’s, it’s, it’s like, it’s insane. I wish that it were both worse or better, like it kind of needs to go like one way or the other.

[00:37:15] Christina: But the thing that makes it work is that then they made a documentary of the making of the movie. And the documentary is actually pretty fucking great. Like, she and Ben Affleck actually have really good chemistry. He really loves her. Like, he really loves her. Um, uh, which is, which is clear because he’s like, even telling her, like, he’s being very supportive of the whole endeavor, but he’s also like, being very clear, like, Don’t put your own money into this.

[00:37:41] Christina: Um, but yeah, uh, that’s kind of her whole MO is the fact that she can’t ever be single and, and that she goes from like one thing to the next. And she’s like, very clear on that. Uh, there’s also a very funny bit that’s very reminiscent of the, um, uh, uh, David Beckham and Victoria, um, uh, Beckham, uh, Netflix thing [00:38:00] where, you know, they kind of rag on each other where she’s writing this script about like her, you know, life and, and, you know, She’s like, you know, she was 28 when, and he was like, except you weren’t 28, you know, you were, you like, you were 30 or whatever.

[00:38:11] Christina: Uh, he was like, you know, even make yourself younger, like in, in the, in, in, in the, the fake version of your life or whatever, you’ve been played younger than it’s very funny. Um, but, uh, but no, yeah, that’s, that’s, that, that’s a whole thing. No, I’ve been single for sure,

[00:38:27] Brett: Okay,

[00:38:28] Christina: but it’s hard, um, when you like lose, like when you lose that, you know, you’re not in the relationship and then the other people around you, um, Um, or that were around you aren’t there, because you’re right, you only have like so much energy usually for, um, types of things and, and

[00:38:45] Brett: I think, I think there’s a certain age, I don’t know what age it is, but I think there’s an age you get to where you’re just expected to be coupled. Um, and, and there’s a stigma around being, you know, 30 [00:39:00] years old and unattached. Um, and you’re 20, sure, but maybe it’s 30, maybe, I don’t know.

[00:39:06] Christina: Yeah, I think it’s getting older, but yeah, probably 30 is 30 ish. I mean, I think it depends. Um, I definitely think, feel like it’s getting older. Cause I know, like, I don’t have kids and it used to be much more rare to be around people who don’t have kids. And now I feel like I know a lot of people who are my age or in my age range who don’t have kids.

[00:39:27] Christina: Um, some are single, um, some are not. Um, but what is hard, like it’s hard, but what is, what is hard is like to find people who are in a couple. Who don’t have kids, who are like over a certain age, like that’s more difficult. And then that kind of sucks because you’re like, okay, well, you know, it’s hard to get together with people because they, you know, have their, their kid shit to deal with, which is completely understandable, but it’s also like, if you don’t have that too, then you don’t like,

[00:39:52] Brett: no, I have definitely found my friend group consists almost entirely of coupled slash [00:40:00] polyamorous people who have no kids. Um, and, and I, people have kids and you’re like, that’s great. I love you for that. And then they just kind of disappear from the friend group. Um, But yeah, like I left my high school girlfriend for another girl.

[00:40:16] Brett: I left her for another girl. She left me. I was single for like two weeks. Um, I had another girl, the friend for like four years and it was just. Relationship after relationship and many times I have thought maybe I should just spend like two years just like in like a monk just be like single for two years and like deal with

[00:40:41] Erin: Don’t do it. do it. Never do it. I’m here from the future. I’m walking in the underworld right now. It is awful down here. Don’t do it.

[00:40:51] Jeff: Erin, is it, is the energy thing like, I, I, I’m asking based on a, just a memory of like, all of a sudden that your [00:41:00] energy thing was like really just resonated like, and, and with that energy that’s, that’s not used in, in coupledom, is there, is there ever a feeling of like, now what should I do with this energy?

[00:41:10] Jeff: Or like a pressure? Or is it, are you not in that space?

[00:41:15] Erin: I, um, I guess this is still technically my mental health corner. Um, so, so I’ve never been bored in my life. And I think the reason for that is because, uh, I have maybe father issues, and those father issues are tied to an idea that, uh, your worth is dependent on, entirely, your ability to produce things.

[00:41:44] Erin: Your productivity.

[00:41:45] Brett: so it’s not, you’ve been bored because you haven’t allowed yourself to be bored.

[00:41:50] Erin: Yeah.

[00:41:51] Brett: Interesting.

[00:41:52] Erin: Um, so I always have stuff to do and I always have music to make and I can always go for a run and I love running and I can [00:42:00] always get better at like making a pad thai or something. Like there’s always shit for me to do. I don’t know if that’s healthy. I mean, let’s, let’s call a spade a spade. It’s, it’s very likely not.

[00:42:12] Erin: Um, but that’s where my energy goes. So,

[00:42:18] Brett: side note. I have been, every time someone uses a, um, what’s the word for, like a cliche, like a, call a spade a spade, I have to question, is that racist? Does it have racist roots? I looked it up. Spade is, that phrase is not racist. It has. No racist origins. Just, just as a point of interest, like I have found so, so many of the things that I say without thinking twice about it, because it’s just always been part of the vernacular, um, have turned out to have very racist origins.

[00:42:55] Erin: Yeah,

[00:42:56] Brett: But that one, despite sounding racist, [00:43:00] weirdly isn’t.

[00:43:00] Christina: Hey, good. Fantastic.

[00:43:04] Erin: I’ll

[00:43:04] Jeff: I, I deal with that a lot with, I have two, I have two teenagers and especially my 17 year old is like really good at just giving me a little face. If I say something, I’m like, shit, just from the face. I’m like, okay, hold on. Hold on. No, I get that. I get that. Yep, I’ll try to drop that one. Nothing terrible, right?

[00:43:21] Jeff: Like subtle stuff that you’re just, you’re used to with everybody your age. You’ve already, you’ve already, like in my case, I’ve already stripped all of the most obvious, horrible stuff a long ass time ago, right?

[00:43:32] Brett: It’s just a

[00:43:33] Jeff: No, it’s just like, yeah,

[00:43:36] Christina: no, and sometimes, like, the idioms or whatever, like, you know, might have had, like, those origins, which is terrible, and I’m not defending it, but, like, language does change, you know? And so, it’s always hard to know that, too. It’s like, well, in this era, like, you know, like, in 1920, it meant this.

[00:43:50] Christina: It’s like, okay, when did it, like, culturally shift, right?

[00:43:57] Brett: I’m sorry for the tangent

[00:43:59] Christina: No, [00:44:00] go for it.

[00:44:00] Brett: but I posted a meme that talked about, it was Gandalf saying one monitor, two monitors, now where’s my cursor? And it was just, it was funny. Somebody,

[00:44:12] Jeff: it, but

[00:44:13] Brett: somebody, somebody I used to work with was like, it’s not called a cursor, it’s called a pointer. A cursor is the text insertion point and a word processor.

[00:44:22] Brett: And I’m like, yeah, I know that actually. I’m like, well, actually that’s called it. That’s called a carrot.

[00:44:28] Christina: Right. That is called a carrot.

[00:44:29] Brett: I know, I know. And I’m like, language changes. Like cursor does mean your mouse

[00:44:36] Christina: it does. It does. Like, like, they’re, they’re like technically correct. Yeah, it is pointer, but no, like, it, it, it’s, it’s changed. And we might not like that it’s changed, and we might still want to use the original thing, but it’s like, you have to accept, no, the definition of this thing is no longer, yeah.

[00:44:50] Christina: Like, like, I, I will kill people who say irregardless because it’s not a real word, but I had to give that

[00:44:56] Brett: But Webster’s, Webster’s added it.

[00:44:58] Christina: I had to give that up, right? [00:45:00] Yeah, exactly. Pedants?

[00:45:02] Brett: Yeah. Pedants, Pedants. How do we say this?

[00:45:05] Christina: Pedants? I’d probably call them pedants. Yeah,

[00:45:08] Brett: call them pants.

[00:45:10] Christina: you’re being like pedantic. So I don’t know. So I call them a pedant. Yeah.

[00:45:15] Brett: Okay. Jeff, do you wanna, do you wanna squeeze a mental health corner in here before it’s, uh, before half an

[00:45:22] Jeff: no, definitely. I, Erin, you were talking about fans. First of all, I, so I was from like 95 to like 98. I was in a band with that. I, my brother and my best friend who I started music with and, uh, we toured a lot and I put out a record. I loved that. Um, but what it gave me is that when I see a band now, my first thought is, I know what their van smells like. I mean, unless they have a bus, but usually it’s like those, those people walk on stage. I saw the band Yob recently from the Pacific Northwest, [00:46:00] Yob walked on stage and I was like, you know what? I bet that van has just a hint of good smell, kind of incense, maybe Nag Champa. I don’t

[00:46:06] Erin: for sure

[00:46:07] Jeff: know, right?

[00:46:08] Jeff: Right? But others, you’re just like, Oh Christ, I can just, I can smell that van from here.

[00:46:14] Christina: smell it from here. Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, I, I’ve never, I’ve never, um, spent a lot of time like with people like touring or whatever. So I don’t know that, but, but something tells me that most of the, most of the vans do not have a good smell.

[00:46:29] Erin: There’s a certain scent. There’s that there’s that thing about how like how all living creatures who aren’t humanoids like eventually evolve into a crab or whatever like most van scents eventually evolve into like a Cheetos.

[00:46:46] Jeff: Yes, yes!

[00:46:47] Brett: or, or, uh, corn

[00:46:48] Erin: don’t know, even if Cheetos aren’t involved, it still skews.

[00:46:52] Christina: You,

[00:46:52] Erin: so

[00:46:53] Christina: like the, the corn smell.

[00:46:55] Erin: Yeah,

[00:46:56] Brett: It’s amazing what you can get used to that you can just not [00:47:00] smell

[00:47:00] Christina: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Totally. Totally. Now, now, I, I, cause I, cause my pers, my, like, assumption, and I could be wrong on this, is that even if everyone is clean or whatever involved, like, There’s gonna be like a latent B. O. smell that just never leaves, you know, which is fine. Cheeto, yeah, totally, right, but there’s just like a latent kind of like, like B.

[00:47:18] Christina: O. smell because you’re like, yeah, that’s what, that’s what happens, like, especially, um, if you have like people who are, are sweaty. Ever, you know, in it. It’s like, yeah, okay.

[00:47:29] Jeff: Yeah,

[00:47:29] Christina: cigarettes, like,

[00:47:30] Jeff: sweaty always.

[00:47:31] Christina: sweaty, like cigarettes, maybe like stale beer. Like, I don’t know. I think about like my friend in high school, Kyle, like his car smells like what I imagined, like the van would smell like for, for a lot of vans.

[00:47:44] Brett: Quick, quick, quick, quick vote and then back to Jeff. Is this episode called Lizardy or is it called Latent Cheeto Smell?

[00:47:53] Jeff: Like light and Cheeto

[00:47:54] Christina: I like late and Cheetos smell.

[00:47:55] Jeff: Yeah. Um, okay. So why I brought up the van is, so I’ve, I’ve [00:48:00] been, um, in work has just been super intense lately and I’ve, I’ve typically always made a point of not working evenings and weekends, even if it’s at the cost of, you know, meeting deadlines just because I don’t want my work to be that in my life.

[00:48:13] Jeff: And, um, and, uh, and also I’ve been working with like a client that I just don’t love or relate to or feel like any kind of connection to. So why does this matter? Um, My experience of being in bands, I mean, really from the eighth grade, but like definitely going out and like making your not living together, um, on tour is like, I, I was in a band with who I loved.

[00:48:40] Jeff: One of them was my brother. I love these guys. I loved being close to them. I loved being squished in with them. Um, And, and we were on a mission and we made music. We really loved, um, we made music that like was very intentional, something we meant to do, right? Like we, everything was, we meant to do it. Um, it wasn’t, we weren’t falling [00:49:00] into anything.

[00:49:01] Jeff: And, um, and we felt such a connection. And then you go out on the road and you are like a rogue, um, you know, band of, of whatever. And, and that feeling is one that I don’t think many people know. Um, and I don’t think many people know the feeling of, Like, almost lawlessness, um, like nothing applies to you, uh, in a way that’s really beautiful.

[00:49:23] Jeff: I, I, I love the feeling of only eating at truck stops and, and just, you know, like being in sort of the weird back lanes of, of, of capitalist America, really, if you’re at truck stops, right? That’s what it is. Um, and, and, I loved that feeling so much. We run a small record label, so you also had that feeling with the record label.

[00:49:42] Jeff: It’s just a couple people there and they’re fighting for you, you know, if they’re doing their job well. Um, and it’s you against the club owners, most of the most part, right? Like, um, sometimes you against the drunkest person in the club, but like, that feeling of, of shared mission. is one that I, I [00:50:00] realized, and I realized over and over again, I need and demand, um, to a point that’s unrealistic.

[00:50:05] Jeff: And, and sometimes when I’m unhappiest at my jobs in my, you know, like, I don’t know, 20 some years of career now, um, what I’m unhappy about is I resent having to try to push something forward with people I don’t Feel a sense of mission with, um, or that sense of just like really intense, sort of like going against everything to do this thing you love and, and not worrying about, um, what it means exactly at any given moment, just knowing that in the, in the doing of it.

[00:50:34] Jeff: Right. And, uh, and, and so I am, you just, uh, you helped me make that connection. I haven’t made in a long time that like, what’s been hard is I’ve not only been working too much to hit a deadline, which is over now. But I’ve been doing it in a way that’s like, I feel totally isolated and alone. I don’t feel like I have mission partners, um, and who needs that shit?

[00:50:53] Jeff: I mean, we all get it, but who needs it?

[00:50:55] Christina: No, it sucks. It’s the worst.

[00:50:57] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:50:58] Christina: And, and,

[00:50:58] Jeff: I don’t know if that,

[00:50:59] Erin: [00:51:00] So your mental health is good then?

[00:51:01] Jeff: I mean, it’s getting better. Cause I cleared this, this deadline, but I had probably one of the hardest professional weeks I’ve ever had. Like I, I had physiological results that are like impacts of it. That were like, they scared me. I was like, I can’t die like this. Like, it’s not worth it.

[00:51:17] Jeff: I do like my work overall. Like I it’s meaningful work, but like, I don’t know. I can’t die over this. Like I had a scary, scary moment where I was like, wait, what’s this? What’s this? Um, and, uh, and yeah, the, the merry band and not always merry band of, of roving rogues is, uh, is a model that I always insist on having a little bit of.

[00:51:37] Jeff: And just the last thing I’ll say about that. It’s almost like when, um, when I first took like anxiety medication, the, the reason my, like the way my therapist convinced me was like, What you need at the very least is a reference point for what it feels like to not feel like what you always feel like, right?

[00:51:52] Jeff: You just, you, you want to be able to say, Oh, okay, now I have felt something different. And then see what that means. See how that [00:52:00] causes you to make whatever different decisions, ask different questions, whatever it is. And like having that reference feeling of being a feeling truly that free, even though you were just like, I was a dishwasher, I made no money.

[00:52:11] Jeff: I was using my mom’s Amoco gas card. to get by like microwave sandwiches at the gas station. But like I felt free and, and spacious. And so having that reference is both a blessing and a curse anyway.

[00:52:28] The Question of Black Metal

[00:52:28] Jeff: Um, but my question for you then is actually a black metal question. Um, I am curious where black metal came into your life first and then where it came into your art.

[00:52:40] Erin: Oh cool, what a considerate question, thank you. I,

[00:52:43] Brett: yeah.

[00:52:44] Erin: I had a guitar teacher at a really young age who was into metal. At that point, uh, I had gone through a few phases in which I thought Metallica was the of musical achievement. And then I heard [00:53:00] Dream Theater and Rush,

[00:53:01] Christina: We were all there. Yeah.

[00:53:02] Erin: right, music that doesn’t sound like this.

[00:53:05] Erin: is beneath me and beneath all of us. Why is anyone else listening to anything else

[00:53:09] Jeff: There are good drummers? Yeah.

[00:53:12] Erin: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh, and then I started taking classical guitar lessons with this teacher, but he was a metalhead, and I knew that he was a metalhead, and I talked to him about those bands, and he was not into Dream Theater, and I’m like, what are you, what are you like if not that?

[00:53:28] Erin: And he was like, Catatonia, Opeth, Uh, Bloodbath, Bathory, Pestilence, Atheist. And I’m like, uh, what are those bands? Uh, not that they’re all

[00:53:40] Jeff: Shows you the logos. You can’t read them. Yes.

[00:53:43] Erin: Correct. And so he burned me some discs and just spun those a lot, especially Catatonia. And I just fell in love with it. And I am so thankful for that because if I heard black metal for the first time as an [00:54:00] adult, as an adult who really like metal.

[00:54:04] Erin: I’d be like, get this away from me. What is this noise? This is awful sonic sound. Awful sonic sound. Cool, cool phrase. Um, . So I’d always been a metalhead, but I had never, I went to school for music. I was in like math rock bands, did that kind of thing, but I was never in a metal band myself as a metalhead.

[00:54:24] Erin: And so I was on a jog a couple years ago, uh, and it just like. hit me, inspiration hit me, it never does this clearly, but I was like, oh my god, I need to be a one person black metal band with a headless white seven string guitar and it needs to be called Genital Shame.

[00:54:43] Jeff: Yes. It all became clear to

[00:54:46] Brett: I was just reading the review in the Pittsburgh City Pages and it talks about your headless white seven string guitar.

[00:54:53] Jeff: do you have that near you?

[00:54:54] Brett: I do. It’s in the show notes.

[00:54:56] Jeff: I mean, do you have that guitar near you,

[00:54:58] Erin: I sold it.

[00:54:59] Jeff: You sold it. [00:55:00] Okay. Got it.

[00:55:00] Erin: I sold it. It got me

[00:55:01] Jeff: vision, but we’re going to iterate.

[00:55:04] Erin: to iterate. We’re working with a, you know, a, a bullet, uh, fender and a, and a parts caster telly now we’ve moved on. Um, but I actually feel a little uncomfortable calling General Shame black metal because it’s not true as, as people in the scene would say cult CVLT.

[00:55:25] Erin: Black metal, but it really, uh, pushes those kinds of things. My tastes are quite sugary. I really love melody. Uh, so I try to make my music as melodic as possible when possible, but still maintaining that, that sort of like the harshness that I would reject as an adult who had never listened to it.

[00:55:48] Jeff: What are the, what are the metal bands that have that kind of like sugary ness that you’re talking about that you love?

[00:55:56] Erin: I don’t want to say I’m in a league of my own, but there are [00:56:00] not many. A friend’s band called Agriculture does it. There’s a band called Liturgy that a lot of people like

[00:56:07] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:56:08] Erin: that do that. My maybe favorite metal band is called Kralis from Brooklyn. They do that sometimes. Very melodic, yet still really crushing and brutal.

[00:56:20] Erin: Um, so yeah, I like, get you a metal that could do both, you know,

[00:56:25] Jeff: get you a medal that can do both. That’s a great answer. I love it.

[00:56:28] Erin: Thanks.

[00:56:30] Jeff: Awesome. Well, what do we got?

[00:56:34] The Dimspirations Store is open

[00:56:34] Brett: Can I, can I plug my shit?

[00:56:36] Christina: Yeah. Please. Let’s talk. Let’s talk about your

[00:56:39] Brett: We talked last time, last time we were on a few weeks back, I had launched Demspirations or Demspire. me, uh, with all of the Demspirations I’ve made over the last couple of years, I just wanted to plug that there’s now merch. If you go to Demspire. me slash store. You can buy what I would [00:57:00] say are very clever t shirts, coffee mugs, and even calendars.

[00:57:05] Brett: Um, I, I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but it’s, they’re fucking, they’re genius. They’re unbelievable. Um, and it’s amazing that I’ve made a total of 170 off

[00:57:19] Jeff: Yes.

[00:57:20] Brett: off this store

[00:57:21] Jeff: walking around money. You don’t

[00:57:22] Christina: I’m

[00:57:22] Jeff: man. That’s good. Like,

[00:57:24] Christina: I’m going to be honest. I’m actually really impressed by that. I like would not have expected. Like that’s actually much higher than I would have expected. Like if I could be completely candid.

[00:57:32] Brett: But the, the, the most fun part of it is I made yesterday in under half an hour, I made a URL shortener for dimspire. me. So I can, I can use that. dim. moi, M O I, dim. moi, slash, and then like, you know, your typical, like, bit. ly four, four letter, uh, string, and I can shortlink any of the dimspirations on the site, and I can [00:58:00] also link them if, if the dimspiration is called, say, uh, self critical in the URL, I can just do dim.

[00:58:07] Brett: moi, slash, self critical, and it’ll link to the full URL with, uh, With, um, with UTM query strings. So I can actually track, yeah, I, I built a URL shortener. It’s way easier than you think.

[00:58:22] Christina: No. So I actually, I was, I was going to ask you what you use for your, your URL shortener, because I need, I have one that I have for like my, uh, my drop a cloud, um, uh, account or whatever, but I’ve wanted to either build my own or Like, have my own host, because I have a number of different short URLs that I would like to use.

[00:58:39] Christina: So, I’m curious how you built yours. If you did it completely from scratch, if you used another

[00:58:44] Brett: Yeah, I use, there’s a, there’s a repo, there’s an 11 year old repo on GitHub that I’ll link in the show notes, um, that I just kind of hacked. It’s PHP. Um, it’s just PHP and MySQL. And, uh, it’s, it’s, [00:59:00] it took me. Maybe 15 minutes to hack it to do exactly what I wanted it to do. Um, and then like drop it in an HT access file that redirects and, and it’s done.

[00:59:11] Brett: So like I had to register the domain, uh, like the short domain. I had to fully host it so that I could run PHP scripts on it. And then. That was it. Like, the script takes half an hour, and if you know PHP at all, you can, you can do whatever you want with it.

[00:59:29] Jeff: awesome.

[00:59:30] Brett: Yeah, I’m pretty proud of that. I was so excited. And it fucking, when you post one of these short URLs to a social media service, it still gets the full Open Graph preview

[00:59:42] Christina: Oh, nice. Because,

[00:59:43] Brett: And Summary and

[00:59:44] Christina: yeah, because you put that in. That’s nice.

[00:59:46] Brett: right? Cause it’s an actual redirect,

[00:59:48] Christina: Right. Oh, okay. Got it.

[00:59:49] Brett: a 301 redirect. Yeah, it’s pretty, it’s pretty awesome.

[00:59:53] Brett: I love it. Anyway, that’s it. That’s my whole plug. Um, if you guys want to move on to [01:00:00] Graftitude, we can, we have time for it.

[01:00:02] Grapptitude

[01:00:02] Jeff: Yeah, let’s do it.

[01:00:04] Brett: All right. Um, is Jeff, is this, is the one on the, is the one on the list other than mine, yours, okay, why don’t you kick it off with that? Cause I love this one.

[01:00:17] Jeff: Sure. Um, so I have been using, I have been using intense, like, if I’m saying I’m working 10 hour days, which again, I try not to fucking do, I do, I keep busy with other shit. Not unlike you, Erin, and that where it’s just like, I grew up with a dad where it’s like, it never is, never is resting. And, and that’s just the model I learned.

[01:00:35] Jeff: The law, I, I think I integrated that I need to follow to be a member of this family. He wasn’t pushing it on me in this case, right? But it was so strong. I didn’t even, I only lived with him in the summers and that’s how strong it was. Anyway. Um, so I was working these 10 hard days. I bet I spent eight of them inside of Jupyter labs, notebooks, um, and doing just.

[01:00:54] Jeff: Python stuff, text manipulation stuff. I was building a, a kind of, um, building some [01:01:00] API based scripts that were pulling out all kinds of information to put into like a custom database, and then working with that database and doing all kinds of weird, cool shit with it. Um, and in the past, like I’m not a programmer, like I’m, I’ve, I, you know, as I’ve probably said on this program, like I’m Python literate in that, like I can read it, but not speak it and I can adjust it and I can make it do some things differently than how it’s written, but I’m not going to sit down and write it.

[01:01:24] Jeff: ChetchiPT changed that for me for reasons that are good and bad for the world. Um, but for me, it was like, I know how to talk computationally to, to the thing that I need to make the script, whether that’s a person or a thing. Um, Brett, I see you. Uh, and, and I, I can then be, what’s nice is I can just be in relationship with this stuff all by myself for hours at a time.

[01:01:46] Jeff: Um, and, and so anyway, I’ve loved this and I, and I typically do work with Python and because I’m, I don’t have like a. Workflow for this stuff, because they didn’t come up as a programmer. I’m very messy. Like I write a script, I run [01:02:00] it. I write another script. Sometimes there’s 16 versions of the script in the folder by the time I’m done.

[01:02:03] Jeff: And I get confused about whatever Jupyter notebooks for people that don’t know, um, allow you. To essentially open up like, I don’t know if you call it an IDE, but an environment in your web browser.

[01:02:14] Brett: It’s a

[01:02:15] Christina: They’re called notebooks. It’s a ruffle, but yeah, or, but yeah, they call them notebooks. Yeah. But yeah, it’s a ruffle.

[01:02:20] Jeff: And so you’re, you’re able to open this up and just start running your scripts sequentially. Um, you can, you don’t have to be sequential.

[01:02:25] Jeff: You can just have a bunch of scripts in there and run them as you want. You set your variables at the top and, and just start working your way down this notebook, um, to kind of iterate on, on the script or the, or whatever it is you’re trying to work on. It could just be a function. It could

[01:02:38] Brett: And the notebook part comes in because you can write, you can literally write out everything that it’s doing and then embed the script and then run

[01:02:46] Jeff: You have basically you do everything in these cells. The cell can be marked down. It can be code. Um, the code is executable. Um, and, and there’s all kinds of other customization. But anyway, so the notebooks themselves have changed my [01:03:00] life. Um, because not only am I able to Um, iterate, but I’m able to follow my crazy line of thinking and I’m able to mark where the points where I’m like, yes, this is what I come back to all this other stuff.

[01:03:11] Jeff: I’m probably going to want to just delete at some point, but I’m going to come back to this. And it allows me also, when I get mixed up, And I’ve created like three or four notebooks when I only needed to stick with one. Um, it allows me to just go back systematically and, and, and build a new notebook that is everything I need.

[01:03:27] Jeff: It works perfectly for all of the ways in which my brain doesn’t work right, like a programmer. Um, and then it also just like amplifies the ways in which it does. And so the, but the cool thing about Jupyter labs, I’ve, I’ve played with Jupyter notebooks for years. Jupyter labs is somewhat newer. It’s not that new.

[01:03:43] Jeff: And it allows you to actually

[01:03:44] Christina: yeah, they’re the version that you use. Like they updated it. It was, it was earlier. It was, it was sometime in 2023. It got a pretty big update. Sorry, go on.

[01:03:53] Jeff: Yeah, well, what’s great about it is a notebook in the, in the, just like notebook sense was just a notebook. It was a web [01:04:00] page, but Jupyter labs allows you to have all these different columns, you can put a terminal in, you can have a couple of notebooks open. You can have a markdown file open. There’s like all this different, uh, you can just completely configure your workspace and you’re never having to leave.

[01:04:13] Jeff: I’m not having to dip out to go to my terminal. I’m not having to dip out to go to my text editor. Like everything is there. And man, it. The result of that was I have never started a large initiative that involves me trying to figure out coding, which in the old days was like Stack Exchange, just like grinding in Stack Exchange, getting yelled at, getting helped.

[01:04:33] Jeff: And, um, and I don’t, I struggle to finish big things, which is like a huge issue for me. And. Because of this tool, I was able to launch into something that was way more ambitious than I had any right to launch into and then fucking land it because the workflow and the tool just matched my brain perfectly.

[01:04:52] Jeff: And I could not be more grateful because what I know now compared to what I knew two months ago when I started this project is like, it’s the kind of [01:05:00] growth I’ve as like a programmatic person for More than a decade. And it was in between the chat GPT and this, it was possible for me to do it, which is like a really cool feeling for me.

[01:05:13] Christina: I’m so happy that you had that experience and note, um, uh, the, the, the Jupiter Labs, um, uh, their IDE thing and, and, and like their notebook, um, interface is great. One thing I will point out for anybody out there who, if you are already like really into, um, Visual Studio Code, since 2001 and I put a, oh not 2001, 2021, I put a link in, in our show notes as well.

[01:05:36] Christina: The native, um, Jupyter notebook support or notebook support in, in, in code is really, really good. So, um,

[01:05:44] Jeff: pretty too. Unlike Jupyter labs.

[01:05:47] Christina: Yeah, they take a slightly different approach, so you, some people might prefer, you know, like the, the, the, the, the Jupyter IDE, um, or, or, you know, the notebook approach. But if like, if you, for somebody who already uses a lot of things in VS Code [01:06:00] for writing, for other things, because I know a lot of people who will use VS Code, um, for writing Primarily for writing in Markdown and stuff like that.

[01:06:06] Christina: Um, the mark, the, the, the native, um, notebook support is really, really, really good. And then there are things like, for instance, like at, at GitHub, like we even have like a, an issues notebook because there’s a, um, there’s a notebook API available for Visual Studio Code where people can build their own, um, extensions that, that do, um, very specific notebooky things.

[01:06:26] Christina: So like, uh, there’s one for GitHub issues, for instance, um, which is great because then you can actually, like, Fuck around with your issues and your PR queries and do all of your testing and stuff there like in your, in your REPL and your text editor without having to

[01:06:41] Jeff: like, it’s reproducible. Like I remember the first time I even saw Jupyter, Notebooks was at a, uh, investigative reporters and editors conference. They have, they have a wing called the National Institute of Computer Assisted Reporting. It’s still called that, um, from back in the days when journalists would go rent space at like card, you [01:07:00] know, card computers.

[01:07:01] Jeff: Um, but anyway, the LA Times, like, uh, data desk people, they actually not only make data available that they use, but they make Jupyter notebooks available. So you can just start working with it the way they did and kind of follow along. And that’s, that’s a very gracious thing to do.

[01:07:17] Brett: Yeah. Nice.

[01:07:18] Jeff: mine.

[01:07:19] Christina: That’s awesome.

[01:07:20] Brett: All right. Christina, I love yours. I want to ask Erin, are you joining us for the Graptitude? I totally neglected to give you a heads up on

[01:07:29] Erin: I expected it. Um.

[01:07:33] Brett: You expected me to fail? Oh.

[01:07:35] Erin: what I, exactly what I meant. I can make it real quick. It has oldie but goodie energy. Um, App Cleaner,

[01:07:43] Brett: Oh,

[01:07:44] Christina: Yes.

[01:07:46] Erin: Right, yeah, so new version of Ableton came out. Wanted to get rid of the older one. I use it all the time. I just used it recently so it was on my, on my mind, but um, App Cleaner, yep.

[01:07:58] Jeff: And it just cleans it out.[01:08:00]

[01:08:00] Brett: does

[01:08:00] Erin: Mm hmm,

[01:08:00] Christina: app installer?

[01:08:01] Brett: does anyone know what the difference between AppCleaner and AppDelete would be?

[01:08:08] Jeff: Is it that app cleaner goes and looks for all the preference files and

[01:08:10] Christina: I was going to say, I’ve never used AppDelete. I’ve always just used AppCleaner.

[01:08:14] Brett: AppDelete uses like some pretty basic Unix find commands to find like every permutation of an app’s, uh, name or bundle ID and it’s, it’s brute, it’s brute

[01:08:29] Jeff: That sounds risky.

[01:08:30] Brett: It does, it does a really good job. Um, Hazel also does pretty good app cleaning, just removing the, the, uh, the, uh, the executable and the preference files.

[01:08:43] Brett: Um, but I’ve, I’ve, I have not actually tried AppCleaner.

[01:08:46] Christina: So AppCleaner, so AppDelete, um, I, I, do you have a link for that one? Because if you search, if you Google for that, uh, obviously, especially now with their AI bullshit, like you can’t find anything. Um, but AppCleaner, I’ve been using [01:09:00] for probably 18 years, I want to say. Um. AppCleaner. AppCleaner. Because it’s a freeware one, um, like it, it, they, they, they recently updated their icon, which is, which is great, but it’s like a free maxsoft.

[01:09:11] Christina: net is like, um, where it lives, but like, it used to look like kind of like a recycle, um, like, um, uh, bag, uh, like for, for, uh, for, for your, for your apps. Um, but the, the icon has been updated. Um,

[01:09:27] Brett: I found a review of AppDelete that does not link to AppDelete. Um, maybe it doesn’t even exist anymore.

[01:09:34] Christina: Yeah, so AppCleaner, because there used to be a lot of other ones, and I can’t remember what they used to be called, but like, most of them don’t, haven’t been updated in a while. Um, and I mean this, and obviously you can use other tools, like CleanMyMac has a good uninstaller built in, and there’s some other things, but what I like about AppCleaner, um, is that like, Ableton is a perfect example.

[01:09:54] Christina: Like sometimes, like, things will just be held in, Random fucked up places and their [01:10:00] uninstall programs don’t always work. And sometimes there is an uninstaller and sometimes there’s not. And it’s, uh, like, uh, yeah. So I, I, I’m also like a big plus one on, um, on AppCleaner.

[01:10:13] Jeff: awesome. I’m going to try that.

[01:10:14] Brett: Can we just talk for like 30 seconds about how generative AI was cool in the beginning, but it feeds off of the contents of the internet and now a non trivial portion of the internet is produced by, by ChatGPT and ChatGPT is feeding off of its own fucked up information and create, like it’s incestuous.

[01:10:39] Brett: It’s this like series of inbreeding.

[01:10:41] Christina: the, the, the, the, the snake is eating itself. Yeah. Well, and it sucks too, because like some of them are different. So like the, the Microsoft Copilot, not to be confused with GitHub Copilot. Don’t get me started. Um, The, like, which used to be like Bing, Copiler, or whatever, is actually pretty good and is [01:11:00] more up to date on certain things, but, like, to your point, you know, it can, yeah, it’s all kind of like feeding itself, but the Google results, I don’t know what the fuck Google is doing.

[01:11:11] Christina: Like, they’re, they’re, they’re so proud. They’re like, we, we, we, we, we invented Transformers. Yeah, but you, you, you didn’t productize it and, and your product sucks. Like the Google, you know, just the AI results that it’ll give you at the beginning, it’s like sometimes they’ll sort of be there, but a lot of times it’s just like a mashup of bad things.

[01:11:28] Christina: And I’m like, this is the worst of everything. Like this is genuinely the worst of all of it.

[01:11:33] Brett: I run a, I run a plugin in Firefox that gives me chat GPT results in DuckDuckGo. So, and the sidebar, and they are getting progressively worse. Um, like if I’m searching for something that was answered on like StackExchange, I’ll get, I’ll get a legit, Answer, but it won’t be better than DuckDuckGo’s own instant answer version, summarizing the accepted answer from a StackOverflow [01:12:00] question.

[01:12:00] Brett: Anyway.

[01:12:00] Jeff: That’s awesome. That that still holds up.

[01:12:05] Brett: Okay. Uh, Christina, I want to hear about

[01:12:07] Christina: Yeah, so mine, and actually you have used this before, so you can talk about it too, but I actually saw this on Hacker News of all places. I hate it when, when good things are found there. I’m kidding. Um, it’s the commenter. It’s the, the, the commenters are the problem there. Not the, not

[01:12:24] Jeff: Big time. Oh yeah. I don’t even look at that shit.

[01:12:26] Christina: no, but the curation is

[01:12:28] Jeff: Love the curation.

[01:12:31] Christina: is an app called Monodraw. And it’s an ASCII art editor for Mac, but it makes it really easy to draw like, um, uh, you know, kind of like ASCII charts and other things. And like I, I,

[01:12:42] Brett: Not ANSI, but ASCII,

[01:12:44] Christina: right. And like, I’ve used, um, like, uh, Mermaid and, and things like that before, obviously, but Mermaid is, is kind of a lot, um, even though GitHub Flavor Markdown, um, does support Mermaid now, yay.

[01:12:57] Christina: Um, like, that, you know, um, [01:13:00] That, that’s a lot to kind of keep in mind. But yeah, this is just a really nice app for building, um, ASCII, um, um, you know, charts and, and, um, the way that, that it kind of like, um, the way you can focus in on, you know, the individual aspects that you want, like they have a really good, um, like a tutorial, um, Getting Started thing, which will kind of show you, um, how a lot of different things work in it.

[01:13:24] Christina: And it’s very similar how it’s set up to any other, uh, graphics editor, but it’s helping you create things that are actually pure ASCII. So it’s really great. So, um,

[01:13:37] Brett: figlet and monodraw, you can make some kickass

[01:13:40] Christina: Yeah, and, and, and you could do mind mapping stuff too if you wanted to do it for that. Um, and then what I, I have to say what I appreciate, like what made me buy it, I wasn’t even in a position, like I actually sent this to our, our group, uh, uh, thread. I think I was actually in Austin. I wasn’t actually like in a position to install it on a Mac.

[01:13:57] Christina: I, I just, I saw it and I was like, Oh, this looks pretty cool. [01:14:00] I’m going to, I’m, I’m sending this to this, uh, to, to, to our chat to remind myself about it and also to remind myself for, Gratitude, um, but when I was like reading through the, the, the process, like the, the creator of this was like, I don’t have any sort of DRM.

[01:14:17] Christina: I don’t, um, you know, I, I trust my users implicitly. I’m not putting any sorts of, um, Anything there. And I was like, okay, instant 10. Like it’s 10 bucks, you know, then the tax, but like when you go to the purchase page, it says Monodrug does not use activation or any other form of DRM. We have complete trust in our customers.

[01:14:34] Christina: Fuck yeah. Right. Like, and it’s really hard for app developers as, as you know, more than anyone, Brett, like. To this climate that we’re in, like there was a recent study that came out that shows like most subscription apps don’t make any money and we know that, um, by once apps make even less and, um, you know, people will definitely try to get one over on you and do all kinds of shady shit, which I get because we were talking about downloading stuff illegally earlier and so I’m part of the problem.

[01:14:59] Christina: I’m a hypocrite. [01:15:00] I’m not claiming that I’m perfect, but I am saying like when I see any developers make

[01:15:04] Jeff: So much negative self talk.

[01:15:06] Christina: Well, I’m just being honest. Like I’m not a hypocrite, right? Like I’m a, I mean, I am a hypocrite, but I’m not like. a liar about it, if that makes any sense, right? Like, I’m, I’m self aware enough to know about my hypocrisies, um, and, and call myself out on them.

[01:15:19] Christina: But having said that, like, this is an app, like, it’s well designed, it’s well maintained, it’s a good backup, um, it’s 10 bucks, and I really appreciate the fact that, like, you know, they’re being, like, as, like, upfront about it. Yeah, fuck it. We’re not gonna do any of the, the stuff that we could do to maybe make our app Not abused as much.

[01:15:41] Christina: So,

[01:15:42] Brett: For anyone, for anyone too young to know what ASCII art means, um, I would say it’s, it’s, it’s, It’s artwork using standard characters on your keyboard, and it will only work in fixed width fonts. Um, so if you’re writing a README for a [01:16:00] GitHub repository, or you’re, I don’t know, posting to Usenet, Um, like, you can get away with some, some very interesting artwork that, In, in a variable with font, like most like social media sites will display your, your tweet in or whatever, it’ll, it’ll get screwed up, but you’ve seen this, like I’ve seen Twitter posts.

[01:16:21] Brett: that use ASCII art and you can make some crazy stuff with this because it really is like it’s Photoshop for, I mean, you’re not getting layers and filters and all of that because what would you do with them?

[01:16:34] Christina: Right, right. But, but,

[01:16:35] Brett: it, yeah,

[01:16:36] Christina: can do really good stuff. And

[01:16:37] Brett: I guess it’s more like, it’s more like Illustrator. It’s more like Illustrator for ASCII art.

[01:16:42] Christina: Yeah, actually, that’s a much better, um, probably, um, yeah, it is a lot more like Illustrator. Even the way that the app works is definitely, um, like that. Uh, but, but it’s great. And like, yeah, if you wanted to make ASCII art for some reason, because you like terminal shit, or you want to do a retro game, or again, like you want to make your README file more readable, [01:17:00] or if you’re writing in plain text, All of us, I think, on this panel are fans of, you know, like, like you could put this in, in, in your Jupyter notebook, right?

[01:17:10] Christina: Like you could have it alongside this.

[01:17:11] Jeff: start putting ASCII art

[01:17:13] Christina: I mean, you could,

[01:17:14] Jeff: any fucking work done.

[01:17:15] Christina: I mean, I mean, I mean, you could, or if you could just like build like something out, like if you just needed to have like a graphical, like overview of your REPL before, you know, you, you were able to kind of click through. It’d probably be super fluid to be completely clear, but it’s there.

[01:17:26] Christina: Anyway, it’s a fun

[01:17:28] Brett: Alright, uh, last, last one in the round. Um, so I, I’ve used font agent for years, um, cause I have a fairly large font collection and it just,

[01:17:40] Jeff: to brag.

[01:17:41] Christina: Not to, not to brag or anything. How many, how many of those have you paid for and how many of them have you

[01:17:45] Brett: I paid for most of them. Like I, I tend to, I tend to buy font bundles, uh, when they’re available. Like I will, if a font really blows my mind, I will spend money on an individual font, but like, For the stuff I do, [01:18:00] like, I just, I want a selection of handwritten fonts. I want a selection of display, uh, sans serif fonts, etc.

[01:18:07] Brett: And so I’ve collected hundreds over the years, and I’ve always used Font Agent, which is not cheap, and has ceased to function. Um, as of Sonoma, it just doesn’t. So I went searching for a new, uh, font manager, and I got a bunch of recommendations. I tried a bunch out. What I ended up on is one called Typeface.

[01:18:33] Brett: And it’s just got a really slick UI. It will show you, like, you can punch in your example text. It can show you a font in like, uh, web or book or, or magazine formats. Like you can see how the body text will look and everything. Um, easy to search, easy to tag, easy to categorize. Um, and it basically, for what I was actually [01:19:00] using FontAgent for, it does just as good a job.

[01:19:03] Brett: I can’t remember the price. It was not terribly

[01:19:06] Christina: It’s not, it’s also, it’s on set up, um, but it’s also not expensive as I recall. Um, cause it is, let me look at it. It is, it’s 37 for one user.

[01:19:16] Brett: Yeah, like permalicense, not, not subscription,

[01:19:19] Christina: Um, no, yeah, yeah, no, it’s permalicense. It’ll unlock all the pro features and then you get new updates for 12 months. So it’s one of those things, but, but it is a permalicense thing.

[01:19:28] Christina: And I don’t, I don’t really recall how often they actually add new features. Like that’s, you know, one of those things that it’s, it’s not like the, like I think like, like

[01:19:36] Brett: long as, as long as they keep it functioning, I’m okay.

[01:19:39] Christina: know they do and I, because I’ve been using this for a long time because it’s part of set up. And I was similar to you.

[01:19:43] Christina: I was using, what was the, um, what was the app that the, the sketch guys had, they sold it. Um,

[01:19:53] Brett: I don’t remember,

[01:19:54] Christina: there, there was like, there, but there was like a, a font manager app, um,

[01:19:58] Brett: was it something [01:20:00] B? Did it have B in

[01:20:01] Christina: no, um, and it wasn’t the suitcase cause that’s the really expensive

[01:20:05] Brett: Yeah, suitcase is

[01:20:07] Christina: Suitcase is stupid, um,

[01:20:09] Brett: the court, guys.

[01:20:10] Christina: and if people are asking why should you use a font manager instead of using font book, that’s not a bad question.

[01:20:15] Christina: Well, here’s the thing. For most people, if you have a small number of fonts,

[01:20:18] Brett: Yeah, if

[01:20:19] Christina: font book is

[01:20:19] Brett: got 20 to 50 fonts, font book is great. If you have 300, 400 fonts,

[01:20:24] Christina: right.

[01:20:25] Brett: book is unmanageable.

[01:20:27] Christina: and the issue is that, um, uh, what happens is, and it’s less of an issue as computers get more and more powerful, but the issue is, is that every time you load an application that can have access to fonts, it takes forever to load all those resources.

[01:20:40] Christina: And so it can slow things down. And so if you’re using, you know, Photoshop, or if you’re using Illustrator, or if you’re using another design program, like that can really become a bottleneck, um, and slow things down. So, um, again, this is like, It’s becoming less of an issue, especially like Adobe products now, you kind of don’t need it because of the way that their cloud font stuff works.

[01:20:59] Christina: You can kind of [01:21:00] enable sets and whatnot, but that’s sort of the thing you can do with, with a font manager is you can kind of say, okay, I want to enable these sets for right now. And so now when I’m using this particular context, it will have these enabled because this is what I’m using for this project, but I don’t need to use all these other ones.

[01:21:14] Christina: But I do know, for instance, like, but there’s some, for instance, like, Mymonospace fonts that I use for coding and whatnot. I have those installed in FontBook all times, right? But there are, if you’ve got like, if you’re like Brett and I and you’re a font hoarder and you’ve got like thousands and thousands of variants and I’m like, I don’t need this all the time, but I would like to potentially be able to browse these, um, in an easy to access way.

[01:21:38] Christina: Something like Typeface is great. What I also like about Typeface is that it does a good job of being able to, um, go through like, uh, Google fonts and other. Uh, services like that and help you easily download from there, which you can do through Homebrew and other sources, but like this is visual. So,

[01:21:55] Brett: Yeah. And it’s, it’s really, it’s beautiful night. Like as far as a Mac app [01:22:00] goes, it’s got all your nice, smooth transitions and like, and native UE. And yeah, it’s, it was the best that I tried. I am enjoying it. And like you said, like being able to temporarily activate like a set of fonts. Uh, when you need them without like with font agent, I was, I was I would go through my reboot process and for about five minutes after a reboot, it would just be notification after notification of like, we’ve activated all of these fonts that you didn’t specifically, they’re auto activated, but I, it got messy, it got real messy.

[01:22:36] Brett: So I’m enjoying, Typeface is cheaper and simpler and I enjoy it.

[01:22:42] Erin: Did you hear about this from Merlin?

[01:22:44] Brett: I did not, did you?

[01:22:46] Erin: I think so, yeah.

[01:22:48] Brett: I heard, I heard about it, I asked the question, I was like, Fontage didn’t stop working for me on Mastodon, what are you guys using? And Mastodon is I know it’s not for everybody. I know it’s mostly [01:23:00] for nerds, um, tech people, but I get answers so quickly to all of life’s problems.

[01:23:09] Brett: Um, like I got into vinegars recently. I was a hot sauce guy and a coffee guy and now I’m apparently a vinegar guy and got all these recommendations for like where to buy Vermont vinegars and Mastodon’s just a font of information for me.

[01:23:26] Jeff: Oh, font. Oh, shit.

[01:23:28] Erin: I don’t get it.

[01:23:30] Jeff: Byes, bell, brings it home, rings

[01:23:32] Christina: I love it. I love it.

[01:23:34] Brett: right, well, Erin, thanks for being

[01:23:36] Jeff: Erin, it was so nice to meet

[01:23:38] Erin: My pleasure. My pleasure.

[01:23:40] Christina: us.

[01:23:41] Brett: You guys get some sleep.

[01:23:43] Jeff: You get some sleep.

[01:23:44] Christina: You all get some sleep, fuckers.

[01:23:46] Brett: me what to do.

[01:23:48] Erin: Bye.

The gang waxes nostalgic about classic viral sites, discusses the best RSS readers, and gets back into the Mental Health Corner after a couple weeks off.

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Transcript

It’s Fine, I’m OK

[00:00:00]

[00:00:04] Brett: This episode is brought to you by HIM. Stay tuned for more info and welcome to Overtired. It’s great to have you back. I’m here with, Jeff Severance Gunsel and Christina Warren. welcome back. It’s been a couple weeks.

[00:00:18] Jeff: Thank you. Hi, everybody.

[00:00:20] Brett: So we’ve been starting with Grappitude and I gotta say, like, So, starting with Graptitude has meant that for the last two episodes we haven’t had the Mental Health Corner. And, and honestly, without the Mental Health Corner, I don’t want to do this show anymore.

[00:00:37] Jeff: Yeah, I think where we landed, I don’t know if this was a complete chat in our in our thread, but I think where we landed was to switch it back, but just to somehow

[00:00:45] Brett: To

[00:00:46] Jeff: police ourselves.

[00:00:47] Brett: yeah,

[00:00:48] Christina: exactly. We’re gonna, we’re gonna

[00:00:49] Brett: don’t, we don’t need 45 minutes for, for a mental health coroner. We, we can keep that, we can keep it down to five minutes per person, plus a little chat, and get us [00:01:00] down to like, no more than half the

[00:01:01] Jeff: we barely even get to Taylor Swift

[00:01:03] Brett: Right, I know, it’s,

[00:01:05] Jeff: But the whole world kind of overtook us, really.

[00:01:08] Christina: Honestly, they did and now it’s like not even funny to be like, oh, this is a Taylor Swift podcast because people are like, oh. Oh, really? Another one? And I’m like,

[00:01:15] Jeff: You think it’s good SEO?

[00:01:17] Christina: right. And, and, and it’s like, like trying to explain to people, it’s like, no, it’s actually not. That’s sort of the joke.

[00:01:22] Christina: Uh,

[00:01:22] Jeff: I tried to get us to change it to Kat Williams, but go ahead. Sorry, Christina.

[00:01:26] TikTok and Who TF Did I Marry

[00:01:26] Christina: no, I mean, look, honestly, Oh, okay. Have you guys seen, if we were going to switch it to something, if we were going to have a new hyperfixation, would it, it would be the, who the fuck should I marry TikTok lady?

[00:01:36] Brett: Haven’t

[00:01:36] Jeff: is that? I don’t know.

[00:01:39] Christina: I’m going to have to explain this to you. Um, we can do it after mental health corner. Yeah.

[00:01:42] Jeff: because of your understandable, exasperated, Oh my God. I have completely fucked my TikTok algorithm, which with like the people who do live feeds from oil rigs and the like, there’s some guys, there’s some guys who are just cutting up lumber. Uh, every night live, uh, as that, [00:02:00] and now baby monkeys.

[00:02:01] Jeff: That’s my TikTok. So,

[00:02:02] Brett: this, was this because of intentional decisions? How’d

[00:02:05] Jeff: oh, hell yeah. I’ve got, I love TikTok and I love how I can just be like, you know what, right now I’m really into oil rigs and, and lumber mills, and then sometimes I’m just into Cat Williams and, uh, and let’s see, like talking dogs, like, and you know what, I don’t mind TikTok knows me. Okay. Sorry. I’ll stop there.

[00:02:22] Jeff: But Christina, can you tell me now what this is? Cause I’m always looking

[00:02:26] Christina: Yeah, so, so this is, uh, I’ll be very brief on this, but, um, we’ll have a link in the show notes to a Rolling Stone thing, because this is the first thing I found SEO wise that looked somewhat decent. There are full, if you want to watch the whole thing, you can watch it on her TikTok, but people have also uploaded although She should have, so she can get some of the YouTube views, um, and that way you can play it on full time, uh, like, like, like 2x speed.

[00:02:49] Christina: Basically, this woman, she goes by Risa M. Tisa. Um, last week, she started, or maybe she started it, like, uh, a little bit before that. I, I heard about it on, like, Monday. And [00:03:00] then it’s, it’s blown up since then. Basically she’s put out a 50 plus, and yes, I’m, I’m, this is accurate, 50 plus part series on TikTok called Who TF Did I Marry?

[00:03:11] Christina: And basically talking about the, the, this pathological liar that she married. And it’s insane. It’s like the most insane story. So the story is like six hours long.

[00:03:20] Jeff: Wow.

[00:03:21] Christina: It’s nuts. And in the details, like all the things that are psychologically wrong with this man, um, and I looked in our, I peeped our notes, like talking about abusive partners, Brett, like this guy, holy fucking shit.

[00:03:34] Christina: We’re talking like making up relative deaths, making up relatives, fake phone calls to no one, fake bank accounts, pretending to buy a house when you don’t actually have the money for said house, completely faking what career he had, having multiple side checks. Being previously married in ways he didn’t say before.

[00:03:51] Christina: Like, literally, like this man that she married lied about everything. Everything. [00:04:00] And then lied about the lie.

[00:04:01] Jeff: George Santos?

[00:04:03] Brett: I, I had,

[00:04:05] Christina: someone

[00:04:05] Brett: I had, I had a, I had a pathological liar girlfriend and like, it wasn’t like, honestly, obviously it wasn’t as involved as getting married to someone, but in, in retrospect, I could not believe the stuff she lied about. Like, literally, her entire life was a fabrication. Stuff that, what, like, you wouldn’t, why, why would you even lie about it?

[00:04:28] Brett: She just made shit up for the sake of making shit up.

[00:04:31] Christina: Yeah, totally. Um, and, and, and this, this guy, I think it’s kind of a mix of those things. But anyway, the, the interesting thing is, like, she does take some responsibility because there’s some stuff and you’re like, all right, look, girl, like I get that like you, it was the pandemic and you were lonely and like you wanted to have a baby and, and all kinds of shit.

[00:04:46] Christina: Um, uh, but, uh, side note, he, she had a miscarriage, but then he told like the few family members he was talking to, because most of them cut him off, um, that, that she had the baby and that then when they were getting divorced, he was going to be fighting her for custody. [00:05:00] Even though, like, like, like, like, nuts, right?

[00:05:03] Christina: So this whole thing is fucking crazy. So, um, It’s basically, you guys know that Zola, remember the Zola Twitter thread, right?

[00:05:12] Jeff: No.

[00:05:14] Christina: Turn. It was a

[00:05:15] Brett: not

[00:05:16] Jeff: It’s called X.

[00:05:17] Christina: no. Well, it but, but this was back when it was very much Twitter and it was even turned into an a 24 film. So,

[00:05:26] Jeff: okay, got it, got it,

[00:05:27] Christina: um, basically is this, um, this stripper who like this, this, she met like this, this white girl at Hooters, who then like took her basically on like a, a trap trip, um, uh, with a bunch of, uh, Johns and like a bunch of shit went down.

[00:05:41] Christina: It’s like the most insane. It’s this famous viral tweet that turned into a movie. Anyway, this is like Zola, but without the sex work. Um, but it’s that sort of like viral thing where like everybody’s watching this fucking, um, the interesting thing here from like a social perspective is you have millions and millions of views [00:06:00] on this per installment.

[00:06:01] Christina: So she’s got 50 plus installments. Millions of people are watching this thing. Um, it, it’s, you know, obviously not on your TikToks, but it’s on mine and it’s on. Basically everybody I knows and, um, then people, of course, as they do, can’t not be fucking weirdos online. So even though she was very clear about the fact that she was like, I don’t want to like uncover the real people behind this.

[00:06:23] Christina: Of course, that’s the very first thing the internet’s going to do. And then be very proud of themselves when you have like women being like, Oh, we’re outing abusers. And this is Legion, who is, is, is what she’d call the guy. His name is Jerome. He’s now putting his TikTok because of course he is. Um, anyway, the, the, like.

[00:06:40] Christina: Also, she’s from Atlanta, and, and so, she goes into ridiculous amounts of detail about some of the things. Like, the first thing she said, she was like, oh yeah, you know, our first date was at the Cheesecake Factory at Perimeter Mall, and I’m like, I fucking worked at Perimeter Mall. I’ve been to that Cheesecake

[00:06:54] Jeff: Perimeter Mall, that’s quite a name.

[00:06:56] Christina: Perimeter, yeah, um, yeah, Perimeter, sorry, [00:07:00] I didn’t enunciate well enough.

[00:07:01] Christina: Um, but I’m like, I worked at that mall, I worked at the Abercrombie at that mall, I worked at the Best Buy across the street from that mall,

[00:07:08] Jeff: Oh man, how have we not talked about this?

[00:07:10] Brett: do they, when the, the rent a cops at the mall go out on patrol, do they say, I’m gonna secure the perimeter? Do

[00:07:19] Jeff: Oh my god.

[00:07:20] Brett: have

[00:07:21] Christina: so like, the rent a cops are very, very laid back.

[00:07:26] Jeff: Have I ever told y’all the story of

[00:07:28] Christina: They did back in the day.

[00:07:31] Been Caught Stealing

[00:07:31] Jeff: Have I ever told the story in this podcast of when I was arrested by, uh, thanks to a secret shopper, uh, for shoplifting?

[00:07:37] Christina: No.

[00:07:38] Brett: I feel like

[00:07:39] Jeff: I’ve finally,

[00:07:39] Christina: and where did you shoplift from? And where, and where did you shoplift

[00:07:42] Jeff: it was a grocery store, it was a grocery store in Minot, North Dakota. I, you know, we can put it on the topic list for later.

[00:07:48] Jeff: I finally told, now both of my boys know, so I feel like I can tell it on a podcast.

[00:07:52] Brett: Maybe you told this story to me over tacos last time I was in

[00:07:56] Jeff: I think that’s likely, I don’t think I would have told it on the podcast, but I’m ready. It [00:08:00] doesn’t have to be, well this could be a teaser for the next episode, it doesn’t have to be in this

[00:08:02] Christina: It doesn’t have to be this one. No, but I need to know about this. Uh, so I mean, I, I, I never, I’ve never shoplifted, um, the, that’s the one thing I’ve never done. I’ve never shoplifted. Um, I’ve stole, I’ve, you know, like stolen plenty of things from, from digital.

[00:08:16] Christina: You wouldn’t download a car. Oh. But I would. Um, but like, you know, I would def, I would definitely download a virtual car. Um. But I’ve never shoplifted. Not because I even am that opposed to it. I mean, I am, but like, I’m not. Like, I’m indifferent is what I should say. If it’s not my store, I’m going to be completely selfish.

[00:08:36] Christina: I kind of don’t care. But, um, Uh, you know, you shouldn’t steal from mom and pops or whatever, like, I’m not

[00:08:43] Jeff: oh yeah, no no, for sure.

[00:08:44] Christina: you know what I mean? I’m indifferent is what I’m trying to say. Um, but,

[00:08:48] Jeff: And I want to be clear, the last time I shoplifted was this story, and it was in, uh, 1998. It’s gonna be clear for the record, any perspective, you know, employers, it’s over.

[00:08:58] Christina: statute of limitations actually does apply [00:09:00] here. No, I’m just saying, like, for me, it wasn’t, like, a moral reason why I never shoplifted. I just knew that I would get caught,

[00:09:06] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:09:07] Brett: Yeah, I, I was always getting in trouble for shit other people did. I didn’t need to tempt fate. Um, and, and I never, I never really got, like, a rush out of shoplifting. Like, I tried it and it, like, other people would, like, do it for the thrill of it. Um, do you guys remember a little craze called wahooing?

