Overtired

Join Brett Terpstra and Christina Warren as they navigate through a Jeff-less episode filled with jet ski jealousy, nostalgic TV, and movie marathons. Delve into the highs of coding joy, the lows of tech troubles, and the steady rhythm of maintaining mental health. Plus, stick around for a dive into Mac shortcut tools and musings on the ever-evolving Apple ecosystem. Sponsor The latest 360-degree camera from Insta360, the Insta360 X5, launched April 22nd and shoots full 360-degree videos in incredible 8K30 resolution. To bag a free 114cm invisible selfie stick worth US$24.99 with your Insta360 X5 standard package purchase, head to store.insta360.com and use the promo code overtired. Chapters 00:00 Welcome to Overtired 00:40 Jet Ski Adventures and Dubai Memories 01:55 Comedy Shows and TV Nostalgia 05:00 The Paradox of Choice in Entertainment 10:01 Mental Health Corner 10:06 Unemployment and Coding Bliss 14:50 Heatwave Struggles and Power Outages 29:19 Sponsor Shoutout: Insta 360 31:30 Summer Fun and Travel Dreams 33:18 Movie Marathon and Horror Genre 40:02 Nostalgic DVD Collection Days 40:51 The Evolution of Movie Watching 43:21 Theater Experiences and Bad Movies 43:54 Mystery Science Theater 3000 and RiffTrax 47:02 Evil Dead and Streaming Services 48:53 Gratitude and Tech Recommendations 53:46 Apple’s iPad vs. Mac Debate 01:15:34 AI and Regular Expressions 01:20:27 Conclusion and Farewell Show Links Rough night Nonnas Rifftrax Gizmoplex Actions AI Actions Federico’s interview with Craig RegexRX Join the Conversation Merch Come chat on Discord! Twitter/ovrtrd Instagram/ovrtrd Youtube Get the Newsletter Thanks! You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network 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 Horror Movies and Heatwaves Welcome to Overtired [00:00:00] Christina: Hello again. You are listening to Overtired. I’m Christina Warren. I’m joined as always by Brett Terpstra. This week we are without our third, uh, Jeff SREs Gonzo, who is uh, uh, having home of jet skis. But, uh, but Brett and I are back doing an old school Overtired. How are you, Brett? Brett: I don’t know. I don’t know, man. Like he’s like, I got a family thing, and then he sends us pictures of him on a jet ski and I’m like, where are your priorities, man? What about Overtired? Come on, Christina: exactly, exactly. It’s like we, we, we, we are definitely more fun than, Brett: then a jet ski. I find that hard to believe. Jet Ski Adventures and Dubai Memories Brett: I’ve never been on a jet ski, but Christina: Oh, they’re great. They’re Brett: just see them as like an expression of pure joy on water. Christina: Yeah. I, I went in Dubai of all places, actually, uh, in a manmade lake. And, um, and, and, and at we, we’d called in advance, like before we got there, we were like. Can I [00:01:00] wear like a two piece bathing suit? Right. Because I, I was concerned about that. And, and yes. And they were like, she can wear whatever she wants. And I was like, okay, well I’ll still keep it like conservative, like more conservative than like my normal bathing suit would be, even though I had like a life vest on or whatever. And then we get there and they only had four jet skis and there were five of us. And, uh, one of my, my colleagues was like, my, one of my best friends actually, he was like, no, she gets her own. So they had to go back and like, get one for me, but, but they just assumed that I was gonna ride like bitch on someone’s, um, a jet ski. And I was like, no, I, I would like to do this. And, and I did pretty good. Um, one of our colleagues, like he, he’d never been on one before and, and he had the time of his life. I think he went buying one himself after, after, after it. But yeah, no, it was really fun. So Jeff’s photos, the video rather, that he sent to us, like, um, pure joy and, uh, so we missed you Jeff, but also completely understand. Comedy Shows and TV Nostalgia Brett: Before Daniel Tosh got really annoying and awful. Um, [00:02:00] he had a special where he talked about how no one can frown on a jet ski, like you would always smile on a jet ski. It went into like some dark version of a kid’s funeral. But, um, but back then it was funny back then, like Daniel Tosh was like, you know, hitting Christina: No, totally. Brett: still, like I was cracking up Christina: No. I mean, Brett: bit about the, the midgets in the parade that killed me. I was dying. Christina: no, we can’t say that word anymore, Brett: I know the little people in the parade. Um, but I believe the word he used Christina: right? No, I I I’m just, I’m just fucking with you. I don’t, I don’t, I mean, like, yeah. Um, but no, I mean that, that, that God Damnit Hass, that’s the name I haven’t thought about in forever. Toss 2.0. Like, that was like, that was like a big show That was, you know. Brett: It started off pretty good too. Christina: did. It did. I mean, I did too. ’cause it was, it was this weird thing where you’re like, okay, we can bring the internet to tv and then it just kind of [00:03:00] turns out like, we don’t really need to bring the internet to tv. Brett: Well, and now what’s her name? Um, the bipolar comedian, um, I forget her name. And she, I forget the name of the show, but she does a show that’s basically all like memes Christina: It was like after midnight it just got Brett: Yeah, yeah. It was, it’s after midnight, but it’s at, after like with the, at symbol. They like re re rebranded it. You’re right. It is the new, it is the new AF at midnight. After midnight. Christina: At midnight. After midnight, whatever. Yeah. It just, I, I, I think it just got canceled. ’cause I saw it like once or twice. It was not a thing I was ever gonna seek out, to be honest with you. Um, but, um, I mean, I, I like parts of it, but like, I don’t watch terrestrial TV most of the time. And certainly not like late nights. I might watch clips. I, I caught it a couple times. Um. Brett: it’s one of those shows where it’s mostly inside jokes between comedians. So if you’re really into the comedy scene and you wanna see like, how comedians relate to each other, that’s, it’s, [00:04:00] it’s a good, like, just kind of, obviously they pre-write their bits, like even on the original at midnight, they, they all, they all got the questions in advance and they rewrote their bits. Christina: course, Brett: you gotta, you got a kind of a glimpse into, uh, a rapid fire comedy writing session, if you will. Christina: Yeah. No, totally. I mean, and, and, um, and I, the reason I think it was just because I saw something on Instagram or whatever, like, oh, this is my final thing, or whatever, so I’m assuming it was canceled, which frankly makes sense. Um, ’cause again, like it’s one of those things like, that would’ve worked. Like, and I would’ve watched it like in the early two thousands, like if it was on tv or if they did like it on like Comedy Central, which I think it originally, you know, Tash 2.0 was on, like, that would’ve been a thing that I would’ve been like up at. One o’clock in the morning or whatever, um, or at midnight. And I would’ve had on in the background, right? And I would’ve been like, oh, this is really funny. And I’m, I’m really into this. But like, the way that we watch TV like that now just doesn’t exist in that, in that [00:05:00] sphere. The Paradox of Choice in Entertainment Christina: Like, like, um, we were talking about this right before we started the show. Like you, you think, you claim you’ve run out of good movies to watch. You obviously haven’t because there are, you have not watched all the good movies, I promise you. But, but we have like, it’s almost this weird thing like this, this, we’ve talked about this before, but like, you know, the paradox of choice where you have so much that we have access to that there aren’t like these pre curated pockets where you can just turn something on and like, just have that be kind of your. Your stuff for the day or, or, or, or, or for the week or like for, for whatever, you know, timeframe you’re in. Like when I was, you know, in, in high school and college, it would be like, adult swim would be like the thing that I would always have on like from 10:00 PM Well, it start at 11 I think, and then it moved. You know, earlier as time went on, but like, that was always a thing. It was like, okay, I know that this block from like this time to this time is gonna be stuff that I, I watch and I would, you know, have like certain shows that I would always like watch on like [00:06:00] MTV or like, you know, again, like Comedy Central or whatever. Like you just knew you could just have MTV on like in the background all day long and, and do whatever you needed to do. Or if you just wanted to veg in front of the tv, you could do that. And like, they have those, you know, fast channels now that’ll just play marathons of shows, but it’s not programming blocks in the same way. It’s like, you know, and then, and, and, and then those are annoying to me because the, the ad breaks. I don’t even mind the ads so much. It’s just I don’t like the way they insert them. Like if they inserted them at the normal break points. In those shows, then, like, I wouldn’t be mad, but it’ll happen like mid-sentence and then like, it’ll cut into an ad and then it’ll like go back again. I’m like, okay, no, no, no, no, no. Like, fuck you. If you’re too incompetent to do ad stuff, then all you’ve reminded me of is the fact that I probably own this show on demand, or I can find this on demand, or I can find like a, a non-ad copy to watch and like now I’m just [00:07:00] thinking about that and so I’m completely like tuned out of watching the Reno 9 1 1, you know, channel or whatever. It’s Brett: Yeah. Yep. I, uh, I’m, I’m planning to do some video work for a, a local store. The one L works at actually, and, and the person coordinating the video told me they were thinking of a. Pop-up video, uh, aesthetic for it, and they’re like, did you ever watch VH one? I’m like, yeah, yeah. We’re we’re of the same age. Christina: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You, you, you, you, you, yeah. You, well see this is, this is what’s so fucking scary, is that I don’t even know, like how many, like, like people like below 30 know VH one, Brett: Sure. Christina: which Brett: it exist anymore? I don’t even Christina: I, I don’t even think it does. I mean, if it does, it certainly, I mean, it had stopped like, like other than Brett: playing like nonstop video. It was like a [00:08:00] radio station. After a while, Christina: Yeah. Brett: MTV turned into reality shows and VH one just turned into like an auto dj. Christina: yeah, no, yeah. MTV is just, is just like, they, they just play like, um, one of those Yeah. Just so one of those game shows, they just like, play like over and over again. Like, that’s all it is. And, and I think that it might have, um, turned into, yeah, I, I guess it still technically exists, but, but they, um, yeah. ’cause I’m, I’m looking this up now. Um. But yeah, like all the MTV channels basically, like, it’s just like ridiculousness now, I think is, is the show that like MTV plays like, like 24 7, um, and then they have like MTV hits and MTV two and whatnot. But like, those are just, you know, kind of like, we’ll, we’ll also go through cycles of things, but like, ’cause VH one went through that weird block where, um, well, I mean Drag Race, um, uh, was, was there, um, and then, and then it moved someplace else. Um, it, it, drag Race has [00:09:00] started on logo and then moved to VH one ’cause it did really well. Um, and, and like, uh, love, love and Hip hop was, was VH one, but like in the two thousands there was popup video and there was behind the music, and then there were like all the, I love the eighties, I love the nineties, I love the whatever, like all the nostalgia. Shows, if you remember those. Like where they would basically just like get the comedians, like they basically click kind of like figured out how to do cheap YouTube content before YouTube where they would just get a bunch of people in a room for a day and then just have them riff and then turn like 15 specials out of it, you know? Um, although that had to have been, I mean, I’m sure they were paid nothing for it, but like I bet that that was really good for people like Michael Lee and Black and, and folks like that because you would get to know them ’cause they would play those things all the time. So you knew those things and you knew those jokes. And then like, oh, you see these comedians, you’re like, oh, okay. I remember them from, you know, from, from from that show. You know, Brett: I do. Christina: I might, I might watch that. I might watch their comedy special. So[00:10:00] Brett: Yep. All right. Mental Health Corner Brett: Should we do a mental health corner? Christina: we should, we should you wanna go first? Brett: Sure. Unemployment and Coding Bliss Brett: I am still unemployed and I have not been this happy in a long time. Um, I am coding every day and like, really, I’m super excited about the software I have coming out, and it makes me happy. It’s fulfilling, but it’s also at the same time, not draining. So like, uh, evening will roll around and Elle will be like, Hey, there’s a burlesque show tonight. Or, Hey, a friend of ours band is playing downtown. And I’ll be like, yeah, let’s go. And like historically, by evening, I’m, I’m shot. I don’t, I don’t seek out. Activities. And now I’m like, yeah, let’s do it. Let’s go, let’s socialize, let’s, let’s spend our energy on other people. And, [00:11:00] um, it’s been, it’s been really good. Uh, here during Pride Month, we’ve been to a couple of, uh, big pride events at, uh, no Name bar, which has become, it’s, it’s Winona’s only gay bar, and it’s not a gay bar. Um, it is just a very like queer friendly bar. That regularly holds like queer dances and, and, and queer burlesque shows. And, um, it’s been, it’s been really fun. Like, I love that community. I love, um, feeling a part of, even though I’m 46, I can show up and all the kids are like, happy to see me and everyone’s just having a good time and I don’t feel old. Um, I do because I go home at like 10 and I know that they’re all there to shut the bar down. Um, but uh, but it’s been, [00:12:00] it’s been actually like this whole, being unemployed and working on my own stuff has been super fulfilling and I wanna make it work. That said, I am trying to get unemployment right now and Oracle missed their deadline for responding to my unemployment claim and I’m. Totally. I’m prepared for disappointment on that front. Um, I don’t know what they’re gonna do. I don’t know if they’re gonna block me from getting unemployment. Christina: Well, what, what, what do you mean they missed their deadline? Like they, they missed their deadline to, um, Brett: Minnesota’s unemployment insurance website says that they sent a request to Oracle for confirmation on such and such a date, and they had a due date. It just says due date. And I don’t know if this is legally binding or what, but it said due date was the 20th and today’s the 22nd, and I haven’t heard anything yet.[00:13:00] Um, so they missed the deadline that that Min Minnesota’s unemployment insurance sent them. Christina: Okay. So, but so what, but I’m trying to understand though, by them missing the deadline, like, does that mean that that is their deadline to like confirm or deny, or, or what? Because like, because if they don’t respond, I mean, it seems weird that the default response would be that, that you just wouldn’t get unemployment. Right. Brett: seem weird. Yes. Christina: like, like it would seem to me like they would need to, they would basically need to respond if they were to be like, no, we’re, we’re going to, you know, um, like make some sort of claim about why this shouldn’t be paid out. Brett: Yeah, I should, I should call somebody. Um, yeah, as part of the unemployment application process, you have to sign up to take like, um, these, it’s like a meeting with a, a counselor that teaches you how to get a job [00:14:00] and it’s, I, I know how to get a job. I, Christina: Yeah. And they make you like, do like, like weekly biweekly calls with them or whatever. But I mean, you know, I Brett: No, that won’t be a thing I just have to fill out. It’s mostly Christina: oh, that’s how it is in, that’s how it is in Washington. Like they would make Brett: Um, yeah, you, you have to check in, but it’s not, you don’t have to make calls every week. Um, at least that’s my understanding thus far. You do have to continually show evidence that you are actively applying for work. Um, which I can do. I am, I am applying, I’m just not excited about getting a job, and I haven’t found anything since Shopify that actually seemed like a good fit that I would actually enjoy doing. Um, we’ll see. Anyway. Yeah. Right now my mental health good. Heatwave Struggles and Power Outages Brett: Um, I, I had to cancel recording yesterday because we’re in the middle of, uh, severe heat advisory [00:15:00] here in Minnesota. Heat Index is around 115 and. Our power went out for eight hours and, um, I, we were without air conditioning, without fans, without lights. And this was, it started at like, uh, four, like five five in the evening. Uh, which is four, 4:00 PM is like the hottest part of the day right now. Um, so the house had had the AC running all day up until that point, so it wasn’t unbearable in the house, but power went out because a tree went down on our road and knocked down a power line ’cause it’s all above ground power lines and. That meant we couldn’t get out of the neighborhood too. We had to drive around through this like 10 mile back road, gravel road way to get back into town. So [00:16:00] we, we ended up like making sure the animals had plenty of water and going to, uh, like a, a neighborhood ice cream social in, uh, in one of the West end neighborhoods. And, uh, a, a fun band was playing covers in the garage, uh, doing a bunch of like. Just really slow summertime, like classic rock stuff that just, like, it felt really good. Um, and then ice cream kids running everywhere. A bunch of adults from all over town that, like, a lot of people I knew were there. And it was, yeah, it was a pretty magical, pretty magical evening. And then we got home expecting that, you know, three hours later they would’ve restored the power, Christina: Right? Brett: but they hadn’t. And so we went to bed, we stayed up for a while watching TV on an iPad plugged into a power, [00:17:00] like a portable power supply. Um, using my phone to Tether to the ’cause wifi was out too. Um. Like, uh, like the whole, the internet service was down even if my router had been working. Um, but anyway, we watched TV till like midnight and I went to bed and I ended up trying to sleep in the basement because it was, I don’t do well with hot. Christina: Yeah. No, I, I, I would, Brett: rather be cold Christina: no, I, I, I would’ve, I would’ve absolutely gone to a hotel like that would’ve been like my, like, I’m not even Brett: If it hadn’t been for the animals, I would’ve found another solution. But I didn’t feel like packing up the animals. And I also didn’t wanna leave them alone with like, uncertain circumstances. Uh, so I slept in the basement and then at 1:00 AM the power came back on, which means that all of my hue bulbs. Went full on. And, uh, and the stove, which I had been cooking pasta on when the power [00:18:00] went out, the stove was still on and I didn’t realize it at first. So the stove is like on, on 10 heating up and the house is all lit up and I’m stumbling around at one in the morning trying to shut off all the lights, realizing the stove is on, uh, trying to get the AC set up to cool the house back down. And yeah, so the next day when we were supposed to record, I was pretty, I was pretty wrecked from, uh, trying night in the heat. But yeah, so anyway, that’s me. Christina: Yeah. No, I mean I, uh, I, I I’m glad that that, um, it came back. Um, and yeah, I totally understand. Yeah. With the animals, that, that would complicate things for sure. When we have heat waves here in Seattle, I. Because we don’t have Central Air, even though our rent is insane, even though this is a, a building that should have had it built into it. Like it, the building was built in 2016. Um, it was, it, it wasn’t mandated then, but it [00:19:00] should have been like, I think it was only mandated in like 2019 or, or, or 2020. So it was a fairly new period of time where like now they have to actually build AC into the buildings, but they didn’t until then because the city fucking sucks and the state fucking sucks. Um, and, uh, and everybody’s like, oh, it’s fine. It only gets hot here a couple days out the year. No, no. I’m like, go fuck yourself. Like people, like, like elderly people, like I’ve talked about, I’ve complained about this on the pop before. Like, it, it becomes like a real health hazard. And, um, and so yeah, I, I get a hotel room and it has, it’s been like every other year that I’ve had to do it. And so we’re coming up on like a summer where it’ll probably have to be one of those things where I have to, you know, get a, a hotel room for a couple of days. Um. Brett: not gonna get any better, I’ll tell you Christina: No, it’s certainly not. And like, um, but, but no, I mean, I’m glad that you at least had like a fun thing to do, like for the evening that there was like the block party and you know, all that stuff. So that was nice. And, and the, the AC had been running all day, so like the house didn’t become like a oven immediately. Um, [00:20:00] and you know, obviously like it happened at the peak time, but, but you know, by the time, like it really would kind of sink in. It’s like, okay, well the sun is set, so, you know, it’s not gonna be as bad, but how annoying to then like, be woken up at like 1:00 AM with all the lights coming on, and then you’re like, oh shit. There’s, there’s food, like the, the, the, you know, um, the stove was on. Um, but yeah. Um, I’m glad that you figured that out and, and didn’t like, weren’t like asleep and then waking up to, I mean, I guess the smoke alarm would’ve gone off, but, Brett: I’m glad I have invested so heavily in backup solutions. Um, like I have a, a portable power supply that will last about 16 hours, um, with like a phone, an iPad, and even a laptop plugged into it. Christina: Oh yeah. Is, Brett: with a laptop plugged in. Christina: is, is this one of those, like those giant like anchor things that Yeah, yeah, yeah, Brett: light built into it Christina: yeah. The light built into it. It has like the, the, the, the, the, the [00:21:00] plugs that you can just go into. It’s, it’s like, they’re like, they’re like however many thousands of million NPI or whatever. Yeah. Brett: Yeah. Um, and then I have a bunch of battery packs and all of my electronics are on uninterruptible power supplies, so my, like my Synology shuts itself down. As soon as the power goes out, it does like a nice graceful shutdown. And yeah, I’m, I am prepared for power outages and we have a bunch of like LED lanterns around the house, so no matter what room you’re in, you can light it up and we, we survive. I don’t like it, but we survive. Christina: Yeah. No, I mean, which is, which is, which is like good, like, uh, you know, if you, if you, if you’ve got to like, like, again, like if you’ve gotta deal with that stuff at, at least you have options. Um, but yeah, but nobody wants that. But anyway, I’m, I’m glad. I have power back. I’m glad that you have AC back and, uh, uh, sorry for the heat wave. Um, but also that [00:22:00] makes complete sense why like Jeff, like wanted do the family thing and the family thing happens to include going to the lake and getting them, and, and I mean, that would be a great way to, to, to, you know, miss the heat. So, um, I don’t have any, uh, any qualms against that at all. Um, Brett: how’s your mental health? Christina: um, pretty good. Pretty good. I don’t really have anything massively to, to update on, um, you know, just kind of same old, same old. Um, so, um, Brett: We’re all kind of, we seem to be in like a, a stasis of sorts. Like all three of us are kind of going through some kind of period of stability where they’re little things like, but they’re normal things that normal people all deal with. None of us have like, we’re not like bipolar manic, we’re not like Christina: Yeah, I was gonna say. Brett: We’re. Christina: Yeah, no, I, I, I was gonna say, I was gonna like, ask you about, about this, like, have you since, since you’ve [00:23:00] left, um, uh, and, and this wouldn’t be correlation of anything to be clear, I’m just mostly curious, but like, has, since, since, um, you, you’ve left your job, have you had any manic incidents? I. Brett: No, no. Ever since I switched from Focalin to Vyvanse, um, I’ve had far fewer manic episodes and I’m still dealing with insomnia to some extent, although that’s getting better as well. But the insomnia clearly wasn’t manic behavior like we tested it. Like, um, when we upped my Trazodone, one of the side effects of Trazodone is if you’re already manic, it’ll make you more manic. So it was a good way to test and see if, if my insomnia was some kind of extended manic episode, and the Trazodone did not make me any more manic, it actually worked. So. [00:24:00] Yeah, I, it’s not, it’s not mania. I haven’t, I haven’t had a bipolar swing for, I, I’ve lost track, but almost a year I think. Christina: Nice. Nice. Well, that’s good. I, I’m glad that you’ve like, found like the right, like it seems like, like the right medicine, um, thing. So that’s Brett: Yeah, I don’t, Vyvanse isn’t the perfect A DHD drug. Um, there are other drugs I’ve been on and some that I haven’t tried that are all more like effective for A DHD, but finding the balance when you’re also bipolar, um, that takes some, that takes some digging. And I do think that Vyvanse is the right solution. Christina: That’s good. That’s really good. Brett: It’s Espec, especially for I’m A DHD in attentive and. Not hyperactive. [00:25:00] And, uh, Vyvanse is far more, even though it’s the same class as, uh, Adderall, Christina: Mm-hmm. Brett: it’s not, it’s better for inattentive than Adderall is. Christina: Yeah. Um, yeah, I, I, I’m also inattentive and, and I, I, I take dine, which is like Vyvanse, but. I guess it’s the more pure form or whatever. Um, like I think that molecularly, I think they’re very, they’re very, very similar, but, but Vyvanse, uh, I think they did something to, to try to make it so it’s harder to snort or whatever is I think like the primary thing. Um, and, and also, and, and, and to be honest, I think that most of the rationale that went into a lot of these drugs was that the patents, you know, expired on like the original class of amphetamines. And they’re like, oh no, we have to continue to make money, so let’s, let’s tweak these things just a little bit. And so, but I just happened to go on now. It just happened to be the one that I was prescribed when I was 15. And so, you know, all these years later, that’s the one that I still take. Um, but I’ve, [00:26:00] I’ve been on Vyvanse, um, a a few times and it’s, it’s, it’s fine. Um, it doesn’t work as well for me as, as you know, the other stuff. But, but, Brett: yeah, for sure. It doesn’t work as well as almost anything else. It’s kind of, it’s kind of only a step better than your doctor telling you you have to take Wellbutrin for your A DHD, uh, which is, I guess it works for some people. They prescribe Prozac for A DHD and people that are, um, stimulant averse, uh, which it just, it just, you’re just asking for so many problems that way, but, Christina: Yeah, I mean I think, I guess, I guess the rationale there and I wouldn’t know, ’cause you know, obviously I’m not a clinician. Um, but I would think that might, might be like, if people are like, okay, you don’t know why people are being inattentive. If you don’t know what the the cause is, then maybe it could be a depressive thing. Because that does make sense because certainly, like I know that when my depression is worse, like my A DHD is typically worse too, right? Like, like ’cause, ’cause you care less. And so it’s, it’s one of [00:27:00] those things. And so my, I could understand, especially since now especially, um, it, it’s harder sometimes to get people stimulant prescriptions be like, okay, we’ll try this other thing first and see if this does something. Um, and, and trend, uh, Prozac too. Opre especially is like fast acting and most people notice a difference, like pretty quickly. Um, I was on it, it was, I remember, I mean it was, God, this was 28 years ago now, but I was, I was on it, um, when I was really young and um. I had like a really good response to it at first, and then it stopped working and, and, uh, this became like a frustration with my psychiatrist at the time because, uh, uh, I, as I got angry when she like wouldn’t listen to me, I suppose that she was getting, you know, paid by the drug company, which very much upset her. It turns out I was right actually, so, fuck you. Um, because I was like, I was like, this was working, but it’s not working anymore. Like, I went from being, everything was great. I was feeling great. I [00:28:00] was able to, and it was helping attentiveness to some extent, right? I was like, everything was like, I was like back to my normal self and then it just stopped and then that was like, almost like worst, like that was almost like the, the worst thing in the world where it’s like you have this thing and it’s great and then it just stops working and, and you don’t know why. Um, and, and you know, I was going through puberty at the time and so that was, I’m sure didn’t help with, with any of, you know, the, trying to figure out the medication stuff. But yeah, that wound up launching me into like the worst depression that I’ve. One of the worst impressions that I’ve ever been in. But, um, uh, but yeah, so that’s, that’s like my only weird like wilby trend memory was that like it worked really well and then it stopped working. And obviously everybody is different and I would never tell anybody not to, not to try anything. But, but that’s, that’s the only thing I can conceive of the why people might, you know, go their Prozac first would be like, okay, maybe this is a, maybe it, maybe the anxiety or whatever is a symptom of depression and that’s what Brett: tried Wellbutrin on [00:29:00] me. It did. It did not go well, and I cannot remember why. I just remember about two weeks later I was like, you gotta get me off Christina: Yeah. Brett: isn’t, this isn’t good. Oh no, you have a siren. Christina: I do have sirens. Sorry about that. I can’t do anything about that. Um. Nope. Sure can’t. All right. Sponsor Shoutout: Insta 360 Christina: Well, before we get into, I guess kind of, uh, talking about, uh, uh, the movies that, that you’ve watched and not watched, and then we’ll get into like an old school gratitude, I wanna tell you about today’s sponsor, which is Insta 360. Today’s episode is sponsored by Insta 360, a leader in 360 degree action camera technology. The latest 360 degree camera, the Insta 360 x five launched on April 22nd, and it shoots full 360 degree videos and incredible eight K 30, uh, frames per, uh, second resolution. Since it’s films in all directions at once, you don’t even need to bother with aiming the camera. You just hit record. You live in the moment and you choose any angle you want in the edit. With the Insta 360 mobile app, it’s [00:30:00] smooth, it’s easy to use, and it’s packed with AI tools for faster workflow. You can even get those impossible drone like third person shots using the invisible selfie stick that disappears from the final video. Um, side note, this is actually pretty cool if you use one of their selfie sticks. It’s kind of built into how their software works, where it can recognize it and it’ll automatically remove it from your video, which is really cool. From immersive POVs to unique third person shots, X five is every camera you’ll need in one. An efficient triple AI chip means seriously smooth performance, plus huge sensors and a dedicated low light shooting mode deliver unmatched detail and quality day and night. The X five also features Insta three sixty’s toughest ever lenses, which are completely replaceable, so you can risk the shot with confidence. To bag a free 114 er invisible selfie stick worth 24 99 with your Insta 360 X five standard package purchase. Head over to store dot inta insta three sixty.com and use the promo code Overtired available for the first 30 standard package purchases only. For more information, be sure to check out our links and our show [00:31:00] notes. Once again, that is gonna be store dot insta three sixty.com. Use the promo code Overtired. Thank you so much. Insta 360. Um, I know that, uh, Jeff wishes he probably had one of those when he was on the, uh, jet skis. Honestly, like Brett: like just bouncing Christina: just bouncing up and down and it would Brett: an invisible selfie Christina: Absolutely. It would just look like he had a drone with him. No, but honestly, action cams are really, really fun for the summer or if you’re going traveling anywhere, like they’re, they’re really fun. So. Summer Fun and Travel Dreams Brett: I would love to have fun this summer. I think I’m, I think I’m relegated to going to block parties and hanging out at queer bars. Christina: Well, I mean, I think that’s fun though, right? Like, Brett: It is, it is. No, no, no shade on any of that. Uh, it is really enjoyable for me. Um, I do wish I could afford to travel right now. Um, our last trip [00:32:00] to, um, Asheville was so much fun and was like, it was a lot of driving, but, but yeah, like I kinda, I would like to do that again, but this summer that is not in the cards Christina: No, but I think this summer is like, you’re getting a break. You’re getting to kind of reassess, to figure out like what kind of stuff you wanna work on, what you wanna do. You know, like obviously like the, the timing wasn’t ideal. Um, it never is. But like, you hadn’t been happy at your job anyway. Like this is a nice forced reset. Like the fact that you said that you’re happiest, you’ve been right. Like you can, you can, you can figure out like a, a vacation once you either decide on, on if you’re gonna be going more all in on the indie stuff. And if that starts, you know, paying off, or if you’re going to be, if you find another, um, you know, uh, either corporate job or, you know, maybe like startup job that, that is more your speed. So that’s how I would think about, it’d be like, all right, the, the, the vacation will come, like, you know, it might be a little [00:33:00] after summer. It’ll be belated, it’ll be, it’ll be summer somewhere. Brett: It’s after whatever’s up next. Christina: Yeah. Brett: Um, yeah, so as part of my current liberty and freedom, I spend pretty much all my free time watching movies. Movie Marathon and Horror Genre Brett: I code according to timing app. I code about 50 hours a week, and like that is way more effort than I ever put into any day job. Christina: Mm-hmm. Brett: Not just at Oracle, like I in general with a day job, I’ll work, I’ll work four to six hours a day, like actual actually working. And the rest of it is, is walking the dog or responding to emails, doing all the stuff that you do as part of work. But when you’re just coding, when you don’t have to communicate with anybody and you’re just, you’re just writing code, [00:34:00] um, yeah, you can get a 50 hour work weekend. That’s literally all work. So anyway, aside from that, I’m watching movies like I’ve been through all my favorite TV series more times than I can count. Like I literally can’t count the number of times I’ve been through Bob’s burgers. Like, I’ve lost track. Uh, same with King of the Hill, um, uh, 30 Rock Parks and Rec Brooklyn Nine, nine. I’ve seen these all so many times. And like it used to be, those were, those were my comfort shows, and that’s where I would go when I just wanted something that I knew I liked, I didn’t have to search around for, and I could just binge my way through. But I’ve done it all so many times. So I’ve started like, seeking out movies and I watched a lot of good movies and, and I’m still, I’m still finding good movies, but lately I’ve just been watching whatever Hulu tells me [00:35:00] I should, or Netflix. And, um, like last night I watched, uh, rough Night with Scarlett Johansson and Christina: Um, uh, uh, Alana Glazer and Paul Downs. Yeah. Yeah, I saw that in the theater and uh, yeah. Brett: Well, and I realized I had actually seen it before and I finished it anyway. And it’s not, it’s not what I would call a great movie. Uh, what’s her name playing The Australian. She’s from Saturday Night Christina: Yeah, Brett: always in the, she was in Ghostbusters, I always forget her name, Christina: Um, uh, uh, yeah. Uh, Kate McKennan. Brett: Kate McKennan. Yes. Um, her Australian character in that is kind of not dead on for an Australian ’cause I don’t know that many Australians, but dead on for like the new age hippie, uh, type without being like over. [00:36:00] She’s not like spacey and crazy. She just has like all these like, oh, I can communicate with animals. Let me, let me handle this violent dog. Um, and it was okay. Like it was, that’s the thing is like even with a bad movie, I can enjoy it. I watched No Nonas on Hulu with, um, Vince Vaughn. It was about he, like, he opens an Italian restaurant and staffs it with actual Italian grandmothers, uh, AKA Nonas and, and like makes a go of the restaurant scene with no previous restaurant experience. And it, it was heart touch. It was heartwarming and touching and I actually am gonna watch it again with El even though on, on its face, not actually what I would consider like a movie for the ages in any way. Christina: Mm-hmm. Brett: [00:37:00] But I, I’m stuck. I, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve gone through, like my friend Chris has a plex and, um, it has probably a thousand movies on it, and I’ve gone through and tried to find everything that I would actually wanna watch. I think my next phase is to get back into horror, because, like horror as a genre, I always, I always look away from because I think I don’t really need to be scared. Um, that’s not my goal in life. I don’t, I don’t need additional fear. The world is bad enough, but the, a good horror movie is actually like a statement about, about the monsters within us and the monsters around us, and. It doesn’t matter what the, the actual monster in the movie is. It’s like [00:38:00] a way of like, just like sci-fi takes like a social ill and projects it onto maybe an alien race that you don’t have any preconceived like prejudices towards. And they make it something that you can be like, oh yeah, I can see how that’s wrong. Star Trek, for example. Um, like sci-fi is really good at that. Horror can be the same way and, and horror can make you look at actual things within yourself and within society in ways that make it easier to, to understand, to gr in, in ways that you’re like personal prejudices blind you to. So I can appreciate good horror. I just don’t know how to tell the difference between what’s gonna be just, uh, a thriller. Like just something that makes me pee my pants and doesn’t offer anything else, and those really touching horror movies that finish. And you feel like [00:39:00] a better person for having watched it? I don’t, I don’t know how to find those. Christina: Yeah. I mean, I think if this is, this is, yeah, this is the hard thing. I feel like think services like letterbox, I feel like are good for this and I feel like, um. Potentially to like figure out like, like reading kind of readings, reviews, but Yeah. But unfortunately sometimes, yeah, you just have to like kind of watch and then kind of figure out, okay, is this good or not? And like, make the determination while you’re watching it, like, do I wanna continue or not? Brett: Yeah. I do think you can tell in the first 15 Christina: Honestly, I feel like you can, I feel like, I feel like this is an area where like, and I’m usually a fan of like, trying to watch the whole movie. Um, horror is actually weirdly one of those genres where I’m not, like, I’m, I’m kind of like, I will, I will give it like a solid, like 15, 20 and then if I’m not into it, I’m piecing out. Right? Because it, because it was one thing, like when I was younger and like you only had what was on Blockbuster and what was airing, you know, on. Um, you know, on, on HBO [00:40:00] or, or Cinemax or whatever, and Cinemaxx would air some terrible shit. Nostalgic DVD Collection Days Christina: And I saw so many bad movies that way. Um, or you know, like if you bought, you know, DVDs like I did, and, and a lot of times I would just, there was this forum called DVD Talk might still exist, but I doubt it. That would basically track, they review DVDs and they would track DVD deals. And like the forms there were great, and like, because it was like the.com era where companies were selling stuff for less than they should have. High school me would get like a hundred bucks worth of DVDs, like every week that were probably, you know, $400 retail, right? But I would just get like all these DVDs and then I worked at Best Buy, so I got things like, you know, basically at cost. So, um, I had like a really, um, like a good source of like, I basically, I hear recommendations from people who’d be like, oh, this is a great movie. And then sometimes I’d be like, this was dog shit. But sometimes it’d be okay. The Evolution of Movie Watching Christina: But I feel like horror is one of those things where like, especially now that we have access to many things like. It used to be one of those things, this was the point of my, my story, my anecdote [00:41:00] is that you would have to watch the whole thing, you know, because you didn’t have a lot of other options. You’re like, okay, I might as well just finish this. But now you can pretty much tell like, the first 15, 20, is this going to get any better or not? Brett: Yeah. Right. Christina: has, has this sucked me in or not? And if the answer is no, then like, Uhuh. Um, and, and, and there might be exceptions where like people tell you after the fact, okay, no, go back, give it another shot. It really takes, you know, the first whatever. Brett: about quality. And you can tell even before, like 15 minutes maybe, like the main plot line hasn’t even evolved yet. Maybe it like you’re still in Complete ex Yeah, exactly. You know, you know if the acting is good, you know, if the writing is good, you know, if the editing is good and, and you can tell that in 15 minutes maybe you have this thing that you can relate to where you prefer no i’ll, this is me. I’m talking about me now. So I prefer to watch a movie at [00:42:00] least halfway through before I bring my partner in on it because. Starting a movie cold where neither of us have seen it leads to such uncomfortable moments of like, Hey, are you enjoying this? Are you still, are you still okay with this? Is this, do you think this is good? Should we quit? Should we watch something else? And like I, I spent so much time worrying and l does it too. I know. I know they do. Like they worry about what I think. I worry about what they think and it’s so much easier for me to just take a half hour watch the first 30 minutes of a movie I think we might like and like get through so that we can go into it at least saying, I think this is good. And not have to like base my opinions off of how I feel someone else feels. Do you have that at all with Christina: Um, not really. I mean, usually I kind of have an idea like if, if, if, you know, we’re gonna like, like it or not, right? Like, [00:43:00] you know, you kind of tell like, who’s the director, who’s the whatever. Does the idea seem okay? Um, but, um, I, I feel like, um, so, so, so that, that, that’s part of it. But like, I, I feel like, what was I gonna say? Um. Sometimes you just don’t know. Theater Experiences and Bad Movies Christina: And, and so that, like anytime you go see a movie in the theater, right, like that, that is the exact same experience you’re describing. And, and then you’re trapped. You’re like, you’re stuck. You’ve gotta actually, like, unless it’s so bad that you, somebody needs to walk out. Which there have been like, I, you know, like so, such a small number of movies that have been that bad that like, I’ve actually walked out of the theater because at that point it almost was like, okay, well now I just need to see how awful this is just to get Brett: Right. Christina: Right? But, but the, the Brett: I can complain about it later. Yeah. Mystery Science Theater 3000 and RiffTrax Christina: Grant really enjoys watching truly terrible movies. And so we don’t watch a lot of the same things [00:44:00] because he really, really likes to watch like stuff that like, you know, like the, um, uh, can’t think of their name, but the, the people who were part of, you know, mystery science theater 3000, and they started their own, um, thing where were, they do like commentary over really bad movies and like, but he’s really, really into watching just bad movies, like, on purpose. And, and I can respect that, but that’s just not really like my thing at this stage in my life. Like, there was a time when I was maybe more into that, like for the, again, like in college, like for the lulls, but like, that’s just not a thing that I actively seek out now. So if it’s really bad or if the commentary track, um, is, is is really funny, then maybe I’ll, I’ll give it a shot. But like in general, you know, I’m not gonna, I would rather spend 90 minutes not watching dog shit. Um, I. But, but, but he gets enjoyment out of it. He enjoys the humor of how bad those things can be. And so I, I appreciate that. But, um, so I don’t know, I, I, I feel like, um, we have like, [00:45:00] I don’t know. I, I feel like I’m not, I’m not as, I don’t have that, that concern, but I understand why you do. Right. And, and I understand like if that can take you out of it, like if you, you know, if you’re not sure if riff tracks is what I was trying to think of, but like I, I can understand like if, um, you know, you’re worried about how somebody else is gonna react and whatnot, that would be the case. Um, my recency see stuff like in terms of the last 10 years is not as strong. But I am, I’m fortunate that I have such like a long backlog of like things that I’ve seen that, like, I usually have like a pretty good sense of being like, okay, will you like this? Will you Brett: Well, and you remember like directors, you remember actors, you remember every, you remember the, you remember the extended credits on movies. And I don’t, Christina: no, which is totally true. Most people don’t. Brett: see a director’s name and not remember whether or not I hated their previous work or not. Um, and, and that would be a boon to be able to remember that stuff. But thankfully, you know, letterbox and services like that [00:46:00] can help fill in my memory, I guess is Mystery Science Theater streaming anywhere. Christina: That. I don’t know, Brett: I might have to dig those up. I might have to do some Christina: that would be a good one to, to watch. I mean, I know that they, well, I think that they are, they might be on, um, like their own network, um, or something. Um, but again, like, I know like riff racks and they, they might have bought like the, the rights to them. Um, but uh, I know they have like some sort of like, um, subscription service or something. Um. Brett: me and my high school friends used to love, that was like the, oh, me and the Nerds we loved, uh, mystery Science Theater. That Christina: Yeah, no, a lot of people did. Yeah, so, so they have like, they have like a, a, a 5 99 subscription thing, which has like hundreds of riff tracks, movies and shorts and stuff. And I don’t know if that has the mystery Science Theater 3000 stuff or not, but I, I’m sure that those are available like, um, places. [00:47:00] Um, Brett: Yeah. I’d like to figure that out. Evil Dead and Streaming Services Brett: Have you ever watched Evil Dead, any of the Evil Dead Christina: have, I have. Brett: I like there’s, it keeps coming up in my mind that I want to go back and watch these again. I haven’t seen them since like the nineties. Um, and I keep finding myself like wanting to, but not really in the mood for it. I gotta, I think I need to just get started on like the first Evil Dead and maybe then I’ll be able to get back into it. ’cause I know I would love it. I know it’s so campy and so just like over the top that. I feel like it would be a fun, it would be a fun evening. I just can’t get myself to do it. All right. Christina: All right, so, so just just as an update, there are some classic episodes of MST three K that are on Pluto and some of the other FAST services. Pluto tv. It’s like, it’s [00:48:00] the one that Paramount owns, I think. Um, and so it’s, it’s one of those, so they have like a riff tracks channel and they have a mystery science theater, 3000 channel and um, some other stuff. Um, so you can watch things that way. But there was a Kickstarter, I guess four years ago. Um, the MST three K people did called, um, I guess to make like a season 14 of that. And so they have their own platform that has, um, all the, um, uh, every available classic episode. Now, what that entails, I don’t know. Um, so there’s 150 of them, so they have their own, um, I guess, uh, uh, platform. Gizmo Plex. Brett: Gizmo. Plex. Let me add that to the all one word. Gizmo. Christina: Gizmo Plex. Yep. Brett: All right. All right. Gratitude and Tech Recommendations Brett: Should we do some gratitude? Christina: Yeah. Let’s do some gratitude. Brett: Uh, what, what do you have, uh, what do you have on your list?[00:49:00] Christina: Okay, so the one that I have on my list, um, and I don’t know if I’ve, if I’ve mentioned this before and if I did then I feel really, really bad. I think about, um, uh, we’ve talked about Cindra, uh, Soha, uh, stuff before. Who, who is great, um, who, uh, does a lot of open source apps and, and also makes apps available for. Uh, you know, across the Apple platforms, and some of them I think are, are on other things too, and most of them are open source. Some of them are paid for. Um, but, uh, he has a, a really great app called, uh, actions, which is basically like a, a shortcuts app, um, to, um, at basically do additional things in, in, in the Shortcuts app, which is really, really great available on Mac Os, iOS, um, iPad os. And, um, it, it’s, uh, as far as I know it, it’s free. Um, there are a couple of those, you know, types of, you know, shortcut kind of add-on things, which, which costs money, but, but, but, um, actions is, is free and it’s a really great way to like, uh, as he says, like supercharge your shortcuts with, with powerful actions and features and [00:50:00] whatnot. Well, he, he has a, an add-on with that, um, uh, I guess kind of sorts called AI actions, which is like AI actions for, for the Shortcuts app. And so, you know, you can have it, um. Using, um, related actions using various models like, you know, like, uh, you know, GPT-4 0.0, you know, or mini, um, Claude 3.5, you know, haiku, whatnot directly from, um, the shortcuts app. And, um, and then on, on the Mac, you can also, um, support other models using, um, things like, like, like Alama, um, and whatnot. And so, um, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a pretty good app. Um, and, um, I, uh, I enjoy it. I haven’t played around with the newest version of, of macOS yet. I’m not going to until, you know, things, uh, stabilize more because I, um. I think that some of the stuff like doesn’t work well in a vm and I’m just not in a place where my personal machine, I wanna put a beta on it. I don’t have any reason [00:51:00] to my work machine. I’m definitely not. And then, you know, I, I have an Intel iMac, which I could, but like, most of the stuff that’s gonna be new is, I mean, this is the last year that they’re gonna be, um, supporting that, that this particular iMac. Anyway, RIP, um, I guess I’ll have to put like Linux on it or something. Um, or, or Windows or whatever, once it’s end of life. But, uh, because it’s still a viable machine actually, but, um, anyways, that stuff wouldn’t be necessarily best optimized on, uh, on it. So I haven’t played around with what some of the new AI stuff like built into the Mac OS is. But since, so I, I don’t, I can’t comment for how good, like Apple’s, you know, on device model has become my. Skeptical opinion is gonna be that it’s still probably pretty dog shit compared to, uh, Gemma three N and, um, llama and, um, let alone like the, the, you know, mainstream frontier models like, you know, Gemini, [00:52:00] um, Claude and, and, and OpenAI. So like, you know, I’m, I’m glad that they’re doing stuff, but I’m not really holding my breath to be like, oh yeah, this will be so good. And the, the on-device stuff will be just as good as anything else. Like, I fuck off. Like, I, I, I don’t believe that, um, if I’m wrong, I’m happy to be wrong, but they lied to us for a year and I don’t think they deserve any credibility in this space right now. Like, I’m not giving it to them anyway. If other people want to, that’s fine, but like, I’m certainly not. So, um, I do like the idea of being able to use like AI stuff in your shortcuts in a way that doesn’t, isn’t reliant on, you know, whatever Apple has decided to, to offer to people. Brett: Yeah. No, that’s cool. Um, side note, um, I will eventually break down and make my node a gratitude pick, but um, my node just introduced a whole bunch of new shortcut actions and That’s awesome. And I feel like [00:53:00] as, as reluctant as I’ve been getting into shortcuts in general, um. I think it’s easier for developers to add shortcut actions these days than it is to add automated actions and why would you at this point, Christina: no, exactly. Which, which is unfortunate. ’cause I mean, I think that we can all agree that like. Automator is still a lot more powerful. Especially, I mean, obviously on Mac that’s the only place it is, but it’s, it’s a lot more powerful and, and it’s just, it’s, it’s, it’s better, it’s more robust, but they haven’t given that any love. They’re not going to give it any love. It’s kind of a end of life sort of thing. Um, or not, I wouldn’t say end of life they, they’re not gonna call that, but like, keep the lights on Apple’s iPad vs. Mac Debate Brett: so I only caught the last half of the keynote. Um, but from what I saw, apple, all of Apple’s announcements regarding [00:54:00] iOS and iPad OS were about making iOS more Mac like, which is a reverse. Which is a reverse from making Mac Os more iPad like, Christina: Mm-hmm. Brett: which seems like it’s been the trend. Christina: Yep. Brett: it just, are we just equalizing? Is that what’s happening? What’s going on there? Christina: I don’t know. So, I mean, if, that’s a good question right now, I personally think that by making the decisions that they’re making with iPad os, which I have not installed yet, but I probably will like, maybe in July, I’m probably gonna put like the, the, the public betas on, I don’t know if I’ll go to the dev betas, but I might do the public betas might be like a week behind. Um, because that does look like it is a genuine, like, big upgrade, right? Like they’re getting rid of slide over think fuck, rest in piss, like slide over is an abomination and never needed to exist. I hate it. I hate it, I hate it. Um, they’re getting rid of that and they’re getting rid of like the, I guess like the, the traditional split panel thing, but they are allowing you to basically window apps and move them around. Um, and so it’s, it, [00:55:00] and it is windowing, I think, I think as, as as John Gruber like, like pointed out, right? Like it’s not really multitasking, it’s windowing in like the traditional ma Max sense, which I think is awesome, right? And so, um, and, and honestly they’re keeping stage manager around which. Sucks, but like I can, I can almost even get down with stage manager if, if it’s gonna work the way, I would never use it on a Mac. But the way I would use it on like a, you know, in, in an iPad, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re including like a, a, a better kind of like, like file kind of, you know, app. Like they’re making, they’re making improvements. Um, but then to your point, they’ve spent the last mid decade plus, you know, close to close to 15 years making the Mac more and more iPad like. So just give us a fucking touchscreen Mac at this point. Like, honestly, just give us a fucking touchscreen Mac and if you don’t believe in the iPad enough that you don’t think that it can survive. Having a touchscreen, you know, capabilities. I’m not even saying be able to write on the screen. I’m not even going that far. Right? I’m, but, but like, admit you were wrong and the service actually made sense, right? Like, because clearly you were [00:56:00] wrong and the service made sense. If what you’re doing is, is to your point, kind of equally out the halves, right? And kind of bringing them slowly with parody with one another, except one of them is still going to be shittier than the other because it can’t run, you know, like on sandbox stuff and it has more limitations, but also in some ways, one of them is going to be better than the other because it has those limitations. And so you don’t have to worry about stuff. And if you just want something to work and to last forever, you can do that, right? Like, I think that, you know, the problem they have with the iPad is that most people don’t need to buy an iPad every, more than every five years. And, and that’s just gonna be a, a, a reality, right? Like, they try to make it out and be like, oh, make this your, your, you know, what’s the computer? Which is the dumbest fucking ad in the world and they’re never gonna not be made fun of for that. ’cause it, you know. Even they admitted themselves like they were wrong. Right. It’s like, okay. No would, because would Apple rather you buy like an iPad error with like the keyboard and all that stuff? Or, or, or a MacBook. I bet they make more margin on the MacBook. I bet they make more [00:57:00] ma margin on the MacBook error, honestly. So like, I don’t think they really care. It’s one of those things like, yeah, they make more revenue from the app store, but like that’s because you fucked up on Mac Os App Store. That’s like, not that, that that’s a new problem that you don’t make enough revenue from that, honestly. But like, I don’t know. I just, I just feel like, um, I’m glad to see the making those changes, but yeah, it does feel kind of like, like whiplash. It’s like, okay, well you told us for this long that these platforms have to be separate, but now we’re making them closer and closer together. But just enough differences, so, so you choose one over the other and it’s like, I don’t know, maybe just accept that people are never going to use the iPad as a primary computing device. And, and, and, and I look forward to all the, the feedback that people will now come and tell me, well, no, I’ve been using my iPad as my primary computing device and only computing device for blah, blah, blah amount of time. Congratulations. I’m really happy for you. Brett: I’ve heard from so many, like YouTube creators that really tried Christina: Oh, yeah, Brett: down that path and [00:58:00] have said, you know, fuck it, the, the MAC Mini, the M four Mac Mini is way better than trying to use an iPad for about the same price, Christina: yes. Brett: computing experience. Christina: Yeah. Um, uh, Federico did an interview with Craig, uh, Federer and, and talked about, um, uh, you know, uh, was able to talk about some of this stuff. Um, and so, um, I’ll, I’ll put a, a, a a thing for that in the show notes too, if people wanna read. Um, uh, his, uh, interview, um, for Max stories, uh. Brett: I would like to read that. I hadn’t seen that, but still like. Federico really went all in Christina: Yeah. Brett: iPad as computing device, so I’d be really curious to, Christina: Yeah, totally. And, and then kind of had to kind of make a push back, right? ’cause at a certain point, you know, uh, like it, it stopped working. And, um, and like, I, I don’t, I’m [00:59:00] not gonna judge anybody who like made that their goal. Like, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go all in on this. Like, I mean, I think that’s like a, a, a worthy pursuit. I, I suppose, um, I’m, I’m, I guess that I’m too pragmatic in these sense, and then I’m like, that would be a fun challenge to do, but I’m not gonna, like, I’m not gonna disrupt my workflow to try to make a paradigm work when a paradigm clearly doesn’t work. You know what I’m saying? Like, like, like, which, which is only way I would sometimes kind of like be a little bit weird about people who’d be like, oh no, I do all my computing on my iPad, and that’s my entire personality. I’m like, cool. I, I appreciate that and like I’m happy for you to do these things, but at a certain point, if you’re having to make all these workarounds and having to make all these, you know, you know, like have, having to have all these contingencies are you not just it, I feel the same way about people who like, insist on like using like a Linux phone or like super intel, like Lin on the desktop things. I’m like, okay, I mean, more power to you. I’m happy for you to do this, but like, at a certain point, for me anyway, if I have other options, and granted, not everybody does, but most of the [01:00:00] people who do these things do. If I have other options, why am I continuing to like, you know, basically punish myself? Because I, I, I, I’m insistent on, on using this. You know, this, this workflow, this system that, that this company has sold me but doesn’t actually exist. And we all know it doesn’t actually exist. And we all know that there are, there are trade offs, right? Like I think if you can do all those things and you don’t have to take an extra device, that’s great. I think that for Apple, if, if I’m being honest, like, and I’m just, I don’t, I’m sorry I’m rambling here, but I haven’t talked about this sort of stuff in a while. I think that they had to make, there were a lot of concessions and a lot of, frankly, now we can look back with the, you know, power of like a decade where there were a lot of like marketing decisions, um, and, and messaging that was really kind of a cope. That was really about the fact that Intel’s chips were not good enough and, and were not able to deliver what they wanted. And so they [01:01:00] had to, and yet they weren’t willing and maybe at the time, weren’t able to, you know, do things to iPad OS to, to make it actually Mac like. And so they were kind of at this like precipice. They were like, okay, we have to create these differentiators and we have to like, sell this mission that, oh no, you can have, you know, this, this, this iPad device and this can be your computer and you can do all these things. That’s so powerful. Um, maybe as kind of a hedge to be like, okay, well if we can’t get our desktop ships done in this time, if we can’t do the software transition, then we have this as kind of a backup way where, where people can do stuff. But I think like as soon as, as the, the in one series came out, you know, five years ago, as soon as those chips came out and they were so good that it, and then, you know, the, the software transition happened, uh, relatively quickly that it kind of became for a lot of people, like, okay. We don’t have to pretend anymore that we have, um, you know, that these, these powerful devices that have good battery life and, and, and low heat, that Crile software, but whatever, we don’t have to pretend to make that trade off. We [01:02:00] can actually just use the computer that we always wanted, which is going to be for most people, I think a MacBook Air. Um, I mean, you know, I, you and I both have MacBook Pros and like a Mac Mini is honestly great too for, for a desktop. But like, I think for most people, like a MacBook Air, which is totally silent and very powerful and does everything you need to do, especially now that it comes with 16 gigs of ram. It’s like this is the machine that you can literally, you know, it’s not much more than, than an iPad, you know, with, with a, with a keyboard and whatnot. And you’re gonna be able to do way more on it. The only thing that you can’t obviously, is have a touch screen, which would be nice. But, you know, I. Then I, but I just feel like we, we all could kind of give up on like that, like collective, like delusional cope of being like, oh no, we, we, the iPad can be perfect for everything. I am glad though that they, if they’re not gonna give us Mac Os on an iPad, I am glad that they’re at least finally, you know, giving it a proper windowing system and, and doing, um, you know, things like that [01:03:00] because it’s, it’s been sorely, sorely needed. Um, and you know, I’m, I’m, I am. Yeah. Brett: I bought an iPad Pro like five years Christina: Mm-hmm. Brett: um, with the hopes that, not that it would replace my desktop, but that I would be able to do more. Computing on it, and that honestly, it just was not the case. Um, I do not find the iPad to be a viable computing platform, not for the kind of work I Christina: No, no, no. For the stuff that you and I do, like, I think for a lot of people, like if you’re just doing, you know, kind of like stuff in Google Docs, especially now with the windowing mode, if you’re doing things, you know, in, in, uh, you know, uh, Brett: writing, if you’re writing, sure. Even then, though, multitasking and, and this is about to get better, but even with Right, like if you’re writing for tech, especially, you need multiple apps, multiple windows. You need, you need copy, [01:04:00] copy paste between all kinds of applications and like the iPad just, it doesn’t fit that bill. Like, it’s not, Christina: Well, no it Brett: paradigm is all wrong for that. Christina: Yeah. Where, where it was better for me ’cause I’ve had an iPad Pro now, uh, basically since the very first one, which I think was like the 9.7. And then I got like the first 11 inch one, the one in 2018, and then I replaced that one with the, I think it’s the M three, might be the M two, whatever, the one that came out in, in, in 2022 or 2023, and I think it was 2023. And so I’ve, I’ve had that for a couple of years now. I didn’t get the one that came out last year, the, the, uh, M four one or whatever. Um, I, I thought about it, but it was just gonna be for, for the minor upgrade. It just wasn’t gonna happen. Um, but where it did become useful for me was during the pandemic. And again, this was all about Intel, really not so much anything else. And that Zoom and Teams, like on my Mac were teams especially, was terrible. And so, you know, I’m now doing like [01:05:00] video meetings all day long and like, you know, again, like teams on, on Mac at the time was like a nightmare because they hadn’t prioritized that at all. And, and so I was like, okay, well, I. I will have my laptop up and I can be doing things, and then I will literally have like my iPad as like my, you know, video conferencing thing, right? Like that was what I was using things for and that was really good. And the battery life was better and the performance was better. And like, even with the bullshit multitasking that existed in 2020, which was worse than it is now, and, and now is worse than it will be in a few months, it was still a superior experience to using some of those applications. Right. But, um, that’s just, you know, five years later, like that’s not the case anymore. So, yeah, like I feel like if you were in a sp there are times when like you can, you can get a lot done and there’s, you know, I’m not, I’m not opposed to saying buy an iPad, but I also feel like it’s one of those things where people are like, oh, it could be my everything machine. And I’m like, eh, again, like unless you Brett: No. And the surface could Christina: Yes, yes. The surface really could be because they actually kind of nailed [01:06:00] it, right? Like they actually did sort of nail it and go, no, having this convertible package and having this ability to write on, but also do the real computing and plug it in with a doc and, and do all that stuff, it, it fucking works. It’s, it’s, it’s good. Like Windows is not, but like the, the device itself is, and if you can make, you know, the, if you can make your, I could be far more productive, like on, on a surface, um, is is it gonna be as good in every way as an iPad? No, but it’s, it’s a much better middle ground than having two different devices. But I just feel like once the MacBook Air got good, it was like, okay, if you really didn’t need that portable thing, and it’s not about like, it, you know, if you’re gonna have a keyboard with your iPad anyway, in my opinion, you, you might as well just have a MacBook Care. Like, right. Like it, Brett: ’cause using, using a MacBook or using an iPad with a keyboard, it’s, it’s even, so, okay. I like to make everything as keyboard centric as Christina: Yep. Brett: [01:07:00] but the fact is, on a Mac, every once in a while, I still have to reach over and use my track pad. Christina: Right. Brett: When you have to go from using your keyboard to reaching up to touch your screen, I find that way more problematic than just moving my hand a little bit to the right, Christina: Yeah, I would agree with Brett: of a MacBook Pro to like lower center to use a track pad. I find the combination of keyboard and touch to be, Christina: That’s the Brett: just unworkable for Christina: Yeah. No, Brett: I don’t like it at all. Christina: Yeah, when, when I use my, um, you know, like magic keyboard or whatever with my iPad Pro. Um, and this is also another reason why I haven’t upgraded, because I’d have to replace that keyboard and I’d have to replace the pencil and like, you know, it, it there, that’s expensive, right? So like, okay, great, I’m gonna add $450 or whatever to my already expensive. But like, okay. But like the, um, the fact that you can use a mouse or the track pad that’s built into the magic keyboard. When I do use my iPad with a [01:08:00] keyboard, I’m not touching it. Like the, this is the irony. They’ve like, like the, the Mac has like, so like, like, you know, anti touchscreen pilled me to the point that like if I’m on like something that even looks like a Mac, I just forget that I can even touch stuff. Right? Because like that, that, that’s how like. Locked in. I’ve become on that because, but also to your point, I think that it is the, the, the worst of, of both. It’s nice, I think, to have it there, right? Like I, because it can be useful. Like when I used to use a Surface book, which had a great track pad, like a, a Mac quality track pad and had a good keyboard. And this was the one that was like a little more than the, um, the, the surface. This was the had like the, the hard bottom that had like the GPU core in it. And it had like, you could detach the screen and use that as whatnot, but it had a good touchscreen and I didn’t use it that much. But where I would use it would be like, okay, I’m working on something and then I wanna scroll. And sometimes it would just frankly be easier to scroll with my fingers to go, you know, up and down than to use a track pad. Even a really good track pad. Like honestly, that like I could just go, you know, or we needed to [01:09:00] zoom in on something, right? Like that was like perfect use cases, which pension zoom and rather than having to do like command plus. Brett: so while the leap motion was a thing, like I got really used to scrolling by just picking up my fingers and waving them in front of my screen. And that’s kind of the same, it’s the same motion If your screen were closer Christina: mean, you, I mean, Brett: the Christina: it, it’s funny you were like, you were vision probing before the Vision Pro existed is what you were doing. Brett: Yep. And I’m still not vision probing, but Christina: Well, no, no, no. One’s Vision Pro. Anyway, let’s, that I rambled enough. Let’s, let’s go to your pick. Brett: So I, I am certain I’ve talked about this before, but there’s an app for Mac called RegX rx, as in like RegX pharmacy. And there are, there are many regular expression testing applications out there [01:10:00] and none of them have ever come close to RegX RX for me. And I got really bummed because it would not run on my M1 studio. It was just immediately crash. And I contacted the developer and they were not super responsive, but eventually they said, well, it works on our machine, so. Whatever. And, uh, never got it working. But then I got my M four MacBook Pro and suddenly it worked again and I am back to having RegX RX available and what I love about it, in addition, so it’ll tell you immediately if you’re RegX is invalid, if you have an unfinished like character sequence or a bad escape or uh, missing parentheses, it’ll give you that information in real time. It’ll show you all of your matches. And each match has a drop on menu where you can see the match groups [01:11:00] within the regular expression and what in your test pattern match them. And, uh, it can copy and paste in multiple languages. So if I’m working in Ruby, I can say, alright, I want to copy this either. Um, search pattern or the entire code to do a search and replace with this pattern to ruby, or it can paste. I can copy a, a sequence I’m working on in objective C, and I can paste it from objective C and it’ll remove all the double back slashes. It’ll remove the at quote from the string head, uh, string definition, and it will paste, uh, a standard posics regular expression. And then I can copy it out as objective C and it’ll replace all of that with objective C syntax. And it [01:12:00] doesn’t have a swift capability, but SWIFT is far more standard in string handling than objective C is. So you can actually use like the Ruby export to work with Swift, and it is just. It’s for what I do, it is hands down the best regular expression tester program I’ve ever found. Christina: And is this the one that’s like, that’s 4 99 in the Mac App store? Brett: That sounds right. Yes. It has like a pill bottle Christina: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. The reason I was asking is, is, um, so, so it’s $5, which is great ’cause I was looking at my getting this, um, um, and I’ll go ahead and buy it. Um, but, uh, fuck it. But, uh, we, we’ll, we’ll give it a shot. I am a little not happy with like, their initial kind of support response to you about what works for us, whatever. And it hasn’t been updated in five years, which is [01:13:00] also not great. But, but, um, I love a good, you know, um, uh, RegX tester. I, I use AI for that at this point, for a lot of things. Yeah. Yeah, Brett: it work well? Christina: does. And it honestly works incredibly Brett: I should give that a shot because you’re right, it’s not well maintained and it may never be updated again. Um, and it’s living on borrowed time, but for now, like I, there’s just nothing that can replace it. Like my next best option is expressions, Christina: I was Brett: it doesn’t have, it doesn’t have nearly the capabilities that RegX RX has. It’s so Christina: That was gonna be my second question was how is this different from expressions, which we’ve talked about before, and which I really like. ’cause it’s a really great visual way to do things, which I think is probably what would be better than this. Right. But, but it seems like this is really good for testing. Mm-hmm. Brett: but like RegX Rx will highlight all your square bracket and par parentheses [01:14:00] pairs, um, in different colors for each nested pair. So visually it’s, it’s not as pretty, but it has all the same visual feedback as expressions, and it just has so many more additional features. On top of that, the, the copy from and paste to are definitely my top tier, uh, requests. Um, and, but then it lets you, you can specify every possible flag that you can use in a pause, regular expression like all your greedy and your line end is, uh, line begin is, is string begin kind of flags. Uh, you can specify all those with a quick dropdown and expressions just. Feels almost crippled compared to RegX rx. It’s a good app. Um, no, no shade to expressions. Christina: I totally get that. You’re just saying like that, that, you know, the [01:15:00] way that this works for you is, is, is better and, and I think that’s like completely valid. Um. Um, and, uh, yeah, I, I was just, that was just be one of my questions ’cause I think I’ve, I, I think you’ve maybe even mentioned this maybe before. Um, and, and like, and I spent $5 on it ’cause support people $5, who cares? That’s a small enough, you know, price to pay. It might be useful, especially based on everything you’re saying. And I don’t use regular expressions nearly as much as you do, but it’s nice to know that there are things like that out there and that it works on your M four at least. So, you know, um, I, I, I, I. AI and Regular Expressions Brett: I spent the last three days refining, uh, critic markup handling in marked, and doing it all in objective C and figuring out all the regular expressions and in what order the regular expressions had to happen, uh, to get solid critic markup, rendering with comments, and with [01:16:00] insertion deletion, substitution handling. Um, and I will publish this library, um, this critic markup because critic markup, the, the, the GitHub repository currently doesn’t have an objective C or SWIFT implementation of critic markup. And I’m, I’m gonna fix that. I’m gonna, I’m gonna share this library. I’ll make it open source. But anyway, RegX RX has come in really handy Christina: No, that would, that, that, that would be like the thing that would be really good. And, and, um, since, um. Brett: And I will say, like, I tried, I tried using AI to fix these regular expressions and it, it messed it up. So I ended up back in RegX Rx doing it myself. So I did try AI Christina: Yeah. No, which would honestly, which makes sense. I mean, uh, that, that it wouldn’t, because, uh, I, where some of the stuff is weakness is gonna be like, it’s, it’s, it’s okay-ish on Swift, but like objective C stuff, there’s just, there’s not a lot of corpus for it to like learn from. And [01:17:00] I would think with critic markup there would be even less. Right. So like, you know, maybe you can, you know, you Brett: Claude, Claude did have a good, Claude knew all of the regular ex, uh, not all of the critic markup syntax. As soon as I said critic markup, it’s like, okay, here are your basic, but then it started adding syntax that doesn’t Christina: right. Yeah. Sort of hallucinating. Yep. Brett: Yeah. Christina: Yeah, no, that’s the thing. Completely. And like, and, and not that you should, because again, if you can do it with a different tool, that’s what you should do. Um, I’m just trying to kind of think through like. In the, in the short term, like how people, if they face these things, could get through it if they didn’t have other tools. There would be things where you could maybe, like in like your, your prompt, you know, like, uh, your system prompt. You could be like never, you know, create new things, right? Like only use documentation from, you know, this, this file only use, you know, the, the, these rules or whatever. But, and that might get you closer, but, but it might [01:18:00] still create things, right? Which, which, which to your point is what happens. And like, it, it is good that Claude immediately was able to be like, this is what you’re doing, but it’s not good when it’s like, oh no, but look at all these features, and you’re like, this does not exist. Um, Brett: this morning I was trying to get a parser to convert Panoc. Metadata into multi markdown metadata. And I copied literally the POC documentation for how POC metadata works. And I pasted it into Cursor. And I said, because it seems so simple, I’m like, why waste my time? I’ll just like cursor do this. And I gave it the exact documentation and I still, it still messed it up. And I still had to be like, no, look at, look at line 1 24 here. Clearly if you skip a line, then it means that metadata is blank. Not that it’s a blank line. And yeah, it was very [01:19:00] frustrating. Uh, AI only gets you so far. Christina: true. It’s true. I mean, it’s getting better all the time, but although it only gets you so far. But then I also have this secondary question, which is like, we are now almost, you know, like asking it to do things like we wouldn’t have asked a year ago, right? Like a year ago, you wouldn’t have even thought to be like, oh, hey, let me. Paste all this documentation to you and have you do this for me and, and even, even think, oh, we can do it for me, right? Like, we wouldn’t even a year ago, we were barely at that point, like the age agentic coding systems were like, just starting to show up. And now we’re like, well, fuck you. You can’t do it correctly. You know, I’m I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll start my own club, you know, with, with, with, with, with hookers and, and cocaine. Um, but, uh, but like, no, but, um, I mean, I think we’ll get better, but you’re not, you’re not wrong. Like, there are all these edge cases and it’s just funny that we’re finding the edge cases. I think just because we’re starting to use these tools for like, more than what we use them for before. Like at [01:20:00] least that’s my, my, my take is, is that like, is that we’ve started to adopt these things more quickly than I think even like the skeptics might’ve like, wanted to believe. And I was like, no. Like, you know, there’s still skeptics of course, but like, but I think people who use them, you’re like, okay. I have this, I have this one positive experience. I’m gonna continue trying things and then when I don’t, that’s when I’ll, I’ll use other tools. But yeah, I mean, uh, we shouldn’t, we shouldn’t use it for everything. Anyway, continuing to ramble, but Conclusion and Farewell Brett: Should we, should we wrap here? Christina: yeah, we should wrap. Brett: All right. Well, thank you Christina for showing up when Jeff couldn’t. Thank you for not having a jet ski. Christina: I know, I know. I’m, I, I’m regretting that I don’t have a jet ski, but, but glad that, glad that Jeff does Brett: All right. We’ll get some sleep. Christina: get some sleep. [01:21:00]