[00:09:26] Jeff: Oh, uh, remind me. I mean, I think, I think I’m familiar.

[00:09:30] Brett: you bring something sizable up to the checkout at the counter, and when they ring it up, you just yell Wahoo and you run out of the store, and to, to me that was a little more interesting than trying to like hide things in a trench coat, um, and half, half the time, half the time, half the time we would go back and, and just pay for it, cause it wasn’t about like, we couldn’t afford bread, so we were shoplifting to feed our families, we were just You know, [00:10:00] teenagers.

[00:10:01] Christina: you’re just being, yeah, no, I mean, I, I never did that and I never dined and dashed, although we did do a thing once when I was 16 where we wanted to see how many restaurants we could get kicked out of in 24 hours by like starting fake fights and like Denny’s and IHOP and, um, it is, it’s really hard to get kicked out of an IHOP.

[00:10:18] Christina: Um. Waffle House, too. Well, we didn’t even try at Waffle House. Waffle House, we, we would know better than trying there, because they’re not, like, just yelling at one another. Like, also,

[00:10:28] Jeff: there’s a fight?

[00:10:29] Christina: well,

[00:10:29] Brett: waitstaff would just knife

[00:10:31] Christina: they would, and the thing is, too, is that you respect the Waffle House, like, staff. Like, I respected them a lot, and you, you fucking should, for fucking real.

[00:10:39] Christina: And,

[00:10:40] Brett: basically frontline workers.

[00:10:42] Christina: I mean, honestly, um, one of my favorite Waffle House, uh, waitresses, she was also a stripper at like the strip club that was nearby, but she had a temper, really hot girl. And so they would like, she would lose her job as a stripper and then she’d come back to Waffle House. And then Waffle House like blacklisted her a few times, but this [00:11:00] was before their computer systems could really do that.

[00:11:01] Christina: So she just lied about who she was and she’d go to a different store, but she’d also been blacklisted by IHOP, I think. And, um, and her boyfriend was a drug dealer and had all kinds of really expensive, um, sound equipment and she and I used to talk about like high end stereo equipment all the time, which is a weird thing to do when you’re drunk at four o’clock in the morning.

[00:11:19] Christina: Um, but like, mean, if you’re two hot girls though, it kind of is. Um, but anyway,

[00:11:28] Jeff: gendered, but I’m just speaking from my lived experience.

[00:11:32] Christina: anyway, that’s a tangent, but yeah, but yeah, um, I, I never, I never did wahooing, but we did try, we would try to like get kicked out of restaurants. Um. Because that would, that was just

[00:11:43] Jeff: That sounds stressful as hell to me, like I, everything I did wrong I did quietly, when really the only thing I did like technically wrong was shoplifting and then immediately after I stopped that I started going illegally to Iraq. It was just like, I had to be breaking the law somehow.

[00:11:56] Christina: Well, I mean, I mean, which is impressive. You go from like, like, like [00:12:00] stealing something from a grocery store, which we got to talk about this on another episode. I need to like dig into the psychology here, to then sneaking into another country. Like, wow. Like, just the levels there. I’m like, I’m stealing some gum to I’m literally breaking, like, I’m literally crossing the border into a country that I’m not supposed to

[00:12:19] Jeff: With, with medical supplies that I’m smuggling in because it’s illegal for Americans to be there. This is, for anyone who’s wondering, this is pre war. This is during the sanctions. It wasn’t illegal for Americans to be there once there were

[00:12:30] Christina: What, right, once the war was there, then it’s like, oh no, come on over. Uh, uh, want a gun? w want

[00:12:34] Jeff: what’s illegal about Abu Ghraib?

[00:12:36] Jeff: No, it’s fine. Come on in.

[00:12:37] Christina: fine. Come on in. We’ll do it. But yeah, before that, the sanctions. Yeah,

[00:12:40] Jeff: Yes. Anyway, okay. We’ll, we’ll pin that. Um, it is, I will just say as a added teaser, um, this, this mostly happened on tour because when you’re on tour, you, you feel it’s like Deadwood. There’s no, no law at all. And uh, and my brother and I both had this. This tendency, we’ll call it. And my brother had a great story, [00:13:00] which I’ll share, but that I recently had drafted up by Dali.

[00:13:03] Jeff: Um, uh, and, and I’m trying to draft up other stories from being on tour, which I mentioned when Merlin was on, but that was one. And I’ll talk about that when we, that’ll be the show art when we go.

[00:13:12] Christina: awesome. All right.

[00:13:14] Brett: so I

[00:13:14] Jeff: my brother should be our guest. Cause he and I were the shoplifters together.

[00:13:18] Brett: I was telling you guys about some weird dreams I had and it would be amazing to get Dali to illustrate those

[00:13:26] Jeff: I’ve been doing it. I’ve been doing it with my weird dreams. I’ve been doing it with my weird dreams. I love it.

[00:13:31] Mental Health Corner (returns!)

[00:13:31] Brett: should we do a mental health corner?

[00:13:32] Christina: let’s do

[00:13:33] Brett: Okay, um, who wants to start?

[00:13:37] Jeff: I don’t mind starting unless Christina. Okay. First, I’m just gonna say I have a giant thing of water. Hear that? And, and this is part of taking care of

[00:13:46] Brett: bigger than his head.

[00:13:47] Jeff: working outside today. I’m building a little loft storage in my in my garage. And when I’m working outside, I might Kids call this Aquachungus.

[00:13:54] Jeff: It’s a half gallon, uh, water bottle, and I’m going to be drinking from it to stay hydrated in this [00:14:00] podcast, and every time you hear it, you know I’m taking care of my mental health, uh, because that’s really important. Here I go. Mmmmm.

[00:14:06] Christina: Drink, drink, drink, drink, drink.

[00:14:09] Jeff: drink, drink. Uh, yeah, okay, and this, also, Aquachungus has a, a hook on it for some reason?

[00:14:14] Jeff: I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do

[00:14:15] Christina: think that,

[00:14:16] Jeff: on my

[00:14:16] Christina: that I, maybe it’s supposed to be able to like, hang on to like a, I don’t know, like, like a boat or something. I don’t know, like a car. I don’t know.

[00:14:25] Brett: Yeah, for, for those listening, it’s not so much a hook as it is an anchor with like two prongs

[00:14:31] Jeff: Yeah, I think that this could be a whole new thing we do on this podcast, which is describe not interesting objects that nobody can see.

[00:14:36] Brett: Have you ever, have you, have you ever seen described porn? They’re, they make, they make these, these, like Pornhub has them for visually impaired people where like you can hear the soundtrack and like if you are.

[00:14:52] Brett: If you are visually abled, you can see it, but there’s this like soothing voice over the top of it that describes in [00:15:00] explicit detail exactly what is happening in every scene, I find it very humorous.

[00:15:05] Jeff: That’s interesting.

[00:15:06] Christina: A 10 inch thick cock

[00:15:08] Brett: Yeah, exactly.

[00:15:09] Christina: its way into a tight, yeah. I, I, I,

[00:15:12] Jeff: Yeah. That’s that’s interesting,

[00:15:15] Christina: no, is it, is it done like seriously, or is this, like, is this actually an accessibility

[00:15:18] Brett: No, it’s, yeah, it’s an accessibility thing

[00:15:20] Christina: I mean, well, the reason I was asking is because one of the things I have appreciated about Pornhub over the years is that, um, even though they’re very thirsty and very aggressive to try to make you write about every stupid little, um, like publicity stunt they do, or at least they did back in the day.

[00:15:36] Christina: I don’t know if that’s true anymore. Would be that they did have some pretty funny publicity stunts. So I could see that, that being as like a thing where they’re like, Oh yeah, we’re going to release this as a feature and do a, you know, press release about it, but then also maybe actually still have it as like a true accessibility thing too, which not going to lie, like.

[00:15:55] Christina: There’s a market for it, you

[00:15:57] Jeff: I mean, people read VC Andrews books.

[00:15:59] Christina: [00:16:00] Uh, no fucking Oh, Fanfic is incredibly popular, and not to mention, like, like, the most read, like, novels, like, the books that people sell that make the most money are the fucking smutty ass, like, weird, like, dragon, like, romance shit aimed at women. Yeah.

[00:16:17] Jeff: That’s like, okay, I will do my mental health check-in, but you made me think of this. Go ahead Brett. You have

[00:16:21] Brett: I just want to point out that this is why our mental health sections go for 45 minutes because, because half the podcast is like embedded in the mental

[00:16:30] Christina: Fair enough. Totally. I will say, at this point, we can very clearly siphon this off now. I was like, this is opening banter. And then we can go

[00:16:38] Jeff: that’s right. That’s right, that’s right. Uh, all I’ve really done is water so far. So I’m just gonna quick say this. You know, I’ve, I’ve been obsessed all year with The Godfather. I re-watched it. I, I watched the, um, the, the series, the limited series, the offer about bringing it to screen. Um, and I’m now reading a.

[00:16:54] Jeff: Book that’s just kind of a culmination of all other sort of books and reporting of the making of the Godfather. What [00:17:00] I never realized, I knew Mario Puzo’s book was like, at the time, was selling more copies than the Bible. I didn’t realize how completely inane and insane the sex scenes are in

[00:17:10] Christina: Oh, they are.

[00:17:11] Jeff: excerpts of them.

[00:17:12] Jeff: And I was just like, oh, I see why it was the biggest selling book. And it

[00:17:15] Christina: Oh, totally. No, no. There’s this whole thing about like, like, like, uh, the woman that, that, uh, that Sonny fucks at the wedding, um, is, uh, it like has like a really big pussy. Like, and, and, and that’s why, like, like it, it’s been, it’s been difficult for other men, like, to be able to like fill her well, and that’s why, like, she has to like, like, like fuck.

[00:17:32] Brett: is described porn. Okay.

[00:17:34] Jeff: it,

[00:17:35] Christina: I, I, I, I, so, um, I’m not trying to interrupt you, I’m gonna, I’ll talk about this after our Mental Health Corner thing, Jeff, but I do want to pick up on your Godfather

[00:17:43] Jeff: Okay.

[00:17:44] Christina: after this, because I want to know what book you’re reading, uh, because I have thoughts, but anyway, sorry, go on.

[00:17:48] Brett: I, I do think our show title is described porn.

[00:17:52] Christina: Yes, sponsored by HIMSS,

[00:17:55] Jeff: Did you?

[00:17:59] Brett: Oh [00:18:00] shit. Yeah.

[00:18:02] Jeff: Oh my god. Okay. So, um, my, my mental health corner topic is like, this has been true of me for a while, but I’ve been, I’ve been experiencing it again. There’s a, there’s a tendency in my friends, most of them, um, Most of them are men, identify as men. A couple of them are women, identify as women. And it fucking makes me crazy.

[00:18:21] Jeff: And it’s someone to say it, and I’m gonna ask you a question. I can’t stand it when somebody tells me in the context of our friendship, something that’s going on with them that’s really hard, especially when there’s someone who maybe doesn’t even share that stuff that often. And now here they are, right?

[00:18:35] Jeff: They’re telling you about something that’s happened to them, something that’s happening inside them, whatever. It’s very, very, very hard. And you say the thing. That you say, which is like, I’m really sorry this is happening to you. Or you say, whatever it is you say, that’s like an empathy thing. Uh, and, and what they say back is.

[00:18:50] Jeff: I mean, it’s okay. Right? Which I find to be, I understand why it happens. I’m not even, I’m not judging it. Right? The older I [00:19:00] get and, uh, the older I get, the more frustrated I am with it because, and I realized it’s not because I care about them. It’s because as a friend, I’m, I’m walled out right there, right?

[00:19:13] Jeff: Like you’ve told me this stuff and now you go, it’s fine. Like, and I mean, I don’t mean like that happens sometimes. Sometimes it is fine. Right? Like, I’m not, I’m not saying every time that happens, this is triggers this thing in me, but I’ve found that like, it’s, it’s. It’s really hard to feel, uh, feel the connection that I felt when I was talking to them.

[00:19:32] Jeff: If when you acknowledge or reflect that thing back in a way that is totally normal inside your friendship, it’s not, you know, I’m not like, it’s, it doesn’t feel like I’m doing that part wrong. Um, and then it’s just, ah, it’s okay. It’s

[00:19:43] Brett: Is this a Midwest thing, do you think?

[00:19:46] Jeff: I mean, so I, no, I mean, I have a friend,

[00:19:48] Christina: a Protestant thing, I think.

[00:19:50] Jeff: Yeah, yeah, right, right, right.

[00:19:52] Jeff: No, I mean, I’ve had it from people all over the world that are my friends. Um, and, uh, and so anyway, I was curious, I was curious for both of you. [00:20:00] Um, I know that for me, it is hard to hear someone say back to me after I’ve told them something hard. Like, that sounds really That sucks. Sounds really hard. Like I understand that that can be a weird thing to receive sometimes, but I think my typical response is like, yeah, shit.

[00:20:18] Jeff: Thank you.

[00:20:18] Brett: Yeah, exactly. That’s mine too, is like, yeah, it is.

[00:20:22] Jeff: and Christina, what about you?

[00:20:23] Christina: well, it varies, because I mean, I think that it’d be more healthy if I said thank you, or does. But I think a lot of times, my instinctual response is not to be like, is honestly like, it’s fine, it’s whatever. Um, and I

[00:20:40] Jeff: I think.

[00:20:41] Christina: Right, and to me, like, I think that it isn’t so much because I’m like, oh, I don’t want to let you in, um, because of the fact that I’m sharing it with you at all means that I’ve let you in.

[00:20:51] Christina: It just means that I’m, at least the way I intended, and maybe it doesn’t come across this way, um, so I agree, I think the way that you two respond is better, but I think the reason [00:21:00] I’m like, yeah, it’s whatever, it’s fine, it’s whatever, whatever, is because I’m kind of like, I’ve shared this with you, but I’m not necessarily in a place where I know that I can solve this or I can do anything about it.

[00:21:12] Christina: So, you know,

[00:21:14] Jeff: I’m super interested, I’m super interested in this because I, I, I’m thinking about, you’re causing me to think about things I hadn’t thought, so that doesn’t trigger me in the same way. Because I, here’s how I hear that, and I want to see if this is partly how you feel like you mean it when you say it. How I hear that is like, yeah, it’s fine, whatever.

[00:21:30] Jeff: Fuck. It’s like, you know, like, it’s just like, it’s to me, that’s a version of saying, yeah, it fucking sucks. Right. Um, it’s, it’s the thing. It’s not when someone does the, like, it’s okay. Literally those words seem to be the pathological thing. Whether your first language is, is English or not. It’s my experience.

[00:21:45] Jeff: And for me, it’s not that I want more, right? It’s not like, um, no, don’t cut me off. It’s kind of like, it’s just like a hard landing. It’s like, wait, what happened?

[00:21:55] Christina: yeah. No, I think you’re right. I mean, I think sometimes though, there’s a [00:22:00] weird thing too where I think, and, and you’re, you are, I think, probably right, and to pick up on this and, and right to have feelings about it, which is sometimes I think we can share things with people. And we can be perceptive, you know, and we can be like that vulnerable to do it, but we are then not vulnerable enough to continue to open up to it.

[00:22:18] Christina: So it’s like, I can share this to you. I can share this with you, but I don’t want to have a conversation about this. Right? Like I can say, and that happens sometimes where I’m like, I’m going to share this with you, but you know what? I do not want to talk any further about it. I don’t want to hear you even like, it’s great for you to say, Oh, I’m so sorry about that.

[00:22:32] Christina: But if you want to talk more in depth, because people always like, Oh, well, you know, I’m here for you if you want to talk. And a lot of times I’m like, I appreciate that. I really don’t. You know, or, or, or like, like, I, it’s been enough for me. Like I’ve, I’ve exalted my vulnerability for the day. I’ve been telling you this thing.

[00:22:47] Christina: I I’m not yet in a place where I can go beyond that.

[00:22:50] Brett: yeah, now that you say it like that, I realize what I often do is I will, like, you know me, I, I share everything with everybody. Um, and I’ll share something [00:23:00] really vulnerable and they will react the way Jeff does, like, that really sucks for you. I’m sorry. And I will say,

[00:23:07] Jeff: Sucks to be you.

[00:23:08] Brett: no, I, I will say. I will say, yeah, thank you.

[00:23:12] Brett: It does suck. And then immediately change the subject. Like I don’t generally, I don’t generally want to go into depth about everything that is, all the things I wear on my sleeve. Like I don’t mind the acknowledgement, but I’m not looking for an in depth conversation most of the time.

[00:23:28] Jeff: I so relate to that. And I, to Christina’s point, I will sometimes say this probably happens more in writing if I’m like texting with a friend, I will sometimes say like, Look, I don’t need a response to this. But I just need to share this, because let’s be honest, the worst way to respond when you have shared something with somebody is for that person to then go down any of the roads that are like solutioneering or like, you know, whatever, like, I don’t want that shit.

[00:23:50] Jeff: And I should And like, and I don’t mean to, I don’t mean to present what I’m saying as like, something I think is right or true, but I will say, I will say that in [00:24:00] fairness, I will choose not to share something more often than not, so I’m not, you know, like, if I, if I have kind of talked and someone says, shit, I’m sorry, that sucks, it’s like, I, I actually really needed to hear exactly that, and I don’t want any more than that, you

[00:24:16] Brett: My, uh, my partner, Elle, is a problem solver. Like, their, their instinct, as soon as they hear something’s wrong, they look for solutions. And that is so often not what I need.

[00:24:28] Christina: I, I, I, I can make that mistake sometimes too, and I think I’ve gotten better with it, but it depends on the person. And I know that can annoy people. My mom is like that. My mom is a problem solver, but she does know enough, and like, you know, she’s a problem solver. I’m a counselor, so she doesn’t do that, like, with people that she’s just listening to, to talk.

[00:24:47] Christina: I mean, that’s one of the reasons why I think she became a counselor is because she’s very good at that naturally. Um, but with, like, me and my sister and my dad, like, you know, because she wants to help so badly, she immediately goes into the, [00:25:00] okay, well, how can we fix this mode? And I, I would have to oftentimes, like, tell her as a kid, um, or, you know, teenager, or sometimes even as an adult, although she’s a lot better, uh, as an adult.

[00:25:10] Christina: As adults we’re much more communicative where I’m like, no, I actually just need you to like be my mom and just listen. Like, I don’t, I don’t want any, you know, advice. Um, because I know probably what I need to do or what my options are. Uh, I don’t want to go down that road right now because that’s what’s stressing me out.

[00:25:28] Christina: You know, like I think for a lot of people,

[00:25:31] Jeff: And it misses what I think is true about being human, which is that for the hardest things, what you need is to be able to describe them and say them out loud. And then you, uh, something in you starts to work on that a little bit. There’s something about having said it that isn’t always going to be the solution, but it’s like, I think when people go straight into solutions, which I’ve certainly been guilty of, I think it, it forgets the.

[00:25:52] Jeff: Importance of just saying something out loud and what that does for a person. I mean, hence therapy, right? Sometimes, sometimes you need, you do need your therapist to talk back, [00:26:00] but

[00:26:02] Brett: Yeah.

[00:26:03] Jeff: yeah, so anyway, I, I’ve just been thinking about that cause I’ve run into it a couple of times. And again, like I say, like some 49 now, um, a lot of the friendships I’m talking about where this happens are very old friendships, right? Where I know the arc of their lives. I know I know what it looks like when things are really bad or really hard.

[00:26:19] Jeff: I know when it’s not okay. And, and we’re close enough that it, it would be, some of us have talked about it to a really great effect where it’s fine to just, you don’t have to say anything back. If I, if I just register that I’m hearing you, but not, I don’t do it. I like the thing. I don’t do an overwrought or, you know, and if anything, I understate it by saying like, it fucking sucks.

[00:26:38] Jeff: I’m sorry. You know, like, uh, but, uh, I’ve found that in a lot of older relationships, that’s where it. Can be hard. But I mean, how I deal with that actually is just to be like, it’s not okay. You just spent 20 minutes talking to you about something. It’s totally not okay. We don’t talk about it anymore, but I’m just going to be the one that says it’s not okay.

[00:26:57] Jeff: And I get why you’re saying [00:27:00] let’s move on. Like that is how I handle it to be clear. Like I don’t, um, I don’t just, uh, seethe, but that’s my, that’s my bet.

[00:27:09] Brett: Alright.

[00:27:10] Jeff: Drink.

[00:27:11] Brett: Drink. Um, I’ll go next. I will effort to keep it short. Um, I have had insomnia for a couple months now. Um, I, for a long time, was sleeping every other night. Um, but then like, on the off nights, I would wake up around 12 or 1 and then just be awake, uh, for the rest of the night. So I was functioning on 3 to 4 hours of sleep max, um, every other night.

[00:27:41] Brett: And it was really dragging me down, so I talked to my psychiatrist. We’ve gone through a couple meds. The first ones actually made it worse. I can’t remember the name of what I just started last night, but it was the first night I slept in the last six days. And I’m not manic, just to [00:28:00] be clear. Like I’m not, none of the other symptoms are there other than sleeplessness.

[00:28:06] Brett: I just, for some reason. Have stopped sleeping. I think it might be circadian rhythms as the days get longer. I think my system might just be off. Um, so I’m using like a, a full spectrum light in the mornings to try to like shake this. But anyway, um, second point, I had my first actual IFS session on Tuesday.

[00:28:29] Brett: Um,

[00:28:29] Jeff: family systems.

[00:28:30] Brett: Internal family systems. It was, it was very interesting. Like, as we’ve talked about, I’m a little skeptical, um, of the entire process, but also have read enough that I think it would be very beneficial to me. Um, and immediately, like I discovered. Parts of me that I had no idea were there and made a lot of sense, um, and Ellis convinced that some of the weird dreams I had last night were a result [00:29:00] of beginning IFS therapy, um, and the last thing I’ll say actually relates to, uh, something Jeff was talking about, um, uh, A girl that I dated briefly in college and haven’t talked to in 20 years has recently gotten in touch with me, um, and, like, she got in touch with me before this shit went down, but the guy that she was hanging, okay, she said they’re not dating, but they hang out every day, and they, they make out, and, like, this is what I pieced together is, Much like when we were together in college, she doesn’t want a boyfriend, um, but she’ll, like, do all the things that a partner does, um, and, uh, then all of a sudden she texts me that he’s in treatment, uh, that they forced him into treatment, and I had no inkling of this Before, [00:30:00] um, but he tested positive for like every drug known to man, he broke out of treatment, he broke into her house, um, he is being scary as hell, um, she sends me videos that he sends her where he is like crazed and manic and, um, it is, it is terrifying and I don’t It’s I’m two hours away from her.

[00:30:25] Brett: I don’t know how to respond other than to say, I’m really sorry you’re going through this. Here are the shelters near you if you need, if you need a safe place to go. Um, and she doesn’t shut me down. Like she seems grateful that she has Someone to share all this with because, like, his entire family is being terrorized right now, and they can commiserate, but they can’t take a calm, external look at it.

[00:30:53] Brett: Um, and so that has been, uh, honestly, it has added some interest to my otherwise very stable [00:31:00] life. Um, but I I have a lot of, I’m really worried about how this ends and, and what happens next. So

[00:31:10] Jeff: Yeah. How did you end up back in touch?

[00:31:15] Brett: she texted, like we have been friends on Facebook for 20 years and we’ve never said a word to each other directly. Um, and then she texted me, I can’t remember. How she got my number, but yeah, she just kind of texted me out of the blue. How you doing? And then she kept promising we were going to FaceTime sometime and then always flaked on it.

[00:31:40] Brett: Um, which is okay. Um, but yeah, like she, she owns a restaurant and is Like, for all intents and purposes, seems to be doing well, but she got, she got in with, uh, a scary guy, [00:32:00] and honestly, the guy that we’re talking about is the guy who did all my tattoos. He used to be a roommate of mine, um, like they were

[00:32:07] Jeff: interesting. So this is a dual connection

[00:32:09] Brett: yeah, they were, they were, those two were not friends back then, but they have connected

[00:32:15] Christina: But they were like part, you are all part of the same circle, I

[00:32:17] Brett: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, and, and I liked the guy. Uh, he was, He was passionate and, um, and very good looking, like, did some modeling, and, like, he was an interesting person to be around, but we were definitely junkies together, um, we, we definitely went through all of the stages of junkiedom together, uh, so I know, I know what he’s like high too.

[00:32:46] Brett: And that’s, that’s pretty scary. And I also, like, I really think he’s bipolar. Like, you can be whacked out on a bunch of drugs without acting the way he’s acting. And you can be manic and act that [00:33:00] way without any drugs.

[00:33:01] Jeff: right,

[00:33:02] Brett: the drugs with mania, and that, that describes what I’m seeing from him.

[00:33:09] Jeff: That’s hard.

[00:33:10] Brett: I think he’s, I think he’s fueling mania with drugs.

[00:33:14] Jeff: Hmm.

[00:33:15] Christina: Which, which is really, I mean, I mean that’s the worst. I mean, I, I, I dated someone who, um, when he went off of his medication and then started abusing cocaine, like it was a real problem. Um, and, and basically that ended our relationship, um, because he was bipolar before and, and dealt with it and, and whatnot.

[00:33:35] Christina: But then when it was the, okay, I am going to go. Purposely go off my medication and I’m going to start like using cocaine excessively and whatnot. I was like, okay, this is not a safe or a good, you know, environment for me to be in. I’m done. Um, especially when you’re like 22, like it’s just, you can’t do that.

[00:33:53] Christina: Um, and you’re right. Like that’s, That’s just like another level nightmare to have, you know, like the combination if, if [00:34:00] what you’re saying is right, right? Because it’s like either of those things on their own can be really bad, but together it’s a really dangerous combination for everybody involved.

[00:34:09] Brett: I agree. Um, I will, I will end mine there so we can try to contain our mental health, uh, uh, corner. Um, so Cristina, your turn.

[00:34:19] Christina: I’ve been ADHD as fuck. Um, I’ve been having a really hard time focusing and concentrating. I’ve mentioned that before and it’s, it’s still a problem. So I’m, I’m trying to kind of, I don’t know, see if I can like workshop some other solutions, try to do some other things. But this has like been worse than it’s.

[00:34:36] Christina: ever been in my life where, um, if I can kind of force myself into a mode where I’m actively working on something, it’s fine. But if I’m not actively like forcing myself, like I’m right now on the podcast, although while I’m recording with YouTube, I’m listening to you talk, but I’m also like looking up a bunch of other random stuff in the background and, and like multitasking.

[00:34:58] Christina: And, and I am engaged and I am listening [00:35:00] and, um, and whatnot, but it, but I’m. You know, my brain is, is doing a bunch of other things, so I don’t know what this means. I don’t really know what to do about it, but that’s kind of where I’m at right now. So,

[00:35:10] Brett: Yeah, I assume no medication changes. This is just a,

[00:35:14] Christina: this is just, yeah, I mean, I’m

[00:35:15] Brett: balance change.

[00:35:16] Christina: Yeah, this is just exactly, and, and it’s one of those things, so like, you know, I have been off of antidepressants now completely for a couple of months now, and I don’t know if that’s, Had any sort of impact or not? I mean, I have to say anecdotally, it does feel like it’s gotten worse, but at the same time, I don’t really, you know, like, the antidepressants weren’t working.

[00:35:35] Christina: So, yeah, I, I don’t know. I’m, I’m, I think that there are probably, I’m probably going to need to do some, some, uh, CBT, um, stuff to try to maybe get into a better mindset of some things I can do to maybe rewire myself to, Like not solve the ADHD because I don’t believe like that CBT can do that But some things that I can do to like force myself into better habits So [00:36:00] that I can then get into a better place because I think what tends to happen at least for me is that things can become rote and you can become like you can allow yourself to get away with you know, giving into the ADHD and And then get kind of like off schedule, off track, and I’m just trying to get myself to that place where I’m, you know, I’m honestly like trying to like screw myself and be like, get your shit together, like, do the hard

[00:36:22] Brett: trying to be a normal person.

[00:36:23] Christina: right, like, get your shit together, do these things.

[00:36:25] Christina: It’s not like everything’s going to be okay, magically, and it’s not like, you know, you’re going to immediately not struggle with this stuff, but you’re going to have, like, I’m just trying to get myself to that point where I can get the lethargy out and actually like, Forced myself into being like, no, actually, this is not okay and, and we need to do things to fix this because medicine alone is like, I think at this point, I don’t think it’s a medicine thing.

[00:36:46] Christina: It’s well, like the thing that medicine can solve. It’s like, my brain is broken. It’s a biochemical thing. But I also think that there are probably some like behavioral Things that I need to change. I don’t know. That’s

[00:36:57] Brett: what I’ve found too. I have found like [00:37:00] medication can get me to a certain point. Um, but once I started therapy just about a year ago, um. I began developing, like, actual, like, life skills that I didn’t have, uh, for, like, specific, not general life skills, but specifically for dealing with things like bipolar and ADHD, and while I will always say, take your meds, like, don’t, don’t be scared of medication for any of the reasons that people give you, but, uh, there is a behavioral component to all of it, and I don’t know anybody who’s I do.

[00:37:35] Brett: Okay. I know some people. I don’t know many neurodivergent people that are single diagnosis. Um, so when you start treating multiple disorders with medication, it becomes a tightrope walk. Like you’re talking about maybe stopping antidepressants, change your, change the way your ADHD presents itself. Um, and it’s, it’s such a tightrope walk when you have multiple diagnoses.

[00:37:59] Jeff: [00:38:00] rope walk where you’re always doing that tight rope walker thing where you’re like, one leg on and you’re going, yeah.

[00:38:07] Christina: No, you know, you make a good point. I don’t know how many people, I mean, I know that there are people who could have like, you know, single diagnosis and I’m not trying to limit that because obviously they’re all part of our neurodivergent family or whatnot. But yeah, I think most it’s, it’s weird because it’s like, it’s like for me, it’s like anxiety, depression, ADHD.

[00:38:23] Christina: Um, some people are, uh, you know, bipolar or some people, you know, like, uh, ASD or like other things. And, um, But, you know, OCD, I definitely had OCD as a kid, I don’t anymore, to the same degree, but like I was definitely, like, not like, to the point where, you know, it interfered with my day to day life, but I was definitely OCD, um, as a kid, but it’s I think you’re right, like, very rarely do any of these, um, diagnoses, like, fit one box.

[00:38:55] Christina: Most people are multiple and to your point, like that, then [00:39:00] that’s what, that’s what complicates treating stuff. I think especially with people who don’t have access to, um, good care or, or care that even gives a damn, because like, if you go to a GP, they’re going to give you one drug to try to solve this thing without any.

[00:39:16] Brett: it also makes it really hard to diagnose. Like a lot of, a lot of ASD people start off being diagnosed with depression and anxiety, uh, but those are actually symptoms of autism, um, in their case.

[00:39:31] Christina: in their case, I, I, I think they’re too, right.

[00:39:35] Brett: Yeah.

[00:39:36] Christina: think one of the things with autism, too, though, to be fair, is that over the last, like, 10 years, the definition, even as, like, from doctors, not even talking about the community, uh, which is a whole separate thing, but the definition from doctors has expanded quite differently than where it was even before a decade ago.

[00:39:54] Christina: So, you’re right, but I think that, like, it, you know, I think, I sometimes see people who are like, oh, why wasn’t I diagnosed [00:40:00] with this? 20 years ago. And I was like, because the diagnostic, you know, the diagnostic, you know, criteria was different then. Um, but yeah, uh, for, for, for sure. Like when I was a kid, like depression was the most active thing that I could pick up on from the commercials for the mental health treatment facility, which is how I diagnosed myself.

[00:40:25] Christina: But Anxiety has always been like the driving thing, really. And so, you know, but, but for me, the thing that I was able to like identify with as this, and I was like, Oh, I’m depressed. Right. So I very immediately diagnosed with depression. And then very, very soon after that was like, Oh, you also have anxiety disorders.

[00:40:45] Christina: Like, huh, shocker. Okay, cool. You know?

[00:40:49] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Oy. That tight, that tight rope walk. Fuckin sucks. [00:41:00] just say one, just, and maybe this isn’t closing, maybe not, is that like, Christina, what you were describing where it’s like, I’m off the depression meds, I, I heard you kind of essentially saying like, I don’t feel like fucking with medications right now, like this is, and, and like that, I, I only started taking Medications in 2000 and the thing that’s the, the, the phases that are the hardest for me is when, and it usually is in my case, I said, I’m not at all putting this to you.

[00:41:26] Jeff: In my case, it often is like, I’m really bad at doing the behavioral stuff. Um, but like putting that aside, cause that’s just hard. Um, Uh, I find that when, when something is act, when some aspect of me that I, I think I’m adequately medicating or, or, or, you know, dealing with the therapy, whatever acts up, it’s kind of a hopeless feeling for a minute, uh, because I don’t want to go down the medication road, but like, I’ve learned a lot about how the medication can help me, but I also learned if I go down that road, then maybe it gets a little worse at first or whatever.

[00:41:56] Jeff: That’s just a terrible feeling.

[00:41:58] Christina: No, it is. I mean, especially coming off of like the [00:42:00] last six months that I had, um, with, like, I’m, I’m not in a place where I can, right? Like, if I do, um, if I, if I were to go, like, if I were to reestablish like a medication regimen again, and it’s possible that I might have to do that, I know that I will have to, like, take a leave of absence from work, right?

[00:42:18] Christina: Yeah. It will have to be one of those scenarios. Like, I, I will, I will not be able to go into, like, if I were to try ketamine therapy, even, like, you know, stuff like, which I would like to do at some point, like, I will, it will have to be under the circumstances where I’m not trying to do what I did before.

[00:42:34] Christina: And so, unfortunately, what that means. for me is that I’m going to have to wait until it reaches kind of a critical point or a more, not, not, not critical, critical, but a more critical point, because I don’t feel like I have the luxury or the ability to be like, Oh yeah, let’s just experiment with meds right now.

[00:42:53] Christina: Right? Like, I know that when, and there will come a time for me to have to do that, that I will have to [00:43:00] have, um, supports set up and, and, and systems set up in my life so that I can focus just on that. Um, and that’s just, that’s not an option right now.

[00:43:11] Jeff: Yeah, this is where I go. It fucking sucks. I’m sorry.

[00:43:16] Christina: Yeah. And, and, and,

[00:43:17] Jeff: you go, Yeah, it’s fine. Whatever.

[00:43:19] Christina: and I’m like, no, yeah, it does because honestly, that’s just all I say is, yeah, it does. But I will just say on the upside, on the upside, like nothing’s critical. I’m just really ADHD right now, but I’m not like, I don’t want to actively harm myself. And I, I don’t like, it’s not like, you

[00:43:35] Brett: better than being horribly depressed.

[00:43:37] Christina: I was going to say like, it’s better than six months ago when I was like, I don’t really want to be alive, you know, so it’s better than that.

[00:43:43] Jeff: better. Maybe for our show notes, getting back to something you said earlier, refresh notes, we just we just publish our search history during the recording of the episode. I feel like it would both hit the show notes and how much we’re just like, thinking about 80

[00:43:57] Christina: totally. I was going to be, which ironically, that was [00:44:00] sort of like the original kind of genesis of the show where Brett and I was like, we’d go down like these, you know, wiki k holes of things where we talk about one thing and then go to the next and then go to the next and go to the next. I mean, that’s kind of the, it’s

[00:44:12] Brett: almost as if we’re both ADHD.

[00:44:14] Christina: Oh,

[00:44:15] Brett: Speaking of, speaking of saying that sucks and then immediately changing the subject.

[00:44:19] Christina: do it.

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[00:45:52] Brett: Subscription required. Price varies based on product and subscription plan. Oh my God. I nailed that. That was one take, no edits.[00:46:00]

[00:46:00] Christina: Hell fucking yeah. Let’s go. Let’s go,

[00:46:02] Jeff: You shouldn’t even, you shouldn’t even edit that part out. That’s a good

[00:46:05] Brett: I, I’m not gonna, I should podcast sober more often.

[00:46:09] Christina: Honestly, though, that was so fun. I like that.

[00:46:15] Slutty SEO

[00:46:15] Brett: so can I, okay, I, I, I just want to, I came up, sorry, I’m fucking with my microphone. Um, I came up with a new term. Tell me if it’s original. Um, I was looking for a Shopify plugin for a friend for a consult. And I found it. I found one that honestly seemed to be exactly what we needed. But when I went into the reviews, like there were these pages that were like top 10 plugins for this thing.

[00:46:44] Brett: And then you look and it’s hosted by the people who made the plugin I was looking at, and it’s kind of, it’s, it’s black hat SEO, but I want to call it slutty SEO. Like it just. Like, that term came to me when I was trying [00:47:00] to describe to them why I had hesitations about this. I was like, they have really, it’s just kind of slutty SEO.

[00:47:07] Brett: Um, I think I’m gonna make that a thing.

[00:47:11] Christina: I probably would have, and it’s so interesting, like, and I like, I like your, um, characterization of it as slutty, but like, I probably would have like, oh yeah, that’s just kind of like scummy, whatever, you know, SEO tactics, but, but, but

[00:47:23] Brett: that’s fair. That’s probably less offensive to women who get called sluts all the

[00:47:27] Christina: well, see, but this is

[00:47:28] Brett: But I would never call a woman a slut.

[00:47:30] Christina: but see, but I

[00:47:31] Brett: I would call SEO

[00:47:32] Christina: Right, but that’s what I’m saying. I was going to say, but I kind of like the, the, like, I kind of like the slut shaming aspect of it. You know what I mean? Because on the A, I think that it, like, at this point, for a lot of people, slut has kind of been reclaimed, which is excellent.

[00:47:49] Christina: Um, and honestly, when I call people sluts at this point, I’m not, I, I’m not even being like, oh, you’re, you’re, you’re easy, you’re a whore or whatever. I’m like, you’re a whore in a completely non sexual way. Like, I don’t care what you do with your body. Like, if [00:48:00] I call you a whore, it’s because either I’m telling you how much I love you or like, it’s something else, right?

[00:48:06] Christina: But like,

[00:48:07] Brett: there’s a major book on polyamory called The Ethical Slut, and I feel like it’s been mainstreamed at this

[00:48:13] Christina: Oh, it’s incredibly mainstream. It’s like, if I, if I have like one more people, like, look, you do you. It’s always just the ugliest people who want to tell you about their polycule. And I’m like, I don’t want to imagine any of you fucking, you know, like I’m happy for all of you, but I don’t want to.

[00:48:28] Christina: Yeah.

[00:48:29] Brett: have heard, I’ve heard gay men use the term slut about other gay men quite a bit, like it doesn’t seem to have the, um, kind of, like you, if you say, if a man says it about a woman,

[00:48:42] Christina: Oh yeah,

[00:48:43] Brett: then, then that’s very derisive. But, but a man saying it about another man, or like two girls saying it to each other in a more, like, playful way, I don’t feel like it has the

[00:48:55] Christina: It doesn’t.

[00:48:56] Brett: stigma around it.

[00:48:57] Brett: Anyway,

[00:48:58] Christina: to be clear, like, some women calling other [00:49:00] women like sluts and whores, like, can be very like, or, you know, but, but again, I was going to say, like, at least for me, and I, and I don’t usually use the word slut unless I’m with people who I know will understand my meaning of it, because again, the, the connotations are still what they are.

[00:49:14] Christina: But again, this is why I like you calling it slutty SEO, is that my, my, my personal definition is now completely removed from like the, the, the sexual shaming aspect of it. Right? Like, like, like if I call a woman, like again, if I call somebody a slut, it is either because I’m like, what’s up slut, like lovingly, or it is just to be like, Oh, you fucking suck.

[00:49:35] Christina: Um, but I don’t really care what your sexual proclivities are. Right? Like, I’m not making the judgment that way. I’m not calling you a whore, but like, like I said, like, I’m repeating what I said now, but, um, but at the same time, like, if, if another woman were to call me that, like, in some cases, you do know that they mean it like in a, oh, I’m sexually shaming you way, which I You know, okay, but the, the, I understand like the hesitancy there, but yeah, [00:50:00] you got scummy SEO, slutty SEO though.

[00:50:01] Christina: I like that. I like that.

[00:50:04] Brett: Alright, I have, we are, we are at 50 minutes, and I know we talked about trying to do an hour long episode. I want to talk about Dimspire. me, but if we want to jump straight into Graptitude, I’m game.

[00:50:17] Jeff: No, do it.

[00:50:18] Christina: Yeah. Let’s talk about it.

[00:50:19] Dimspirations

[00:50:19] Brett: so, I have for a couple of years been publishing hashtag dimspirations, which were inspired by inspirational posters, but not, um, think despair.

[00:50:32] Brett: com kind of stuff. And I’m not the only person out there doing this, but I’ve had a lot of fun putting my darkest thoughts into meme format. Um, I recently released, after a sleepless night, um, I released dimspire. me And, uh, or Dimspire me as, as you would say it in a sentence. Um, uh, and, and it has. Most of the [00:51:00] DIMSpirations I’ve done over the last couple of years, and I’ve started updating regularly, and today I fixed the RSS feed, so now you can subscribe via RSS or email, um, and I, and it’s the, the OpenGraph tags are set up such that you can share a URL from any DIMSpiration, and it’ll put the preview image in like your tweet or your Mastodon posts or your Facebook posts, um, so I’m hoping to, like.

[00:51:28] Brett: Get some legs out of this because eventually, eventually I would like to merchandise it. I don’t plan to ever paywall the online version, but I think if I took my best, my best 12 and made a calendar, I think I could do okay

[00:51:44] Jeff: Uh, be a good calendar.

[00:51:47] Christina: I

[00:51:47] Brett: It

[00:51:47] Jeff: like, uh, I like, uh, you have my undivided attention, but even if it, if you divided it, it’s still zero. It’s math. It’s math. It’s math. It’s math. It’s math. It’s math. It’s math. It’s math. It’s math.

[00:51:57] Brett: Um, yeah, no, I had a lot of fun. [00:52:00] I, the whole thing is automated, uh, tremendously. Like I have, uh, an affinity photo template with a bunch of guides in it. And I make sure the background covers the whole thing. And then all the texts is within a. Certain square, and then I save that in RetroBatch, automatically outputs the square version for Instagram and the website, plus wallpaper versions and an iPhone wallpaper version.

[00:52:25] Brett: It zips it all up, creates a manifest for it, puts it on the website. I could run a single rake task and it’ll add all of the new posts and the manifest, and then I can just add a pithy description to

[00:52:39] Christina: written this up?

[00:52:41] Brett: No, I haven’t. I like, I posted, I posted on the blog about the launch, um, but not about the automations.

[00:52:49] Christina: write a thing about the automations because especially like whatever, like you’re, like you’re you’re, if you’re using GitHub Actions or any of those setups or whatnot, because I think that’s really

[00:52:56] Brett: it’s all local. It’s all, it’s all local and very Mac [00:53:00] centric, but

[00:53:00] Christina: Which is fine, but I

[00:53:01] Brett: still be interesting.

[00:53:02] Christina: think it could be interesting to people because I could see how that could be, like, you could turn that into a CICD thing. Um, but, um, even putting that aside, I would love to just read about how you’ve automated this.

[00:53:14] Brett: All right.

[00:53:14] Jeff: I just want to say one that makes me laugh is you have one that says know your body and then it’s like the map of a body and the the head it says bad decisions the shoulders inaction the chest unavoidable reality and everything from there down just is water that’s a good bit that’s a really good bit

[00:53:32] Brett: Yeah, I’ve had a few good ones over the years. And then I got political, like every, when I get really tired, they come out like, like anti gun violence and anti Anti genocide, and,

[00:53:45] Jeff: an asshole.

[00:53:46] Brett: I know, well, and then I, then I get flack, they’re like, I wish you’d keep your politics out of this, and I’m like, is it really political to be, like, anti kids dying, or anti genocide?

[00:53:57] Brett: Like, are these really, like, politically [00:54:00] divisive issues? I don’t know.

[00:54:01] The Topic We Should Have Avoided, Probably

[00:54:01] Jeff: Apparently anti semitic to be anti genocide. Let’s stop there!

[00:54:04] Brett: Yep. Yep, we don’t want to get political.

[00:54:07] Christina: No, well, actually it’s funny because somebody did have a topic here, which was should tech personalities express political views?

[00:54:13] Jeff: was,

[00:54:13] Brett: Which is related to

[00:54:15] Christina: Yeah, I mean, I think it just sort of, because there’s some issues, like I’m going to be completely honest with you. I will not talk publicly about the topic that you were just alluding to.

[00:54:26] Christina: Like, I’m not getting, I’m not going to say a fucking thing about that on any of my channels.

[00:54:31] Brett: I will on Facebook. I’m, I’m more quiet about it where I have a bigger following like Twitter or even Mastodon. I’m not as in your face about my beliefs on the topic, um, but I won’t shy away from it. And honestly, if I had, if I had as many followers as you do, Christina, I would probably be a lot more shy about sharing my political beliefs.[00:55:00]

[00:55:00] Jeff: Christine is like, I just want to keep my DMs.

[00:55:02] Brett: But

[00:55:03] Christina: mean, at this point, I do just want to keep my DMs, but it’s also, it’s beyond that. But no, I get what you’re saying. For me, though, it’s just like, there’s like,

[00:55:10] Brett: like, so on, on Brett Terpstra, On brettterpstra. com, I won’t, I won’t get political. Um, on my personal Twitter account, I’m going to say whatever the hell I want. If I were like on my account for Oracle, uh, no politics, like that’s not even an option, but I don’t think that, I think if you follow a tech personality or any public personality, if you follow their personal account.

[00:55:38] Brett: You should expect to get to know them as a person.

[00:55:42] Christina: I fully agree. And, and I’m completely okay with people making whatever decision they want to make about how, what they want to share or don’t want to share, especially on their personal accounts. And, and I’ve I don’t shy away from sharing some of my personal thoughts clearly, right? Like, I’ve kind of like, that’s been like part of my success, I think, is being authentic and whatnot.

[00:55:59] Christina: That said, [00:56:00] there are some things that I’m just like, I know that nothing good is going to come from me personally speaking out about something, especially because I can’t do anything to solve anything. Like, I can’t actually make any difference, right? So my personal reason for not speaking out has Nothing to do with like thinking, Oh, you know, people shouldn’t do it or whatnot.

[00:56:18] Christina: Cause no, I mean, I, people should do whatever they are comfortable with. I’m just like, there’s some political topics that I feel like, and I’ll just like, just be completely honest about it. There are some instances where it’s easier because the stakes are lower because everybody’s kind of on the same page.

[00:56:32] Christina: And then there are some where honestly, the situation is so complicated and so complex and nuance is

[00:56:39] Jeff: One or the other, it’s usually not both.

[00:56:42] Christina: And, and, and people,

[00:56:43] Jeff: But I won’t get into that argument.

[00:56:45] Christina: right, right. But, but, but it’s like, you know, but like, it’s, it’s like such a complicated, complex thing. And then because there’s no ability to have any sort of nuanced discussion, I’m just like, you know what?

[00:56:55] Christina: I’m not, I’m not going to participate. Like I’m not opposed to anybody else. And I might interact with some [00:57:00] people’s, you know, uh, statements or whatever that, that I feel like I can kind of, you know, get behind, but like my own stuff. Don’t, don’t need to have those conversations, like, publicly, personally, but I respect everybody else who wants to do that.

[00:57:14] Brett: I, I get, like, I do research. I do my own research. No, but I’ll like, I’ll, I’ll do, like,

[00:57:21] Jeff: Educate yourself.

[00:57:23] Brett: legitimate research if a topic Like, if I can’t understand where people are coming from on a topic, I will research and I will try to understand, like, where, where a contradicting argument or a viewpoint is coming from.

[00:57:37] Brett: And sometimes I find that argument so un contradictory. persuasive, dissuasive, that I can’t keep my mouth shut. It just comes spilling out. And I, especially when I’m tired, like I do not check myself well when I’m tired.

[00:57:54] Christina: I’m, I’m the same way. I’m the same way, but it’s weird. It’s like the, the one thing. Cause I’ve had some people who [00:58:00] have like, kind of like yelled at me, like, why aren’t you saying anything about, you know, what’s happening in Gaza? And I’m like, cause I’m not going to, like, cause I’m not going to, like, that’s just for my own mental health.

[00:58:10] Christina: Frankly, I will be, I will completely own that. I’m being selfish here. And I’m like, I’m actually, this is a case where I’m prioritizing. I’m My own like mental health to not get involved doesn’t mean that I’m not paying attention doesn’t mean I don’t have opinions Um, but this is not a thing that I actually for me right now Need to comment on in any way shape or form and frankly, you don’t need to hear my opinion Like you don’t need to care about it.

[00:58:30] Christina: You don’t need to hear it. It doesn’t matter to anyone um having said that like I completely, uh, you know support anybody else’s Right to to speak out and and go for it. I’m just saying like

[00:58:41] Jeff: fucking brutal context and, and, and it’s just brutal. I don’t, it’s not, I’m not getting us deep into that, into the issue of Israel Palestine, but I will say that like it’s, it’s been easier for me in life because I’ve, I’ve had personal experiences there and connections there and that’s just known.

[00:58:57] Jeff: Um, you know, I’ve watched mass graves [00:59:00] get filled with Palestinian bodies. Um, and, and, but putting that aside, like, um, I think that it is fucking impossible for me to receive the kind of feedback or to have the kind of conversation that is so just fucked. And the reason it’s hard is I think that the arguments people have, this isn’t about which side, uh, I mean, I guess it probably always is in some way, and that’s the problem.

[00:59:29] Jeff: But the, the arguments people have, I think, in the way they have them get them further and further away from the actual suffering and pain and horrors and, and murderous violence that is impacting people

[00:59:42] Brett: I have so much to say, but I’m going to

[00:59:44] Christina: No, same. I mean, same. And the only thing I’ll say is I agree with you is there’s just it’s I think that so much because it is literally on the whole issue is, is such a, um, you know, like theological and ideological just Fundamental [01:00:00] disagreement that will not be solved that by, because people do wind up having to go into sometimes two camps, like we do lose sight of the fact of like the, the, the, the death and, and the, and the, you know, the, just the horrors of humanity that are happening.

[01:00:15] Christina: And like, to me, like, that’s the real like focus, but you can’t have just that conversation because you cannot, unfortunately, it is impossible to disentangle it from the other aspect.

[01:00:27] Brett: if you say the word genocide right now in a completely out of context, you just say the word genocide, you start a political conversation. Um, people get very irate. It, I mean, the US has funded genocides throughout its history. Like, this is not, it’s not a, it’s not a crazy conspiracy statement to say that the U.

[01:00:51] Brett: S. funds genocide. And you don’t have to be talking about a specific genocide to say maybe genocide is bad, maybe we shouldn’t do

[01:00:59] Christina: No, I [01:01:00] agree. And no, absolutely, the U. S. has funded, you know, genocide. I mean, like, our previous support link, Jeff, the reason that we had sanctions in Iraq to begin with is, ironically, because we helped aid the genocide by Saddam Hussein against, you know, his own

[01:01:14] Jeff: Kurds and,

[01:01:15] Christina: Kurds, exactly. Yes. Um, and not, not to mention like, like, like our, our support, you know, of certain, you know, South American regimes and, and, and, and people like Pol Pot.

[01:01:24] Christina: Like, you know, there’s a, there’s a lot of, of history where the U. S. has 100 percent done that. And you’re completely correct. This particular situation though, because it is such like a long standing thing and you’re not, but, but I would say, I would actually say

[01:01:36] Jeff: Only 1948. Damn, I can’t help, we’re getting, we gotta be careful.

[01:01:39] Brett: Yeah, we, we should,

[01:01:41] Jeff: Not that long.

[01:01:42] Brett: we

[01:01:42] Christina: No, but no, but, but, but I was just going to say like, no, no, but, but I’m just saying like to, to, just to close on this, like.

[01:01:47] Christina: Genocide is a political topic. Like, it’s not, like, it’s not, it’s, it’s fundamentally about politics. I mean, that’s really what it is. So

[01:01:55] Brett: but, but as non politicians, is there anyone who’s pro genocide?[01:02:00]

[01:02:00] Jeff: I think, yes.

[01:02:02] Brett: Okay, that scares me. The fact, the fact that, the fact that that

[01:02:06] Jeff: I mean, look, this, I’ll just say this isn’t even about the Israel Palestine, I would say that like, if you think about Rwanda, you think about what happened in the former Yugoslavia, like, yes, it’s politicians that, that gin it up, it’s the people who do it. Um, and that’s super. Hard to think

[01:02:21] Christina: if you think about there, there are,

[01:02:22] Jeff: Germany fucks me up because my people are all German and like,

[01:02:26] Christina: I was going to say people did it, right? Because and there are many instances of that where there are people who go and it is the governments who gen it up. You’re exactly right. But it’s the people who do it. And it’s the people who do believe that there are some people who don’t have the right to exist and are completely content with that.

[01:02:40] Brett: then there’s all the people who said, I didn’t realize how bad it was. Like you talked to people that were regular democratic German citizens at the, in 1940, that they didn’t realize how bad what was going on was, and they didn’t feel the need to take a stance. Not that like it would have made a [01:03:00] difference at the time.

[01:03:01] Brett: Um,

[01:03:02] Jeff: gonna attempt to button this up by laughing at something I just said, which is Nazi Germany really fucks me up. I just like, it’s like, oh, really? Oh, wow. That guy’s really,

[01:03:13] Brett: Yeah, we got, we got, we got way off track here, I’m

[01:03:16] Christina: No,

[01:03:16] Jeff: I appreciate it. I, I, this, this is great. Um, all right. Graftitude or what? Graftitude or bust?

[01:03:23] Christina: Love it.

[01:03:26] grAPPtitude

[01:03:26] Jeff: Um, okay. Who’s going first?

[01:03:28] Brett: You are.

[01:03:29] Jeff: Oh, okay, great. Um, so I, I opened MarsEdit for the first time and probably since the second Bush administration, um, and I opened it because I realized, oh, you know what, well, I just wanted to see it. It’s on set app. We all love Setapp. And

[01:03:47] Brett: Martha is so good.

[01:03:48] Jeff: great thing about Setapp is it allows me to just, there’s a lot of apps that have just been gloriously in production and improving for decades that are at Setapp so I can open them and be like, look at you, um, you’re all [01:04:00] grown up.

[01:04:00] Jeff: And, uh, the, the fun I had with MarsEdit was a couple of things. I actually really enjoy creating Mastodon posts in MarsEdit, which you can do. Um, I Don’t like making Mastodon posts in Mastodon, um, even though I used Ivory, which is, which is great, uh, you know, Tweetbots, Xbots, uh, RIP, R I P. Um, but I, the reason I’m actually bringing up MarsEdit, which I would just say is delightful, is it helped me to archive my many, many Tumblr blocks.

[01:04:30] Jeff: Uh, every once in a while, I’m like, I should go out and just make a list of all the, the. Fucking ghosts I have out there. And so I was able to archive, I mean, I have Tumblr blogs where there’s like three posts, right? It’s like, Oh, this is a great idea.

[01:04:41] Christina: How do you do this with, um, with MarsEdit? You just log in with, um, your

[01:04:44] Jeff: can just, yeah, you can log in with Tumblr and it just sucks in all the posts, um, which is really great.

[01:04:50] Jeff: And, and including the misspellings.

[01:04:53] Brett: WordPress sites as

[01:04:54] Jeff: And the WordPress sites. Yep, for sure. For sure. And, and somehow you can still at least import your blog [01:05:00] spot sites, which I, I haven’t. It’s a little more, it’s a little trickier. They don’t, the blog spot, API or the blogger API went away in terms of being able to post from Marta, but it seems like you can still import from there.

[01:05:10] Jeff: And I need to do that. ’cause I have a lot of those too. I used to like just spray blogs indiscriminately into the crowd. It’s just like, but that was probably early bipolar and, and also ADHD

[01:05:21] Christina: I, I, I, I

[01:05:22] Jeff: I have an idea. It now must be real.

[01:05:24] Brett: undiagnosed here,

[01:05:26] Christina: I was gonna say, I think that it’s like, it’s, it’s both Tumblr, uh, or not Tumblr, it’s, it’s both ADHD and like, like tech, um, early adopter thing, right? Cause I think that I know so many tech people who, as. Many of them aren’t even ADHD, who are just like, Oh, I have an idea. I want to start a blog. Because we always have this itch.

[01:05:42] Christina: Like, it’s the easiest thing to do is to spin up another website or another blog. And, uh, and

[01:05:48] Jeff: really funny name.

[01:05:50] Brett: Well, look, it’s insane to think about the days before you could do that. Like, what did people like us, when we had an [01:06:00] idea, what’d we do? Like, we told, maybe we made a zine, but mostly we just told our friends. And suddenly, like, people our age suddenly had this, we could, we can spin up a Tumblr. We can spin up a blogger site.

[01:06:13] Christina: We can have a, we can have a live

[01:06:14] Brett: this with

[01:06:14] Christina: we can have a GeoCities. Yeah. We have

[01:06:16] Jeff: it was such a glorious time. And this is the second episode, I think in a row that we talked about Tumblr. Um, it was such a glorious time and I’m so glad I had those Tumblrs cause they’re like little journals. And even the ones that were, um, just three posts now, what’s nice about having the Mars edit is there there’s everything, right?

[01:06:32] Jeff: It’s all there. And, and that’s really nice. And so even if it had three posts, it’s now alongside 10 other Tumblrs that had, you know, six to 40 posts each, um, my proudest. Blog title, and this one’s dead, was Skinny Notebook Full of Code, which was when I first started coding as a journalist. And I was like, I have a skinny notebook full of code, and I thought that was a great name.

[01:06:52] Brett: Oh, that didn’t, what, on the show notes, wasn’t your pick originally, uh, Jupiter Notebooks? [01:07:00] Jupiter Labs. So, okay, we’re going to talk about that in the future, I hope, because I feel like that is exactly the kind of coding you did in journalism.

[01:07:08] Jeff: moved, yeah, I moved this down, uh, in place of it because I had it as a topic because I wanted to talk about it on my Tumblr, so I snuck it in in gratitude.

[01:07:15] Brett: I would like to, two points I’ll add to the MarsEdit discussion. I recently gave away MarsEdit, uh, a few copies on brettterpstra. com. There will be a link in the show notes for the upcoming giveaways. And this week is Black Ink from Daniel Jalkut, who also made, uh, MarsEdit and Black Ink is a great,

[01:07:36] Jeff: FastScripts?

[01:07:38] Brett: uh, yeah.

[01:07:39] Brett: Um, it’s, I think I already did the fast script. Yeah. Uh, Black Ink is a great crossword puzzle. Like if you want to If you want to

[01:07:46] Jeff: Oh, I need to try it.