In this episode of Overtired, Brett and Jeff go it on their own as Christina is out for the week. The duo kicks things off with a mental health check-in, then dives into Brett’s carpal tunnel surgery saga, the joys and pains of recovery, and the unexpected logistics of same-day surgery in small-town Minnesota. They swap stories about recent punk and metal shows, reflect on the enduring power of live music, and discuss the emotional aftermath of a shocking political event in Minnesota. The conversation weaves through tech, music nostalgia, and app recommendations. Sponsor The latest 360-degree camera from Insta360, the Insta360 X5, launched April 22nd and shoots full 360-degree videos in incredible 8K30 resolution. To bag a free 114cm invisible selfie stick worth US$24.99 with your Insta360 X5 standard package purchase, head to store.insta360.com and use the promo code overtired. Chapters 00:00 – Intro & Banter 00:38 – Mental Health Check-in 01:52 – Carpal Tunnel Surgery 09:51 – Napalm Death and The Melvins 16:53 – Political Events in Minnesota 28:35 – Sponsor Break: Insta360 57:35 – App Recommendations 71:08 – Show Wrap-up Show Links Napalm Death The Melvins soma-zone Ammonite Mac File Finding Gems Brett’s Web Excursions The Complete Collection of MTV’s Headbangers Ball Bullet Boys – Hang on St. Christopher Join the Conversation Merch Come chat on Discord! Twitter/ovrtrd Instagram/ovrtrd Youtube Get the Newsletter Thanks! You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network 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 Not As Nerdy As I Thought [00:00:00] Brett: Hey, you’re listening to Overtired. I am Brett Terpstra. I am here with just, just severance gun. So Christina Warren, due to scheduling conflicts, cannot be with us this week. Um, so you are in for a Brett and Jeff nerdy episode. Um, not that Christina can’t get nerdy like she totally can and does, but something we get, we get weirdly like not productivity nerdy when it’s just the two of us. I don’t know. Jeff: Yeah. Brett: Yeah. Yeah. Mental Health Check-in Brett: So, um, we can kick it off with our, our usual mental health coroner. Mine is pretty short and sweet. Um, mentally I am. Finding myself just extremely happy with not having a job. Um, not enjoying the, like the health insurance loop, uh, [00:01:00] hurdles and not having like predictable regular income as, but not, I’m not, not enjoying it so much so that I don’t appreciate having all this time to just focus on like my commercial projects and all of this coding, and I’m finding it super rejuvenating to just like wake up in the morning and start coding and take regular breaks to do whatever the fuck I want. And then. Ultimately, like the, the next version of Marked is the biggest leap marked has ever made in functionality. And I’m super proud of what I’m about to release, and I think it’s gonna be profitable, but also like extremely useful. And that’s all just really good for my mental health. Carpal Tunnel Surgery Brett: I did have, um, carpal tunnel surgery. Jeff: Ooh, look at that. He just raised his fist in [00:02:00] the land of hypocrisy. Uh, Brett: It, I did the total like black power fist too, but yeah, I have a Jeff: you’re white, which makes it a problematic white power fist, but whatever. At least it’s got a gash in it. Brett: Yes. So they did just one small incision. They stuck a camera into my palm through that incision and snipped, uh, not, not, uh, ligament across the middle of my palm. And um, that led to a couple days of super achy hand and they gave me no painkillers. So I’ve just been working with Tylenol and Ibuprofen for a couple days, but today doing pretty good. I got the bandage off this morning. And, um, I will say as far as mental health goes, pain is, um, very detrimental to my mental health. [00:03:00] Uh, I, I am very sensitive to pain. Like I have tattoos, I have brands. I’ve, I’ve been through a lot of things where I intentionally like subjected myself to pain, but mostly because pain, because I’m so sensitive to pain. I also get like a major endorphin rush off of pain. And so like I kind of just seek it out. But there are a couple types of pain, like low lying aches and tooth pain that I get zero pleasure from. Jeff: Tooth pain is brutal. Brett: I hate it so much. I hate it. I hate it so much. Um, but yeah, so that’s my mental Jeff: Was the surgery like a outta nowhere thing or did you have it planned Brett: Um, so I’ve had numbness in my fingers, uh, especially on my right hand, but moving into both hands for like five years now. And I had had wrist pain a long [00:04:00] time ago and had been diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome and had, uh, completely revamped my working setup to be more ergonomic and changed all of my habits in the pain. Jeff: keyboards? Brett: Yeah. And the pain, the pain went away. Um, and then a while later, the numbness started and I didn’t associate that with carpal tunnel. And I finally got into, uh, neurology at Gunderson Health and they did some testing and they did, it’s called an EMG, where they hook up like electrodes and they shock your hand and it bounces all over the place. And they determined that, yes, I have bilateral carpal tunnel causing numbness in my two first two fingers, in my thumb on both hands. And so they said, when would you like the surgery? And I was like, well, anytime I’m, I got nothing going on. And they’re like, how about tomorrow? [00:05:00] Um, Jeff: Wow. Gunderson Health has some openings. Brett: right in Winona too, like Gunderson Health is mostly doctors that work out of the slightly larger lacrosse, Wisconsin, and they travel to Winona usually once a week. So if you want an appointment in Winona, and the, the clinic is literally a three minute drive from my house, so I prefer to just do it in Winona. But if you wanted in Winona, you gotta wait until a doctor is there for once a week and happens to be available. And in this case, the surgeon was there the next day and had an opening and it, it, I was in there at like seven in the morning Jeff: Wow. Brett: I was there until, like, the surgery takes five minutes, but, Jeff: minutes. Brett: but I, but I did the prep, which involved like a bizarre amount of mouthwash and nose iodine. Jeff: I mean, obviously, or maybe that’s just the Gunderson way Brett: What, [00:06:00] like they’re like, this Jeff: you want your surgery tomorrow. All right, here’s your mouthwash. Be ready. Brett: this has been proven to reduce infection. If you like, use all this mouthwash, clean your nose for like two minutes straight with iodine swabs and wash your hands from fingertip to elbow for three minutes per side. Um, Jeff: like Robert f Kennedy’s America. Brett: yeah. But anyway, but so like I did the prep and then I waited for like two hours and then they give me, it was partial and like I don’t, partial anesthetic, I think it’s called. They don’t put you completely under. So I remember the whole thing. I remember them putting a blue tent over my head and pulling my arm out and I remember being about to Jeff: thing sounds like you’re describing a dream about a carpal tunnel surgery Brett: I remember being Jeff: tent and then the mouth, the mouthwash was still leaking from my mouth and my nose.[00:07:00] Brett: it was a little dreamy. I remember being about to ask if I could watch the surgery and they, they pulled the te, the blue tent back and they’re like, okay, we’re done. But I didn’t feel anything. Like the anesthetic apparently worked really well. Like I was conscious, but I didn’t know they had even touched my hand. Jeff: That’s bizarre. Brett: Yeah. So anyway. Jeff: My God. That’s cool. I’ve always wondered about doing that surgery. I got the, I got the C ct, I got the carton, and, uh, and it’s very uncomfortable. And, uh, but I Brett: you have pain or numbness or both? Jeff: I have a little bit of numbness. I have definite pain. I, the problem is I hate mouthwash. That’s, that’s what’s kept me from doing the surgery all this time. Brett: you’re killing Jeff: you’re, you’re more brave than me, Brett. Brett: So I get the other hand done in a month, Jeff: [00:08:00] Oh, wow. Brett: I can’t submerge this hand in water for four weeks. So really by the time I’m able to take a shower without a bag over my hand, I’ll have to do the other hand and I’ll still be taking a shower with a bag over my hand. Jeff: Wow. Ugh. Well, I’m, I’m glad. I hope it helps. It’s awesome. I mean, it seems like it does help. Usually I have people I Brett: Yeah. I already, so like I. The, my fingers were numb to the point where I couldn’t button a shirt and I couldn’t, like zipping up my fly. They’re numb on my right hand and I zip a fly with a right hand and I could not feel the tab on the, on the fly. Jeff: but fuck it. You work from home Brett: sweatpants. That’s the answer. Um, but like, so I was zipping myself up with my left hand and. All these things that like you just take for [00:09:00] granted. Like my over the, my, uh, bone conducting headphones have buttons right behind the ear for turning them on and off and fast forward play pauses, et cetera. But you’re supposed to be able to feel them with your thumb and order to tell what button you’re hitting. And I couldn’t tell if I was hit a hitting a button, let alone what button. And now, and wait, hold on. It was supposed to take up to a year for me to get feeling back after this surgery. And even two days later, I can feel my zipper already. Jeff: Oh, that’s so good. Because you know what, if I can’t feel my zipper, I don’t even feel like I’m alive. I’m holding onto it right now. You know what, my, my son and I went and saw, uh, napalm Death in the Melvins at First Avenue and um, uh, it was about a two or three weeks ago now. Napalm Death and The Melvins Jeff: Um, napalm Death, I mean, they were both the Melvins and Napalm Death were both phenomenal. Um, but, uh, napalm death, their singer, [00:10:00] who’s, I mean, if you, if if you haven’t seen this guy in action recently or at all, you should people just Google like their recent shows ’cause he’s a trip. Um, and he is, and he is fantastic. And he is an incredible, just like, Brett: He’s gotta be 50, 55 Jeff: He’s gotta be older than that. But I don’t know. I don’t know. But anyway, um, he came out and he had these super skinny jeans on with like suspenders. He’s, he’s really skinny. He wasn’t always really skinny, but he was really skinny. Um, and, uh, and his fly was down a little bit. Like the kind of way that if your pants are weird, it just won’t go all the way up. Right? And, Brett: are pretty much all the time. Jeff: There’s a point at which the crowd just couldn’t stand it anymore. And, and they were yelling at him between songs. The S Fly is Down, which may not even have been something that translates to British, uh, English that well. And, uh, and he couldn’t make it out. And he just kept, he kept saying like, I can tell that what you are saying to me is important. I cannot understand what you’re saying. It seems that this is important to a lot of people. then he finally figured it out and he is like, oh, my zip. [00:11:00] Yeah. Brett: Oh, that’s Jeff: also just the fact that if you know nothing about Napalm Death, but the name, the fact that the singer is utterly delightful is, and, and just incredibly charming is not something that even I totally expected. Um, Brett: Napalm Death was one of my first metal albums after Cannibal Corpse Jeff: Who I’m also going to see at First Avenue. Brett: Nice, I can’t believe these guys are still around. But, um, the thing, I, I enjoyed it. It was okay. I was in middle school. I ended up liking Metallica better after I found, uh, and Justice for All. Um, but. Then, uh, alternative tentacles put out, uh, I can’t remember the name of the album, but it was all covers of Dead Kennedy’s songs and Napal death did Nazi punk’s fuck Jeff: Yep, yep, Brett: it re, it renewed my interest in Napal death, and, and I got back into them after that. [00:12:00] But Jeff: What a great band. It was a phenomenal show. I’m not a Napalm death person. I’ve barely listened to them in my life. I was there for the Melvins for sure. Um, and, uh, and they, man, did they win me over. Oh Brett: Should I, should I give the Melvins another chance? Like I never, Jeff: she give the Melvins a daily chance. Brett: yeah. Jeff: I mean, it’s a, it is a phenomenal band. There’s still no one that sounds like them. Um, and, and they’re, I mean, actually one of my topics, so let’s, let’s put a little like, as they say, pin in this. ’cause uh, my first topic is related to that show and a bunch of shows I’ve been seeing, and it is about age and all these things. Um, so we’ll talk about it. But, um, I mean, I’m a, yeah, I’m a huge fan and have been forever. Um, didn’t think I needed to see them again until I saw they were coming. And it was the best show over theirs I’ve ever seen. Um, it was unbelievable. Anyway, uh, I’m, you know, my, my, uh, my corner in my corner, uh, it’s kind of a similar like, uh, medical theme. I, you know, I, I go like months not tending to the things [00:13:00] that are just like barking out at me that need attention from a doctor or a specialist or something. And I kind of just beat myself up because I can’t figure out why I’m not just making the call. ’cause it’s pretty easy to make those appointments to stay and age. Um, you don’t have to call people. And, uh. I finally just kinda like had the right shift and made all this, I do this every year, made all the calls made about six appointments, you know, and so I’m going through like a three week period where I’m, well, some of them I don’t have till October, but, and it’s been awesome. It’s like a awesome, uh, it’s awesome to know I’m tending to myself, um, and, uh, and always like some new discovery where it’s like, oh, I’ve been suffering that for 10 years, but I decided to finally ask somebody about it and look, they have an answer, wouldn’t you know? Uh, well that was in Minnesota. Wouldn’t, you know, down here at Gunderson Health, we’ve got a solution for you. Uh, um, yeah, so that’s just been, [00:14:00] it’s been nice. It’s a relief every time I go into these. Places and, and have something tended to. So it’s really great. It’s a, it’s dispiriting how, how there are things that feel urgent that you can’t schedule before October for, um, apparently not at Gunderson Health, Brett: No. Uh. Jeff: in my system. Brett: In, in general, Gunderson schedules me a couple months out, but not until October. I Jeff: Oh yeah, no, and that was just like an endocrinologist. It’s not even like a big, you know, it’s like just, it’s a video visit. I mean, it is like, it’s, it’s just crazy. Um, but as a transition out of this, because we’ve said Gunderson so many times, which anybody not from Minnesota or Wisconsin or maybe Iowa, definitely Iowa, uh, doesn’t understand how it almost causes a Midwestern or a Minnesota person to like, release hormones or something. It’s like, it’s that, it’s, it’s that much Brett: that, or Mayo that Gunderson or Mayo both have, [00:15:00] both have, uh, endorphin reactions. Jeff: doesn’t get the Saudi prince’s, Mayo does, but that’s fine. That’s fine. That’s why Gunderson can schedule you same day for a heart surgery. Um, I heard there was some wildfires up, up this way and, uh, there’s an airplane going over my house right now. I don’t know if you can hear it. It’s extremely loud. Um. There was a, there were wildfires here, an amazing Minnesota moment on Minnesota Public Radio where there’s a sheriff, it’s up north. Everything you picture about Fargo and the way that they talked in that movie, it’s like little exaggerated, but not always much. Um, depending on who you’re talking to. And the further up north you get, the more likely you do. It’s true. You get that. Um, and uh, the sheriff was talking about having to go in and evacuate a couple people who didn’t wanna leave. And he is like, and there was one old guy over by the lake there, and uh, he told me the only way he’s leaving his house is toes up. It was, it was made my, like, my heart just so warm and it made me feel like this is my home. Brett: So like are [00:16:00] there wildfires in Minnesota or are Jeff: They’ve calmed down now, but there were some, um, up north in Minnesota and then there were definitely the ones in Canada, which made our, did you get the smoke all the way down in Winona? Brett: Our, our air quality, like a week ago we had like four days of poor air quality and then it was okay for two days and then right back to poor air quality. And I am, I cannot sleep without my CPAP right now. And I am short of breath all day and yeah, it’s killing me Jeff: Yeah. That’s brutal. Um, well, okay, so you put political murder on the show, uh, uh, on the list and, and I’ll wait ’cause we’ll come out of it with my, um, my punk rock shows topic ’cause that’ll be a nice thing to come out of. Brett: a as a, as a palate cleanser. Jeff: ’cause a palate cleanser from political from assassination. Brett: Yeah. I just, Political Events in Minnesota Jeff: We’re in Minnesota is the context. Everyone heard about Minnesota this past week. Brett: everyone heard about it. It was national [00:17:00] news, but, um, it was shocking to me. The whole thing is just fucked up. Like, I get assassination attempts, but the, like, the deliberateness of like impersonating a police officer going in and murdering, hitting multiple houses and having like a whole hit list of, of democratic representatives and governors that, that you wanna hit is, I wouldn’t, if this is ha if this had happened to Republicans, I I would not be gleeful about it. Like it is, it is not, I will admit, like there’s part of me that thinks that if Trump had been assassinated a long time ago, things might have been moving more slowly towards fascism than they are. Um, but I don’t, [00:18:00] I, I don’t think political assassination is an answer because I. New heads just pop up. Like if, if your goal is productivity in this space, um, Jeff: And this, this at some point was a productivity PO podcast, Brett: if your, if your goal is productivity, you’re not accomplishing anything by killing figureheads. Um, and it’s at that point it’s just murder that affects like real people. You’re not accomplishing political goals in the way you think you might be. And yeah, it was. And, and so, and then I guess the thing that I wanted to talk about was kind of the fact that like Waltz came out and said, don’t go to the no Kingsburg test, Jeff: as people were driving out to Brett: yeah. Jeff: was the state patrol first Brett: because the, at that point, the killer had not been caught still at large, and everyone felt [00:19:00] unsafe, especially in. Kind of the liberal sphere and, um, what, 80,000 people still showed up. Jeff: Across Minnesota 80,000. Yeah. There were like 25,000 in St. Paul. Um, and it was really just great vibes there. And, um, yeah. Yeah, I I, I feel like the state patrol kind of had no choice but to say, don’t go. It would be good negligent to not do it, but I didn’t, I didn’t get the sense anyone was, you know, it was great. Brett: Yeah. So I, and I bring this up because you were, you were much closer to all this than I was. I was watching it from afar. I was just kind of curious about your take and how you felt about it. Jeff: I, it’s really stunning and awful and, and, um, it’s, it’s just crazy when it’s your local legislature. Like it’s, it’s very, it’s not what you. Expect Melissa Hartman was great. Um, I don’t know much about John Hoffman. Um, doesn’t [00:20:00] matter that they were great, they shouldn’t have died. Uh, but it’s, it’s just, it was, yeah. And the, the, it was a little fascinating as those things tend to be, um, just this strange and bold way in which he did this, the difficulty in kind of tracing, he had a weird life. He’s sort of a intense dude, but trying to trace anybody’s life to political assassination is, doesn’t, you can’t find that road that easily. Right? Like, that’s the, that’s so strange to me. And he, and he went to two other, um, lawmaker’s homes between the two that, um, he shot up, which is something came out yesterday and it was fucking chilling. Like, one of those, one of those people were just, they were on vacation, uh, but he was knocking at their door for a long time. Like, I just can’t imagine. Yeah. My brain always goes to the like. Just to the human thing that we can murder. Like I’ve met a fair amount of murderers in my life just from work I did in death row. And um, it’s [00:21:00] really, I, because of that, I experience these types of things. I don’t know differently from a lot of people, but differently for most people. I know I’d see him when he was cuffed and being arrested and, or even in the security footage where he was kind of brilliantly hiding with a cowboy hat. Like, you wouldn’t think that would be a good idea, but then it was kind of like, well actually no, I’m not. That doesn’t seem like probably the guy. Um, but just knowing. I just looking at someone who’s killed in the last 24 hours and, and trying to, what are you even looking for? What are you, what can you even see? What do they feel like? It’s not like people who do that don’t feel anything afterwards, right? Like, he’s feeling something. I don’t know what he might be feeling. Numb or cold. He might be feeling a little confused about how he got there. He might be proud. I, I have no idea. But I get, I get pretty consumed by just the fact that as humans we can make this decision. And there’s been this really, I don’t know if you, you saw, [00:22:00] um, the interviews with his, he, he had a home in the, uh, you know, outstate. But then he had, um, he rented a room in north Minneapolis, um, with a couple of guys and, ’cause he would sometimes be in the city, it was apparently the story. And, um, one of the guys in that house was like his, his buddy since fourth grade. And he got, he was interviewed. Really as the day that it, you know, the news came out, he was interviewed and ’cause he got a text from the guy who was like, Hey, I’ve made some decisions. They were hard decisions. Uh, you know, I just want you to know I love you. Um, I may be dead soon. Um, and, and, and, you know, you had nothing to do with this or whatever. It almost was like, seemed like a very intentional sort of trying to help him be exonerated too, so that, ’cause this guy was so close to him. And, um, but he’s, you know, he is reading this text and he is just heaving crying. Um, you know, this is his friend who’s done this thing. And, and it was such a human moment and it, it humanized this guy that did this horrible, horrible [00:23:00] stuff too. And, and that guy was interviewed like every day for three days. And that was actually to me like. Kind of the most fascinating thread because it was, you were then seeing this. ’cause his family, we didn’t see his family. We don’t know any of his family. His wife, he has kids, they homeschooled them, but we don’t know, we never saw them, didn’t hear their names, nothing like that. But this guy just kept coming out for the reporters, um, on his, on his stoop and just sort of musing. Um, you know, and just, it all just unfolded. His processing unfolded in real time in, in these three or four interviews, and it was really intense to Brett: This is. This is, so this brings me to my big, uh, self searching question is, uh, with Luigi Mangione, I, I felt nothing for the victim, Jeff: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Brett: um, or the victim’s family or any of the, the humans that [00:24:00] would be affected by this action. I saw it as a more, uh, political statement and one that I hoped would lead to revolution. And like I had a very different reaction to it. And I think, I think I’m searching right now to figure out why, uh, it’s on its face. It’s very hypocritical, and I’m searching for why I feel different about this. Like I said, like even if it had been, uh. A, a Democrat killing Republicans, like I would not have supported it. Like, I just, I don’t, I don’t see that being, just from a practicality standpoint, I don’t see it being useful. And from a human cost standpoint, I see it as terrible. Um, but I felt differently Jeff: Well, treading very carefully here. He the two. People who were shot and certainly their [00:25:00] spouses as well, which is, and, and they had to euthanize one of the dogs. And all this stuff is like, these were people that have a long history documented of helping people. Um, and so that, like, that could be one reason, right? Like, it’s just like, um, and I’m not, I’m not arguing for, um, lack of feeling towards the United Health guy who’s, by the way, name I can’t call up right now, which says its own as its own thing, right? Um, but you know, for me at least, like, it’s, it’s profoundly different. That doesn’t mean that I feel nothing for the victims in either case, but again, I end up weirdly thinking first about the people who, who did the thing. I mean, like, I, this is gonna sound kind of, I don’t this, I don’t want this to sound shallow, but like, if you’ve ever read Crime and Punishment. Sevki, which is an incredible sort of document of someone unraveling after committing a murder, a very strange murder that you can’t understand. But that he, it’s almost like this one. It’s [00:26:00] like I get the symbolism of what this guy did, um, over the weekend. Um, but I, I just can’t understand how he landed there, um, in any sort of, I don’t know why. Like with the Luigi Mangi thing, you kind of, you get, it’s very clear how he landed there on that person, on that, you know, it’s very easy to, for me and for you it sounds like, you know, easy to take in, but, um, but that is, yeah, I just get carried away honestly by the, I end up, it’s not even empathy exactly, but it’s just, that’s the victim is like that thing. It’s easy to instantly feel all the difficult feels about the victims and that was definitely the case here. Um, but anyway, and then the lighter, the, if I’m just being flip. Um, it occurred to me that Luigi, Luigi Magni was gorgeous, and this guy looked like every other middle-aged man walking through Brett: haven’t seen, I haven’t seen this guy. I don’t, I Jeff: You, you would recognize him as everybody’s [00:27:00] uncle in the western suburbs Brett: the Minnesota, every Jeff: Uh, everybody’s white uncle. I should be clear. Um, anyway, no, it’s really, it’s, it’s awful. It’s awful. My God. It’s just, it’s, it’s striking and what’s so, I mean, it’s striking. That was a stupid thing, but like the fact that he visited two others and just the weird chance of him, them encountering him when they did, not knowing how much further he could have gone. ’cause it was late, you know, it was like two or three in the morning. It’s like, eh, Brett: I will say it was nice to finally have people in authorities saying, don’t talk to cops. Jeff: Oh, that was so strange. Yeah. I don’t know if, I don’t know how much of this was, was in the national news, but what Brett’s referring to that was so striking was because this was a guy who showed up alone, impersonating a police officer. The thing that Minnesotans were told, and especially those in Brooklyn Park, which is a nearby suburb, um, actually it was more Plymouth, which where I lived in my last year of high school. It was like a [00:28:00] very unremarkable, um, suburb. Um, and, uh, everybody was told, if it’s a single officer that comes to your door, call 9 1 1. They’re, you know, everyone’s in pairs right now. And that was like a super interesting. That puts people, I mean, can you imagine being in that situation? Um, ’cause you can imagine, uh, there’s a scenario where they are out as partners, but suddenly they’re separated and want us to go to a door, whatever. Like it’s just, and if I’m the per, I mean, it’s just Jesus Christ. Like if it’s not two, it’s the killer. Like, fuck. Um, that was really, really incredible. Brett: I think it’s important for people to know that you can demand a warrant before you let any, before you even open the door for a cop, you can demand a warrant and you don’t have to talk to cops. And I think if people weren’t so trusting of police, maybe impersonating a police police officer wouldn’t be such an effective way Jeff: Yeah, but at the [00:29:00] same time, like just taking it as a a without this isn’t a rebuttal to what you’re saying at all. But at the same time, what was so striking about this is a, a cop shows up with sirens on at three in the morning, knocking on the door saying there’s been a shooting in the neighborhood. You’re opening the door. Yeah. Brett: I didn’t know Jeff: You’re opening the door like a, you know, and you’re a, you’re a state legisl, you’re a lawmaker. Right. Like you’re, you’re opening the door and, and that was. Brett: insidiously crafty. Jeff: He had a really freaky rubber mask on. Have you seen that Brett: No, I haven’t Jeff: ring camera photo. He, he was wearing like the rubber mask of a bald white man, and, but he had a big flashlight, so if he’s shining the flashlight, you can’t Brett: Uhhuh. Jeff: it right away, you know? Um, but yeah, it was a really just craven. Horrible, Brett: premeditated. Jeff: yeah, it was really awful. Brett: Wow. All right, so bring us back to some punk rock death metal. Jeff: Yeah. So, um, I have had such an interesting experience [00:30:00] over the last couple months ’cause I’ve been going to shows for the first time in a really long time. Um, and they’re exclusively the performances of men in this case who are. 10 to 15 years older than me, I’m 50. Um, and so it started with, I went to see, um, with Danny Gl Glamour, hi, Danny Glamour. I went to see Mike Watt, um, and his, and a group he’s in right now called MSSV, which was incredible. And it was at a small club here that Brett knows called The Turf Club. And so I could just stand right next to the stage and, and just, you know, I could hear, you know, I could, I could hear the guitar player click his pedals, you know, like you’re that close, which is just an incredible way to see music and kind of the only way mostly I’ve ever seen music since my, you know, since my arena days ended at about 17. Um. So we saw that show also, Greg Norton of Huskerdoo played with Charlie Parr, amazing blues guitarist from Minnesota in the, in the, [00:31:00] um, in the band. Before that, he had Greg Norton, another example. Then I went and saw Napalm Death and, and the Melvins. And um, and again, you got, you know, probably ranges are like late fifties to mid sixties there with all of those folks. And then, uh, we drove down to Des Moines, my boys and I, to see acid bath and high on fire. Um, Brett: either of those Jeff: yeah, I didn’t know acid bath, although now that I do, it’s bizarre. I didn’t, they were a band in the early nineties, kind of sounded like some of the, some of the early, like sub pop and SST and later SST and early, uh, sub pop, I, I guess later SST, they’re still around, but, um, but like, uh, maybe like, uh, early nineties. Sub pop, um, SST and Sub Pop. Anyway, they, um, they were a band that was from New Orleans, and they were, they’re, they’re considered what the kids call now, like sludge metal, but they have so many names for the metal now, these kids, um, and, and, uh, and, and they’re from New Orleans. And they, they put out two [00:32:00] records. And the reason they broke up was because their bass player died in a tragic car accident with his parents, actually. And so they broke up and, and now they’re back together after all these years. And my son came upon them and just really fell in love with the band and, and was like, if you heard these guys, he played, I’m like, what? I would’ve loved this. How did I miss this? Like 92, 94, I think with their two albums. Anyhow, so they’re, they’re doing this thing and that was amazing just because like, they have a, they have a following of fans who never thought it’s kinda like when Lint reunited never thought they would possibly see this band again. And this band was fucking vital. All these, and I saw High On Fire, which is. The guitarist and, and singer of sleep, the band sleep. Also just like an awesome, I don’t know if it’s sludge, metal, doom metal, I’m not sure. Um, but all of these people were, were older than me by 10 years, uh, I’d say on average. And they were so vital and so, so just completely present and, and mind blowing. And it was as good as any show I saw in the nineties when everyone was [00:33:00] 25, you know, and 30 and, and uh, and it kind of messed my head up a little bit ’cause like I, you know, I was in bands for shit Dale Kroger borrowed my drum set. Um, it was the Melvin’s drummer, uh, like I was in bands in those days. It was in the same label as the Melvins. Like I think of my rock days as over, they are over. And I’m not in a band. I haven’t been in a band since like 2007 or 2008. Um, and I just think of myself as like retired or something. ’cause like, I have no business playing loud punk rock music or something. But then here, here they all were and they were just. So fucking good. Brett: I saw, I saw Iggy Pop shortly after his 50th birthday Jeff: yeah. Which at this point, he was a child Brett: Yeah, come, yeah, that was, it was a while ago, but, um, but he was climbing Marshall Stacks and, and he, he cut his chest till it bled with his microphone [00:34:00] and like, was just all over the stage. And like, I had never seen, like I am old enough and grew up sheltered enough that this was the first time I had seen Iggy Pop. Live in any capacity. And I’ve seen videos. I, you know, I grew up in an an era of VHS bootlegs and like I had seen Iggy Pop, but I had never seen him live until he was 50 years old. And I swear it could have been, it could have been him from like the David Bowie era, like Iggy Pop. It was, yeah, it Jeff: well it’s because he is alive and an artist and that is sort of outside of time and he has been since he was, you know, 20 in The Stooges. He’s born in 1947. By the way, for anybody that doesn’t know Iggy Pop, like it’s a long time ago, he is still playing. I was just watching a TikTok of him yesterday, still playing shirtless at like [00:35:00] 400 years old. He is like a biblical character at this point. I saw him at First Avenue and, and he really, I mean, he is someone that changed me, um, just understanding Brett: Did, when did you see my first stab? Jeff: some at First Avenue on his American Caesar tour, which would’ve been somewhere around 94 or five, I think. Brett: I saw more like 2000, I don’t know, mid early two thousands. Um, Jeff: Yeah, Brett: it wasn’t the same show, Jeff: well he, he jumped off the stage and landed on me and I was holding him up by his chest and his head was, his forehead was pressed against mine and he had his microphone and he was screaming in those giant, if you haven’t seen it, he popped everyone probably has the beautiful giant eyes were just like in my eyes. And I think something happened to me that day. I think something passed into me. I can’t know what person I would’ve been without that, that moment, that cosmic moment. Brett: you know, who else is a really great performer, no matter how old they get is [00:36:00] Nick Cave. Jeff: Oh, unbelievable. Brett: Not, not your like punk rock jump off the stage kind of guy. But last time I saw him, he was. Over 50, maybe 60. I don’t know how old he is now, but I saw him a few years back and like, he was like, it was, it was at a smaller venue in Minneapolis. I can’t remember what the theater was, but like, it was a theater with like opera house seating. And like, he took his mic and he walked across the backs of the, the seats rows out into like eight rows deep in the audience. And like sang, um, I can’t remember the name of the new album, but he sang the title track like directly to a young woman in the crowd. And people are just like clawing at his legs. Like he’s not, he’s not huge. Most people I Jeff: skinny man. Brett: No, I mean like popularity Jeff: Oh, [00:37:00] popularity. Yeah. Yeah. Brett: I think most, most, most Americans ha haven’t heard of Nick Cave. Um, or at least haven’t heard Nick Cave. But for Jeff: be very confusing to you if you were watching him play. You would wonder how is it possible that I’ve never heard this man’s beautiful songs? Brett: for like his crowd, for his fans, it is a fanatical appreciation even for me, like I just. Like Nick Cave is like a God to me. Um, he, he, he commands, he’s like a tree. Jeff: yeah, Brett: the best, that’s the best metaphor I can come up with for Nick Cave. He’s like a tree that like protects you and, and weathers the storm. And he’s also like seven feet tall. At least it Jeff: he was short. Is he tall? He presents as very tall. Sorry, everybody. I Brett: tall. Jeff: and short.