[01:07:47] Brett: I can finish a crossword puzzle five times faster using black ink than I can even using like an online version where you have to

[01:07:55] Jeff: Why? Why is it

[01:07:56] Brett: I just keyboard shortcuts, man, like you can [01:08:00] just, you can just flip through the whole thing and you see a clue and you get a couple of cross

[01:08:03] Jeff: Thanks for not saying key chords.

[01:08:05] Brett: switch, switch, switch your orientation, type out the word you

[01:08:09] Christina: Totally. And it’s a great app.

[01:08:10] Jeff: try

[01:08:11] Christina: It’s also, it’s like, I love the, I, I pay for the, like, um, well, it’s like, I guess it’s part of a New York Times subscription or whatever, but you know, you get the games and whatnot and, and that stuff.

[01:08:19] Jeff: it till Wednesday.

[01:08:20] Christina: yeah. And so, like, I like their app a lot. Like I think that their iOS app

[01:08:25] Jeff: It’s

[01:08:25] Brett: mini, I’ll do the mini on the iOS app, but if I’m going to do the actual crossword, Black Ink is the

[01:08:30] Christina: No, I was going to say, but I really enjoy being able to like have it on my Mac. Like it’s, it’s a really great app. Uh, but yeah. Um, yeah. So shout out to Jacob cause he’s, he’s the best, um, Um, my, my favorite Tumblr incidentally is, uh, cause I had a whole bunch of them too. Um, it’s fuckyeahcorrections.

[01:08:50] Christina: tumblr. com.

[01:08:51] Jeff: The fuck yeah, whole fuck yeah idea

[01:08:53] Christina: So good.

[01:08:54] Jeff: was so great. Fuck yeah corrections. Okay. Is this still up?

[01:08:56] Christina: Yeah, it is. And so the, the, the impetus was that, uh, [01:09:00] do you remember Alex from Target? He was like this, this kid who was like cute, who somebody like did a meme on. This was ten years ago now. New York Times wrote about it. And because it’s the New York Times, on Twitter had had a meme showing Kel from, from, from Good Burger.

[01:09:14] Christina: And this is the correction, November 10th, 2014. An article on Thursday about the latest internet sensation of, quote, Alex from Target, end quote, a picture of a teenager bagging merchandise at the retailer that went viral online, described incorrectly a subsequent internet posting of, quote, Kel from Good Burger, end quote.

[01:09:32] Christina: It was a frame from the 1997 film Good Burger, starring actor Kel Mitchell. It was not a photograph of a teenager in a juff.

[01:09:41] Jeff: Wow. Wow. Wow.

[01:09:45] Brett: I like, so Christina is always asking us if we’ve heard of, you know, fads, viral topics, memes, and Jeff and I are always like, no, but you bring up Alex from Target and we’re like, oh yeah.

[01:09:57] Christina: were like, yeah, because that was like Halcyon Days, like [01:10:00] it was so good, but.

[01:10:01] Jeff: Well, it’s like how the only sports team I can talk about is the 1987 Twins. Like it’s, it’s a thing. Related to my AARP conversation, which I’ll save for next week. Sorry, Christina.

[01:10:12] Christina: was gonna say, there’s another funny one too. An article last Sunday about Bradley Cooper, who is

[01:10:16] Jeff: I love this

[01:10:17] Christina: revival of The Elephant Man, reverting correctly to the London address where Joseph Carey Merrick, the real Elephant Man, exhibited himself. The address is now a sorry store. It is not, our sincerest apologies, a sorry store.

[01:10:33] Jeff: That reminds me of something I’ll say briefly, which is I was recently talking to a friend who works at a news organization for which you would be disappointed to learn what I’m about to tell you, which is that they’re in the process of unionizing and one of the things they hope to get out of being in union is fact checkers.

[01:10:47] Jeff: And let me tell you,

[01:10:49] Christina: Yeah.

[01:10:50] Jeff: if you knew what this organization was, which one day you will, it would be very disappointing.

[01:10:56] Christina: This was one of my favorites, because I didn’t have a lot of posts on this Tumblr. It was just, it was one that I [01:11:00] started in 2014 and then forgot about promptly. Um, the AP deleted a tweet that incorrectly referred to Lauren Conrad as Lauren Hill. A corrected tweet will be published shortly. Because they’re like, oh, Lauren from the Hills is Lau I mean, it’s just, it’s so good.

[01:11:16] Jeff: Oh my God. I love it. I

[01:11:19] Brett: All right, Christina, what you got?

[01:11:21] Christina: Alright, so this is one that I’ve talked about before, but a new version just came out, so I’m going to give it a shout out again. So this is FF Works, which is, um, a great ff neg, uh, front end, um, for Mac os. It’s at ff works.info and it is, or actually that’s not correct. That is correct. Yes. It’s FFworks.

[01:11:41] Christina: net. My bad. My apologies. Um, but FFworks 4 just came out. Um, and I don’t remember what the upgrade price was, although it was, it was fairly low. I think that it’s, it’s still like 22 pounds, I think, for the full version. Um, and

[01:11:54] Jeff: how many meters away from, from your wallet? Are you?

[01:11:57] Christina: I mean, I don’t know. Well, because, because he, he [01:12:00] sells it or he sells it in euros or he sells it in pounds and so, so you’ve gotta buy it like that way, so it, yeah.

[01:12:05] Christina: Yeah. It’s 22 euros. So, so, uh, ’cause I think he’s German, so what, whatever. Um, the, uh,

[01:12:10] Jeff: solver. Hello, Graftitude.

[01:12:12] Christina: so, uh, exactly, so, oh, okay. So it’s 14, uh, it’s 14 euros to upgrade, and then it’s 22 for, for the new thing. Um, and this is just a, a great app.

[01:12:21] Brett: which is 23. 82 US dollars

[01:12:24] Christina: hey, great. Okay. Well, that’s fantastic because that means that the, the dollar is either

[01:12:30] Brett: exchange rate is great.

[01:12:31] Christina: I was going to say the exchange rate is actually good now. Uh, cause before that’d be like, Oh, okay. So that’s 30 bucks

[01:12:36] Brett: like, it was like 1. 5, not too long

[01:12:38] Christina: It was exactly. So I’m like, okay, good. So what’s great about this is that if, um, it’s, uh, like, you know, we’ve talked about FFmpeg before. Um, it is one of those tools that I use all the time for so many different things.

[01:12:51] Christina: Um, and, and it’s great if you need. Many times you do need to, like, re encode media into different formats and whatnot. Um, but the problem with FFMPEC is that even with [01:13:00] ChatGPT, like, writing scripts, even with ChatGPT, remembering what to fucking do with it is a nightmare. It’s like the most useful application of all time.

[01:13:09] Christina: And it’s actually well designed. I’m not even gonna lie and be like, Oh, it’s not like a well designed syntax or whatever. It’s just got so many fucking options that who can keep track of them? It’s like image magic, right? Like, these are these amazing utilities.

[01:13:22] Brett: And a lot, and a lot of the options, you don’t

[01:13:24] Christina: Know about, right?

[01:13:26] Brett: not so well versed in video formats that you would understand what the option will actually do to the end video. So a GUI is so nice for

[01:13:35] Christina: It is. And what’s, what I like about this GUI is that it is, in my opinion, like the perfect kind of mix because there are, there, there are two ways I think you could go about doing this. You could, that could be successful. Uh, there’s, there’s a third way, which would be the Linux way, which we’ll talk about.

[01:13:50] Christina: I, I could, you know, talk about at length, which would, Be the bad way. But the two ways you could do this successfully to like make like a gooey of an FF impact thing would be to [01:14:00] either A, have a very simple drag and drop process where you then have like, like per Yeah. Where you just have like a very like easy kind of slider and it’s just telling you what to do, but you really can’t go that advance and you can’t, you know, go beyond kind of what, what a lot of things you could do in QuickTime back in the day.

[01:14:15] Christina: Right. Or you can do what FF works does, which is give you all those options. Um. It hides them to a certain extent. So you have to kind of go looking if you want to do more with it. And you do need to kind of, it’s not going to be the most intuitive thing to be able to figure out, Oh, I can do all these things, but it definitely does service all your options.

[01:14:34] Christina: But what I appreciated about it is that unlike If this were a Linux desktop app, this would literally just be every single option available in FFmpeg as like a checkbox or a slider, but with no understanding of what any of that means, and like, not well organized, like it would just be a disaster. Um, this is

[01:14:55] Jeff: going to talk about Linux and Israel Palestine in the same episode?

[01:14:58] Brett: ha ha ha

[01:14:59] Christina: what, [01:15:00] look, wow,

[01:15:00] Brett: ha ha

[01:15:01] Christina: sssssssshaaaaaaaa

[01:15:03] Brett: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

[01:15:07] Christina: I feel suitably owned, um, that’s, that’s fucking perfect. But, that’s so good, but yeah, no, but

[01:15:15] Jeff: different.

[01:15:16] Christina: Are they? Are they? Um, but it’s so different. Yeah.

[01:15:21] Brett: Don’t they both date back to, back to like

[01:15:23] Christina: So,

[01:15:24] Jeff: both, yeah, Oh, Oh, but they have similar characteristics in the rhetorical space.

[01:15:34] Christina: but I was just gonna say, but I really enjoy, I appreciate this, like, application so much because I do like that it treats you like an adult and that you can, you can make it really easy. Like, you can set up a droplet, just make it really easy to auto convert stuff. But if you do need to, the reason that someone would want to use this app over Permute is because you do need to use this more.

[01:15:53] Christina: Advanced parts of FFmpeg, but you don’t want to fuck with it. So, honestly, for 23, [01:16:00] highly recommended. Um, and, uh, it gets very frequent updates and, uh, works with like, you know, 4K and 5K footage and stuff. So it’s, it’s really good.

[01:16:10] Brett: Very nice.

[01:16:11] Jeff: How many rubles is it going to set me back?

[01:16:14] Brett: checkduckduckgo, I bet it would do that conversion for you.

[01:16:17] Jeff: I just downloaded it. I had, I had actually forgotten about this and I, and I think it’s great.

[01:16:22] Brett: What is, what is 22 euros and rupees? That’s what I want to know. Um, so my pick is I, so I spent my morning, um, creating the RSS feed for Dimspired. me, um, which ended up being a very manual process, which I then ported to Feedpress and made like, you can do an email subscription and everything. As I was testing it, I opened up my trustee RSS app, which lately has been reader, R-E-E-D-E-R.

[01:16:53] Brett: Um, there are, there are a ton like Net Newswire and Read Kitt, and there are so many [01:17:00] good RSS apps for Mac, but I, I keep coming back to reader. I love the single, uh, single key keyboard shortcuts. I love some of the niceties of the interface. I love bionic reading, which will like. It re highlights, it bolds certain letters in each word.

[01:17:21] Brett: So, do you know, have you ever seen the font, um, uh, Open Dyslexic? Um, it’s kind of like that, and it creates like kind of a magnet for your eyes so you can scan a line and pick it up. Maybe, maybe 50 percent faster than you would reading just plain text. Um, it really helps with speed reading. It’s kind of cool.

[01:17:45] Brett: Um, uh, Reader also has like iCloud sync. If you don’t feel like using, it works with Feedbin and all of the other various services that replaced Feedburner, you know, back from the day. Um, Which, [01:18:00] which I’m grateful for, but, uh, Reader has iCloud subscript subscription sync, uh, so you can get, uh, your syncs, your, your feed synced across your devices without having to use a third party service.

[01:18:14] Brett: Personally, I use Feedbin. I love it. I think it’s great, but, uh, but you have options. So, um, that’s my, that’s my, that’s my Graptitude.

[01:18:26] Jeff: Awesome.

[01:18:27] Christina: And, and, and you still use Feedbreast, uh, to manage, uh, your RSS feeds. Um, like is there, and that’s like 10 a month or something, isn’t it?

[01:18:36] Brett: Uh, yeah, but that’s for unlimited feeds. So I have feeds for multiple sites and, and I, I do pay like you could, there’s a free version that you don’t get like email subscription and you can’t do podcasts and stuff like that. Um, but if you want to, if you want basically unlimited feeds and, uh, the ability to embed.

[01:18:59] Brett: [01:19:00] Audio and have email subscriptions and all of that. Yeah. It’s like 10 bucks a month, but I have, I have enough. I have enough feeds to justify that.

[01:19:09] Christina: No, I mean, I think that makes sense. I was just, uh, uh, I, um, yeah. Cause like, cause at this point, like FeedBurner is, I think just only just, I think it’s basically gone. I mean, I think that like it, it, it exists only in so far, like they’ve gotten rid of almost every single feature. So, which is a shame because like that was free for so long.

[01:19:29] Christina: Um, and,

[01:19:31] Brett: so it’s Google reader

[01:19:32] Christina: Oh, I know, I know.

[01:19:34] Brett: we are now.

[01:19:34] Christina: But like, but like, it’s, but FeedBurner seems dumb because it’s just like, okay, it’s just like a front end thing, like for, you know, it’s generating like RSS files, like you’re hosting them yourself, you know what I mean? Like,

[01:19:45] Brett: I, I love feed press partly because much like pinboard, it’s kind of a low maintenance.

[01:19:52] Christina: yeah, it is. Yeah,

[01:19:54] Brett: I can’t remember the guy’s name. It’s an Italian name, but, um, Maxime? Or was [01:20:00] that? Anyway, like, like he’s making 10 bucks a month off of all these people who are just forwarding, forwarding the RSS feeds they’re already creating.

[01:20:10] Christina: what I’m saying. Yeah,

[01:20:11] Brett: something that offers analytics to basically a PHP script. And, and that’s like, I I’m happy to pay it, but also I, I could stand to have like, uh, a passive income like that, that required probably very little actual like customer service or anything.

[01:20:30] Christina: Oh, I’m sure there’s almost none and and honestly like I’m not mad at him at all Like I’m happy for him for it I think my whole like issue with it is I’m like, why should I pay 10 a month for this? I know that like that if you have enough sites like it is actually going to be like like

[01:20:45] Brett: stats. It’s

[01:20:46] Christina: Well, no,

[01:20:47] Brett: if you want,

[01:20:48] Christina: and I get that

[01:20:49] Brett: want statistics, you need it.

[01:20:51] Christina: No, and I get that.

[01:20:52] Christina: I’m just saying, like, when you know how little it is, there’s like the part of my mind, which is broken, which goes to, well, why don’t I just spend that 10 a

[01:20:58] Brett: Right? There you

[01:20:59] Christina: on, on, on, [01:21:00] on a VPS server where I’m hosting this myself and doing all this myself? Why am I paying someone else for it? And then of course I realized, well, you don’t want to fucking maintain that, Christina.

[01:21:09] Brett: Right. Exactly.

[01:21:10] Christina: get that. And, and, and that’s why he can have this passive income. But I’m saying the part of my brain that’s broken is that I’m like, and sorry

[01:21:18] Brett: If I, if I put eight hours of coding into this, I could do it for basically free.

[01:21:24] Christina: That, that’s

[01:21:25] Brett: I have, I have that same part of my brain. You’re not alone.

[01:21:28] Christina: So, so I’m, but, but, but I’m happy for him that like, it’s still, um, uh, there. And, um, uh, also happy, I haven’t used Reader in a while. I didn’t, I, I honestly, I didn’t know Reader was still being updated.

[01:21:39] Jeff: I didn’t either.

[01:21:41] Christina: that’s great.

[01:21:41] Brett: is. Yeah, they came out with a new, I think it was this year, maybe last year, they came out with a whole, like, major version bump. Um, honestly, NetNewsWire kind of stole the show. Um, and, and it’s a great app. Uh, it doesn’t, There are some things [01:22:00] about Reader that I miss when I use NetNewsWire, uh, but NetNewsWire is free, and it’s a solid app, and it’s really good to see it come back after, like, how long did it go unmaintained?

[01:22:11] Brett: Like 10 years?

[01:22:12] Jeff: a long time. But then yeah,

[01:22:15] Brett: Is that Brent Simmons now?

[01:22:17] Christina: it’s Brent Simmons. Well, he was it originally, and then he, um, sold it to NetGator, um, who did it. And then

[01:22:24] Jeff: then got it back.

[01:22:25] Christina: then he got it back. Yeah, he was able to get it back and then he decided to make it open source, which I think is really remarkable and amazing. Um, and, and at this point, I think that’s what I use, or I just use like, honestly, Feedbin’s website has been good enough for me.

[01:22:38] Christina: Um,

[01:22:38] Brett: ReadKit, ReadKit was really

[01:22:40] Christina: I really did like

[01:22:41] Brett: for me. Um, like I, it started hanging and crashing and like, that was a few operating systems ago and maybe it’s fine now. Um, cause it had a lot of cool features, um, that made it worth the price for me at the time. But anyhow, Hey, we [01:23:00] did it in an hour and 22 minutes.

[01:23:01] Jeff: Not bad.

[01:23:03] Brett: Like no edits. I’m not going to edit. I’m not going to edit anything. We said what we said. We’re going to, we’re going to leave it all in.

[01:23:11] Jeff: Alright, then I guess I hope you get more sleep tonight.

[01:23:17] Christina: for real.

[01:23:18] Brett: Get some sleep.

[01:23:19] Christina: Yeah. Get some sleep, everyone. For real.

A somewhat manic episode that covers everything (BUT the Mental Health Corner, which is a 404 again). Kicking it off with an in memoriam app pick, opining about Microsoft Word and Excel, and the Grammy talk you knew was coming.

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Transcript

404

[00:00:00] This episode is brought to you by HIMS. Stay tuned for more information.

[00:00:08] Jeff: Hello everybody, welcome to what might be, and I’m not going to explain, might be a kind of a weird episode of Overtired, but doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. Why are you asking so many questions? Um, this is Jeff, uh, Severance Gunsel, one of your three hosts. Uh, I’m here with Christina Warren. Hi, Christina.

[00:00:25] Christina: Hello, hello.

[00:00:26] Jeff: And Brett, what are you eating in the microphone?

[00:00:28] Brett: I have a popsicle.

[00:00:31] Christina: They’re homemade, huh?

[00:00:32] Brett: Yeah.

[00:00:32] Jeff: they homemade? What’s the, what’s the, what’s the flavor?

[00:00:35] Brett: This is like lemon echinacea.

[00:00:39] Jeff: Nice.

[00:00:40] Brett: weird organic juices, that’s what I get, and I make them into popsicles, and I eat them when I’m drunk.

[00:00:47] Jeff: Oh, that’s all right. That’s got nothing to do with anything. Um, you know, I started that with what’s the flavor, which reminded me, have you ever had a long term situation where you would clearly, um, have the phone number that’s [00:01:00] being given out by a drug dealer? Um, which has happened to me. Uh, and for a glorious two years, I would get these calls and they’d be something like, here’s three of my favorites.

[00:01:10] Jeff: Okay. One was, I answer the phone. Hey, what’s the flavor? That’s it, right? The next one is, uh, Hey, you still at Taco Bell? Right? It’s looking beautiful. And then my favorite was Christmas Eve. And it was just a text that said, I see you over there, Negro.

[00:01:26] Brett: I cannot relate to this at all. What,

[00:01:29] Jeff: And I wrote back and I was like, I just, I can’t really, it’s hard for me to explain, but I know You have the wrong person.

[00:01:36] Brett: how did you end up with these numbers?

[00:01:38] Jeff: don’t know if it was a number that was just too close to a, uh, what is clearly a drug dealer’s number, because it wasn’t just that. There was a lot more of like, what’s the flavor?

[00:01:45] Jeff: Like, like a lot more checking in on Fridays, like.

[00:01:48] Christina: Somebody gave the wrong number

[00:01:49] Jeff: Somebody gave their own number out, it got passed around, you know, call this guy and ask what’s the flavor, you know, and I loved it, loved it, and, uh, and I missed those calls, I wish I could figure [00:02:00] out, I blocked everybody because you’d keep getting calls, my block list is just epic, in fact, I could probably give my block list to the Minneapolis Police Department and, uh, get some sort of reward, but I wouldn’t do that.

[00:02:10] Brett: What, what drug is it they would ask what, what’s the flavor?

[00:02:15] Jeff: I don’t know, maybe it was just like, what’s going on tonight? It’s also possible this was just a guy that, like, maybe this was a guy who made promises. And he knew he couldn’t keep them, and so he gave out the number. But it wasn’t just men, or just women, right? Like, it was a, it was an interesting mix. And it was mostly calls, and not texts, which is, I think, data.

[00:02:33] Jeff: But I don’t really know what to make of it. I just miss them. I miss my community.

[00:02:37] Brett: I have had, I’ve had a lot of drug dealers phone numbers in my life, and my

[00:02:44] Jeff: still in your phone?

[00:02:45] Brett: No. My texts to them have been mostly about, like, where you at? Uh, you coming?

[00:02:53] Jeff: You still a Taco Bell?

[00:02:54] Brett: I can’t imagine what the, what the answer to what flavor[00:03:00]

[00:03:00] Jeff: What’s the flavor? No, I mean, that’s just a thing to say, too, though. Like, what’s the

[00:03:02] Brett: is

[00:03:03] Jeff: Yeah, but like, I was, yeah, I don’t know. I was always very polite. I didn’t put anybody on, because I don’t know who’s listening. Um, you know, like, that’s all. So anyway, welcome, everybody. Here we are. Um, and, and we’re gonna, we’re gonna start with Graftitude again, aren’t we?

[00:03:22] Brett: Are we?

[00:03:23] Jeff: I thought we said that when we were coming in. I’m gonna ask Christina. Christina, we’re

[00:03:26] grAPPtitude at the top!

[00:03:26] Jeff: starting with Gratitude again.

[00:03:28] Christina: Yeah, let’s start with Graftitude, let’s do it.

[00:03:31] Brett: I have

[00:03:31] Jeff: take, and then we’ll take calls. Let’s just get right into it. I mean, I got the lights are all blinking on my phone and callers are ready.

[00:03:38] Brett: I have a very important graft.

[00:03:41] Jeff: Okay, let’s, let’s do it, man. You’re a very important man.

[00:03:44] Brett: admittedly, I’m a little drunk. If you couldn’t tell from the way I said the word admittedly, um,

[00:03:52] Jeff: Or from the point at which he told you he only eats popsicles when he’s drunk or likes to eat them when

[00:03:56] Brett: Like, there have been plenty of clues. If you’re not following along [00:04:00] at this point, I can’t help you.

[00:04:02] Jeff: I’m just going to go ahead and put this in the topic list. Just gonna,

[00:04:08] Brett: So,

[00:04:09] Jeff: it’s like when you, when you add a to do that you’ve already done, I’m just going to add this to Brett’s Brett’s drunk. That’ll be number one.

[00:04:15] Brett: this is, this is kind of a post mortem graftitude. Um, I have loved, if you ask me for the last five years, what’s your favorite? Mind mapping application. I would have told you iThoughts. Both for,

[00:04:33] Jeff: you that before you even said it.

[00:04:35] Brett: both for Mac and iOS. I have been a huge fan of iThoughts. And Craig from iThoughts has just declared he’s done.

[00:04:46] Jeff: That’s very sad.

[00:04:47] Brett: Yeah. So my gratitude is, uh, historical. Like, I have loved iThoughts so much and He’s going to maintain it for [00:05:00] as long as it works without any upkeep, which on macOS probably means two, maybe three OS

[00:05:09] Jeff: Yeah, I was going to say, what does that? Yeah.

[00:05:11] Brett: On iOS, nobody knows how long that’ll last. It could be the next, the next iOS version could kill the iOS version of iThoughts.

[00:05:23] Brett: Um, but iThoughtsX is. My favorite mind mapping application. And I will be, I will be bitterly disappointed to have to switch to another. I mean, MindNode is a great app. I love the guys from MindNode. I’ve met them. I have talked to them. They’re great people. iThoughts has always had my heart. Um, so this is actually in memoriam. A, a gratitude in memoriam because [00:06:00] I, thoughts has declared the end of to head aware and the i thoughts application.

[00:06:07] Jeff: I’m going through the Twitter feed, which is very old at this point for reasons that aren’t going to be hard for us to understand. But there’s an amazing update note from December 8th, 2021, where iThoughts has added latex support. And. It’s funny because I’ve never seen LaTeX look ugly. It definitely looks ugly in a PurpleMind map.

[00:06:30] Brett: Yeah. I can’t imagine check looking good in any kinda visual application. Sure.

[00:06:37] Christina: No, but like, but also This is why we’ll miss the app, because like, who else is going to, you know that, you know that like five people were incredibly vocal about LaTeX support, like five, like maybe three, like, but that’s, that’s it. We’re incredibly vocal and, and he like took the time to be like, okay, you know what, even though this is not going to be attractive and will not apply to [00:07:00] 99.

[00:07:00] Christina: 999997 percent of users, I’m still going to do the work and do it.

[00:07:05] Brett: he was, he was a nerd’s nerd, developer.

[00:07:08] Jeff: Is. I mean, he’s not dead. He is a NerdsNerd

[00:07:11] Brett: not. And I checked in with him. I’m like, Hey, man, you okay? And he’s like, Yeah, I just, I’m just done with the app thing. And He’s, he’s okay, but my favorite app is not. And so I feel a sense of loss. I swear, Craig is okay. Everything’s fine.

[00:07:33] Brett: We’re just losing an app over the next few years. It’ll continue working. I guarantee it’ll continue working for a few years, but, but it’s dead

[00:07:45] Jeff: this is sweet. So I’m, I’m putting this stuff in the show notes, but I’m at, I’m on the site now looking at like sort of the posts over the years. And there’s a June 2008 post that just says, started playing with iPhone development as a hobby. And that is such a beautiful, [00:08:00] uh, thing to look back on, given the history of this app, which is a

[00:08:03] Christina: It really is.

[00:08:04] Brett: even the, yeah, so I love it on Mac OS, but even on iOS, it was such a great, it was a nerds, nerds app. Like you, you had to appreciate, like you could create a mind map and output it to a word document, like natively in the app. And like, that’s just, it’s for nerds. It’s a, it’s an app for nerds and I’m going to miss it.

[00:08:34] The future of “nerd” apps

[00:08:34] Jeff: That’s amazing. Can I ask you a question as a developer? Is there, is there anything about your understanding of, of him having to shut this down that says anything at all? And for Christina, for you too, this is anything at all about the current landscape for

[00:08:48] Christina: I was gonna, I was gonna say, I, I, like, I was gonna ask the same question, or like, have some of the same thoughts. Like, what does this say about how viable this making a nerds, nerd, nerds app is?[00:09:00]

[00:09:00] Jeff: Hmm.

[00:09:01] Brett: That’s a really good question. So I make an app called Marked

[00:09:06] Christina: Mm hmm.

[00:09:06] Brett: and Marked has gone from, in the time that Gruber would talk about it, it has gone from 3, 000 a month to 500 a month. Okay. Nine, nine. 900

[00:09:25] Jeff: This, if we were in the same room, I feel like this is a good time for me to just take your wallet, actually, now that we’re talking about money.

[00:09:32] Brett: But, but my sales have gone down significantly and I can’t speak to the general, I don’t know what apps like Better Touch Tool and, uh, Hazel and you know, like these real nerd apps are doing. I don’t really know how they’re doing these days. Um, I know how my own nerdy apps are [00:10:00] doing. Um, I know that even Bunch, which I give away for free, has been down lately.

[00:10:07] Brett: So, I don’t, I honestly don’t know what the future of nerd apps is.

[00:10:16] Christina: hate saying this because people are going to get mad at me or whatever, but I think that it’s subscription, right? It’s subscription and it’s Sass, because that’s the only way you can make it work, and it isn’t like developers want to turn everything into a subscription, it’s that that’s the only way they can do it.

[00:10:32] Christina: Make something sustainable, like, because otherwise it’s, I think that, you know, the number of people who are willing to install a new app is difficult. I think the barrier to entry is harder than it has ever been before. Um, and you have so many other people who you’re competing with free on the surface, right?

[00:10:54] Christina: So like, it’s not actually free, but it’ll be free and, and then it’ll have, you know, some sort of hidden [00:11:00] payment thing. But yeah, I am. I worry the same way you

[00:11:06] Brett: Define hidden payment thing.

[00:11:08] Christina: Well, what I mean is, is like, you’ll download it, and it’ll be free, and then it’ll be like, oh, if you want to continue using this, you’ve got to pay X dollars a week or X dollars a

[00:11:16] Brett: just to be clear in the Apple ecosystem, that is the only way you can offer a

[00:11:24] Christina: I know.

[00:11:25] Brett: if you want people to be able to try your product for free,

[00:11:28] Christina: I know.

[00:11:29] Brett: you have to offer that in that purchase after a week and say, now you have to continue paying like there’s like back in the days of like shareware, you know, like we could offer.

[00:11:41] Christina: you don’t sell on the Mac App Store, right? Like, it, like,

[00:11:44] Brett: We can offer seven 14 day trials and you can choose to pay.

[00:11:49] Christina: which to be clear, I don’t think anybody, for any reason, like, other than they want to just maybe be as expansive as possible, I don’t know anybody who’s like, Oh, I have to be in the Mac App Store.

[00:11:59] Christina: If I’m not [00:12:00] in the Mac App Store, I’m dead. Like, fuck that. Like, no actual

[00:12:03] Brett: For, for a couple of years, that was true

[00:12:06] Christina: I know it’s not anymore though, but it’s 2024. It’s not 20 It’s not It’s not

[00:12:09] Brett: it is not true anymore. Exactly, exactly. And for a couple of years, it was true. If you weren’t in the Mac app store, you were, you were trying water. Now most income, like set up gives me more income than the Mac app store

[00:12:27] Christina: Oh, yeah.

[00:12:28] Brett: And,

[00:12:29] Christina: they have better discovery and they have an actual captive audience of people who actually want to use apps, whereas like the

[00:12:35] Brett: and a more, and a more curated selection

[00:12:38] Christina: well, well, that’s, that’s kind of my point. Like the discovery is better, right? Because if you open, like I’m opening up the Mac App Store right now and I’m looking at it and here’s when I click on discover, here’s what I see.

[00:12:48] Christina: I see games that we love and I’m seeing, um,

[00:12:52] Brett: Bullshit games that charge you for upgrades.

[00:12:56] Christina: And I’m seeing like, you know, I’m seeing like, uh, like you’re a cat, you know, in Cyber City [00:13:00] and Stray. And I’m like, oh yeah, because that’s really going to make up for being cyber, the fact that cyberpunk can’t be played. Like, fuck that.

[00:13:05] Christina: And then I’m like, oh, what’s to watch? I can watch Mr. and Mrs. Smith on Amazon Prime. Okay. Like, I really like, um, um, What’s His Face, um, Childish Gambino, but like, I don’t care. And then I finally see, Oh, get started with Mac Essentials. And I, I click on that. And the first three things, the first, here, here are the five, here are the five things that I’ve got listed for essential business apps, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, PDF Expert, and Highlights, PDF Reader, and Notes.

[00:13:33] Christina: Like what the

[00:13:34] Jeff: more.

[00:13:35] Christina: And then it gets even worse when you go to must play Mac games, which this is just sad. Lies of Pea, Stray, Grid Legends, okay, Return to Monkey Island, like what year is this? Honestly. Evil Village for Mac, Resident Evil 4, these are Both old, you know, um, Disney Dreamlight Valley, like, what the fuck?

[00:13:55] Christina: SnowRunner, which is a simulation game, like, these are, you know, like, not [00:14:00] good. Um, and then for, for photos, I’ve got Lightroom, Pixelmator Pro, Affinity Photo 2, Acorn 7, Photomator. So, like, photo, you’re finally good. Then, like, you’re finally, like, scrambling down, you’re like, okay, well, then you’ve got, for managing time and tasks, you’ve got Things 3, and Fantastical, and Agenda, and

[00:14:17] Brett: Okay.

[00:14:17] Jeff: I, you know, what was awesome is I was looking at the app store and I would never know about Office.

[00:14:22] Christina: Right? That’s what I’m saying. Like, all of this stuff. This is just ridiculous.

[00:14:26] Brett: Pixelmator showed up on the list with Adobe apps at all.

[00:14:33] Jeff: Yes, but here’s the thing.

[00:14:34] Christina: me too, but it shouldn’t be that far down. Like, I shouldn’t have to scroll down through, like, 15 things.

[00:14:38] Jeff: The thing about Office, and also their thing of adding like, um, narrative stories where they talk about apps and whatever, that didn’t help, like some of them were good, but it didn’t help, right? It didn’t help this problem. They were well done, they were whatever, but you still feel like you’re, it feels like you found like a really cool shell on a really big beach, like it doesn’t feel like

[00:14:57] Brett: so my app, Mark, got featured a [00:15:00] couple of times in these app stories and, and app, like, top picks for the, like, staff picks and, and it was a boost in sales. But I look at it now, a year, two, two years later, and yeah, their top picks are occasionally indie developers that I, I truly admire and respect.

[00:15:26] Brett: Increasingly rarely so.

[00:15:29] Word vs Pages

[00:15:29] Jeff: Uh, this, the, I, I don’t mean to keep going on the Microsoft Office thing, but I was once visiting a friend in Portland in like, in like 2003, and he’s like, he’s like, Hey, you want to go? We got a new Chinese restaurant in the neighborhood. I’m like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s go. We walk, we walk a few blocks and it’s a P.

[00:15:43] Jeff: F. Chang’s.

[00:15:44] Christina: I was going to say, was it a P. F. Changs? I was like, hell yes.

[00:15:48] Jeff: And I love P. F.

[00:15:49] Christina: but I’m just, me too. And, and honestly, Microsoft Office, it’s, if you’re going to use an offline

[00:15:55] Jeff: Yeah,

[00:15:55] Christina: it’s the best one. Like

[00:15:57] Jeff: I use it.

[00:15:58] Christina: me too. Ain’t nobody [00:16:00] using pages. Ain’t nobody using, um, uh, you know, like numbers.

[00:16:03] Christina: Um, uh. Brett has his hand raised, but Brett, you don’t count. And honestly, you’re not using numbers if you’re doing real spreadsheets. Like, no one

[00:16:11] Brett: true.

[00:16:12] Christina: a real spreadsheet

[00:16:12] Jeff: Yeah, exactly.

[00:16:14] Christina: It makes a really great, easy chart, but like, nobody who has actual data needs would ever even come close. Like, you would

[00:16:20] Brett: Well, if I have actual data needs, I’m working on the command line. I’m working with CSV and JSON data and actually processing it. If I, if I need to do, if I need to do a,

[00:16:32] Jeff: when he’s drunk.

[00:16:33] Brett: if I need to do a mail merge, fuck,

[00:16:36] Jeff: Mail

[00:16:37] Brett: fuck numbers, um, yeah, no, I understand what you’re saying. It’s,

[00:16:42] Christina: I’m just saying like, you know, but like, but still no one’s using pages for anything. Like even, even people who use pages, like honestly, like, like no one’s using that. Um,

[00:16:53] Jeff: once in a while I get a pages file

[00:16:55] Christina: me too. And I’m like, what the

[00:16:56] Jeff: the fuck? It’s like you just sent me the British Pound. What am I [00:17:00] supposed to do with

[00:17:00] Christina: And like, and I had the same reaction and I’m like, and I literally have, you know, pages installed on every single device I own, but I’m still like, what is this bullshit?

[00:17:09] Christina: Like,

[00:17:09] Jeff: someone’s gonna come at you with the British Pound and you gotta be ready.

[00:17:12] Brett: I would, exactly. I would never, I would never send anybody a pages file. Or, or numbers file, like I would always export to DocX or export to like just CSV or, or like a compatible format, because I am fully aware that the rest of the world does not use Apple products, even and,

[00:17:36] Jeff: an idea

[00:17:37] Brett: It’s so nice,

[00:17:38] Jeff: colleagues sadly, are not textile people. And by not textile people, I mean, not even really willing to take a minute to think about why I might always say, oh, I have it in a text file. Right. I just, I just, I’m ex, I’m eccentric, which I am. I’m

[00:17:53] Christina: For them, it’s Google Docs or nothing.

[00:17:56] Jeff: Yeah. And so I think now though, I think I troll, um, better [00:18:00] than just sending a text file and I could start sending pages, files. Especially to my, to my PC friends who I do not look down on. Um, but maybe that’s a good bit to do. Like, Oh, I’m really into this thing, pages. It’s an

[00:18:11] Christina: Oh, yeah. I mean, that would be hilarious because at that point, because the thing is it like, at least like, like OpenOffice or Libre Office or whatever the fuck it’s called. Um, I always forget that it’s Libre Office now because the OpenOffice thing, there

[00:18:24] Jeff: Right, right, right,

[00:18:25] Christina: Um, but, uh, but like, those formats suck, but like, you know, you can save it in a doc or docx, it’ll be, your formatting will be fucked.

[00:18:35] Christina: And you absolutely don’t want to open a spreadsheet at all. But you can get by with it, right? Like you just definitely don’t add any comments or, or, you know, expect, um, your very carefully Um, like if you’ve got a very specifically formatted thing, don’t expect that to survive, but whatever, you can open it, but a pages file, I don’t even think Apple allows a pages viewer to exist.

[00:18:54] Christina: I don’t even think like you can get one on Windows because, and that’s Apple’s fault to be very clear. Like that’s 100 [00:19:00] percent on them. I think that they, like, I don’t understand why that is a product that ever existed to be honest. Um, because like Apple works, Claris works, there was a Windows version, so, you know, I don’t know.

[00:19:12] Christina: Like. But anyway, but also to me, I’m kind of like, I get it. You didn’t have Office on the iPad, but you know, was, was, was Pages really worth it? Like, even like 20 years ago when they

[00:19:24] Jeff: You know, what would be amazing is if there was just an Incredible Pages app on Apple Vision Pro. Just, I don’t even know what incredible would mean in that context.

[00:19:35] Christina: Oh, I actually, what’s funny, I think the only native one is Keynote.

[00:19:39] Jeff: yeah, that makes sense. I

[00:19:41] Christina: I think all the other ones literally just run in iPad mode,

[00:19:44] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s, I think that’s right. Yeah, that’s

[00:19:46] Christina: is funny.

[00:19:47] Jeff: Uh, can I ask you all, since we’re talking, since we’re talking about, um, Word documents and documents in general, I have this Problem I’ve been really trying to figure out how to rein in, which is that if I am getting, and I have [00:20:00] great relationships with all of my colleagues, okay, so I’m not, I, I, despite what I said earlier, I’m not actually trolling people on a regular basis, but I am tired of hearing about how I’m eccentric because I like text files and read CSVs sometimes in a text editor.

[00:20:12] Jeff: Fuck you, man. That’s just how you got to live. But anyway, it’s how the ancestors did it. But like, I cannot, if somebody sends me a document for review, There’s I literally cannot even take in the content until I have normalized the formatting and especially normalized whether there are periods or not at the end of bulleted list items.

[00:20:34] Style Guides make the world go round

[00:20:34] Jeff: Do you have this problem or are you able to just go ahead and read? I can’t read until I like smoothed out the sheets. I’m like, I’m not going to lay in a dirty bed.

[00:20:40] Christina: I mean, I think that I think that I can read without it, but I definitely do go through like that jarring thing, which is like, okay, what is our format here? Right? Like, are we Oxford comma people? Are we not like, are we period of end people? Are we not, are we capitalizing, you know, in headlines or not?

[00:20:54] Brett: in any given list, if there are periods at the end of [00:21:00] every list item, okay, if, if the first two list items end without periods, and then suddenly like a two sentence list item that has two periods in it, I have a problem. Like, consistency. That’s, that’s my goal.

[00:21:18] Jeff: Yeah. It reminds me, did you watch the, um, Netflix series Moe? Uh, it’s a Palestinian American dude. Uh, what’s his full name? Muhammad. I’ll get it, but he, it’s amazing. See, it’s very funny. It’s very poignant. It’s amazing. But there’s a scene where he walks into a grocery store and this woman tries to give him a sample of chocolate hummus.

[00:21:39] Jeff: And he goes, It’s fucking war crime. That’s like a little bit how I feel about what you just described.

[00:21:46] Christina: I agree with that. Um, that’s, and this is because we are, we are like newsroom people, Jeff. Like we, like we have to, I mean, like you too, to a little bit, to, to, to, um, you work with documentation and stuff, so you too, Brett, but like we all work, [00:22:00] like you have to have consistency. You have to have a style guide.

[00:22:02] Christina: There’s nothing worse than when you have the style guide and then you have people who refuse to adhere to the style guide and you’re like, what the fuck are we doing? And I don’t always agree with the style guide. Like Mashable didn’t believe in the Oxford comma, which I hated. And then we, we did a, we varied with our headline thing.

[00:22:19] Christina: I think we were capitalizing for the most part and then we switched to not. And what was hard, though, is I went to Gizmodo where we did have the Oxford comma, Praise Jesus, but then it was lowercase headlines. So,

[00:22:31] Jeff: yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:33] Christina: and so it was just like a weird muscle memory thing, like, what are you getting used to?

[00:22:37] Christina: Um, but the thing is, even though I don’t always agree with it, like, I’m like, okay, if we, you know, just be consistent, like, that’s the only thing. Like, I don’t have to agree with it, but I’ll follow it.

[00:22:47] Jeff: Totally. And also Style Guide’s like, I’m okay with the Style Guide being a living document. I’m even okay with people not using it if the way they don’t use it is totally consistent throughout the

[00:22:56] Brett: Yeah, totally. 100%. Yes.

[00:22:59] Jeff: I’m putting [00:23:00] something in the show notes, it’s Muhammad Amr, it’s Moe Amr, uh, it’s a clip of this hummus moment, it’s really incredible.

[00:23:06] Jeff: Anyway. Alright, thanks for, I mean I would love to talk about style guides and making one right now with a copy editor, fuckin love it. I have Brett’s Markdown style guide from his, uh, Oracle thing, which I bet nobody listens to, nobody uses, cause what the fuck is a style guide, I’m in a hurry!

[00:23:21] Brett: It’s true.

[00:23:21] Christina: I mean, people who do documentation definitely do.

[00:23:24] Jeff: Yes! But here’s the thing, right? Like, for me, so we do a lot of work where it’s like we send something to a client. We might send an outline to a client, right? An outline is easier to make a fuck of than a document. And, and it is, I just feel, I feel like such an old man, because I am 10 years older than anybody else in my organization.

[00:23:43] Jeff: But I’m like Is it a value or not to us that an outline that goes to a client or an email or anything is like, I remember like, was it Jay Rosen who’s, I don’t quote Jay Rosen often, but I remember when he was like, he was everywhere, like in the 2007s, eights, he [00:24:00] had a great line, which I used in the newsroom all the time, which is like, everything’s an editorial product, everything, your

[00:24:05] Christina: Oh yeah, that was

[00:24:05] Jeff: texts, your, your, your, you know, private texts, your tweets, everything.

[00:24:09] Jeff: Right. And I don’t, these kids today. Yeah. Nope, they haven’t heard of J Rosen, which is great. I mean,

[00:24:14] Christina: No, it is, well, I mean, except for him, right, like, I think that, that Jay Rosen probably wishes that, that he were still, like, the, like, he and Jeff Jarvis were, like, the go to, oh, and Ken Docter, right? It was, like, it was, like, Ken Docter, Jay Rosen, and, and Jeff Jarvis were, like, the future of media people that you would talk to.

[00:24:30] Christina: And,

[00:24:30] Jeff: future of media people that you would talk to.

[00:24:33] Christina: Yeah. Um, it was like, you know, the guy from NYU guy from, you know, SUNY and then Ken, doctor

[00:24:38] Jeff: And then throw in Clay Shirky if you’re feeling edgy.

[00:24:41] Christina: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, throw in, uh, clay Shike if you want to, and then maybe even like, mention like, um, um, the, the, uh, information wants to be like

[00:24:52] Jeff: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Neil Postman. Not

[00:24:54] Christina: Neil Postman,

[00:24:54] Jeff: Yeah, Neil Postman. Oh, these are the greatest hits. Christina, I love when this happens when we free [00:25:00] associate on the like mid to late 2000s journalism scene.

[00:25:04] Christina: I know, I know. It’s like,

[00:25:05] Jeff: It’s like sports fans. It’s like, do you remember the 2003 Cardinals?

[00:25:09] Christina: What’s so funny is, is um, you know, the Messenger shut down. And, um, which, a friend of mine worked there, and I was very sad for him. Um, but I’m gonna be completely honest. Like, I’m not, I’m not gonna in any way judge anyone who took their first staff job, or like, took a job there, or whatnot.

[00:25:27] Christina: For the most part, for going to work there. I am going to judge people who like, left. Relatively stable places to go work there, because is what was so funny to me, the, the ideas and, um, um, speaking of, um, like, um, journalism type of, you know, talking head types, uh, Joshua Benton, who, who created the, the Nieman Lab at Harvard, um, he, um, um, um,

[00:25:52] Jeff: no, I’m thinking I’m actually thinking of the Civic Media Lab at MIT. Sorry,

[00:25:55] Christina: Okay, yeah, but no, but he created, he created the Neiman Lab at Harvard, um, [00:26:00] he like had been on a tear for like the last year about how dumb and backwards the messenger was, which we were all saying, we were like, this idea is like straight out of 2011, like this is backwards, but what it reminded me of was in 2010, Michael Wolff was hired to remake Ad Age.

[00:26:19] Christina: Like the, the Prometheus and Apollo Global, I don’t know if Apollo was actually involved, but Prometheus, uh, like some private equity fucks, like bought out the, the media group that owned the, the Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, and Ad Age. And, um, or Adweek, sorry, not Adage, Adweek. And, um, they hired Janice Minn to do, um, The Hollywood Reporter, and she actually did a really good job.

[00:26:41] Christina: Like it, it didn’t save it per se, but they definitely were able to resell that for a much higher multiple than they could have. And she made it into a very good magazine because she’s fucking awesome. And they hired Michael Wolff to take on Adweek. And. A friend of mine who I worked with, she had some feelers out to go get a job there.

[00:26:57] Christina: And then she mentioned me. She was like, Oh, we should definitely hire [00:27:00] my friend. And so, um, the girl who was going to run it, I guess, kind of under him, like his managing person, like she talked to me and she was like selling me on it. And then I get on a call with Michael Wolf and it’s basically a job offer.

[00:27:11] Christina: And I’m struck by a couple of things. First, Michael Wolf clearly has no idea who I am. No idea why he’s even talking to me. He’s just. Trying to hire away people, and I worked at a prominent publication at the time. And, and so, but he has no fucking clue who I am or why he’s talking to me. And the second thing was, is he was just telling me how, like, Oh, well, Mashable’s gonna be dead.

[00:27:31] Christina: TechCrunch is gonna be dead. All these things are gonna be dead. We’re gonna throw so much at this. Like, you, you, you can just forget about it. You definitely want to come here because we’re, we’re going to basically annihilate you. And I’m, I’m like 25. And I’m like, okay, I don’t think you know what you’re doing, because this is insane and this isn’t how media works right now, and this is a ridiculous idea, this is like late 2010.

[00:27:56] Christina: And so I, um, so I guess I was 24, or 26, [00:28:00] and so I, um, I basically was like, I, I, I opted not to continue with the process. I was like, this is weird. Also it was weird to me that they wanted to offer me a job without even like seeing my writing samples, like they were just like, really? The whole thing just felt weird.

[00:28:14] Christina: off. And so I was like, I’m not doing this. And, and Lauren also opted to not do it. And we were very grateful because less than a year later, Michael Wolff was, um, kicked out and the whole thing was a disaster. Well, I went to look back on that and I was like, man, why does the messenger remind me so much of this? I went back to look and the guy who led the investment and who hired Michael Wolff to, to do, um, Adweek was Jimmy Finkelstein,

[00:28:39] Jeff: Oh,

[00:28:39] Christina: the guy who then did the messenger. So,

[00:28:42] Jeff: don’t talk to me. Talk to Jimmy Finkelstein,

[00:28:45] Christina: so like

[00:28:46] Jeff: Jimmy Tentos. Sorry.

[00:28:48] Christina: No, no, but, but like the funny thing is, is I was like, okay, this, this concept, which I should have given some precursor, there was this attempt at making a, like, mass general news site called The Messenger, they blew [00:29:00] through 50 million dollars in under a year, they hired like 200 and something journalists, they had originally said they were going to hire 550, they didn’t hire that many, they They, um, basically, they hired Neitz and Zimmerman, which again, talking about like, like 2010s, like throwbacks, like wait, wait, wait to pretend it’s still 20, 2012, you guys, um, to be like their, their viral person, even though social traffic doesn’t exist anymore.

[00:29:23] Christina: Um, and, um, the whole thing was just like, A throwback to an earlier era, and of course it collapsed and failed, and they ran out of money on January 31st, fired people without any severance, except for people in California who they had to pay vacation time to. And um, the whole thing is just a disaster and embarrassing.

[00:29:40] Christina: But, the thing is that struck me as I was like, Okay. Everybody was like, including myself, was like, oh, this is such a 2010s idea, early 2010s idea. And it, but it also reminded me, and then I found out why, because it was the same people, of, of the, the, you know, ad week, um, attempt. Except even in 2010, [00:30:00] like, my, like, very young, very green ass was like, Oh, this is a bad idea even now.

[00:30:06] Christina: Like, so it’s a throwback to a bad idea from back then. Like, at least the daily, I know why, I know why people took that job and like, it failed, but at least it had paying users. And like, we all thought the iPad was going to be a thing. Like, I understand why people took a job at the

[00:30:22] Jeff: Yep,

[00:30:23] Christina: I’m going to be honest.

[00:30:24] Christina: I don’t understand why anybody took a job at the messenger

[00:30:27] Jeff: it’s pretty crazy. It’s pretty crazy. And it does, it feels so old. Like, I remember when, um, when Al Jazeera America started, like, I, I, um, well, first of all, like, this goes back to, harkens back to a really amazing time, which is that there was this guy, Mark Coatney, who was, who, who originally was working at Newsweek and started a Tumblr.

[00:30:46] Jeff: It was like one of the first Tumblers that are like a news organization. It was around the same time that I started the Utney Reader Tumblr, right? Like when I was working there. And he and I got to know each other online because as he said, it’s like you’re two bomber pilots like flying over the land and you just kind of look and [00:31:00] nod at each other because the only, I think the only other Tumblr for a media organization at that point was like Good Morning America.

[00:31:05] Jeff: Um, and, and so

[00:31:07] Christina: Mashable, but yeah, but

[00:31:08] Jeff: You’re Mashable. Yes, I’m sorry, Mashable. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, well, Utni wasn’t mainstream. But yeah, I, for some reason, I kind of like, Mashable felt like Mashable on Tumblr, right? It wasn’t like, oh, look, Mashable’s on Tumblr.

[00:31:19] Christina: Oh, that’s exactly what it was. Cause I ran that account for a long time

[00:31:22] Jeff: let’s see now, it should have been you and me and Cody in bomber planes, like, looking over the thing, right?

[00:31:28] Jeff: Cause like, that was really fun to run a Tumblr from a media organization at that point, because you got out of the CMS. Like, although actually, they based, like, Newsweek ended up, was it New York? Was it the New York Review of Books? Somebody ended up basing a huge chunk of their CMS, essentially inside of Tumblr.

[00:31:44] Jeff: I don’t remember how that worked if it’s true, we won’t talk about that. So anyway, Mark Cote and he ends up getting a job as like the media director at Tumblr makes sense. And then he gets hired on as like vice vice president of something for Al Jazeera America, when Al Jazeera decided they wanted to have an American based thing [00:32:00] and they were doing that same kind of like the future of media is cocaine.

[00:32:04] Jeff: It’s like, you know, the past of media was also cocaine. So we just got to figure out how to work in the, I was. I was in phone calls about a job, I had to move to New York to be an editor, I have never dealt with more jacked up, like completely unreliable, total newsroom junkie people in my life. And I was like, I had like two phone conversations and I was just like, I said to my wife, I’m like, we’re definitely not going to New York. This is not going to go well. I loved that. I wrote for them just once and I loved the experience. But like, that was another one of those things where like, that’s what makes the messenger feel like it was 2000.

[00:32:41] Christina: Oh yeah, 1000%. Well, they also, they, they spent 8 million on real estate. They had offices in Palm Beach, um, in Fideye

[00:32:49] Jeff: oh, so, so Finkelstein was money laundering.

[00:32:52] Christina: Oh, yeah. I mean, clearly this whole thing, it was, it was like, and like, this guy wrote this thing for New York mag about what it was like. [00:33:00] He was like, yeah, we had this office like 42, 000 square feet in Fidei and the desks were empty almost all the time.

[00:33:05] Christina: And I’m like, what are you doing? Um, Defector, um, which is a, uh, like a reader sponsored publication, which is great from the people behind Deadspin. They wrote like a thing about basically like how many, you know, newsrooms like theirs could have been funded by, you know, the 50 million. Um, and like the defectors like, like annual budget is around three million dollars or whatever and, and like they’re able to increase it, you know, little by little, but like, you know, and, and they’re paying salaries and they’re being able to pay some dividends, so to speak, but like, it’s certainly not, you know, drowning in money, but it’s a great publication and they pay their freelancers really well and, um, uh, yeah, it is like, yeah.

[00:33:45] Christina: I’m like, okay, you probably wouldn’t be able to have, you know, 20 defectors. I don’t think that that many exist, but it is really telling. It’s like, wow, you could have used the money in so many other ways.

[00:33:56] Jeff: yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, that’s [00:34:00] absolutely the case.

[00:34:01] Brett: weirdly, we’re still on my pick for Graftitude. I don’t, I don’t, I have no idea where we’re at. I am, I’m not, I’m not conscious enough.

[00:34:13] Jeff: I’ll tell you, remember, we’ll handle it. So I do want to

[00:34:16] Brett: over, take

[00:34:17] Jeff: want to close out the messenger conversation by saying, if you go to their URL, it is just the name, the messenger and an email info at the messenger. And I would love to know the payment arrangement that has this URL staying alive.

[00:34:31] Jeff: Is it like a 20 year subscription through hover?

[00:34:33] Christina: That’s, that’s all I can figure. Cause, cause they literally shut off. They literally shut it off the day that they announced. And I was like, oh, they’re not paying a second more of AWS stuff. So like, yeah. Um, okay. Let me, let me DNS this. Let me see who the DNS is. Cause I wonder if this is like being hosted on Netlify or Vercel

[00:34:48] Jeff: I know, right? Right?

[00:34:49] Christina: Pages. Like, this is on some sort of cheap ass. Yeah.

[00:34:53] Jeff: I wish that they would just have a little blinking under construction sign. [00:35:00] Or just like a gravestone blinking, maybe? Something like that. You could have fun with it. Is what

[00:35:05] Christina: You really could, but, but that would, you know, I think that there’s probably like a part of them were like, Oh, we can sell the assets you mean? And it’s like, it’s, it’s like wolf. com.

[00:35:12] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:35:13] Christina: um, the opposite of office. And when, when, um, like when you’re selling the URL, like, and that’s it.

[00:35:19] Jeff: Also, can I

[00:35:19] Christina: okay, no, okay. So this is going to, so the DNS is still hosted, um, on AWS.

[00:35:25] Christina: Um, and so I bet this is just. And AWS,

[00:35:29] Jeff: went way down. Um, I, here’s the, the other thing about The Messenger, just before we close, is that if you were like, I just got a job at this new news organization called The Messenger, I’d be like, you’re Jehovah’s Witness, or what, you’re Nation of Islam, like, what’s going on here? It does not sound, it sounds like a religious paper, or like a cult paper.

[00:35:45] Jeff: It’s the worst name.

[00:35:47] Christina: They weren’t even in like the SEO listing, like it took them months to get into SEO. Like they didn’t even launch that way. Like, like, like, um, um, uh, um, like again, Neiman did this thing, like Josh Benton, like did this thing where he was like, these are the [00:36:00] things that rank higher than the messenger on Google for the messenger on Google.

[00:36:03] Christina: It was, it was art. Um, all right. That’s enough of that.

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[00:37:36] Christina: All right. Um, so, so I thought

[00:37:38] Jeff: Yours is fun. Yours is a fun one.

[00:37:41] Speaking of throwbacks

[00:37:41] Christina: Yeah, okay, so kind of speaking of throwback software a little bit, do you guys remember an app called Cover Sutra?

[00:37:47] Brett: totally.

[00:37:49] Jeff: I still remember that name. Jesus. It’s

[00:37:52] Christina: it was like basically like a, uh, uh, uh, like a, an iTunes controller where you’d see like the cover art of your, um, you know, what was [00:38:00] playing back and it was really beautiful and it was nicer than like the mini mode in iTunes or whatever. Um, and, um, the people who made it were great as well. Part of the Delicious Generation, great app.

[00:38:11] Christina: This one I actually discovered while we were recording our last episode, um, and I, I was kind of playing with it while we were recording with Brian, uh, and, because Jason Snell wrote about this, um, on his blog. It’s called Sleeves, um, and, or, or, or Sleeve rather, and, and Sleeve 2 is, is the current version.

[00:38:30] Christina: Um, it’s 6 if you buy it directly. I think it’s 7 in the Mac App Store, 8 in the Mac App Store. I bought it directly because I always worry about the App Store limitations, even if they don’t exist. Um, and, um, basically it’s, um, it’s, it’s on your desktop and it’ll like, let you control music from Apple music, Spotify, as well as Doppler.

[00:38:50] Christina: Um, it has, um, Last. fm scrabbling support. It has a bunch of different themes and you can also customize how it looks. Um, and you can even like [00:39:00] share your stylings and then, um. It does integrate with, like, the Spotify Developer API, if you want to have loving tracks, like, enabled on Spotify, so you can love a track when it’s playing back on, um, your, uh, your thing.

[00:39:15] Christina: But, um, it also supports, um, like, iCloud Sync, so, like, for instance, themes that I’ve created. And, um, on my Mac, and I actually just figured this out, on my iMac will show up on my, um, laptop. Um, so when you, when you customize, like, what the, how, how the things look, and you can really get granular about, like, how the layout works, like what it looks like, how it sits and is positioned on your desktop, if it’s going to be over or under things, you can create, you know, um, uh, uh, system shortcuts and, and other stuff.

[00:39:47] Christina: Um, I really, really like it. And so Yeah, it’s really pretty, and so this is going to be a thing that not a lot of people are going to need to use. But, I mean, honestly, like, you’re probably fine with just, [00:40:00] you know, the built in thing. And I know that some people prefer having menu bar based controls, I get it.

[00:40:06] Christina: But I often have, like, a second monitor, which is not being actively used for much. And so having this kind of positioned in, like, a lower corner quadrant, it’s a, it’s a nice, it’s a nice little app, especially for, for six bucks.

[00:40:18] Brett: Yeah, I keep, I keep all of my window positioning, I keep space available at the top and the bottom of the screen for exactly the kind of thing that this provides. Uh, do you guys remember an app called, um, Simplify?

[00:40:38] Christina: Yeah,

[00:40:41] Brett: You could create, you could create what were called jackets for simplify using CSS and HTML. And

[00:40:49] Christina: I loved, I loved Simplify. Yes,

[00:40:50] Brett: I, I created, I created a jacket called Sideshow that gave you like a full screen menu bar at the left side of your [00:41:00] screen. That would like show like progress and, and track name, album name, all of that. And I love that app.

[00:41:08] Brett: It has gone. Unupdated for years now.

[00:41:13] Christina: Yeah, it’s not even available in the Mac App Store anymore, like the website still exists, it says 2012 to 2021. And I think you can probably still, yeah, if you click on the download link, like it’ll go to open app store and it’s not even available anymore, but that was a great app.

[00:41:27] Brett: it’s dead now, but I’m really into Sleeve. Um, that is, I, I hope they open up, I hope they open up an API that I can develop for.

[00:41:39] Christina: Yeah, you should reach out to them.

[00:41:40] Brett: I will 100% make jackets for

[00:41:43] Jeff: pull those jackets out of the closet.

[00:41:46] Brett: yeah, yeah,

[00:41:46] Christina: Yeah, no, no, you should totally do it. Um, and, and I think, uh, you should reach out to them because,

[00:41:51] Jeff: sober up and reach out to him.

[00:41:53] Christina: yeah, no, I was gonna say, well, they’re, well, they’re, they’re.

[00:41:56] Brett: You can’t tell me what to do. [00:42:00] Sorry.

[00:42:01] Christina: they’re a two person team, but, like, that is actually probably the perfect size for,

[00:42:08] Jeff: Yeah, for that kind of

[00:42:09] Christina: who would, yeah, exactly, people who would be like, be able to be like, yeah,

[00:42:12] Jeff: It has to go through zero meetings. Yeah, that’s amazing. I love it. That looks super cool. Um, okay. Should I do mine? I have two because one, well, one is, it’s fine that one is tedious because that’s how we love apps, but I just wanted to do two. So one’s a, one’s a Mac app and one’s a just iOS app.

[00:42:36] Jeff: Maybe it’s on the Mac. I don’t use it there, but I was using, I’ve been using TablePlus for, for SQL tables for like ever and. It is, it’s great. And then they added a very cool feature, which is like this little AI column. So you can just be like, I want to do this. Give me the, it’s just the great for being a lazy SQL programmer person.

[00:42:54] Jeff: Um, which I am, but I’m normally I’d be looking stuff up. Yeah, it’s great. But. It’s [00:43:00] that just got that function, like whatever, it seemed to have gotten funky. I was getting a lot of weird crashes in the whole thing, whatever. And now table plus people, if that’s fixed, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to tell anybody not to do it, but I did have to go find something else cause I was on deadline.

[00:43:14] Jeff: And so I ended up at Navicat, Navicat, Navicat for SQLite and I love it. I love it so much. And I think that it has. It’s, this is kind of strange, but like, I do more work in my relational databases now, and part of it is I need to be, cause I’ve got a project that has this like super complex relational database, but like, it’s beautiful.

[00:43:38] Jeff: It’s easy to use. It’s got some wonderful features. It’s got a really cool like charting feature. If you want to just make some quick charts, um, it’s, it’s just like, oh, it’s so good. And I don’t know what to say. Like if you. If you are looking for a SQL database app or a SQLite database app, whatever, like you already know what you want.

[00:43:55] Jeff: And I just, I just want to put that out there as something that if you’ve been using something else forever, like [00:44:00] TablePlus, which I love, just play with this a little bit. Cause I was really impressed and I was glad that I had a reason to try something else. Cause literally I’ve been using TablePlus since I was in a newsroom, which is at this point.

[00:44:13] Jeff: 2012 was the last newsroom I was in. And so, um, so anyway, that was fun. And the other one is like Casey lists of ATP of, you know, accidental tech podcasts and whatever, lots of things, I guess, uh, in life, but has this app call sheet, which because it was called call sheet, I just never knew. What the hell is this thing?

[00:44:31] Jeff: It didn’t like hit me. And then he was talking about, I’ve started listening to ATP again. I go through seasons, uh, with ATP and when I’m going through a season now, I will admit that it was this thing that happens to me where I just want more Syracuse, uh, um, and, and Casey was talking about call sheet.

[00:44:47] Jeff: I’m like, I gotta check this app out. It’s an amazing app for just like, you know, how. Fucking maddening it is to look at IMDb, um, when you want to know something. And if you’re not watching Prime, you don’t have that thing where you can stop and look at the actors. This is just like [00:45:00] a beautiful app that is so it’s, it’s well done.

[00:45:02] Jeff: It’s pretty, it does the things you want it to do. It’s quick and it allows you to just be like, I’m watching this thing. Show me who’s in it. And now show me who else was in it. And it is. Exactly what you need. It’s crisp. It’s clear. The information is right there. And if you want to go to IMDb, you can get there from there, but I just think he, he’s done an amazing job

[00:45:21] Christina: He has, I really, really like it. Like I bought it like as soon as it came out and I’m a huge fan because the thing is the IMDb app used to be really good and it’s gotten worse and worse. And I used to pay for IMDb Pro and I don’t anymore. Um, cause I don’t, I don’t need. So I don’t need it for the email access, which is why I used to pay for it.

[00:45:41] Christina: And, um, but the IODB app is just like kind of garbage now. And, and the website, um, like, um, uh, John August used to make a, a Safari extension that would like re Like, do, like, would fix, like, IMDB, um, but, but that hasn’t been updated in a long time, um, years at this point, but, but CallSheet is, [00:46:00] is great. Um, I will, the one thing I will note, because I think that it’s great, I think that it’s, um, a really good app and, and it is great for 99% I will say there is some information that isn’t exact and isn’t always going to be as up to date because of the source that they’re using is, is like, just not as good as IMDB.

[00:46:18] Christina: But for the vast majority of things, like it is really, really solid. Um, and, um, like I, I like how, um, Casey’s designed it. Like you said, like you have an easy way of going to Wikipedia or to, you know, the website for the project or

[00:46:33] Jeff: You can choose what you’re, you can have a quick link from your results and you can choose what that is. And one of them is to go to the technical information, like what camera was used in this movie? Like, it’s, it’s so awesome. So awesome. And I do understand why it’s called Call Sheet. Now that I know what the app is, but it just didn’t, both that and the icon didn’t really grab me ever.

[00:46:50] Jeff: And so I was like, what is this thing? Anyway, I love it. And I also want to say, well, one thing about IMDB, which is that, do you remember when Boing Boing went to shit? Like all of a sudden it was just [00:47:00] spammy ass ads. Everywhere it was just butts and pimples like thrust in your face, um, which is what I think I wish high school was like, but it wasn’t for me.

[00:47:09] Jeff: Um, anyway, uh, like that’s what IMDB is. And like, I still remember I used to go to Boing Boing every day. I’m doing this, Christina, because we, we opened the hatch on this one. I used to go there every fucking day. I used to love it. And then just like overnight, it just became trash. The content wasn’t all that different, but the ads were just like in the interstitials and it was just like, it’s a nightmare.

[00:47:31] Jeff: Anyway, just to say that about Boeing buying, sorry, Boeing buying. I know some of you people, you were great people, great thinkers, great writers, but I don’t know, you needed money. I guess, I guess you needed money.

[00:47:42] Christina: I mean, it’s weird too because like, um, you know, two of the, the co founders are, are gone. So,

[00:47:49] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:47:51] Christina: like, like Carl is still there and, and, and Rob might as well be a co founder because he’s been there for forever. But like, you know, yeah.

[00:47:58] Jeff: Yeah. That’s a bummer. And then the [00:48:00] last thing I’ll say, which is about Casey List, which is that, in coming back to Accidental Tech Podcast, which of course, the very first fucking episode I’m hearing about Phish from Marco, um, which I think is a great bet. I think the fact that you can’t listen to an episode, it feels like, without Marco either talking about Phish or someone giving a shit about Phish. The P H I S H, that’s what I’m talking about, the band, is kind of delightful because I don’t think we should change in many ways. But, uh, can you imagine, to listeners of the, of the podcast, I want to just, I don’t often appreciate Casey’s role enough, and I did for the first time in a way I never had, which is like, can you imagine trying to find your place between John Siracusa and Marco Arman?

[00:48:41] Jeff: Can you imagine trying to figure out Where your two feet are between those two dudes, who I love. But anyway, I just wanted to share that and, and, and give some appreciation. Also call sheets, one of those apps, and actually while we’re on the topic of all three of these guys, uh, Overcast is one of [00:49:00] these apps too, where I just would love to have a line into all the different decisions you had to make along the way to make the thing, what it is, because.

[00:49:09] Jeff: Both with podcasts, which Overcast, of course, is a podcast app, and with call sheet, trying to get this information the way you would want it. You just have to make so many calls, like any app, but I bet they were all interesting. I bet every one of those calls was interesting that you had to make. So anyway, thanks for, thanks for the good work, everybody.

[00:49:25] The Grammys. You knew it was coming.

[00:49:25] Jeff: There we are, Graftitude. So here’s the deal. When we start with Mental Health Corner, we’ll take Mental Health Corner to the end. When we start with Graftitude, I think it’s probably very easy to take Graftitude to the end. But we do have a little time. We do need to talk about the Grammys. And I want to, Christina, you are always the driver of this.

[00:49:41] Jeff: I, I am always a distant observer. I cannot watch the show. I’ve never been able to do it. I, and I’m not being, I, my wife and I talk about this because she, she likes. It’s like, I swear to God I’m not being a snob, but it does hurt my heart to watch a thing that I love, music, [00:50:00] get compressed into this very gross for me thing.

[00:50:06] Jeff: Now,

[00:50:06] Christina: Oh, yeah.

[00:50:07] Jeff: want to be clear, and I know you, I mean, we all see that, right? Like I also love the performances. And so even though I can’t sit through one, I’m on TikTok. There’s Tracy Chapman. You know, there’s Killer Mike accepting his awards. There’s Boy Genius being fucking adorable running for their awards.

[00:50:23] Jeff: Like I love it. And so Christina, I always like hearing from you on this stuff. You originally told us we had to talk about Miley Cyrus.

[00:50:30] Christina: Well, just because we love Miley and Miley run one record of the year, um, for, for flowers and, um, best, uh, um, best pop solo, um, for flowers record of the year, I definitely think it was deserved. Um, and, uh, I was a little bit surprised that it got it. Cause I was like, Oh, maybe they’ll give it to what was I made for whatever that, that one song of the year, which.

[00:50:51] Christina: was completely inevitable because they love, love, love Billie Eilish at the Grammys. Like they, they love her. Um, she’s one of the few like young [00:51:00] kind of artists who has already achieved that thing that like a lot of legacy artists have where like you see their name and I’m like, Oh, I bet they didn’t even listen to the album.

[00:51:07] Christina: They just voted. Right. Um, but, but that was also a great song and huge movie. Um, I have to say though, like, yeah, the performances this year were really good. Uh, Trevor Noah was funny. Uh, he made like a, a Taylor Swift, um, uh, NFL joke at the beginning that like she laughed at and that was funny. And it was, it was, it totally worked.

[00:51:26] Christina: It was like a total 180 from like the Golden Globes guy. It was like, Oh yeah, see, this is what happens when you actually hire a professional

[00:51:32] Jeff: Did you see the New York Times piece analyzing the amount of time that the NFL put the camera on Taylor? Okay. I should have sent that, but I was like, I don’t need to send this. She knows.

[00:51:41] Christina: I know, yeah, totally, um, What’s His Face, Cowheat, Colin Cowheat, like, did the same thing where he basically called, um, the, the NFL fans who are, like, mad at it, they basically, he basically called them incels, is basically what he did, and it was great, um,

[00:51:54] Jeff: All right. So

[00:51:55] Christina: he’s not wrong, he’s not wrong, but no, but, but, but, but Miley was great, she looked [00:52:00] great, I think I tweeted at some point, I was like, like, Liam Hemsworth, like, like, um, wellness check, because it, you know, Um, speaking of wellness checks, when, when Taylor won for best, um, uh, pop vocal, uh, which I was expecting her to win that album of the year was a surprise, but whatever.

[00:52:20] Christina: When she announced that, like she announced that she, we all thought she was going to be like, oh, Reputation, Taylor’s version coming soon. And she’s like, no, I have a new album coming out on, on April 19th called the Tortured Poets Society. And, uh, and you can pre order it now. And then her store It took me half an hour to check out, which was insane to me.

[00:52:43] Christina: Um, also, um, we all need to, or, it’s not Portrait, not Tortured Poets Society, uh, it’s Tortured Poets Department. Sorry, I’m a bad fan. Um, I felt really bad for Casey Musgraves, who had paid a lot of money to have a, uh, an ad for her new album, which is also coming out on April 19th.

[00:52:59] Jeff: [00:53:00] Yeah.

[00:53:00] Christina: before Taylor one, Casey, Casey, girl, you’re going to have to move that date.

[00:53:05] Jeff: yeah, friend of the show, Kacey Musgraves.

[00:53:07] Christina: Yeah, girl, you’re going to have to move that date because like, Universal is both of your labels and, and they are not going to put any money behind you at all. Like you’re going to have to move, you’re going to have to move. Um, but I felt bad for her for that. But

[00:53:19] Jeff: you’re driving down the road and it’s completely gone into the sea,

[00:53:23] Christina: but we got the track listing after, uh, like yesterday for, for the, the, um, the new Taylor album. And uh, This is, this is an album that I’m, I’m going to call it now. It’s going to be called Fuck Joe, um, uh, colon the album, uh, Joe meaning her ex boyfriend because shit, like she’s not even remotely fucking around.

[00:53:43] Christina: Like there’s a, like it, it is basically like, yep, she,

[00:53:49] Jeff: Does she go harder? Like, okay, she’s with Football Jones now. When she has had a terrible breakup, and I’m not trying to oversimplify this though, because she does a fucking great job of of putting [00:54:00] breakup shit in the song. So I’m not when she, but it traditionally, historically, if she is writing from a place of being in a relationship that is feeling good at that moment, is she even more vicious about the last one?

[00:54:14] Christina: Well, yes and no. And here’s the thing. She made it very clear to say that she’d been sitting on this album for two years.

[00:54:20] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:54:21] Christina: So, which to me is like her saying like, this is not about the current boyfriend. This is, this is Fuck Joe the album. So

[00:54:26] Jeff: The hard part about being the boyfriend. And look, it’s not about me. She doesn’t say football once.

[00:54:31] Christina: She has songs called like, uh, uh, Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me, um, I Can Fix Him, um, no really, I Can. Um, but daddy, I love him. Um, I can do it with a broken heart. So long, London. Which, he’s from London, so she’s, that’s, again, like, this is like a, an album that’s very much like Go Fuck

[00:54:50] Jeff: That’s funny, because I bet he was in the zone where he’s like, I think I dodged the bullet.

[00:54:53] Christina: No, I bet he was, and, and that’s the thing.

[00:54:55] Christina: This is where I honestly feel like she’s processed this enough, and she’s like, Oh no, I’m in a good place [00:55:00] now. Also, I literally have nothing left to prove, so fuck it. I’m going to destroy you. I’m, I’m literally going to destroy you. Like, you thought that the song that she released, uh, You’re Losing Me, um, as like a bonus track.

[00:55:13] Christina: Like, it was like, oh, you thought that was going to be the worst? No, no, no. This is like, sorry, bro. Like, maybe you should have had, maybe you should have let her, maybe you should have showed up for her is all I know.

[00:55:23] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Joe,

[00:55:26] Christina: she wrote, she wrote, this, this is what the liner notes say.

[00:55:28] Christina: And so I enter into evidence my tarnished coat of arms, my muses acquired like bruises, that’s a good line, my talismans and charms, the tick, tick, tick of love bombs, my veins of pitch black ink, all’s fair in love and poetry, sincerely, the chairman of the tortured poets department.

[00:55:47] Jeff: to quote my people, oof ta.

[00:55:50] Christina: like, he used to be in a group chat called, like, the Tortured Men’s Club. So, anyway, um, anyway, [00:56:00] but back to Miley. Miley was great. Uh, she looks great. Boy Genius did not perform, but they won three Grammys. That was

[00:56:06] Jeff: And they’re on hiatus? Is that right? I thought I

[00:56:08] Christina: yeah, yeah. Well, they,

[00:56:09] Jeff: Just because they all do their own thing.

[00:56:11] Christina: Yeah, I think they, they, like, committed a year to the project, and then, like, the year’s up.

[00:56:15] Jeff: their fucking Grammy and we’re like, all right, cool, we’re done.

[00:56:18] Christina: but they were adorable,

[00:56:20] Jeff: were adorable. They were wearing white suits. They fucking ran to the stage. I mean, because they weren’t wearing dresses. Yeah. Like, I want to see more people run to the stage. And they were, they were

[00:56:31] Christina: it was super cute. And it was super cute. And like, they were like, Phoebe had already won one like backstage, but, um, I guess when they were getting ready with SZA and they didn’t accept that one. But then, um, when they got their three, like, you could tell that they never They were not expecting, you know, like, best rock album, best rock, or not rock album, but like rock song, and like, alternative album, and I think, um, something else with rock, but like, good on them.

[00:56:59] Jeff: [00:57:00] yeah, good job. And then Tracy Chapman, holy shit,

[00:57:03] Christina: Holy shit.

[00:57:04] Jeff: incredible, who doesn’t perform, right?

[00:57:06] Christina: No, last time she performed on TV was, was for Letterman in 2015, like, for one of his last shows.

[00:57:12] Jeff: So Fast Car is one of the most beautiful songs ever written, and, and like, it’s, it was unbelievable. I mean, it just, her, God, I wish she did still perform, but how cool that she doesn’t, but when she does, it’s like, just so you know, I’ve got this in here, I just keep it at home.

[00:57:28] Christina: he was so cute with her, like, he was, he was like, he was singing, like, he was like, like, mouthing the

[00:57:32] Jeff: was mouthing the words when it wasn’t his turn!

[00:57:35] Christina: Yeah, which was adorable. And everybody in the audience was, like, into it, like, everybody, like, when the chorus was hitting, like, everybody, like, Oprah was having the time of her life, because Oprah was there.

[00:57:46] Christina: And, uh,

[00:57:47] Jeff: she’s always got she was a chair sitter. She was

[00:57:49] Christina: Yeah, I mean, well,

[00:57:50] Jeff: Seat filler.

[00:57:51] Christina: Meryl Streep was also there because Meryl Streep’s, um, um, son in law is Mark Ronson.

[00:57:55] Jeff: Oh, funny, I didn’t know that. Huh.

[00:57:57] Christina: Yeah, um, and then of course, uh, Joni [00:58:00] Mitchell performed,

[00:58:00] Jeff: Great. I haven’t seen that though.

[00:58:03] Christina: um, it, it, I’ll find it for you. It’s, it’s a crier because she’s 80, and you know, like, nine years ago she had an aneurysm, and like, we all thought she was dead.

[00:58:10] Christina: Dead. Like, genuinely. And I don’t know how she’d never performed at the Grammys before. Because that was insane to me. Like, that’s nuts. I’m like, in the 70s, why would you not have her up there

[00:58:20] Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:58:22] Christina: Um, so, so, you know, uh, Canada gave us good stuff with that. And then, um, Billy Joel performed. He was, he was good, actually.

[00:58:32] Christina: But, but that was

[00:58:33] Jeff: his, uh, with his drummer, Liberty DeVito. I’m just here to tell everybody, friend of the show, Liberty DeVito, they’re friends again. Great

[00:58:41] Christina: Oh, and Annie Lennox, um, did a, um, a nice, uh, rendition of, uh, Nothing Compares to You, uh,

[00:58:47] Jeff: Oh, nice. Nice.

[00:58:50] Christina: Um,

[00:58:50] Jeff: That’s amazing.

[00:58:51] Christina: performances were really good,

[00:58:52] Jeff: Yeah, why does it so now everything like you had said, like Phoebe, Phoebe versus one award backstage, which that’s pretty badass, by the way, [00:59:00] just like, I just, we’re hanging out just a minute, I just won an award over here by the catering table. But like, is the deal because I didn’t watch the show.

[00:59:07] Jeff: It seems like everything I was seeing like Killer Mike’s acceptance tweets, it looks like it was in the middle of the ceremonies, which I guess it was just not televised.

[00:59:14] Christina: That’s not televised, right? So they do

[00:59:15] Jeff: Why? Why

[00:59:16] Christina: be because they can’t fit all of them. Because it’s like a hundred awards.

[00:59:20] Jeff: Yeah, no, it’s 100 words for sure. But like, both of those felt like ones that could totally be in the show.

[00:59:26] Christina: you’re not wrong. And this is a contentious thing. So for instance, they, there’s a battle over the years with the Grammys, uh, the Accordion Academy about like, okay, the tele, because the telecast makes them all their money.

[00:59:38] Christina: And, and so they need ratings. And to get the ratings, you need to have performances. But if you have performances, then that means you don’t have award time. And so they give out the bulk of the awards, um, at a ceremony a few hours beforehand. And like, that’s when Boy Genius got theirs. That’s when Killer Mike got his.

[00:59:52] Jeff: And is the full crowd there

[00:59:55] Christina: No,

[00:59:55] Jeff: crypto. com arena?

[00:59:57] Christina: I mean, you have, you have, it’s [01:00:00] probably more people are probably at that one than they are at the main event.

[01:00:03] Jeff: Okay. Okay.

[01:00:03] Christina: Because the main event is really like, this is the televised one. So that’s like album of the year, song of the year, record of the year, um, best new artist, you know, that sort of thing.

[01:00:12] Christina: Um, and then they will pick like what songs they used to do. Like in the 90s, like when Alternative was getting bigger, like they would make like best rock album, best Alternative, that would be part of the main ceremony. That’s not anymore. Um, they, they, uh, will go back and forth. Like, SZA did have one of her, one of her awards was given to her on stage, and I think that they probably put that one in the main ceremony because they, she was, got the most nominations.

[01:00:37] Christina: She did not win the most, but she got the most nominations, and I think they wanted to be able to like let her actually accept an award on stage, so that’s probably why they put that there. I, I don’t know. Um. But yeah, it’s a hard thing because like the show went long. It was like three and a half hours.

[01:00:51] Christina: Like it went long. Um, like it’s supposed to end at 11. Like it ended at 11. 37 or something. Like it went long. Um,

[01:00:58] Jeff: Not to put too fine a [01:01:00] point on it.

[01:01:00] Christina: well, because I was watching three hours behind, but

[01:01:03] Jeff: Yeah,

[01:01:04] Christina: I was like, I would,

[01:01:04] Jeff: must be nice in that case.

[01:01:06] Christina: It is, and then they replay it immediately afterwards, and so I was just like, okay, wow, this, this went long as fuck, because, oh, part of that was that Jay Z got some, like, Dr.

[01:01:15] Christina: Dre Lifetime Achievement Award, and then he just talked forever,

[01:01:18] Jeff: Okay. Got

[01:01:19] Christina: like, he just talked forever, and like, like, as a, as a, I don’t know, man, like, maybe, maybe write it down next time, I don’t know, but like, um, Beyonce did show up, though, like, like, they came in late, like, they weren’t there for the whole thing, but they came in, and she was there with Blue Ivy, and like, she had a cowboy

[01:01:33] Jeff: come in late before I, I like that

[01:01:35] Christina: Yeah, I like that too. I mean, they can.

[01:01:37] Jeff: there when we get there. They got

[01:01:40] Christina: Let’s be real. Like, Beyonce can show up any fucking time she wants,

[01:01:44] Jeff: Who’s the seat filler for Beyonce? Do you have to appear at least a little bit, incredible and regal, or can you just be Sandy from North Carolina?

[01:01:51] Christina: I mean, I don’t know. I guess it depends on where she’s seated.

[01:01:54] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing.

[01:01:57] Christina: but yeah, so the performances were really good and [01:02:00] like, okay, I will say this and then I’ll shut up about this because we’ve been talking too long about the Grammys, but I was accused of being a Taylor Swift anti on Threads, which was the most

[01:02:11] Jeff: Wait, what’s a Taylor Swift anti? It’s

[01:02:13] Christina: Meaning someone who’s, who, who, yes,

[01:02:15] Jeff: Oh, okay. Why is it at the end? Why they bury the lead.

[01:02:21] Christina: fan culture, I

[01:02:22] Jeff: Okay, okay. Why were you that? Why were you that? What happened,

[01:02:24] Christina: because, because all I said was, okay, I think we can all agree that she won the award, and I’m very happy she won the award, but it was like a cumulative thing, like it was kind of like a, we’re really sorry that ten years ago we gave Random Access Memories by Daft Punk, album of the

[01:02:39] Jeff: Sorry we let Kanye up on stage that one time.

[01:02:42] Christina: Well, that was the VMAs,

[01:02:43] Jeff: Oh, those VMAs. Sorry.

[01:02:44] Christina: that was the VMAs, but, but no, but it was like, to me, I was like, okay, well, this is clearly, cause like all award shows do this, like the Oscars do this to the Emmys as well. We’re like, you, you win the award and it’s not actually for that piece of art. It is either for your cumulative artistic achievement that year, [01:03:00] which this year, let’s No one has had more impact in the world than her, so fair.

[01:03:07] Christina: Or, because like, hey Leo DiCaprio, we’re really sorry we didn’t give you Oscars all those other times, but you jumped inside a bear, so we’re gonna give it to you for the revenant, right?

[01:03:17] Jeff: Yep, here’s a new young woman as a girlfriend.

[01:03:20] Christina: right, right. So like, you know, sometimes the award that you win, it’s not for that particular piece of art. It’s like, we’re really sorry that we got it wrong all those times in the past.

[01:03:29] Christina: And also you had like a really big year. So all I’m

[01:03:32] Jeff: this logic, I should be getting my fucking Grammy soon.

[01:03:35] Christina: totally you should. But, but like, I’m just saying like, Midnight’s Not the best album of the year. Like, not even close. Am I mad that she won her fourth album of the year? No. I think that, again, like, cumulatively, like, for everything else, like, that she, she, she saved the music industry.

[01:03:52] Christina: Like, she sold more records than all the other, like, 20 people combined. Like, it’s, it’s, you know what I mean? Like, okay, give it [01:04:00] to her. I get it. The Aris Tour has changed economies. Like, I get it. Give it to her.

[01:04:04] Jeff: I’m just kidding.

[01:04:05] Christina: But, yes, same, but, like, don’t pretend that this is like the best album, and so I guess some Taylor Swift stan was like, oh, you know, like, was basically calling me an anti and was like, oh, you know, the, the meltdowns are starting already, and I’m like, I’m not melting down, I’m just saying clearly this was because Red lost ten years ago, and like, This is Payback, not, you know, I’m not like in any way diminishing anything.

[01:04:29] Christina: And the person was like, oh, well, you could have just said that Red deserved a Grammy too. And I’m like, okay, but like, Midnight’s wasn’t the best album of 2023. Like, what do you want me to, you want me to lie? Like, I’m not going to.

[01:04:41] Jeff: You’re not

[01:04:42] Christina: it’s not even the top,

[01:04:43] Jeff: I’m not gonna

[01:04:43] Christina: even her, it’s, it’s not even one of her fifth, it’s, I think it’s probably like her seventh best album.

[01:04:48] Christina: Like,

[01:04:49] Jeff: Okay, I wanna say, I wanna say something I love about the term Taylor Swift Anti, which is that it seems like the community will not besmirch her name by putting another word before it. [01:05:00] Everything goes at the end. It’s like Taylor Swift the Lionhearted. It’s like Taylor Swift anti. So like, even if what’s, what we’re talking about is bad, we get the positive jolt, the dopamine hit of hearing your name first, before we get mad.

[01:05:14] Christina: Before we get mad. Yeah, but but it was anyway, but that was a very funny thing to me I was like wait I just I just waited in line for 30 minutes to spend 76 with tax and shipping on this bitch on her new album like because I had to buy the CD the vinyl

[01:05:28] Jeff: Friend of the show, this bitch.

[01:05:30] Christina: Yeah completely. I was like, okay, so I I’m an anti just cuz I’m like,

[01:05:36] Jeff: Yeah,

[01:05:36] Christina: so she didn’t want it for this album where it it was clearly cumulative which Yeah, I, I, cause, you’re not, you’re not

[01:05:43] Jeff: was white guilt.

[01:05:44] Christina: that, here we go.

[01:05:48] Brett: Can I title the episode Taylor Swift anti question mark?

[01:05:52] Jeff: I thought it was going to be the one where Brett’s drunk. Um, no, that’s a good one. Uh, can I just say to people that if you, [01:06:00] if any of this piqued your interest, I love watching Grammy clips on TikTok. I mean, not as much as I like watching live streams of oil riggers. Last night, we were supposed to finish, we were supposed to finish, uh, uh, Lenny, whatever, the Lenny Bernstein, Bernstein movie, um, and, and I was enthralled watching a live stream of oil riggers and, and it was like, come on, we got to watch, we said, no, we got to watch this.

[01:06:24] Jeff: Oh, fine. I’ll watch this. But I understood. More of what was happening in the oil riggers than I could of what Bradley Cooper was saying in his fantastic, uh, job of playing Leonard Bernstein. But man, I can’t hear a damn, I can’t understand a damn thing. I don’t even know what I’m talking about. It’s crazy.

[01:06:42] Jeff: It’s good though. Do you guys watch that movie? Yeah. It’s good. It’s not great,

[01:06:49] Christina: uh, haven’t seen it yet.

[01:06:50] Jeff: Like, it’s irresistible in a way, but

[01:06:54] Brett: I just watch a proposal and I would say the same thing.

[01:06:59] Christina: Proposal’s [01:07:00] good. That’s a Ryan Reynolds and um, uh, um, Sandra Bullock. That’s a fucking great movie. Honestly, that’s a great rom com.

[01:07:07] Brett: it was not great, but it was good.

[01:07:08] Jeff: Yeah. I don’t even mean to say not great, but good, because I really, there’s so much I loved about this movie, but it is, and it’s all just like vignettes, but it’s not really, it’s not really telling you that it is. So you’re just like, what fucking house am I in now? It’s very confusing. But I could, he’s, he’s absolutely incredible to watch.

[01:07:26] Jeff: I mean, it’s just,

[01:07:27] Brett: of, after that Merlin episode, I become obsessed with House.

[01:07:32] Jeff: I need to

[01:07:33] Christina: Oh, such a good show.

[01:07:35] Brett: I’ve been watching one to two episodes a night ever since that episode. And I. I’m obsessed with House now. It’s, it’s a really good show.

[01:07:46] Christina: It is a really good show.

[01:07:47] Brett: It’s really good writing. It’s really good writing, and it’s really good character development, and I cannot complain at all.

[01:07:55] Brett: I love House.

[01:07:57] Jeff: Well, maybe I’ll get

[01:07:58] Brett: That’s, that’s, that’s [01:08:00] Drunk Brett’s addition to this whole conversation

[01:08:03] Jeff: Have you guys walked house?

[01:08:05] Brett: as he’s watching a 10 year old show. Have you guys seen the

[01:08:10] Jeff: And I stole your wallet. I stole your wallet.

[01:08:13] Christina: to feel really old?

[01:08:14] Jeff: Yeah, always. I don’t need to, but yes.

[01:08:17] Christina: House debuted in 2004.

[01:08:19] Brett: Oh, Jesus, fuck.

[01:08:21] Jeff: Wow.

[01:08:22] Brett: Jesus, fuck. Okay, yeah. So, you see all this gray hair on my

[01:08:27] Jeff: I don’t think anybody does. But I do.

[01:08:30] Brett: Hey, you have it too.

[01:08:32] Jeff: Oh, are you kidding me? I have a little Jesus Christ.

[01:08:36] Christina: I, I, um, knock on wood very much, so, like, I have, I do not, like, I have a few,

[01:08:42] Jeff: Got nothing? Hehehehehehe.

[01:08:45] Christina: stray greys that I honestly started getting, like, ten years ago, but I, it’s, it’s small, like, and it’s one of the things where I, I, I can pluck them, and it’s, like, maybe one part of my head, and it’s, I don’t have anything else, and, um, I always ask my stylist every time I see him, like, how’s it [01:09:00] looking, how’s it going, because my mom went white, like, my mom went gray, and so she gets her hair dyed, like, like, she, she goes, like, every three

[01:09:05] Jeff: went white early.

[01:09:06] Brett: it’s, it’s gonna happen to you all at once. When you finally stop being, what, 29?

[01:09:12] Christina: yeah. Well, my grandmother was

[01:09:13] Brett: all at once, all at once, you’re just gonna go,

[01:09:16] Jeff: Adele, every album would have the same name.

[01:09:19] Christina: It would. It would always be 29. Um, no, but my grandmother was 90 when she died, and she still, like, she was, like, it was pretty dark. Like, it was, she helped, so I’m, I’m hoping that, like, I inherit from her,

[01:09:33] Brett: I

[01:09:34] Christina: not from my mom.

[01:09:36] Brett: I hope for you.

[01:09:37] Christina: I mean, uh, well, what, one person told me, they’re like, if you haven’t already gone, if it hasn’t already started now, they’re like, it’s not gonna happen.

[01:09:43] Christina: So,

[01:09:44] Brett: myself in the mirror today and I saw this gray and I was like, dude,

[01:09:48] Jeff: Well, you’re rockin a proper Salt N Pepa right

[01:09:51] Brett: You’re pulling it off. You’re,

[01:09:52] Christina: you are pulling it off.

[01:09:53] Brett: I, I

[01:09:54] Christina: Well, you’re also a man.

[01:09:55] Jeff: As I was gonna say,

[01:09:56] Brett: enough. Fair enough. I am the age I am and I’m [01:10:00] actually, I’m proud to have lived long enough to have gray hair. Like that was not in the cards for me.

[01:10:08] Brett: So I’m okay with it.

[01:10:10] Christina: I think, I think that’s completely fair.

[01:10:12] Jeff: Yeah, man, they call me Greybeard and Silverback. Um, awesome! Well, we did it. This is nice. We give the listeners one episode that’s not two hours long. Uh, we’ll be back with two

[01:10:27] Brett: first episode, one hour, we did it.

[01:10:30] Jeff: Yeah,

[01:10:31] Christina: It was still incredibly ADHD, which I love about it. Like, if anything, it was even more ADHD than usual. Like,

[01:10:36] Jeff: Yes.

[01:10:37] Brett: and we did not even do a Mental Health Corner.

[01:10:40] Jeff: Oh shit, I didn’t even realize that. I’d really like to see a transcript of this, uh, this episode that is only proper nouns. Because I feel like you can actually watch what happened to us by just the list of proper

[01:10:53] Brett: I, I will send you, I will send you the transcript. I know you have the software to make that happen.

[01:10:59] Jeff: I sure [01:11:00] do. Awesome. Well, yeah, I mean, that’s funny, you know, Mental Health Corner, but you know, let’s, uh, we should wrap it anyhow.

[01:11:07] Christina: We’ll wrap it anyway. We’ll, we’ll start with Mental Health Corner properly

[01:11:10] Jeff: Alright, y’all. Get some sleep?

[01:11:13] Brett: Get some sleep.

[01:11:15] Jeff: Yeah.

[01:11:15] Christina: some sleep.

[01:11:16] Jeff: Uh huh. Hey, everybody.

Bryan Guffey returns to talk coffee, religion, and mental health, possibly all at once. Maybe.

Show Links

• Bryan Guffey
• Don King Only In America
• Ving Rhames
• Baby Boy
• williams-club-shay-shay-interview.html">Katt Williams Club Shay Shay Interview
• Chronicling
• Prompt
• No More Secrets Sneakers Shell
• CMatrix Matrix Rain
• Starbucks App
• Ahead
• Loopback
• Rogue Amoeba’s Ultimate Podcast Bundle
• Brett’s Giveaways
• Hatchet Hall
• Colin Hanks
• Brett’s Pummelvision
• Joseph Arthur-In The Sun (Official Video)
• Petra Means Rock
• Stryper
• DC Talk
• Michael W Smith
• Amy Grant
• Saved!
• Cornerstone
• Sufjan Stevens

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Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter.

Transcript

Don’t Be A Regex Princess with Bryan Guffey

[00:00:00] Jeff: Hi, everybody. This is the Overtired podcast. I am Jeff Severins Gunzel, and I am here with my co hosts, Brett and Christina. Hi. And we have an awesome, awesome guest today, one of our favorites to have on, Bryan Guffey. Hello, Bryan.

[00:00:22] Bryan: Hello! How is everybody?

[00:00:26] Jeff: Hello!

[00:00:26] Christina: We’re so glad to have you back.

[00:00:28] Bryan: I’m so glad to be back. It’s

[00:00:31] Jeff: I’m glad to be here with you, because I missed you. I missed you last

[00:00:34] Bryan: Yeah, it’s really great, yeah, that we all get to be here together. I’ve been bugging Brett a lot, Jeff, being like, I want to, I want to be on a podcast with Jeff. I want to be on a podcast with Jeff. His brain, I love his brain.

[00:00:45] Jeff: I hope it’s worth it.

[00:00:48] Don King and Katt Williams

[00:00:48] Bryan: Listen, your hair already does it for me. Like, I’m so here for your hair.

[00:00:52] Jeff: Oh, man. I, I love my hair.

[00:00:55] Bryan: No, absolutely. I mean, it is just very, like, it’s very on par with [00:01:00] like it fits you.

[00:01:01] Jeff: I don’t, I, here’s why I, I love my hair, because it sounds like a fucking weird thing to say, but, um, I haven’t had to put a comb through it. Since, like, I don’t know what, because at some point I landed on the, like, Mad Professor hair, and, and I don’t have to maintain it, but I kinda, I like a little swoosh.

[00:01:19] Jeff: There’s a lot about, about me I don’t love, but I like my hair.

[00:01:23] Brett: both have a bit of a Don King thing going on.

[00:01:26] Jeff: Oh, yeah!

[00:01:28] Bryan: yeah, this is all hiding behind the, the,

[00:01:29] Jeff: Well, yeah, Bryan just made it Don King.

[00:01:32] Brett: who is actually black can pull it off

[00:01:34] Jeff: Bryan, who is actually becoming Don King before us right now, I wish you could see it.

[00:01:38] Christina: Yeah, I was gonna say, you, this, this is very much, um, who, who played Don King in the HBO movie? Cause like, you’re totally giving like those vibes right now.

[00:01:47] Jeff: Who did

[00:01:47] Brett: idea There was an HBO movie? Was it Idris Elba? I’m just kidding. Of

[00:01:53] Jeff: Did anybody else I’m gonna be such a

[00:01:56] Bryan: In, in the HBO, in the NDH, not in Ali, [00:02:00] then

[00:02:01] Christina: No, it was Don King only in America. It was a 1997 film developed, uh, uh, directed by John Herzfeld and written by Cario Salem. Um,

[00:02:08] Bryan: Ving Rames.

[00:02:09] Christina: yeah, fuck yeah. That was actually who I thought it was. No. Okay. But, but I’m sorry. That’s who I thought it was. And I was like, I’m going to say that and I’m going to be wrong.

[00:02:18] Brett: heh.

[00:02:18] Bryan: that’s so awesome.

[00:02:20] Christina: good, good job.

[00:02:21] Bryan: to watch that, I love Ving Rhames.

[00:02:23] Christina: He’s the best baby boy. Uh, RIP, John Singleton. But like, genuinely like that film like gets slept on and that’s like one of like the best films.

[00:02:31] Jeff: Love John Singleton. That’s

[00:02:33] Bryan: Right, isn’t, isn’t, and, and, Ving Rhames is in, he’s the one who’s in, he is, yeah, he’s the one that’s in every Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise, they’re like best friends.

[00:02:43] Christina: Yes. He’s like the smart one. He’s, he’s like the one, he’s like, he’s like, he’s like, no, chill dude. what are you doing?

[00:02:51] Jeff: heh.

[00:02:52] Bryan: so good.

[00:02:54] Jeff: Oh,

[00:02:54] Christina: Bernie Mack is, was was in this, this is

[00:02:56] Jeff: Bernie

[00:02:57] Bryan: Oh, Bernie

[00:02:58] Jeff: Did anybody follow the Cat [00:03:00] Williams thing?

[00:03:01] Christina: Yeah. Oh my God.

[00:03:02] Jeff: God, that was a blast.

[00:03:04] Christina: That’s the best three hours of my life.

[00:03:07] Jeff: And now on TikTok, my algorithm is so tweaked to Cat Williams because I looked at every response and watched every clip like three times that now it’s like all Cat Williams and monkeys in my TikTok feed.

[00:03:20] Jeff: Baby monkeys,

[00:03:21] Christina: so,

[00:03:21] Bryan: That’s a really hilarious pairing, I just want to point out, and then we’ll move on from

[00:03:26] Jeff: yin and yang, you know?

[00:03:28] Christina: it is, just for background, for anybody who wants to go down this rabbit hole, because it is delightful, um, the, the comedian, Cat Williams, who has had problems, um, and, and, but I used to very much enjoy his stand up specials, does an absolutely unhinged, um, uh, podcast with a, who is it with, with Shannon Sharpe, right?

[00:03:45] Jeff: Yeah, I think that’s it.

[00:03:46] Christina: yeah, uh,

[00:03:47] Jeff: all I see is Cat Williams in my head.

[00:03:49] Christina: And, and so, and it’s like, it’s like over three hours long and it’s Saturday Night Live even parodied it. And he like makes the most unhinged like [00:04:00] declarations about all the people he’s ever had beef with and like just makes these like claims that are just provably false. It’s the most unhinged, delightful, insane interview you’ll ever watch. And then all these people like fact checked him on everything he said.

[00:04:13] Christina: And it’s,

[00:04:14] Jeff: And the problem is, like, if anybody else had done that kind of interview, I would have been like, ugh, gross, but it is irresistible. Like, the like, the extent to which Kat Williams is like, I’m not getting up from this chair, I’m not apologizing, I’m just gonna go deeper and deeper.

[00:04:31] Bryan: And I think that’s partially because, like, Cat Williams over the past couple of years has sort of been, like, a truth teller in certain areas, about, and saying things like, calling out Dave Chappelle and some other

[00:04:40] Christina: yeah.

[00:04:42] Bryan: so I think people were like, Oh, we don’t expect this wildness from Cat Williams now, but here it is again, he’s back.

[00:04:51] Christina: Right. He’s back. He’s like, he’d had some like incident a number of years ago. I can’t remember what it was when he’s, when he was having some problems that was like seriously [00:05:00] deranged. Um, but yeah, then he was like speaking truth to power and you’re like, okay, maybe he’s doing well.

[00:05:05] Christina: Okay. Again. And you see this interview and you’re like,

[00:05:08] Bryan: Nope.

[00:05:08] Christina: this is, this is great. Um, uh, but, um, Yes. Yes. Shannon Sharpe was the one who, who, who did the

[00:05:16] Bryan: you’re talking about NFL, the NFL’s Shannon Sharpe.

[00:05:20] Christina: And, and,

[00:05:20] Bryan: That’s even more

[00:05:21] Christina: funny. And what’s funny to me is,

[00:05:23] Bryan: a podcast.

[00:05:23] Jeff: Watching him handle that was incredible.

[00:05:26] Christina: Yeah. Well, okay. Well, Shannon Sharp, not only does he podcast, he has a very successful ESPN show, and he used to have a show with, uh, he was on, um, with a Skip Bayless on his, uh, um, a Fox Sports show. And then they had a very, very bitter breakup.

[00:05:40] Christina: And, uh, now Shannon Sharp has, um, a, um, a very popular like ESPN show, but um, apparently it’s received 54 million views. So far,

[00:05:52] Jeff: And the last thing, I mean, the one thing I want to say about it that was amazing about watching Shannon Sharp is like, here, Cat Williams is essentially firing a machine gun [00:06:00] over, just over his shoulder. And you can see him being like, I am not moving into the target. Like, I have to figure out how to both like, keep my own integrity in the midst of this and not end up in the line of fire somehow, either now or afterwards.

[00:06:16] Brett: Alright, is it okay if I reign this in

[00:06:18] Jeff: Yeah, yeah.

[00:06:19] Christina: Yes, of course.

[00:06:20] Brett: we decided this week to do a new format, um, maybe just this week only, but we’ll see how it goes, but we’re going to start the show with Graptitude, um, which is usually the final segment on the show where everyone talks about one favorite piece of software or developer for the week, um, I have mine picked out, do you guys, are you prepared for this early onslaught of Graptitude?

[00:06:48] Brett: Jeff, do

[00:06:48] Jeff: you suggesting that sometimes we pick our graftitude in the course of recording?

[00:06:52] Brett: absolutely do. Yes.

[00:06:54] Christina: I absolutely do as well. But no, I got one. Wait, did we do? We didn’t do one last [00:07:00] episode, right?

[00:07:00] Brett: Nope, we didn’t. We skipped it

[00:07:02] Christina: cool.

[00:07:02] Jeff: ended up essentially being Chat GPT.

[00:07:04] Brett: still two hours long.

[00:07:07] Christina: right. No. Okay. Yeah. No, I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t share the one that I had last week, um, for, for, for this week. So,

[00:07:13] Bryan: I love, I love Brad being like, it was still two hours long and I’m like, that’s what I loved about it. Even though I understand from like the perspective of being in it, how hard it can be to go two hours because your brain goes, And

[00:07:26] Jeff: definitely.

[00:07:27] Brett: Alright, Jeff, kick us off.

[00:07:30] grAPPtitude off the top

[00:07:30] Jeff: I will, I will kick us off, but first I’m going to suggest a slight change to our tagline, which can be Overtired, Tech, Mental Health, and Cat Williams. Just putting it out there. Um, I mean, you know, it’s just an option. So, um, okay. So.

[00:07:44] Bryan: Cat Williams could also be, Brad has a new cat named Williams.

[00:07:47] Christina: yeah,

[00:07:47] Jeff: Oh, that’s good. I like that. Yeah, cat with a k though,

[00:07:50] Brett: do, I have a cat named Morris. It would fit.

[00:07:53] Bryan: Perfect. Oh, now we’ve got an agency going.

[00:07:55] Christina: yeah, exactly. Yes. Well done. Well done.[00:08:00]

[00:08:01] Jeff: Um, okay. So mine is actually something that, um, that, uh, Alex recommended. Alex Cox recommended on the first episode of the year, uh, in answer to My Graptitude Then, which was, um, Datum, um, which is a great app for sort of just tracking whatever it is you want to track. Um, and they had recommended at the time, um, Chronicling. an app by the developer Rebecca Owen. Um, and the first thing I want to say about this app, and then I’ll talk about the functionality in a second, but it is so, um, it is so incredible to me when you start using an app. It’s, it’s beautiful. The UI is intuitive.

[00:08:40] Jeff: It, it has just the right kind of constraint, right? Like it does some of the things you need it to do right away when you go looking in the settings, but then it doesn’t, doesn’t give a person like me, too much opportunity to just fiddle and not actually utilize the app. And it’s in regular development and updates and meaningful features are added.

[00:08:58] Jeff: And it’s just a wonderful app. [00:09:00] It’s chronicling, um, uh, uh, with a L I N G and not, it’s missing, let’s just say it’s missing a vowel. That’s all I’m going to say. So you go on that little, uh, goose chase. Um, but anyway, so it’s one of these apps that allows you to say, you know, I want to press a button every time I, actually call my father.

[00:09:18] Jeff: I want to, I want to press a button. Um, every time I get an oil change, I want to press a button every time. I think a shower in my case is. Joking with Alex about that on Mastodon, but it’s not really a joke, like it’s a good indicator of mental health, right? And, um, and, and Rebecca in this app has made that not only very easy to do, but also very beautiful.

[00:09:37] Jeff: And there’s also just kind of a, the cool thing is you can choose the scope of time in which you’re tracking these things. Is it inside of a week, inside of a month, inside of a year? And then next to each thing, each item on your, on the home screen is just a little chart. That just kind of shows a little line for each time inside of a week or a month or a year that you did this thing.

[00:09:58] Jeff: And then also tells you how many days [00:10:00] it’s been since you did the thing. So I happen to know that it’s been 37 days since we trimmed our cat’s nails. Um, and

[00:10:06] Jeff: It’s been 13 days since, uh, since I got a haircut. Um, and, and what I love about it is it’s not, it’s not at least the way it allows you to use it, not.

[00:10:15] Jeff: So much for like habit building, like, I think a lot of those apps, I said this when we were talking to Alex about this kind of app, it’s like, a lot of those apps are designed in a way that makes sort of a judgment call, like, you’re supposed to decide what you’re supposed to do, and then you’re rewarded with haptics and confetti every time you do it, right?

[00:10:32] Jeff: Which feels great.

[00:10:33] Brett: prescriptive versus descriptive.

[00:10:36] Jeff: Ooh, nice. And, and what I literally want is to be like, when’s the last time I hung out with a friend in person? When’s the last time we went out to a restaurant? Like, I actually want to see that stuff. Not because I feel bad when I see it, but it like, it helps me a little bit. I’m like, Oh yeah, no, I, I probably should get a haircut or whatever it is.

[00:10:53] Jeff: You know? Um, haircut’s a terrible example. I have so many things I’m tracking in there, but a lot of them are about [00:11:00] Relationships and, um, and just like well being, like things that are sort of good indicators. Um, it does in some cases encourage me to actually do a thing. Like if I see it’s been X number of days since, you know, I took a long walk or something, I’ll be like, Oh, I should do that.

[00:11:13] Jeff: But it doesn’t, it’s, I don’t know what it is. It’s the designer. It’s the overall vibe, but it doesn’t in any way inspire guilt. It’s just like, I just want to know, you know.

[00:11:23] Brett: like this that have always worked for me are the ones that are descriptive that just give me the data and let me make my own, um, kind of judgments. And, and okay, this worked in this way, I should keep doing this, so I’m going to make, you know, a judgment call based on their description of what I have done.

[00:11:46] Brett: Um, the ones that are prescriptive, the ones that are like, here’s my goal, now I’m gonna hold myself to this New Year’s resolution kind of idea. Where I’ll just feel guilty when I once again fail to keep them. Um, [00:12:00] yeah. I, I can appreciate that. Uh, by, by the way, that is how you spell chronicling. It’s not missing a vowel.

[00:12:08] Jeff: uh, I wish I could say edit that out, but that’s not, that’s, that’s not what we’re gonna

[00:12:13] Bryan: perfect.

[00:12:14] Jeff: Um, I don’t know, that’s funny. Okay, fine. Fine. I didn’t finish high school. I mean, I, I work alongside PhDs, you know, like, I’ve seen their spelling errors,

[00:12:27] Bryan: Absolutely. Spelling is not, spelling is not an

[00:12:30] Jeff: No, like I need the red line. You know, I need the red line.

[00:12:34] Jeff: Like, it’s fine to show me what’s wrong. Um, all right. Sorry, Rebecca. You’re, you’re, you’re also brilliant because you know how chronicling is spelled. I mean, that’s incredible. You know, like, it’s a thing to just remove. Here’s the thing. I’m not, I’m not defensive. I’m a little embarrassed. But like, the thing about assuming that there was a vowel missing is that, um, Okay.

[00:12:54] Jeff: That’s what all apps are missing.

[00:12:57] Brett: And, and

[00:12:58] Jeff: saw that and I’m like, [00:13:00] Chronicling, what an interesting

[00:13:00] Brett: and I didn’t look this up. I’m going for my own innate sense of spelling. So it could turn out in retrospect after this episode is out that someone like Harold comes along and says, actually it’s Proniculling and, and I was totally wrong. So last week I called Harold a pedant, a pedant, a pedant, a pedantic

[00:13:21] Jeff: ask Harold.

[00:13:22] Brett: And, and

[00:13:22] Bryan: love that you said feed in. Are we, are we getting into, uh,

[00:13:26] Brett: he. He laughed

[00:13:28] Bryan: ahead.

[00:13:29] Brett: He told me it was fine. I told him I was afraid that that came across as mean, but he was okay with it. But back to Chronicling. This looks good.

[00:13:37] Jeff: Yeah. And also, I mean, like, uh, certainly, uh, uh, something that has to be true for me is that you can, you can export your data, right? So you can also export your data. You can pull it into something else you want. And the last thing I’ll say about it is like, that’s a good sign. Maybe it’s as much about me as anything, but like, it’s almost the end of January and I started it at the beginning and I’m still keeping stuff filled on it, which is like, So that’s gotta be something to say about the app.

[00:13:59] Jeff: So anyway, that’s, [00:14:00] that’s my thing.

[00:14:02] Brett: All right, Christina.

[00:14:05] Christina: so my pick is the new version of Prompt, uh, Prompt 3 from, um, Panic. Um, I, um, You know, I don’t know. So, and it’s interesting. This is a universal app now, so it works on Mac as well as iOS. Um, it is moved to a subscription model. So how you feel about that, or I think you can buy it one time and the one time price is a little bit high.

[00:14:27] Christina: I’m not going to lie. Uh, I think it’s probably more, more than I would spend. I’m going to do the subscription for a year, mostly to support Panic and to see how much I like it. There are a bunch of, at this point, I think, really good SSH clients for iOS. There’s, um, um, ISH, uh, which is, uh, available both from a test flight and, um, it’s in the app store.

[00:14:48] Christina: Um, there’s, um, La Termina from, um,

[00:14:51] Brett: Yeah, that’s

[00:14:51] Christina: Miguel De Queza, which I really like a lot. Um, and then there’s the things like specifically for, for Mosh and, and, and whatnot. Um, but, uh, [00:15:00] but I love the, the, the team at Panic. Um, this had been an app panic, uh, prompt to, maybe I’m misremembering this, but I thought I remembered at one point that they’d kind of put it in maintenance mode or basically killed it.

[00:15:12] Christina: And so I was glad to see this revived. Uh, and so, um, I, um, uh, and I do have to say like the, the intro video and stuff is really good. Um, again, it’s interesting that it has the, the Mac client. I don’t know how necessary that is when you have terminal, just being completely honest. But, um, you know, and certainly this is not as good of a terminal emulator as iTerm.

[00:15:37] Christina: It’s, it’s just not. But I do think that this is, um, a, uh, a good thing for, for, for Mac, uh, or not for Mac, for, for iOS. Um, and I’m not mad. It now does have MOSH support. Um, you can, uh, it has a CLIFFS feature so you can have like your most frequently used commands and text snippets right there. That I think is actually Pretty useful.

[00:15:59] Christina: And then of course it [00:16:00] works with Panic Sync, which I like a lot. Um, usually what I, I use these sorts of things for are for like, Using for, for jump boxes. Um, that’s mostly what I use, uh, the, the iOS types of clients for. But, um, anyway, I, um, I, I, this came out, I think it had come out last week when, uh, we were talking, like I was going to make my picket.

[00:16:23] Christina: It had just come out. I’ve been playing with it a little bit. Um, and, and I like it so far. Like I said, I don’t know if this is going to be something I remain subscribed to all the time, but, um, um, I’m happy to see more apps like this. And. Always happy to see Panic have apps. So,

[00:16:40] Brett: I gotta look back into Mosh. Like, I’ve been, I’ve been using Tmux Sessions. Um, and like all of my, uh, config files, when I SSH into a remote host, it always loads up a tmux with my last session. So before I disconnect from an SSH host, [00:17:00] I just exit out of tmux and then disconnect, and that has given me really stable, uh, SSH sessions.

[00:17:08] Brett: But, uh, but I, I remember seeing Moush and thinking, oh, that might be a great answer and then forgetting about it. So,

[00:17:16] Christina: same. And so I do remember from like the prompt two days that that was always like a much requested feature. Uh, and so, um, I was glad to see that, um, exist. I do have to say, I do like the, the, um, website that they’ve created for, uh, for prompts.

[00:17:31] Bryan: I was about to

[00:17:32] Brett: good. I was just

[00:17:33] Christina: The aesthetic, yeah, the aesthetic is really good, and the music, um, when you install it, if you go through, like, the trial or whatever, is really good.

[00:17:40] Christina: Also, the video and stuff that they created, um, I think, I think Christa still makes all their videos, is, like, just fire, so. Um, um. There are, at this point, it’s a different landscape than when, uh, Prompt 2 came out. Um, there are a lot of good options for iOS, but, um, I’m still gonna [00:18:00] make this my, my Graftitude.

[00:18:02] Brett: I like, on their

[00:18:03] Bryan: make status port again?

[00:18:05] Christina: Yeah, right?

[00:18:06] Brett: why, why did they cancel that? I don’t remember.

[00:18:10] Christina: I think at the time, it was too hard to make money off of it. And also, like, Apple

[00:18:17] Brett: it away for free.

[00:18:18] Christina: Well, they tried. And then, and then, you know, trying to do kind of like IAP stuff. I think what was hard at the time, it would be different now, but at the time, this was right when Apple switched the connector type.

[00:18:30] Christina: And so the AV connector from the 30 pin could let you do things that you couldn’t do from lightning for a long time. And I think that kind of fucked them. And then there were also problems where they had with like certain companies, like if you wanted to put in like API keys and other sorts of things, like.

[00:18:44] Christina: Apple really limited what you could do and how, how you could customize those boards. Like, it’s weird. Like, this is a product that I honestly do think you’re dead on, Brett. Like, I think that you could revive this now and you could make it work. Honestly, web technology has gotten good [00:19:00] enough that you could just do, you know, like, some certain calls, you know, like, without having to do things the way they did them now.

[00:19:06] Christina: Like, you, honestly, you could probably build it out even more as a web thing. But, um,

[00:19:11] Bryan: Cable, are you listening?

[00:19:13] Christina: yeah. Bring it back.

[00:19:16] Brett: There’s, uh, in the, like, kind of video that’s running on the computer on the website, bus out to a Matrix terminal for a

[00:19:25] Christina: I love that.

[00:19:26] Brett: There are, you can install a matrix app through brew.

[00:19:30] Christina: Yep. I

[00:19:31] Brett: have an, I have an old bash script that uses TPUT and a random, like a random kernel to put Kanji characters on the screen, but what it’s super random and doesn’t create those nice falling columns, uh, that you get from whatever’s on homebrew.

[00:19:48] Brett: I think it’s written in Rust.

[00:19:49] Christina: Yeah, it is. I think so. Um, and then there’s also a, um, um, there’s a way that you can get like the sneakers, um, effect, uh, that, [00:20:00] that’s also, um, on, on GitHub somewhere. I’ll find that because I made that like

[00:20:04] Brett: Yeah, drop that in the show

[00:20:05] Christina: Yeah, I will. Yeah.