[00:38:00] Brett: He’s big. He’s hulking. Jeff: He’s um, he is one of those performers. Iggy Pop is one of those two that like you, it just pulls you out of yourself. Just when he walks on stage, it’s something you just, he’s so captivating and almost Brett: Yeah. No matter how self-conscious you are going into the show, you will forget about it and you will just be there to see Nick Cave or Iggy Pop or any of these vi vital characters. Jeff: from the Melvins Brett: Yeah. Any of these Jeff: Wearing a giant moo with eyeballs on it. Brett: draw you out of your own shit and into their show. Yeah. Jeff: And that’s, that’s been incredible for me too, is like, I, I stopped going to shows. I mean, I’ve gone to a few every, you know, maybe I don’t know what I’ve, I’ll go a year with no shows. I’ll go a year with two shows and now I’m just buying up tickets. Just bought, bought tickets to the acid bath show in Minneapolis. ’cause they have this amazing. Metal band I love called Wind Hand, which is the rare metal [00:39:00] band with a woman singer. Um, and I bought tickets to go see the Jesus SLIs. And by the way, most of my music listening is like folk and jazz. But if I’m gonna go to a concert, I want it to be so visceral, um, because that is the experience. You can’t, you can’t recreate. Brett: seeking. Jeff: Yes, exactly. And I got to be on the edge of mosh pits at all these shows, which was really delightful. Brett: But not in mosh pits. Jeff: Well, I got pulled in once and I could not get back out. You know, once you’re in, everyone thinks you want to be in, so you try to get out and they push you back in. I’m like, no, no, no, I’m not. I’m gonna die in Brett: belong here. Jeff: I don’t belong here. Look at me. Look at me. Brett: Yeah. Jeff: But I love that, I love the, the physicality of that too. Just getting banged into and, you know, whatever. I think that’s, it’s awesome. I thought those days were done for sure. ’cause I didn’t think my body could handle it. My body handled it great. Brett: That’s awesome. That’s Jeff: People like having a big guy in the, you know, along the edge of the pit that they can bang into. [00:40:00] Anyway, so that’s been really delightful. And I’m, and I’m just now I’m just all about going to, going to shows. great. Brett: We should do a sponsor break. Jeff: Oh yeah. Brett: Oh yeah. Jeff: Yeah. We should, I’m gonna stall Brett: this week, despite all of our health concerns, scheduling issues, we showed up anyway because I. Sponsor Break: Insta360 Jeff: because today’s episode is sponsored by Insta 360, a leader in 360 degree action camera technology. You don’t wanna be a follower. Field, you gotta be a leader. So their latest 360 degree camera, it’s crazy that that kind of thing exists. Do you remember, like, when they first came out, they were, they must have been like the, the price of an F 16. Brett: Sure. Yeah. Jeff: looked like, so, I mean they looked like the Google cars, Brett: And, and the only people who seemed to have them were the reviewers that they sent free ones to. Jeff: That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. That’s good. Yeah, that’s true. So their latest 360 [00:41:00] degree camera, it’s called the Insta 360 X five, launched April 22nd. It shoots full 360 degree videos and incredible eight K three oh resolution. That is such good resolution. I don’t know what it means. Brett: second, 30 frames per second. Jeff: So, see, we gotta fix that in the script. I’ll tell you what, not that I’m reading from a script, I’m talking from my heart here. Let’s be clear. Uh, so eight K resolution, 30 frames per second. That’s good stuff. And since it films in all directions at once, which is bizarre and terrifying, you don’t even need to aim the camera obviously. You just hit record. You live in the moment and you choose any angle you want in the edit. With Insta three Sixty’s mobile app, it’s easy, smooth, packed with AI tools, what isn’t these days. Uh, for a faster workflow, you can even get these impossible drone like third person shots. Using the invisible selfie stick that Christina Warren has told us is pretty cool. It [00:42:00] disappears from the final video. Which is super weird and cool and probably some crazy ass algorithm and cheers to whatever team had to work on that over there. Insta 360. Um, so from immersive POVs to unique third person shots, X five is every camera you’ll need in one. It’s an efficient triple AI chip, which means seriously smooth performance, plus huge sensors and a dedicated low light shooting mode. They deliver unmatched detail and quality day and night. The X five also features Insta three sixty’s toughest ever lenses, which are completely replaceable. So you can risk the shot with confidence. So to bag a free 114 centimeter, that’s really funny. Do I have to talk? Hold on. I’m gonna open up, um, I’m gonna do another sponsor. Brett: that in Inches Jeff: I’m gonna open up, uh, what is my, um, what is my launcher called right now? Brett: Oh, quick, uh, what do you use? Launch Bar Alfred Jeff: Starts with an R. Brett: [00:43:00] Raycast. Jeff: Ray casts. Okay. 115 centimeter. That’s 40. Everybody listen to me now. That’s 44.8 8 1 8 8 9 7 6 3 8 inches. Okay? That is a serious selfie stick. It’s worth 24 99. By that I mean $24 and 99 cents. I don’t have to convert that, do I with your Insta 360 x five standard package per purchase. Brett: what is that? In Euros. Jeff: um, please hold h how, how tolerant of a sponsor is this, Brett? Brett: Oh, we’re gonna, I think they love us. I think we’re good. Jeff: Okay, great. I don’t know how much it is in euros. Isn’t it usually fairly close? I, let’s just say it’s fairly close. We’re America though. We don’t need to worry about really anything internally or externally. Okay. So to bag of free 114 centimeter invisible selfie stick worth 24 99 with your Insta 360 X five standard package purchase. Head to store dot insta. 360. The numbers three six [00:44:00] zero.com. So that’s store dot insta three six zero.com and use the promo code Overtired. It’s available for the first 30 standard package purchases only. Hurry up 360 camera. Buy-in people. For more information, please be sure to check out the links in our show notes. Brett: Well done, I think. I think they’re gonna love that. Read. Who wouldn’t love that read? Jeff: I mean, look, do you want, do you want me to bring myself to this read or not? That’s the question. Brett: I did. I did specifically ask you to do this read, so Jeff: Yeah. Brett: I was, that’s what I was looking for was the Jeff treatment. Jeff: Yeah, I think I killed it. Brett: think you did. Jeff: I think I deserve one of these. 1 1 4 CM Invisible selfie sticks worth 24 99. Brett: It doesn’t do much good without the camera. Jeff: Yeah, that’s true. And I just remembered they’re a sponsor, so they are giving us money either way. Brett: They are, they’re giving [00:45:00] us money, but not enough to afford one of their cameras. Jeff: Right. And if this, and if this were early two thousands podcasting, we’d have one of these cameras in our pocket right now. Yeah. Yeah. And I’m not saying Insta 360, that you ought to do that, but I’m not saying we wouldn’t make good use of it. Brett: Yeah. Yeah. They have my address. They asked for my address. They Jeff: Lemme ask for your address. Yeah, yeah. Selfie stick shows up. You just went, your sound just went away. Unless you’re just, um, stretching your lips. Everybody. I can’t hear Brett right now, but we’re not gonna edit this out. I’m gonna describe Brett. Okay. Brett’s got some clear frame frame glasses on right now. He seems a little frustrated. He’s, uh. He’s got headphones with like kind of blue ear things. He’s got a nice blurred background. He’s kinda got a YouTuber background. Oh, he just [00:46:00] left. Listen, I’m glad we’re here together right now because frankly I’ve been waiting for a chance to get you alone for some time. I want to talk about Insta 360. Okay, fine. We’re gonna have to edit this. This is getting a little ridiculous. I feel very self-conscious, but you look great. I think you look great. I think, uh, it looks like you’re having a nice time. I hope you’re having a nice time. Um, you know, call me sometime. Uh, you can text me too. I’m not good at texting if you call. Brett: Hey. Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brett: my God. I don’t know what’s up. Jeff: Well, Brett: I’m back. This is gonna take some editing. Huh? Jeff: you’re gonna enjoy, you’re gonna enjoy the Brett: A good were were you a good DJ While I was Jeff: I wasn’t that good. No, but I did play everybody. Do you know about the five second? It’s actually a two second Napalm death song. Brett: Um, this sounds familiar, but my brain is skipping to wiener. Wiener schnitzel by the [00:47:00] descendants. Jeff: Oh, it’s different. Listen, here it is. Ready? It’s called You Suffer. That’s it. Brett: Wow. That Jeff: then, and then I did my impression of the weaker then. So you wanna hear that? Brett: Sure. Jeff: Okay. 1, 2, 3, 4. Talk just a minute about Vibe coding. But yeah, edit it how you want. Please edit all that shit out that I did. ’cause I was just entertaining myself. Brett: see now, like this was gonna be a hit it and forget it. Kinda. Jeff: was, especially with that sponsor read I did. We were looking at no edits. Brett: Yeah, it was gonna be amazing. And we’re supposed to have this out same day, and now I’m worried. But anyway, Jeff: Well, Brett, I know I happen to know that for Gude, you have like a really big thing and I had just a question for you that may or may not be fruitful. Um, before we do Brett: I, I am curious what you have on your mind. Jeff: and at some point I, when we have, when we have time, again, [00:48:00] I, I wanna, I wanna talk to you on this podcast about questions that come up for me as I create several of my dream apps just for my local use using Bolt new all, just almost all text reference stuff. Literally all of them, basically Brett Terpstra apps that don’t exist can’t be scaled. But it, it’s so interesting because it’s like, it’s the closest I am not a developer, but being able to work through. We’ve talked about this already and, and end up with a, a little app I can use that I’ve always wanted something like this is fucking incredible. But it raises all these questions that I want to ask you anyway. But I’m actually curious because you have marked coming out and you’ve been working hard and you’ve been able to work in your own, completely in your own environment ’cause you’re not working for a major corporation. What does your, how does your sort of development, uh, environment differ now from [00:49:00] say, when you were building marked or last working unmarked and, and were a free, a free man? Brett: So, so like cutting out like the oracle years. And so I guess the biggest difference is now that I have cursor Jeff: Hmm. Brett: and I don’t rely on cursor for most of my coding, but when I hit a wall and Google isn’t giving me the answers I need. Cursor often can, and it means that instead of spending a day pulling my hair out, trying to get one little thing to work, I can have cursor write me a couple new classes, add some methods, and then I can work those in and I can figure out how, how things should have worked. Um, cursor is often wrong. Um, right now I’m trying [00:50:00] to debug an issue where the first time you try to open a markdown file in Mark, if you drag it onto the icon or you use the open recent menu the very first time, nothing happens. Like the app doesn’t activate no, no delegate methods are called. It just nothing happens. Um, but the second time, everything is fine and the first time works. If it’s a Scrivener file. Not a Doc X file or any of the other formats that can open other than markdown, Jeff: Yeah. Brett: but if it’s a Scrivener file, it works. So I’ve been going back and forth with Cursor, and Cursor has been infinitely infuriating, just trying the same things over and over. And I’ll be like, no, we already tried this. This doesn’t work. This is why. And it’s like, oh yeah, sorry for my mistake. Let’s try this and it’ll be the same fucking thing Jeff: Yeah, yeah, Brett: And like, it’s not a solution. [00:51:00] But in general, my current rate of productivity owes a lot to, um, ai, specifically to like Claude sonnet, uh, models. And, and that has, that has changed the game a lot. Jeff: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And the Cloud sonnet models also Power Bolt. And are just fantastic. Brett: Yeah, I’m considering trying some different models to see if this particular bug can be answered. But did I tell you Mark can export perfectly, uh, like a hundred percent valid, a hundred percent accessible UB files now, Jeff: Amazing. You did not tell me that that was not in the last, uh, episode’s update. Brett: which means because Mark can open Doc x Scrivener and markdown, uh, and can handle lean pub and GitBook formats, you [00:52:00] can write, uh, an entire book in whatever editor you choose, and Mark can serve as your final eub conversion with styling and footnotes and document structure and table of contents and all of that. Jeff: That’s amazing. Brett: it’s so good. Jeff: You know, it’s funny talking about your struggles with Cursor and how it, you know, continually thinks it got. Something right this time and it didn’t Brett: It always, it always starts it with, oh, I see the Jeff: Yeah. Oh, I see the problem. Yeah, exactly. Which is a little bit like what a life of therapy is like, or like, oh, I see the problem, what I meant to do was this. No, that’s not it. Oh, I see. The problem. Uh, it’s funny because like, as someone who, who has like no skills in this area and for, and really depended on stack overflow for really basic stuff like trying to write a bash of script, right? Um, the hair pulling of that is not eliminated, right? Like, although it, it, it puts you into a, a place in my opinion, where it’s hair pulling plus critical [00:53:00] thinking. And so you’re actually needed a little bit more than, than I’m, I feel like I’m needed more in the process than I did when I was, you know, wrestling with Stack overflow answers. And I think that’s something that’s, that’s missed or not intuitive by people, um, is that there’s still a a, an incredible amount of critical thinking that has to happen in order to figure out, yeah. Brett: there are all these times I’ll ask it to do something and I will watch the diffs that it creates as it edits my code and I’ll be like, wait, so here’s, here’s what I just saw you do, and that is absolutely not what I want. And it’ll be like, oh my gosh, I apologize for the aggressive edit. Let me try again with a more focused edit. Jeff: I’ve, I’ve had an experience and there’s a term that I first heard from. Merlin, and I’m not sure if it was Merlin’s term, but the idea of a cursed thread where sometimes you’re so deep into a thread that you [00:54:00] just, there’s no hope. You’re not gonna extract yourself from it. And I’ve had experiences with bolts, so the like, fundamentally what I’m ever doing is just looking, I’m creating things that help me navigate text basically. Right. But I also usually want to be able to pull from and write to some markdown file or a CSV or something like that. Right. So my, well, the first thing that I, that I built, I needed it once. I was running it locally. I wanted it, I was running the browser. I wanted it to be able to write to this file that it was reading from. And it’s like, I’m sorry, browsers cannot write to to file. Which is like in a certain sense true. Right? But I could not get it to realize the thing that it must certainly know, which is we can do this buddy. Right. It took creating a whole nother app. For it to, for it to be like, oh, you know what I can do, I can create like a little node server here and whatever, but the other one would not get there. And so then I went back to that one. I’m like, you know what you could do? And so that kind of stuff, you just get into a cursed thread where you’re like, we’re never gonna get out of this. Also like a lifetime of therapy [00:55:00] sometimes. Brett: I mean, ultimately they’re very stupid, Jeff: Yeah. But it is fun and amazing and that’s cool that it’s, I like hearing you talk about it from your perspective as like an experienced developer. It’s not like you’re taking anyone’s job. Brett: right? Yeah. Jeff: Awesome. Well that’s cool. I’m very excited to talk about Mark that length once we’ve had a chance to see it and I can play with it and stuff. Um, so Brett: I am considering doing a beta, like the changes are so extensive. It feels like before I release the new version, I should do a beta. Jeff: what’s a co-host gotta do to get on a beta list? Brett: I’m thinking about just making it a public test flight beta, Jeff: Yeah. Brett: um, that I can just get a bunch of people testing all of the new features. I can run it for just like two weeks. Um, and Jeff: Have you done it as a public test flight beta before? Brett: I have done it as a. Public beta before, way [00:56:00] back in like Mark 2.2 era, which was like six years ago. Um, and I did it outside of test flight. Um, I like the idea of doing it through test flight just because it so easy to expire everyone’s beta with the click of a button and then just go on to sell it as a paid app. Um, ’cause otherwise I have to hard code in dates and ex expiration functions and kill switches and it’s a pain in the butt. But test flight I hope will make it easy. So I will post on Brett turf.com when that, if, if, and when that is available. And I will send you a special text message. Jeff? Jeff: Yes, yes, yes. That’s why I’ve been doing this for the last two and a half years. I’ve been waiting for this moment. I get nothing, Brett: And you’ll be able to turn your Microsoft [00:57:00] Word files into EPUBs, Jeff: which the whole Microsoft thing and this new mark is extremely exciting. Not because I would on my own care at all, but because I have to work with Brett: Nobody, nobody chooses to work in Word, but the fact is, so many of us have to, and if I can provide tools that make that more bearable, Jeff: Amazing. Brett: I’m all in. Jeff: Amazing. Yeah. Alright, so we’re gonna do GrAPPtitude. Brett has like a, Brett has a whole universe, uh, he wants to introduce into GrAPPtitude here. And so I’m just gonna like, say, take it away, Brett. App Recommendations Brett: Okay. So I’ve talked about at least one of these apps from this developer before. Uh, but there is a developer called Soma Zone, SOMA dash Zone, and they, they have four primary apps. Um. Actually in all of this rebooting, I closed my browser, but they are [00:58:00] go to file and ammonite and backup loop and launch control. And the main pick I had today was Ammonite, which is a uh, tag base. So I do a lot of file tagging. Anyone who’s known me for the last 10 years knows that I love tagging files and my, like most of my file organization is built around tags and there are only two apps that I know of that create like a good navigable tag cloud of all of your file tags. And that is leap and. Uh, Amite and Amite is kind of my current choice because it also works really well with Devon Think, which is another favorite of mine. Jeff: Hmm. No. Is it a coincidence that they’re both these seashell [00:59:00] things as Brett: what Leap and Amite? Jeff: No. Amite and Devon think. Brett: Oh, that could, that honestly don’t know if that’s a coincidence, but it may have originally been developed as a specifically Devon think companion. Um, it also works really well with obsidian. Um, but the, the general idea is it gives you a tag cloud with like your most commonly used tags, a little bit larger, and you can kind of drill down and you can set date ranges and, uh, a couple other parameters and just display files based on their tags. And, uh, it allows for nested tags, so. Um, they originally allowed for, you could type publisher, left angle bracket O’Reilly, and it would create a publisher tag and then a SubT tag of O’Reilly. [01:00:00] And that was great. But the way I’ve always tagged SubT tags is with colons. And in a recent blog post, which I’ll link in the show notes, show notes about my Mac file, finding gems, um, I mentioned it would be so great if I could change the separator from the left angle bracket or Yeah. Right angle brackets, I’m sorry. Right, right angle bracket to a colon. And, uh, about three weeks later, the developer emailed me and he is like, that’s a great idea. So as of as of yesterday, um, Amite now allows configurable separators between, um, tags, uh, like nested tags in. So you can create, it’s one long tag, but you include separators in it, and that creates a hierarchy of tags. But so amite aside, uh, [01:01:00] find any file, not find any file. Got to file is like a fantastically fast way to navigate files that you kind of already know the name of. And you just wanna like, rapidly search through huge stacks of files to find a file all from like a little popup quicksilver type of interface. Backup loop is hands down, the best way to work with time machine backups. If you’ve ever used the time machine interface through Finder, you know, it’s. A bear, like it takes forever to load. And then you have to like be like, Nope, I had to go back one revision. And then you wait another five minutes. And to backup loop gives you like all the revisions all at once, lets you navigate in, uh, like, uh, kind of, uh, hierarchical finder way of, uh, seeing all your files. It [01:02:00] is, it is, it’s, it’s tits. Do people still say tits? It’s Jeff: Someone just used that word in conversation with me yesterday, and not in that context, but let’s just say that today and yesterday. People still say it. Brett: And then finally, um, launch control is, so what’s the lingen? If you’ve ever used Lingen, uh, you know that it got a little weird with like version three and. It’s good. It’s a good app. It’s worth some money, but Launch Control gives you finite control over launch D jobs, which are kind of Max equivalent Toron, um, but way more powerful than Kron. And if you wanna run tasks at intervals at on events, uh, with any kind of arguments, [01:03:00] uh, standard out, standard, standard air, standard out output, like all of these configurable options, launch Control gives you a EY for managing all of it. And I swear by it, Jeff: Awesome. Brett: all of this is from Soone. So if you’re not familiar with the developer, you should check them out. Jeff: Awesome. Brett: Yeah. Jeff: Cool. Um, mine is kind of a funny thing ’cause I, you know, Brett, you’ve done this feature on your website forever called web excursions, and as I understand it, it is generated, is it still generated through your Pinboard account or are you, are you fully Brett: through a, um, link LinkedIn. I switched from Pinboard to LinkedIn. Uh, but it uses the same script just with the LinkedIn API. Jeff: So it’s now we call ’em woke web excursions now. Brett: Sure. Jeff: [01:04:00] Okay. Um, and, and when you’ve bookmarked something, you write a little something. When you get so many, you’ve got a fucking whole pipeline where all of a sudden there’s web excursions. And, and what I have loved about these since way before I knew you, is they are a great sort of like, look at what Brett’s brain is drawn to and also just like an amazing, uh, there are so many things that I’ve learned about so many apps and whatever else because of your web excursions. The recent ones have been fantastic, but I’m gonna talk about something that’s not an app at all that I didn’t know existed, which is the complete collection of MTV Head Bangers Ball, um, which you, you linked to and, and from what I could tell looking at it, it is, what that means is it is the videos played in the order they were played over the years. I think, um, it does not involve Ricky Rackman, the host, um, at all, who was a really important part of my life. But it’s amazing because I just, just went in and scrolled again, which is delightful. You start in the very early days, you’ve got balls to the wall. The great, not the, let’s just say it’s a ballad by the band, except [01:05:00] you’ve got Wasps song, I Don’t Need No Doctor, right? Amazing Rock of Ages by Def Leppard, right? And you can, you can follow it all the way to the nineties, where now all of a sudden you’ve got like outshine by Sound Garden. An ill-advised inclusive, including uh, uh, uh, even flow by Pearl Jam. I think that was when everybody was trying to figure out what the hell do we do with this moment where Pearl Jam has overtaken hair metal while still having hair. Um, and uh, and it’s amazing. It’s amazing to look through all these videos. Oh my god. I watched probably most of the broadcast of Headbangers Ball on MTV, which if you don’t know, was the late night heavy metal, uh, video show on maybe Friday, Saturdays. I can’t remember. There was like 120 minutes for the cool kids, for like your older siblings that was like the, you know, all the really cool college rock. And then for the dip shits like me who were trying to grow my mullet into a beautiful, just straight up, you know, the hair’s all the same length. You had head bangers, ball, Brett: [01:06:00] Yeah. Jeff: loved it. Brett: what I discovered in going through that was, uh. I rediscovered a love of typo negative Jeff: Oh, nice. Brett: I never, I never remembered black number one being on head banger’s ball. Um, but like that era of Typo negative was typo Negative was a weird band, man. They came out of, what was their, it was Crow Magnus, I think Jeff: think Brett: before, before they were typo negative. And they went from like, kind of thrash punk to like eventually like Vampire goth metal and, and Peter Steele, tragic death and all that. And sure, like some of their lyrics were straight up like neo-Nazi, which was weird. ’cause Peel, peel, Peter Steele was Jewish and like, he took a [01:07:00] lot of offense when people started calling him a Nazi. And I can’t defend. Their lyrical content for some of their work, but as a band, as a sound typo negative was like they led nothing sounded like typo negative when Typo negative sounded like typo negative. Jeff: actually don’t think I’ve ever heard. I mean, I know who they are, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard them. Brett: Um, yeah. I will send you a few, a few specific tracks to listen to, to give you a feel for. They did an album or is that a plane? You have a Jeff: Yeah. Sorry. I have an airport nearby everybody, Brett: they didn’t, um, origin of the Feces that they wanted to make it, it purported to be a live album, but it was actually a studio album that they added a bunch of crowd noise into and like they added people booing and like it sounded, if you listen to the album, it sounded like a [01:08:00] really shitty. show in a small bar. Like it was, it, like I listened to it and I was like, oh man, these guys had a really rough night in like Bumfuck, Iowa and Jeff: Hey, I’m from Iowa. There’s no such fucking town. You’re thinking of Wisconsin Brett: Sure, sure, sure. Um, but like, but it was all, it was all engineered to be that way and like it was all, it was mostly like the first album came out as typo negative, and Peter Steele immediately decided he didn’t like it and he wanted to redo it, and they basically put out the same album again. But rerecorded with like, uh, with like a, with like a new shtick and uh, like they were, they’re kind of a fascinating band, but like he’s got, he’s, he’s this, the lead singer, Peter Steele [01:09:00] plays bass and he was seen in multiple videos playing a double base, like a standup base as an electric base, like holding it. ’cause he’s seven feet tall and he’s just like playing and he’s got this deep voice that just appealed to your typical vampire, obsessed, gothic girl. So like all the girls loved Typo negative. Not all the girls a very specific type of girl loved typo negative. But yeah, I found them fascinating and, and scary. Like in the way that the first time, like when you’re a kid and you first hear heavy metal and it’s scary, but also like, yes, this is it. Like, like typo negative had that effect on me. Jeff: Yes. I love it. That’s awesome. Um, well, while we’re recommending from Head Banger’s Ball, [01:10:00] um, I just wanna say, and I, I’ve already put a link in the, in the show note, um, show notes, but this, there was this kind of, kind of hair metal band that kind of, it was a hair metal band called The Bullet Boys. Um, and, uh, I went to see him at the Mirage Club here, that’s now a bakery, but it’s a good hair metal club here. Um, and, uh, they did a cover of Tom White’s. Hang on. St. Christopher, stay with me. Should not be good. Really, really good. And I just wanna, I just wanna put that out there. Um, and then the last thing I want to ask about here is a copy edit question, head bangers Ball, no apostrophe when in, in my thinking, there should be an apostrophe, but I don’t know if it should be before or after the s We’ll let the listeners, Brett: That’s a really good question. There should be an apostrophe. I would assume it’s after the S. Jeff: I think after the Yes, that’s absolutely my vote. And yet there’s none at all. And I don’t know what the history is probably got, maybe if I do my oral history of Headbangers Ball, which [01:11:00] probably has already been done, but is my dream, uh, I could, I could do that. Um, that sounds, sounds good. I’ll work on that between now and the next episode. Show Wrap-up Brett: All right. Well, thanks Jeff. Jeff: Yeah, it was a pleasure talking to you. Brett: That didn’t get nearly as nerdy as I thought it Jeff: well, we ran out of time because I ended up talking to myself for a Brett: Well, and yeah, I just, I disappeared. I left you on your own. I’m sorry about Jeff: No, that’s fine. I’ve got, I’ll leave some of my nerd questions and, and I will ask you to leave in just minimal, uh, content of me speaking alone to the listeners. Um, thank you. Just minimal. Brett: All right. I love you. Get some Jeff: Uh, love you back. Get a sleep, brother.

In this OG episode of Overtired, Christina Warren and Brett Terpstra navigate through sleep habits, medication discussions, and mental health struggles. They reminisce about theatrical experiences with Magic Mike, the allure of cooking shows, and gardening adventures. Brett’s journey into movie recommendation tools and Christina’s nostalgia over MTV highlight a fun and chaotic discussion. Plus, they reflect on the legacy of computing pioneer Bill Atkinson. Tune in for a blend of tech tips, personal anecdotes, and community app brainstorming. Sponsor The latest 360-degree camera from Insta360, the Insta360 X5, launched April 22nd and shoots full 360-degree videos in incredible 8K30 resolution. To bag a free 114cm invisible selfie stick worth US$24.99 with your Insta360 X5 standard package purchase, head to store.insta360.com and use the promo code overtired. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Catching Up 00:18 Sleep Struggles and Medication 02:35 Mental Health Corner 03:15 Cleaning and Organization Challenges 08:05 Selling on Facebook Marketplace 14:05 Job Hunt and Unemployment Fears 21:54 Sponsor: Insta360 23:22 Rhubarb Salsa and Cooking Adventures 29:38 Magic Mike Trilogy Discussion 35:55 Audience Participation and Movie Experiences 44:22 Marvel Movie Experience in Stockholm 45:05 Disappointment with Endgame 45:28 Star Wars Prequels Hype and Letdown 47:52 Batman vs Superman Premiere 49:14 Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis 54:08 Movie Recommendation Apps 01:01:31 Privacy Concerns with Media Consumption 01:05:38 Bill Atkinson’s Legacy 01:08:38 MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball and Beavis and Butthead 01:11:19 Typo Negative and Music Reactions 01:14:29 Letterboxd API and Movie Recommendations 01:19:12 Gratitude for MacUpdater Show Links Fermented rhubarb salsa Magic Mike Letterboxd Recommendations Model (GitHub) Brett Soundtrack Bill Atkinson Mac Demo Headbangers Ball supercut I put my bed frame up for free on Facebook Marketplace The Charismatic voice reaction video to Type O Negative Flotato MacUdater Join the Conversation Merch! Come chat on Discord! Twitter/ovrtrd Instagram/ovrtrd Youtube Get the Newsletter Thanks! You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network 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 Magic Mike Food Pr0n Introduction and Catching Up [00:00:00] Christina: Welcome back. You’re listening to Overtired. I’m Christina Warren, joined as always by Brett Terpstra. Jeff Severns. Guntzel could not be with us today. Uh, we miss you, Jeff. Hope you’re having fun with the family. Um, so it’s a, it’s just a classic OG Overtired for once. Brett: Yeah. Are you tired? Sleep Struggles and Medication Christina: Um, I was a little bit, so I went to bed. So we are recording this right now at 11:00 AM um, uh, Pacific. Um, so a little bit later than we usually record, but I went to bed around 4:00 AM Pacific. So I woke up originally I did actually set an alarm. We were going to record at 10 and I set an alarm for nine 30 and I woke up and I sat, I hit snooze and I was about to text you and be like, I could really use another 30 minutes. And you had texted me literally that second, asking for like 30 minutes or an hour, and I was like, perfect. And then I think I slept maybe 20 more minutes. Um, and then, and then I woke up and um, and, and Brett: So yeah, you’re tired. Christina: Yeah, I mean, Brett: be tired. Christina: well, I should be, but I got like, you know, uh, six, six [00:01:00] hours or so, so that’s, that’s pretty good. Brett: I got nine hours of sleep last night and I’m still dragging, but I think it’s because for like two weeks now I’ve gotten six hours of sleep every night and that kinda racks up over time. And then the night that you do sleep well, then all the sleep deprivation like hits you the next day. I could barely get out of bed this morning. Christina: No, totally, totally. Um, yeah, I have, I, I don’t know if it’s because of like medication switch or what, like, and it’s a weird thing because I, I, the amount of dray I’m taking right now, I feel like is probably the right amount, but I don’t know if I need to like, but this is what the hard thing is. Like I’m, I’m taking 15 milligrams. I probably need to maybe take it like. Twice a day, um, like in terms of like maybe half, one, half the day, but half the other, I, I, I don’t know. But, but the 15 milligram will last me the whole day. The problem is it’ll also like, basically last me the whole night too. And so I am, [00:02:00] I’m at like, Brett: I thought, I thought that’s what you, I thought it had a shorter half life, Christina: I don’t know, it may be something in my biochemistry has changed, so, which is possible because like technically I could be taking 15 twice a day, but if I did that, I would not be sleeping. I might be more productive, but I wouldn’t, I, and actually I’m not even sure if I would be, but, but I would not be sleeping. So I’m, I’m kind of at like the weird place where I’m getting, you know, five or six hours a night, like pretty consistently. So, um, but yeah. And, and it’s, it, I, I need something to help me sleep, but it, Mental Health Corner Brett: I feel like this segues nicely into a mental health corner. Christina: I was gonna say, we were, we immediately went into mental health corner without even doing any chitchat. So. Brett: that’s why, that’s how Mental Health Corner became the first, first thing on the show is we just always naturally, we’re like, so here’s what’s wrong with me Christina: what’s wrong with me this week. This, this, this is the, it was like Doctor Corner, and then we, like colloquial called it like mental health corner and then it became a thing. [00:03:00] Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. We’ve been doing this show for so long now. I mean, like intermittently, but, but, but we’ve been doing it for so long that like, yeah, this is how this happened. Um, do you wanna go first? Do you want me to just finish mine? ’cause I don’t have a lot. Brett: Oh, go for it. Yeah. Christina: O Okay. So yeah. Cleaning and Organization Challenges Christina: Um, I haven’t been sleeping super well, but I ha it hasn’t been bad either. I just need to kind of figure stuff out. I’ve been trying to clean my office that has actually, like, that’s a massive like, mental health stressor because I have a bunch of boxes and stuff that I need to go through and I need to whatnot and, and we have like a storage unit and, and I’m, we can put stuff in. My problem with that is, is that I’m like, okay, if I put this in the storage unit, I’m never gonna see it again. And there is some stuff in here I would like to potentially use, but. Brett: are you currently in the same room you usually podcast from? Christina: Yes. Brett: Because from where I’m sitting, you’re, you’re sitting in an empty white room like John Oliver during the pandemic, so I would say you’re making progress on Christina: Oh [00:04:00] yeah, totally. Yeah. Well, without a doubt, I got rid of my shoe rack and, and put shoes that I will be using, like in kind of like a, an area and then put some that are in boxes that I haven’t worn that I might sell, that I might do, you know, potentially to go into storage. And then I, I threw a bunch out, but like, there’s a whole half of the room that you can’t see that is just like boxes and stuff that I need to go through. And, and the easiest thing to do would be to just like pack it all up and put it in storage. But if I do that, I know I’m not gonna go through it. And so it’s just, I don’t know, it’s, it’s a really stressful thing of being like, okay, how do I get enough time to like, basically have to kind of sift through and go through every single thing I have, be like, you know, keep storage, whatnot. Um. Brett: Do you have, do you have enough room to temper? Oh, you must. ’cause it was there to begin with. So I’ll tell you what I do and you can take it or leave it, but I like to put everything that I’m not currently using, everything that I don’t have an immediate use for into a big pile of boxes. Christina: Right? Brett: And [00:05:00] then over the next month, if I do need something, I go dig it out of the box and it becomes like a stay thing. If I, if there’s anything left in that box at the end of the month, I move it into a longer term storage. And basically anything I don’t use in a year, I give away or sell if possible. But like, just like putting it all in storage and then pulling out what you actually like because you can’t make that decision in the moment. Christina: no, but the problem is, and and you’re right, that is the right thing to do. The problem is, I don’t know exactly what I have. And so if I just put it in storage, then it, it, then that doesn’t solve anything. And then like, the problem is, is that there are things, I know I have, I don’t know where they are. I might rebuy them. Like that’s the problem. So, so you’re right, like the way that you’re talking about approaching things is correct, but like, I don’t know what all I have. Brett: I do have that problem of like forgetting that I already own something and buying it again because I can’t keep track. Christina: right. Well, I mean, I ran into that. I couldn’t [00:06:00] find a certain cable for something, and so I spent $70 on a freaking AC adapter for a thunderbolt dock. And then, and this is like the shittiest thing, I found the newer version of the Thunderbolt dock. Brett: UN unboxed, Christina: UN uh, Brett: I mean no. Still boxed. Christina: Still box. Yeah. Completely unopened. So like. So I’m like, okay, well then why the fuck did I just spend $70 on the safety? Alright, whatever. But like, uh, you know, but there’s shit like that, right? Like, I couldn’t find a certain, a c cable for my camera that I needed to plug in, so I bought another one, and then I literally found that when I was going through, so I was a motherfucker, right? So there’s, there’s stuff like that that I just, it’s gonna take me, it’s just gonna take forever to go through and, and that’s just emotionally really taxing to even think about. And so, um, and then if I have to like, use my office for, for work related things, like, then that is another complication. Like, how the hell do I, like, find the time and the space, like do this and still have like a, a cleanish working [00:07:00] environment. So it, it, it is what it is. But, um, but other, other than my hoarding and, and you know, like organizational and executive function, uh, deficits, um, I’m doing pretty well. Brett: All right. Um, yeah, I would say, uh, that leads me to a whole conversation about Facebook marketplace. But, um, l is currently applying for additional part-time jobs and, um, does not have the emotional. Capacity right now to deal with that and like working around the house and working in the garden and organizing a room. And yeah, I get that there are limits to like, everything takes emotional energy. Like whether you realize it or not, you’re investing emotion into everything. And things like cleaning are intense. Christina: they are. Brett: Like even [00:08:00] just, even just like straightening up the house is an emotional journey for both EL and me. Selling on Facebook Marketplace Brett: Um, but so are, do you sell stuff on Facebook Marketplace? Christina: but I should, um, because, um. I mean, I think that would probably be better than than eBay or other places. Brett: Yeah, I’m not sure, uh, ’cause I haven’t, Facebook marketplace has always just been so convenient to get into that. I haven’t, I haven’t sold anything on eBay in a decade. Um, but so Facebook marketplace, if, if you’re post gets no traction in the first week, it expires your listing. So I have stuff like, I have this pep link. Router that you can plug in two different cable modem or at two, any two ethernet sources, um, from different ISPs into one router. And it does load balancing between the two ISPs, which is [00:09:00] if you’re running a business and you want a hundred percent uptime, you get two different ISPs and you plug it into this and it’s for people who need it. It’s a perfect solution and I, it is not the kind of thing that Facebook marketplace excels at selling. Um, uh, since I lost my job, I have been doing a better job of, of putting my huge pile of leftover shit on to, uh, Facebook marketplace for sale and. So like I, I put up a pair of echo dots, like current generation, uh, unopened, uh, for $40 for the pair and they retail it, I think 30 bucks a piece. Uh, so it wasn’t a huge deal, but Christina: It’s a good one. Brett: yeah. So it you 20 bucks and those did not sell as a pair. People picked them up individually. I sold them 20 bucks a piece [00:10:00] and those sold in like a day. But I have an echo show Christina: Mm-hmm. Brett: also unopened that I got during a prime day when I was feeling impulsive. And it has, it gets no interest. I marked it to like half, half of retail value, completely on open brand new current version. And I cannot get even a single person interested in it. Christina: Yeah. Brett: have a. I have a bike. Uh, Al has a bike that we’re trying to sell and its tires need to be replaced. Like they won’t inflate anymore, but we don’t have a bike rack that can get it to the bike shop. Um, and I’m, I’m gonna have to actually buy the tools to replace a tire on my own. ’cause I haven’t owned any of those since I used to raise mountain bikes. So nobody will buy it without being able to ride it, even though it’s, it’s a $750 bike [00:11:00] that we’re offering for $250 barely used. And still people are like, well, I really need to see what it feels like. Christina: Yeah. Yeah. There’s, there’s, there’s, I mean, the thing is, I mean, it’s convenient and, and I, I’ve never bought anything off a Facebook marketplace, I don’t think, but I know people who have and, and, um, and I, that’s probably what I’ll use to try to sell some of my stuff, assuming, you know, um, uh, it’ll be the sort of stuff people will want. Um, just because eBay’s such a fucking pain and, and they take so much of, and I don’t even care about how much they take, like, at, at a certain point, but it’s just like, if it’s such a pain, then, then it’s gonna be like more effort than it’s worth, than at that point I’m kind of like, well, then I’m just gonna fucking, you know, donate it or, or throw it away or, or give it to Goodwill or whatever. You know what I mean? Brett: And that also is an emotional expense. Like putting it up for sale is an expense dealing with people who wanna buy it. It’s like when you have a garage sale and people try to haggle on something that does have some sentimental value to you, or like you value it in a way that they don’t. And you have to like, [00:12:00] um, uh, concede to their, their preferences in order to make the sale. And again, it’s all emotional energy. Selling stuff is hard. Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and, and that’s why usually I don’t even fuck with it. I’m just like, fine, just get rid of it. Just take it, Brett: I, I give so much away. I like, I always, before I put anything up for sale, I ask my friends because if a friend can use something I have and save me the emotional journey of dealing with buyers and actually transactions and all of that, and they’ll just take it, that actually gives me like an emotional surplus. Like I feel like I’ve done a good thing. I’ve helped somebody out. Something I owned was helpful to somebody else. I feel good about that, that that’s, that’s, that’s good. Selling stuff is a negative though. Christina: Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then, um, I, I, I, I don’t know. I mean, I’m sure that it was fake, but, but there’s, I saw this very funny, um, uh, [00:13:00] comedian bit, um, about Facebook marketplace. This reminded me of it. I’ll see if I can find a clip of it. It was, it’s like, I think she was Australian. She might have been British, uh, but she was like talking about like the most unhinged Facebook marketplace story where some, she was trying to sell like a bed and, uh, like a bed frame. Brett: Yeah, I’ve seen Christina: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Brett: who it was, Christina: Yeah. It, and it’s, and, um, something Brett: actually, I believe it. I think it, I think it could have been real. Christina: maybe, I mean, I, I, Brett: seemed believable. Christina: of it seemed believable until the, the end story where going into like the, the, the, the, the wrong apartment. That, that was the part that, like, that, that didn’t seem, um, that, that I was like, okay, now, now I’m not actually sure about this. Brett: all right. Well, we’re, we’re gonna find it and we’re gonna share it, but we do not, we do not take responsibility for its veracity. Christina: But it is very funny. I don’t actually care if it’s true or not. It, it’s funny enough, and the song is, is funny enough that I’m like, this is good. Like, I don’t, I don’t actually care. Um, all right. How, [00:14:00] how, how are you doing? How’s, how’s your mental health? Brett: All right. Well, I am. Job Hunt and Unemployment Fears Brett: My, my severance runs out this week. Um, I’m not broke by any means yet, but, uh, once my severance runs out, then I should be eligible for unemployment. But I have this major, like emotional blockade, to applying for unemployment. Like part of me is just dreading finding out I can’t get unemployment. Um, like I already have contingency plans. I know what I’m doing, um, next, but it’s still like, uh, it’s a fear of rejection Christina: Right. Brett: keeping me from doing it. Christina: And I understand that I, I would like point out like you as much as it would suck, like if it will be, you know, ’cause I don’t know how much Minnesota gives, but I, I think they, they offer a, a pretty decent Brett: be like four to 600 a week. Christina: Right. That I [00:15:00] think if you can like, frame it in your head that like, that, that is worth like, the risk of finding out if they’ve rejected it or not. Did you talk, did you, did, did you talk to a lawyer before? Um, all this and, and, and they didn’t have an answer for you? Brett: No, Christina: No. Brett: no. So Shopify said they were going with a more qualified candidate. I. And if I wanted any feedback, they were available next week, and this is last week. And I said, sure. I would, I would be interested in feedback so I can, you know, better myself for future applications. Uh, they never replied to that email. And then two days later, the job I applied for showed back up on LinkedIn, um, which leads me to have all kinds of dark thoughts about, they must have contacted Oracle. And Oracle did something to disqualify me. And like if it weren’t for that, I would’ve had the job because they had no other Christina: [00:16:00] Right. Brett: Um, so I emailed them about, I was just like, Hey, I saw this job come back up. Is it the one I’ve already been passed over for or is it something else I can apply for? And I never got a reply to that either. So I, I have fears, I have, I’m worried about what that means for my. Um, higher ability in other places, which makes me completely, um, reticent to continue with the job hunt. I’m still sending out resumes ’cause that’s easy to do. Um, don’t know if I want to go through another like four hour interview process and not get a job. And like my independent coding is going really well. And I really think, I really think, um, there’s a lot of potential for just being independent at this point. And I figured out how to have like 401k and [00:17:00] health insurance and all of this as an independent developer. And the only thing keeping me from wholeheartedly pursuing that is that it, it scares Elle and those conversations are. Difficult, they’re very emotionally charged and I get very defensive very quickly. Christina: Right, right. I mean, and, and, and I, and I can, I can see both sides of that. I can see your side obviously, and that, like you, you’re like, I think this is viable. This is going to, you know, help me. I’m, I’ll be happier, I’ll be more productive. I can potentially make more money or, or as much, you know, doing this. Um, and, but I also see their perspective, which is, you know, we need reliable income and, and, you know, and they remember potentially like what things were like before. Uh, and, and, and, and in that case, you know, it, it wasn’t always. Reliable, um, in, in some ways. And so I, I, I can see both of those perspectives. I, I feel [00:18:00] like I will, I will just give you, from what I’ve observed from my friends who’ve gone through job hunts and, and just even myself going through interview processes at places where I, I didn’t ultimately end up taking jobs. Um, unfortunately, the, the, if you’re going to go with like a, a, even smaller places at this point, like bigger places, the, the process is going to be the same process you went through, uh, at Shopify. It, it’s not going to, I mean, period. Like even if you have an in, even if it’s, feels like it’s a guarantee thing, it’s a slog. And, and I have friends who are going, who are actively seeking jobs right now, and it does become almost a full-time job to apply for other jobs, right? Like, that’s like, it becomes a, a whole thing and it’s shitty and it’s, and it’s bad. But like that’s, you know, like ideally, I think what a lot of people like try to like. You know, optimize their, their, um, either, you know, when they’re being paid for unemployment or if they have severance, you know, from another place or whatever. They try to optimize their time for that, you know, for, for interview prep and for, you know, leak coding [00:19:00] exercises depending on what they’re doing. And for, you know, outreach and, and that thing. Um, so I, I think that like the, the loop thing and, and, and then multiple rounds is unfortunately going to be, at least at bigger places, is just gonna be a reality. Smaller places might be different in terms of whether or not Oracle has blacklisted you or something. would, I would, my, my gut says that Shopify would not be able to get that information unless, until they were going to extend you an offer and, and so. Um, I don’t think that that happened in this case. If, if after the formal round, like usually they would, they would extend you a, a, a verbal offer and that’s when the background check process would start, where they would contact your former employer to verify employment and maybe to verify other things. They’re not supposed to be able to ask about anything else. Like that’s not supposed to be a thing that’s allowed. Um, and now if people know people places and they ask questions, that’s different obviously, but like. You know, that’s not supposed to be a, a thing that happens, especially if you [00:20:00] weren’t like hired for, if you weren’t like, um, you know, fired for, um, like committing a crime or something. And you know, like, and even then, I’m not even sure if that is information that they’re allowed to share, to be honest with you. Um, and so, um, but like, like if you’ve emb embezzled or something, right? Like I, I feel like if that would come up maybe on a criminal, um, uh, background check, but usually I, I don’t even know if they would be able to, if employers would be able to, like past employers would be able to share that sort of information. So I don’t know why they pulled the job and then re-listed it. It’s possible that they found out that from the, the, the candidates they got, they just didn’t find people that they wanted for whatever reason. And then they re-listed in hopes of getting different candidates set. I have no idea. Um, but I, I, I feel like the only way that, that you had, you would just, it makes you feel any better that would. Have, have them be like, oh, we blacklisted Brett would be, if they just happened to know someone who knew the details. Um, and, and [00:21:00] that Brett: the thing though. Christina: and that that Brett: only. If Christina: right and that feels Brett: people at Oracle who would say anything bad about me, Christina: Right. And so that makes me think that that’s not what happened. Brett: yeah, I wish they would just like tran be transparent and tell me what was up. Like, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna sue anybody. Um, unless they, unless they had some protected reason that they admitted to, Christina: right? Brett: um, we didn’t hire you because we found out you’re pansexual, then yeah, that’d be a problem. But I, I imagine that’s not the reason. Um, so yeah. Anyway, anyway. Can I tell you about Rhubarb’s salsa also? Christina: Yeah, absolutely. Should we, uh, should we do our sponsor read first? Brett: Should we, what time is Christina: It’s, it’s 24 minutes in. Brett: Okay? Yeah. Perfect time. Would you like to do the read? Christina: I absolutely Brett: for it. Sponsor: Insta360 Christina: Today’s episode is sponsored by Insta 360, a leader in 360 degree action [00:22:00] camera technology. Their latest 360 degree camera. 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Head over to store dot insta three sixty.com and use the promo code Overtired available for the first 30 standard package purchases only. For more information, be sure to check out the link in our show notes. Once again, that is store dot insta three sixty.com. Use the promo code Overtired. Thanks, Insta 360 for, uh, your support of the show. Brett: Yeah. Thank you. Rhubarb Salsa and Cooking Adventures Brett: Um, okay, so rhubarb salsa, my, we, we, we got a bunch of rhubarb. We ultimately, we’re probably gonna grow our own rhubarb, but right now we get a CSA. And one of the things that we’re getting in that, do you know what A CSA is? Christina: I don’t. Brett: Um, I can’t remember what it stands for, but it’s basically you pay a farm. Or a farmer, um, a set price, and they give you a. Bundle of whatever’s in season that week and every week you get a big bag full of greens and root [00:24:00] vegetables and eggs and just like everything that a farm produces. Um, and it’s, you don’t always know what you’re gonna get, the one we’re doing right now. You can go in at the beginning of the week and, uh, there’s like a checkbox you can like, choose. Here’s what’s available. You choose what you want. One of the things we’ve been getting is rhubarb. And I love a good like rhubarb strawberry crumble. It’s one of my favorite desserts. But we needed something else to do with the rhubarb. So l made rhubarb salsa, which involves rhubarb and jalapenos and green peppers, and I’m not even sure what else. But then you ferment it for like a week and you get this kind of fizzy, spicy, sweet salsa out of it. And it, like the first bite I had of it, I like my brain just lit up. I was like, oh my God. [00:25:00] Um, the last time that happened to me was when we made, um, soy, uh, what was it? It was a, it was like a white fish, uh, sauteed in a soy sauce, like maple syrup mixture in orange juice. And then with a wasabi mayo and a mango salsa topper in corn tortillas. So it was like a taco. And the first bite I had, I was manic at the time. I had that, so I was already, like, my brain was lighting up like crazy and then I had a bite of that and it was like fucking doing cocaine. It was just. Insane. So now I’m stable and I had a bite of this salsa and immediately my brain was like, yes, this is it. So last night we had, uh, Chipotle black bean tacos with mango, with like a lime cre, and then this [00:26:00] rhubarb salsa on top of it. And oh my God, it was so good. I, I had, I would never have thought, you know what we should do with this rhubarb is make a spicy taco salsa. And it worked out so well. I was amazed. Christina: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Brett: Do you, do you do much cooking? Christina: No, no, but I, I, I, I mean, I, I, I, I aspire to maybe one day be in the place where I, no, I, I actually, I don’t know. I, no, I don’t. Um, Brett: That’s just not, that’s not you. Christina: yeah, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s not, um, but, uh, um, yeah, I, uh. It’s not me, but I, I like people who do, like, I like, it’s weird ’cause I like to like watch like cooking shows and hear about people who cook stuff, but like, I have zero interest in actually doing it myself. Um, uh, the the like, the things that I am interested in and like the time that I have to do stuff is just like, there are too many other things that I’ve [00:27:00] prioritized more, but I, but I enjoy like, watching people who are really into it, I’m like, oh, that seems, that’s really cool. Like, it’s not my thing, but like, that’s really cool for others. Brett: I love cooking shows. I have an, a subscription that I got as a birthday present to Cook’s Illustrated, which I read like it’s so fucking hustler and it’s, it’s food porn. It’s all food porn. I watch multiple, I have multiple YouTube subscriptions to chefs. And even when I am at a phase of my life where I’m a practicing vegan, I still like watching like cooking shows that deal with more of an omnivore diet. And even if I’m not going to eat the stuff, I love watching the techniques and I love watching food be transformed into dishes. Um, our corn, uh, we’re growing corn, it’s like eight inches tall now. And [00:28:00] the, the. Farmers Almanac saying is always Kneehigh by the 4th of July, and I think we might make it, um, and our squash, I right. So behind me in this room, I don’t think you could, right there, can you see that little sprout right there? Christina: Uh, a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Brett: Yeah. It’s blurry, but, uh, we’re, we’re sprouting squash plants in my office. Um, that will be transplanted probably today out into the garden. Uh, I have, I, I think I’ve talked about the three sisters planting method on this show before, but, so basically you have, you have corn and then you plant beans and the beans grow up the corn, and then you plant squash. And the squash protects the roots from the sun. The big leaves of the squash plant do, so like the three, they’re, the three different plants are kind of synergistic in their growth cycle. Um, so we’re doing that [00:29:00] in a, in a. Four by six raised bed. Um, I’m pretty excited about it, just like seeing it all come together. Um, but yeah, so I’m gonna be doing a lot of cooking with, and we have so many tomato plants and I don’t really like tomatoes, but when I grow things myself, I like them better. So I’m, look, I’ve had a elsman sauteing up some cherry tomatoes that have been just good enough to like, just eat, just pop in your mouth and just eat, um, sweet and acidic at the same time. Anyway. Okay. Sorry, I went off on a, I went off on a rant. Magic Mike Trilogy Discussion Brett: I did want to talk to you about Magic Mike. Uh, you, you mentioned to me last week when I was on my kick of like, stick it and, and uh, bring it on and, um, pitch perfect and all of that. You, you mentioned Magic Mike, uh, and Step Up, all the Step Up movies, uh, and, and I was like, I hadn’t.[00:30:00] I had seen Magic Mike. I think I had seen XXL. I had never seen the last dance, so I, and we also talked about movie bundles last week. So when I went looking on iTunes, ‘cause I couldn’t find it on any of my friends’ plexes, um, I went on iTunes and there was sure enough a bundle for the Magic Bike trilogy. So I just bought it and I watched them all and the first one has a ton of heart and like I was it, not only was it just a amazing dance moves, it was like dramatic and I had an emotional response to it. XXL and the last dance were good in so far as they had great dance moves, great choreography. I. Great acting, but they didn’t have the heart for me that the first one had. Um, and [00:31:00] before the show, you were talking about how you saw, I think you were talking about XXL, Christina: Yeah. Brett: second one. You saw it in a theater with a bunch of people who were really into it. Christina: Yes. Brett: me about that. Christina: Okay. So, gosh, I guess this was a decade ago and, um, whenever it came out and I, I saw it, it wasn’t even the first week that it was out. I think it had already been out. And this is what was impressive. ’cause it did really well at the box office, you know, especially for a sequel and, and a fairly, you know, not like a super high budget thing either. Like the first movie was a big surprise hit because it was kind of like this dumb, you know, like. Like concept. And you’re like, what do you mean? Like, it’s about this guy who’s like a male stripper and, and you know, you know, doing the dancing thing. Like, what do you mean we’re doing this? And it’s like loosely based off of like Sha Tibs own experiences. And then you’re like, and it’s Steven Soderberg, and you’re like, why in the hell is Steven Soderberg making a movie like this? Right? Like, like this, this is like, you know, the Ocean’s 11 guy and like the, you know, like the out of sight guy. Like this is like a, a big time, like, [00:32:00] you know, respected like artistic director. Like what the, what the fuck is he doing? And then to your point, it’s great, it has heart. Like the, the dancing was awesome. Like, it was just like this complete surprise. Um, and then the sequel, I, I loved, I didn’t like it more than the original, but I really, really liked it. It’s, it’s essentially the same movie as Pitch Perfect Two, but I prefer it to, to pitch Perfect two. A ton. Um, and I think part of it, when I look back on it was, I was telling you this before we started recording, I saw it in New York City, like at a theater in Chelsea and like a, a Wednesday or a Thursday afternoon, like I said, it wasn’t even release week. And I went with my, my coworker, um, Heidi, and the theater was, was pretty full and it was almost all women. And everybody was like so into it, like, into it, into it. Like they were, you know, they were, we were all cheering and we were just having like the best time. And it was one of those movie experiences. Like I look back on, I’m like, man, that was really cool because you don’t expect, I dunno, I didn’t expect, especially like in New York City, like, it wasn’t even like a, a [00:33:00] suburban like kind of theater. It was like. It was just like a, a local kind of neighborhood theater, and it was just like a, an afternoon like show. It was like six o’clock. It was like, you know, we went directly after work. It wasn’t one of those things that you would expect there to be a lot of people there. Um, even back then, like now, you definitely wouldn’t expect a lot of people, um, the movie theater, but, but even back then, I was like surprised, like so many people were, were in the theater. And then the audience though, we just had like the time of our lives. Like we just with, with all the, the, you know, dance sequences and when they’re, they’re, you know, going to the, the various parties, you know, at the, um, you know, like fraternities and stuff. Like, it was just, it was freaking, it was just really, really fun. And so. Don’t know for me, like that heightened that experience so much that I was like, man, I, and I don’t even know if I’ve watched it since then to be honest with you, but I, I bought the, I also bought the iTunes bundle, um, but I was just like, man, this was a great movie. I had a great time watching this. And, and I, I had, I think, seen some of the dance sequences again. Um, but I was like, man, I just had like, [00:34:00] the time of my life. Um, the third one, it was good, it wasn’t the same, but I also didn’t see it in the theater. And at that point, you know, so much time had passed between like the second and the third one that I, I, I feel like, Brett: The third one really tried to have heart. Christina: it did and sort of where it came back for that Brett: be dramatic, and it just, it didn’t hit me the way the first one Christina: No. And that, that’s hard, right? Like you almost never do. Right. Like, I mean, in all honesty, the fact that we’re talking about, like genuinely saying that there are three Magic Mike movies and that the first one is really good and I really like the second one as well. But the third one, like none of them are bad. Brett: Hmm Christina: Is actually hysterically. Like that’s, uh, that’s, this should not be an actual conversation that we’re genuinely having where we’re like, no, you can actually watch all three of these movies. And they’re pretty good. Right? Because usually how these sorts of things would work historically would be you have one that’s really good and then you maybe have a sequel that’s okay. And then the, [00:35:00] the by, by the time you get to the end, we’re at like direct to to, to video. It’s a cash grab and it’s terrible. Right? And like, it wouldn’t even be a thing where you’d be like, yeah, it’s, it’s worth your time. And this is one where I would be like, no. I mean, it’s not gonna be the greatest thing you’ll ever see, but it’s got some hard, and it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a solid ending. You know, they also at that point, like they were doing like the Vegas, um, show and, and things like that, right? So it, it became this franchise, which is wild again, because I remember when that movie came out in like 2011, I think it was 20 11, 20 12, and, um, like. We were a shocked that Soderberg was making this movie, and then B, you know, that it was this hit. And then C like when I look at it, I’m like, this, like launched this whole fucking franchise of other things. And you’re like, okay, you know, who would’ve thought like this movie that like, was kind of a punchline, you know, for, for like film snap types, like became like an actual franchise. Brett: right. Audience Participation and Movie Experiences Brett: So let’s talk about the difference that [00:36:00] audience, we’ll say audience participation makes. Um, so like if you were, if Kid Today and someone said, you should see Rock Rocky Horror Picture Show, and you loaded it up on Netflix or wherever it is, and you watched it in a room on your own, you’d be like, all right, it’s kind of kitschy, it’s kind of funny. Uh, I, okay, I don’t understand the, but if you see it at like a small theater with a crowd that knows all the songs and participates, holy shit, you walk out of there going, oh my God, this might be the greatest movie ever made. I saw. I saw the Blair Witch Project at a small theater in Minneapolis as a pre-release. It hadn’t come out yet. Nobody knew. Nobody knew it was fake yet. Christina: Oh man. Brett: I’m in there with a crowd of people who are, they’re movie lovers, and they’re there to see a movie [00:37:00] and the like. There was a, a woman next to me, like the scary part. She was like grabbing my knee, like without thinking about it. Just like so scared, like just freaking out. And the whole audience like audible gasps, like people, like, just like freaking out through the movie. And it changed it. Like it was like when I first saw it, I was like, oh my God, this might be like the best horror movie I’ve ever seen. And then I watched it years later alone in a room. And it was, it was okay. Christina: Yeah. But but that Brett: audience participation when you’re in a, when you’re in a theater, it’s same with going to a Star Trek movie or a Star Wars movie in the theater versus watching it at home on Netflix. Christina: No, totally. I. Brett: Or on Disney Plus, whatever. A huge difference. Christina: no. Totally, totally. And it’s, it’s interesting you say that about Blair Witch, because I remember when that came out. They ran, they ran this, I don’t know if it was on Sci-fi [00:38:00] network, it was on something they ran on cable this, and it turned out that it was like a, a, you know, a whole like campaign thing. And, and I guess they made it clear that it was promo for the movie, but we didn’t really know that then. And I remember watching it and we all thought it was like, oh, the Legend of the Blair, which I think that’s what it was called. And it was before the movie came out and we all thought it was real. And so it got people hyped for the movie. It was like, holy shit, they found this documentary footage and we all have to go see this movie. By the time I saw the movie, um, which was like a day or two later, you know, it was already out that, that the whole thing was fake. And, and I still had fun when I saw it in the theater, but it, but it was, it was lessened, right? Like, like it wasn’t, it wasn’t the same thing. Like, I remember ’cause I was, I was like 15 or 16. When that movie came out. And so I, I was like really hyped to see it. And that was like, that summer, there were just amazing movies. That’s probably one of the best movie years ever was the Blair Witch Year and, um, 1999 and like genuinely, like, [00:39:00] I think there was even a book about it, but like, that is like one of the, the best movie years ever, ever, ever. Um, and um, like you had the sixth Sense that year and you had Fight Club and you had American Beauty and you had like, there were like so Brett: like, I think it was 94, 95 for Hard Rock when like all the use your illusions and the black Metallica, black album and ac like everyone. Yeah. All within like a year. Yeah. Christina: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, like, like the 1999 movie year was like, like a goaded goad year, but, but bla witch was like this phenomenon, right? And, and I, I, that would’ve been so cool to see that, like, pre-release before any of that where like, you think that it’s real, like with people who are really into it. Because when I saw it in the theater, like people were into it, but, you know, at this point I’d already been spoiled. The internet, you know, was, was only, you know, the web was only a few years old at this point, but I’d already been spoiled, like by the internet, that it was fake from like the movie forums. Um, and like, I think that maybe regular people who were seeing it, it hadn’t quite like, passed onto them yet. Like, I don’t think it was quite like on the [00:40:00] radio yet that like, oh yeah, this Brett: Not, not terminally online people. Yeah. Christina: right. And I already was terminally online even though I was like on freaking 56 K dial up, um, because we, um, didn’t live in an area that could get cable yet. But, um, like it was, but yeah, so it wasn’t, it wasn’t the same thing, but that would’ve been so cool. And you know, you’re right, like. A a, a mediocre movie can be made infinitely better with a good theatrical experience. And a good movie can also be made like significantly better. Right? And the inverse is true too. Like a good movie can be weakened if you have a bad crowd. Like I remember seeing Castaway and which is a good movie. But that movie, there’s like a big portions of it that are silence. And for some reason there was like some like parents who had like some 2-year-old child with them in the movie who kept talking throughout the whole thing. And like, here’s the thing, I’m sort of sympathetic to parents at movies, sort of meaning this is a r rated like film that like, in my opinion, like, [00:41:00] fuck you. Like I don’t give a shit if you can’t find a babysitter. Like there are 200 other people who paid money to be there. Like I don’t actually give a shit. Like, especially opening weekend, like fuck off. Um, and they were rude about it. Like, ’cause the thing is, is like, ’cause I’ve, I’ve, you know, had to take kids to movies before and like if they’re gonna cause a disturbance, then the correct move is you walk out, like that’s what you do. Like you walk outta the theater and you calm them down. And then if you come back in, you do. And if not, that’s, that’s just the breaks. Like it’s, it’s, it’s shitty. Like parents don’t at me, but like, it’s not my responsibility that, that you like made the decisions that you made. Right? Like there, there’s a social contract in my opinion that if it’s not a, if it’s a kid movie, it’s different. But if it’s not a kid movie, like. Whatever. Anyway, this kid, like, talked and was crying and was being, you know, a kid like throughout the entire, like, large checks of the movie. And actually, I will never forget this, ’cause one of the funniest things happened at the end when like the credits come up, you know, the, the, this family’s kind of like leaving or whatever, and they, they, they waited. Like if it were me, I would’ve gotten outta that movie theater as fast as [00:42:00] humanly possible just to like, avoid anything. And they almost seemed proud, but somebody, somebody called out next time use a condom. And, uh, and it, which is still to this day, like one of the greatest, like, and everybody applauded like when that happened, like everybody literally in the theater, like applauded. And, and that still is like one of the funniest like moments I’ve ever witnessed. Next time use a condom. Brett: I don’t remember what movie it was, but I was in the theater and I was in the second section and someone in the second row from the top of the first section was texting on their phone, and it had a really bright screen and everyone, everyone was grumbling about it. And eventually I yelled something like, Jesus Christ, shut your fucking phone off. And the whole theater applauded. At least everyone behind this person was like, yes. Christina: Well, [00:43:00] I guess because that’s the thing, right? Like it’s one of those things, it’s like, you know, um, people don’t realize yeah, how bright screens are and that that will completely distract, like the experience. And it’s funny because, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m talking about how like, movies are better when you see them with people, which is true. But the inverse is also true. And this is part, this is kind of why like movie theaters are struggling, is that so many people have had bad experiences where people are texting or people are talking, or people are drunk, or people are, you know, they have their kids or Brett: and you can completely avoid that at Christina: You can at home, but, but you also miss out on those magical experiences of like, you know, 80, 90 people, you know, watching Magic Mike on a Thursday, you know, like, like, like literally like women, like, like very happy. And, and we were like in our, in our, you know, twenties, thirties, older, right? Like, there wasn’t like teenage girls, like this was like, and it wasn’t like college, college. These were like, like, you know, people who like. Left work, you know, and like come and gone to the movies, you know, at like, like five or six o’clock at bed in the afternoon, right? Like this wasn’t, you know, this sort of crowd that you would kind of expect that [00:44:00] sort of thing one, which was awesome. And, and that can make it, or, or, you know, going to like a, a midnight, you know, uh, premier of, of a big, you know, now I think it’s, it’s, it’s less of a thing just because there’ve been so many of them, but I mean, um. I will say this, I saw, um, end game, the, the final, you know, Avengers movie until they do like the re routes or whatever. I saw that in, were we in Sweden? We were in, yeah. Marvel Movie Experience in Stockholm Christina: We, we were in Stockholm and, um, my, uh, one of my colleagues, he, he, they, they got us all tickets. There were like, like 10 of us who, who were there, you know, for a work thing. And, and there were Swedish subtitles, but it was in English and like made like t-shirts for us. So we all had like, you know, kind of like Avengers or Marvel themed like shirts and like the, you know, the, it wasn’t like, um, uh, Swedish movie theaters, at least the one we went to, like are not as nice as like the big US multiplexes. But it was still a nice experience. But like everybody, like it was opening day, like had the time of their life. And I will never forget, I will never forget, like watching like the final big like Marvel movie like in another [00:45:00] country, you know, with like a whole Brett: No, that’s Christina: thing. Like, that was so cool. Brett: That’s interesting. Disappointment with Endgame Brett: So I watched Endgame at home with my partner and it was like a remote group watch with, with Elle’s sister and. I fell asleep. Like that movie to me was, it was, it was overdrawn full of too many inside references. Um, just kind of a travesty. Star Wars Prequels Hype and Letdown Brett: But to that end, do you remember the hype around the Star Wars prequels before the first one Christina: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. No, I, I do. ’cause I was a hater. I was a big hater. Brett: I don’t know if you are familiar with the fact that punk rockers are generally nerds and, um, when, when, so I was in Minneapolis when the first Greek will came out, and the lead singer of my [00:46:00] band, who he was. A dangerous, dangerous person who everyone was scared of. But he had a big Rebel Alliance logo on the back of his punk rock spike jacket, and he led the charge to get about 200 punk rockers to pitch in money, to rent out a whole small theater Christina: Oh my Brett: for the release of the first Christina: Of, of, of episode one. Wow. Brett: yeah, and we both know it was not good, like it was full, but when you’re in a room full of nerds who have that kind of hype built up and they’re Christina: Oh, no. You’re gonna Brett: because they want to love it Christina: right. You, no, you’re, you’re, you’re, it’s, it’s gonna be the, the crash comes the next day. The Brett: Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Christina: you go, what the fuck was this? Why was this jar, jar beings puppet there? This child actor is terrible. Like this whole thing is, and, and you know, like, for, for, for me. Brett: lot of talk in the community after Christina: Yeah. For [00:47:00] me, my, my, my big takeaway was ’cause I didn’t expect the movie to be good because I didn’t really think the prequels were that good. And I was like, deep into my, my, I’m, I’m, I’m, you know, a, a, a film snob phase. Um, and look, I was correct, the, the, the prequels were, were trash and I saw all of them. But like, it was one of those things where all my friends wanted to go. So I had to go. And then I remember like watching and I was like, why in the fuck would Natalie Portman do this to her career? Which is honestly still a question I have. Right? I’m like, you know, it didn’t, it didn’t drill anything. ’cause she’s so talented. But like, she’s literally the most talented actress, like of her generation, like, in terms of a sheer talent perspective, in my opinion. I think Natalie Portman is, is the most talented. And, and I’m like, what the fuck are you doing? You know? But like, but at the moment, I mean, I, I think I was a hater, so I don’t think that I was like that enamored with episode one, but I saw it at midnight with, you know, people and like. It’s infectious, right? Batman vs Superman Premiere Christina: Like I even saw, God, what was it I saw, I went to the, the world premiere of, um, of Batman versus Superman at, um, radio City [00:48:00] Music Hall. And like, you know, the cast is there and the whole thing. And like, and it was, you know, this and Radio City is a, a huge, huge venue, especially like if you use it as a movie theater. And even then, because of, you know, you’re with like however many, you know, hundreds of people might have been a, you know, a few thousand, I’m not sure. Um, you’re pro probably a few thousand. Um, you’re like, you’re hyped on it. You’re like, okay, all right. Zach Snyder, I’m, I’m, I’m in. And it wasn’t until like the car ride, like back that I was like starting to thinking about. I was like, well, okay, I like Jesse Eisenberg, but like. So much of this didn’t make sense. And then like, then the next day I’m like, oh yeah, no, this was, this was hot garbage. But like, at the time, you know, like they, they kind of get you, like if you’re not, if you’re not, you know, uh, thinking critically, it, it, and, and, and I look back at that experience, I’m not mad. I saw the movie in the theater, um, especially the way that I did. Um, Brett: Yeah, Christina: but Brett: to the theater is fun. It doesn’t, even if the movie’s shitty, [00:49:00] like, and often, often, if it’s really shitty and the group experience is everyone’s pissed off, it’s still fun Christina: Oh, Brett: part of a group and you’re having like, it’s like going to a soccer game where your team loses. It’s still fun. Christina: totally. Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis Christina: Well, I saw, I saw for instance, Ford Coppola’s, uh, movie Megalopolis in the theater with my friend Colin, um, back in like October. And there were only a few of us in the theater, and, and we got in trouble because we talked during like, the previews and I was like, okay. Like, Brett: What, Christina: and I’m like, fuck off. Like, I, I’m gonna talk during the preview, it’s not a big deal. But we didn’t like talk, but like the movie itself. Um, and, and we didn’t get like a special guest, like during our, our, you know, screening or whatever, which, which some cities did, which is, which is fine, but like, it’s this long ass movie and it’s fucking weird as hell when the whole time I’m watching it, I’m like, I cannot wait to watch this high out of my mind because if this is this like, bizarre, like stone sober, like I can’t wait to see this in another setting. But it is one of those things where I’m gonna be honest with you, um, I don’t think, I mean, [00:50:00] look, I actually really respect the fact that Francis Ford Coppola was like, yeah, this is what I’m gonna do with my money and my legacy. I’m gonna spend a hundred million dollars plus my own money on, um, this. And it’s, it’s. It’s interesting, like I’m glad the film was made. It is not a good movie, but I’m, I’m glad that films like that exist. Right? Like, I’m glad that he did what he did. Um, and, and I think it takes balls to just be like, and I also really respect the fact that like, his kids were in no way not supportive. Like they were like, it’s your money dad. Do it. Right? Because, you know, there are a lot of kids who be like, dad, that’s our future. You know, don’t, don’t, don’t spend $150 million of your money. Because the studio looked at it and they were like, this is insane. We’re not gonna pay for this. um, and, and yeah. Um, but like the, some of the acting performances were actually really good. The disappointing thing is that like. John Voight, who I’ve never seen give a good performance ever was actually good. So was Shy [00:51:00] LaBuff. So like the two most canceled people, like in the movie actually gave like the two best performances, which is, it is what it is. But like it was, it was a weird and kind of bizarre movie. And in its long as I’ll get out, but I was just like, I’m so glad I’m seeing this in a theater with like my friend and like three, like octogenarians, because those were the only like five of us who were like watching this movie. Like when it, when it came out and, and it was funny because we had a choice. We were like, we could see that. Or Joker Two and Man, did we choose correctly because Joker two I tried to watch in a hotel, like after it, you know, it was out for like two or three weeks and then it came to HBO and I fell asleep like 25 minutes into it. I was like, I can’t, I can’t with this. Like as soon as they started singing, I was like, oh, okay, so this is real, real, real fucking bad. Um. Wound up having like, literally like one of like the, the longest running number one hit songs ever. Which is funny. The, the, the Lady Gaga, uh, Bruno Morris song, which I don’t even like, but like, [00:52:00] man, man, that movie is a, was a colos. Flub. I feel like even in the theater, that would be one of those scenarios where it’d be like, no, you know what? I, I have better things to do with my, with my time. But megalopolis, no, I didn’t. And I’m like, I’m incredibly grateful that I gotta see that in the theater Brett: I never Christina: five people. Yeah. I mean, and I, I can’t necessarily recommend it. Um, certainly not sober. Brett: the way I wanna spend an evening. Although I could get, I have mushrooms. Christina: Yeah, if you have mush. Okay. Honestly, honestly, like, like under like the, like UN UN like high or, or on mushrooms or something, I could definitely see it being. Certainly interesting. ’cause the thing is, is like, it has some interesting ideas. It’s about like this idea, it kind of takes place like in this esque kind of world, and this, this kind of builder, this, this, this great guy who’s wanting to kind of like, he’s trying to like chase, I think like a former love. I don’t remember all the story, but like, there’s, it, it’s, it’s like a, it’s like a more modern, like esque like Roman empire type of situation, but yet it takes place. But like, Roman’s [00:53:00] now New York and, and, and there’s magical kinds of stuff. I don’t know. It’s, it’s a, it’s a weird fucking movie. But, um, so, but the acting, like the acting is actually good and the, and this story is, is bizarre and, and this special effect stuff is weird, but, um, but like Aubrey Plaza is in it. She’s really good. Chloe Fineman from SNL is in it. She’s really good. Um, you know, Adam Driver, who is always good, but like he’s. You know, other thing, like, it, it’s a really good cast and, and obviously everybody shows up ’cause they’re like, well it’s France, Ford Coppola, you know, even if this is a shit show, I will work with him. And, and like that’s, I would love to see like a true, like behind the scenes like documentary, like oral history of how that movie was made. ’cause it took like 30 years he’d been trying to get it made for forever and everybody was like, no. And then finally he was like, well, fuck you. I’ll just, I’ll sell my, you know, um, vineyard and I’ll just do it myself. Okay. You know what, man? Like, you gave us the Godfather and, and the conversation and like, you know, uh, like you, you, you, [00:54:00] you gave us so much cinema that like, you know, apocalypse Now, like you, you can do, you can be a fucking weirdo. Like, I’m, I’m good with that, so. Movie Recommendation Apps Brett: So speaking of recommending movies, are there any good? So when some, I’ve been watching a ton of movies lately and some nights I’m like, I wish I could find a movie like that. Had the same hit as X and not x this, but like as blank, and I have not found a decent app. For even related movie recommendations, let alone like here’s, I would love an app where I just, it gave me a list and I was like, yes, I like this. No, I don’t like this. And it came out and would give me decent recommendations. I have not found an app that gives me anything I actually wanna watch yet. Christina: I, I, I feel like there probably, I’m sure there are probably a [00:55:00] million things like that, but it’s funny you say that because that’s actually a thing that I’ve been vibe coding for me and some of my friends is like a movie and TV show recommender. And so what, what we’ve been doing is basically like, ’cause a lot of times, like we have a, a group chat that there’s like, you know, 14 or 15 of us in it. That are, you know, people are, are intermittently like active, but like people will recommend like TV shows or movies or whatever. And a lot of us have similar tastes. And so I was like, okay, well we need to have a way where we can like basically, you know, each add a recommendations and, and like say who recommended it. And, and then I, you know, I was planning around May I stuff and I was like, well put in like similar to shows and, and I will say at least so far, I mean, I don’t think it’s like a perfect thing to do what you’re doing, but like when I, you know, kind of the thing that I’ve been vibe coding has actually. Shown me like pretty decent similarity stuff right now. I think the cool thing would be like, so it’s like if I enter in like the Pit, then you might also like, you know, TV shows like, like er or you [00:56:00] know, like, um, you know, Grey’s Anatomy or, or, or whatever. Um, or, or if you like, you know, the, the, the studio you might like, um, you know, hacks or Broad City or, you know, in some other types of, of shows, you know, kind of comedy things in that, in that vein, I don’t know how deep it goes. Um, I feel like that would be the thing that would be really, really good. But, um, that’s something I’ll look into, um, if I ever get this app in a state that I, I can share it more broadly, Brett: I think what I would be interested in, and it’s entirely possible that nobody has tagged movies in this respect, but I would be interested in movies that had the same vibe, Christina: yes and Brett: subject material, but the same like vibe. Like it’s gonna make me feel Christina: Right. Brett: similar. So like I ended up watching neighbors and, and Neighbors to the. Christina: I, I love those Brett: movie. Yeah, they’re good. And [00:57:00] ultimately, like I, they’re just funny. They’re not, they, they have no like dramatic emotional impact, Christina: no, no, no. They’re, they’re just, they’re good to have on the background. Brett: and I was looking for another movie like that where it’s just stupid. Where it’s just stupid frat boy humor and, and what’s his name? What’s the main character? Uh, the actor Christina: That Seth Rogan. Brett: Seth Rogan. Yeah. Like that kind of like Seth Rogan kind of feel, maybe without Seth Brogan. Um, and that is really hard to like qu qualify. Um, and I don’t know if there’s like even a database you could access that was like, Christina: There probably are. Oh, I’m sure there are. I’m sure that like Rotten Tomatoes and, and like IMDB, which their API is, is, um, like they, they price it specifically that they don’t want people to use it. I don’t know how well people have used like the, the, the, the movie [00:58:00] database for things like that. I’m sure people have have done Brett: TMD, the movie database, actually their API is solid. Christina: is, and that’s what I’m using for my Brett: info out of it. Christina: Right. That’s, that, that’s what I’m using for, um, for my like, you know, like, uh, share a show, um, Brett: Yeah. I built TMDB into Search Link and it is so much better and more accessible than Christina: Yeah, IMDB has better data, but the, the pricing, like it is, it’s one of those things where like you have to call to basically get a price and, and have like a, a, like a Amazon like level like service agreement. Like it is not a thing. Like you could scrape it, I guess, but like, it is not like in terms of doing it from an API level, like they, they don’t want you to use it, is is, is really what it comes down to. But like, I’m sure that, that like Rotten Tomatoes and other things, like, I’m sure that they have that stuff. I just doubt that they, they wanna make it accessible. But I’m sure there are people who’ve built sentiment analysis things based on movies. Oh, you know, what would actually be the perfect thing to use for this? And I don’t know if they have an API, I’m, I’m gonna check this right now. Letterbox, [00:59:00] letterbox is the thing that would, that would be the, the best way, uh, Brett: They would have Christina: do this. Um, because. Yep. There is an API. Um, and so, uh, I don’t know exactly, um, like what, what it all, what it all, uh, has, but they, they do have, um, an API ’cause that would be the thing. Brett: a, I built a really simple movie search using letterbox API, but I’d never dug into anything close to sentiment analysis or reviews or anything like that. Christina: Yeah, because I bet that, I mean, because, because if anybody was gonna do, like, if you, if there was any place that you could trust for that, like that would be the thing, right? Where if there are users you follow or things that you like, like, ’cause that’s, that to me would be way better than like, whatever aggregate data like Rotten Tomatoes has, um, would be, you know, polling people who put something like on their list and if people liked it or didn’t like, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like that would be the thing that if you were able to plug into that, I’d be like, okay, if enough people who watch this movie also watch this one and [01:00:00] like it, then you can see that there’s correlation because usually there is, right. Like that, that was kind of how like the, the musical genome thing, um, project worked with, with things like last FM and stuff like that was that they were able to, you know, show yeah, there is a certain correlation for these things and, um, uh, not always, and, and, and you can kind of get stuck into a. A rut of just like, you know, this is kind of Spotify’s problem. A little bit of like, just like listening to everything sounds the same. But, um, at the same time, I will say my Spotify recommendations, for instance, are, uh, it, it’s, it’s embarrassing how much better they are than, than Apple musics, for example, like Apple Musics and, and I, I listen to more music on Apple Music actually. And so Apple Music should have a better way to recommend things to me. And they don’t. All they do is just recommend things that I’ve already listened to where, and they always have, but been able to, especially on recommendations like Spotify will actually introduce me to new artists, whereas Apple will not, the only way I ever introduced to anything new on Apple [01:01:00] is on their human curated playlist, where if I happen to see that they’ve added something, you know, for a new thing and I go, oh, I don’t know who this is. And I go, oh shit, this is really good. But then that didn’t come to me like I had to seek that out. And that’s human creation, right? Whereas Spotify, like Discover Weekly will give me sh like bangers and, Brett: week I find new stuff. Christina: Definitely. Right. And, and even the autoplay stuff will introduce me to like, I’ll be listening like, oh, who is this? And I’ll be like, oh, okay. I didn’t, I, I’ve heard of this artist, but I didn’t ever listen to them before, you know, and I, I like this. Right? Privacy Concerns with Media Consumption Christina: So, um, yeah, I feel like Plex, I think is like having like their, they’re always having business model problems because, you know, it’s hard to make money when essentially you are, you know, Brett: Your business is Piring. Christina: Correct. And, and you’re trying to pretend like it’s not. But it is. And like we all know that it is. And, and I, I, I’m like, in my case, a lot of times I’m like, I legally own many of these movies and TV shows, but it is more convenient to have them in the format that I have them in. Right. [01:02:00] Um, and, and then you obviously want your friends to have it, but like, I feel like this is an area where Plex, especially if they did ratings and whatnot, like could really offer up great recommendations and stuff if they were able to kind of, you know, use that kind of thing. Like they would have really good insights into that. But. Brett: would be so cool. Christina: But, but I also understand that they probably don’t wanna get too into that A, because their users would freak out and have freaked out anytime they were even like, oh, you’re watching this, you know, sharing what you’re watching with your friends. Which to be clear, I don’t really love that feature. I turned that off immediately. I was like, I don’t need people to see what I’m watching. Like, if I wanted to share, great, but I don’t want that auto on. That’s, it’s like the, it’s also like the Spotify listening thing. I’m like, Uhuh, no, no, no, no. You don’t need to know how many times I listened to this song in a row. Like, that’s, that, that’s family business, right? That’s family business. Like this is, you don’t need like my, my like, you know, weirdness does not need to be your whole thing. Um, and, and I think content that I’m watching is even more personal, right? Like, because Brett: just as a side note, [01:03:00] that’s, that’s all public for me. If you go to Brett turp.com/soundtrack, you can see what I’m listening to. But my script will, if I listen to a track repeatedly, it only shows it once, but if you hover over Christina: Oh, you can see how many Brett: uh, like 144 plays. Christina: wild. Which is, which is awesome. And again, like if you wanna share that, I, I’m like, not opposed to it, and I might even be interested in doing something like that myself. What I am opposed to is being like, okay, if I wanna like, let people service that on my own listening page, great. But I don’t want them to just be able to click on my profile any random person and be like, oh, this is what Christina’s listening to right now. Like, fuck that Uhuh. Um, but like, and, and I feel kinda the same way about like Plex. Like I might actually enjoy a, like a, a a slash now feature. Like, this is what I’m watching, this is what I’m listening to, whatever. Um, but I also turn that stuff off on steam. I’m like, no, you don’t need to see how many hours have been playing Star Valley. Brett: You know where it kills me is on, um, on [01:04:00] my fuck, what’s it called? What’s Facebook’s, uh, or meta’s? Um, goggles. Christina: Oh, the, oh, the Oculus. Brett: Oculus on my Oculus, like for a while it was sharing how much time I was spending in different apps, and I have one that I literally only use for porn. Christina: Right, right, Brett: so I was getting questions from friends who are like, Hey, what are you, what are you doing with, uh, because they were like, he’s spending a lot of time there. It must be a good app. Christina: right, right. Brett: I, I, I’m, I’m an honest guy. I Christina: you are No, Brett: what I was doing with it, but then I shut off that fucking sharing feature. Christina: Well, no, that’s the thing, right? I’m like, I’m like, I don’t need people to know like what I’m watching or what I’m listening to. You know what I mean? Because Yeah. Because sometimes yes, we are adults and like people, and I’m like, A, I don’t wanna share that. And b, like, I don’t want you to know that. Right? And, and, and I will go this far farther. I don’t wanna know what you’re doing. Right? Like, I like all power to you, but I don’t actually, when I see this, like, I don’t actually wanna know that [01:05:00] my friend was watching porn on their plex or on their oculus or, or whatever. Like, do it. I love that for you. I don’t actually want to, I don’t need to know this. Um, and, and, you know, uh, I, I’ve seen that on Steam too, where people like, I’ll see like their sex games and I’m like, cool. Awesome. Really did not need to know that. Brett: Yeah. Good for you. Good for you. Didn’t need to know about it. Christina: I didn’t need to know about your sex simulator, which is like, awesome. That’s, that’s like the happy for you. But like, no, the same way. Like, you don’t need to know that I’ve spent like 600 hours playing the sims. Like, these are just things that we don’t need to, like, unless we choose to share, we need to do. Bill Atkinson’s Legacy Christina: Um, I know, I know we’re, we’re coming up on gratitude, but I did wanna mention real briefly, this is kind of a, a sad and weird segue, but, um, bill Atkinson, uh, a computing pioneer, um, uh, died and, uh, he was the creator of Mac Paint and, um, uh, HyperCard and the whole, he was able to figure out how to make windows overlap onto one another. [01:06:00] Uh, and, and the quick draw framework, uh, you know, for the Mac, which was like a, a massive, massive thing. He created kind of like the, the modern, like, kind of like a dithering um, uh, algorithm. Brett: owe a lot to him. Christina: We owe a, a ton to him. And I, I don’t think I ever met him, but I obviously was like aware of him and like, I don’t know, like hypercar alone, like is a direct reason why like I got into computers and, and building stuff because like I went hypercar to the web and um, when I was in elementary school. And so, uh, like, you know, thoughts to his family, but what a great legacy. Brett: I should ask Sal Sago for a quote about Bill Atkinson passing. I bet, I bet. I bet that would make a good blog post, Christina: I bet it would. Brett: with Al Sago about Bill Atkinson. Christina: Totally, totally. Um, Andy Hertzfeld, um, folklore.org, which is basically just in a, kind of a hibernated state now, but, but it’s, it’s still like [01:07:00] archived. Um, which has like all the stories about the development of the original Macintosh. Um, there are, are a ton of, of, of, um, you know, bill Atkinson stories, um, in there. Um, and I was watching this video, um, I’ll, I’ll put it in the show notes, um, uh, yesterday, uh, that somebody edited together, like some of the first demos, um, from the first Mac and, and like seeing like, uh, bill show off Mac paint, um, to people and like hearing the applause. Um, I mean, it, it was such a fucking good demo and, and it’s just so Brett: a link to that, add that to the show Christina: Yeah, I’m going to, yeah, I’m going to. Um, because it, it was so cool to see and, and it was also wild, just like looking back and like seeing how young all those guys were and, and, and, and the one female member of the, of the deaf team, um, uh, were when they, you know, when, when the Mac, um, came out and, um, just freaking like unbelievable talents level. But, but, but, but he, uh, [01:08:00] um, his, his demo of his of Mac pain is so good and everybody’s applauding and, and then, um, he passes it off to the guy who did McElroy, right? And, and that guy like takes a second to say, um, you know, uh, you know, Mac pain is great, but like without quick draw or whatever Bill’s, quick draw, like, none of us would actually be up here. None of this would be possible. And, and it was just such a really nice like, um, like pure kind of moment of like this guy’s friend being like, no, like I’m, I’m excited to show up, but I’m showing off, but. You know, like props to my friend Bill. It was really, really nice. Um, MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball and Beavis and Butthead Brett: of super cuts, and we don’t have to talk about this at all, but I will put it in the show notes. There was someone put together a. Complete playlist of every video ever shown on MTV’s head, banger’s ball. Christina: my gosh. Brett: Yeah, it is quite the trip down memory lane. Um, [01:09:00] it was kind of fascinating, but I, uh, I, I know that’s not for everybody, but for, for me, I grew up on Christina: Yeah, Brett: Headbanger’s ball, on my pirated, my pirated cable running into the secret TV I had in the closet in my bedroom. Christina: That’s wild. I, I mean, I remember head bangers ball. I was much more of like a, I guess 120 minutes person. Um, if I had to pick. And even then I was late 120 minutes. ’cause I was, I was too, I was a little bit too young for all of that. But like, I, I remember like the mythos of that and That’s awesome. That’s so cool that they did that. ’cause like that’s ’cause that was like an institution and, um, I, I spent Brett: like the crossover between Headbanger’s Ball and Beavis and Butthead was Christina: Well, and that’s what I watched. I loved, I loved, loved, loved Beavis and Butthead and I was much older when I realized kind of like what they were kind of like making fun of and whatnot, the music videos. But like, I just, I liked the little sketches, like the music video commentary was funny, but like, a lot of it was for stuff that I had no idea what it was or anything. And I [01:10:00] just, I just, I loved bes and butthead. I thought it was just the funniest sh uh, stuff. And I was like in third, third and fourth grade and I just really loved it. But I spent like, my childhood and, and like adolescence frankly as well. Like, and, and then into college. Like I just. It, it was MTV and, and VH one. Like, it was like those two networks. Well, and then the e network too. And the E network started up and started getting bigger. It was like, you know, those three things, but like, but, but especially like MTV and VH one, like, I would just like watch, like basically on like a running thing. Like I was, I was thinking about this the other day because. Um, uh, Chapon did a, a cover of Hearts Barracuda, and it’s good. Like, it was really good. Um, she, she killed it, but it made me like, wanna go back and like, watch original heart stuff. And then I was like, okay, how did I get into heart? Because they were not a band really, by the time I was aware of music, like they would already kind of reached their peak and were gone. And I was like, oh yeah, the, the VH one behind the music. And fortunately, like three months ago, ’cause a lot of these things get taken down very quickly. Somebody did [01:11:00] upload the, the entire like 45 minute, like, behind the Music of Heart and like, and I was like, man, yeah. ’cause they, they were like, you know, they were like Fleetwood Mac, like they, their dramas like Fleet Fleetwood Mac, but like with sisters, which honestly makes it even messier, right? Like the whole thing, right. And, and, uh, so, um, yeah. Typo Negative and Music Reactions Brett: Have you, have you ever heard Typo Negative? Are you familiar with typo? Christina: I am. Brett: Um, there’s, I can’t remember her name, but there’s an opera singer who does like reaction videos, um, to. Like any kind of, any kind of musician she’ll, she’ll do like a reaction and analysis of the voice and the intonation and then even get into like the lyrical impact and things like that. And she did. I. She’s just like, she’s this peppy person who had never heard of Typo negative, but one of her viewers asked her to do a typo negative reaction. Um, [01:12:00] and it was very charming watching her first reaction to, and this was like during typo, negatives, like vampire phase when they were really into like the, just the kind of the vampire mythos. And she was like, oh, I get this. It’s like deep voice. He is got this deep, deep voice and he’s like seven feet tall. And he is, he’s playing a double bass, like it’s an electric base, like holding it up. And, and she like listening to her analyze it. She was really into it. So as a result, I was like, oh, I gotta go back and listen to Typo negative more. And I learned in the process that there was this album called Origin of the Feces that. Was supposed to be a live album. And I learned in my kind of deep dive into Typo Negative that it was not at all a live album. It was a studio recording [01:13:00] in into which they interjected crowd noises and glasses clinking, and people booing and like, made it sound like a really poor live performance that that made you feel bad for the fucking band. But it was all very intentional. Um, anyway, like that there, there’s a, like that guy had some lyrics, especially I think his previous band was a lot less PC and they really pushed the limits of like fascist Nazi kind of lyrics. He was like a New York Jew. Who, I don’t, I don’t even know where it all came from, but I think he was just trying to push people’s Christina: Mm-hmm. Brett: there’s some questionable stuff that Typo negative and Peter Steele did. Um, so I’m not gonna be like, oh my God, I’m so into these guys. But that [01:14:00] some of the sounds on, especially on their later albums when they went a little more like pop metal, when it was like super melodic and heavy at the same time, they kinda led, they, they invented goth metal. Like that didn’t exist before. Typo negatives. So I mean, you gotta give ’em some props. Christina: Um, yeah, for sure. No, you definitely need to give them props and, and I that, um, I, I’d like to see that reaction video. That sounds good. Um, Brett: I’ll see if I can find that. Christina: I put it in the show notes. Letterboxd API and Movie Recommendations Christina: One thing just to circle back when you’re talking about movie recommendations thing, I happen to search GitHub to see, ’cause letterbox does have an API, but apparently it’s sort of private. But I came upon this project that, that Sam Lerner, um, created, um, a, a few years ago, but, but it looks like he’s still, um, updating that is called Letterbox Recommendations. And he basically scrapes publicly accessible letterbox data and creates a movie recommendations model with it that can generate recommendations when provided with a letterbox username. So the whole concept is, is if you’ve rated a lot of movies on letterboxed, you can give it your [01:15:00] username and it can then give you recommendations based on your ratings compared to others. Brett: cool. Christina: So that’s, that seems like that that’s exactly what we were kind of talking about. Um, Brett: I, I would have to actually go in and rate some movies, but yeah. Christina: for sure. Brett: what I’m talking Christina: Yeah, exactly. And you might even be able to do something otherwise. And then he and I, I, I put in our show notes, I put like the link to the front facing, um, thing that you can do, but it also has like, um, a GitHub project because he has it, you can run it on your own. Um, and then he also, um, has a, a, a kagel dataset that’s up to date with, with his latest, um, crawl. So you can crawl your yourself if you wanna do things and whatnot. So you might even be able to, like, you could probably modify it based on some of those parameters where you could even be, there’d be a way to modify this where you could be like, enter in a movie and get recommended movies based on other things. Right. Like, there’d be a way to probably accomplish the Brett: I’ll play with Christina: doing. So, Brett: like a fun thing to do while I’m unemployed. Christina: yeah. I mean, look, that, that could, that, that could be [01:16:00] whatnot. And, and it’s interesting ’cause I’m now like looking through just like, um. Uh, oh, and this is cool too. Somebody has created a way to connect, um, your letterbox list to a radar, which is like the, the front end for Usenet to, to download content, um, for your plex. Um, I’m, I’m running, I’m seeing all kinds of, um, uh, information and here just, you know, searching letterbox on, um, on, on GitHub. So that’s, uh, that’s pretty Brett: All right, cool. Should we do our gratitude? Christina: We should, we should, uh, do you, do you have, um, do you have one? ’cause I’ve, I’ve got a, okay. Go Brett: do. So I’m I, and I can’t. I’ve lost track of what we’ve already talked about, but my pick this week is Flo Todo. Um, there are multiple single site browser apps out there that will turn something like, you know, Facebook into its own isolated web browser that doesn’t give data to anything else and makes it so [01:17:00] that I can separate my Facebook time from any anything else? I have one for Facebook, one for LinkedIn. Um, I’m not on the machine that I actually run these. I have one for Blue Sky. It actually runs Deck Blue. Um, and so all my social media sites get their own Flo Todo web app. And I like Flo Todo because it’s super bare bones and super lightweight and the apps it makes are just wrappers. That, that are basically little sandbox wrappers that take up about a megabyte and they load instantly. And they don’t, they don’t have a lot of frills. They don’t do a good job of like, with, uh, like notifications and, and badges and things like that. Uh, if, if that’s what you want, you, you wanna go with something more like Unity or Coherence X, um, Christina: Or, or, or, or, or you wanna [01:18:00] use, um, an in Chrome and Safari’s gotten better with this, but I don’t, I don’t use Safari. Um, uh, but, but no, but, but, but Chrome, like, uh, you know, if, if apps can, can be installed as a progressive web app, then, then that does a lot of similar things. Not, not to the way that it will do, like what this does where it’ll isolate your data. But, but it’ll, but if you, you want notifications in like a separate Brett: if you, if you just want to separate out that kind of browsing. Yeah. Um. So single site browsers are awesome. Flo todo is lightweight, fast, and, uh, for what I need it to do, it is the easiest. Like it creates web, like if you punch in a URL and hit save instantly, you’ve got your, you’ve got your SSB. Um, so I’m, I’m, I’m a fan. I can’t remember if I paid for it. I think I paid for it. It was like a one time, Christina: Yeah, it looks like it. Yeah, it looks like they have like a, a basic, um, uh, version, and then there’s like a pro version that that’s, that’s 20 bucks. [01:19:00] Um, I will note, actually, and this is kind of a sad, I guess, uh, uh, update, but, um, I, uh, I might have mentioned this, um, I, one of the episodes that you weren’t on, but I’ll, I’ll mention it again just because I’m reminded of it. Gratitude for MacUpdater Christina: So, Mac Update, which is an app that we’ve talked about a lot of times, um, that developer has announced that he is going to basically be discontinuing the app, um, as of January. Yeah. I gu I guess he’s not making enough money off of it or whatever. He’s, he’s offering it for sale potentially, or licensing if people want to do it. I, I don’t, I don’t have the means to be able to actually maintain it. Um, but like, but I would be Brett: pick that up Christina: but I, Brett: I literally have that app open on my desktop right now. Christina: totally. And, and so, yeah. And so I, I want, I, I think that it’s, it’s a, such a good app. Um, I mean, look, I, I’ll put this out there on, on the show. This is a weird gratitude, but I am very, you know, I have a lot of gratitude for this app. If there are some people who would potentially wanna, like, go in with me on, like, looking at like, how much it [01:20:00] would be to buy this app, I, I mean, I would be interested in, like, I could, I could do things on, on a business side. ’cause I do feel like the price he was selling it for was probably, you know, uh, too low. And I don’t know how big the market would be for people who’d be willing to pay, you know, $30 a year or whatever for app updates. But I, but I don’t feel like it’s zero. Um, so if, if there are people who are listening to our show who might be interested in pursuing with me and like what it would cost to do this or, or if I don’t have to be involved at all, this is just something that you feel like you, you want to do, um, you should reach out to him. But, um, but I, I, I don’t know, I feel like. I feel like this is, this is the sort of app that we, we need to, you know, keep around. Brett: Yeah, I agree. It’s so useful. Christina: so useful. The only thing I can imagine is, Brett: nothing for it. Christina: yeah, but he basically does, it’s like the pricing right now is, uh, you know, it’s free to scan Only the standard edition is, is three 90 a person. The pro edition is, is, is $10, [01:21:00] $9 rather. Brett: no. I thought it was more than that. Yeah. It should definitely be more than that. Christina: And I feel like it should be a, Brett: a, that’s a $30 app and possibly a subscription Christina: no, I think it’s a subscription. I think it’s a $30 a year subscription is what I think it is. I mean, maybe 50, but I think 30 is probably the right thing. And, and that way, and the reason is because it’s not free to be able to, you know, there’s real bandwidth costs in having to ping in the like store, like the, Brett: I use that app every day. I, yeah, I, I would be interested, I would back Christina on this. I don’t necessarily wanna maintain the app, but I would pitch in on keeping it alive in whatever capacity I could. Christina: Yeah. Um, yeah, so he basically, um, you know, um, but he expects it. He just says, um, e says Mac updater three does require server support and our daily maintenance to keep working, expect support until, you know, [01:22:00] January 1st, 2026. So, ’cause he, he’s, he’s made, you know, kind of a, um, a is it, you know, take it over if your company wants to either continue Mac update or, um, or enter the app updating market, get in touch about the possibility of acquiring, you know, um, you know, whether it’s infrastructure and, you know, maintenance infrastructure or if you wanna license their tech. Um, like, I don’t know, I, I remember what happened with Brett: We could wait it out. We could wait it out and if no, like larger company steps up, I bet he would eventually give it away for free. Christina: Maybe, maybe. I mean, I wouldn’t wanna pay nothing for it. Like I, I I don’t feel like that that’s, that’s fair. Brett: No, but then it would be up to us, be like, no, we think it’s worth this. And we give him that. Christina: yeah, I just, I, I’m just saying if there are people out there who, ’cause my whole thing is like, I don’t have those, the skills to, to maintain and, and keep it like running and updated. I would have skills to potentially like come up with like a business model and um, figure that sort of stuff out. But, um, you know, [01:23:00] ’cause I, ’cause I feel like there are a lot of things there. Honestly. Maybe we should talk to the setup folks. ’cause this feels like this would be granted, you know, they want everybody to go through their store, but this could be like a complimentary. Thing, you know, for apps that aren’t in setup, right? Like, I don’t know, um, just, just spit balling out there. But yeah. Um, immense gratitude and thanks for, for MAC data, uh, for, for being a real one over the years. And, and if anybody out there is in a position to help, or if you want to potentially, you know, um, if you have the technical skills and you would potentially wanna go in on something like this, like with me, and I’m, I’m not like, and I don’t even know if I have, I don’t know what he’s charging, so I don’t even know, like if I’m in the financial position to be able to like, make a real, like run of it. Right. But, but this is one of those apps where I like look at enough, I’m like, fuck, this is actually really good Brett: we, we would look into it with you. Give us a, give us a sh give us a shout. Christina: Yep. Brett: All right. So do you have a pick Christina: Um, I think that’s actually gonna be my pick. Actually. I was gonna come up with [01:24:00] something else then I was thinking about, I was like, no, I actually think that, um, that it’s that. And then, uh, the other thing that I will, uh, call out is, is again, like the sand learner, uh, letterbox movie recommendations thing. Um, which, uh, you know, like that’s, that, uh, that GitHub project looks pretty fun, so. Brett: All right. Well, what do we, we did about an hour and a half almost. That’s fun. Just the two of us. This is, this was an OG episode. Christina: was, this was like a very classic A DHD like og Overtired pop culture heavy. Yeah. It was good stuff. Brett: we’ll, uh, we’re, we’re working on some more guests. Hopefully Jeff will be back, but. But you get what you get when you listen to Overtired. Christina: You do. So, um, we, uh, we, we miss Jeff of course, but I’m glad to still talk with you Brett, and uh, get some sleep. Brett: Get some sleep.