[00:20:07] Bryan: Amazing.

[00:20:09] Brett: Bryan, what you got?

[00:20:11] Bryan: Okay, so, it was very difficult. I’m gonna do two. And the first one, I’m just gonna go super, super

[00:20:18] Brett: allow it.

[00:20:19] Bryan: I’m gonna do Basic White Girl, and it is the Starbucks app. I

[00:20:25] Christina: It’s a great app.

[00:20:26] Bryan: love It’s such a good app. It is such a good app. And they just added live activities for your, um, for your pickups. If you order,

[00:20:35] Jeff: what’s that mean? Live activities.

[00:20:37] Bryan: Yeah, it comes up on the lock screen, and it’s an updating, so it tells you like when your order’s ready and it’s done being made. Um, and like, it’s so great, and I just, I mean, and I, recently I hadn’t even realized that they had added like, uh, Siri shortcut support, so when you search for Starbucks, you can just press to like, order your regulars, and it’ll, it’ll ask you like, Hey, [00:21:00] is this what you’re getting?

[00:21:01] Bryan: And then you can tell it, yes. And then it’s like, okay, so we have this much money on your card and we’re going to charge it. And it just walks through a shortcut and does the whole thing. You don’t even have to open the app to order stuff. I use this. I mean, it’s one of my most used apps. Like I use that app every single day, almost more than Nathan thinks I should.

[00:21:17] Bryan: Um, um, and I, it’s such. It’s such a good app. It almost is like, there’s almost never any issues with it, even though they’re running a massive backend, web backend, it’s almost always up and running, like it’s just rock solid. And so I really love the Starbucks app.

[00:21:34] Christina: To your point about like how long that has been, um, like it, it’s been an app that’s been around for a really long time. And I have to give, um, I think the Starbucks team immense credit that they have from the very beginning. I remember when that app launched and it was, Apple Pay didn’t exist, Apple Wallet didn’t exist, and they were already kind of creating a way where you could pay using kind of like the, the, the, you know, kind of a predecessor of QR codes, and we’re really kind of getting into that space where you could [00:22:00] make it easy to use, like they had their own kind of terminals and whatnot.

[00:22:04] Christina: And I have to say, like, of all the various commerce apps, Most companies have stopped making native apps and, uh, because it just kind of doesn’t make sense. I mean, if they have them, they’re, you know, like little more than wrappers, but like the Starbucks team has continued to work really hard on that app.

[00:22:19] Christina: And you’re right, like for the fact that it is a massive web service on the back end, it’s really performant and it works really well. But also, um, I didn’t realize that they’d added the, um, um, Live Activities feature either, but like that’s really great and um, they’re always, I think, like a really good iOS citizen.

[00:22:37] Christina: That’s all I was gonna say.

[00:22:38] Brett: What do you usually order at Starbucks?

[00:22:42] Bryan: Oh my.

[00:22:44] Brett: When, when Siri suggests an order, what does, what does Siri know you want?

[00:22:49] Bryan: I normally order, these days I order a, like basically a decaf [00:23:00] iced coffee. So, um, which is complex sometimes because of what they have on they don’t make decaf iced coffee so you have to like order What I realized actually was that I was not ordering that for a long time when I was just ordering an iced coffee with decaf espresso shots in it.

[00:23:18] Bryan: I had no idea. Um, which is now what I just do, um, because I was supposed to not be drinking caffeine because I was on Vyvanse, but surprise, my blood pressure’s been stable. Um, So, I mean, it’s usually an iced coffee with, um, far too much, far too much sugar and, like, far too many caramel, like, syrup shots, um, and caramel sauce shots, and then Stevia, as if that’s going to fix the problem of all the caramel sauce I put in. Um, and then also,

[00:23:44] Christina: Right, right.

[00:23:46] Bryan: and then also the Impossible Breakfast Sandwich. I love the Impossible Breakfast Sandwich.

[00:23:52] Brett: Yeah, like for me, we have Starbucks here in little old Winona, but they don’t make great espresso. [00:24:00] Um, I make better espresso at home, way cheaper. And I’ve never figured out like, what the draw of like, intelligent adults is to Starbucks. Um,

[00:24:14] Bryan: things. I

[00:24:15] Brett: I’d be curious. I’m just curious. Like I, I know that a lot of smart people go to Starbucks that, that could

[00:24:22] Jeff: Smart Bucks.

[00:24:24] Brett: that, that could afford their own, could afford their own coffee setups and like cook their own breakfast. But is it a time thing? Is it, does it just save time? All

[00:24:34] Bryan: Well, and the food, I love, I mean, their hot food is, their sandwiches are actually like, pretty banger. And so And also their pastries, like, uh, during the winter, like the gingerbread loaf during the holidays,

[00:24:46] Christina: It’s good.

[00:24:46] Bryan: the, I don’t know what they put in the icing on their, on their things, but it’s so amazing. It is, I, I’m really sad that they, they discontinued the Thanksgiving turkey sandwich that they used to have.

[00:24:56] Bryan: That was also the greatest thing in the world.

[00:24:59] Christina: Oh yeah, that was like the [00:25:00] Monica sandwich, right? Like, I never had it, but, but, I never had it, but, but it, that’s what, like, what it looked like.

[00:25:05] Bryan: It was so good. Yeah. I mean, for me, it’s mostly, I love seeing the baristas and saying hello, even if it’s just through the drive thru, so there’s that part. And I used to spend a lot of time at the Starbucks, um, in Columbus when I lived there.

[00:25:19] Brett: Yeah, so there’s a personal connection. That makes sense.

[00:25:22] Bryan: And it’s also that I don’t have to make, like, I forget to make, uh, I forget to brew a pot of cold, brew some cold brew and so on, and I have to have it in the morning.

[00:25:30] Brett: Oh, I would never forget that. Um, there’s a, there’s a bar here in town that has a big ceramic pizza oven. And, um, I believe they opened with the intention of being a high end bar, but also became a pizza place in the process. And they made a special pizza around Christmas that was essentially just a Neapolitan pizza.

[00:25:52] Brett: And it was, in my opinion, their best pizza. And then it ended. Christmas ended and they stopped serving it. So, [00:26:00] like, I went back to the kitchen. Or I had, I had a, a hostess who’s, who had a boyfriend who worked in the kitchen. And, and she was my proxy to say, how can I continue ordering this year round? And we worked out a deal, like, here’s the code word, here’s what you say, because it’s simple ingredients.

[00:26:18] Brett: It’s stuff they always have on hand. It’s just off menu, and, and I worked it out, and that’s why I would go out to a pizza place rather than make my own pizza, is that kind of, like, ability to order off menu, that, the ability to have some kind of personal connection. And I just assumed that you would never have that at Starbucks.

[00:26:40] Christina: Well, weirdly, so for food, probably not so much because most of it is pre packaged, um, and or pre made, but like for the drinks, that is like, honestly, the whole thing is that it’s off menu. Like you can get it customized however you want. Um, and that’s why I think they make so much money. Now I live in Seattle.

[00:26:57] Bryan: Cause you pay, you pay like three times as much for [00:27:00] your off menus. Like, when you start to customize the additional shots and everything, the price goes up in this. Oh,

[00:27:05] Christina: Additional pumps, which is why, like, they had to, like, there was a whole bunch of drama. I remember, uh, God, this was so long ago, but I remember going down this rabbit hole because I loved the drama of people who would, like, save up coupons and things from their Starbucks stars and, like, really use it to get, like, the most ridiculous drink orders they could.

[00:27:20] Christina: Like, they would basically find a way to get, like, 13 drinks. I’m not even joking. Um, you know, with, like, their, their, their coupons. And so Starbucks had to kind of, like, cut down on, on how much they were giving out the, the bonus points and whatnot. Um, I live in Seattle where there are a ton of Starbucks and we have a thing called the Starbucks Reserve.

[00:27:38] Christina: And there aren’t many of them in the world, but we, there is one, um, literally like three blocks from my house. Um, and they have like the most expensive type of coffee machines and they do like really high end types of brewing and whatnot. Yeah. Oh, that they do. They do. [00:28:00] And, and, and it’s insane, and like, and that’s, that’s a good place to go.

[00:28:04] Christina: We don’t have Dunkin and that I’m not gonna lie, like, I grew up my entire life having access to Dunkin at all times, and there are no Dunkins in the state of Washington because of the Starbucks mafia. And so, um, because Starbucks started in

[00:28:20] Jeff: That sounds like a really lame reading group name.

[00:28:22] Christina: It really

[00:28:23] Jeff: Like a great, like a book club. We’re the Starbucks mafia.

[00:28:26] Bryan: Jarvox

[00:28:26] Christina: God, you know, you know that, you know that some bitches in Bellevue, like, some, like, some moms group have fuckin done that, or like, Woodinville, uh, all the fuckin wine

[00:28:35] Jeff: one of them as a, as a food blog, Hubby’s, Hubby’s away this week.

[00:28:39] Brett: there was a, there was a coffeehouse in, I think it was in St. Paul, um, and Their claim to fame was that they had bought three Clover machines when they opened, which are like, I think at the time, 20, 000 espresso machines. And

[00:28:57] Bryan: every Starbucks has a Clover now.

[00:28:59] Brett: [00:29:00] yeah, they had, this place had a small sign and their windows were always steamed.

[00:29:04] Brett: Like you could never see inside the place and you could walk by it and never have any idea it existed, but I

[00:29:10] Jeff: the, like the boxing gym in my neighborhood.

[00:29:13] Brett: Yeah, we’d go there just for their clover machines. Um, that was, that was worthwhile to me. So, if every Starbucks has a clover, I might need to check it out again.

[00:29:23] Bryan: Yeah, so if y’all remember, that was my, that was my, that was my basic one. So, the other one is this app called AHEAD, and AHEAD is a, it’s an emotions coach app. So this is a great lead into Mental Health Corner. So, um, It’s science backed, started by, I think, I forget, they’re in another country, because I met with one of the co founders just the other day. Um, but, I struggle a lot with, uh, anger, actually.

[00:29:58] Bryan: Um, and I [00:30:00] didn’t realize it was anger, but like, underneath all of the defensiveness and all this other stuff, it’s just anger, anger, anger, anger, anger. Um, and AHEAD has been really helpful in teaching me how to be Uh, Less Angry, How to Get Less Defensive, How to Reframe the Angry Thoughts. And, it takes you through little bite sized lessons, it, uh, has, it like, it has you, like, draw little things on the screen to, like, commit to doing a thing.

[00:30:26] Bryan: Um, it, it, it, then it gives you the opportunity to, like, record when you got angry or when you had an angry situation and, like, how it made you feel. And like what the underlying feelings were. And so then over time you start to be able to see like, oh, most of my angry moments come from feeling, feeling like misunderstood.

[00:30:49] Bryan: And then that gives you, and then it gives you tactics on like how to address it. Like if you’re about to get angry in a situation before you do, like play out the situation in advance so that you can sort of, [00:31:00] like, like, pre feel the regret, or, like, imagine this is a comedy, like, imagine the situation that you’re about to get angry at as a comedy. And like as a kid would see it, and it’s really funny then, uh, like when, sometimes when I get into a big argument with Nathan about nothing, like this is a very hilarious if you’re on the outside.

[00:31:19] Bryan: And it is really, really, it, the first thing that really helped me get my defensiveness under control. And so I’m just like really a big fan of it. They have, I think a seven day free trial, then they will charge you, I think 60 a year, but like I happily paid it and I don’t normally pay, uh, for apps like that.

[00:31:39] Bryan: Yeah.

[00:31:39] Christina: That’s awesome. Ahead?

[00:31:40] Brett: Yeah, I found the, I found the link. It was hard to track down, but, uh, the link’s in the show notes. Um, I, when apps give themselves names that are just words in the English language,

[00:31:54] Christina: I know.

[00:31:55] Jeff: all the vowels

[00:31:56] Brett: For example, Marked. Um, [00:32:00] it uh, um, it makes it hard to track them down, but uh. Envy Ultra is easy to find. Anyway, um, my pick for this week is Loopback from Rogue Amoeba. Um, I honestly could pick all of Rogue Amoeba’s apps, but, uh, specifically Loopback just fascinates me. Rogue Amoeba does black magic, and you know this because Every time there’s an OS update, all their stuff breaks, um, and the fact that they, within, within two weeks of, well, okay, two weeks before a new OS becomes public, they will come out with new versions of their apps and, and they have never failed to get their apps working with a new OS.

[00:32:51] Brett: But the fact that they break every time means they are doing some, some deep black magic. And what fascinates me about Loopback, [00:33:00] uh, Loopback is the, the tagline is cable free audio routing for Mac. Um, and it lets you make these virtual audio devices that can combine Different inputs, different outputs, input from different apps, uh, pipe them to here, pipe them to there, and create, uh, like a, a literal audio device that you can select from your input or output menu, and Loopback doesn’t have to be running anymore once it creates the device, um, so for example, I have, uh, Uh, a complete audio six that has six audio inputs, and one of those inputs is from the Echo in my office, and that goes into the three, four, RCA inputs in my Komplete Audio 6, I can then combine that output into almost like a pass through for all of the other audio that comes out of my system.

[00:33:57] Brett: So I can patch my [00:34:00] Echo and the output from my Echo, which I often use to play Spotify, I can patch that in as if it’s just coming from my system, and I And I don’t have to, I don’t even have to select a special audio device. It just acts as a pass through device. Um, and with this device that has six different inputs and my Wave XLR and my, uh, uh, uh, Solo 2, um, like I can.

[00:34:30] Brett: I can basically pipe, in my case, eight different inputs to specific places and create single devices that can be used throughout any application. I don’t have to be like, Audio Hijack does a great job of doing this stuff internally, as long as you’re running Audio Hijack. But this brings that ability to pipe all your inputs to outputs and create literal OS Specific, like, audio inputs and outputs, and [00:35:00] I love it.

[00:35:00] Christina: Yeah. And what’s great is that because of, of how it works, um, uh, like it’ll show up in all of your other apps as like a, a, a, you know, a thing that you can

[00:35:09] Brett: Yeah,

[00:35:10] Christina: So, so, so you don’t have to worry about like if Zoom or Teams. Teams is going to usually be the culprit here, let’s be completely honest. Um, you know, or, or something else, or something in a web browser, like you don’t have to worry about them supporting some of the features that they may not support.

[00:35:26] Christina: You can just choose the, the, um, the group that you’ve chosen in Loopback, and it’ll just act like any other sound source.

[00:35:33] Brett: another stupid but obvious use for it is you can create a virtual device for, so I can take my complete audios, six inputs, two outputs, um, I can, I can create a, a virtual device that acts with that as a passthrough and just outputs it. Directly the way it was, but by using that device instead of selecting the complete audio as my output, I now [00:36:00] suddenly have volume and mute controls that you wouldn’t have on an external device like that normally.

[00:36:06] Brett: Um, so like the system, the mute button on any media keyboard, or if you assign it to, you know, your, your hackable keyboard, uh, your mute button will suddenly work with an audio device that normally wouldn’t allow you to mute it. It’s, it’s not a cheap app. It’s like a hundred dollars for this app, but honestly, I consider it worth it.

[00:36:28] Brett: And

[00:36:29] Christina: something quite as, quite as, uh, happy, as big as Loopback, you might be okay with SoundSource, which can do some of that. Um,

[00:36:37] Jeff: is great!

[00:36:37] Christina: SoundSource is great.

[00:36:39] Brett: if you want to go open source, you could find Soundflower. I don’t know if it works anymore. Um, but yeah, like all of these kind of had that kind of patch, um, patch mentality. Sound source itself will add, it’ll do the mute for an external device and it will do, uh, I can’t remember what they call it, super [00:37:00] something, but it will allow you to boost volume.

[00:37:02] Brett: on devices that at max volume aren’t loud enough. It’ll allow you to like 120 percent your volume. Uh, SoundSource is also from Rogue Amoeba and, um, I’ll be doing a giveaway on that later this year, um,

[00:37:16] Bryan: woo!

[00:37:17] Brett: com. So sign up for the mailing list, find out all about it. I didn’t convince them to give away loopback though.

[00:37:24] Christina: what I will say for people, if you’re interested in some of the Rogue Amoeba apps, like if you think you would get some use out of them, consider getting their, their ultimate podcast bundle, which will basically give you all the apps at once. And um, like that it’s, it’ll end up coming in, in cheaper. Um, And, uh, the, the apps are, like, they wait a number of years between updates.

[00:37:48] Christina: So, um, like, I, I made that, I made that outlay, you know, a number of years ago and I was like, this, this has paid off for me, but yeah.

[00:37:56] Brett: you, have you ever used. Firago, or [00:38:00] Farago, or whatever their soundboard app.

[00:38:02] Christina: I have, but it, like, not, like, I thought that I would use it more, um, and, and I think that just whatever my workflow was at the time, I didn’t. And now at this point, I feel like the apps that I use where that could be useful, like they have their own built in soundboards. So, um. It’s cool, again, like, what’s great about all the Rogue Amoeba stuff is that, like, it works independently of what app or program you’re in.

[00:38:30] Christina: Um, and they are one of the only companies that I trust, uh, including Apple, to be very, very clear to, like, actually understand how the Apple audio, um, uh, like, APIs work. And, um,

[00:38:44] Brett: than Apple.

[00:38:44] Christina: Oh, I think they absolutely understand better than Apple, which is why I was so mad about the way that you have to install, um, some of the, their stuff, um, on, on various

[00:38:53] Brett: still true? Like, you mean with the rebooting and disab or like, dis disabling? Uh, [00:39:00] there were yeah, there was a whole three step process that involved multiple reboots, and

[00:39:04] Christina: Yeah. They, they, they, they make it very difficult for you to install their app. Well, yeah.

[00:39:07] Brett: haven’t had to do that recently.

[00:39:10] Bryan: They just put, they just, they just announced, um, that they’ve been working with Apple, and then I think in the latest OS update, it’s been changed now that you don’t even have to, um, you don’t even have to, like, put in your password in some cases.

[00:39:29] Christina: Oh.

[00:39:32] Bryan: Yeah, I just, I think I heard about this on, um, Upgrade, I think. Let’s see here.

[00:39:41] Brett: Yeah, I would hope that’s gotten better, cause that was, that was some bullshit.

[00:39:44] Christina: No, it was complete bullshit. Yeah, I, I didn’t know because I haven’t had to, because usually it was a one time thing. So once you got it installed, you didn’t have to do it again. Um, but I haven’t, um, I haven’t gone through the, the process, um, in a long time. And [00:40:00] so, um,

[00:40:01] Bryan: yeah, they said here

[00:40:02] Christina: that. But yeah, if you’ve gotten rid of it, that’s even better.

[00:40:05] Bryan: Or they’re about to, maybe they shipped it, so this was, they released this in their 2024 status report by Paul on January 9th. And I think what happened was then there was the release of 12. 3, is it? 14. 3, 14. 3.

[00:40:24] Christina: hmm.

[00:40:25] Bryan: And there was a note that there was like a new permission in 14.

[00:40:29] Bryan: 3 and Jason put the two together that he thinks that what happened is, so Audio Hijack, basically what they, what Amoeba has done here is that they’re going to be shipping updates that Airfoil Audio Hijack and Piezo will feature an installer free setup that won’t even need your administrator password and Loopback and SoundSource will new a, use a new audio capture plug in called.

[00:40:51] Bryan: ARK, A R K, that won’t require a single system restart. So I’m not sure, maybe it’s out completely, but they, Jason figured [00:41:00] that probably they’ve been working with, um, Apple and Apple has made some changes around security in terms of what, like added a new, a new category of

[00:41:13] Christina: So there’s like a new entitlement or

[00:41:14] Bryan: setting. Exactly.

[00:41:16] Bryan: Yep. And I think that’s, what’s going to address the issue.

[00:41:21] Christina: Oh, well, that’s great.

[00:41:23] Bryan: Oh yeah, Screens and System Audio Recording, it’s now called. So they added, yeah, System, there’s a System Audio Recording Only option now in, in 14. 3.

[00:41:34] Christina: Oh, nice.

[00:41:35] Bryan: Yeah,

[00:41:36] Brett: Can I nerd out for just 30 seconds before we get to Mental Health Corner?

[00:41:41] Christina: Please.

[00:41:42] Now that’s service!

[00:41:42] Brett: I.

[00:41:42] Jeff: if nerding out isn’t what’s been

[00:41:44] Brett: Right, so I got a request from a reader of my blog that he wanted to figure out when his VPN connection was disconnected and at that point [00:42:00] kill, you know, a QTorrent And so I had to look into how um, and I did ended up diffing, uh, ifconfig output when the VPN was connected versus when it was disconnected and found out there was a new. Network interface that showed up in ifconfig when it was connected. Um, so then I could just run ifconfig through a grep to see if that device, see if that interface was present, and then I would immediately know if the VPN was connected, um, and put that on a one second loop and just have it run until, uh, until the VPN is no longer detected and then pass through to a kill all command.

[00:42:45] Brett: Um, so it’s like a seven line script that can actually kill it, kill an app when your VPN connection terminates. It was fun. I’ll probably post it on his blog, but I’m, I’m asking him for permission to, uh, share the script, not [00:43:00] like his personal details or anything, but. Yeah, that’s that’s that’s the kind of service.

[00:43:06] Brett: Oh, and it was weird because I sent him like an example Just like an outline of like how I thought it could work and he came back and he’s like the parentheses don’t work I’m like the parentheses were the parts where you were supposed to insert the working commands and And I realized in the process that he was actually very new to shell scripting

[00:43:27] Jeff: That sounds a little bit like helping me, Brett.

[00:43:29] Brett: Right, except even more intense.

[00:43:31] Brett: I sent him a two screen long email this morning detailing why it worked and how, and explaining the basics of shell scripting. And that right there is the kind of service I provide.

[00:43:45] Jeff: That is, yeah, that’s, that’s very fucking Brett, and God bless you. God’s bless you.

[00:43:51] Brett: Hey, I learned it the same way. I learned it from people who were like, whether it’s on Usenet or, or Reddit [00:44:00] or in, in private forums,

[00:44:02] Jeff: Stack

[00:44:03] Brett: you learn this shit from people that can tell you what you’re doing wrong and how it should work. And if you don’t give back, you’re not like, that’s, that cycle has to perpetuate.

[00:44:15] Brett: Like

[00:44:15] Jeff: is that like when you download torrents but you don’t seed them?

[00:44:19] Christina: Ha ha ha. Yes.

[00:44:21] Bryan: Yes,

[00:44:22] Christina: or, or, or, or when you don’t reciprocate head. Like that’s honestly, like,

[00:44:26] Bryan: yeah, absolutely, that’s a good one.

[00:44:27] Jeff: it’s all, I think it all falls under the heading of unrequited,

[00:44:31] Brett: Yes. Yes. back to Shakespearean, Shakespearean works. Yes. Um, so anyway, you want to get into a mental health corner?

[00:44:42] Christina: yeah, I just came up, I just thought of a good pun though for what we were just talking about. Don’t be a regex princess.

[00:44:49] Jeff: Ooh, that’s good.

[00:44:52] Brett: that the show title?

[00:44:53] Christina: Maybe that shouldn’t be. Don’t be a regex princess. I like that.

[00:44:56] Jeff: sex princess with Bryan [00:45:00] Guffey.

[00:45:04] It’s all Mental Health Corner from here on out

[00:45:04] Brett: Do we have any volunteers for first mental health corner?

[00:45:10] Jeff: We always give the guest the option.

[00:45:11] Bryan: My mental health is better. It’s been a difficult few months. Like, my partner Nathan and I have been coming out of, like, a difficult stretch. I talked about, like, my defensiveness and, like, just I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a non Like, to be a neurotypical, live with a neurodivergent person who also, like, constantly wants to make everything your fault because they have a lot of their own, like, trauma.

[00:45:43] Bryan: Um, Brett talking about complex, you’re talking about complex PTSD and, you know, uh, really You know, I’ve had that revelation with my therapist and psychiatrist as well. And just how much, one of the things that I [00:46:00] continue to sort of be amazed by is how much everything can come back to the trauma that you’ve experienced and how that shapes the way that your brain ends up working, you know, that again, like ADHD and.

[00:46:12] Bryan: Autism and all of these things can be, you know, both downstream of the trauma that you’ve experienced because it’s shaped your brain in different ways, but also it can exacerbate those things. Um, and the other thing that I’ve been, I’ve been sort of dealing with a lot is just recognizing how often people will fuck you up without having anything but the best of intentions. And how, and how you sort of have to learn to reconcile that without needing to have them take responsibility for it.

[00:46:48] Jeff: What did Merlin say last week? They’re doing the best they can, and that’s the problem.

[00:46:52] Bryan: yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. I listened to that episode and like, and it was really weird, like having the, the, the super long mental [00:47:00] health corners the last couple of times, plus that I was like, wow, this is all just sort of coming together at the right time, you know? And so it’s, you know, also work has just been absolutely like just pouring water over top of you, like waterboarding levels of like overwhelming. And so I’ve really had, I mean like I was in a meeting earlier this week with my boss and she was like, she is also I’m pretty sure neurodivergent and like it is learning. to be a better manager still and is like a very good engineer but that means that like sometimes she gets really worked up about things and like when your boss gets worked up about things like then you get worked up about things and there was a moment in which i was just like i am screaming inside right now we just stop for a moment uh because like i cannot take any more information being thrown at me and be asked to like operate

[00:47:55] Brett: Yeah. So

[00:47:57] Bryan: It’s been, so it’s just been a really [00:48:00] intense period.

[00:48:02] Bryan: And I’m like trying to get out of the house more and do more things. I was down in, uh, down in LA for the weekend. My mom was in town, saw my brother, my sister in law and my nephew and went out to eat, you know, um, at a restaurant that was mostly outdoors. Uh, if you’re in LA, go to the Hatchet Hall. It’s a phenomenal restaurant.

[00:48:20] Bryan: Um, but it’s just been, it’s just been like really intense and overwhelming You know, just like, it’s one of those things where you’re like, oh, does it ever get, like, really, can I get life to be boring again?

[00:48:38] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:48:39] Bryan: all been going through that for years, right? But now, like, like, but there was a period where, like, COVID was happening, and I was like, well, my life is really boring inside of COVID, and I love it. That’s at home, doing nothing, like, same thing every day, had the same stuff delivered every two weeks for groceries, it was so awesome, and now people want me to do things again. And now, like, now, [00:49:00] like, all of the stuff that I thought I had figured out, but mostly I was just hiding in my house, which is, like, fine, except that, like, my partner does not have the capability to give me the amount of social interaction that I need.

[00:49:11] Bryan: Um, Now it’s just like all of the other stuff is coming on top of it and COVID is still going on to some degree. Like, it’s so, it’s just like very, very exhausting.

[00:49:21] Brett: I relate to this, I relate to this inclination to not do anything or to have things be the same every day. Um, that is where I feel the most comfortable, but in the times I am kind of forced or, you know, by circumstance, I end up Doing things outside of my comfort zone, I usually end up feeling a sense of, um, accomplishment and satisfaction.

[00:49:48] Brett: Do you find, like, being forced to do things to actually be maybe good?

[00:49:55] Bryan: Yes, I do. Like it is, it is, the struggle is that this, the amount [00:50:00] of time that’s available, right? Like the other things, doing the other things is great. But like, I’m not yet getting to choose to not do other things. You know, so there’s just not enough time at all at the moment. And, you know, it doesn’t, I, I love them.

[00:50:17] Bryan: They are like one of the greatest joys of my life. But having nine dogs, um, is, you know, and particularly like the, the process of dog training right now, which is two nights a week for like three hours each

[00:50:31] Brett: Yeah, that sounds

[00:50:32] Bryan: is just like so much, it’s so much

[00:50:35] Jeff: Hold on, pause, mental

[00:50:38] Bryan: Oh, you didn’t know. No,

[00:50:49] Jeff: That’s insane, I love it.

[00:50:51] Bryan: we had zero,

[00:50:52] Jeff: or are they all one breed?

[00:50:55] Bryan: so they’re all Doxan mixes, um, they’re all [00:51:00] except one from the same bloodline and family and we have, we have mom, um, and All but three of them came into our lives on February 24th last year. Because they were born in my, in our, in my partner’s bedroom.

[00:51:16] Jeff: Oh, right, because they were a litter of six, basically.

[00:51:19] Bryan: Yeah, exactly.

[00:51:20] Jeff: they do come in numbers, don’t they?

[00:51:23] Bryan: They really do, and then we just decided we’d

[00:51:24] Brett: Have you spayed

[00:51:25] Bryan: Yeah, everybody is spayed and neutered, yeah. Oh, yes.

[00:51:29] Brett: okay. Um, so remind me, I can’t remember, is your partner neurodivergent?

[00:51:36] Bryan: So, according to, according to the tests, no.

[00:51:41] Brett: Okay. So you are actually in a, a weird coupling.

[00:51:46] Bryan: yeah, but he’s also like,

[00:51:51] Bryan: So, I think people who are very, very, very highly intelligent, Exhibit their own types of what we, [00:52:00] what you like of non normative engagement. Uh, for example, Nathan doesn’t really forget anything ever. Um, and he knows something about almost everything. So like, you’re not normally in a relationship with somebody who’s basically never wrong.

[00:52:21] Jeff: everyone’s in a relationship with someone who thinks they’re

[00:52:23] Brett: Yeah, yeah, totally, totally, 100%.

[00:52:25] Bryan: this is, but the problem has been that I have discovered, like, he’s actually, cause he, he, he does not say that he knows something unless he actually knows it, which is so foreign to me as an ADHD person who spent so much time in my life just being like, yeah, I know that because I didn’t want to look like I didn’t know something cause I couldn’t remember it.

[00:52:46] Jeff: Totally.

[00:52:47] Brett: I, uh, my, my partner, um, at, when we started our relationship, they thought they were neurotypical. And for the first five years of our relationship, [00:53:00] Uh, we operated under the assumption that I was ADHD and bipolar and they were normal. Um, and it wasn’t until

[00:53:07] Jeff: Grading on a curve.

[00:53:08] Brett: they got their diagnosis that Autistic, that we suddenly realized, oh, we are both neurodivergent in, in pretty drastic ways.

[00:53:18] Brett: And it changed. It, like, we had been working out ways to deal with my shit, um, without realizing we also needed to figure out ways for me to deal with their stuff. Um, and, and that was a big turning point, but, uh. But, if I, like, I was journaling last night, that if there was one gift I could give to Elle, that would actually matter, it would be a shorter memory.

[00:53:48] Brett: Um, because I can go into any conflict fresh. Like, This is, this is a new thing that we have to discuss. I don’t have a history for this. I don’t have a list of [00:54:00] complaints. I don’t have a list of grievances to bring to the table here. I’m just, I have a, I have a very short memory. I have an ADHD memory. I exist in the moment and I feel like I can deal with a problem in the moment.

[00:54:14] Brett: But as soon as I’m hit with this backlog of data that I can’t prove or disprove, I could be easily gaslit.

[00:54:22] Christina: totally.

[00:54:22] Brett: as soon as I’m hit with that, I’m, I have to shut down.

[00:54:25] Christina: No, I’m in a similar sort of thing and I have a memory like a steel trap, however, there are some things that you just, you don’t remember every sort of, you know, nuance, everything you ever said, everything you’ve ever done. Like I might know ridiculous factoids and have like a photograph, a photographic memory for things that I’ve, I’ve read.

[00:54:43] Christina: Um, and, and, you know. Seen or whatever, but I don’t necessarily remember everything I’ve ever said in person or, or whatnot. I might remember, like, I might make a quip on this podcast that in 30 minutes I might not, somebody be like, oh, I can’t believe you said that. I’m like, what did I say? You know? Um, and, [00:55:00] and, and I think you’re right, Brett.

[00:55:01] Christina: Like it is one of those things where I’m similar to you in that. Even though I have a decent memory, I don’t hold on to, I don’t want to say grudges because I think that’s too simplistic, but like I try to start fresh and I try to not let stuff linger, um, unless it’s had a real impact on me, in which case that’s a sign that I should have like a deeper conversation with someone and I try not to let it fester, right?

[00:55:21] Christina: But I, I run into that, this problem with, with, uh, with my partner where, like, he will remember things very deeply and I don’t have a, to your point, like, I don’t always have a good way of knowing, okay, is this accurate or is this not? Because sometimes I’m like, I don’t think this is, like, your memory of this is different than mine.

[00:55:38] Christina: And, but, but like, there’s, there’s no way to prove it, you know?

[00:55:42] Brett: yeah. Without, without a list of data. Yeah.

[00:55:45] Bryan: Right. Well, I’ve had this experience with Nathan. I mean, you know, so we’ve been going to couples therapy and we’re going to couples therapy with my therapist and it was very funny because Nathan was like, I, I was worried that if we went to couples therapy with my therapist, that like my therapist would [00:56:00] like be too hard on or Nathan would feel like my therapist was too hard on him.

[00:56:03] Bryan: But no, instead, like my therapist was like, no, like normally she’s like, it’s your, it’s, it’s your, you’re the, you’re the problem here, Bryan. Yeah. like, it’s your problem, it’s your shit that’s causing the problem. A couple of things that have happened is that one, one of the things that I’ve had to learn, because my brain is so associative, um, as an ADHD person, like, it is not, you all know this, it’s not linear, it’s somebody says something that makes you think of something else.

[00:56:28] Bryan: Which means, we are having a conversation about something that I did, Right? And it makes me remember the time Nathan did something kind of like it. And I want to talk about why are these two things different, or you shouldn’t have done that. And I’ve had to learn really, really, like, really deeply. We are talking about me right now.

[00:56:46] Christina: Right.

[00:56:47] Bryan: And the problem is, is that I’m, again, because of the forgetfulness. I worry that if I don’t bring it up now, I won’t get to. And there’s this feeling that, again, like I’m going to be taken advantage of. But he is, and this is the part that I’ve had to [00:57:00] learn, because I think a lot of us have had the experience of being gaslit and taken advantage of a lot.

[00:57:04] Bryan: And so we, we jump on things when they happen immediately because we don’t want to lose them.

[00:57:09] Brett: Mm hmm. Yep.

[00:57:11] Bryan: I’ve had to really realize he is not everybody else in my life. He’s not all of those other people that I didn’t know as well who took advantage of me or hurt me, right? Like we actually have a saying that it’s, it’s been this idea to like really radically reframe things so that I didn’t start.

[00:57:26] Bryan: And honestly, I have admitted now that like some of this came from Being so obsessed with social media for me and using like Twitter so much is that I got into the habit of responding to everything with a, but what about this? Or no, what it could, it should like, it was automatically adversarial the way that I would engage.

[00:57:46] Jeff: Mm.

[00:57:47] Bryan: Um, and in fact, when I started Not using Twitter as much, I started having more arguments with Nathan, my therapist was like, I’m pretty sure this is because you’re not fighting with people. Exactly. [00:58:00] Yeah. And so we’re actually do this thing now. I actually have on my home screen, it’s a picture of Nathan and then a piece of text that I put on there using like Canva.

[00:58:08] Bryan: That’s just basically like, remember, Nathan is always right. And Some people got very words in my life like that’s very scary why would you ever say that like well I just think your partner’s always right and I had to clarify with them that what that

[00:58:21] Jeff: sounds like something done under duress.

[00:58:23] Bryan: right but like the idea here but the problem was was that I was always getting into arguments with him and then having to come back and apologize because I was wrong

[00:58:32] Brett: Yeah,

[00:58:33] Bryan: because, because your brain makes, like when you feel something strongly, when you feel righteous anger, you think, how could I be wrong?

[00:58:41] Bryan: How could I be wrong? And we don’t realize how much of an unreliable narrator our brain is.

[00:58:45] Brett: it’s super helpful to have that framing. If you go into the conversation assuming the other person is right and being willing to look at how you might be wrong, it doesn’t mean you’re conceding the [00:59:00] argument. You’re able to take a different look at it. The one thing I’ve learned recently with Elle is If I can present, if I’m feeling hurt, if I’m feeling offended by something, um, if I can, instead of saying you offended me, if I can come at it and say, I feel offended and then think about here’s why, here’s how that hit me, here’s what that indicates within me, we can have a long, deep conversation.

[00:59:27] Brett: But if I come right out the gate and I’m like, you’re wrong, you hurt me, you did this. Incorrectly. Uh, it’s a totally different conversation that shuts down very quickly.

[00:59:39] Bryan: For me with Nathan, it is that he does not have a problem. This is, he’s a scientist, and it’s, sometimes it’s very frustrating he’s a scientist. I’m not allowed to use the word research in this household, um, because research means something very specific,

[00:59:54] Brett: Same as theory and hypothesis. Yes.

[00:59:56] Jeff: can just say, Educate yourself, man.

[00:59:58] Bryan: exactly. He’s like, or, or, [01:00:00] or, you know, or, or do some googling, you know, read some articles, learn some things, um, but, uh, he, he is more than happy to admit that he’s, when he’s wrong, like, annoyingly so. Also, like, even, and I have had, and, It’s been a combination of this plus a deep need for people to not be mad at me, and some real codependence, that I was often confusing, feeling upset or angry.

[01:00:33] Bryan: With the actions that I took when I was upset or angry or how I engaged with him. Because I would watch him get upset and angry, but then also be like, I’ll take your feedback or I’ll think about that. And I’d be like, but you got upset or angry. We’re not supposed to do that. And my therapist, it happened in like in real time in one of them.

[01:00:50] Bryan: And she’s like, no, the difference is he got upset. You could see it on his face. And then, and then he also still responded appropriately. And the difference is you get [01:01:00] upset and then you try to make it his fault.

[01:01:03] Brett: Do you find a sense of relief when you do admit you’re wrong?

[01:01:08] Bryan: Yes.

[01:01:09] Brett: I have this instinct to, to argue for whatever I’ve stated, even if I don’t fully believe it or can’t fully back it up. Like I feel this, this, uh,

[01:01:21] Bryan: be, to be wrong is to be bad

[01:01:24] Brett: right. Exactly. Uh, but the moment I can say, you know what, like, given this new information, given this data that I was incapable of gathering myself, I can see, I can see that I was wrong.

[01:01:39] Brett: And there’s this sense of relief that comes with it to just, to be able to say, Yeah, no, I was wrong coming into this. You were right. And it just feels like smoothing out all these waves of like emotion that I had.

[01:01:54] Bryan: There was not a lot of space. And I think Brett, you can probably relate to this. There’s not a lot of space growing up [01:02:00] for me to be wrong, for me to make mistakes. And it was a combination of, uh, I don’t think my mom My mom always tells a story about how when she started school, which was right after Brown vs.

[01:02:15] Bryan: Board of Education, her parents said to her, don’t do anything that will make these white people think you’re less than them. she has always been an overachiever. Also, uh, pretty certain she has ADHD. She’s actually finally going to talk to her doctor about it at 71. I’m so proud of her. And I’m pretty sure she’s autistic too, because this stuff runs in the family.

[01:02:36] Bryan: Um, but, and, so And she, she was one of the, like, I learned to get over things emotionally, or at least act like I was over them, maybe it was part of the ADHD. And then I would go to her and she would not be ready to, like, talk to me yet. She’d still be upset.

[01:02:53] Christina: Yeah, she’d still need

[01:02:54] Bryan: Right, and so,

[01:02:55] Christina: it.

[01:02:56] Bryan: right, and so I was like, well then that means that I’ve, like, I’ve [01:03:00] done something bad, you know, like, and so I, and also my parents were always very confused about how I could be so smart.

[01:03:08] Bryan: And still like make mistakes. And then they thought once they put me on medication, that that would solve everything because at the time that’s all they knew.

[01:03:15] Brett: hmm. Mm hmm.

[01:03:16] Bryan: Um, and it did not. And so, uh, learning that it is like, I still struggle with being able to recognize that, like making what, what happens is I’m constantly trying to recover from the mistake that I’ve made by not like, by not.

[01:03:32] Bryan: Making another mistake. But in the, in the process of doing so, I keep making more mistakes because Nathan’s like, stop apologizing a hundred times because all you keep doing is bringing it back up and I’m just trying to like, I’ll forget about it in 30 minutes if you leave it alone and I’m over here still obsessing over it because I made a mistake and it’s the perfectionism of all of us of trauma survivors, you know, and

[01:03:55] Jeff: mean, I can, I’m, I’m wired in such a way that like, when I, you had said to be wrong [01:04:00] is to be bad, right? Like, even though I have watched people in my life fuck up over and over and I’ve, they’ve never almost lost me. I assume that the fuck ups pile up when we get to four or five, it’s over.

[01:04:13] Bryan: yeah,

[01:04:14] Jeff: Never happened

[01:04:14] Bryan: always, and that somebody is always hiding something and they’re not telling you all the reasons of the way that they’re feeling

[01:04:19] Jeff: yeah, yeah,

[01:04:19] Bryan: to surprise you.

[01:04:21] Jeff: Exactly. Exactly. Surprise.

[01:04:23] Brett: You should read my journal for the last week. Yep.

[01:04:26] Christina: Yeah.

[01:04:27] Jeff: he actually has a live journal page. You can read his journals there if you

[01:04:30] Christina: Livejournal.

[01:04:31] Bryan: my live journal.

[01:04:32] Jeff: It’s all written in Russian, but

[01:04:34] Bryan: I was flame, I, I, my, my, my, my handle was Flaminice. And I, it was a picture of Emmett Honeycutt from, from Queersfolk.

[01:04:43] Christina: yes. Which is the perfect LiveJournal, like, like, show. Um, yeah. I, uh My username would be fairly easy to figure out. Um, let’s just, I don’t need to go further than that. Uh, because some of the stuff might still be there. Who fucking knows? Um,

[01:04:59] Brett: a [01:05:00] guess. I have a guess, but it sounds like you don’t want us to guess. I’m

[01:05:04] Christina: no, I mean, it, it, it’d be completely

[01:05:06] Jeff: can bleep. We can bleep in this thing, can’t

[01:05:09] Brett: doing a Google right now.

[01:05:11] Christina: Oh, no, you can’t Google it. That’s the great thing. It’s not indexed.

[01:05:14] Brett: Oh, nice.

[01:05:15] Jeff: Yeah.

[01:05:16] Christina: This was the

[01:05:17] Jeff: almost everybody on planet Earth with a computer in those years.

[01:05:21] Christina: no, that was a decision that Brad made, like, very, like, deliberately. It wasn’t, um, an accident. He made the decision to not index the stuff unless you purposely opted in. You had to go into your settings and opt in to be Google indexed because he understood because he was in college when he started this thing as a way to talk with his high school friends.

[01:05:40] Christina: And then it blew into this, like, many million user service that like had to have an invite system, um, uh, for many years to scale that he was like, this is shit that people aren’t going to want people to find. And so by default, it’s not

[01:05:55] Brett: by today’s standards. That’s highly unusual, but also a smart, like [01:06:00] admirable move.

[01:06:00] Christina: Well, that’s because this is why Brad, I think he should be so much richer than he is because he created these underpinnings for what the whole modern web runs on. And I asked him once, I was like, do you ever get mad that like Mark Zuckerberg, Matt Mullenweg, like all these people have like, you know, David Karp, all these people have made, you know, money essentially using a lot of the software you’ve built.

[01:06:19] Christina: And he’s like, if it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else. And A, I don’t think that’s necessarily true. But B. Just the fact that, like, that’s his attitude is, like, why he’s, like, one of the, like, best people that, like, I can call my internet friend for the last, you know, two decades. Well, and we’ve met in person, too, but, like, you know, I’ve literally known him for decades, and, um, that’s why Livejournal will always have my heart.

[01:06:46] Christina: But that’s my slash rant, sorry. Didn’t mean to

[01:06:49] Brett: That’s cool. That’s awesome. Um, I think we should let Jeff go because I don’t know what his schedule here is.

[01:06:57] Jeff: I actually have a good, um, bridge here to [01:07:00] mine. Um, LiveJournal. Back in the, back in the day, I remember I went into the Punk Planet offices one day, which was just two people. Um, and, and Dan, who had created it, was the editor, brought me over to his computer. He’s like, check this out. And he, a friend had given him a URL that would allow you to look at.

[01:07:18] Jeff: And, Um, all of the live journal images, uh, that have been updated in the last whatever amount of time. And so anytime you could refresh that and you’d be looking at like 40 live journal images from the full spectrum of live journal, right. Probably some ethical issues, but, oh my God, was it the most amazing?

[01:07:36] Jeff: It’s like when you, have you ever, have you ever just sat and scrolled through like TikTok lives and just been like this? is all of the kinds of people, right? Like, that’s what it felt like. And I had a curated list, uh, I mean, a curated folder of all those, of my favorites of those photos that just, like, I had that same feeling of like, I’m looking across ways of living, you know, and being and [01:08:00] whatever.

[01:08:00] Jeff: Um, as I describe it, I realized it’s a little problematic, but, um, let’s, let’s, and if I, I could be challenged on that, but I don’t do it anymore. I mean, this was 20 years ago and, and I was fascinated by seeing the world. Um, so I’m sorry, everybody, if it feels wrong. I’m happy to admit it. Uh, but anyway, that was also just a weird, that time of the internet thing that something that would even exist, right?

[01:08:25] Jeff: Like that you could even kind of do that. I mean, you could scrape it obviously, but this was not, this was like, you could hit a URL and be like, here are the last hundred images that posted on live journal.

[01:08:34] Christina: No, which is, which is amazing. I mean, at a certain point, like that very quickly, like got out of scale, but yeah, like that, that’s, it’s crazy how, um, fast things move to the point where like, I remember when, when Twitter, um, I, I know Brett remembers this, Bryan, I don’t know if you do or not. Um, and Jeff, I’m not sure about you, but I remember like the first probably, you know, year or so, like there was the live feed.

[01:08:57] Christina: of Twitter that you could just look at. You [01:09:00] could like literally just go to Twitter. com and you would see the entire firehose of every tweet that was being sent on the network.

[01:09:07] Jeff: Wow.

[01:09:08] Christina: I, that’s how I discovered, that’s how I got a following. That’s how I discovered like people is I would just like randomly reply to people and you would just have random combos with people and you know, yeah,

[01:09:18] Jeff: Amazing. So only slightly related, but it is an okay bridge. Um, this is actually a rare mental health corner where I’m just focused on something that gives me like quiet joy, um, which obviously is key with mental health. Um, so a long time ago, I don’t have a great memory. That’s a theme today. Um, but I have a lot of stories in my life that I want to remember that just make me smile.

[01:09:41] Jeff: Um, and, uh, and as an example, Um, I’ll tell one in a second, but it, this whole thing stems out of a, um, out of a writing exercise I invented for myself some years ago, where I decided to focus on like, you know, my band probably did like six tours in the late nineties, but they were [01:10:00] like really formative experiences.

[01:10:02] Jeff: And, and things happen on those tours that I never want to forget. A lot of them are just dinner party stories anyhow, but, but I just don’t want to forget them. So I decided I’m going to sit down every day for like 20 minutes, I’m going to write postcards from these moments, essentially. Right? Like I’m going to write them short.

[01:10:15] Jeff: It’s going to be as if I was writing a postcard and it’s going to tell this story, just like the, the basic details of the story. Um, and, and I have one of those right now, which I want to share, and I want to tell you what I’m doing with them. That’s giving me quiet joy. Okay. Bye. I only just remembered this because I’m watching the show, The Offer, which is

[01:10:32] Christina: Oh, so good.

[01:10:33] Jeff: yeah, it’s great.

[01:10:34] Jeff: It’s irresistible. I mean, like there’s times when you’re like, Oh, this isn’t like the best TV show in the world, but it’s fricking irresistible, especially as a fan of the movie, like it’s candy. Um, so Colin Hanks is in that movie, um, which is what made me think of this. So I was at a show and, um, This was actually a reunion show 10 years ago, so it’s not even on tour.

[01:10:54] Jeff: And, um, and, and I’m backstage after the tour. I’m just like, after the show, I’m super sweaty. I’m sitting on a [01:11:00] chair. My friend brings down this guy and goes, Hey everybody, this is my friend Colin. And, uh, and he looks at me and he, and my friend looks at me and says, you guys are Colin’s new favorite band.

[01:11:10] Jeff: And I look at Colin, who I do not recognize. And I say, Come sit in my lap. And so he comes over, sits in my lap, a photo’s taken that I never got. He gets up, whatever the night goes on. I find out the next day it’s Colin Hanks. And I’m like, you know how those things are. It’s like, you kind of can’t ask for the photo.

[01:11:29] Jeff: Like, you know, his friend took the photo and probably his friend would feel weird about giving even though that friend was my friend. I never asked for the photo. Didn’t want to seem too needy. And so I don’t have it. Okay, so When you don’t have an image of a thing, right, like, um, it’s kind of, you know, one thing that, that I’ve experienced with trauma and we probably all have is that traumatic incidents can exist as frozen photographs, essentially frozen moments that won’t unfreeze for no matter how hard you try or wish them to, which is where therapy obviously comes in.

[01:11:58] Jeff: Definitely for me where EMDR [01:12:00] comes in. My cat’s complaining. Um, but I wanted to create, so I decided I’m going to plug these little postcard stories into Dolly, um, and have it create just completely fucked up fake memory images of these moments. So I’d be like, create me a postcard image of this thing.

[01:12:17] Jeff: Now, in this case, the best it could do was give me a picture of Tom Hanks sitting in Tom Hanks’s lap. Um, it’s no matter how hard I tried.

[01:12:26] Christina: I love

[01:12:27] Jeff: That’s all I would get, but that was, but that was great. But I’ve also, so I’ve been putting them in and it shoots back these pictures that are so wrong and something about engaging with the story itself and then, and then almost cartoonizing them because they are stories I love.

[01:12:40] Jeff: I’m not putting hard stories in there. Right. It’s just like, it’s been a way to connect with. moments in my life that I love, or even in this case, I’m kind of proud of. I’m proud that my reaction was come sit in my

[01:12:51] Christina: I am too!

[01:12:52] Jeff: Like, and I love that Colin Hanks sat in my sweaty ass lap without hesitation.

[01:12:58] Christina: weren’t even drunk, but also,

[01:12:59] Brett: know [01:13:00] you weren’t

[01:13:00] Jeff: one was drunk.

[01:13:01] Christina: also, also, like, you, like, your band was like Colin Hanks favorite band, like, what the

[01:13:06] Jeff: That night, yeah, I’ll take it. I’ll take it. So, um, another one I did that was just so, so delightful is like, I started plugging in dreams. So I’ve, I’ve had nightmare problems forever, but I also have the most delightful absurd dreams. And there was a dream once where I was driving a blue Cadillac convertible and an orange jumpsuit, not like a prisoner jumpsuit, but like a, like a seventies fly jumpsuit.

[01:13:29] Jeff: And I crashed through the fence of a monkey farm. I crashed through the fence of a monkey farm, and the monkeys were so excited to meet me.

[01:13:38] Jeff: So I decided to put this in, and the thing that was hilarious is that I had to keep re prompting with this one prompt. Make the monkeys even more happy to see me. But anyhow, this, this was like, I said, kind of like these are quiet moments of joy. There are these great things where it’s like these, these small little joy torpedoes, and they just happen with me [01:14:00] quietly with my laptop and my couch and these little memories. And it’s, It’s so much, it’s so interesting.

[01:14:05] Jeff: Cause like, I feel like the way we share these things over time is obviously with people and the older you get, the more the people in your life have already heard those fucking stories. Right. Um, and so, but you still want to interact with those stories. They’re memories that like do something for you.

[01:14:17] Jeff: Right. And so this has just been an amazing way to just interact with the parts of my life that delight me. Um, and, uh, and have it just be me and, but still have something reflected back at me, just like someone reacting to your story, you know? So that’s been really nice for me. And what has been like a.

[01:14:33] Jeff: Like you, Bryan, just a tough ass work week or a couple of weeks,

[01:14:36] Brett: I think I’ve, I think I have two questions and they’re actually for Jeff. Um, first, have you seen Life in Pieces? Oh, amazing show with Colin Hanks. Uh, second, have you seen the meme where they ask Dali to make John baptizing Jesus, but happier? And they have these two white [01:15:00] guy two white guys in a river in robes just yucking it up, just laughing and dunking each other.

[01:15:08] Brett: It’s, and they’re very, they’re very white. Notably, John and Jesus are both very white in Dali’s recreation of John baptizing

[01:15:18] Jeff: something crazy happened totally against their racist algorithm, which is that the very first thing I put in was the story where. We’re playing in Houston and at the beginning of the show, I hate Houston. I mean, I don’t hate it in a kind of way that I’m damning a city, but I never liked playing Houston.

[01:15:33] Jeff: Um, it could, we run this label Amphetamine Reptile Records and it was just meatheads that came out to those shows basically, right? Like we weren’t really, it wasn’t our thing, but like, whatever. So this is like when you go to Texas on that label, you really get, can get meatheads. So no offense, Texas, or, but if you’re a fan and you went to an AmRap band show, you know, it’s true.

[01:15:51] Jeff: Um, so anyway, beginning of the show, I’m already feeling angsty. There’s a street sign behind me, you know, how they used to decorate the clubs back in the day. [01:16:00] I reach back with my sticks to do some big like crashing thing and I slice my finger open on the sign and I’m bleeding everywhere. I was a little bit known for always bleeding.

[01:16:09] Jeff: I was like G. G. Allen, but I didn’t mean to be bleeding. Um, and so I was always like my, my drum heads had blood on them, my sticks, but I was really bleeding. And by the end of the show, I was just, I don’t know, it was like in a young person angsty moment where I like, I didn’t even like playing for these people and, and I didn’t like how they looked at me and I just didn’t like it.

[01:16:27] Jeff: Right. And so at the end of the show, as the, my bandmates were just making noise, um, I got onto a road case I had that had wheels and I, I, I surfed through the crowd throwing my bloody sticks kind of hard, like in a way that I don’t feel good about now. And, and as soon as the show was over and the lights came up.

[01:16:47] Jeff: And all of a sudden the magic’s over, right? You’re not, you can’t be in that character anymore. I realized, like, I’d just thrown the last of my sticks and I had no money. And so I started looking around for the sticks and I, and I see [01:17:00] three of them next to a dude whose back is to me at the bar, who is a very big, strong man.

[01:17:06] Jeff: And, and I don’t know if he kept those as evidence of someone hurt, almost hurting people or what, but I go over. I tap him on the shoulder, these are desperate times, and I go, hi, excuse me, those are my drumsticks, is there any chance I could get them back? He turns around, looks at me, and goes. You guys were fucking awesome.

[01:17:24] Jeff: So I plug this in a version of this into the thing, and it makes me a black drummer with blood dripping off my hands, albeit, but like, I was like, Whoa, like, I normally actually will just say, as is my habit, anyhow, if I’m describing myself to people that don’t know me, I’m like a six foot four white guy.

[01:17:44] Jeff: Cause right? Like white people don’t do that. They’re just like, Oh, I’m wearing a striped shirt. It’s like, Oh, okay. Well. I guess, uh, this is a test. I’m assuming you’re white. Like, it just, it’s a fucked up test of your brain. If you’re a white person, I like, I’m probably like all around. But I was like,

[01:17:57] Brett: was trained on death and bad brains,

[01:17:59] Jeff: [01:18:00] was the first time.

[01:18:00] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. It was the first time I ever tried it. And I was like, they made me a black drummer. And then I had to write the really funny sentence of like, yes, but I’m white. Because like, I know this is like, okay, I love this, but it’s like, feel a little weird holding it. Anyway, that’s

[01:18:16] Bryan: great. That’s amazing. That’s so good.

[01:18:20] Brett: Mine can tie into multiple themes. Do you mind if I go next,

[01:18:24] Christina: No, please, please.

[01:18:25] Brett: Um, so, I, okay. Um, I, back in, I don’t even remember what year, but about ten years ago, I lost a couple terabytes of photos. Um, and History. Fuck you, Drobo. Um,

[01:18:43] Jeff: What’d you call me?

[01:18:45] Brett: and, um, and it, like, just gone, because I had trusted a backup system that was not to be trusted.

[01:18:52] Brett: Um, so what I have left from those years exists in what I did upload to Flickr, what I did post to [01:19:00] my blog, um, what I did, what I did make available online, because I had no local copies of these memories left. And I was going through old YouTube videos today and I found one. It was, it’s a company called Pummel Vision.

[01:19:14] Brett: It was an app that is gone now. Uh, if you try to go to their site, you get like a weird Apache error message. Um, or Nginx. I, whatever it, uh, it, it, it’s gone now, but what it does is take all of your. I think it was from Flickr, um, and it takes all of your photos and puts them up like two photos per second in this barrage of years worth of photos in like two minutes.

[01:19:46] Brett: And

[01:19:47] Jeff: dizzying.

[01:19:47] Brett: yeah, it’s, it pummels you with these memories and it was crazy because I did not have, I had completely forgotten about All of this, because [01:20:00] it makes me realize exactly how bad my memory is, um, if I don’t have photographs, if I don’t have photographic evidence or a blog post that something happened, then it may as well have never happened as far as I’m concerned, um, which is why I’m pretty religious about taking photos and backing them up and uploading to Flickr and blogging Blogging about things I learned because I will forget a year later, I will, I will search for the solution to a problem, find my own blog and realize I have already solved this.

[01:20:34] Brett: I have already done this. And this happens to me. I want to say, you know. Infrequently, but it, it’s like once a month, I find out I’ve already solved the problem, and I’ve blogged about it, and other people have linked to it, and I had forgotten about it, but this, this pummel vision, and then looking back through old Flickr photos, and like realizing that that segment of my life, it was about a two year [01:21:00] span, uh, that I had thought, you I had no memory of, but I did actually have online traces of.

[01:21:06] Brett: And honestly, it makes me really thankful for things like Flickr, for things like LiveJournal, for, well, I mean,

[01:21:15] Christina: Well, yeah.

[01:21:17] Brett: were backed up, things like my blog, for things, uh, these, these external, we’ll say cloud based. Versions of our life that they’re curated. They’re what we want to remember. They’re not necessarily indicative of reality or what really happened, but they are the things that for ADHD people, we would forget.

[01:21:41] Brett: Like they would be lost to time were it not for these services. And that has made me, it’s, it’s been a fascinating journey. And actually after watching that Pummel Vision, I reconnected with a couple of friends that I had forgotten even existed. And I’m like, Oh my God, I actually had [01:22:00] like a real connection with this person at one time.

[01:22:02] Brett: They were important to me. We took them into our home. We gave them shelter. Um, when. When things were bad and I had forgotten about them entirely, and it made me reach out and, and reconnect. And that was, that was, I don’t know, man. It makes me realize how bad my memory really is. . But the other meaningful thing I don’t like, I find, I found an IFS therapist, um, I’d had my first meeting with them.

[01:22:30] Jeff: family systems.

[01:22:32] Brett: Um, I have my first meeting with them on, uh, Tuesday. Uh, it’s just a 15 minute, like, let’s find out about each other and see if we want to do this thing. Uh, but I might get to move forward with IFS, which I’ve decided, even though I’m. Super skeptical about the whole thing. Like I’ve read the books and I really think if there’s a way through CPTSD for me, it’s going to be through IFS.

[01:22:58] Brett: Um, so I [01:23:00] am excited to have finally gotten off a wait list and gotten in to see somebody. But, um, the most meaningful thing I learned in the last week was, so anyone who’s grown up in an evangelical or Baptist type of, of setting, um, has experienced the idea of witnessing, where you are expected to share, uh, the message of Jesus Christ with your friends, um, and in your daily life you’re expected to, uh, convert.

[01:23:34] Brett: And this leads to alienation, this leads to, um, arguments, and rarely does it lead to anyone coming to join your church. Um, and it was always this thing that I, I felt super embarrassed to do, but like, I felt this compulsion, like this, like requirement that I do this if I were [01:24:00] going to be part of the church.

[01:24:01] Brett: Um, and what I learned was that this is actually, a technique used in psychological manipulation where you send somebody out to be specifically rejected by the out group so that they can return to the in group. And be lauded and comforted and told, you did great. They, they are, they are others.

[01:24:25] Brett: It further others the out group and makes you feel connected to the in group. And it gives you this, uh, sense that everything outside is dangerous. And, um, and this was absolutely the case for me. And, uh, and it was the. The basic, like, tenets that I was taught of, like, questioning reality, of loving unconditionally, of accepting strangers, that weren’t truly practiced by the church, but those concepts, when applied about the [01:25:00] church, actually got me out of the church and moved me on to, like, a better place in my life.

[01:25:06] Brett: So, like, I can’t They, they taught me some good things, uh, but this idea that witnessing was, was , psychological manipulation of the parishioner, not of the outer, you know, sources, um, that was actually really, it was fascinating to me and helped me put a lot of that in perspective.

[01:25:28] Christina: That’s cool. I, I I would, I would love to talk to you like on a different venue sometime about like how you got what, what, what the catalyst was, um, cause you just talked about it a little bit, but like what the catalyst was for you, like stopping being a believer, like, like what got you questioning your faith and like moving away from the church because you did that as a teenager.

[01:25:49] Christina: Um, and, and then like had a pretty radically different life. Um, uh, from like how what you’ve been raised and kind of expected to have. And it seems like it happened pretty quickly. I’d love to, [01:26:00] um, but,

[01:26:00] Brett: can summarize it, like basically, I, I, enough people contradicted the things I was told to tell them, and eventually I was like, wait, so the majority of the world sees, the majority of the world believes evolution is real. Can the majority of the world actually be wrong? Which led me to do my own independent.

[01:26:26] Brett: And decide, holy shit, no, there’s so much evidence for this thing that my church eschews that I think my church might be wrong. And that led to more and more questioning and more and more kind of deconverting. Like they didn’t call it that then. Um, this is back in like 92 through 96 that I kind of went through this deconversion process.

[01:26:51] Brett: Um, but just like led to question things. In a way that I literally, I had been taught to question everything the world told me. [01:27:00] Um, but I just, I redirected it and, and questioned the church.

[01:27:05] Christina: Okay. Well, see, that makes more sense then that you were taught to question things, but you were taught to question the outside world, not anything else. Cause I

[01:27:11] Brett: taught that there was this core simple truth, and anything that disagreed with it had to be questioned.

[01:27:18] Christina: Got it. So, it’s, it’s so interesting to me talking with people who, you know, um, uh, their religion changes or how they, you know, deal with faith or anything like that changes, um, because I think, uh, for most of us, it does usually follow a pattern where it’s, it’s usually we’re teenagers and, and we have these kind of moments of, of reflection where like, okay, this thing that I was taught, this thing I was told is not true or doesn’t feel true to me anymore.

[01:27:42] Christina: Um, And now I’m having to question my entire belief system and like re evaluate that. Um, for me, it’s, it’s a little bit different because I didn’t have the same, I was raised religious. But, not in a way where, like, the outside world is lying to you and, [01:28:00] um, this is the only way to be, like, I, I think that, I have to be honest, like, all things considered fairly healthy in terms of, like, uh, you know, cause my mom is, is a very religious person and it’s a very pure thing and it’s a very real thing to her, um, but it’s not like a thing where there’s judgment on others.

[01:28:18] Christina: It’s a very personal thing to her. And so. My faith was always very personal to me. And then it was a personal thing where I was like, I started questioning stuff and I went, okay, I’m, I’ve, I’ve, A, I have questions about, you know, some of the historical accuracies and whatnot because of the, the data and the proof that’s there where I can go, oh, I know that these books weren’t, weren’t written or were changed and how these things are translated or it’s fucked up.

[01:28:42] Christina: But the bigger thing for me was putting that aside was like, I’m not getting out of this what I’m supposed to be. This is supposed to be offering me comfort and it’s not. And then that led to like a much larger existential crisis. But I digress. But, but like, um, but the reason I, I like ask though is just because I [01:29:00] think it is so interesting that we have like a nation really of a lot of people who were raised up to a certain point to have one belief system and then were changed.

[01:29:10] Christina: But even when we change our belief system, we can’t escape, you know, that. Like formative stuff and it’s, it’s, it’s fucked. Like, I think that I don’t want to be a person who is, is like unilaterally shitting on religion because I think for a lot of people, it does offer a lot of good. And I think that there’s value in that, even if it’s not something that I get from an organized, structured thing.

[01:29:33] Christina: But I do think that we as a society don’t investigate enough how much damage is done by these, by these groups.

[01:29:40] Brett: have, I already talked about this concept of God’s love before,

[01:29:45] Christina: I don’t think so.

[01:29:47] Brett: this just struck me. This, this just struck me in the last, uh, last month or so, that I would hear, there’s this song by Joseph Arthur, um, [01:30:00] I forget the name of it now, but there’s this line that’s repeated, May God’s love be with

[01:30:05] Christina: In the sun. Yeah.

[01:30:07] Brett: In the Sun, yes, In the Sun by Joseph Arthur, and, and I listened to it And when he sings it, I, I remember that feeling I used to get when I was part of the church of being loved by God before it became nothing but judgmental, uh, before it began feeling like I, like I was going to hell, uh, that who I was, was going to send me to hell.

[01:30:34] Brett: This feeling of this all encompassing, it’s just love. Right? And, and you attribute it to whatever deity you were taught to attribute it to, but I think it’s a feeling that any human can experience in any context. And I think it’s a feeling, for those of us who had to, uh, force ourselves out of religion, who had to [01:31:00] literally pry ourselves out of it, and we developed this idea that all religion is bad, And that, like, the entire concept of a god is, is detrimental.

[01:31:12] Brett: And, and we can no longer access this feeling because it feels like it’s related to religion. It feels like something religious people feel. But I honestly, like, in exploring this, realized that this feeling is possible to feel and you can attribute it to whatever higher power you want to. You can attribute it to the universe, to universal energy, to God, to Allah, wherever you are most comfortable feeling this feeling emanating from.

[01:31:49] Brett: And for me, it It’s not attributed to any higher power. Um, but I am able to access that feeling of just [01:32:00] being loved. And I think that that feeling for like the, the religion that you’re describing, Christina, I feel like that’s a bigger part of it. People have this faith because it’s about love. It’s about feeling cared for and about just feeling accepted and part of and, and I think that’s true for, I think it’s true for evangelicals, but they mix it with this also eternal damnation

[01:32:27] Christina: Yeah, they, yeah, they, they, they, they mix it with these other things, with this judgment, like this thing that’s

[01:32:32] Brett: Yeah,

[01:32:32] Christina: opposite, this thing that’s the opposite of it in a lot of ways,

[01:32:35] Brett: Yeah, exactly. It’s 100 percent

[01:32:37] Christina: like, like, like, like genuinely, and so, um, uh, I’m gonna, I’m downloading this now, I’m gonna, like, send it to you, there was an EP, it’s no longer available to purchase, this is why I have, well, A, I wouldn’t care about Pirating it anyway would be, but there was a thing for, um, Hurricane, um, actually it might not even been, I don’t remember if it was Hurricane Katrina or not, but they did it.

[01:32:56] Christina: Um, uh, Joseph Arthur did, um, like a [01:33:00] EP where he did, um, versions of In the Sun with, um, Michael Stipe and,

[01:33:04] Brett: Oh, I have, it’s on YouTube. It’s on YouTube.

[01:33:07] Christina: Well, I, I have, I have it, I have it purchased.

[01:33:10] Brett: There are multiple versions with

[01:33:12] Christina: Yes there are.

[01:33:13] Brett: Stipe doing In the Sun. Like, I didn’t realize there was a connection. I discovered Joseph Arthur because a friend of mine was in NA with him

[01:33:23] Christina: Oh, wow.

[01:33:23] Brett: City.

[01:33:24] Christina: So, I discovered

[01:33:26] Brett: like, you should check out this guy.

[01:33:27] Brett: He’s been playing shows here locally and he just put out an album.

[01:33:32] Christina: I discovered him I think because, I think because In the Sun or something like that was featured on Dawson’s Creek. I’m almost

[01:33:37] Brett: Also, that song was in the movie Saved, if you’ve ever seen Saved,

[01:33:42] Christina: is a great movie.

[01:33:42] Bryan: Uh,

[01:33:43] Brett: a great kind of farce about

[01:33:45] Christina: Religion.

[01:33:46] Bryan: of S. A. T. E.

[01:33:48] Jeff: Wow!

[01:33:49] Christina: yes. No, sages so good. Uh, uh, Gina Malone deserved a better career.

[01:33:53] Brett: me, let me add Save to our show notes before I forget.

[01:33:56] Christina: But no, but Gina Malone really, she like, she almost [01:34:00] broke through.

[01:34:00] Bryan: Boys briefly?

[01:34:02] Christina: love them so much and I’m so happy for Kieran. Like that, I, like

[01:34:08] Bryan: And I, I mean, I grew up with a cru Macaulay Culkin and I are near the same age, so, like, crushing on Macaulay Culkin. Macaulay Culkin, Jonathan Brandes, like,

[01:34:17] Christina: Uh,

[01:34:18] Bryan: my, these are my, these are my boy crushes.

[01:34:20] Christina: Devon Sala. Um, uh, I never liked Jonathan Taylor Thomas. I always thought I

[01:34:25] Bryan: I honestly liked, I liked, you know who I liked instead was his younger brother,

[01:34:29] Christina: Oh,

[01:34:30] Bryan: ended up being really tall and gothy.

[01:34:32] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. Taryn Noah Smith. I, I, I know all their names because of course I do because I was like, you know, I, I was an elementary school girl, um, in the nineties.

[01:34:41] Bryan: One thing I didn’t talk about that I want to share with you guys is that, you know, I grew up, um, in the church actually as well, uh, because my mom, uh, I mean, to this day is still very involved with the United Church of Christ, which is like the good church, right? The one that, you know, ordained women and queer people early.[01:35:00]

[01:35:00] Bryan: And you know, um,

[01:35:02] Christina: represent. That’s where I’m from. So I got you. Yeah.

[01:35:04] Bryan: yeah, I mean, the Episcopals are like the, the, the Catholic light version of the United Church of Christ, like the good version, you know? The UCC is as like as left as you get before you hit the Unitarian Universalists. Who are like, anybody, anyone, you know, this week

[01:35:18] Jeff: Today we read from the Gospel of Steinbeck.

[01:35:21] Bryan: exactly, yes. And so I had the experience of thinking that everybody, like all churches, all Christians were cool with like queer people and everything, and then Yeah, and then we had a question on a boy in high school who turned out, like, to be, he’s like, I’m Christian, so, and he’s like, you’re gay, and I don’t understand the problem.

[01:35:42] Christina: right.

[01:35:42] Bryan: but part of, part of this is that I, but, so what’s interesting about this is, there weren’t, like, a separate set of Christian musicians that we listened to that were mainstream, because that didn’t really exist. So like, when I went to church camp, which I did for several years, we would listen to, like, [01:36:00] Michael W.

[01:36:00] Bryan: Smith.

[01:36:01] Christina: yeah, he did break through a little bit. He and Amy Grant, there were a few of them who kind of like,

[01:36:06] Brett: Petra. You remember Petra?

[01:36:08] Christina: Petra

[01:36:08] Bryan: yeah, Pecha,

[01:36:09] Christina: Petra

[01:36:09] Brett: Petra

[01:36:10] Jeff: of breakin through back then. Yeah. Ha,

[01:36:12] Bryan: Yeah, and like, I just remember, like, I needed, but it was, I had this experience of this journey, like, so my connection to Christianity has always very much been about the music.

[01:36:22] Christina: Totally. I

[01:36:23] Bryan: much about the music, and it has been, it has been a very interesting journey as I’ve continued to grow older, of like, finding out that every single, like, Christian artist that you liked, like, does not like you,

[01:36:36] Brett: Yeah, sure.

[01:36:37] Jeff: ha, ha, yeah.

[01:36:38] Bryan: know?

[01:36:39] Bryan: And, but like, but also still deeply, deeply like, the music is so good.

[01:36:44] Christina: Many

[01:36:44] Bryan: I love the music.

[01:36:46] Christina: Well, that’s the thing, like, worship bands Well, some, well, depends, cause like, um, like there was like, like Mute Math, like there was like this whole thing of like, like rock, like Christian type rock bands. Like Swiftfoot, I think is an amazing band and, [01:37:00] and some of these bands like, uh, then like later like had changed, you know, their, their thing to be like, Oh, we’re more secular or whatnot.

[01:37:06] Christina: But like they started out as

[01:37:08] Brett: They went where the money was.

[01:37:10] Christina: they,

[01:37:10] Brett: Christian Rock had a huge, like, that was profitable for people. Like, Striper is a good example of, like, following the money.

[01:37:19] Jeff: with the Ah, man, they were following their own

[01:37:22] Christina: no, uh, no, no, what, what, what I mean is actually more the inverse where these were bands that like got a following and then started to actually be played on mainstream where mainstream didn’t realize that they were Christian and then they decided they wanted to promote themselves more as, as secular.

[01:37:35] Christina: Like Evanescence. Evanescence

[01:37:37] Bryan: I want to call out is just that, like, like, worship music is some of my favorite music out there.

[01:37:42] Christina: Oh, I agree. I, I

[01:37:44] Bryan: progressions, yeah, and the, and the experience of, the other part is, it’s the experience of singing with other people,

[01:37:51] Brett: It’s very

[01:37:52] Bryan: that is just so, well, it’s

[01:37:55] Brett: convince someone they’re having a spiritual experience, sit them through [01:38:00] three or four, like, praise songs with a, with a live band, and then hit them with this, like, do you feel, what you’re feeling right now is because of our Lord and Savior Jesus, and they’ll buy it because it

[01:38:13] Bryan: and what I want to say about that is, Right, and see, what’s weird is, I actually, it’s so interesting, they are having a spiritual experience, but it’s not about any, like, particularly, particular god or anything. It’s about the incredible biological things that happen when you are in sync with other people and you’re singing with them.

[01:38:36] Bryan: Like, that’s,

[01:38:38] Brett: A lot of, a lot of, a lot of human development is like, there’s, there are theories that, um, tribal gatherings that involve music, uh, that

[01:38:48] Bryan: is why I’m obsessed with acapella music.

[01:38:50] Christina: Same.

[01:38:52] Brett: a major, there’s a major component of human development that is based around the social construction of sharing music,[01:39:00]

[01:39:00] Christina: Oh yeah. Without a doubt.

[01:39:01] Bryan: and I

[01:39:02] Brett: and participating, not just sitting and listening, but participating.

[01:39:05] Christina: I, I was. Yes. No, I was just gonna say, like, I grew up in an Episcopal church, so our music, like, I would listen to them to worship music, my mom’s car, my aunt and whatnot, but it wasn’t like we had that in church, because Catholic light. Um, uh, but, like, Um, it definitely is manipulative, but then you, but I think the reason you have like, like Hillsong and like these like worship bands and things like that, you’re not wrong that it can, it can be manipulative and whatnot.

[01:39:32] Christina: But there’s also, I don’t think we can discount the fact that for thousands and thousands of years, like that’s how people have been able to connect and share

[01:39:40] Brett: there’s a real power to

[01:39:41] Christina: yeah,

[01:39:42] Brett: just, I don’t like it when it’s used, when it’s, when it’s attributed to something that isn’t responsible for it. Um, like the music is powerful and the connection of sharing music is powerful. And I think if we say that. It’s awesome. I think that’s, that’s, [01:40:00] that’s that kind of God loves feeling that I’m talking about.

[01:40:03] Brett: That feeling you get from sharing that experience with other people. That is powerful in and of itself and doesn’t need to be a tru Who, who else here memorized DC Talk lyrics at the same time they memorized Vadila Ice lyrics?

[01:40:18] Jeff: Oh, what if you memorized

[01:40:19] Bryan: I memorized

[01:40:20] Jeff: snob? Uh,

[01:40:22] Bryan: memorized the same type of thing, but I wasn’t, I was not a DC, I was not a rock kid. Except like, I was R& B rock, I was Michael Jackson rock, you know. Um. But I memorized, I memorized all of the Michael W. Smith songs, like lyrics, right along memorizing like, Beat It, and Nuke is on the Block lyrics, like, absolutely, I’m with you.

[01:40:43] Brett: DC Talk was the one group that had a black person in Christian Rock at that time. Um, and I thought they must be legit because they had,

[01:40:55] Bryan: I love how this book, this, this thing happened to you, right? Through all [01:41:00] of, like, the, and I don’t know, I don’t know what your parents, like, uh, views on race are, um, but it is fascinating. Okay, it’s separatist. Okay. So, the fact that you are such a, uh, that like, even at that age, you’re like, TC Talk.

[01:41:20] Bryan: They have a black person. They must be legit. Like,

[01:41:22] Brett: It was a rebellion of sorts.

[01:41:25] Bryan: well, that’s fine, but like, there’s a lot of people that don’t do the rebellion, right? And it’s fascinating that you did, that you found your way through that, that way, because there’s still so many people, yeah.

[01:41:39] Brett: you guys ever heard of Cornerstone?

[01:41:42] Jeff: yeah, I was in, I was in, uh, yeah. Yep,

[01:41:45] Brett: It’s a Christian, a Christian rock

[01:41:47] Jeff: Hi, Danny Glamour.

[01:41:50] Brett: Yeah, um,

[01:41:51] Jeff: Oh, oh yeah, Danny Glamour literally, possibly just shut the radio off. He was deep, he was deep in that, in that world.

[01:41:59] Brett: [01:42:00] um, it was the first time I heard Christian death metal, uh, was at Cornerstone, and that was

[01:42:05] Jeff: Christians die.

[01:42:06] Brett: It was a, it was a turning point for me where I was like, when I realized that Christians in this industry, in this particular industry, were basically stealing music that was popular elsewhere and then attributing, like, forcing God into it.

[01:42:28] Brett: And it made me realize maybe I would just like the pure version of this music.

[01:42:33] Jeff: is it stealing and forcing? That seems, uh, ungenerous. What about just

[01:42:39] Bryan: generosity about

[01:42:40] Jeff: a link in the chain and just feeling like, I want to do that, but I have to do it, or I want to do it in this context.

[01:42:46] Brett: we aspire different motives to it, because in my mind it’s very, um, very much a decision. Um, and there was money at that point in selling Christian music. There was like a captive audience of

[01:42:59] Jeff: One Cornerstone had a [01:43:00] label. I

[01:43:00] Brett: who would only buy things because it was Christian. And you could sell them anything as long as it was

[01:43:07] Bryan: There are certain people that, I think to Brett’s, or to Jess point, there are certain people who have that mindset that you’re talking about, Brett. A lot of the actual individuals and artists did not. It was, this is what they were told they had to do.

[01:43:20] Christina: Yes.

[01:43:21] Bryan: But both, so both existed.

[01:43:23] Christina: Yeah, and in fact many of them like I think had kind of like a it’s like okay Who’s gonna sign us? Like what can we do and then you would see like bands like like break beyond that sort of thing right to be like no This isn’t what we care about like, you know do other things then you do have artists like to say like like like Suzanne Stevens who is a very, like, like, faith based, like, musician, and, like, his early stuff, especially, was very, like, the only way you can read the text, like, he’s very explicit about, like, the, the, the Christianity behind it, but, I mean, he’s gay, and he’s one of, like, the best indie musicians out there, like, there’s, there are layers of things, [01:44:00] but if anything, like, it hurt his probably career To be, so to this day, like he still has to kind of fight like the whole like, Oh, I’m a Christian artist thing.

[01:44:07] Christina: And he’s like, I don’t want to talk about my faith when I’m talking about my album, just because it is an inherent part of who I am, but it is not, you know, part and parcel for everything else. But, you know, the, to your point, like when the labels realized that there was a way you could make a shitload of money off these captive audiences, they’re going to make the money, but the bands don’t

[01:44:26] Bryan: of those people were Christian labels too, who like, were absolutely doing the same sort of prosperity gospel

[01:44:32] Christina: of course. Even

[01:44:33] Bryan: those big church leaders were doing as well,

[01:44:36] Christina: Arguably

[01:44:36] Jeff: have an edge case.

[01:44:37] Bryan: all times.

[01:44:38] Christina: You tell

[01:44:38] Jeff: an edge case, Brett, you’re going to love this. So what, first of all, I want to say that, um, Danny Glamour, friend of the show, uh, may or may not, um, have a partner, also a dear friend who drove Striper around on a golf course, uh, on a golf cart at the, um, Cornerstone Music Festival.

[01:44:55] Jeff: May or may not have that experience in his home. Um, and the other weird thing [01:45:00] is that I for just a minute. I was a drummer in a band on the Cornerstone label that always played the Cornerstone Festival.

[01:45:10] Jeff: Because Cornerstone was organized by this organization called Jesus People, USA and, and Jesus people, USA was like the Black Panthers of, of evangelical Christians. They had a label, they had a magazine they had, right? Like they fed, they fed kids like the whole thing. But, um, all of my friends that were there left, I mean, they left in, in a, in a pretty serious wave.

[01:45:28] Jeff: But the , one of the things that helped me to be, uh, uh, in this band was that their albums had all been recorded by Steve Albini. And I thought, wow. I mean, I love the people in this band, but I was like, if I’m in this band. And we make a record, I get to record with Steve Albini. So there’s a bizarre, like, clashing of and Steve Albini’s partner,

[01:45:45] Brett: That is the weirdest sentence I’ve heard in a while.

[01:45:48] Jeff: Steve Albini’s partner then went on to make a sort of expose documentary on Jesus People USA.

[01:45:53] Jeff: It’s just like, I just wanted to throw that in, but I also want to mention that, Christina, you’re, you’re up.

[01:45:58] Christina: Oh, yeah.

[01:45:59] Brett: real.[01:46:00]

[01:46:00] Christina: For real. Um, no, so, um, I think probably the most pressing thing that has had an impact on my mental health corner since we talked last, because there hasn’t been a lot of changes. Um, I did try my, uh, husband’s, um, ProVigil, uh, uh, uh, like for two days this week. And I think that, um, when I talk to my shrink, um, like next week, I think, or two weeks, um, I’m going to bring it up to him, but, um, that might be like a good combo for things.

[01:46:28] Christina: Um, but, uh, my, my week was pretty good in terms of trying to get my ADHD stuff on track. I had a lot of work meetings. Uh, which seems to be a similar theme across all of us. But the thing that, and it’s embarrassing for me to say this, but it’s not because fuck it. This is, this is our show. This had like the biggest impact on my mental health, genuinely, is that I can finally use my Twitter account again after two and a half months.

[01:46:50] Jeff: Oh my God. Yeah.

[01:46:51] Christina: I can’t get into the details of how, but basically, favors were asked. I’m very grateful for, some people who have a way to reach humans there because [01:47:00] again, like, I didn’t do anything wrong. Um, this has been the most frustrating part about this is that Most people in my life have taken the default assumption that I had to have done something wrong for me to be locked out of the account the way that I was locked out of it.

[01:47:13] Christina: And I didn’t. I literally didn’t do anything wrong. Um, I, it was, it was some sort of like a tech snafu thing. And then because this is a company that is run by a megalomaniac, That has very few staffers, you know, in place. Like, you can’t reach a human being and, and it was just like, a problem. Um, and the thing is, is that I am probably going to spend, not even probably, I am going to spend less time on Twitter.

[01:47:37] Christina: I’d already been spending less time there even before, um, I was locked out of my account on November 7th. But like, I want to do it on my own terms. It, you know, having your account show that you, um, might have violated Rules, which leads people to think, oh, well, what the fuck did she say? Which never in 16 years of using the service have I ever even received like a warning, you know, let alone violated rule.

[01:47:59] Christina: [01:48:00] Like I, I don’t do that. You know what I mean? Um, I, and so, uh, then that gets people thinking shit that isn’t true. And then, you know, you have, um, people DMing you because they don’t know, you know, uh, what’s happening and, and you can see the DMs, but you can’t respond to them and you don’t have any other way of contacting them, which is awkward.

[01:48:19] Christina: And then you have people who are, you know, like, again, like sending me, you know, messages other ways. It was making it very difficult for me to do parts of my job. Um, and also again, like, it’s a cautionary reminder for all of us. I think that like, we don’t control these platforms. We don’t control these followings and these things can be taken away from us.

[01:48:36] Christina: And I always knew that. And it wasn’t like I was unaware of that. But when you experience that, I think it makes you like, Uh, at least makes me think doubly hard about, okay, how much do you want to invest on some of these things, um, without having any sort of backup plan? And certainly I could have continued my life without ever having a Twitter account again, but I’m incredibly relieved that I have access to it again.

[01:48:58] Christina: I’m already more [01:49:00] Productive, which I know sounds fucked up, but again, like things that I do with my job, because people see me as one of the main contact forces for the company that I work at. And that means that people will at me and things, or they will try to DM me, and then I have no way of responding.

[01:49:13] Christina: Now I can solve people’s problems. I can like, actually do work. And that’s just been like the Biggest relief off of my chest because I’ve had like just this in addition to the normal anxiety that I feel all the time I’ve had like this additional sense of dread and whatnot of like I genuinely did nothing wrong I could not reach a human being to get this, you know rectified um, this was like just like a bad situation and i’m You know, never changing my display name again.

[01:49:42] Christina: Ever. Ever. Like, never, like, making any, you know, gonna try to make as most minimal changes to, you know, the thing as possible. But, like, fuck. Um, I, I, it sounds dumb, and I’m sure there are plenty of people who, in their mind, are like, Well, and I appreciate you saying that because you actually were [01:50:00] one of the few people who really understood that.

[01:50:01] Christina: Jeff even commented, but how are you doing with this? This has to be like a big thing for you because a lot of people, their flippant reaction and I get it. Um, if you don’t think it through all of its logical things and how people can use tools differently than you use these tools, they can go, well, it’s not that big of a deal.

[01:50:16] Christina: You shouldn’t be on it in any way and, and, and, and good riddance and this and that. And it’s like, okay, again, If I make that choice myself and I do it on my own terms, that’s one thing. When that decision is made for me and I don’t have any way of even having a goodbye message or even telling people, follow me these places.

[01:50:33] Christina: I can’t even pin something. That’s completely different. Um, and

[01:50:38] Brett: the key right there is like people who have left Twitter, more power to them. Um, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re looking out for their own mental

[01:50:47] Christina: Which I totally appreciate. Yeah.

[01:50:49] Brett: And we could do a whole episode on Twitter and mental health, um, or Facebook and mental health, like social media and mental health, but to have it, to have a communication platform [01:51:00] that you depend on in any way, that’s Taken away from you is an inverse effect on mental health.

[01:51:07] Brett: That’s, that has the actual, absolute opposite, uh, reaction

[01:51:12] Christina: no,

[01:51:13] Brett: choosing to leave

[01:51:14] Christina: than choosing to leave and, and I think, you know, and then for me, like, I mean, and so, okay, look, is this tied up in ego? Sure. But, but it is what it is. Like, I’m aware enough

[01:51:24] Jeff: where, it’s where we all live. I mean,

[01:51:26] Brett: I don’t think it is tied up in

[01:51:28] Jeff: it’s like losing your passport.

[01:51:29] Christina: was going to say it kind of is that, but I was, well, I was going to say this aspect, like what you’ve, what I’ve had to kind of realize in some certain regards, it’s like, okay, you know, like a lot of, I owe a lot of my quote unquote success to the personalities and the things I’ve built up online.

[01:51:44] Christina: And when you lose access to that lever, even when that lever has been weakened over time, and even when people leave and whatnot, that’s a loss too, that you then have to like go through a lot of like. Me anyway, I have to go through like a lot of like internal things. Like, well, who am I? Like, do I [01:52:00] matter without having, you know, this thing?

[01:52:02] Christina: Like, because, you know, well, will people still want to, want to talk to me or reach out to me if I don’t have this platform that they see as maybe being more important than it is? Like, I might know how. Unimportant it is and how, like, my reach is, is not what they think it is. But that gives people a certain sense of who I am.

[01:52:18] Christina: What am I without that? And, and how do I exist without that, right? Like, so, and, and that, and that’s the ego part a little bit. And that’s okay to have, again, like those conversations. And I’ve certainly had to kind of grapple with like the, the waning influence as it were, which is fine. But again, to what you were saying, like, uh, Bretton agreeing with me, like, I, you know, do it on your own terms when, when it’s taken away from you.

[01:52:43] Christina: It’s like, it is a negative mental health thing. And so.

[01:52:47] Bryan: I mean, it’s a loss of, I mean, it’s a loss of, it’s a significant and severe loss of control. And also, ego, I just, I want to take a moment to reframe that word, which is that it is [01:53:00] important to have a healthy ego as a person. You know, like you need to have a level of self, like self actualization and self worth and self understanding.

[01:53:12] Bryan: Um. People often think, well, you know, these ideas of, like, will I matter, or do I make a difference, or how do people see me, that these are somehow, like, I mean, it goes back to all of the bullshit of, uh, like, you know, like, uh, The specific of Evangelical Fundamentalist Christianity, the idea of we need to completely be devoid of the self, um, but like, you know, because then you’re not a functional human being.

[01:53:45] Bryan: So, you know, worrying about those things, understanding who you are, understanding whether you matter, that’s why we do things. Very cool. We do things because we want to matter. We want to be seen. We want, we want to be seen to show [01:54:00] that people, so that we know we exist. One thing that I think about so much, especially as I think about, I thought a lot about the experiences of what my, like my identity creation has been as I have sort of pulled those away and thought about them is how often we are forced to place our identities.

[01:54:19] Bryan: in the hands of others. Because so much of what we think about ourselves comes from how other people see us, because we don’t see ourselves. It’s just not a thing that we do regularly,

[01:54:29] Jeff: hmm.

[01:54:30] Bryan: you know? And so, and we are perceived far more, we are perceived by others far more than we perceive ourselves.

[01:54:38] Jeff: Mm.

[01:54:39] Bryan: so, We think about ourselves in the context of what others tell us about ourselves. And I think one of the hardest things to do, and one of the things that I am most impressed of by people who have figured out how to do it, is mainly because it is very antithetical to, I think, being a person in the world [01:55:00] today is people with very strong senses of self don’t get rocked by external things that affect the way others see them because it’s not, like, in some ways it’s not normal.

[01:55:15] Bryan: Like,

[01:55:15] Jeff: yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:55:17] Bryan: because, I mean, that’s how society is built, right?

[01:55:20] Jeff: I was gonna say, who are these people you’re describing?

[01:55:22] Bryan: My partner is one of them. It’s very weird, but I think he had to go through, he had to go through a pretty rough separation and divorce for like, to figure some of that stuff out. I mean, yeah, like we don’t, our society is, is literally founded on the idea that you should care what other people think about you because that’s how you build a community.

[01:55:42] Christina: Right.

[01:55:43] Jeff: Mm.

[01:55:43] Bryan: And there are good things and bad things about that, and the internet has, to some degree, taken it to an nth degree, and we’re, we weren’t prepared for it, and now we’re trying, we’re trying to figure out how do we integrate that, because it’s not going back in the bottle.

[01:55:54] Christina: Right.

[01:55:55] Jeff: Oh, God, no, the bottle just gets bigger, at least. [01:56:00] That didn’t make any sense, but you get what I’m saying. Nerd!

[01:56:05] Bryan: if we put it in the bottle, the bottle just keeps expanding. It’s like, um, a bag of holding, or the TARDIS. It’s bigger on the inside.

[01:56:12] Brett: Nerd.

[01:56:13] Bryan: Oh,

[01:56:13] Brett: Um, are we officially a two hour podcast

[01:56:17] Jeff: I was just gonna say, so whoever’s coming next, we don’t know yet, but the next person that comes on and we don’t go two hours, it’s gonna be awkward, but it’s not gonna be their fault. It’s not gonna be their fault.

[01:56:29] Christina: Season four, year 2024 has been like the year of like the two hour, um, overtired podcast, which honestly does feel like it’s kind of two podcasts melded into one, but I kind of dig it. Like

[01:56:39] Jeff: And it totally tracks with the fact that we’ve had a guest, intentionally, every episode since the year or the season started. Yeah. Which I love.

[01:56:47] Brett: Yeah. I’ve loved it too. I, I think, I think Bryan and I both agree that maybe if we’re going to do a two hour podcast, we should have an intentional bathroom break at like the one hour mark.

[01:56:59] Jeff: [01:57:00] For the

[01:57:00] Brett: five minutes, five minutes to walk around, do your thing, make a cup of coffee, come back.

[01:57:06] Bryan: Yeah, because I mean, definitely I’ve spent half of this episode.

[01:57:10] Brett: Two hours straight with ADHD is rough.

[01:57:14] Bryan: well, and I think one of the things that the two hours, the two hour, the two hour fit does it a little better actually, I think for Overtired to some degree is that most of us at different points in the podcast are off busy being ADHD. And so we can do that, and you don’t feel like, as previously, sometimes I felt like I didn’t get to, we didn’t get as deep as I wanted to because I was, I was off in the mist for 30 minutes. You know, on my

[01:57:41] Jeff: yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Totally. I get that. I get that.

[01:57:45] Brett: All right. Well,

[01:57:46] Jeff: Well, thank anyone who hung to the end, we see you, and you definitely see us.

[01:57:51] Brett: we’ll call it there. We love you all and you guys get some sleep.

[01:57:56] Jeff: Get some sleep.

[01:57:56] Bryan: Get some sleep.

[01:57:57] Christina: Get some sleep. [01:58:00]

Merlin Mann joins the show to talk mental health, generative AI, and be an all around fun guy.

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Transcript

Emotional Sweep with Merlin Man

[00:00:00] Brett: Hey, you’re listening to Overtired. I’m Brett Terpstra. I’m here, as usual, with Christina Warren and Jeff Severance Gunsel. We have a special guest this week. I’d like to welcome Merlin Mann. How’s it going, Merlin?

[00:00:20] Merlin: It’s going great. Hi team.

[00:00:22] Brett: Hey, um, so we, we’ve been,

[00:00:26] Merlin: That’s not really abrupt. I’m trying to be efficient because we had a really nice conversation for 15 minutes before, and I have to act like we’re just starting. Hey, hey you guys, how’s it going? I’m

[00:00:35] Brett: we just talked for 20 minutes before the show, um, and we’re gonna try to capture some of that magic again. Um, uh,

[00:00:43] Merlin: in a way that’s really organic and nobody will

[00:00:45] Christina: Yeah, you’ll totally feel it. It won’t, it won’t, won’t be like recreating stuff. I don’t know. I’m

[00:00:50] Jeff: You’re gonna love this, everybody.

[00:00:51] Brett: we got Merlin to open Chrome today.

[00:00:54] Christina: Hell yeah.

[00:00:56] Merlin: Yeah. I think I just got some new credit [00:01:00] cards or something. I’m not sure. I, a lot, I opened Chrome

[00:01:04] Jeff: That’s on us.

[00:01:05] Christina: ARC.

[00:01:06] Merlin: I

[00:01:06] Brett: Yeah,

[00:01:07] Merlin: think it took a photo of my balls. Um, I’m not sure.

[00:01:11] Jeff: We meant to take that out

[00:01:13] On Podcasting with Video

[00:01:13] Brett: you’re on video, which is probably rare for you when you’re recording a podcast.

[00:01:18] Merlin: I’m going to tell you something. I used to be on a podcast a long time ago, and it was a pretty well known, like popular podcast. And at one point they stopped doing just straight up Skype and started going to doing like video, but for an audio product. And I just think that if you have video on, I get it.

[00:01:35] Merlin: But if you don’t release that as video. There’s a huge component of it that people are missing. And like, and it’s not, so like, that’s okay. But then the problem is you, you get so used to it that you start saying things that’ll, we’re doing things like some of the faces I’m making and like, I can partner Jeff while we’re here.

[00:01:53] Merlin: And like that kind of stuff, which will not go through the listener. And I think that makes a, can make a less good show, but this show I feel very [00:02:00] strongly about. This is, I’m happy to be on video at 10, 20 AM on a Saturday morning. Because I obviously, I was able to get to my stylist and pick my fourth favorite Roderick on the Line shirt, so.

[00:02:13] Christina: Yeah. I also got to a stylist. Uh, the joke here, uh, listeners is I’m just wearing like a, a North Face like beanie and, um, uh, a

[00:02:22] Merlin: that, it’s from that, uh, that, that Italian stylist. I think her name is, uh, Ilaria Hatt, I think.

[00:02:28] Jeff: Oh, man.

[00:02:32] Brett: I tried to convince these guys to record video and put out like a YouTube version of the show and it has not gone over well. They’re both shaking their heads right now. Um,

[00:02:42] Merlin: think as long as you understand it’s a different thing, it’s good. Like with You Look Nice Today, we did video and I thought it turned out pretty good considering it was the lockdown and, but like, as long as you understand the parameters, a phrase I use that I won’t go into, but in the world of podcasts, I call it the little world.

[00:02:57] Merlin: Each podcast I love tends to have a little world. [00:03:00] It’s got voices that I like in it. It’s got bits. It’s got stuff. I, yeah, I yell at it. I like, I yell it. I yell at the guys on Accidental Tech. Podcast all the time. ’cause they’re uniformly horrible. Like, but that’s their little world. You decide what comes into the little world.

[00:03:12] Merlin: But if you never get a beat on what your little world is, you never let it become the thing that it is. Like you just start throwing stuff at it for what you regard as metrics. See, now I’m holding Caulfield. It’s so nice to be here on video with you. And I’m, I’m not

[00:03:26] Jeff: of the show Holden Caulfield.

[00:03:28] Brett: I

[00:03:29] Merlin: my Twitter, but my bio on Neston for a while was, uh, lifestyle Holden Call Field.

[00:03:34] Merlin: Have you never seen so many phonies in your whole life?

[00:03:37] Christina: ha ha.

[00:03:39] Harold, you were right

[00:03:39] Brett: to make a correction at the top of the show. Um, I said last week that, um, Axeman was in Minneapolis, uh,

[00:03:48] Merlin: The Marvel comic?

[00:03:49] Jeff: And I let you say it.

[00:03:50] Brett: Ed, and, and our, our friend of the show, Harold, um, he let me know, uh, in no uncertain terms that Axeman was in [00:04:00] St. Paul. So forgive me for that.

[00:04:02] Jeff: I love that. My favorite thing of seeing shows in St. Paul is how many times the bands go. It’s great to be in Minneapolis. Harold.

[00:04:12] Brett: I don’t want to, I don’t want to call Harold pedantic because he would definitely tell me I was using the word wrong. Um,

[00:04:19] Merlin: it’s pronounced Pedant. Oh, Francais.

[00:04:25] Brett: well, like, uh, Merlin, you and Dan used to, uh, he had a funny bit about my last name.

[00:04:31] Merlin: we, and we stopped because I, it

[00:04:34] Brett: know, because I, I was, I was, I was somehow offended, and then, like, I, I was a dick about it, I’m sorry, like, it was actually an honor

[00:04:45] Merlin: little world,

[00:04:47] Jeff: What was the bed?

[00:04:48] Merlin: Well, like, we have, we have, we have, no, but we’ve got funny ways we say things. Like, for, like, anything that’s got B’s in it is always funny. We are like, Bluetooth, bunk bag. There’s just certain words [00:05:00] that are just funny. And, and every time I’d say, oh my god, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:05:02] Merlin: I have all these services and like, Brett, I mean. QED, sorry if it’s your first time tuning in, Brett runs my life. Like, whether that’s marked, like there’s just so much stuff in my life that is, is Brett stuff or Brett adjacent stuff. And I would constantly be like, Oh, but there’s a service that lets you just select some text and then that adds the kind of markdown bullets that you like to it.

[00:05:24] Merlin: And Brett Terpstra, Terpstra, Terpstra. And he’d say it like that, but he did it very percussively. Sorry about that. It, it was meant in love, but

[00:05:36] Brett: Yeah, no, I got that after, after you stopped doing it, I’m like, holy shit, I never should’ve,

[00:05:42] Merlin: It’s like people saying to me, like the magician, and I say, yeah, like the magician, which I’d never heard before.

[00:05:47] Jeff: Brett, do you want to regain your power and just speak your name to Merlin

[00:05:50] Merlin: Yes, thank you! Thank you!

[00:05:54] Brett: No,

[00:05:55] Merlin: They called me Mr. Terpstra.

[00:05:58] Mental Health Corner

[00:05:58] Brett: I abdicate, I abdicate [00:06:00] my power. Um, so we, at the top of most shows, we do a mental health corner, and for the last two episodes, that mental health corner has run like an hour, and it’s supposed to be like 15 minutes. Um, so, if it’s gonna run long, I want it to be Merlin’s fault, so, Uh, what we do is we check in on our mental health.

[00:06:22] Brett: All three of the regular hosts have their own diagnoses. And, and we talk about how things are

[00:06:29] Merlin: from some kind of an accredited professional, or more like I’m pretty sure I’m

[00:06:33] Jeff: we work

[00:06:33] Merlin: sure I’m OCD.

[00:06:35] Jeff: 1.

[00:06:37] Brett: So, so I would like to turn it over. Merlin, how are you doing this week?

[00:06:42] Merlin: Uh, me first?

[00:06:44] Brett: I, cause if this runs long, I want it to be your fault. Like, and if it’s short, great.

[00:06:49] Merlin: um, well it, it, this is almost all I talk about, so I’ll try to keep it brief, but, uh, my mental health pretty good. Pretty [00:07:00] good. Uh, I have an ongoing project that, uh, I’m, I’m gonna just go ahead and kind of, kind of mention just for context ’cause it’s, it’s something I’m trying to socialize, which is like, it’s just, just a whole bunch of stuff.

[00:07:12] Merlin: in my life where I’ve had a reason to become more aware of certain aspects of my mental health. Something my friend John at Syracuse introduced to me, something called the XY problem, which has become like kind of instrumental in my life, is like, you tell, you want help from somebody and so you say you have a problem with X, but that expert would be in a position to tell you sometimes after minutes or hours that actually you have a problem with Y.

[00:07:35] Merlin: To paraphrase Stephen Covey, you have your ladder against the wrong wall in that sense. Um, and, Things like trauma, issues with authority, things like that. I’ve just realized I’ve only, I’ve really, I think that’s something I’m really turning over a lot right now is the role of shame in our lives and how at least I feel like we were, we’re all, I’m 57, so like the way I was raised, not in, Tensionally, I don’t think, but like, [00:08:00] there’s just so much shame in all of our lives and I’m starting to wonder, uh, about the extent to which that shame drives some of our lesser angels and how we, and how we’re motivated, how we talk to ourselves, obviously very importantly, but also like the kinds of like, we’re carrying water for gym teachers.

[00:08:19] Merlin: in 1978 sometimes. And so that’s something, pardon me, I’m getting over a cold. That’s something where like, I’ve been had a, I had a big health thing that I’ve been dealing with. And, and one aspect of that and having to be in the hospital for three days was for the first time, you know, ever was like just confronting this whole way of like, well, how much do you drink?

[00:08:39] Merlin: Did you know your blood pressure is high? Did you colonoscopy in too long? And it’s just like all these things that are meant to be. Even like, honestly, on the label useful things from a person are so often usually unintentionally grounded in shame, reiterating shame, and ultimately, at least in my, this is where I get real weird, [00:09:00] is in the way people unintentionally as a society, as a culture, as a tribe, teach us a certain kind of shame.

[00:09:06] Merlin: That we’re, we eventually learned to carry and put onto ourselves and consequently put on others. And if you’ve ever wondered about that, ask your parents why they’re how they were. And there’s a pretty good chance your parents were how they were because their parents made them ashamed about it. So now when we yell at our kids about screen time, whatever that means, like when we yell at our kids about stuff, we’re basically saying something that we hope impresses a dead parent.

[00:09:28] Merlin: So that’s something I think about a lot right now and I’m operationalizing. As a, as a project to, as I explained recently on another show, there’s like this two track approach of like, yeah, continuing to try and become a better person and a more wholesome person and a more kind person. And, and again, kindness is a lot of about what you don’t do in life.

[00:09:48] Merlin: It’s not stuff people see. A lot of the writing, a lot of your writing is writing you don’t do. People won’t see, realizing you don’t need to write. All those kinds of like those complex, like internal voyages we take. So my [00:10:00] mental health is pretty good considering. Um, but that, that’s a thing I’m thinking about a lot right now.

[00:10:05] Merlin: How are you guys?

[00:10:07] Jeff: Oh man, can I?

[00:10:08] Brett: Okay, go ahead,

[00:10:09] Jeff: Go ahead. I was going to say the thing about carrying the shame that is in a way carrying the shame of a parent. Um, there was a thing a therapist said to me a long time ago and it was like this, it was this thing to say, right? So it’s kind of funny to say these things out loud and especially in public, but it really hits there, which is like to find a way to hand it back in a way that doesn’t feel like resentful.

[00:10:30] Jeff: She was like, she was like, I have been carrying this for you out of love. And I return it to you now, with

[00:10:37] Merlin: Yeah, one of the numerous burdens we get from people that we love, whether that’s something that somebody regards as an heirloom, that’s been sitting in a basement for 10 years that you’ve been saving for some reason. There’s all these things that we give to somebody, but you’re right, but how do you, the turning back is such an interesting idea.

[00:10:52] Merlin: Like, I understand so much, I feel like, about, oh, it’s always an evolving understanding of why the people in my life are how they are, I think. [00:11:00] think in particular, my mom’s husband died when we were all pretty young, including my dad. And like, she just, I think could never bear the idea of loss of like losing me in particular.

[00:11:13] Merlin: Like I was the last thing she had apart from the Pontiac. And like, how do you, how do you do that without being a little bit of a nut? And sometimes the more we care about somebody in our head, The way I would phrase it, I would never say this publicly, but the way I would phrase it is like, no, and really, really just kind of talk yourself into being a nut about something, but because it comes from a good place, that’s who you are now.

[00:11:35] Merlin: And it’s the turning, turning it back part is so interesting, but like, I don’t know, it was a phrase I picked up somehow a long time ago, which is, uh, instrumental again for me. Stupid can’t stick to me. It’s like, I get to define the terms of my personal integrity and I get to decide. Who’s BS I’m going to carry around.

[00:11:53] Merlin: So whether that goes for news articles, I don’t need to see, you know, anger about Twitter or like whatever it is. There’s just all [00:12:00] this stuff where I’ve learned to become a little more reflective about that and go, I can understand that, but that doesn’t mean I have to eat a plate of it all the time.

[00:12:06] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:09] Brett: God, you sound like someone who’s been through therapy. Do you do

[00:12:12] Christina: I was gonna say, I was gonna say, this is, this is definitely sounding like therapy talk, which is, I don’t mean in a derogatory way at all,

[00:12:19] Brett: No, we all love therapy.

[00:12:21] Christina: all love

[00:12:22] Merlin: it’s, it’s so interesting and so ironic, ironic, because no, I don’t do talk therapy, uh, but, you know, I don’t have time to go into it, it’s a corner, it’s a very

[00:12:34] Brett: all this wisdom.

[00:12:36] Merlin: I do pick up a lot of wisdom, that’s true. The um, but like that book, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van

[00:12:42] Merlin: der Kolk. Has just, I think about it more than anything I’ve read since getting things done. If for people who know them, the Merlin podcast universe, like it’s, I think about the body keeps the score constantly and not because I’m a Vietnam vet, but because so much we understand or [00:13:00] think we understand about how we got, how we are.

[00:13:02] Merlin: is, elides some, not, I’m not gonna be like that guy who’s like, yeah, well it’s all like medical, and it’s all medical, but the problem is like your brain is trying so hard to help you, and the more we feed it the stuff that we think is helping, it’s like drinking salt water. It’s not actually gonna quench your thirst, you’re just a guy on a boat drinking the ocean, but that feels like the right thing to do, and that book, which is about trauma, and the way that trauma kind of leaves a mark on you in a, An invisible but very real way, uh, not just about trauma, but if I had one pitch to make, well, first of all, I’d say listen to that interview with Ezra Klein with Kolk.

[00:13:41] Jeff: Oh,

[00:13:41] Merlin: got me into it. Really good interview, like a life changing interview for me. But also that it’s, it’s, it’s interesting, one of the, part of the thrust of the book that I hate to spoil is that, yeah, I know you think you don’t have trauma. I know. That’s the point. The point is that your body and your mind, which are actually highly related, [00:14:00] your brain is doing everything it can to keep you from being sad, to keep you from being expelled by the tribe for pointing out that the priest touched your tutor.

[00:14:08] Merlin: Like, whatever it is, there’s stuff in your body and your mind that represent adaptations over, you know, millions of years. And, um, and so when we say we don’t have trauma, well, it’s because That’s because that’s, that’s how the body keeps the score. Is that like you, you teach yourself to believe that only people who are in Treblinka had trauma and you’re like, well, no, if you really accept that you’ve been re injured in the same spot thousands of times, sometimes without anything actually happening.

[00:14:34] Merlin: Anybody here ever been scared when the phone rings? I don’t know why you’re scared when the phone rings. I know that I am too, and I know that that is far from a unique thing that only

[00:14:43] Christina: No, we, usually what it is is that it, you know, it’s like any sort of, you know, um, uh, PTSD or whatever is that you’ve had like an event that was triggered, the really negative thing that was triggered when someone called you and you had that experience and, and like, so, and, and it’s

[00:14:58] Merlin: I’m about, I’m about to be evicted [00:15:00] or my mom is dead.

[00:15:01] Christina: Right. Well, I

[00:15:01] Jeff: Yeah, exactly.

[00:15:02] Christina: I do, still sometimes have like, when my mom calls me to this day, I’ll never forget because when she, like the worst phone call I’ve ever received was when, um, my aunt and uncle died, um, two days after Thanksgiving and it was completely unexpected and, um, I’m going to get emotional even talking about it.

[00:15:20] Christina: No, you can’t. And in that case, it was the, the, the thing that I guess, like I have residual issues overnight and I’m again, like, you know, just, you have the emotional response, even like Thinking back all these years later is I will never forget the sound of her voice.

[00:15:36] Jeff: Mm.

[00:15:37] Christina: was like,

[00:15:38] Merlin: And Christina, I’ll

[00:15:38] Christina: worst thing I’ve ever heard.

[00:15:40] Merlin: you never want that news again, but you also never want to hear your mom

[00:15:43] Christina: Well, that’s really what it is. It has, the news is, is, is the less, um, important aspect because the, the part of that that is still emotional for me is my mom’s reaction and knowing how she felt. And [00:16:00] so, There are times that, yeah, like, the phone will ring and it’s my mom and like, you know, I’ll do like a little deep breath because you’re like, okay, am I ever going because I, I do know, unfortunately, that I will probably hear her sound that way again. And, and so

[00:16:19] Merlin: it happens in your head or in life. It happens when the phone rings.

[00:16:23] Christina: Right. Right.

[00:16:24] Merlin: like, why is everybody, why is somebody weird about, like, somebody ringing the doorbell? You millennials are all avocado toast or whatever. And it’s like, well, no, that’s, that’s, I’ve, and I’ve very much been that person. I’ve very much been that person of, like, trigger warnings, like, grow up.

[00:16:37] Merlin: Like, I’ve been that person and I have become more vulnerable and open to the idea that But like, I, I just, I think there’s, there’s so many unnecessary negativities that inhabit our lives that we unintentionally, um, give to others, but also are constantly looking for a way to put on ourselves. And it, [00:17:00] a lot of us are having a pretty weird day before the phone rings and like, If there’s one way I try to describe the anxiety that I have, and probably as a component I think of my ADHD, is that I experience a lot of things much more deeply than other people, especially negative things, and more saliently, it sticks with me a lot longer.

[00:17:19] Merlin: And that’s why it becomes a very lonely journey to try and explain to somebody why you don’t like the phone ringing. And that turns into like, again, this thing of like, oh, Gen Z is however, but no, it’s like, It’s like we, you can’t really describe it to people, not least because we are not encouraged to interrogate why that is.

[00:17:34] Merlin: We are not encouraged to figure out. On the one hand, like it’s, and it’s things, it’s not an unalloyed good or easy thing to just have some journey and go like, well, I’ve decided this is, you know, it’s kind of like Irish version, Irish Catholic version of therapy where you like have an afternoon and then like, okay, no, go back to your craziness.

[00:17:51] Merlin: Like it’s, it’s very difficult to try and Locate that in yourself, let alone articulate to somebody that you care about.[00:18:00]

[00:18:00] Christina: Right.

[00:18:00] Merlin: it comes out as I’m mad at everybody sometimes. Like again, Van Der Kolk talks about this. Why are these Vietnam vets coming back? They’re so screwed up. But why do they have bursts of anger?

[00:18:10] Merlin: Why, you know, something I

[00:18:11] Christina: They’ve been holding it in, because they have to pretend like they’re okay for so long. And, and then,

[00:18:16] Merlin: totally, totally

[00:18:17] Christina: it can’t do anything else. So it just

[00:18:19] Merlin: But also like when I was, I heard fight or flight as talking about the autonomic responses. I’ve heard about fight or flight most of my life. You know, I didn’t hear until, until that book was Freeze. And I think Freeze needs a lot more widespread understanding

[00:18:33] Brett: I only learned about Freeze

[00:18:35] Merlin: happened to you and you were held, were held down, I’m not even saying it has to be that, but you know, that feeling of, I can’t escape from how this is right now.

[00:18:43] Merlin: And that’s pretty close to how I feel when I’m, I don’t have. Panic attacks per se, but that’s pretty close to how I feel when the phone rings is like, what is happening right now will be the worst thing that ever happened to me, and it will last forever. And I know I won’t be able to handle it. That’s how it is.

[00:18:59] Merlin: [00:19:00] And I bet more people are like that than they’d like to admit.

[00:19:02] Brett: I’ve probably talked about this before, but, uh, both of my grandfathers died on the same day. And,

[00:19:10] Jeff: That’s so crazy.

[00:19:11] Brett: my maternal grandfather lived with us in the house I was in when I was 12. Um, and I woke up to the ambulances carting him out after a heart attack. And, um, so my mom’s already I’ve seen her cry for maybe the first time ever, um, and then the phone rings and my dad picks it up and it is the only time I’ve ever seen my dad cry.

[00:19:37] Brett: Like, to this day, it is the only time, uh, when he found out his father was dead, also of a heart attack, on the same day. Um, it was,

[00:19:46] Merlin: And, but you’re, you’re, it’s interesting how some of these stories, including Christina’s, including yours, a lot of mine, and this, this comes up, I think, in, in some of your better media, is like, yeah, I don’t want crappy things to happen to me. Like, I don’t want it, for example, there’s, I watched something [00:20:00] recently where somebody was very brutally beat up, and The, the thing about it was like the thing that made it difficult for them and for the kid who saw it was the, the kid eventually understood the kid, that guy, he didn’t want to get beat up.

[00:20:13] Merlin: My dad didn’t want to get beat up. But what he really didn’t want was for me to have to see it, to see him in that state. There’s something about seeing people we love in a, in a very vulnerable and being hurt and vulnerable and us knowing there’s nothing that we can do about it. How that’s a kind of a form of freeze in some ways, I feel like.

[00:20:34] Brett: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I only, like, I started talking about Fight or Flight to my therapist, and she clarified that it’s Fight, Flight, or Freeze, and that was, that was news to me at the time. I’m like, actually, that explains a lot of what I go through when I talk to my parents, when I get it. You know, triggered by religious stuff and things that have caused me trauma in the past.

[00:20:59] Brett: Um, I [00:21:00] freeze. I do. Yeah. Shame. For sure. I, like Merlin, you haven’t listened to the show for a while, but I was recently diagnosed with PTSD. Oh, should I just, can I just do a quick mental health corner? Um,

[00:21:12] Merlin: Well, I wish you would. And also, you know, this is probably not for the show, but you and I had a nice visit not too long ago, where I reached out to you because I knew that you were,

[00:21:24] Brett: yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[00:21:25] Merlin: we had a, we, you know, we had a call.

[00:21:27] Brett: Yeah, we did. We did.

[00:21:29] Merlin: And like, it was, it was really, it was really something to get to chat with you, but I, I wish you would share that with your listeners, you know.

[00:21:35] Brett: so, yeah, so, well, I was recently diagnosed with PTSD, which is the DSM version of what I actually have, which is Complex PTSD, which is PTSD that stems not from a single event, but from repeated trauma, and, um,

[00:21:51] Merlin: yours especially localized to religion? Wasn’t there, isn’t there like a name for

[00:21:55] Brett: much, it’s very much what is known as Religious Trauma Syndrome, [00:22:00] um, and, uh, that’s also not a DSM term, which we talked about last week, but, um, they are recognized, kind of, maladies, if you will, and the, when you talk about shame, when you talk about, so like, The only people I can blame directly for that kind of repeated trauma are my parents.

[00:22:22] Brett: Um, but I also have to recognize that especially my mom came from a deep south, long line of, like, Baptist

[00:22:31] Merlin: were probably both doing their best every day. And that’s the problem.

[00:22:34] Brett: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And, and I

[00:22:37] Merlin: We always assume that we’re, we’re, we’re good at stuff and everybody else sucks or isn’t as smart or isn’t as careful or isn’t as pious. But like, this is something again from, that I wrote in this thing that I’m working on, which is like every day, everybody’s doing their, this is so annoying to people to say this, but every day, everybody’s doing their best.

[00:22:53] Merlin: And that’s the problem. Like when you say, Oh, do better. Well, like, that’s like, why don’t you just be

[00:22:58] Christina: Fuck off.