In this episode, Brett reunites with Christina and Jeff after a few weeks’ break. Jeff talks about boundless curiosity and Christina shares her excitement over Taylor Swift reclaiming her masters. Brett details his tiring job search post-Oracle and explores new avenues as an independent developer while updating the team on the latest features of his app ‘Marked’. The conversation covers “cheesy” movies, health insurance options, and sports fandoms. You know, the conversations of three ADHD podcasters. Sponsor The latest 360-degree camera from Insta360, the Insta360 X5, launched April 22nd and shoots full 360-degree videos in incredible 8K30 resolution. To bag a free 114cm invisible selfie stick worth US$24.99 with your Insta360 X5 standard package purchase, head to store.insta360.com and use the promo code overtired. Show Links Pitch Perfect the book Cursor / Cotypist Cheapcharts Chapters 00:00 Welcome to Overtired 00:13 Catching Up with the Hosts 00:31 Nerding Out on Acapella 00:59 Pathological Curiosity 02:09 Mushroom Talk and Edibles 03:05 Mental Health Corner 07:04 Christina’s Taylor Swift Update 15:19 Sports Fandom and Mental Health 20:43 Job Hunting Struggles 37:07 Mental Health and Hobbies 38:19 Sponsor: Insta360 41:43 In-Depth Discussion on Marked App 55:54 Movies and Entertainment 01:05:17 GrAPPtitude Join the Conversation Merch! Come chat on Discord! Twitter/ovrtrd Instagram/ovrtrd Youtube Get the Newsletter Thanks! You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network 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 Rotten Soffits Welcome to Overtired [00:00:00] Brett: Hey, you’re listening to Overtired. I am, uh, Brett Terpstra, and I am here with Christina Warren and Jeff Severance. Guntzel. You guys have been carrying on without me. Catching Up with the Hosts Brett: How’s it going? Jeff: Good. Christina: It’s good. It’s good to, I’ll be back again. It’s been a few weeks. How? Brett: your, I enjoyed your last episode without me. It was fun to edit. Christina: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, uh, yeah, that was where we’re talking to over one another. We’re out of practice. No, that was great. It, it was great. Great, great. Nerding Out on Acapella Christina: With our friend Brian. They, they are a delight. And, uh, uh, once again, thank you, Jeff for letting us nerd out for an inordinately Jeff: a delight. Christina: about acapella. Jeff: It was a delight. I think the podcast tag should be, what is it now? It’s like tech pop culture and acapella. Uh, but what is it? What is it now? I forget. Our tag. Brett: I think it should be Tech. Taylor Swift and Jeff is a really good sport about whatever topic comes up. Jeff: No, I’m not a good sport. I, as I Brett: are a Pathological Curiosity Jeff: [00:01:00] as I said to my son, when he was annoyed with something, I was pointing out, I said, you have to understand fucking everything is interesting to Brett: Yeah, that’s what I, that’s what I’m Christina: was, I was gonna say, Brett: Like Jeff, Jeff has a curiosity about literally anything that other people are interested in. Christina: pathologic. Oh, that’s good. Pathological curiosity. I love that. No, ’cause you do. I, I, I, I, I I love that about you. I mean, I, I’m also like very curious, but you’re even more so than me. Like I will go down a rabbit hole on almost anything with anyone, even if it’s something that I’m not that into. But you are like beyond me. Like, ’cause there are some topics where I’m just like, I will just, my eyes will just glaze over. Jeff: yeah, yeah, yeah. Christina: you do that. Jeff: Well. Brett: know, you know, my eyes glaze over Christina: Oh, I know. Yeah. No, look, I, I, I, I was, I, I was not even, I was not even bringing you into this. No. Trust me, I, we, so we, we record this with, with video and, um, or we can see one another. We don’t record the video. I, I can see Brett’s face and it’s, it’s those moments where I’m like, do I Jeff: you can see [00:02:00] Brett Glaze. Christina: You can. And then there are moments I’m like, do I care or do I wanna finish my rant? And a lot of the times I’m just like, no, I’m gonna finish what I say ’cause he’s not listening. And it’s fine. Mushroom Talk and Edibles Brett: Um, so Jeff has a hard out in a little over an hour, which I think we could do. I just took a ceremonial amount of mushrooms, so we’ll see. How interesting. I’m just kidding. I didn’t, I Christina: fuck. Bummer. Brett: I was gonna, no, I only, I have literally like a 16th of mushrooms left and I’m saving it for a rainy day, Christina: Got it. Got it. Yeah. Fair enough. I mean, I, I just thought it was gonna be fun. I was like, damn, I’ll go take an edible. Like, we can just have like, we, we, we can Brett: and we’ll just see who kicks in first. Christina: whose kicks in first. Absolutely. Jeff: What topic are we on when it kicks in? Christina: Right, right. It’s, it’s like, it’s like it for me. You’ll know. I’ll just like, I’ll just either get Yeah. I get, I get quieter, honestly. I’ll just be like, cool. Jeff: yeah, [00:03:00] yeah. Right, right, right. Brett: All right, Jeff: like a SMR. Christina: Mm-hmm. Mental Health Corner Brett: so let’s catch up on mental health. I would love to hear about you guys first. Jeff: Oh, I can go Christina: Okay. Jeff: but it’s gonna be improvisational. Brett: Yeah. This isn’t youth group. You can share Christina: Sh. Brett: you Jeff: Wait, what does that mean? It’s not youth group, Brett: it. We used to have to like go around and Yeah. Testimonials and stuff and like you’d go around the room and everyone would have to share like who they witnessed to this week and all that shit. And, and I realized I really, yeah, a hundred percent. And I really can’t Jeff: wait, wait, wait, wait. At this moment Brett is maybe accidentally raising his hand Brett: Hallelujah. Hallelujah. But, uh, I can’t believe I missed the opportunity in high school to name my band, youth group Jeff: Oh, that’s a good Brett: so that everyone could tell their parents, oh, I’m going to youth group tonight, and they could come see [00:04:00] our Christina: And instead it goes to your show. That would’ve been so, yeah. Brett: about me real fast. Jeff: I like that a lot. Um, me, uh, I, you know, it’s, it’s funny, if it were a few days ago, I would’ve had a, a, a lot to say, but then I had therapy, um, and so, and that, that helped calm a lot of things down. Um, Christina: mental health corner. Jeff: yeah, actual mental health corner. I also just went through a phase where, so I have like, um, I mean, I think I’ve talked about this before, but I have nightmares pretty bad and, and, and I’ve managed to like. Make them quite infrequent through therapy, initially through medication, but then stopped that and through therapy, which has been amazing. Um, but I just had, I had one of those weeks where like. If I watch something, um, it becomes, uh, in my dream something like 40 times more terrible. Like if I watch something kind of terrible, uh, or just stressful. So like I accidentally on TikTok, uh, got a, a really [00:05:00] terrible nine 11 TikTok, just like a little VHS scene that someone had had recorded and that became this crazy ass dream. And then we we’re watching Bad Sisters again. I dunno if you watched that show, but it’s so stressful and awesome. And so every time I used to watch Bad Sisters in Season One, I had nightmares, but I was like, I don’t care. I love the show. Anyway. Um, no, but I’m, I’m doing good today. Um, I’ve had the place myself for the weekend and my kids are here, but my, um, my wife is outta town, so I’ve just been kind of like roaming around the house and I’m now like doing actual, uh, like garage repair work. I’m like, uh, I will not go into this, but I’m replacing rotten soffits and, and fascia and it’s really exciting because it’s the kind of thing I’ve never done and anytime I’m doing something I’ve never done, I find it kind of thrilling. And then when it actually works, I find that I don’t hate myself. And that’s, that’s awesome. That’s like a good way to come to not hating yourself. Christina: Yeah. Jeff: So, yeah, [00:06:00] I’m, I’m good. Rotten wood. I had to clear out a squirrel nest today that I was pretty sure had dead babies in it. ’cause I had a squirrel war and I had to close off the, the soffit from this squirrel I was fighting with that would yell at me in my workshop. And I was extra sure that I made extra sure that there weren’t babies in there before I shut it off. But man, a couple weeks later, it sure didn’t smell good in that corner. And so I, today, I like finally had the courage when I was ripping off the soffit and, and everything else to like, clear it out. But I found a way to do it so that I didn’t have to see, I didn’t have to see there was a massacre. I can’t handle it. One animal dies in my garage every winter and, and they all, they all are like framed, uh, in the, in the palace of my mind. Christina: Yeah. Uh, okay. So Rotted Wood should also be a band name. I’m just Jeff: rotted wood. Brett: I actually, I actually already decided to title this episode, rotten Soffits. We’ll see what else happens, Jeff: That’s good. That’s good. I like it. That’s what I got. Christina: [00:07:00] okay. Uh, I’ll go next. Um, okay, so the first, the, the, Jeff: My name’s Christina Christina’s Taylor Swift Update Christina: Yeah, I’m, I’m c I’m Christina, and I’m a Scorpio and No, um, so, uh, most important thing, uh, for, for my mental health and, and I think also going back to the roots of this podcast is that, uh, Taylor Swift got her master’s back, and, uh, so this is very important Brett: her, the recording’s not her degree. Okay. Christina: no, she hast not already doctorate, so she’s already, she’s already that, but like, yeah, but she got her master’s back. And so, um, that means that like all of her, her first six original recordings, all the music videos, all the photo photographs, the concert films, the demos, everything belonged to her. And the reports are that she paid in the $350 million range. So basically what the, what the original, what they were sold to for the second time, they sold them back to her. Um, and which, which is, which is great ’cause essentially by doing the Rerecording project, she devalued them enough that they didn’t, you know, get a, a massive premium, which, which they would’ve had [00:08:00] otherwise. Jeff: was that an unintended consequence or was that part Christina: Oh no, that was the whole point. No, no. The whole point was absolutely. ’cause she’s the song. Well yeah, ’cause she’s the songwriter, so they can’t do sync rights without her permission. So even though they owned the master recordings, they wouldn’t be able to like, license them to film or television without her permission. And she was like, no. And then she got half the royalties from the streaming stuff anyway, so they were making like 30 million a year. But So was she off of just the other stuff? I still think they did her a kindness because they could have been juicing that for all they, while it was worth, they could have been putting out DVDs, they could have been putting out books, they could have been licensing the photos for merch. Like her fans would’ve revolted, she would’ve made a big deal about it. But like, let’s be honest, your aunt in hot topic is not gonna know or care if the Taylor Swift shirt is licensed by Taylor Swift herself, or if it’s licensed by like, Apollo Global, like, you know what I mean? Like, like they’re, they’re not gonna care. So, or Shamrock Holdings or whatever it was called. So.[00:09:00] The fact that Jeff: just your aunt. That’s me in hot topic. Christina: right. But what I mean is like Swifties would, would know the difference between like the official merch and like the, the the, you know, um, uh, like licensed photos that she no longer had any ownership of stuff. Like I’m, I’m just saying. So, but like they, they, they could have made a lot more money off of this is, is what my point is. And so the fact that they basically like made a hundred million dollars and, you know, ba basically sold it for even money, I think is a kindness. Um, so, so did she from her letter. But the only reason I’m mentioning this for mental health purposes is that like, finally, like I’m happy for Taylor and all, but like my national nightmare of, of having to pretend like the Taylors versions, like we’re anywhere near as good as the originals is over. And I never Jeff: the music you love and came to love of hers back in your life. Christina: well, okay, look, Jeff: I mean, you had it. I know you had it in Christina: Yeah. Well, no, no, but here, here’s the thing. I’m a huge Taylor fan and like I, I’m like a Taylor shooter as they would say, obviously. Um, there’s no way in hell [00:10:00] that you could pay me enough money to listen to like Style Taylor’s version over the original ’cause it was ruined. It, the, the, the, the new guitar bit, like, the whole thing was, it was just fucking ruined. And I paid for those albums. They were in my iTunes library. I also had physical copies. Fuck you. If you think I’m gonna stream like the, the non misogynistic version of better Than Revenge. No, I’m gonna be like listening to the slut shaming version. That’s it. But the thing is, is that I had to pretend in like plight company, like. You know, like I, I, I, it, it was one of those things like when I would tell people, oh yeah, I still listen to the old versions when I want to. And people were like, oh my God, you monster. And I’m like, okay, now I don’t have to pretend anymore. And, and, and, but more importantly, ’cause I never really pretended that much. Like I think on this podcast I was even pretty off open. I was like, oh, I think the rerecording are interesting and some of the vocals sound better, but it’s obviously, it’s a different vibe and, and whatever. But some of them, I was just flat out why I was like, this is worse. But the big thing is, is that like, they would only play like the Taylor’s versions, like on like radio and on like playlists and stuff. And that’s annoying [00:11:00] because they’re, they’re just, to your point, they’re not the ones you grew up with. Like, it’s, it’s not the the thing. And so, Jeff: fan and, ’cause I know that some of those differences are obviously so subtle and some are so glaring, but like if you’re a fan, the subtle is not subtle. Christina: No, and the thing is, I think for like, people who came in and became like fans of hers, like during the ERAS tour, and there were a lot of people that got into her that way. Fair enough. You are not gonna really notice or care, but like, if you’ve been spinning like more than half your life, listening to someone like, come on. Um, or, or close to half your life, whatever the, the, the math breakdown is like, you, you know, those songs and like, you know, every intonation. So I’m just glad that, like, for my mental health, that like my personal nightmare of having to ever worry about hearing style Taylor’s version on like a Spotify playlist or in a store somewhere is hopefully gone because there’s, there’s no reason that we, that anyone should ever subject themselves to that the vault tracks different, right? Like, that was like a gift and that was great. And like, I’m glad we got all two L [00:12:00] 10 and like she said, she’s not gonna re-record reputation, which think fuck, she would’ve ruined it. Um, and, uh, but, but we will get the vault tracks, which will be great. And, and she did apparently rerecord the debut album. I would be interested in hearing how that sounds, you know, versus 16 versus like, you know, almost 36, but. When, whenever that happens, that that’ll be a fun thing to listen to. It’ll be a fun deluxe edition to, for me to give her more money for. But like, I don’t, I I, I don’t need to have it like in like on the Delta playlist, which they still have. Like if this was a movie Taylor’s version on their playlist, and like, honestly that was a pretty good re re-record, but it’s still just a jarring thing where I’m like, this voice is, this voice is more mature Jeff: Yeah, Christina: you know, 2009 or 2010. So anyway. Brett: So Trump’s Trump said that Jeff: Wait. Whoa, whoa. Christina: Yeah, he said that she was no longer hot. Brett: no, no. Since, since he said he hated Taylor, that she was no [00:13:00] longer hot. And if we ignore that, the heirs tour also ended in that period. He was right a hundred percent right. Christina: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, yeah. Well, what’s funny about this is that like she didn’t go to the American Music Awards and, and the fans, this is, okay, this is genuinely the funniest thing. You guys might appreciate this. So there’s been all this criminology and, and there’s a joke that says that by Taylor buying back her masters, she prevented, you know, millions of white women from join joining Q Anon. And it is true because these, these people were insane, including like people that I know, some of my friends got really into this too, where they were looking for all these Easter eggs that clearly never existed about when she was going to drop reputation that rerecord, because that album has become AOC cult classic. People really like it. And they were like, oh, she’s gonna go all out on this. And like, they would look into the, how many emojis is she putting in? And oh, she’s wearing this snake necklace and so that must mean this is coming out. Like it was getting like genuinely Q anon shit, right? And so she doesn’t go to the American Music [00:14:00] Awards because she didn’t win anything. But also she’s doesn’t have anything to promote and you only go to that award Brett: Or to prove for that Christina: Well, no, she has nothing to prove. She’s got like the most of them that you can possibly get and it’s a fan, ostensibly, fan voted award. But then they make it very clear we can change the results to be whatever the fuck we want them to be. It’s one of those things. So, you know, it’s like a third tier like music award show that you go to. If you’re trying to promote something, your label forces you or your like a, a d or E list, like influencer. That’s why you go, Taylor Swift’s not going to that. But people were like convinced that last week they were like, oh, she’s gonna go on, on, on, you know, Monday or whatever and she’s gonna do this. And I was like, no, she’s not. Like I told people in the the Google Swifties chat, I was like, no, she’s not going. Of course she’s not. And oh, we look like clown. She’s not doing this. So the funniest possible thing is the fact that she admitted she hadn’t even recco rerecorded a quarter of reputation and that like she didn’t want to, and that she had really been like hit a hit, hit a wall with it, and she was like. Yeah, [00:15:00] sorry, that’s not happening. I will give you like the bonus tracks if you want them, but like, I’m not re-recording this. So like, that’s genuinely the funniest thing is that for like years, literal years people have been like trying to figure out when is she gonna drop reputation and like it was all in everyone’s head. Like, it’s just, it’s, it’s incredibly funny. So, yeah. Sports Fandom and Mental Health Jeff: I like this, um, bringing in fandom into mental health. Like, uh, this is a, a far more, uh, kind of a stupid version, but I, I, every once in a while I get invested in a sports team and I did this year for almost an entire NBA season. And I am always struck by how, when, when your team wins, you personally feel like you’ve done something right. Yeah, yeah. When your team wins, you personally feel like you did something right. When they lose, you personally feel like, and here’s what pisses me off, is that like when they, when they, when they lost the conference playoffs last week, um, I, you know, I felt for them. I felt for me, I was say I felt like I did something where I could hardly look at them, but here’s what I realized of saying [00:16:00] this to my wife. I was like, they’re gonna go home tonight to their fucking $30 million homes, and I am just gonna stay in this bed I’m in now where I watch the game and feel shitty about myself and wake up and still be like, I. Not quite as, as able to buy three meals a day as I want to. Brett: Do you, Christina: right. Exactly. Jeff: Sorry, I mean, eating out, that was a weird, but Christina: No, I get what you’re Jeff: that was a weird, Brett: l has a small group of queer friends that adopted the wolf emoji and the blue heart emoji as they’re kind of like, they’re also mostly neurodivergent. And it was kind of their way of saying, I love you. I feel you. I’m not gonna respond right now. They would reply with just like a wolf and a blue heart. Jeff: but it’s not, that’s not a timber’s reference. Brett: I, no, Jeff: Okay. Okay. Okay. Brett: when the Timberwolves won last weekend, her their, uh, whole feed, like [00:17:00] all their text messages, their Facebook wall, everything was flooded with wolves and blue hearts. And, Christina: It’s very confusing. Brett: and El thought that thought of that as some weird synchronicity with the universe not realizing that, that el didn’t even know that the timber wolves was a team. Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Brett: so it, they had to come to me who knows just slightly more about sports than L does. Um, to Jeff: spend many years when they’re not a team. Brett: to figure out what was going on. I was around when they became a Jeff: Acapella and sports and Taylor Swift and awesome. Brett: we a sports podcast now? Jeff: that is the deepest I’m Christina: I, I Jeff: gonna go. Christina: I was gonna say, now we are actually, and, and we need to get to Brett, but like, on a future episode, Jeff, I do actually wanna like di dig into like, sports fandom with you because I don’t, I, I don’t go to sports Twitter, but, um, my friend Justin, um, is, is like a, a, a diehard for so many sports and [00:18:00] he keeps me up to date on it. Like he and I, like, we share obsessions with like, the various TV shows that lesbian Twitter is really into because that’s the best Twitter. And unfortunately Twitter is just the best network for anything. Pop culture or blue sky. It doesn’t have any fucking juice. And like, we’re not even gonna talk, pretend that threads and, and, and Mastodon exist in this conversation. ’cause I’m sorry, but they don’t, um. But like, but he will keep me up. Like, like he was sending me all kinds of memes from Paris last night when, um, when, when, when Paris won, like the, the, the, the soccer championships or whatever, like the premier league or whatever it was. And, uh, and, and, and like, you know, he sends me all kinds of other stuff. So I, I know some things, but not a lot. But I would love to like hear more about how you got really into the, in, in, into the timber wolves this, Jeff: I have to scrub my algorithm on YouTube now because it’s only when the season’s on that I wanna watch highlights and press conferences. So I had to do a, you know, the full cleaning you do where you’re just like not interested, not interested, not interested. For some reason I have to say not interested to like corn videos about every two months. I don’t like corn. I don’t listen to [00:19:00] corn, Brett. Sorry. Christina: Well, Brett: I don’t listen to corn. What are you talking about? Jeff: No, I’m saying, sorry. You have a, you have a mental health update. Christina: yeah, you do. And we’re, and we’re talking about Maynard or whatever, but like, uh, yeah. Brett: Yeah. Jeff: Brett, Bartholomew Terpstra Brett: How I have never told you my middle name. How did you, Jeff: names. Yeah. I’m a great guesser. I can also guess your weight Brett: you want, do you want, do you know what my middle name actually Jeff: No. Christina: Paul. Brett: It’s Marine. Jeff: Marine. What Christina: would’ve gotten Jeff: Really? Brett: Marine with two R’s, which was my, I think, my great-grandfather’s first name. Christina: Okay, Brett: And it means man from around the water. My first name means man from the Isles of Britain. And my last name, name means man from the Manmade Hills in Jeff: a man. Christina: so you’re just Jeff: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Man. From the man. That’s how, that’s very specific. Brett: family from the Manmade Hills. So like a [00:20:00] TURP is the obs opposite of a dyke. Um. Well, not Jeff: That’s not, we don’t say that. Brett: I get that a lot, but, um, like they were like manmade hills that cities were built on in areas that were prone to flooding. I think so. Turp a turp and Terpstra means from the TURPs if you’re Dutch. And so yeah, I’m, I just have a well-traveled name, but Aloia, I Jeff: is there some name that could be like, um, man from the text editor in his basement? Brett: Hmm. Jeff: You could like, you could add that Brett: Tex Mara. Christina: text, Brett: Text extra. Text extra. There you. Yeah, it’s right there. Jeff: All right, Maureen, you go. Brett: All right. Job Hunting Struggles Brett: Um, so I can’t remember where I was last time I was on, but I have been let go from Oracle. I have spent the last month sending out job applications. Um, I got. [00:21:00] A bite from Shopify and they put me through three hours of interviews and had me spend two hours on a writing assignment. So we’re looking at five hours invested before they said we’ve decided to move forward with other candidates. And that was so tiring emotionally that I have taken a couple days off before I start sending resumes out again. Um, but it took me 30 resumes to get one hit. And for some of those resumes I had like referrals within the organization. And even then I couldn’t get an interview. Um, so despite the fact that LinkedIn is chockfull of jobs, I’m qualified for getting an interview is. Difficult. Um, so I am [00:22:00] heavily weighing my options as an independent developer. Um, I have, uh, Jeff: Which should have made you rich. Not literally, but you shouldn’t have to. You should want for nothing given the quality of your work. Brett: Thank you. Thank you. But I, I also am a horrible business person, Jeff: Yeah. Well that goes along Brett: and I give so much away for free, and, but Jeff: punk rock damaged. I think that’s Ted Leo’s term. Your punk rock damaged. You give everything away from free or you feel guilty. Brett: yeah, right. I, uh, but I’m looking at like how I can like kinda revamp my, my stable of apps to actually pay out, um, getting like Envy Ultra out the door. I have a version three of marked that is. Um, well, it was 90% finished and then I, I’ll tell you about it in a second. But, um, and I’m gonna put that out as like a subscription, uh, pricing [00:23:00] and uh, and I think even if I were to get another job, I could turn all of this passive income into like a second income. Um, but if I decide I’m don’t like interviewing and working for corporations, which feels like super possible right now, um, that I figured out ways that figured I can, I can have a 401k, I can have health insurance. I can have like, group rates on health insurance and get, like ACT did. Okay, so side note, in the Affordable Care Act, there’s a carve out for religious institutions. Do you know about this? Christina: Um, I, I’ve heard about this, but I don’t want know what the details Jeff: Are you back in the church? Christina: I was gonna say, are you gonna start a Brett: no, you don’t. You don’t have to be religious. It’s kind of a, it’s a backdoor if you know about it. [00:24:00] Religious organizations are allowed to negotiate these group rates for better insurance. And the problem with a lot of them is for anything major, it’s full coverage for anything minor. You often pay out of pocket and then they negotiate directly with the provider and then pay you back. Um, so it’s not like it’s not as convenient as regular health insurance, but in many cases Christina: you pay up front, but Brett: it’s better than what you can get on the. Yeah. On Christina: the marketplace. Brett: Yep. Um, so like, there, there are options out there. And right now, uh, I’m on Minnesota’s Medicare basically, uh, medical aid, um, which is Jeff: A great program. Minnesota’s the best. Brett: for people with zero, with zero reportable income, which is where I’m at at the moment. Um, and then if I start getting income, [00:25:00] I can switch to sre. Um, yeah, Minnesota’s, Minnesota’s a decent place to be broke. Um, we have, we have our homeless problems. We have, you know, we have homeless policy problems, but like if you are broke and you need health insurance, I feel pretty safe being in Minnesota. So, um, no complaints there. But anyway, can I. What do you wanna know? I feel like that’s my mental health in a nutshell. Jeff: Is, what do you wanna know about Marked or about you? Brett: Oh, I don’t care. I’ll talk about anything Jeff: have a Brett: these shrooms kick in. Jeff: I um, I have a question about applying for jobs. ’cause I have a colleague who does in the neighborhood of the work I do, I mean, he is a, he is a co-owner of the business, but he does far more like traditional evaluation. And I’m as always just kind of a weirdo of the backpack in the corner [00:26:00] making shit up. Um, but he’s. Been applying for jobs and he has applied for so many jobs and has not heard back from a single one of them. This is an extremely competent, um, person with a long history of, you know, demonstrable history of work, of good work. Um, he’s struggled with the fact that it, there’s a clear sort of AI filtering. Um, and so then he is trying to figure out like, do I use AI to match that? What I assume is the AI filtering and there’s all this, all this shit. And Brett, then I hear you talking again. Another, I mean obviously demonstrably capable person in the area that you’re, um, applying in all areas. Brett, let’s be honest, um, I realize this started to sound like that’s, I was saying you’re just, you’re just competent there, but let’s, let’s just be clear. Um, so do you get the sense, are you even hearing anything back when you’re not getting an interview? I. Brett: Um, I’m, I twi two out of 30. I heard immediately, like, [00:27:00] clearly AI generated, your resume doesn’t fit. What we’re looking for. Um, but 28 of those, not a peep, nothing. I didn’t even get a confirmation that they had received my resume. Jeff: wow. Christina: Yeah. Brett: I got a confirmation from Apple that they had received my resume and that if I were a fit, a recruiter would be in Dutch, but then nothing. Christina: nothing. Yeah. Brett: um, yeah, I think, I think AI is detrimental and if you don’t use it properly, I don’t think you get a job anymore. Jeff: is part of this, and Christina, I bet you would know some of this too, is part of this, that AI has also made it easy for many, many, many more people to apply for a job than they would have. Christina: Yes and no. Um, the, the, this whole like recruiting thing started long before the AI stuff, um, in terms of the automatically filtering and stuff out, because on the hiring side I dealt with things where if [00:28:00] somebody didn’t fill out and didn’t like show like all the requirements that were on a certain job, like they didn’t check every box, like I fit all these requirements or whatever, then they would automatically be given, you know, from greenhouse or whatever the system would be. Um, a rejection notice. Even people that we were actively like wanting to get their, like resume into the system because we were purposely recruiting them. There could be things that could break down in the system that would, would come down. And then at big companies, referrals can work and not work in certain ways. Like in, in some cases it will actually. Guarantee that a, a recruiter will give you a call and, and do a, a, a, a preliminary call and, and see if you’re a fit. But that’s not a guarantee because some places will claim, oh, well, because we fire, we, we, we have federal contracts, then we can’t technically take anything that will be, um, preferential from anyone. Even if it’s literally us asking our employees to refer people internally, we can’t take that as a signal. So you have to really, in a lot of cases, if you issue a referral, you really need to know the hiring manager and then be able to advocate for the [00:29:00] person directly. But the thing is, is that that doesn’t scale and we don’t all know the hiring managers for jobs that we see at companies that have hundreds of thousands of employees. So it’s shitty. AI has made it worse for sure, because the systems can now go through much faster than the older algorithms were, which we’re already doing the same things. Um, in terms of if more people are submitting that way, there have been a number of, I guess, kind of local projects where people will kind of spam, um. You know, uh, like job applications using AI to basically write the cover letters and maybe, you know, rework the resumes and, and whatnot based on the skills that you insert. Um, there have been some takedown notices for some of ’em. I think some are trying to maybe, you know, pivot into more paid services and whatnot. I don’t know how much that is actively being used in terms of sending in bulk, but I do feel like at this point, if it were me, if I were like actively looking for a job, I would absolutely be trying to use the AI against itself. Right. I would absolutely be trying to optimize my cover letter or my resume everything, um, Brett: so I [00:30:00] did that. I, I optimized and I, and I would do it per application too. I would copy in the job requirements and the whole nice to have section and then copy in my current resume and tell it to tailor it. And, and I would use that. And I sent out a bunch of tailored cover Christina: That, and that can work or it can’t work. Yeah. What I, what I will say, um, and I don’t know if this’ll help like either of you, um, but, but might be something to put out to your friend. The years of experience thing is, unfortunately, even though it’s illegal, like one of the few labor protections that we have in this country is supposed to be around like ageism. It doesn’t matter. Um, limit the, uh, limit how far back you, uh, go in terms of your resume. Yeah. Like I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m being freaking real. Like I, and I would do this myself. Like I wouldn’t, there’s, I, I would like, uh, at a certain point this where it kind kind of becomes a problem if you’ve worked at places for really long periods of time. Like a friend of mine, um, Microsoft laid off a bunch of people and, and [00:31:00] he’s been there for 19 years and that is gonna be hard for him to be able to like. Fudge on a resume, right? But, but, but, but in general, like drop things from before a certain period of time because it, ageism should, it’s not supposed to be legal, but companies, recruiters, whatnot, they will look at that. And so dropping the amount of years of experience, uh, is one of the, one of the things that I hear from, from people, from recruiters and, and from, um, like that, that just advice that I, I would give to others. Like, it, it doesn’t actually work in your favor the way that it should because the way that recruiters potentially see it or employers is like, oh, this person’s going to cost me more money. Not, this person’s going to be more valuable. And, and so that can like, fuck you from even getting into the conversation. The, the, the job market is so shitty right now. I have a lot of friends who are going through this and I, so I really, you know, feel for you Brett, and like it has nothing to do with you. Like that’s the thing. Like, and, and then the interview process itself. You’re not wrong. Like many times you’d have the take homes and you have like the [00:32:00] systems design interviews and you have like. A lot of work that goes into it, and some places will pay you for that, but, um, most won’t. And you know, four or five years ago things were different and people were actively trying to recruit talent for, for tech jobs. Now they’re not. And so like the amount of money that they will, you know, uh, put out for recruitment in terms of like, if they, in the past, like sometimes some places would pay people like a, a, a small, like hourly wage to go through the, you know, uh, testing process. Like that’s all out the window because they know that, you know, people want the jobs. It’s, it’s really shitty. Brett: I, so the Shopify one I got pretty excited about because not only was I a hundred percent qualified for the position, like there were some things I’ve applied for that I’m like, I could pick it up, I could learn this. But the Shopify one, I mean Shopify’s written in Ruby Christina: I was gonna say, Jeff: Oh man.[00:33:00] Brett: it’s written in Ruby. And like I would, I was applying for the docs team writing API docs for developers working with Ruby interfaces, using static blog generating systems based on liquid, which Shopify invented. And like all of this stuff I have. Decades of experience with, um, and, and when I got the letter that said we’ve decided to go with other more qualified candidates, I was like, what? Jeff: That was the letter. Brett: I, yeah, I don’t, I don’t, I would, I would love to meet the person more qualified than me for this job. So I have to assume there were other factors that they can’t legally say were the reason. Christina: Totally, totally. I mean, ’cause and that’s such bullshit, like, ’cause the thing is, is that, like, to me that also seems like a, I don’t know, either they had another candidate in mind or, or what, which, fair enough. But like, you know, [00:34:00] this, this is like a, a, a clear problem to me with like their recruiting systems. If you’re going to take one of the foremost experts on all the things that, that they’re looking for and be like, no. Jeff: Hmm. Yeah. Brett: yeah. Jeff: I am, uh, one of the things that gives me pause. I mean, I, so the way I’ve always gotten work is usually based on something I had been working on in the previous year, and someone sees that and goes, Hey, we want you over here. Um, that’s how I kind of like moved forward through journalism. It’s how I ended up in what I’m doing now, which I’ve now been doing for more than 10 years. Um, and, but I can see a, a world in which it’s no longer possible for me to make a full living doing this work. I mean, we’ve had, you know, I’m, I’m noticing we have fewer small contracts. I don’t know that we’ll have more of the really large contracts. We’ve kind of, that’s been our bread and butter. Um. And, and one of the things that really is like, oh man, I’m fucked. I’m, I’m strictly gonna have to get whatever my next job is based on a relationship somehow. [00:35:00] Because if it’s AI filtered and I don’t have a high school diploma, I’m out before you get to anything else. Like, that’s it. I’m gone. I’m not making it through. Um, and that is, that is, um, humbling. It also pisses me off ’cause I finally am at a point in my life, I mean, I’ve been there for maybe 12, 13 years, but where I didn’t feel like that was gonna be a liability ever. And in fact I felt like just because of the trajectory it set me on, it was a strength. Um, but I will say that when I got a job in public radio, no one there knew I didn’t have a high school diploma, didn’t go to college. And when my boss found out, she had a little bit of a, I hope my boss doesn’t find out response to that. Um, and, and so like, you know, I was, but I was able to just kind of skate through without anybody asking. ’cause people were focused on the work I had done and Christina: Well, right, well, well, they just assume they, they, they, they just make assumptions. I mean, that’s why usually a lot of places will say, or equivalent experience, which is, is, is where you can kind of not be saying that you’re lying, you know, on your application stuff. ’cause that’s, that’s the [00:36:00] thing you gotta be careful about with things like that, is like, depending on what it asks, if, if you give incorrect information, then they can pull the offer when, when they do a background check and whatnot. And, and those background checks will try to verify, um, you know, like education and whatnot. But, um, but, but it’ll say like, or equivalent. And if you have, like, you have clearly the equivalent experience of, you know, a, a bachelor’s degree. Um, so, um, like that. Like, obviously you, you wouldn’t claim like a higher degree than that, but like you, Jeff: At least a high school diploma. Christina: No, I Jeff: What if I, do you think I could sneak through? Do you think I could sneak through listing the school of hard knocks? Christina: No, no. Brett: my, my college apparently doesn’t have me on record as graduating. Um, when Oracle did their background check on me, they’re like, we cannot confirm. And I sent them a photo of my diploma and they accepted that. But I never followed up with Mc CA to see why. Jeff: mcad. [00:37:00] Uh, that’s, uh, art school in the Twin Cities. Everybody. Brett: Why would they not have me on record as having a bachelor of Arts? Mental Health and Hobbies Brett: But anyway, so, so, so mental health wise, I’ve been staying sane by coding, working on, um, being self-sufficient. Uh, gardening, we’ve been planting, planting some subsistence farming style crops, um, and, uh, and watching movies. And I think we can go from there into Christina: First we should do our our sponsor break. Jeff: Oh, but Brett, when we’re out of that, I know, I know we have some pitch Perfect. Top. I have so many questions about Mark three, and we can just do an episode on that Brett: so here’s, here’s what I suggest. Give me after, after the sponsor read, give me three minutes to tell you about Mark three. You can ask any questions you Jeff: Three minutes. That becomes gratitude. I want, I have so many questions. Brett: uh, three minutes for me to tell you.