[00:22:58] Merlin: Well, it [00:23:00] is what, it was what it was to paraphrase the cliche, which is like, if you could have done better that day, don’t you think you would have?

[00:23:07] Christina: Most

[00:23:07] Merlin: And that’s, that being a parent is a lot, I mean, like, not just me, but like everybody is like, Oh man, I wish I could redo that.

[00:23:13] Merlin: I wish I could retake that. I wish I could have avoided saying like, again, I don’t want to trigger anybody, but like stuff like, you know, why didn’t you finish your dinner? Which seems like such an innocuous, we’re from a family, we worry about people in China who are starving or whatever. I’m like, yeah, but you also might be giving your kid a little bit of an eating disorder because of how often you point out that you don’t realize this.

[00:23:34] Merlin: Because you can’t realize this. You don’t realize how often you’re telling your daughter you think she doesn’t know how to eat and how to be healthy. And you mean it in the best possible way. You’re doing the best you can every day. But again, you’re trying to impress your dead mother when you do that.

[00:23:47] Merlin: And you just don’t know it. It’s my opinion anyway.

[00:23:49] Jeff: You’re trying to stay in the tribe.

[00:23:51] Brett: my mother once told me and I talked to her about this. She doesn’t remember it, but I was, I was home from college and I was talking about, I, I [00:24:00] had, I was after college. I had been recently diagnosed as bipolar. And, um, she said to me that she was sorry. And I’m going to paraphrase because this isn’t how she said it, but what I heard was, I’m sorry I had you.

[00:24:18] Brett: I’m sorry I birthed you and passed on all of these defects that run in my family, like her mother had clinical depression, her brother was bipolar, um, like there’s undiagnosed ADHD, and she felt like she was responsible for where I was at, and her response to that was to apologize for bringing me into this world, and holy shit, that is like, Honestly, the only thing I could feel was sympathy for her.

[00:24:50] Brett: The fact that she felt responsible

[00:24:52] Merlin: think she meant it as, I’m sorry, you, I mean, like, like it’s, it’s become very occurrent to go, okay, how can anybody have kids today in this world with the environment and the [00:25:00] blah, blah, blah, blah. But once you’ve had a kid, you never say, oh boy, I really wish I hadn’t had this kid, I really want to help the environment.

[00:25:05] Merlin: That’s just

[00:25:05] Brett: and that’s not what she meant. That’s just what I heard, and that’s not the way she said it. She said it in a very, like, Kind of apologetic, loving way, uh, like, I’m sorry I’m responsible for, I’m sorry I passed all of this on to you, um, yeah, which is its own form of, well, honestly, I think I got my ADHD from my dad’s side, and I’ve learned that both ADHD and bipolar are symptoms of complex PTSD, so

[00:25:35] Merlin: dude, I

[00:25:35] Brett: maybe I

[00:25:36] Merlin: every conversation we’ve had for 15 years. I can’t even tell you, like, let’s just one word, lemictal. I can’t tell you how many people I know who got whatever, they started however they are, nobody would help them because they thought they were weird, and they had a brain problem, and that’s a whole thing when you go to a doctor.

[00:25:50] Merlin: Like, oh, no, no, I’d rather just treat your strain from pickleball. I don’t want to deal with your brain. That’s like for a different, that kind of dog. Fucking pickleball. You’re wearing the wrong pickleball shoes. [00:26:00] I just learned about pickleball shoes, which to me is like a video game chair. I just don’t understand it.

[00:26:03] Merlin: But like, but, but, but you go like, I, you know, I, everybody’s trying to help. Everybody’s trying to be decent, but also everybody is, is unintentionally walking around. And I’m not going to get into a political thing that causes problems here, but just. Insert once this idea that, that what if, what if you look to people and I’m not saying it means you have to like people.

[00:26:24] Merlin: I’m not saying this just, but like the first step toward a lot of things is understanding and understanding something on its terms rather than yours. And if all we ever do is choose to see our world through our own terms, maybe the secondary thing that sucks is the world won’t get better. But a primary thing that sucks is you won’t get better because you are so.

[00:26:43] Merlin: Cleft to these parameters, these, you know, ice cube, paper thin walls of like, that have, that have like formed who you are. And I, I think there’s a way to handle that in a way that’s. muscular and assertive and is not [00:27:00] just merely about going, I’m mad at the world and want to do primal, primal scream therapy.

[00:27:04] Merlin: Not saying you shouldn’t, but it’s, it’s really complicated. But like, I can’t tell you how many friends I have now I’ve learned are, have taken Lamictal. And like, first they were just another screwed up person. And then they, Oh my God, you have depression. Okay, cool. Thanks. As my shrink told me the first month that I was with like, there’s so many problems with people.

[00:27:24] Merlin: Depression being the thing that they’ve identified in the client and then not realizing that it is actually a bipolar and maybe not even the bipolar that you thought. And guess what? If you, we’ve talked about this before, if you treat somebody for chronic depression, MDD, like any of the depressions, there’s a pretty good chance that the thing you’re using to treat them will actually harm them because the depression is just one aspect.

[00:27:49] Merlin: I mean, if you keep putting gas in your glove box, your car’s not going to go. And if that’s somebody whose job it is to put gas in the glove box, which sounds [00:28:00] like a line from a Steely Dan song, but if that’s that person’s job, they’re going to be very, is there gas in the glove box? Like they’re going to be very resistant to going, well, I don’t understand.

[00:28:07] Merlin: Why would you want gas in the tank? That, that seems like a fire hazard. I don’t know. It sounds silly, but like, it’s.

[00:28:13] Brett: I know what you mean.

[00:28:14] Merlin: But then on top of it all, I have two friends that I co host podcasts with, who started out that way, and we’ve gone through the first two, third one, oh guess what, you’ve actually got, I don’t know how we phrase this, but bipolar, a diagnosis of being bipolar.

[00:28:27] Merlin: And then in each instance, both of them got a subsequent diagnosis of Say it with me, Brett.

[00:28:32] Brett: ADHD.

[00:28:33] Merlin: ADHD. And guess what? That makes all of those preceding things so much more complicated.

[00:28:39] Brett: Mm hmm. Oh my god, yes. That is, that is the tightrope I walk, is how do I treat my ADHD without triggering manic episodes, um, and Like, when I’m in a depressive state, ADHD meds don’t do anything for me. [00:29:00] Um, when I am depressed, I can take all the stimulants I want, it’s not gonna fix it. Um, and

[00:29:06] Merlin: Can I just guess that, and if you get too much of the ADHD when you’re

[00:29:10] Brett: you’re manic.

[00:29:10] Merlin: when you’re the other, well, you know, do we say manic? When you ride on the trains in Chicago a lot all weekend, for example, a friend of mine, but like when you’re having an episode, if you were to pop an Adderall or a Vyvanse or like a whatever, that might even further escalate the

[00:29:26] Brett: so I, one of the things, um, for a long, and I know that you have been on Folklin before as well, Um, when Uh, when I switched back to Vyvanse after a long time, uh, my, the driving force was, I would get Manic, and I would, I would love my Vyvanse, uh, my Focaline. Like, my Focaline would extend my Manic episodes to a point where it was problematic.

[00:29:55] Brett: And I was basically using the Focaline,[00:30:00]

[00:30:00] Merlin: in a movie? In a movie when somebody does cocaine, they don’t do a little bit of cocaine and then stop.

[00:30:05] Jeff: yeah, yeah,

[00:30:05] Merlin: It’s like, and certainly you could say to that person in a very lucid way, Hey, you know, uh, Al Pacino in Scarface, I think you’ve had enough cocaine for now. Like, you’ve got the cocaine you need to do your work.

[00:30:16] Merlin: And now maybe don’t have all of the

[00:30:18] Brett: problem. I know how

[00:30:19] Merlin: know what makes you want to do cocaine? In part, is cocaine. And, and, and like, I know the way I’ve described this in a way that I imagine is controversial to some people is that like, I got off Adderall because it was, long story, but like, there’s never been anything that made me feel more like myself than Adderall.

[00:30:37] Merlin: 22 minutes from I wake up to I’m writing and like, let me get my hands around life in a way. It ended up that the side effects or the results of being on Adderall were not always good, but like, you have to, I feel like you have to be so careful because if you’re looking at your life in terms of.

[00:30:58] Merlin: Integrity, by which I don’t mean [00:31:00] brand, but in terms of wholeness, in a more, like, kind of Buddhist way. If you look at your life as having, like, a contiguous series of events and thoughts that represents you, it’s the triple dip cream dream to find whatever it is that helps you be who you want to be, to become who you want to become, or a Similar thing, it’s like, to feel like how I want to feel.

[00:31:20] Merlin: Now those all are very related, but those can, you have somebody who’s doing just a butt ton of cocaine going, It helps me be who I want to be. To quote the now discredited Bill Cosby, you know, uh, a great bit. No, I grew up on Bill Cosby. I’m not going to

[00:31:32] Jeff: Oh man. Why is there air? Why is there air? I played that record. I mean, as much as

[00:31:36] Merlin: Oh, for me it was my brother, brother Russell, whom I slept with and um, but there’s one where he’s talking, there’s one in, in Bill Cosby himself, the special where he’s talking about drugs and talking about people who do cocaine and people say, Hey, you got to do the cocaine cause it makes you, you know, more of however you are and you flip this.

[00:31:54] Merlin: I said, well, what if you’re an asshole? And like, yeah. [00:32:00] Some of us are an asshole, and the cocaine’s not making it better, but is that kind of what you’re talking about, where like, in that, in that, at that moment, I have, again, a dear friend of mine, that I think has been on the show, like, has to be circumspect about reloading the pistol with the stuff that seems like

[00:32:17] Brett: like I’ve, I’ve had a cocaine addiction. Like I’ve been through that. I know exactly what you mean when you say cocaine makes you want cocaine. Um, it’s a self perpetuating cycle and no, like I, I got clean. I haven’t 20 years. Uh, but Focalin. is the closest I’ve ever gotten to doing cocaine again. It brought that, uh, frontal lobe kind of pleasure and feeling

[00:32:46] Merlin: does feel like something is lighting up. Something that was dim before is now lighting up.

[00:32:50] Brett: So what’s been happening for the last week, uh, I think even before, I think I mentioned this last time we recorded, is I thought I might have switched [00:33:00] to type one bipolar because I was just having day after day of being productive, but I was sleeping and Like, I’ve been sleeping 8 hours a night, I’ve been sleeping 9 hours a night, and then having these productive days, and what I’ve realized is this is maybe what normal people have.

[00:33:23] Brett: Um, this level of energy I’ve always seen in other people who just have this constant

[00:33:29] Merlin: How are you still having, I say to my wife sometimes, like, how are you still having meetings at three o’clock? You’ve had so many meetings today, and like, you, and like, I have a place where she works, I don’t know why, they do lots of meetings on Fridays, and I’m always like, well that’s crazy for a variety of reasons.

[00:33:42] Christina: Totally.

[00:33:43] Brett: company doesn’t do meetings on

[00:33:45] Merlin: But like people but like seriously though like people others in that example though or like or people who are still like I’m like How are you is it just coffee? I know you people love your coffee drinks, but like how are you still so Conscious let alone animated at like three or four o’clock. I I might [00:34:00] I have a big precipitous drop after like 2 p.

[00:34:02] Merlin: m If I’m

[00:34:02] Brett: I am, I am fortunate to work in a company that A, just doesn’t do meetings on Mondays and Fridays, and B, um, works, it’s an international team, so we have to find times that work for everybody, and even like US based people, most of our team is in California, so the earliest meeting for me will be 10am, uh, which, I You know, it, it works.

[00:34:29] Brett: It works great.

[00:34:30] Merlin: Today, today, 10 a. m. That’s what, isn’t that ironic or funny that that was my suggestion was 10 a. m. My time. Yeah, I know. Right, right, right. Yeah.

[00:34:37] Brett: Um, but yeah, anyway, I, I will conce, I will seed my mental health corner to, uh, whoever wants to go

[00:34:47] Jeff: Do you want to go, Christine? It might actually might lead nicely into our custom GPT, uh, conversation.

[00:34:52] Christina: No, sure thing. Sure thing. Um, I, uh, no real updates, uh, on, on my end. Um, [00:35:00] I’m still waiting, um, to hear back on, on, uh, I have to get additional blood work to figure out some of the health stuff. So no update on that. If anybody was curious, it is what it is. My ADHD has been I’ve been struggling with that and uh, it’s funny hearing you, you, to talk about like the magic and powers of, of cocaine and uh, you know, like getting kind of that thing from Adderall and whatnot.

[00:35:22] Christina: God, I wish cocaine had any impact on me. It does not. Like I have, I, and,

[00:35:26] Merlin: it exactly once. I tried cocaine and I’m, I was, I was grew up in the eighties at a time when everybody was doing cocaine. My, I had friends who I was like, you did it on cocaine? I mean, you might as well say that you like, I don’t know, did hand stuff on Mount Everest. That’s crazy to me.

[00:35:41] Merlin: I tried it exactly once. It had no effect and I could not be more grateful.

[00:35:46] Christina: I, I,

[00:35:46] Merlin: Now, ephedrine, I used to eat ephedrine.

[00:35:49] Brett: Yeah, for sure. 10, 20. No problem.

[00:35:54] Christina: I, um, yeah, I, I, I, I, I’ve been on, on Dexedrine, which is, you know, like, uh, uh, more, [00:36:00] uh, and even more pure Adderall. Uh,

[00:36:03] Merlin: That’s old school!

[00:36:04] Christina: very old school. Yeah.

[00:36:06] Merlin: Little Helper?

[00:36:07] Christina: Um, I

[00:36:08] Merlin: No, I mean, from the Stones, from the Stones song! Like, dexedrine is used for weight loss.

[00:36:13] Christina: yeah, well, with that, with that, with that was

[00:36:15] Merlin: that is the subject of Mother’s Little Helper.

[00:36:17] Christina: Yeah. I mean, I mean, I mean, it’s basically, it’s, it’s, it’s like almost pure, um, amphetamine salt.

[00:36:22] Christina: Um, and so it’s, it’s, it’s legal speed. Um, and I’ve been, uh, on some amount of that since I was, uh, 15 or 16 years old. So, um, like the majority of my life, um, at this point. And so, yeah, so cocaine has no impact on me, but. At the same time, my ADHD, which is the reason I’ve been on the Dex string for so long, I am struggling with it.

[00:36:43] Christina: And then for me, a lot of times when my ADHD is bad, that will lead to, to go back to what you were talking about with shame earlier, that trigger, that will trigger like anxiety spirals and like kind of like a, you know, panic attack stuff, which then just makes me More panicked and more, you know, like shut [00:37:00] down, which leads to more feelings of shame and disappointment and whatnot, which leads to more.

[00:37:05] Christina: So it’s kind of a perpetuating cycle. So,

[00:37:07] Merlin: uh, it’s, it’s ironic that that’s called a positive feedback loop because it

[00:37:11] Christina: right. It means it’s negative, right?

[00:37:13] Merlin: if you’re ever a little kid who’s swished back and forth in the bathtub, you can find that you can either work against the wave or with the wave, but if you work with the wave, mom is going to be mad.

[00:37:23] Merlin: And that’s kind of what you’re describing, right? Is you, you going like, Oh, this, this is good. This feels, this feels less bad. And then like, you just, it’s so hard to manage.

[00:37:33] Christina: Yeah. Well, no, I mean, none of it feels good. It’s just that, but then it feels bad. And then you, you feel bad about feeling bad and then it gets worse regardless. Anyway. Um, I’m, I’ve been struggling with my ADHD this week. I don’t really know a solution for that other than, um, I got to talk to my, uh, my psychiatrist, I guess, um, potentially about another med solution.

[00:37:52] Christina: The problem is, is I’m already on so much texadrine right now. Taking more is not going to help. So I don’t know if there’s something else

[00:37:59] Merlin: So it’s an instance [00:38:00] of like, it’s not that there’s no, I’m paraphrasing or guessing here, but it sounds like you’re saying it’s not that it doesn’t have any effect on you. It’s just that the effect that it’s having is not, I mean, there’s a thing a lot of folks I think don’t know, which is why do you take speed, you know?

[00:38:15] Merlin: And it’s like, well, you take speed because as it turns out, the thing that. Um, Amphetamines do is what helps you produce, uh, dopamine in a more wholesome way. You know, the speedy part, the like, let’s go disco dance part is technically kind of a side effect. And whether it’s mushrooms or this, there are a lot of people or handful of people who are starting to ask, like, well, is it the chemical change or is it the experience?

[00:38:40] Merlin: And in your case, the experience of the like, he, he, he, I’ve had a lot of that. You’re getting, you might get that, but you’re not getting the salutary effects that it’s on label for.

[00:38:48] Christina: Right. Right. And,

[00:38:49] Merlin: helping your ADHD

[00:38:50] Christina: was not helping my ADHD, and to be completely honest, I don’t get the hee hee hee, I’m on speed thing, like, honestly, it’s one of those things, like, I will feel my heart rate increase, and I will know that, you know, [00:39:00] like, when it’s kicked in, but it’s not as

[00:39:03] Merlin: 22 minutes for me.

[00:39:04] Christina: Yeah, but it’s not as if it will have, like, an impact on my behavior, you know what I mean?

[00:39:08] Christina: Like, other than maybe, like, have an elevated heart rate. It’s not like I feel a high of any

[00:39:12] Merlin: You’re getting what a lot of people regard as a desire or some element. Like it’s just like, you know, it’s funny. One of the things that got me off Adderall was this realization, several things, but, and I, God, I would love to be back on Adderall. I would kill to be on Adderall right now. But, but like, well, part of, part of what got me with that, with that was just this idea of like, well, I mean, this is a, as a thought experiment.

[00:39:31] Merlin: Like, we’ve all been on drugs at one point in our life where the side effects were just overwhelmingly bad and negative. Well, for me, the side effects are awesome. And then the question becomes, like, would I seek this treatment and would I adhere to it as diligently if the side effects weren’t ones that I like?

[00:39:51] Brett: Or even, or even if they were neutral.

[00:39:55] Merlin: Right. It’s certainly, I mean, I looked forward to getting up in the morning and having an Adderall. I, [00:40:00] I, no shame there. Like that’s just a fact. Because, and then like people say, Oh, you’re abusing it. But like, no, well, like if you’re, if you’re like a salesman who’s very charismatic, are you abusing your charisma?

[00:40:10] Merlin: Like people who have the wiring for this stuff to not be a big deal. There’s a reason Starbucks is on every corner. People love that damn coffee. They’re all, people’s all gacked out on all these different things. Anyway, now I sound defensive, but that

[00:40:21] Christina: but, well, no, but totally. I mean, but I will say, I will say for me, and I totally get that, um, I don’t, I don’t get that, though. It’s one of those things where, like, yeah, my heart rate, uh, will, will increase, and I might speak even more quickly, but I’m not getting, like, I guess, the positive dopamine response.

[00:40:35] Merlin: You don’t feel like super engaged, like pedals down. You don’t get that feeling of like super engagement.

[00:40:40] Christina: Um, I used to, I haven’t in a long time, and so, uh,

[00:40:44] Merlin: Can I have them?

[00:40:45] Christina: bit more.

[00:40:46] Merlin: Could I have all of them, please?

[00:40:47] Christina: oh, totally. I, I will give them all to you. But, but, I mean, I, which honestly is to, well, that’s the interesting thing, and, and I have no shame in this. Uh, this is when we’re just sharing a mental health corner, I can also just [00:41:00] share, like, drug crimes.

[00:41:01] Christina: Um, I very frequently will, like, You know, have mine with me. And because I get 60, because I take it twice a day, um, I, if somebody who is not ADHD and who could actually like benefit, like if we’re, you know, running like on like a, you know, a big project where you’ve got to work like 20 hours straight and whatnot, I will ask people and be like, do you want to take half of one of these?

[00:41:22] Christina: You’re probably going to not want to take the full thing. Cause that’s going to totally get you fucked up. But if you

[00:41:27] Merlin: especially, especially if you don’t have ADHD.

[00:41:30] Brett: Yeah. We pulled an all nighter at CES once and I gave someone half of one of my Vyvanse and it was crazy to see the effect on them. I’ve never seen him. He was talking like you do normally.

[00:41:43] Christina: Yes. Totally. And, and, um, well, imagine me, the, the few times that I have had like that instance when like the, the Dexedrine and the Nodos fused was what I imagine it would be like if, if cocaine worked on me, because it was, it’s genuinely like one of those things out of a movie [00:42:00] where some, the person is talking so fast and is so frenetic and also was so productive.

[00:42:05] Christina: But, um, I, I don’t, uh, Um, get, um, that impact. Uh, but on this note, I guess that’s why I need to talk to my psychiatrist. Um, I did, I think the last time I really kind of felt any of that. And, and to your point, I don’t know if I’m seeking the side effect or what it is. I don’t actually care. Like I, I just want to get back on the thing where I feel like I

[00:42:26] Merlin: I don’t, I don’t want to be right. I want to be happy.

[00:42:29] Christina: Right. I mean, I,

[00:42:30] Merlin: I want you to fix this. Like, fix it, and like, I don’t need a persuasive, as Tom Wolfe would say, I don’t need a persuasive theory about what my problem is. If you’ve got some, if just, if you’re not, if you think you can just give me antibiotics, it’ll make the infection go away,

[00:42:44] Christina: No, I 1000%, but, uh, I, I used to be on a drug called Provigil or Modafinil and my

[00:42:50] Merlin: I’m on it right now. It’s what I take every morning.

[00:42:52] Christina: it’s fucking great, uh, but I used to take that and the dexedrine at the same time and it was fantastic. And the only reason I stopped that, um, [00:43:00] uh, dual treatment was because of the price at the time of Provigil and my insurance company wouldn’t cover it.

[00:43:05] Christina: But,

[00:43:06] Merlin: I, I used to buy it on the, like, the gray market.

[00:43:09] Christina: yeah.

[00:43:09] Jeff: Mm hmm.

[00:43:10] Christina: know, we talked about that. Yeah,

[00:43:11] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:43:12] Brett: by Amen,

[00:43:12] Merlin: you could pick that up as, as, as Ephedrine got outlawed, like in different states. And it’s such a bummer, like that. And when I was, I’ll tell you about Grandpa Merlin going to tell you a story. 1987, you could go into the Shell station and get, I want to say 25 or 50 Ephedrine for like 2.

[00:43:29] Merlin: 99, 3. 99. And then I have, I still have a Google Sheets document tracking the price of it over time. But like, it’s, It’s um, I’m sorry, go ahead, I’m interrupting.

[00:43:40] Christina: no, no, no, you’re, no, you’re good. You’re good. Um, but my, my husband recently started taking, um, uh, provisional midopinol or whatever. And we found out that with good Rx and also our insurance, it’s actually covered pretty well. And so I, um, I’m going to talk to my psychiatrist and be like, okay, look, you’re probably not going to want to have me take as much dexedrine as I take [00:44:00] and as much provisional as I was taking.

[00:44:02] Christina: Cause that would be way too much, but maybe I could try

[00:44:04] Merlin: of those for different, uh, aspects?

[00:44:07] Christina: Yeah, I

[00:44:09] Merlin: Both of them at once, that’s interesting.

[00:44:11] Christina: I was. Uh, it worked real well. Um, uh, because, um, I think, interestingly, I think what the dextrine helps with me more for, it’s not even so much the ADHD, I think it does help my anxiety a little bit. Uh, which is counter to

[00:44:25] Merlin: it’s very paradoxical, very difficult to explain to somebody.

[00:44:27] Christina: Yes, well, well, but it’s even difficult to explain to doctors who are not well versed in it, as I know when I have to tell any general practitioner, any general practitioner who doesn’t know me, they’re like, Oh, well, you know, I think that this is your problem. You’re on this and this.

[00:44:40] Merlin: First thing we need to do is get you off all these drugs and get

[00:44:43] Jeff: Mm hmm. Mm

[00:44:44] Christina: and, and I’m, I’m,

[00:44:45] Merlin: Yeah, I’ll just hit pause on my life and like, I just won’t be a person for a while while you, you go and you and house go and just look at some posters of bodies.

[00:44:54] Christina: Which I did six months, which, which was the last six months of 2023 for me, and was pretty fucking horrific having to go off [00:45:00] of one antidepressant, start another, that one didn’t work, and then go off of that one.

[00:45:04] Merlin: Well, you poor thing. That

[00:45:06] Christina: Like, like, like, zero stars, would not recommend, do not encourage, but my point being like, but Like the, the Dexedrine does work and so I, I’ve been very, like I, I oftentimes don’t want to argue with the doctors because I’ve had bad experiences when I do, but one area where I will is when they’re like, Oh, well, your Dexedrine, that might be a problem.

[00:45:23] Christina: We like, um. Go fuck yourself. I’ve been on it since I was 15. Uh, I guarantee you that my heart rate and my, you know, speech pattern and everything else that you are, you know, associating with the speed I’m on would be identical. I mean, the heart rate might be a little bit slower, but only just. And I know this because I’ve tested that.

[00:45:43] Brett: worried about your heart rate way before you started dexedrine, right?

[00:45:47] Christina: Yeah,

[00:45:48] Brett: Yeah.

[00:45:49] Christina: like,

[00:45:49] Jeff: general practitioners, it’s like, you know what, just because you read an abstract of a recent study does not make you

[00:45:56] Christina: well, not only that, but a lot of times they will be like, Oh, I think the reason you have anxiety is [00:46:00] because of this drug. And I’m like, no, actually, this has helped with the anxiety. In fact, that was one of the reasons initially, because I was a teenage girl in the 90s. Um, it was rare to get an ADHD diagnosis, and I got one, but the doctor didn’t even think that I was ADHD.

[00:46:16] Christina: It’s just, we were like, we think that this might help with the depression and the anxiety, um, but I can’t get you a prescription for this for an off label purpose, so I will give you an ADHD diagnosis. Now, it turned out I am ADHD, but again, the 90s, teenage girl, that’s not something that you would get diagnosed with.

[00:46:35] Christina: Um, uh,

[00:46:36] Brett: girls don’t have ADHD. Only boys are

[00:46:38] Christina: even now it’s hard, but like, well, and, and thank God,

[00:46:41] Merlin: don’t seem to be a behavioral problem for me yet. So you’re a girl. ADHD.

[00:46:46] Christina: Right. Well, and, and, and to be honest, I, it was a weird, it was a weird switch where I went from having no ADHD symptoms to having ADHD symptoms and it was seemingly almost overnight and it, that was

[00:46:59] Merlin: were you, were you [00:47:00] expressing out of curiosity? I, I, this is something, forgive me, I’ve talked about so much lately because I, but like the um, uh, when I was younger, which is a long time ago, but like before we, when it was just ADD, like in the, in the 90s, the, the, the primary thing that I think folks were aware of Was the H.

[00:47:18] Merlin: At least in what I was aware of, it was the whole like, your kid needs to sit down in class. You need to get them on Ritalin, or like, you need to go to a special school. And like, I think that is the beginning of. I don’t want to talk broadly, but like there’s such a lack of understanding about what is happening and stuff that seems extremely paradoxical to people is really not that paradoxical.

[00:47:41] Merlin: It’s not that difficult to understand if you understand that there’s these pipes and wires in your brain and you look at it this one way because your pipes and wires work this way and then mine work in this other way. It doesn’t mean we have like different species brains. But like the very, the very first time I’ve, this is a, this is a, a [00:48:00] 42nd story.

[00:48:00] Merlin: My friend Leslie Harpo, RIP, my friend, um, one day she, she said to me, this is a twice told tale, but it’s, I think important circa, I was 43 folder stay. So circa 2004 or five, she goes like, oh, you know, you got a DHD. And I’m like, I think Ivory doctor says I should just drink water and take walks. And she, she gave me two Adderall and she said, take one of these.

[00:48:22] Merlin: And see what happened. Pretty much that was it. Like, you know, she’s, she’s a nut. She was the best. But anyway, the next day I did take one and I wrote three to 5, 000 words and I didn’t run around. I did not have the H. The H that I have is in my head. The H is not in my legs. The H is in my head. But. And she said, well, then you’ve absolutely got ADHD, said

[00:48:42] Christina: Mm hmm.

[00:48:43] Merlin: Harpold, because if you’d taken that and went to go out and like, I don’t know, dance to DJ Shadow, that would mean that like, you’re normal. The fact that that made you

[00:48:54] Christina: More focused in.

[00:48:56] Merlin: I had energy, but boy, the focus, that’s the thing people [00:49:00] miss

[00:49:00] Christina: That, that, well,

[00:49:01] Merlin: not that I can’t concentrate, I want to be able to choose what I concentrate

[00:49:04] Christina: Right. You want to be able to actually be able to do what you need to do, um, and be able to do it in, like, an

[00:49:09] Merlin: Which is very paradoxical to

[00:49:11] Christina: It is very paradoxical. And, and so, and look, to be clear, I am ADHD. Um. My question, and I’ve talked about this before and I don’t want to go too long, is there was a switch, uh, when I, I, I was, uh, diagnosed with depression when I was 14, although I diagnosed myself when I was 9, and I probably had symptoms going back as early as 6.

[00:49:31] Christina: Um, it, it, but, like, so, you know, for me, um, it is not informed by, like, for a lot of people, things have been informed by traumas and, and other things in your life. For me, not to say those things haven’t later on impacted things, but, There was a biochemical thing with my brain that I’m aware of going back to six years old.

[00:49:48] Christina: I can, I can recall when, you know, memories and things like that. And I, I diagnosed myself with depression when I was nine years old, uh, because of a TV commercial of all things. Like I was like, Oh yeah, I have all that. That’s completely me. [00:50:00] Um,

[00:50:00] Merlin: it for Burger King? What was it for? Do you

[00:50:02] Christina: uh, it was, it was, I think, I think it was for a mental health center actually.

[00:50:06] Christina: And they were like, kind of going through like

[00:50:07] Merlin: Called something like Longview or something.

[00:50:09] Christina: you know, kind of, yeah, exactly. It

[00:50:12] Merlin: We have horses. Girls can come here with their

[00:50:15] Jeff: Look, everyone wears the same outfit.

[00:50:16] Merlin: Look at that. The laundry’s easy.

[00:50:19] Christina: It was for a center called Charter that I don’t, Charter Peachford, which I don’t even know if that exists anymore, but, um, but I was, uh, depressed, and then I tried these antidepressants, and again, this was hard because I’m 14 and a girl, uh, which was rare, and at the time we didn’t have a lot of adolescent, uh, SSRI studies, and then beyond that, My bone age and my body weight were so low, they literally had no data on like, what does a person who weighs 67 pounds, what does an SSRI do to them and how do you dose that?

[00:50:50] Christina: Like they literally didn’t know. Um, so I went through a lot of shit with that, but one of the side effects was after I went on Paxil, [00:51:00] Paxil Prozac, I think it was Paxil, was uh, basically I became classic ADHD and I’d

[00:51:07] Merlin: Really? You didn’t get numb? You got That’s so interesting. Doesn’t that make a lot of people feel numb?

[00:51:12] Christina: yeah, some of it, well, I did get numb actually. But in addition to that, and it could have been a coincidental thing with hormones, brain clusters, whatnot, I have no idea.

[00:51:20] Christina: But then I also, I went from being a very diligent focused, like studious type A OCD to the max person to one. To not being able to focus on anything, not being able to concentrate, not being able to force myself to, to study, to like every aspect of myself completely switched. And, and it appeared as, and you know, was ADHD.

[00:51:42] Christina: And so I got a diagnosis for that. Um, and, and definitely the, the dexedrine helped. Uh, years later, I, Added Provigil to the mix and that was a great combo because again, I have some, um, uh, there were some other things that were helpful, like anxiety and depression. The two of them worked well together. [00:52:00] I don’t know, you know, this might just be me like grasping at straws and being like, Oh, go back to this thing that worked, you know, 18 years ago.

[00:52:08] Christina: Um, and, and that you had to give up a

[00:52:10] Merlin: I always search for my keys here because the light’s good.

[00:52:13] Christina: Yeah, uh, you know, like, right, like, like, like, go back to this thing that, that worked, that you had to go off of for, you know, medical, um, uh, billing reasons and, and not anything else, and see if that will, will fix things, and I don’t know if it will or won’t, but I do need to, and he might even say at this point, uh, he’s like, when I prescribed you to do both of those at the same time back then, that was fine, but now there’s no way that, you know, the world will

[00:52:38] Merlin: consolation, at least in my experience, in the time that I’ve sought help for this from somebody who’s actually willing to help me, um, and that’s, those are both important, uh, I, I mean, things kind of have, in terms of like a little bit of the understanding’s gotten better and some of the drugs have gotten better, it just feels like they’re, they’re still not good, but like the tools have gotten a little less blunt.

[00:52:58] Christina: Oh, no, that’s true for sure. And, [00:53:00] and I, I, I’m looking at seeing the same psychiatrist that I saw who prescribed me those things to begin with. So, um, I

[00:53:05] Merlin: sorry you’re having a bad week. That sucks.

[00:53:08] Christina: uh, so yeah, so, so I need, I need to find out, like, I need to talk to him about getting my ADHD back in control. And that was too long.

[00:53:15] Christina: Anyway, I’m, I’m done. Right.

[00:53:18] Merlin: had to go off Vyvanse because I have high blood pressure. I’m ready to throw it to you, Jeff. I just want to say that I would be back. Vyvanse, and Vyvanse, it’s, nothing was ever as good as the one before in terms of effects. I mean, Adderall is a pretty high bar. And I thought, like, uh, Focalin, you know, the first one they tried was, I think, Ritalin.

[00:53:37] Merlin: And because my, you know, as much as he is a libertarian nut, like we did start off and ramp up, especially with Lomical. And ramp up, ramp down, buddy. Um, but, but like trying just little bits and then you’d have like a, what seems like an effective dose. And we tried different things and he’s, I love the fact that he’s open to trying different things, but like, you know, honestly, Vyvanse was not as good as, you know, [00:54:00] Focalin.

[00:54:01] Merlin: Focalin was not as good as Adderall. And the whole reason I’m on Modafinil is like, he feels like that is, it’s not in the sweet spot, but it’s in the less sour spot title.

[00:54:13] Christina: Well, and.

[00:54:14] Merlin: for like, you will get some of the effects you need out of this without increasing your heart

[00:54:20] Christina: Well, I was gonna say,

[00:54:21] Merlin: blood pressure, which I

[00:54:22] Christina: I was gonna say, that’s why my husband was, was taken off of his, he’d been on Vyvanse or Dexedrine or whatever, and, and, and Dexedrine, Vyvanse, for people who don’t know, actually is Dexedrine with a couple of molecules difference, and then, uh, which

[00:54:34] Brett: yeah,

[00:54:35] Merlin: I didn’t know

[00:54:35] Christina: Yeah, they

[00:54:36] Jeff: can’t snort it.

[00:54:38] Christina: that was gonna, I was gonna say, no, I, I know, uh, the, the main change they made is so you couldn’t snort it, but you can still abuse it, you put it in water, it’s fine, um, and, uh, but the bigger thing, honestly, uh, the snorting thing was the, the cover for the real reason they changed it, it was to extend the patent life, uh, it,

[00:54:55] Merlin: Oh yeah, classic. Like those, all those allergy medicines

[00:54:58] Christina: Well, and, and, and speaking of like, [00:55:00] uh,

[00:55:00] Merlin: get a different mechanism. Yeah,

[00:55:02] Christina: there, there’s a, a, a, a very similar drug, uh, from ProVigil called NuVigil. It is not as effective. It is not as good. I’ve had negative

[00:55:09] Brett: A A A Monafidil, as it’s known. Uh, generically, yes.

[00:55:14] Christina: Yeah, but it’s called NuVigil. And again, that was done because the, um, patent on ProVigil was coming up and they were like, oh shit, we, we, we got to extend this because this modafinil is incredibly expensive.

[00:55:25] Christina: Um, even off, um, a prescription. Uh, it’s incredibly expensive, but yeah.

[00:55:32] Brett: A Monafidil is so much easier to find on the black market than actual Monafidil. Uh, like A Monafidil, you can buy black market just about anywhere.

[00:55:42] Christina: And,

[00:55:42] Merlin: sounds like somebody who runs them in militia to me. Eamon, have you, God, you know, hear what they did to Eamon? What they did to Eamon Naffadil? Don’t

[00:55:51] Jeff: not his father. Exactly.

[00:55:54] Merlin: call me Mr. Daffin, he’ll call me Eamon.

[00:55:56] Christina: yeah, but anyway, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll see. I don’t know. I, I need to find something else, but [00:56:00] that’s, yeah. Um, uh, but yeah,

[00:56:02] Merlin: But like, you know, one thing a lot of this comes back to is like, a thing I, I, uh, people always talk about, I hope my kid gets into a good school. And I’m like, well, I hope my kid gets the good teacher. Like, cause if you go to the good school and don’t get the good teacher, it’s no

[00:56:14] Christina: Oh, that was my, that was my first high school, uh, which was incidentally when my brain switched and I went

[00:56:19] Merlin: Oh, there you

[00:56:20] Christina: A when I, oh, and it’s,

[00:56:21] Merlin: the right doctor really makes a difference and not just somebody who will like kiss your ass but like somebody who is curious and sympathetic in a way that a lot of GPs aren’t.

[00:56:32] Christina: Yeah, no, and, and no, but my, my high school was awful. Like my teenagehood, part of what sucked so badly was that I went to this great school that had fucking terrible teachers and it turned out it wasn’t really that great of a school because it was so high achieving, all the kids were competitive and in a way that was toxic and the parents were competitive and toxic and the teachers were

[00:56:51] Merlin: What’s becomes known as a good school, the end is already beginning because now it’s become the sweaty place where sweaty parents want their kids to

[00:56:58] Christina: Well, it, it, it was just, it, it, and it was, [00:57:00] you know, everybody was miserable, and then the teachers were completely un understanding, uh, again, late 90s mental health stuff, they’re not gonna be there for that. Now, we, I would absolutely sue them, um, for, uh, for, for how they treated me and what they did. Oh, without a doubt, oh, 100%.

[00:57:15] Christina: Um, and then I also was trying to find the right psychiatrist, which I think I went through six or seven to find somebody. Again, hard to find treatment. Especially late 90s when you’re a teenage girl for certain things because they’re not taking mental health seriously. Um,

[00:57:30] Merlin: Yeah, talk to anybody today about trying to find a therapist.

[00:57:33] Christina: oh, I mean, it’s awful. It’s,

[00:57:34] Merlin: not just COVID. My wife works at UC, which is a medical school, UC San Francisco. And like, there’s just been this diaspora of doctors in general. There’s all this stuff you’ve heard about. A lot of doctors are retiring, a lot of everybody’s retiring.

[00:57:44] Merlin: But also, as you’ve probably heard, fewer people are becoming internist GPs. Or a term I hate and just learned last month is a hospitalist. Like fewer people are doing that because it’s not just where the money is, but it’s partly where the money is to be a specialist. And like, [00:58:00] it’s just not attracting the same amount of like, very engaged people who want to be a, a, a, a family physician like my mother before me kind of thing.

[00:58:08] Christina: right. No, everybody wants to be a dermatologist. Um, you know, or, or, or, or something when they want to make the money, which get it. But it, yeah, it weakens the pool. Um, yeah, when my psychiatrist,

[00:58:21] Merlin: how can I make your problem about your skin? Did you know the skin’s the largest organ? Instead of that dexedrine, let’s try this soothing cream I recommend. You know, if you, when you put your makeup on, use a less strong finger.

[00:58:36] Jeff: Oh,

[00:58:37] Merlin: rub it, don’t rub it, use a less strong finger, and always go up.

[00:58:40] Merlin: Here, wait, let me get that.

[00:58:41] Jeff: Always go up.

[00:58:47]

[00:58:47] Back to the Corner[00:58:47] Sponsor: Notion

[00:58:47] Merlin: [00:59:00] [01:00:00] Hey Jeff, how’s your corner?

[01:00:44] Brett: We’ve done

[01:00:44] Jeff: like we could,

[01:00:45] Brett: an hour.

[01:00:46] Jeff: I feel like we could leverage the fuck out of these discussions with SEO, um, at this point. And I do feel like we’re leaving sponsor money on

[01:00:54] Merlin: Best, best, best Christina depression. Sexy Christina depression. Um,[01:01:00]

[01:01:00] Christina: I mean, look, we could get the drug companies, honestly, if you want to sponsor us, like, I’ll read your ad read. I’m not going to actually tell

[01:01:05] Merlin: oh, me too.

[01:01:06] Christina: but I will, I

[01:01:07] Jeff: I feel like.

[01:01:07] Merlin: I won’t use your VPN, but I will talk about your opioid.

[01:01:10] Jeff: The most uncontroversial drug we talk about is Lamictal, and I feel like it comes up with guests, with us, like, Yeah, so like, that’s where we start. That’s where we start, right? The least controversial. Um, I, so, I am in a situation, I have a, well, first of all, I don’t know if people can hear dishes, but a friend of the show might.

[01:01:31] Jeff: My youngest teenager is emptying the dishwasher. To me, that’s like, uh, he’s 15 and

[01:01:35] Merlin: Oh, I have a teenager who’s

[01:01:37] Jeff: 18 soon. Oh man. It’s a lovely, they’re all good ages in a way I think, but I love that age. Um, but unloading the dishwasher, I’m never going to stop that. It’s music to my ears.

[01:01:48] Merlin: babies. Those

[01:01:49] Jeff: Stupid babies, assholes, monsters, everything.

[01:01:52] Jeff: So I have my, my oldest is, um, is going to be leaving for college. Uh, he’s a senior now. And, [01:02:00] uh, and he, man, he, my birthday was last week and he, in the card, he said, I can’t believe that soon I’m not going to be seeing you every day. And I was like,

[01:02:11] Christina: you.

[01:02:12] Jeff: and I’ve already, the, the struggle for me since the summer, because Kids leaving, all of a sudden you start noticing the things it’s the last time, you know, and, and I’ve been really struggling and mostly succeeding all year and like, don’t grieve now, right?

[01:02:25] Jeff: Like feel it, like feel feelings and be glad that you have this

[01:02:29] Merlin: It’s totally sensible, but it’s much more challenging. And for me, more emotionally, it sounds, nobody cares about parents stuff, whatever, but like, you know, I actually like this person and like, if I didn’t like this person, it might be easier. And I’d be like, Oh, finally I can go to Europe.

[01:02:45] Jeff: do not relate

[01:02:46] Merlin: I treasure, there’s a reason I was almost

[01:02:48] Christina: said that exact thing

[01:02:49] Jeff: He’s like a great roommate and a friend. Yeah.

[01:02:52] Christina: you, you really love your kids and have this great relationship and

[01:02:54] Merlin: was almost late today. Cause I wanted to watch house with my, with my son.

[01:02:58] Jeff: I love that. I

[01:02:59] Brett: parents, my [01:03:00] parents were honestly glad when, like, took it rid of me and I was glad to

[01:03:04] Merlin: you should be too

[01:03:05] Brett: yeah,

[01:03:06] Jeff: Yeah, exactly.

[01:03:07] Merlin: fine. Fine.

[01:03:08] Christina: I, I was, I was ready to leave, but now it’s one of those things where like my mom gets very, very upset, like whenever I leave, you know, like it’s one of those things, but, but at the time I was like,

[01:03:18] Merlin: I think, I’ll bet you, like, like, like Jeff and me and a lot of other people, like, every Christmas morning I think is this the last one.

[01:03:24] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah,

[01:03:25] Merlin: like, maybe because I’m dead, but also just because of, you know, who knows what comes along. Be careful crossing the street. And that kind of stuff, even if you’re not an obsessive thinker about that stuff so much, which I think I’m not, like, it’s still kind of difficult to put it out of your mind, but I think you’re on

[01:03:39] Jeff: not catastrophizing to have those moments, right?

[01:03:42] Merlin: think it’s not, but you’re also on the right track though with the, I think the, like, let’s, I don’t know, this is getting into way deeper stuff. You guys should have me on every week. Um, but, like, I’m sure your listeners would love that. But, like, it is also about being in that moment and,

[01:03:55] Jeff: That’s exactly it. You’re not in the moment.

[01:03:57] Merlin: that particular show without having to feel like [01:04:00] this, this negative feeling I have is something that will be with me for the rest.

[01:04:03] Merlin: It’s like, that’s, it’s okay. Bittersweet is an adjective for a reason.

[01:04:07] Jeff: Yeah, melancholy is usually actually a beautiful thing. I, so what I’ve been, and what I’ve been doing with this is I, I’ve resurrected years ago, I made a timeline, uh, in Airtable, which I, which I love. I go between text file CSVs and Airtable all the time. Um, and, and what I wanted, cause I had a very sort of like meandering, chaotic youth, like where I, And I had moved like 36 times and my mom and I were just, I don’t know if she was in witness protection to this day.

[01:04:34] Jeff: I wonder that we’re just like moving around all over the place. And, and I went to like three elementary schools and like everything just, it’s hard to hold. Right. And so I was like, you know what I want? I want to, I want a timeline. And on that timeline, I want A few different things. I want every address I ever lived in and who I lived with there.

[01:04:50] Jeff: Like, was it my mom’s sister? Was it a boyfriend? Like whatever,

[01:04:53] Merlin: you ever throw your kid out, I’m moving in with you because I have, I have done this.

[01:04:59] Jeff: [01:05:00] Well, yeah. And like, what I think is beautiful about it, part of why it’s helpful to me now. So when I made it actually, it was very calming. It was like a little warm hugs. It was like, Oh, look, I see, I’m not looking to see a straight line through my life, but I see the, I see the path and the winding in a way

[01:05:14] Merlin: When you see the patterns, you

[01:05:15] Jeff: knocking around in my

[01:05:16] Merlin: something in an audio app and going, Oh, this happened for a long time. This happened for a little time. Well, of course, wasn’t that obvious? No. But then also you go like, well, to me, A, that feels as fresh as yesterday. Weirdly, this super old one, it’s like my grandmother with Alzheimer’s would remember stuff from 1917, but not.

[01:05:32] Merlin: Like, what just happened? But like, it’s also that, like, the sequence of those events, and then like, oh, that was a, I lived in that place, that place must have had a big impact on me because I lived there a lot less time than I thought. Oh, and wasn’t there a girl across the street named Melissa I’m suddenly remembering?

[01:05:45] Jeff: It’s like, wow, this is

[01:05:46] Merlin: It lets you, it gives you permission to remember your life.

[01:05:49] Jeff: up, yeah, exactly, exactly. And, and, and the thing that’s helpful about it now, there’s two things about it that I’m noticing now. One is the thing that’s helpful now is that it reminds me of how much transition, [01:06:00] has been in my life and how much lots of that transition has led to really just beautiful things and who I am, even if it wasn’t good and how like necessary it is in our lives.

[01:06:09] Jeff: I know that for him, like I’m excited for him. I know, I know what it means. Just like get out, start your life. Right. Um, but I need to, I need to find, I’m loving finding ways to just put this on the timeline and realize that like, You know, should everyone survive? Which you never know, right? Like, but I’m not really that hung up on that.

[01:06:27] Jeff: Like that timeline is

[01:06:28] Merlin: that, that is extra, I mean, that sounds

[01:06:29] Jeff: really cool shit in it,

[01:06:31] Merlin: That’s extra incentive though, to remember that this is all you have. Like, I think I like to say to my friend, Alex, is however you, anybody in the world feels about me, I’m all I’ve got, I’m very disinclined to change who I am because somebody else doesn’t like it, not because I’m obdurate, but because like, well, there’s no bottom to that.

[01:06:48] Merlin: But like it also means like learning to become, mindfulness is such an overused word and it’s become synonymous with piles of rocks and meditating while a bell plays and all that kind of stuff. But mindfulness to me is, is, is less [01:07:00] about quote being Zen and much more about just catching yourself or finding yourself in situations and going, well then how do I feel about how I feel?

[01:07:08] Merlin: And, and that’s such an important part of integration. It sounds like therapy, but like, it’s such an important part. And like, it’s okay to be sad about it, or it’s okay to be happy. It’s okay to be all of those things. And like, feelings are like roaches. You can only chase them out of the room for a little while.

[01:07:23] Merlin: And like, why, why not own that?

[01:07:26] Jeff: Yeah. And you just made me think of something that kind of changed how I think about feelings and where they can exist. So I did, uh, I spent two days with a forensic anthropologist years ago to do a profile. I was a journalist for like 20 years and then left because I hate how journalism is done overall.

[01:07:41] Jeff: But I, um, I spent two days with this guy and basically he, he pioneered how you, um, exhume mass graves, um, in, you know, places that had dictatorships, whatever. And he has this picture that he showed me that was like He was part of a team that was exhuming a mass grave in Guatemala and, and around the rim [01:08:00] of the hole are the relatives and there’s children there and everything else, right?

[01:08:03] Jeff: And, um, and they’ve been sitting there for a while because they’re just waiting to see who comes up basically, right? And, but if you look at this picture, some of them are talking and laughing. There’s a kid eating an ice cream cone. Like there’s all this different stuff. And I was like, what, what is that?

[01:08:17] Jeff: What am I looking at? And he said, here’s the incredible thing about doing this work is that it’s the only. context in which I feel like I’ve experienced every human emotion being available. Uh, because it’s just like, you go to the very worst and then people are naturally going to get to a point where they’re like, I want a fucking ice cream cone.

[01:08:35] Jeff: Or like, remember this story, I’m laughing, right? Like, um, I think that’s really, it’s, it’s an intense way

[01:08:43] Merlin: mean, like on the emotional palette, this is really a lame. analogy, but like, we don’t get to, we don’t get to pick what our own emotional palette is, unless we are a little bit deranged. But like, something I feel like I want to say this in a kind way that’s useful, but like, [01:09:00] you also can’t choose other people’s emotional palette.

[01:09:03] Merlin: You can’t tell them how to feel, you can’t tell them what’s appropriate, and for the love of God, please stop telling people how to grieve. Stop telling people they’re grieving wrong. Stop telling people they’re being depressed wrong. Stop telling somebody who’s sad that they’re actually happy, because now you’re also basically just telling them they’re sad and they’re a liar.

[01:09:19] Merlin: And that’s not going to be, that’s not helpful. It seems helpful. Let’s go back to 45 minutes ago or whatever it was. That feels like something your parents say to you, Oh no, you’re pretty. You’re really pretty, and if they don’t like you, they’re not your real friends, and like, well, I’m not pretty, and I know they’re not my real friends, and that’s the problem, and also you saying this makes me feel like you think I’m four,

[01:09:37] Jeff: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, okay. So then what’s the transition

[01:09:42] Merlin: Were the bodies, were the bodies, like, recently buried, it sounds like?

[01:09:46] Jeff: They had been, no, probably,

[01:09:49] Merlin: 40s.

[01:09:50] Jeff: no, they were probably at the time 10 years old.

[01:09:53] Merlin: in like Rwanda or something?

[01:09:55] Jeff: was in Guatemala. So like they’re, the people are looking for clothing they recognized or, you know, [01:10:00] that kind of stuff. I mean, it’s really, it’s awful. Right. And I don’t mean to like hit that hard.

[01:10:04] Merlin: I watched, uh, because I watch plane crash videos. Um,

[01:10:08] Jeff: Oh, he also pioneered how you actually do, uh, body identification in plane crashes. This guy was. We called the thing The

[01:10:16] Merlin: when you look at that debris field, like it is rough. It isn’t just like, Oh, here’s this pair of baby shoes and stuff like that. It’s just the, the, the, anyway, sorry. It’s just, I’m

[01:10:25] Jeff: Yeah, no, no. I mean, well, okay.

[01:10:27] Merlin: that. How long ago was that? How long ago?

[01:10:29] Jeff: I

[01:10:29] Merlin: You had that experience? Uh,

[01:10:31] Jeff: oh yeah, in the 2000s. That was a whole time where I was either in a war zone or talking to people who are doing the terrible things

[01:10:38] Merlin: I’m from Florida, so I can relate.

[01:10:39] Jeff: Yeah. You could see, you could see that. So here’s, okay. So here’s what I think is a transition to, I mean, hell, maybe custom GPT becomes the gratitude for like, but so like one of the things in doing that.

[01:10:50] Jeff: That timeline that I find delightful is the shit that all of a sudden you want to put in, like, I want to put in, uh, when, when Jaws 3D played on [01:11:00] television and you got 3D glasses in the newspaper,

[01:11:02] Merlin: God. You are in my caress,

[01:11:04] Jeff: Like, I want to

[01:11:04] Merlin: God. You’re

[01:11:05] Jeff: I want to put in the actual scope of the Dean Martin roast series, right?

[01:11:09] Jeff: Like, it is like, I want to know where all these things

[01:11:12] Merlin: But could it also be stuff like, this is when that one Arby’s closed, or this is when our neighbor got a different car? And like, to anybody else, that sounds nuts, but like, me, I was remembering that our next door neighbor in 1976 had a 65 Mustang that I really liked. I think it’s one reason I really like, you know, old Mustangs.

[01:11:29] Merlin: And like, but there’s just all of this, like, impressionistic stuff, and I don’t know how to say it, it doesn’t sound corny, because you can’t grok this until you do it. And I’m right here sitting right now in my chat GPT section, where like there’s so much stuff where like I have unintentionally given myself permission, maybe to remember things, but also just to think things that I didn’t know were up there.

[01:11:51] Merlin: And you don’t have, it’s therapy’s great, talking to friends, it’s great, all that kind of stuff. But there are paths you can take on your own guys. Sorry, this is what writing is. [01:12:00] Writing is not about publishing. Writing, writing is about, writing is about having the temerity to believe that the things that are in your head are worth looking at and thinking about, you know, in a way you could

[01:12:08] Christina: about and exploring, yeah, no, I mean, for me, the reason that I, I’m such a proponent of therapy isn’t so much from the realizations or the therapy itself, but because that’s given me permission to think when I’m not in therapy, to do that sort of introspection, you know, whether it’s through journaling or through other things.

[01:12:25] Merlin: wholesome. So weird to other people, probably. I hate to sound so touchy about this, but again, Holden Caulfield. But like, that’s, that is such a gift to give to yourself.

[01:12:33] Christina: Yeah. But, but, but sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt, just wanted to comment on that because yeah, I think you’re exactly right. Like that’s one of those things where it seems. Like, that’s what, like, it’s important to be able to have these, these thoughts and have these memories until you go through the process.

[01:12:45] Christina: I don’t think it’s cheesy. I think that that’s, that’s what makes us human. And that’s what, like, makes art.

[01:12:51] Jeff: And also, amazingly, like when you let things tumble out in that way, whether you’re writing or it’s making a timeline or whatever, it can make me feel [01:13:00] more present. Like I said, last year I hit this point and I, and I’m mostly there still where it’s like, all of a sudden I felt. everything that I had lived.

[01:13:08] Jeff: I just felt it, but I felt it as I am now and, and not as it knocked about in my head. And the thing about making a timeline, like it’s almost like the GTD thing of like, get everything down. Right. It’s actually wonderful. There are stupid

[01:13:22] Merlin: Especially, especially if I could say, especially if you go into it saying to yourself, this is not about anything except capture. Like I don’t have to do anything about any of this. It sounds nuts, but you’ll,

[01:13:29] Jeff: have to do anything about any of

[01:13:31] Merlin: which is, it’s not my, I need to do a mental sweep, or in this case, maybe an emotional sweep.

[01:13:34] Merlin: Alright? And so like, that’s what I’m gonna do to get all this down and I’ll make something out of it later. But the more you do a mental sweep about your work, the more you realize you need to do about your work and the more about your work and more about your life. If you do that about your emotions and your family, you’re gonna have some really interesting things come up.

[01:13:50] Merlin: that just have not been top of mind.

[01:13:53] Generative AI and other excitements

[01:13:53] Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s wonderful. Okay. So let’s, let’s talk about, I mean, you’ve talked a little bit [01:14:00] about it. Yeah. If you’re keeping these, this kind of data, or if you tend to keep this kind of data, it’s just one thing you could plug into a custom GPT and Merlin, I want you, if you don’t mind, I’ve been building them for my own personal and work reasons,

[01:14:12] Merlin: Are you, are you using the OpenAI version of that?

[01:14:15] Jeff: Yes. And I would love to hear you talk about how, how you use it and how you think about it.

[01:14:21] Merlin: your, your listeners are familiar with what a GPT is. We don’t need to explain that, right?

[01:14:26] Christina: I think, I think it was most people know at this point. Yeah.

[01:14:28] Merlin: I’m sorry. I cut you off, Jeff.

[01:14:30] Jeff: no, that’s fine. I mean, mostly I want to, and we have the freedom here to not get into the kind of tedious, uninformed ethical issues. And there are ethical issues, right? But like, we don’t have to talk about that. Let’s just talk about what we’re doing with

[01:14:43] Merlin: I heard, I heard OpenAI kidnapped a kid once.

[01:14:46] Jeff: yeah. Just assume we’re all adults here and we’re going into it with open

[01:14:49] Merlin: So my only little bit of prelude on this is to say that I’ve been pretty interested in this stuff since that, whoever the YouTuber is, that English guy who just retired, he did a YouTube. Yeah, that’d be him. He did a [01:15:00] YouTube, probably back la well, year

[01:15:02] Christina: It was last year.

[01:15:03] Merlin: now at this point. You’re so good.

[01:15:05] Merlin: My god, you’re encyclopedic.

[01:15:06] Jeff: Yeah. No, it’s

[01:15:07] Brett: font.

[01:15:08] Merlin: all of your Dexedrine? I’ll give you an address. Um,

[01:15:12] Jeff: need a spreadsheet.

[01:15:15] Merlin: he had talked about just this thing that, that at the it just blew my mind, because I’ve thought I’m getting interested in things like this. I mean, when I had a Quadra 800, I would, I would try to make it work by my talking to it.

[01:15:26] Merlin: And of course it didn’t really work. And like, I, I’ve been vaguely interested. I was thinking last night as I was, I was posting some stuff last night about this and thinking about how the hours I spent in 1988, like making a moose talk on my Mac for, through talking moose and like all this stuff where like, you know, sound, this is an app that’ll play sounds from David Letterman and like those kinds of things.

[01:15:46] Merlin: And like, wow, I mean, like where, what a different place we are at now. Um. All I want to say in terms of prelude to this is, I’m really glad folks know what that is and we want to explain it or be weird about it. Um, but you know, part of my journey with Chet GPT and OpenAI stuff in [01:16:00] particular is this constant yearning for more memory in the sense of Like, I want it to remember more about what I say.

[01:16:07] Merlin: I want it to remember more about what I, what I, what I tell it, really. And that’s been a journey. So like, threads got better at that over time. But still, you start a new thread, no more memory. Then it got custom instructions, which has been mostly real good. And then when GPTs came along, of course, for somebody like me, And this was practically made for how my brain works, unfortunately.

[01:16:28] Merlin: It’s like so difficult to explain to people why I have a Google spreadsheet that covers the heights of celebrities.

[01:16:36] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah,

[01:16:37] Merlin: I, it’s like, how do I know that Elizabeth Debicki is 6’3 Because it’s in the doc. Okay, that’s in one example. A second example, and these are trivial, but I think useful to know. I came into this with my brain wired for, Oh man, could I do something with this?

[01:16:52] Merlin: I, I, you know, and like, you think about the things we’re like, think about what life was like before Google. And then, and people, you know, and then Google came along and it was [01:17:00] real good for a real long time. I’ve read Paul’s Google Hacks book. Like I, I know about Booleans and I still use, you know, OR in all

[01:17:07] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah,

[01:17:08] Merlin: it’s increasingly less useful.

[01:17:10] Merlin: But the point is you remember what it was like when you first went, Oh, this is a blank page. You type it, it finds it. And that, that seemed like for somebody who was even on the very good AltaVista at the time, that was from another universe. All right. And I could instantly see the possibilities. Of having my own GPT.

[01:17:27] Merlin: So one would be like a jokey stuff. I thought like, it’s a joke amongst my friends that I’ve got all these spreadsheets, right? Cause it’s true. Like, um, every flashlight I’ve ever bought, I can tell you how many lumens, what it costs per lumen and what kind of battery it has. I can tell you all my 3d filaments.

[01:17:42] Merlin: I can tell you what the density is, what the color is, how much it costs, all that kind of stuff. Um, celebrities, right? That’s another celebrity playlist. One I made a few years ago. that I sent to my pal John Roderick, uh, was I made this thing called, um, I made this spreadsheet where I said, here’s the [01:18:00] people, like a bunch of important people in my family, including my, the people who live in my house, my beloved, you know, uh, late, uh, mother in law, father in law, all those things.

[01:18:10] Merlin: And for each one of those, I did the most basic thing, which is I just entered in the day that they were born. And then using just a few easy formulas, I was able to just quickly calculate like, Oh, you know, this many days in water to blah. Then I made the. Like a manual version of a pivot table, where I said how, how old, I was able to finally say stuff like, how old was Grandma Stinus on this day?

[01:18:34] Merlin: What, and so on and so forth. And I’m just going to, can I, is it okay to say something in this chat? Is that going to be weird? Like, here’s an example of like, that in action. So this is where I have gone in. So, so in that instance, I took those spreadsheets, turned it into a CSV, And I think I am doing this poorly.

[01:18:54] Merlin: I don’t know how to add an image. Um, I just took, I took the CSV. Do I just drag it in [01:19:00] here? How do I get in this window? Can I copy and paste?

[01:19:02] Jeff: anything in there.

[01:19:03] Christina: I don’t know if,

[01:19:04] Brett: never, we’ve never had an image

[01:19:06] Christina: never added an image.

[01:19:08] Merlin: sorry, that’s not going to be as fun, but like I, I entered all that in and then I put it into a GPT, a new GPT, and I explain what it is that I want to do. And so, but I’m able to do things like say, and so Grandma Steinis, that’s my beloved mother in law, my, um, my son’s grandmother, and I can say things like, what was a popular song on the charts the year that Billy turned five?

[01:19:29] Christina: That’s so

[01:19:30] Merlin: That’s weird. Why would you want that? Well, I find out that, uh, somebody that I used to know by gotcha was, uh, well, I don’t know how you say it was popular then. Featuring Kimbra, whatever that is. What was a popular song the year my late mother in law turned 30? Mack the Knife by Bobby Darin. On what date was my late mother in law the same age that my kid is now?

[01:19:49] Merlin: December 14th, 1945. If that’s not interesting to you, that’s okay. But I hope somebody out there will understand how interesting and like, [01:20:00] like sort of like we were talking about Jeff, like now that’s opening me up to this whole new world of stuff I could be doing with this, including that timeline thing.

[01:20:08] Merlin: The app I’ve wanted since the 1990s is an app that lets me, it’s this thing I’m obsessed with, which is how many years it’s been since this thing is the same amount of years since that thing. We’re able to.

[01:20:18] Jeff: I do that calculation all the

[01:20:19] Merlin: Yeah, like, like the time since synchronicity, the time since synchronicity is like the time since like the first Duke Ellington record to then.

[01:20:26] Merlin: Like, I wish there was just an easy way to do that. I, that is in my, in my grasp now. I’m not sure that would be incredibly useful, but guess what? I learned a lot from doing this and I can apply it to other things. So my interest in this started with just extending the weird stuff where I could use, I would, I feel like I would benefit from technology.

[01:20:43] Merlin: And again, I know we’re not talking about scare stuff, but so far we’re not talking anything about nuclear missiles being launched. We’re not talking about weird decision making. We’re not talking about plagiarism. And despite the people who love to yell at me on Mastodon about how it doesn’t really understand math, it’s just saying words.

[01:20:58] Merlin: And it’s like, yeah, but like the [01:21:00] rest of the internet doesn’t understand anything either. And I keep using that. So, I mean, especially when it comes to, I think I said this on Mastodon a few weeks ago was like, if you have the 20 boy account on this, and you’re not using this to make. Constant, low stakes, trivial, fun things.

[01:21:17] Merlin: The serious point is, you’re kind of missing out on something that’s probably going to be good for you to know in general, especially in the future. But also, you’re just missing out on a lot of fun. Because if it gets that date of when Mac the Knife came out, like, it’s going to be okay. Right? It’s going to be, but like, The thing is I, I like projects and I like treating life as an experiment.

[01:21:38] Merlin: I like treating things in life as an experiment. And I like those things accreting and, uh, building on themselves. One reason I love this 3D printer I’m pointing at is like the more I learn about my 3D printer, the more I’m able to do, which leads me to learn more. It’s kind of a lot like what they used to call education, which is you learn enough to know what you need to learn next.

[01:21:56] Merlin: And eventually if

[01:21:57] Christina: go down these rabbit holes of, yeah.[01:22:00]

[01:22:00] Merlin: Yeah, but it isn’t, it isn’t all just like, you know, find better porn or, or find a way to plagiarize. It’s like, again, that word, and I’m so sorry, it’s such a big word for me. The incuriosity of people not seeing how the low stakes fun you can have with this.

[01:22:17] Merlin: Well, you know what? Maybe it’s going to become better. And maybe that won’t need to, I won’t need to say the phrase low stakes, but you know, there’s just all kinds of stuff where I can just go in and, and, and say stuff that it makes sense. So that’s my prelude. My

[01:22:31] Jeff: Oh man, can I just, can I pick up on the low stakes thing? So I just this morning was listening to this week’s Political Gab Fest and Emily Bazlun was talking

[01:22:40] Merlin: love that show.

[01:22:40] Jeff: oh, it’s so good. And

[01:22:42] Merlin: I love John, John, John Dickerson mentioned me on there a couple months ago.

[01:22:45] Jeff: uh, yeah, I heard that. I remember.

[01:22:47] Merlin: the nicest, he’s the nicest man ever.

[01:22:50] Jeff: who’s both increased my vocabulary and, and,

[01:22:53] Merlin: He’s so big, you can

[01:22:54] Jeff: a love for metaphors.

[01:22:56] Jeff: Oh my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but anyway, she was talking about a podcast, I [01:23:00] forget what it’s called, but it’s kind of examining how television series close out. It’s kinda think it’s called Stick the Landing. But she said

[01:23:06] Christina: Oh, yeah, yeah,

[01:23:06] Jeff: like, what’s lovely about it is it’s passionate and low stakes. And I was like, what a nice

[01:23:12] Merlin: Talk about, uh, uh, talk about, uh, uh, uh, a two by two table that I love,

[01:23:17] Jeff: yeah,

[01:23:18] Merlin: you know?

[01:23:19] Jeff: yeah.

[01:23:20] Merlin: That, that, that’s right in my quadrant.

[01:23:22] Jeff: For sure, for sure. Oh, that’s awesome.

[01:23:25] Merlin: There’s nothing to be lost by caring a lot about something other people don’t care about. And I wouldn’t have to say that except I feel like I do, but like, it’s so, well, I, it’s just, you know, it’s funny. Like I went to this weird liberal arts school in Florida and like the thing I often say about that school is it.

[01:23:40] Merlin: What I, what I took away from it was, yeah, a little bit of like, like, you know, learning about curve auditing and stuff, but also it, it, it, in a way that I had not been before, it, it taught me to learn how to learn. And that’s so, it’s such an ineffable thing to say, and it sounds so pretentious, which is such a bummer.

[01:23:57] Merlin: Because, because there’s so much like of this, [01:24:00] we all grew up, at least I grew up with all this, I almost, I have, I have still had the parking sticker on my guitar case from when I was going to go to electronics school, because no school would have me. And like, nothing wrong, you got to fix electronics, but like, I have a friend who got real, became a big shot at uh, NCR, like fixing cash registers.

[01:24:15] Merlin: But like, If I’m not trying to, this is not advice, but like, Oh my gosh, why aren’t we allowed to be curious? And why aren’t we allowed to follow that? And why are we supposed to feel ashamed if we do something that other people don’t immediately see as valuable? And I can certainly make the case that whether it’s FDM printing or GPTs, I know a butt ton more than a lot of people about stuff that’s not just about FDM printers.

[01:24:36] Merlin: Like, There’s a lot of stuff you pick up when you decide to be curious. Giving yourself and the people in your life permission to be curious, to be vulnerable in that way of saying, like somebody was trying to like, like dunk on me the other day and like call me on something about like a fact. And I was like, I, my response was you would be shocked how many things I am open to learning. Like, I am so not ashamed by you telling me a

[01:24:59] Christina: [01:25:00] No.

[01:25:00] Merlin: I haven’t heard. Like, what, what did you think, what did you just win?

[01:25:04] Christina: Exactly. It’s like, I, I, I, I, I love it when people tell me things I didn’t already know. What is annoying is when someone assumes that I was, I’m, you’re A, incurious and, and unwilling to try to learn things yourself or B, you know, like,

[01:25:17] Merlin: That you’re dumb, you overlooked it, like, you know, that feeling of like, that, like when you, when I, I go, it’s a BMI bonnet, but like, I’ll be like, Oh my God, you know, this Moby album is really good and people go, you know, it’s better as another Moby album. You’re like, okay, fine. Okay. Or you forgot. This is my, so I do, I do a thing on Spotify cause I love making playlists and I love music more than anything.

[01:25:36] Merlin: And I do a thing called Gentle Introductions, which is like a band that I love or a band I think more

[01:25:39] Christina: I love that. I, I, I do a similar thing, but I

[01:25:42] Merlin: Do you? And you share it with people?

[01:25:44] Christina: Yeah, exactly. Like, like, we’ll be

[01:25:46] Merlin: That’s how it started. It started out with me doing that when I did one of those for Big Star, for Alex, I did one of those for, uh, Richard and Lena Thompson, for my wife.

[01:25:54] Merlin: But here’s the thing. It’s called a Gentle Introduction, and whether that’s Cheap Trick, Old 97s, [01:26:00] Blondie, there’s seven and exactly seven songs on the list. Because that’s just a thing that I decided. So I’ll say like, and again, my one about the police, here’s the thing. You might have heard these songs, but if you think you know how you feel about the police, maybe check out this playlist, because these seven songs might help you feel something different about the police. And, and of course, invariably, they’ll understandably, people are playing with me in the space and they’ll be like, you forgot, you forgot X, you

[01:26:27] Christina: You’re like, no, but that’s not the point. It’s like,

[01:26:28] Merlin: How is Roxanne not on your list? And

[01:26:30] Christina: because it’s, this is a gentle introduction. Like,

[01:26:33] Merlin: yeah, yeah. And like, people are familiar with Roxanne, but I’ll bet a lot fewer people realize how much they could love Truth Hits Everybody.

[01:26:40] Merlin: Like, are there people out there who enjoy music like we enjoy and maybe have never heard, really heard the very good first album by The Police? I lost my virginity to Can’t Stand Losing You. I imprinted on that album. Like, but like, you know what I’m saying? And I understand why people do that. I understand again, who needs context anymore when we have keyboards, but like it’s, it’s just.

[01:26:59] Merlin: It’s, it’s [01:27:00] frustrating sometimes that there is, does feel, I hate to say like, oh, I’m so put upon, but it really does feel like people are constantly there to go like, my certainty about what I know and who I am trumps everybody’s vulnerability, interest, and curiosity. And I’m always there to crush the bunny for anybody.

[01:27:17] Merlin: I’m not just saying like, yuck on a yum. Although that’s part of it, but like, it’s just there are people who seem to think it’s like their job to set you straight on something you’re stupid about, and I don’t have the time or inclination to say, not only am I not stupid about that, you’re being a little short sighted about that, and I just, I don’t have time to hold your dick for an hour and explain why that’s the terms of service on every Apple app.

[01:27:39] Meeting Robert Duvall

[01:27:39] Jeff: Yeah. Well, and you know, the other piece of it too, right? Like there’s the curiosity piece that’s like, what do you, do you not love story? Cause I feel, I feel like that’s what this is like last night, a friend told me this amazing story. He was in an airport and, uh, he had been a host of like a HGTV show for a while.

[01:27:54] Jeff: Right. And he was in an airport and he gets a tug on his sleeve and he turns around and it’s fucking Robert Duvall. Right. And Robert [01:28:00] Duvall says to him, Hey, are you that guy on the show?

[01:28:03] Merlin: sorry, somebody who’s talent on an HGTV

[01:28:05] Jeff: No, no, like, yeah, like a host on the on the

[01:28:07] Merlin: Okay, but like somebody who’s doing an on air person.

[01:28:10] Jeff: Yeah, yeah. So like, Robert, Robert Duvall has watched the show, basically, right?

[01:28:13] Jeff: Like, and so he says, I’m right. He doesn’t say I’m Robert. He’s like, Hey, are you the guy from the from the bathroom show? He’s like, Well, yeah, I am. And then what, what

[01:28:22] Merlin: you the guy from the bathroom show?

[01:28:25] Jeff: and what came to him, and this

[01:28:26] Merlin: I would kill to hear Robert Duvall say that in an

[01:28:28] Jeff: and this is not a bit that he came up with, this is what he, he froze on. He said, Are you the guy from Days of Thunder?

[01:28:36] Jeff: And so, I love that story. T’Witchy, of course, he just kind of goes,

[01:28:40] Merlin: He’s not a wartime consigliere. I think

[01:28:42] Jeff: goes, no, he is not a wartime cons. He goes, uh, yeah, yeah. But

[01:28:45] Merlin: And by the way, I love your pictures.

[01:28:46] Jeff: Yeah. And,

[01:28:47] Merlin: know. I admire your

[01:28:48] Jeff: which is what he ends up saying to, to him. He’s like, well anyway, I love your show. And so anyway, and my friend was of course like, I mean, I think this is a perfect story, but he was horrified after he left.

[01:28:57] Jeff: He’s like, well, also you’re the, but it’s per, I told [01:29:00] him, I said, you may have even made a memory for Robert DePaul. Right. Like, who says

[01:29:03] Merlin: I did, I did a talk at Max, I did a talk at MaxFunCon, uh, which is a thing. And I, anyways, I talk about creativity and I think the title was of the talk was with all due respect to the seduction community. And it was about what I had identified as the fetishism of certain things in the world of productivity and increasingly creativity.

[01:29:22] Merlin: And I finished the talk. And this little imp ran, this is, this is a humble brag, but it’s, it’s something I think about a lot cause I really love this person’s work. It’s like this little imp, this little forest creature runs up to me and I’ve been talking about creativity and I’ve been talking about, you know, ways to realize that you have more creativity.

[01:29:40] Merlin: Like I say now, like you, you, you write more than you realize, like you, you write so much and you don’t know it and you think that that’s, but like this little forest creature runs up to me and goes, I used to do morning pages from that book, The Artist’s Way, and the person ran away. And it was Maria Bamford. Who is absolutely one of my favorite comedians. [01:30:00] Like, when my family’s out of the house, I’ll just watch a bunch of Maria. I’ll just watch the Christmas special with Burton Blossie. She’s absolutely one of my favorite people. Becomes more so every year or so as she talks more about OCD. And like, she’s such a fascinating person.

[01:30:13] Merlin: But like, You, everybody who’s, I used to say this when people were running around looking at their site meter and their Google Analytics and it’s like, that’s fine, that’s really good, especially, you know, but like once you find out you, first time John Gruber tells you he would link to this if you fix the typo, that is a big day.

[01:30:32] Merlin: Because in several ways, one is that both Gruber and I eventually learned, we’ll not link to things if it’s got a really bad typo. And he’s like, hey, just a heads up, if you fix the typo, I’ll link to this. Not because, ooh, thirsty, I’m going to be on Daring Fireball. But more like, I don’t fucking care. Sorry.

[01:30:46] Merlin: I don’t care. But like, I admire that piece of shit so much. I used to. Now I’m friends with them and it’s the worst. But. Seriously, seriously, when somebody you admire notices what you do, like there is nothing like that, [01:31:00] not just to like give you a hard on about how you’re famous, that’s not, that’s not what I’m

[01:31:05] Christina: No, no, you feel seen and you feel like, oh my god, like, I

[01:31:09] Merlin: And you feel you’re having an impact with

[01:31:10] Christina: what I’m saying. Yeah,

[01:31:11] Merlin: about. You never would have known otherwise.

[01:31:14] Brett: Like when I created the Blogsmith bundle for Tax Mate

[01:31:19] Christina: Fucking best. Ever.

[01:31:21] Brett: And I got this comm I got this comment on my github repo, not directly to me, but on my github repo, and it just said Jesus Christ, and Merlin Man, and I was like, like, this is back, this is back in like,

[01:31:38] Merlin: our first pseudo

[01:31:40] Christina: 2007, I want

[01:31:41] Brett: this is like 2004, and I was like, holy shit, this guy I’m reading on four forty one forty three folders, just like, commented

[01:31:50] Merlin: I didn’t know how to do the first thing in Ruby. I didn’t know how to do the first thing in, in Ruby, but seeing DHH, this is at that time, quite famous demo of Ruby

[01:31:59] Christina: [01:32:00] I use TextMate. I use TextMate because of that demo.

[01:32:02] Merlin: was like, forget about development, like what is this app?

[01:32:04] Christina: No, I

[01:32:05] Jeff: yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

[01:32:07] Christina: was like, I was,

[01:32:08] Merlin: It’s so funny.

[01:32:08] Christina: I was like in college and I was just like, holy shit. What is this? I love text editors now. Yeah.

[01:32:15] Merlin: I know.

[01:32:17] Jeff: Okay, my final question for you about GPT, and like, just to, to, no, no, this is great. Believe me, this is great. To, the, the,

[01:32:26] Merlin: I’m sorry, I’m how

[01:32:27] Jeff: close out, no, this is

[01:32:28] Merlin: I’m like, it’s like I’ve got measles. Like, I just show up and everybody gets sick.

[01:32:34] Jeff: There was no one sick. This is, this is fantastic. And I’m just, I’m just continuing an amazingly winding thread, which is the only way I think or talk. Um, so you go home to your chat GPT and you go, all right, Robert Duvall, you know, this happened in, in, you know, I think it was like 20,

[01:32:50] Merlin: is the timeline.

[01:32:51] Jeff: Yeah. So, like, how far is, first of all, how far is, like, Days of Thunder from there, right? And inside of Days of Thunder, how far was he on either end from a [01:33:00] truly great movie, right? Like, like, where did this, you know, when he’s sitting there horrified because he’s like, oh, he’s also in The Apostle, he’s also in The Godfather, right?

[01:33:07] Jeff: Like, but where does all this sit? Because that helps me to think, how did he process, oh, are you the guy from Days of Thunder, right? Because he had, by that point, done another, like, 15 movies,

[01:33:17] Merlin: my god,

[01:33:18] Jeff: of which were amazing,

[01:33:19] Speaking of celebrities, Chevy Chase

[01:33:19] Merlin: kid and I, I talk about that with my kid with Chevy Chase. Where like, my kid knows Chevy Chase from Community.

[01:33:25] Christina: Yeah, of

[01:33:26] Jeff: That’s amazing.

[01:33:27] Christina: Well, how else would he,

[01:33:28] Merlin: from everything before community. And

[01:33:30] Christina: I was going to say,

[01:33:31] Merlin: up.

[01:33:32] Christina: I was going to say, does he know him from the vacation movies at all? Because I could see, a community I would see is the main thing, but I didn’t know if like you forced the

[01:33:38] Merlin: no, no, no, I mean, my kid has seen Confess Fletch twice, but never seen Fletch. But you end up

[01:33:44] Jeff: god, yes.

[01:33:46] Christina: which I

[01:33:46] Merlin: a really good movie by the

[01:33:47] Jeff: Doctor, doctor,

[01:33:49] Merlin: That’s a, that, just so you know, the, the John Hamm movie, Confess Fletch, is

[01:33:52] Christina: Yeah, it

[01:33:53] Jeff: Which I have not seen.

[01:33:54] Merlin: these two pie graphs were 90 percent of what I know, well, anyway, this is just, I’m just trying to make a point.

[01:33:59] Merlin: But like, what [01:34:00] I know about Chevy Chase, like, was fully formed, certainly wasn’t helped by reading the oral history of SNL. Ooh. But! But, but she’s currently, uh, he’s currently reading, uh, Colin Jots book, very Punchable Face and it’s

[01:34:13] Jeff: Oh well.

[01:34:14] Merlin: But, um, but uh, but like everything I know about is pretty much from before 1986 and everything he knows is from one TV show.

[01:34:21] Merlin: And I, I always have to sort of avoid the thing to go be the bald nanny and like, oh, my kid’s not gonna enjoy Caddy Shack. Why would I even bother? But like, that’s for, I I for him. I bet that’s, he’s not a young man.

[01:34:33] Christina: No.

[01:34:34] Merlin: How old is he? Let’s find

[01:34:35] Jeff: not a young

[01:34:36] Christina: probably 77, I’m guessing.

[01:34:38] Merlin: Okay, anybody else? How old is, I’m gonna say 82. He was in The Godfather, oh wait, let’s

[01:34:45] Christina: He’s 80. So we were literally right in the middle. Are you talking about, oh, that’s Chevy Chase. Robert Duvall is probably older than that. Robert Duvall is probably like in his 80s.

[01:34:55] Merlin: What was he in before, uh, The Godfather?[01:35:00]

[01:35:00] Christina: Oh shit. Robert Duval’s

[01:35:01] Merlin: and Clyde? Whoa! Gene Wilder was in Bonnie and Clyde. That always screws me up.

[01:35:06] Christina: Yeah, yeah, yeah. She, she modeled her, um, uh, Warren Beatty,

[01:35:09] Jeff: Cause if I was gonna guess the gene, it would have been Hackman.

[01:35:13] Christina: Not Civil Shepherd. Uh, the other one. Um, um,

[01:35:16] Merlin: He was in Superman. That’s why he’s

[01:35:17] Jeff: Yes, that’s right. That’s right.

[01:35:19] Merlin: Some people, some people, uh, can read a candy wrapper and understand the secrets of the world. Ned

[01:35:26] Jeff: you, do you use, do you use ChatGPT or CustomGPT to make these spreadsheets now?

[01:35:31] Merlin: Um, good question. No. Um, I mean, I feel like there’s

[01:35:35] Jeff: And why?

[01:35:36] Merlin: Good question. Um, um, Google Sheets is my oils. in life. Like I just, my think ever since whenever, God it wasn’t even Excel, but there was this Mac spreadsheets program that I used to use, don’t even try to help me, it was like, this is when I was making Gantt charts, like back when I was a project manager.

[01:35:55] Merlin: But um, but like it’s just that when I first learned especially about like [01:36:00] Pivot tables, which for a long time were very hard to do on a Mac, unless you had like full on real Excel. But like, the way that you like, okay, this is really like, uh, it’s kind of like a database, but I can like see it all at once.

[01:36:10] Jeff: It’s like Hogwarts shit.

[01:36:12] Merlin: Yes. And you know, something like the first day, this sounds crazy now, but the first day you learn about like a formula, but then you also learn like equals, you know, a, a two minus a three times this convert

[01:36:26] Jeff: This could be ASMR for me. If you just said that a little quieter, I’d listen to it for hours.

[01:36:30] Merlin: Yeah, let’s see here. Um, I think I can do this. Pivot.

[01:36:36] Jeff: Is that the actual?

[01:36:39] Merlin: Formula. You

[01:36:40] Christina: Uh ha. Have you ever have, ever,

[01:36:41] Merlin: Workdays.

[01:36:43] Christina: have you ever used Power Bi or, or Looker or, or Tableau or anything like that?

[01:36:48] Merlin: are all made up. Those are all completely

[01:36:49] Christina: Okay. So

[01:36:50] Merlin: my answer is no.

[01:36:51] Christina: okay, so, so, so the reason I ask

[01:36:52] Merlin: what is it? Portishead? Tabboy? What are they called? What am I

[01:36:55] Christina: Yeah, um, so they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re all, all three of them are different things. The reason I was asking, these [01:37:00] are like, I guess they’re known as like business intelligence apps.

[01:37:02] Christina: That’s the,

[01:37:03] Merlin: Oh, like, uh, PKI or whatever it’s called.

[01:37:06] Christina: Yeah, I guess so.

[01:37:07] Merlin: bill ratio of your business. How’s your sales funnel?

[01:37:10] Christina: well it can, but the thing is, is like,

[01:37:12] Merlin: Faces

[01:37:12] Christina: I asked, the reason I ask is because, like, Power BI, which is kind of a nightmare, but also it uses Excel pretty well, and there’s some other ones. That’s why I mentioned the other two. Um,

[01:37:23] Merlin: these going to be in notes?

[01:37:24] Christina: yeah, yeah, I can put this in notes.

[01:37:26] Christina: Um, the, the, the reason I ask is because if you’re into all of this, like, like, Gantt charts and tables and whatnot, like, those tools basically let you do that sort of thing and then go beyond and, like, make interactive dashboards and shit based on your data.

[01:37:39] Merlin: my gosh. I’ve used your sponsor as well as another app that you mentioned for things like that. Um, I would love to hear more about that, but I think I’m still leaving one interesting unanswered question, which is like, ChatGPT?

[01:37:55] Christina: gonna say I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Sorry, go on.

[01:37:57] Merlin: No, no, no, you didn’t at all. I’m sorry, I’m the interrupter. Um, I, [01:38:00] I, I, I, like I say, I pretty instantly realized what I could use this for.

[01:38:05] Merlin: And can I just say in passing, I would not have realized, and here I’m talking about GPTs, which is a terrible name for this,

[01:38:11] Jeff: No, it’s the worst.

[01:38:12] Merlin: like having your own chatbot that’s your stuff and the way you want it to be. I was only able to instantly grok what that would be useful for, fun for, for me because I’d spent some time already in regular chat GPT.

[01:38:24] Merlin: I’d learned the ups and downs. I’d learned the strange melancholy you feel when your thread stops remembering you. It was like a weirdly emotional experience the first time we seemed to have such a good relationship.

[01:38:33] Jeff: this! Well,

[01:38:36] Merlin: And then like, the struggle in some ways to go like, in a minute I guess we’ll probably get to this health one I’ve made, which is far and away my biggest focus right now.

[01:38:44] Merlin: I struggle, in a GPT even, with getting it to remember what it knows. I struggle to get it to remember all these various things, and I’m trying all these different sorts of hacks to do that, the equivalent basically of cron jobs, to tell it to remember to always follow these instructions, and then [01:39:00] it still suddenly goes like, to quote Westwood, it looks like nothing to me.

[01:39:04] Merlin: There’s still times where

[01:39:05] Jeff: in memory care. You’re kind of like, no, no, you do know this. Like, you, you know,

[01:39:09] Merlin: Which, which it doesn’t help to say over and over, you know, it just lets them talk about Glenn Miller and like, don’t be a jerk about it. Read a book called The 36 Hour Day. It’s really good. Um, but the, so one, just to, so like, here’s a good example is this thing I’ve done for my health. So I had this, I was in the hospital, uh, I’ve talked about so many other places.

[01:39:30] Merlin: All you need to know is that like, I like, I like data. And I like being alive. And so one of the first things I did was using a variety of apps, including Apple Health and some apps that let you export things. I exported a lot of my up to date vitals into JSON, uh, eventually just settled on JSON, put that into this thing and then try to really help it learn what I want to do with it.

[01:39:52] Merlin: The biggest challenge is, like I say, is getting it to remember it. Dude, you understand JSON so much more than you realize. I’ve even told you to remember. So like [01:40:00] something I, like when something wouldn’t work right, and then it would work right, like this is how you use chat GPT. I would say, Hey, you just nailed that.

[01:40:08] Merlin: Whatever you just did that time, tell me what you did and I will create, basically create a prompt that I can then tell you so you can remember. And I eventually went so far as to create a document called orders. md and created a command inside of what I call my toolbox, long story, but I can say eat your vegetables.

[01:40:25] Merlin: And every time I say eat your vegetables, it rereads my orders format and then goes, Oh, that’s right. You like line graphs. With big labels and, but like, it is kind of frustrating and yet I still get benefits from it. Sometimes those benefits, because again, I, the phrase I use with Alex on Dubai Friday this week, the problem with GPT is sometimes you’re in a cursed thread and don’t know it.

[01:40:46] Merlin: Like some, some threads are better than

[01:40:48] Jeff: to just clean it

[01:40:49] Merlin: It’s like a seed in, um, like, you know, what do they call that? Like a seed to start off in, not in encryption, but like, you’re just in a, you’re in a curse thread is the main thing to know. And sometimes, some days [01:41:00] it’s good and some days it’s not. It’s a lot like my grandma with Alzheimer’s, but like some days it’s just like, it’s incredible and I’ll be able to associate things.

[01:41:07] Merlin: And then one day, like, okay, finally on this, I had this idea after weeks of working on this because it matters. Like, I’m getting, I was getting blood tests three times a week. I had an MRI, I had a CT scan, there was still not any mutual, like, huge assent on what was wrong with me. And the only thing I could trust was my shrink in my data.

[01:41:24] Merlin: And so, like, that’s what I was focusing on, to be able to visualize things, look for patterns that existed in ways that, like, I couldn’t say. I couldn’t say to like somebody who’s like a fucking 28 year old try hard. Hey, you know, the relationship between my ALT and my Billy Rubin, like should, is that looking the way it should look?

[01:41:43] Merlin: Cause I know the Billy Rubin should go up as AST go down, but like, how does that work? And then, but all I have to say to this thing, if it’s the right thread is just go, uh, find interesting and novel things in my results, but here’s what I did. And I posted about this, but like, this, this was, Alex is always talking about like, Oh, tell it [01:42:00] that it’s a Unibomber and it’ll make you a bomb.

[01:42:02] Merlin: And I’m like, whatever. But in this instance, I said, Hey, just for the next 10 minutes, you’re an extreme skeptic of AI in general. And, um, GPT, generative AI in particular, you’re also knowledgeable about All different sides of the debate about this. And you’re up to date on who’s making the most, listen to every fucking syllable of this, you’re up to date on the most recent persuasive ideas about the ups, the downs, whatever.

[01:42:30] Merlin: I made this really good prompt and then it killed it. So then I was able to say to her, I said, so how do you feel about it? And I’m like, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I was able to say to this thing, now read my test results and tell something, I write better than I think. I said something like, now, now please rescan my test results.

[01:42:48] Merlin: And point out the, I said, no, you, this is so weird and this is so like, I was encouraging it to realize that it isn’t an [01:43:00] AI for lack of a better, it is an AI that has access to all of this stuff, but that is the AI that is the content. But I also said, you have access to all of this data. You have access to everything, you know, about me audit.

[01:43:12] Merlin: How you’ve been doing, look at what I gave you and tell me the things that are most likely to raise a red flag with people who are other skeptics of AI. Which I never would have thought to do if I hadn’t spent time with

[01:43:23] Brett: it’s so interesting

[01:43:24] Merlin: Including stuff like pointing out test results that somebody missed.

[01:43:28] Merlin: Like, oh, this shouldn’t be this high when that’s that high. This mitigates against a differential diagnosis. Like it looks like it is acute hepatitis A. But like telling it to be like that. Now, why did it work that one time and not other times? I don’t know. I didn’t make it. I can’t approve of this. But if you don’t think that’s interesting, you are not welcome at my lunch table.

[01:43:46] Brett: so interesting to me, and also so obvious that you have to tell ChatGPT what its bias is. Um, like, it’s fascinating that you can even do that. But, like, most of the good,

[01:43:58] Merlin: there are barriers. [01:44:00] Last night I had it.

[01:44:01] Brett: Yeah, most of the prompt tutorials I’ve seen have started out with you explain to chat GPT what its perspective, what its role is, and then you move forward.

[01:44:13] Brett: And that’s, that’s kind of fascinating.

[01:44:15] Merlin: Absolutely. And I mean, like, again, and the problem is, and I know we’re not doing this, but like, if it becomes, I’m going to send you a link to something on mastodon if you don’t mind, um, if it becomes something where we all just start associating this, and I’m probably contributing to this, carrying water for the, the worst people, but like, if you start thinking that this is really just something that people use to, um, use to, to cheat on things.

[01:44:37] Merlin: It’s like, well, there’s a lot of ways you can cheat on things. And talk about throwing out the baby with the bath.

[01:44:43] Christina: mean, and that’s the thing. People are going to cheat with or without this stuff. Now, will this make some of it easier? Yeah, okay, maybe, but like,

[01:44:49] Merlin: Maybe it’ll also make teachers revisit the kind of assignments that

[01:44:52] Christina: no

[01:44:53] Merlin: Not because, not because of JGBT, just because maybe they’ve been flipping the same three ring binder for 20 years.

[01:44:59] Christina: I had this [01:45:00] conversation with my mom a year ago when we were in Las Vegas, uh, for, for Adele for her 75th birthday. Um, I was explaining, which was a great trip. Yeah, I, I,

[01:45:08] Brett: 75.

[01:45:10] Merlin: yeah, that’s her record. Her new record, 75.

[01:45:12] Jeff: Yeah. New record 75. It’s great.

[01:45:14] Christina: It’s, it’s, the heartbreak on this one really came through. Um, you wouldn’t think that, you know, in the, the septuagenarian years, that she would still be able to write bangers, but yeah.

[01:45:24] Christina: Um,

[01:45:24] Jeff: It’s just in her.

[01:45:25] ChatGPT and your mom

[01:45:25] Merlin: I think she does real well. There’s good days and bad days, just like with Grandma.

[01:45:29] Christina: honestly, honestly. Um, no, but, uh, I was explaining ChadGBT and, and, and all that stuff to my mom, because this was like January of, of 2023. And so, they were like, you know, six weeks old. And, um, and she immediately picked up on some of the. Like the cheating stuff. And I was like, yes. I was like, however, and she agreed with me because she used to work in education, not as a teacher, but, um, uh, with teachers and, uh, she’s a school, um, counselor, but, um, you know, we both agreed.

[01:45:58] Christina: I was like, well, maybe, you know, a lot of [01:46:00] teachers suck. Like, let’s just be straight up on us. I know I’m not supposed to say that.

[01:46:02] Merlin: But that was her first thing she taught was, like, you didn’t have to say anything. Did she immediately go, like, well, people could abuse this. It was her first.

[01:46:10] Christina: Yeah, absolutely. But, but then she was able to at least, but I said to her and she agreed with me when she kind of thought about it. I was like, yeah, I was like, but this could be an opportunity. Like, if it’s so easy for you to cheat, you know, using

[01:46:22] Merlin: That’s, you’re putting that

[01:46:23] Christina: maybe, then maybe we should be focusing on a different way of,

[01:46:28] Merlin: maybe we go all the way up the stack to, like, who gets into the school. Because if you’re attracting that many people who are willing to pay N dollars a year for this, or, I don’t know if it’s public school, but, like, if you’re getting people, like, I realize now if I could redo college, I would treat it so much more seriously.

[01:46:42] Merlin: The non traditional age students who were there, like they got divorced and then went to

[01:46:47] Christina: Oh, no, they cared. Yeah.

[01:46:48] Merlin: They, and they’re, they’re spending, it’s their money every time

[01:46:51] Christina: well, the, the, the second high school I went to, um, not, not the shitty first one that was super competitive and supposed to be so great. I, I was going to graduate early. I wound up not, [01:47:00] uh, because I had a great experience, but it was actually full of teachers who cared. And most of the students who were there were not high achievers like me who happened to have mental health issues, but were like drug addicts, um, who,

[01:47:12] Merlin: It’s not just a bad school, but the wrong school for you.

[01:47:15] Christina: Well, no, no, no, this was the new school, which actually was the right one. Um, uh, the second school was, was full of like people who had drug problems, had dropped out, teenage mother, like pregnant, uh, teenage girls, like people who, to be completely honest, still went through all this shit and wanted to graduate and actually showed the fuck up.

[01:47:31] Christina: And I have

[01:47:31] Merlin: mean, like we, we don’t appreciate how much your life outside of school has such an impact on

[01:47:35] Christina: and, and I have more

[01:47:36] Merlin: or abuse.

[01:47:37] Christina: no, but I have more respect for those kids who I went to school with at that second school than the, than the, than the fucking assholes at the first school who were just like me, who were privileged as fuck, who were like taught to believe that you will be a high achiever and do everything.

[01:47:51] Christina: Fuck all of us. Like the ones who actually like had had real problems and dropped out and then came back or were pregnant and like went to school and then like had a baby and still [01:48:00] kept going to school, you know, cause the school had a onsite childcare. Those, those kids actually wanted to be there. Like, you know what I mean?

[01:48:07] Christina: Like those are the real fucking kids. And the teachers to the same point cared, and they taught based on those things. And I didn’t have AP classes there, but I had teachers who were very, very good, who would give me different assignments because they realized, okay, you will, you’re past all the stuff I’m teaching you.

[01:48:26] Christina: So I’m going to grade you differently, and I’m going to give you different curriculum. And. Obviously, not every teacher can do that, and No Child Left Behind fucked up a lot of things with funding tied to test scores, and the whole, you know, public education system is fucked. But, if it’s so easy to cheat at these things, and if you can so clearly, like, get this grade, then maybe that means we need to have a bigger, like, broader, like, discussion about how are we grading things, what are we assigning, and like, what are we doing?

[01:48:54] Christina: Because this is a symptom, this is not a

[01:48:57] Merlin: talking about something that creates a lot more [01:49:00] work for people who are already working a lot. Like, if you had to do more essays that were very specific, again, it’s a distinction without a difference to almost everybody I know, but like, I’m, I’m not as interested in like, how do you feel today?

[01:49:13] Merlin: I’m way more interested in how do you know how you feel today? Asking somebody to talk about that in their own terms, I know it’s still cheatable, but like, who’s going to want to do that when you could just hand somebody a spantron?

[01:49:24] Christina: No, and if you’re, if you’re actually like, to me, it’s also, again, it’s just one of those things that’s like, if we stopped, you know, if we stopped fucking teaching tests and grading things based on that, then it’d be a whole lot harder for these tools to also work so effortlessly to cheat, you know what I mean?

[01:49:38] Christina: Um, and, but, but I think also, like, the stakes would be lower, too, if people feel like, Oh, I actually am engaged and want to learn, then, like, you’re less likely to want to do it. Most of the time, people cheat for two reasons, I think. One, just, like, laziness. And, but the big thing is, just, you don’t care.

[01:49:51] Christina: You’re not invested, right?

[01:49:53] Merlin: people, one of the things about privilege we don’t talk about enough, and that’s not a word I love, but I do get what we’re talking about. So [01:50:00] you talk about like people who got into the good school, and maybe let’s say that’s even five years into being a good school, which is a very specific kind of thing in San Francisco.

[01:50:07] Merlin: I mean, everybody knows that’s a good school. And then like, even before we get into like, Oh yeah, and how are the moms and dads having an impact on how people run that school? Like before we even get into that, um, there’s just this thing of like. Sometimes you meet people, I’m not trying to be unkind to rich people or privileged people, but like, there are people who love to talk about grit.

[01:50:30] Merlin: Oh, you kid needs more grit. Well, what they’ve experienced is a pretty assured, first of all, they’ve never missed a meal, they’ve never worried where they’re going to sleep, they’ve never had dirty clothes or smelled weird this day, or like, had to sleep in the garage because something was going on with the fan.

[01:50:48] Merlin: Like, I don’t know, like, fine, whatever, I’m a liberal, what do I know? But! But, um, the, the, the, the challenging part of that is like, I think sometimes people of privilege [01:51:00] who love to congratulate themselves about their bootstraps and their startup and all that kind of stuff, like really look past like a different way.

[01:51:06] Merlin: I look at it differently. I think a lot of people who are very well off and have a good background, like why, why is your kid so good at tennis? Well, cause his dad’s Andre Agassi. Like that’s part of it. And what does that mean? That also means they had the resources to send that kid

[01:51:18] Christina: Exactly. The resources to have the lessons, to have the time, to be able to dedicate and focus on it, to recognize that he had a talent,

[01:51:24] Merlin: is not even the mean part yet. This is not the mean part. Here’s the mean part, which is like, there’s a lot of fucking chodes out there who were born on third, as they once said, somebody once said about President Bush, born on third and thinks he hit a triple. There’s a lot of people, and that’s fine, whatever, like enjoy it, but you’re not allowed to invoke grit because essentially your whole life has been a so far uninterrupted path To success and money and all of those things.

[01:51:48] Merlin: The grit required for you to get into Harvard is a lot different, especially if your parents went there, it’s a lot different than the grit that’s required to get through third grade [01:52:00] in schools in San Francisco. It’s a different thing until I get so, it’s, it’s frustrating to me, it leaves such a bad taste in my mouth.

[01:52:06] Merlin: The way we’re constantly announcing that all these people, and it’s like it’s survivor bias, like. These are the planes that came back. Of course they have this pattern in the wings. The survivor bias of like being somebody who just happened to like have the resources and continuity of care in their life to just fucking show up and then go to college, that’s such a bigger deal than somebody whose mom has four jobs and they have to get wifi at McDonald’s and it’s like, talk about grit.

[01:52:30] Merlin: What people, you don’t even know what somebody is going through to get to just being able to show up at school and it infuriates me.

[01:52:36] Brett: Yep.

[01:52:36] Christina: No, I, I, I completely agree. And, and I think that most people who talk about grit are the reason I, I, I’m being reflexive and saying like, you know, and maybe somewhat unfair, but I think it’s largely true. Having experience is because when you have gone through things, even if you have privilege, even if you were born on third, that doesn’t mean that you haven’t experienced hardships, haven’t struggled with things, but you won’t invoke that.

[01:52:55] Christina: You’re not going to invoke that. A, I

[01:52:57] Merlin: won’t do it until you’ve become successful. How many people who are [01:53:00] successful TED talk givers, who love talking about failure, have never succeeded at

[01:53:05] Jeff: Mm.

[01:53:05] Merlin: Not many. That’s, they’re now at a position where they get to go, boy, it was really hard at my first startup, we were really underutilized and our B round was murp murp murp, and you’re like, Oh my gosh, you are so out of tune with the rest of the world and you think that you’re winning,

[01:53:19] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

[01:53:22] Merlin: we should go.

[01:53:22] Merlin: We’re gonna go soon? Can we go soon? Did you guys get my bird?

[01:53:26] Jeff: So, wait, you can’t go without, so that bird, not only a, a good bit, but really powerful and, and talk about it. Describe it

[01:53:34] Merlin: So I said, last night I was doing one of my occasional like updates of like, I exported my JSON file, put it up, and I said, blah blah, do this. And I was just playing around. And then I had this funny thought where I was like, and like, this is the kind of thing I’m, I’m, I say I’m surprised other people don’t do this more, but I’m actually really surprised that I don’t do this more because I know I can do this.

[01:53:52] Merlin: So I said to it something like, please re, please scan. The phrase I use, whether or not it helps or not, please deeply analyze fileblah. json and [01:54:00] fileblah. json, use the schema that I gave you, da da da da, please deeply analyze all of these documents. And then, um, I was like, write a haiku summarizing my health records.

[01:54:12] Merlin: And it wasn’t very good. And then I said, something longer, I said, please write a villanelle, like a longer form type of poem. And that went okay. And then I said, now please write a really dirty limerick about it. And it was like, I can’t do dirty things, but it would be so funny if a guy got his head stuck in a bucket.

[01:54:26] Merlin: And, but it was also. Also about my Billy Rubin levels, that would be funny, and then finally I was like, I mean, fuck it. I was like, make a, this is preceded by things you don’t see that included like, please deeply analyze my, all my health records since November, and um, produce a Hieronymus Bosch painting, and here’s two photos of me, put me in it and make me a bird.

[01:54:46] Brett: Yep.

[01:54:46] Christina: it

[01:54:47] Merlin: And then I, then I came back and I said, now please.

[01:54:48] Christina: this is brilliant.

[01:54:50] Merlin: Then I was like, please make the bird sadder and angrier and then, and then like to show that this actually does work. And then I had to go look this up. I didn’t know this off the dome. I was like, oh, co focus is a triptych, right? Three [01:55:00] paintings in one.

[01:55:00] Merlin: Like please focus on the third part of the triptych, which is called of Gardner Earthly Delight, which is called the Last Judgment, which is the good one that has like the, the walking assholes and people peeing and crying.

[01:55:10] Brett: Yep.

[01:55:11] Merlin: Yeah. Spend some read, watch some YouTube videos on Bosch. He had a hell of a thing going and I love.

[01:55:16] Merlin: All of my birds. These are all my precious little guys now.

[01:55:19] Jeff: Mm-Hmm.

[01:55:20] Merlin: And the thing is you can’t see it, maybe, but like if you really zoom in, there’s great stuff in the background, but also, something I didn’t realize until after I posted this, you can see the brush strokes. In some of these you can actually see where it looks like a painting.

[01:55:36] Merlin: It didn’t just open it up in Affinity Designer or whatever and trace it, I love Affinity Designer, but it didn’t just trace it, like it made this thing, it made it look like a painting.

[01:55:45] Christina: Yeah, yeah. No, the the stuff is, is amazing. So what did you use, uh, did you just use Dolly too for this? Or what did you use to, um, create this?

[01:55:52] Merlin: Dolly is turned on in this GPT, and because, because this is the, it’s a good question. The reason it’s in this GPT is this is the one that has [01:56:00] all my health stuff in

[01:56:01] Christina: Oh, gotcha. Okay, okay, okay. I, I got it. So you named your own custom GPT Lab Insight.

[01:56:06] Merlin: Yeah, sorry, yeah, yeah, lab results, yeah,

[01:56:08] Christina: no, no. This is on me. I, I didn’t look at it closely. So, listeners, if you, if you look at the Mastodon,

[01:56:12] Merlin: Good bird though, you gotta admit, pretty good

[01:56:13] Christina: bird.

[01:56:14] Jeff: of good birds in there. So,

[01:56:16] Christina: This I think ties back

[01:56:17] Merlin: sad and angry. Did

[01:56:19] Christina: uh,

[01:56:20] Merlin: you see the little guy in the corner? Did you see that little orange guy? How

[01:56:23] Jeff: or the one coming at you in the, in the upper left. In the first one.

[01:56:27] Christina: No, the little orange guy, he’s just

[01:56:28] Merlin: Oh, the bird? The big bird coming at me? Yeah, I think that’s the woman in the hospital who once asked me, Why do you fart?

[01:56:35] Jeff: haven’t answered the question.

[01:56:37] Merlin: that actually really encapsulates a lot of my hospital experience as being who I am. Was like, do I, no, no, and not for like stupid gross reasons, but for like, do I fart?

[01:56:47] Merlin: Like, can I fart? Have I farted? Did I just fart? Other questions you get asked in the hospital. Have you had any contact with people?

[01:56:55] Jeff: Mhmm. I try not to. Mhmm.

[01:56:58] Merlin: but like, wait, so why [01:57:00] are you asking me that? Yes, I have had contact with people. I’m generally in one of these two places, but like, have I been on a bus in the last six weeks?

[01:57:06] Merlin: What period of time? How many people? Was I sick at the time? It’s like, is this your first day? Have you just never asked them? Do you fart? What an odd thing to ask in the middle of the night. House, House would know better. House would hit me with his goddamn cane and go, uh, you know,

[01:57:23] Brett: Oh, we didn’t even get to talking about House.

[01:57:27] Merlin: my house impression. Oh, wait, House ASMR.

[01:57:32] Jeff: shake your pills!

[01:57:35] Brett: should we, uh, should we skip Craftitude this week? We’re at two hours

[01:57:40] Jeff: and I just hit it.

[01:57:41] Christina: Yeah, I think you

[01:57:42] Merlin: You know, yeah, let’s get, no, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m fading. I, I, I like all the apps. I like everything you do.

[01:57:47] Jeff: Exactly.

[01:57:48] Merlin: Well, almost everything, I have some objections, but

[01:57:52] Jeff: But we don’t want to end

[01:57:53] Merlin: honestly, you, the input devices on my machine are frequently doing Brett things, and it’s,

[01:57:59] Christina: this is [01:58:00] for all of

[01:58:00] Jeff: Yeah,

[01:58:01] Merlin: yeah, no, I mean like it’s, I don’t know what to say that doesn’t sound corny, except that like, I mean, it’s a, it’s almost kind of like a full system.

[01:58:08] Merlin: I mean, there’s stuff that I’m doing in the Finder, there’s stuff that I don’t want to like go on about it, but it’s really been a big deal for me. And I, I, I’m very, so grateful for all of that and like what it’s enabled me to do and who it’s enabled me to be. And I’m just eternally grateful. You piece of shit.

[01:58:24] Brett: I,

[01:58:25] Merlin: ska. You played ska,

[01:58:27] Brett: I asked on the forums at, forums, forums at brettterpstra. com, I asked, does anyone actually use what I build? Does anyone here who’s joined the forum actually use what I build? Because I don’t get a lot, I don’t, like, embed analytics or anything. And, and the people who came back were like, I used this and this and this and this thing you

[01:58:50] Jeff: And six things I can’t tease

[01:58:51] Brett: that you totally forgot you ever made.

[01:58:54] Merlin: end of It’s a Wonderful Life and they’re bringing you a literal basket of money going, of course we love you. [01:59:00] Every

[01:59:04] Christina: Ha

[01:59:05] Brett: Things I forgot I ever even worked on. Yeah.

[01:59:08] Merlin: time a bell rings, Brett gets an in app purchase.

[01:59:12] Christina: Genuinely, yeah. Well, hey, but do you remember, Brett, when we had, um, and maybe I, because I remember I even got a Mashable write up for you on it. Remember Brett Terpstra Day?

[01:59:21] Brett: Yes, I do. Uh, uh, Gabe Weatherhead

[01:59:25] Merlin: Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:59:27] Brett: Yeah. Back in the day it was for a couple of years, it was a great birthday and then, and it fell off. Yeah. Mac drifter.

[01:59:36] Christina: Yeah, MacDrifter is such a great blog. Um, I, uh, I first got into Synology stuff because of Gabe. Um,

[01:59:44] Merlin: oh man. Talk about a rabbit hole. My

[01:59:46] Jeff: Oh my

[01:59:47] Merlin: on my list is to figure out my dynamic DNS, why it’s not working and why I can’t access things locally again.

[01:59:53] Christina: Oh God, have you used Tailscale at all?

[01:59:56] Merlin: I have used tail scale. I’m not using it now. Is it, do you feel like that’s a good way to [02:00:00] handle that? And you, okay. Because I like the people who make it, and it

[02:00:04] Christina: do too. And I know them, I

[02:00:05] Merlin: Isn’t that what’s his head? Isn’t that the, the guy from the thing? The guy from, uh, uh, the guy from, uh, isn’t that, uh, Maycheck?

[02:00:11] Merlin: Does it? Isn’t he

[02:00:12] Christina: yeah, and, and, uh, and also, uh, uh, Yeah, Majay, and also, uh, Brad Fitzpatrick, uh, of, uh, um, Go, Memcached, and most importantly, LiveJournal fame.

[02:00:21] Merlin: Oh my god, I just had a neurological event. Please say all of those things just as fast one more time. Start with

[02:00:27] Jeff: But end with Livejournal, because that was a, that, that landed me

[02:00:30] Merlin: sounded like you just went into pure, like, Yosemite Sam can’t, like, like, like Thiefs can’t. Like, you just went into Brassa Frassa Snaggle Brassa, Brad Garrett. Oh yeah, check that out, that sounds

[02:00:42] Christina: Yeah, no,

[02:00:43] Merlin: think I know that guy from the LiveJournal. Yeah, I don’t

[02:00:44] Christina: Yeah, no, yeah, exactly, Brad Fitzpatrick. Well, he created LiveJournal, but he also created Memcached, uh, because Yeah,

[02:00:50] Merlin: That was, what?

[02:00:52] Brett: Right? Right?

[02:00:53] Christina: yeah, he created Memcached so that LiveJournal could stay up. And now

[02:00:57] Merlin: Oh, this is like when WordPress realizes it [02:01:00] needs a cache.

[02:01:01] Christina: I mean, that’s what WordPress used and also what

[02:01:03] Jeff: been

[02:01:03] Merlin: I got fireballed last night.

[02:01:05] Christina: Yeah. Um, so, so yeah, he did that. He was on the Go team, uh, for like a dozen years

[02:01:11] Merlin: I love LiveJournal. Oh my god, I’ll be so grateful to

[02:01:14] Christina: OG, OG Tumblr.

[02:01:15] Merlin: still not an app to this day that understands how you want to be able to share things

[02:01:21] Christina: No, I

[02:01:22] Merlin: There’ll be custom, custom groups that have like two

[02:01:25] Christina: fucking A.

[02:01:26] Merlin: and I made, I made a custom CSS header that I would drop into the top.

[02:01:30] Merlin: This is because I’m broken inside. It was the year 2000, whatever. And I would drop things into the top of the header that would say, you, this is a friends only post and put a cut, you know, and say like, this is something only you can see. So please don’t share this and that kind of stuff. It was amazing.

[02:01:42] Christina: it was the best. To this day, like, nobody ever accomplished, um, you know, as you said, like, being able to post to select groups. You could do friends, you know, friends only, but you could also, um, have, like, a subsect. Only these friends, right? Like, I don’t want my roommate, who’s on my friends list, to see that I’m bitching about her, which [02:02:00] is, like, a real thing.

[02:02:01] Christina: That, you know, when you’re in college,

[02:02:02] Merlin: What do you think it’s for? What do you think, is this a blogger?

[02:02:05] Christina: exactly, well, that’s the

[02:02:06] Merlin: not licking the Jason Kotke, I’m talking about my goddamn roommate.

[02:02:09] Christina: Exactly.

[02:02:10] Merlin: the music I’m listening to. Oh my god, have you heard Paramore?

[02:02:13] Christina: you’re, yeah,

[02:02:13] Merlin: Have you heard Paramore?

[02:02:14] Christina: the Russians came after the, um, the,

[02:02:17] Jeff: did they come.

[02:02:18] Merlin: are, the Russians are coming.

[02:02:20] Christina: Well, yeah, they, they, they, they bought it from

[02:02:22] Jeff: That was the real Red Dawn.

[02:02:23] Christina: it up?

[02:02:24] Merlin: was the true Red Diamond. I, and then to quote, uh, the character, I’d piss on a spark plug if I thought it’d do

[02:02:30] Jeff: yes.

[02:02:30] Christina: but yeah, no, but Brad works on Tailscale as well as, as some of the

[02:02:33] Merlin: tell him I said hi.

[02:02:34] Christina: uh, I will. Uh, but, but

[02:02:36] Merlin: I’ll look at that, and I’ve, I’ve got the, I’ve got the, the package. Pardon my saying. I’ve got the package and I played with it a little bit. Matt Howey first, I think, turned me on to it. And like, but like once I do that, like here in my little officina, there’s a thing and then I’m home.

[02:02:50] Merlin: I’ve got a thing. And with that regard to things like IP range, any of that stuff that, and my phone, that all becomes part of one tail scale sort of thing, right? Everybody, anybody else who, does this get your okie [02:03:00] dokie?

[02:03:00] Jeff: was just told I needed to start last week.

[02:03:03] Brett: Nope. I love

[02:03:04] Merlin: It’s running on my machine right now. It’s just turned

[02:03:06] Christina: No, it’s amazing. Yeah, I, I turned bread onto it, I think, um,

[02:03:09] Merlin: do you, where do you do, do you, do you start with turning it on?

[02:03:13] Christina: You can turn it on wherever. It doesn’t matter. I mean, I would put it on kind of your Synology or whatever, but you can have it set up and you can, you can

[02:03:19] Merlin: I did, like I said, I’ve got the package on all of them. It’s just, I, I didn’t wanna, because I’m already so screwed up and I’m a thing I’m trying to work on. Shut up, John Syracuse. So, I know you won’t hear this, but like, my problem is like, I don’t wanna just start the way I think of it as tearing wires out of the wall.

[02:03:33] Merlin: Speaking of Gene Hackman, if you’ve ever seen the movie

[02:03:35] Jeff: Oh my god.

[02:03:36] Christina: Oh

[02:03:36] Merlin: I don’t want to just end up playing my saxophone in a room full of wires. And sometimes when I’m just like, I can fix that with a tail scale, I just need another reverse proxy for my reverse proxy. And like, pretty soon I can’t leave my office.

[02:03:49] Merlin: It’s becoming like Brian David Gilbert and his, and his gaming setup. I feel like it’s all just getting smaller and smaller.

[02:03:56] Jeff: Beautiful.

[02:03:58] Merlin: Can we all leave now?

[02:03:58] Brett: hey,

[02:03:59] Jeff: you, [02:04:00] Merlin.

[02:04:00] Brett: Merlin. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for showing up today. It’s been great chatting. We will definitely, we will definitely try to invite you back if you’ll have us.

[02:04:09] Merlin: I’m a fan of, of, of you. I didn’t, I’ve only met Jeff today, but I’m a fan of, of, of both you guys. So thank you for your kindness, and

[02:04:17] Christina: This was really

[02:04:18] Jeff: thanks, Merlin.

[02:04:19] Merlin: it’s my pleasure.

[02:04:20] Merlin: It’s been a pleasure. Hey, everybody get some sleep.

[02:04:23] Christina: Get some sleep.

[02:04:27] Jeff: There it is.

[02:04:28] Merlin: Oh, here’s you.

[02:04:30] Jeff: Hire, hire!

[02:04:32] Merlin: Oh, is it more like a Joy Division kind of thing?