[00:38:00] Jeff: Oh, Christina: And then we’ll do a follow Brett: And then, and then you can ask, you can ask all the questions you want. And then I definitely wanna talk about Pitch Perfect and step Up Jeff: Well, we are an acapella Christina: we are Brett: here’s, Jeff: We got this Brett: Here’s your cliffhanger. We’ll be right back with all of this after these messages. Sponsor: Insta360 Brett: Today’s episode is sponsored by Insta 360, a leader in 360 degree action camera technology. Their latest 360 degree camera, Insta 360 x five, launched April 22nd, and shoots a full 360 degree video in incredible eight K 30 resolution. Since it films in all directions at once, you don’t even need to aim the camera. Just hit record. Live in the moment and choose any angle you want in the edit. With Insta three Sixty’s mobile app, it’s easy, smooth, and packed with AI tools for a faster workflow. You can even get those impossible drone like third person [00:39:00] shots using the invisible selfie stick that disappears from the final video. From immersive POVs to unique third person shots, X five is every camera you’ll ever need in one. An efficient triple AI chip means seriously smooth performance, plus huge sensors and dedicated low light shooting mode, deliver unmatched detail and quality day and night. X five Also features Insta three sixty’s toughest ever lenses, which are completely replaceable, so you can risk the shot with confidence to bag 114 centimeter invisible selfie stick worth 24 99 with your Insta 360 X five standard package purchase. Head to store dot insta three sixty.com and use the promo code Overtired. This is available for the first 30 standard package purchases only. For more information, be sure to check out the links in our show notes [00:40:00] that store dot insta three sixty.com and use the code Overtired. Christina: Um, 1, 1, 1 thing I’ll note just real quickly about the Insta 360 stuff, because I’ve used their stuff and it’s really actually very good, is that invisible selfie stick. What they do there is they basically like have, I guess it kind of programmed in like how their recording software works or whatnot, so that if you’re using that particular stick, when you bring your video in, like literally the selfie stick just disappears. Like it’s automatically taken out, like without having to do anything in, in like an editing app or whatnot. It’s just like gone, which is, which is kind of badass. Brett: I’ve seen, like friends of mine, Richard Lawler from End Gadget, uh, got a 360 degree, degree camera and was posting like 360 shots to Facebook. And they were cool. Like I was, I was jealous. They were cool. I, I also kind of want drone, but some things are just Christina: Yeah, I mean, this one, you don’t have [00:41:00] to get an FAA, like granted, it’s like a, you know, small license, but like, you don’t have to bother, like with, oh, where can I use this? Where can I not? Like, that’s the nice thing about it is that, ’cause there you wouldn’t have this problem because you have like land and whatnot, but like, there are a lot of places, like if, if you live in an urban area, like I would love a drone. I would not be allowed to use a drone. Um, and, and even a lot of parks and stuff like, won’t let you use them, but like you can get similar shots to that if you have it like a pie enough, you know, because it’ll go, it’ll go 360. So it’s, it’s pretty fun. Jeff: What if, if I got a drone, I’d put a Ukrainian flag on it just to scare the shit out of anybody, Brett: Ukrainian and a German flag. Jeff: and it’s, oh, yeah. Okay. All right. In-Depth Discussion on Marked App Brett: so, so here’s what I’ve been working on. I have focused most of my development time on Mark, which is my pre premier, premier. I don’t know if that’s the word I want, but it’s, it’s the, it’s the app I have that makes me the most money, Christina: It’s your flagship app right [00:42:00] now. It’s your Brett: flagship. There you go. Until, until NV Christina: Until Envy Alter comes out. This is your flagship? Yeah. Brett: So, so I have been focusing on Marked, which originally released at 3 99, and John Gruber immediately wrote about it, and I began making like seven grand a month on it, um, at 3 99. Christina: Mm-hmm. Brett: And then time went on, uh, sales slowly dwindled. Eventually I added enough features to it that I considered it like a $15 app. Um. Jeff: easily, Brett: And so now, so e even today it’s 1399 and, um, I have customers that have been with me since they paid $4 for it and have never paid another dime and have gotten over a Jeff: on this podcast. Christina: Huh, Brett: over a decade of support from me. Um, [00:43:00] and it’s either time for a major version upgrade, a paid upgrade, or that I switch to subscription pricing. And I am, I, I’m pretty, I’m 99% decided that I’m going subscription because. Like people who are anti subscription, say, if you’re not paying for hosting, if you’re not paying like your own monthly costs on something, you shouldn’t charge a subscription. But I disagree because if you are constantly putting in development and you wanna just release new features as you develop them, instead of saving up for one big yearly release, a subscription makes perfect sense. So, um, I had, I had decided I was gonna price it at like 2 99 a month, um, with, with like a, with a six month and yearly and a permanent unlock price. But, um, setup [00:44:00] has, is about to roll out their single app plans Jeff: Oh, I didn’t know that. Brett: Where they will handle the subscriptions for a single app instead of paying for all of set, but they have a minimum pricing of 4 99 a month for an individual app. And I thought when, let me, when I tell you about what’s about to happen in Mark, I think you’ll agree that’s a reasonable price. So what I’ve added, um, okay, so Mark has always had a Doc X export and it has always been bullshit. Um, it is always basically just giving you an RTF file pasted into a Doc X file. Jeff: Yes. Brett: It now on my machine will give you a fully structured word file with styles, with headings, with list items. It can [00:45:00] even import, uh, it can turn word change tracking. Into critic markup, and it can change word highlights into colored highlights in your markdown using span tags. Um, and it’s bidirectional. You can open up a Doc X file in marked, Jeff: Shut your dirty mouth. Brett: save it as markdown or turn your, or save it as a new word file with cleaned up syntax and cleaned up change Jeff: I’m just gonna send you my credit card. The whole thing. Brett: I also completely rewrote Scrivener in, uh, integration. So up until now, Scrivener integration is always depended on a combination of Python and Ruby Scripts to render a Scrivener file into a markdown document, it is now completely done in native code. Lightning [00:46:00] fast handles all of Scrivener’s additional syntax. Um, for highlights and callouts and footnotes and everything is all handled and exportable as, uh, multi markdown or GitHub flavored markdown. I also built in crammed down and common mark processors into Mark. So you, you, you have four, four processors to choose from and what I’m working on right now is, um, you guys have used Hazel. Jeff: Yeah. Brett: So when you edit a, when you add a rule in Hazel and you get the criteria, like the predicate editor is what it’s called in like Mac Os, and then you have your action section, I have built that for Mark so that instead of a single custom processor, you can now use a predicate to base, uh, a decision on file, name, extension path. What other files [00:47:00] exist in the same directory or tree as a file? Uh, text content matches. Uh, there, there’s about 20 things you could match on, and then based on those matches, you can run about 15 different actions. Everything from like normalizing headers, shifting headers, running commands, running processors, um. Uh, adding setting styles, adding metadata, you can do just about anything with zero code. Uh, you can do it all using a graphical interface to build out your own custom processors so you can run different processors even if you just run, even if you just wanted to run, cram down for documents that existed in your, your blogs folder and multi markdown for things that existed in your work folder. Uh, that would be, it would take you 30 seconds to set that up in the custom rules builder. And then from then on [00:48:00] whenever you opened a file that met those criteria, the correct processor would just be run. So that is light years ahead of where Merck has been for the last 10 years, and, and I think it’s worth some Jeff: call that shit marked five. Christina: Yeah, I mean, you could, yeah, you could. I was gonna say like, like, like, bring, bring it to 6, 6, 6 blades. Um, if I can make an observation, and I know we wanna talk about movies. Um, it seems like especially with the, the, the, the custom processing, uh, pre-processing work and conversion work you’ve been doing, um, especially if you can like both, like take this into, and I’m assuming like I, and like you said, it’s bidirectional, right? So not only can you put all that into nicely formatted word stuff, but you can also take all the word stuff and put that into markdown, right? Brett: Yeah. Jeff: is insane, by the Christina: Right. Well, this is my point. I feel like there’s an opportunity, you have the consumer product and marked and, and you can price that and, and figure out whatever the, the, you know, monthly or, or subscription price on that, um, will be. But I feel like there’s an opportunity [00:49:00] with so many businesses and so many, um, like firms needing to convert data into markdown, to interact with LLMs, that you should be licensing that to them directly from like an enterprise level or a business Brett: already, I have already made it extractable. Um, it can run, um, on its own and it could be sold as a library Christina: Right. And that’s what I’m Brett: without any of Mark’s other proprietary code. It’s a completely separate library that could be licensed or used, or I could build an app that literally just does word to markdown or word to word conversion. Christina: totally. And, and what I’m saying though is, is that that should be like a, a thing that you should be talking to like larger places about and like selling that, like as it as its own thing. Because I think not only all the, all these features great and obviously like from having a gui, there’s great value there, but even as a library for people that are going to need to do RAG and other types of stuff and they’re going to need to convert lots of documents, they might not actually wanna use a [00:50:00] gui, they might wanna have a library so they can build their own automated system so they can, you know, have like probably a webinar interface where people would upload a bunch of docs and it would, you know, spit out the, the ensuing, uh, text files so they can then submit them into, into their processes. But they don’t wanna spend the time, you know, they’re, they’re not, what they build themselves is not gonna be as good as what you’ve done because you’re one of the experts in this. Um, I’m just, just pointing out there that there’s like a. There’s a market for that, um, with either to license the library for other people to build it into their stuff or to, you know, sell to people directly so that they can build it into their own internal systems. Brett: My friend Kaylin, uh, I don’t know if you guys have ever used a label printer, Jeff: Yeah, I got one on my desk ’cause I’m 400 years Brett: course you do. Um, but like, so there’s, there’s this huge market for label printers, for everything from co-ops to Walmart. And there is like zero good software for Jeff: Oh yeah, this is less. Less than zero. Yeah, Brett: awful. Jeff: [00:51:00] Also, the one I use is unfortunately called P Touch. But go ahead. Like, what’s up brother? Like, that’s, how many meetings did p touch make Christina: Well, they’re so Japanese, they’re, they’re so Jeff: Uh, good point, good point. Sorry, Brett. Brett: so Kaylyn wrote Universal Printer label software. It’s label something. Label I label live. He wrote label live, and he sells it at a premium price because there’s literally no competition. And he, he is, he lives the most relaxed lifestyle. I. Because he’s an amazing developer. He keeps his software up to date and it takes him, I don’t know, maybe an hour a day, and then another hour a day of doing customer support. And he charges a premium price and makes enough to buy a house. And, um, and [00:52:00] this is, this is to Christina’s point, like if you sell the right product to the right people, you can, you can set yourself up. And I’ve just historically done a shit job of that. Jeff: Well, and the thing about like Word right, is the reason I’m excited about that is ’cause whenever I work with big, like big clients, I have to work in Word. And so like those are the kind of, I mean, amazing. Brett: Well, and when I was, I was, I was started working on this when I was still at Oracle and when I switched to the last manager I had, I started having to daily work with Word files and people would send the most fucked up Word files to me, uh, for like editing for, or even just as like, here’s instructions for how to do a thing. I’m gonna send you a Doc X file with, with a poorly formatted list in it. And so I began writing the software that would convert that into clean markdown, [00:53:00] and then I could use Mark to output a clean PDF and, and I would send it back to them and be like, here’s what you sent me 30 seconds later, here’s an actual readable, usable version of it that doesn’t require me to launch Microsoft Word. Um. Jeff: is there, is there anybody that’s gotten that markdown to Doc X export? Right. ’cause Brett: Yeah, Ulysses has done a pretty good job Jeff: yeah. I barely used it. Okay. Brett: and, and I, I borrowed a lot from some of Ulysses philosophies. Um, I think my Doc X export is now better than Ulysses. I am confident in calling it a best in class markdown to Doc X conversion. Um, I and I, like for a while I played with the ability to convert CSS styles into word styles, um, that gets messy. Christina: Yeah. And, and, and I feel like that’s, that, I also feel like that’s a [00:54:00] niche enough thing to be completely honest with you, that like most people who are going to be doing that sort of styling, like Mo, Brett: sable, they already have their own templates. Christina: They only have their own templates. And so what they really want is a way to get the, the, the base text into Word or to get the base word document into plain text. What they’re not wanting to do is, is, is fuck with the formatting because in many cases, Brett: especially not in CSS, Christina: Well, well, Brett: how they wanna do Christina: well, I was gonna say, when I, when I’ve used Mark for, for some conversion stuff, I, interestingly enough for some LLM usage with some like, uh, uh, coding stuff where I’ve like, basically taken a lot of HTML stuff and I’ve needed to, uh, have, have a easy way to kind of convert it. And I’ve either used command line tools where I’ve used Mark, like I’ve always turned off the export to like hide any style sheets. ’cause I’m like, I, for, for my purposes, I don’t want that. Right. Like that, that’s like, it, it’s fine if I’m looking at it visually in the app, but like that’s, that’s not what I’m here for. Brett: I did was just build in a bunch of like well-designed custom styles. Like there’s like [00:55:00] five, and you can choose a well-designed custom style that’ll look great in Word, but it’s like a hundred percent designed so that when you open it in Word, you open up your theme. Pal, you pick a theme and it works. It just applies it to everything. Um, which is my assumption that most people who are required to work in Word also have corporate style guidelines Christina: I, I would say that, Brett: and like, and themes that they have to use. Um, oh by the way, headers and footers also translate from Jeff: Oh wow. Brett: and you can set headers and footers in metadata in your markdown file and it’ll translate into a styled header in Word. Anyway, enough about Marked. That was fun. Thank you. Um. Yeah, I, I look forward to this release. Movies and Entertainment Brett: So the other thing that has kept me sane is movies. And I [00:56:00] started, I started with Pitch Perfect, which I think was inspired by listening at, by at, when I was editing the last episode and listening to you guys talk about acapella. And the only experience I have with Acapella is the Pitch Perfect movies. And I had seen them all previously, but I decided, what the hell, I’m gonna watch ’em all again. So I, I watched them in the wrong order. I watched them 2, 3, 1. Which kind of skewed my perspective on how good they were by saving the best for last like that. But it was fun. And I talked to, I was texting with Christina and Brian while doing this, getting opinions and feedback and, and that was cool. And then I, for some reason, I decided to get into the Step Up movies. And again, I fucked up [00:57:00] the order. I started with Step Up two, skip to Step Up Revolutions, then did three, then did one. I don’t know why I do this to myself. Christina: And this, Brett: like obviously Christina: right, and the thing is, is like the summit movies had their charm and like, I, I, I, I can like defend most of them, but like the original, you know, like Channing Tatum like movie, like it is, it was far better than it ever had any right to be when it came out. And like it holds up far better than it has any right to and, and, but like, yeah, don’t start with the sequel. The sequel I would argue is like the Brett: I know. I Christina: I actually think that the second Brett: But I think, I think it was a masochistic, like I just, I wanna watch a shitty Christina: Yes. Now I will say Brett: start with number three. Christina: Now I will say this. Magic Mike is one of those series that you can’t do in a wrong order actually. Like I actually Brett: Oh, I should do that. Christina: should actually, ’cause like the first one is a Soderberg film, and it’s actually like, of all of them, it’s [00:58:00] like, probably like the, the most movie movie and then Magic Mike, XXL or whatever. I loved, and I actually, I saw that in Pitch Perfect Two, like there, it’s the same movie as Pitch Perfect two. I think The Magic Mike two is, is, is, uh, far more successful. Um, and then the third one, um, is just, it’s just a great time. So yeah, that should be another one that you should like, uh, like Last Dance, like Brett: Yeah, for sure. I love chanting Christina: yeah. But, but also like that’s another series where it’s like far better, you know, to to, to step up. Like it’s far better than it has any right to be. But, um, yeah, Brett: Side note, Channing Tatum showed up in the last episode of Welcome to Reham, which is, uh, ri Jeff: I need to Christina: uh, McEnery and, uh, Ryan Reynolds show Brett: ny and yeah, um, Christina: he’s now just Rob Max, so we can just call him that now. Brett: Rob Mack, Rob Mack and Ryan Reynolds, and they own a soccer team. And Magic Mike shows up and does Magic. Mike moves in the locker room, [00:59:00] like shaking his fucking nuts in front of the soccer players, Jeff: Oh, it’s like a Jesus Brett: like, literally like one of them’s on the bench, and he has, he’s on the hands on the ground, feet up on either side of the guy’s head against the locker, just shaken. And it’s, it’s hilarious. I, I love that guy. Um, but. Jeff: I feel like not having seen the movie. This is where I feel like the mushrooms have kicked in for you. ’cause somehow I drifted for just a second and we went from acapella to a guy’s nuts. Brett: The movie that made me the happiest watching all of these movies that I enjoyed in like the nineties and the early two thousands. Uh, there was a movie called Stick It with Missy Pergram, and I fell in love with Christina: yeah, yeah. I remember this. I remember Brett: This movie, I had such a crush on her after I Christina: Yeah. Oh yeah. This, this was from the, from, from, from the Bring It on Director, which makes complete sense because in my opinion, Brett: Another favorite of Christina: yes. Now I will say this. [01:00:00] Bring it on the sequels. No, like, don’t even try, they’re all Director video. However, however, I’ve made this argument before and since you have now watched all the Pitch Perfects, maybe you’ll agree with me. Pitch Perfect One and bring it on one, the exact same movie. Brett: close. Yes. Christina: And, and that is not a pejorative, that is not like a, I’m not saying that in a negative way. Like when, when, and that clicked with me when I saw Pitch Perfect One in the theater and I was like, holy shit, this is a, this is acapella. Like bring it on. And I, and, and I mean that in the, the highest possible compliment because I think Bring It On is a perfect teen movie for what it attempts to be like the, the level of like, you know, like that was the first time we s. Brett: it’s a bureaucracy. Christina: Exactly. But not only that, but like they showed like, you know, actually talented, obviously in that case it was, it was, um, extras, but like actually talented cheerleading movies where like Pitch Perfect. You see actually talented singers in, in Step Up, you see actually Brett: Actually talented Christina: And like, that’s, that’s the thing for me with these movies, I’m like, okay. And I don’t, I don’t really care. Like if you’re having to like for both Step Up and, and Pitch [01:01:00] Perfect, it’s the actors themselves. But I don’t even care if you’re getting, you know, extras in on it. Like, just show me the real fucking talent. Like that elevates the whole thing to me. ’cause I’m like, yes, I love to see how this all comes out at the end. Brett: I, I owned the first bring it on, on VHS, on DVD. I own it on iTunes. Like I have owned it in every format. It’s been released in, I think. Um, Jeff: Wait, what’s the longest, what’s the longest series? Any of us own on, on iTunes or on. Brett: um, back to the future is probably, I don’t, it’s a Christina: Yeah, I was Brett: the longest I own. Christina: oh, I, I, I’ve got like all the Mission Impossible Brett: Oh, I do own all the Harry Potters, but not because I like them, because my ex-wife bought them and left them on my account. Christina: Yeah, I have, Jeff: I beat Christina by a little bit ’cause mine is fast furious. Christina: those too. I, I, I don’t know, have the, I don’t have the Brett: own them. Christina: yes. Jeff: all of ’em. Christina: They, they sell them in these, they had these sales from time to time Brett: [01:02:00] Yeah. There. It’s on right now. You can on iTunes. It’s like 29 Christina: Right. That’s what I’m Jeff: have Dom’s car as Brett: they have, Jeff: popcorn, uh, holder Christina: Oh my Brett: they Jeff: on display in my office. Brett: buy all the Mission Impossibles for a bundle price right Christina: Yeah. That’s how I buy. I have, I, I have like, like literally like a couple thousand movies on iTunes because of the bundles. Like people, like, Brett: yeah. No, I do that. I’ll be like, I, I have 30 bucks to spend. Let’s go see what’s Christina: actually, you know what, um, uh, remind me on this because I have an app for that that I will use as my gratitude actually. Brett: Awesome. All right. So anyway, stick it with Missy Pergram excellent movie. It’s not, it doesn’t have the thrill of like dance troops or it’s gymnastics. Christina: Yeah. Which is still fucking great. Brett: And you see some amazing gymnasts, some amazing moves, and the, the kind of, the like friction in it isn’t contrived the way, like the step up sequels had real, like just [01:03:00] contrived friction in them. And like the whole hook was like, dance was not the answer for these problems. And they, they shoehorned, they shoehorned dance into being the answer, but in, in stick it like the problem is gymnastic judges and the answer is gymnastics and it is team like co collusion. And it, it works. It’s, it’s really good. Jeff: Christina, I was listening to the Hard Fork podcast and they were talking about Google io and they mentioned, one of them mentioned seeing the Google acapella group rehearsing in the hallway. What the hell is that? They haven’t They have one. Christina: I mean, I’m not surprised. I think Microsoft did too, but Okay, cool. sure. Why not? Jeff: to add that in. It’s all I Brett: I, Christina: No, that’s amazing. ’cause I was at Google io. I wish I had seen that. If I had seen that, I would’ve taken video and I would’ve been like, what’s [01:04:00] up guys? Like. Brett: was a fan of the Jeff: You’d love my Brett: group, but they were all like 60 years old, Christina: Yeah, that’s that, that, that, that, that’s the thing. Like you’re never sure on those things. I’m like, okay, are you, you know, like, like, are are we, are we like my age or younger? ’cause I would hope that it would be people younger than me. ’cause that would make me feel better about myself. But like, you’re like, did you come in, like, did Pitch Perfect and, and the sing off? And did those things get you interested, like when you were in middle school and then like that’s why you did this? Or are you a nerd like me who, like, or the people who led to, you know, like the book that inspired Pitch Perfect. Oh, that’s another thing you should do, Brett. You should read the book. That Pitch Perfect was based off of, it was, it’s it’s a good book. Yeah. It’s by a guy. It’s, it’s by a fucking New Yorker author, Brett: All right. Christina: Mi Mickey Rapkin. He, he like followed like the world of collegiate acapella, um, in like 2009 or something, and then wrote a book about it and then that was adapted into Pitch. Perfect. Brett: Will you throw a link to that book in the show Jeff: You’ll also notice it in last week’s show notes. Oh, I’m sorry. The last episode. I don’t know if it made it in the show notes, but it, [01:05:00] uh, it was mentioned, maybe it didn’t make it in the show notes. Brett: cool. All right. Should we do Jeff: I just wanna point out that that particular acapella book has now been pitched in two of our, Christina: I was gonna say, look, uh, well, well look, Jeff: pitched. Oh Christina: gonna say it was, it was like you purchased a Kindle edition on August 11th, 2009. Brett: All right. GrAPPtitude Brett: Should we do some gratitude? Jeff: sure. Brett: Um, I can kick it Christina: Yeah. Kick it off. Brett: if that’s cool. Um, so in the process of working on Marked and I. Some of my other projects I tried out Cursor and I know you guys talked a little bit about vibe coating recently, and I’m not, I’m not personally doing vibe coating, although I have seen some good products come out of vibe coding, um, respectable applications being developed. A friend of mine, friend of the show, rabbi Eric [01:06:00] Linder, uh, friend of the show ’cause he is a friend of, he was on Systematic, um, he he Jeff: He is been on this show. Yeah, I was. I think you and I had a mom and Christina couldn’t be on once. Brett: he released an iOS app that he built entirely with ai. Um. But I’ve been using it because like GitHub copilot is outstanding and especially when I’m working in Ruby, I have found it just, I start typing DEF, which is how you sort of function in Ruby. I type DEF and fucking knows the function I’m about to write without even writing a comment. It’s just like, it’s there in like grade text, I hit tab and the function I was thinking of for whatever reason, it, it predicted what I was gonna need next. Um, and Cursor is much the same, um, as using like a conversation mode in GitHub copilot. [01:07:00] I have enjoyed with, with Cursor using Claude. Um. I have gotten really good results and it has written entire sections of code for me that honestly, like it takes, I’ll come up with an idea and I’ll, I’ll flesh it out in cursor and it’ll take me an hour to debug the code it wrote, but that code would’ve taken me easily five, six hours to write on my own. Christina: No, I mean, and that, that, that’s the perfect way I think of using that. Try, please try the Gemini 2.5 Pro model in place of Claude. And because I’m not just saying that because I work, uh, at DeepMind, um, the models are finally getting good, and I would like to, I would be curious about your feedback. Um, they, they do Nerf how big the context window is a little bit because the context window, um, on, on, um, uh, uh, Gemini 2.5 Pro is [01:08:00] significantly larger than on Claude 3.7. I, I don’t know, for, for Claude four, I think it still is, but give it a shot. I’d just be curious your, your, your thoughts Brett: And then the other half of my gratitude would be an app called Co Typist for Mac, um, and co typist is it, think of it as AI for text expander, anywhere you’re typing. Uh, so, so Apple recently, recently introduced like their AI writing tools and like when you’re in messages, it tries to predict what you’re gonna write. It’s never correct, uh, for me. Like it’s always in the wrong tone. It’s always the wrong sentiment. It’s never what I actually wanna say. But co typist is amazingly good predictive text. And when you use co typist in cursor. It will literally write your prompts for you. You’ll start writing, [01:09:00] this is what I wanna accomplish. And then you’ll start like, it’ll name variables, it’ll name method names. It’ll give you file names just by typing the first couple letters and it’ll complete all of these, all of the things you need to write a really detailed, really, um, actionable prompt. In cursor co typist will handle 50% of that workload for you. So the combination of co typist and cursor has cut my development time by 90%. Christina: That’s Jeff: Wow. That’s amazing. Brett: That’s it. That’s it for me. Jeff: Love it. Christina: Um, I’ll go next. Uh, this is just a kind of a, we were talking about like iTunes prices and deals and stuff. There is an app, it is actually available on the app store on um, Google Play and on um, the web and it is called Cheap Charts. And so if you go to cheap charts.com or, or cheap charts.info, um, you can access it and basically it is a tracker is a way for you to track like a wishlist of all like [01:10:00] the movies or TV shows or, um, if you use the website, you can also use video games for like, you know, Xbox or PlayStation or Switch. Um, but you can also do things like books I think and audiobook, like basically any of the stuff that Apple offers, you can create your own playlist. This is actually cool because last year, maybe two years ago, apple got rid of the ability to have a wishlist feature, um, in iTunes. And like people were really upset about that. You can still maintain this on, um. Cheap charts and they will, like, the app will update or you can choose to get notifications or not. Or you can get an email when the price comes down. And so you can basically view what the price is, what the historical price trend has been. So, you know, should I buy this now or not? Right? Like 4 99 is as low as any movie goes on, on iTunes, um, for a one-off. But, um, bundles can, can vary in prices. So maybe like, okay, well this bundle is $30, do I wanna get this? Or is there a shot looking at historical price trends that it might go down to, you know, $20, you can make that decision, right? Like I think, [01:11:00] um, uh, 30 is usually a pretty good mark, but sometimes you’ll see things even for like one day, like sometimes I’ll get notifications and I’ll be like, this, you know, like a hundred dollars box to this $15 and you, I know it’ll only be on sale for like. A day if that, and I’ll just immediately buy it. So, uh, so cheap charts.com is, is great. I’m a big fan. Um, and, uh, they, the, the website version can also work on Fandango and Google Play and Amazon. I, I don’t use it with those services, I just use it with iTunes, but, um, because that’s like my source of truth. And then I use, um, the, the movies everywhere, uh, movies anywhere, service rather to port them to, to other, um, platforms if the, if they’re part of the, the studio consortium there. But, um, yeah, this is a free app. They also cover things like for, you know, gift card deals and stuff like that. And I’m, I’m a, I’m a huge fan, so, so cheap charts. I’ve been using it for years. Um, they’re, uh, they’re good people. Their, their iTunes app or, or their iOS app, uh, there’s a test flight that’s, um, often available to join [01:12:00] I’m, which I’m in, and they update pretty frequently and like they do, they do a really good job. Jeff: It is super interesting. I’m looking at the price history for the Dwayne, the Rock Johnson, um, uh, picture snitch. Um, and, and it is super interesting to see how it just has this drumbeat of going from 9 99 to four point 99, 9 0.99 to four point 99. It’s just super interesting to see like the, to kind of see the logic. Bet of the history of that. Christina: Yeah, totally. And then like, it’s interesting ’cause like I, I don’t know what the other stores do. ’cause like I said, I primarily know the, the iTunes store ’cause that’s my point of truth. But, um, they have, um, you know, but you, like there will be sales, like, like Memorial Day is usually a big sale, 4th of July. There’s often, sometimes like summer things, some stuff around like, um, you know, day after Thanksgiving and, and Christmas time where like you will, I will notice that there will be either really big brand new bundles of movies that they haven’t done before, or there will be, you know, just big price cuts. And so, um, like, I, like I have, I have some movies that have been like in [01:13:00] my, um. Queue or on my wishlist for a long time, and I’m just waiting for them to drop because I’m like, I’m not gonna pay 1499 for hackers, which for some reason I don’t have in iTunes, but I will pay 4 99 for it. Right. And, and, and what I find myself doing, and like, so because of this app I’ve spent, it’s a free app, but I’ve spent so much money because of it. Like I don’t trust the services to, to keep things on them at all. Like, like even like I don’t trust HBO Max, which is now HBO Max. Again, I Jeff: Yeah, which is amazing. Christina: which is amazing. But like, I don’t trust them to keep like Oz and The Wire and Sex and the City and the Sopranos. Like, I don’t actually trust they will keep them on those networks, like on, on their streaming platform perpetuity. Even though they own the shows. Like you would think, oh yeah, I can just rely on this. I don’t, right. Because David Zoff sucks. And, and so like if I, if I see that like the, the complete series of the Sopranos drops to 50 bucks. I might buy that, right? Like same [01:14:00] thing if, if I, you know, um, uh, things like hacks and other shows like succession, like if I can get, you know, good prices on it. Like for me, I, I guess I’m, I’m, I’m playing a little bit of a game of chicken ’cause I’m, I’m betting that iTunes will keep the content playable longer than the streaming services will. Um, but I, I, you know, that, that is, is paid off. It’s been like 21, 22 years, so, Jeff: paid off. Christina: so, you Jeff: I’m amazed. Brett: So here’s, here’s, here’s my thought. Yes. Buy, do exactly what you’re doing. Archive using iTunes, but then grab the Torrance and save your own Christina: Oh Brett: ’cause you’ve paid for it and you should have Christina: and I do and I do do that. Right. And, and, but, but many times it’s just like the convenience of like having it in Brett: Mm-hmm. Oh, absolutely. Christina: like is just better than having to deal with Plex and I love Plex. Um, but no, I, I fully agree with you. Um, but yeah, I, I, uh, I’m, I’m a big fan of, of, of cheap charts. So if you are somebody who still buys digital media [01:15:00] yeah. Brett: yeah, once I bought Stick it on iTunes, I also grabbed the Torrent and now it’s on my plex as well. Jeff: Rule one, pay the man, rule two, steal it out of the Brett: Paid the Christina: no, it’s, it is rule rule two was have multiple backups, right? Like we, we, we were all like a, a multi backup strategy family. Right? And that means that, like, I think that of all the companies, ’cause like Sony did that thing last year where they like got rid of everybody’s movies that they purchased on PlayStation, which was fucking bullshit. And I was Jeff: Oh, really? That’s Christina: yeah, it is fucked up. And I was like, okay, well I’m glad I never like bought any media from them. Right? And, and I, and I feel like, you know, Amazon, Microsoft, um, apple are probably gonna be the three that will be the best for that. And I would put Apple very top just because the institution, the, the backlash that they would get, I think if, if they remove people’s library content would be astronomical. But, you know, it will be one, there will be come a day where they’ll be like, no, we’re not gonna do this. And that’s when the, the, the Torrent downloads will, will save us all.[01:16:00] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Fuck the man. Christina: Fuck the man indeed. Jeff: Um, well, mine is kind of funny. It’s an, it’s an app that you can’t, can’t get called scans script. Does that sound familiar, Brett? Because I have had, as I mentioned in the last, uh. In the last, uh, episode, I have had the great fortune of being able to vibe code with Brett Terpstra. Where Brett Terpstra is, is like the vibe coding service. And, and Brett, you and I, I, you know, I do qualitative research and, and that requires a lot of really expensive, like super locked down software, and it’s really complex to use. And I had this, this sort of vision for being able to share single transcripts or a, a set of transcripts with like a client who I was doing interviews on behalf of, or analysis on behalf of. And I wanted them to be able to, like, I’m big on, um, Brett: Oh, Jeff: kind of learn, learn how to do qualitative analysis. And so Brett, Brett and I did this thing, and by Brett and I, I mean Brett, but I was vibe coding, [01:17:00] um, where like, and Brett successfully created this like prototype where you can load up a transcript, you can load up the, I think you used HTML five for this, which is awesome, right? Like, uh, you can load up the audio file and. Then once you’ve done that, you have the transcript open. You can, you can click anywhere in the transcript and the audio file plays at that point. You can do highlighting, you can highlight just proper nouns, um, which is always really important for like de-identifying a, a transcript. But anyway, at the time when I was imagining, and this is why I’ve revisited, it was like, you know, like you could have an elementary classroom that could learn qualitative coding with this really basic thing where you just have one transcript and you have all the basic tools you would need that are in a, you know, thousand dollars a year, um, piece of qualitative analysis software. And so Brett, I, I, I revisited that. I fired it back up this last week and man, it’s so cool and, and I love it. And maybe one day we can, um, vibe, code a qualitative app, Christina: Yeah. Brett: [01:18:00] That’s awesome. Jeff: scans script. And then I’d like to also just like to also just like rep my new app, uh, from Vibe Coding, which is just in my, on my computer locally that I talked about last time. But I keep creating is this thing I’ve always wanted to be able to just like, pull up a bunch of transcripts that are in markdown files, do a search for a term and have it start popping up, um, results in context. And so I have keep, I keep adding features thanks to, uh, whatever the fuck it is that I use. Um, whatever new. Why can’t I remember? Bolt, bolt not new. Christina: Yeah. Yeah. Jeff: I got features now where like I can say, give me 20 words of context on either side, right? Or I can say 10 or I can say 30 I got, it’s a lot of beautiful shit. But now I’ve been able to, when I meet with clients and they’re asking me questions from the interviews in the past I would always have to kind of look at my coded segments. But now I can just do this super quick, like type in a word and I see not only how many times it appears, how many times and how many documents, but I get the contextual sort of results and I can [01:19:00] just quickly kind of answer questions. Which by the way, Brett is how I used Envy Alt in the very, very beginning was I was a reporter and I had all these calls out to people and I didn’t know who was gonna call back when. And so I would keep little lists of questions in there so that I could just super quick type in a keyword and I would get that list of questions for that person. And uh, so it’s that kind of like that thing of like just the super quick, but in context, that’s the thing that’s so helpful to Brett: you use DEVONthink, don’t you? Jeff: I do use Devon Think, yeah. Brett: Have you used DEVONthink four with the AI integration? Jeff: it’s pretty bananas. Yeah. Brett: That’ll, that’ll Jeff: run it in my browser. Brett: in another week, but Jeff: Anyway, that’s all. Thank you, Brett, for vibe coating with me. Long before anyone knew what vibe coating was, we were doing it. Brett: I am happy to be your Gemini. Um, well, Jeff: you as my Claude. [01:20:00] All right. Brett: Thank you guys for showing up. Um, we, our goal, we have a sponsor lined up for the next three weeks after this. So our goal here is to do four weeks in a row. Christina: Woohoo. Jeff: selfie stick every week everybody. Christina: Woohoo. Brett: It is actually, yes. Um, so we will hope to see you all again next week. Thanks for listening. You guys get some sleep. Christina: Get some Jeff: some sleep.

Jeff Guntzel and Christina Warren, along with guest Bryan Guffey, dive deep into a capella groups, vibe coding, and AI tools. Mental health journeys and new therapies, plus tech tips, including the use of granola and the Limitless pendant for recording conversations. This is what happens when Brett’s not around. Sponsor Rogue Amoeba has been making the highest quality audio apps for Mac for over 20 years. Save 20% off any purchase with the code OVERTIRED at [macaudio.com/overtired][2]! Show Links Bryan and One & Only w/ Forte A Cappella northsky.social Bluesky AT Protocol Not a Coder? With A.I., Just Having an Idea Can Be Enough. Bryan’s podcast – workchat.fm Bolt Granola Limitless Pendant Folder Preview (QuickLook Extension) Join the Conversation Merch! Come chat on Discord! Twitter/ovrtrd Instagram/ovrtrd Youtube Get the Newsletter Thanks! You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network 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.

In a hilariously ADHD (or just friendly chat) episode of Overtired, Christina wants everyone to know she’s definitely not an anarchist, while Brett and Jeff dive deep into the world of tech and political activism. Amid laughs and nostalgia, they discuss everything from the pitfalls of memory at work, lock boxes for protests, and the anarchist vs. black bloc debate, all while petting cats and reflecting on TV shows that keep them sane. Tune in for tech tips on carabiner and Kali Linux, and find out why Jeff treasures his time in the car with his sons. It’s chaotic, heartfelt, and genuinely overtired. Sponsor Rogue Amoeba has been making the highest quality audio apps for Mac for over 20 years. Save 20% off any purchase with the code OVERTIRED at macaudio.com/overtired! Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Reunion 00:30 Memory Lapses and Work Challenges 01:56 Utility Guy Story 03:42 Flipper Zero and Productivity Tools 04:57 ADHD Conversations and Podcast Dynamics 07:32 Mental Health Corner: Brett’s Turn 30:29 Sponsor: Rogue Amoeba 32:14 Mental Health Corner: Jeff’s Turn 37:45 News Consumption and Mental Health 43:20 Finding Meaningful Ways to Help 46:53 Personal Protest Experiences 47:04 Transition from Journalism 49:37 Protest Dynamics and Personal Involvement 53:27 Debate on Protest Tactics 01:00:51 Reflections on Anarchism and Activism 01:08:05 TV Shows and Entertainment 01:17:50 grAPPtitude Show Links Ultimate List of Lorem Ipsum Generators Text Blaze Child Jeff interviews Noam Chomsky in the WTO protest era Kali Linux Karabiner Elements Dia Join the Conversation Merch Come chat on Discord! Twitter/ovrtrd Instagram/ovrtrd Youtube Get the Newsletter Thanks! You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network 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 Undiagnosed Dialog Introduction and Reunion [00:00:00] [00:00:04] Christina: Well, hello again. You’re listening to Overtired and the three of us are back. I’m Christina Warren and I’m joined. Yay. By all three of us, uh, or by my other two co-hosts, Brett Terpstra and Jeff Severns. Guntzel. Hey guys. [00:00:17] Jeff: Hello. [00:00:18] Brett: episodes in a row have we had? Three of us. Is it just two? [00:00:22] Christina: I think this is [00:00:22] Brett: like a bunch, [00:00:24] Christina: I think this is just two. [00:00:26] Jeff: Not enough [00:00:27] Brett: have such, I have such a short memory. Memory Lapses and Work Challenges [00:00:30] Brett: Like as far as I’m concerned, we’ve never missed an episode with all three of us. Like I, I don’t wanna talk too much about work, but that’s bitten me at work. The fact that I don’t remember, like last week, [00:00:43] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I have to, like, I, I, I tend to have a good memory, but sometimes I’ll forget certain things. And so in that regard, I have to like, um. Like write things down, like keep like a running list of like, these are things you need to do, these are things you [00:01:00] have done. Like these are things you didn’t get to do. [00:01:02] Christina: Whatever. [00:01:03] Brett: This is not my gratitude pick, but I’ve started making liberal use of timing the app. Um, ’cause it tracks like what document I have open for how long. And I can, like, I can just, I can drag a whole bunch of different, uh, stuff like, uh, documents, websites, et cetera, into one task. Um, because I am currently in a position where I have to report my, my workday to people and, um, so I can, I can easily scrap together, uh, a daily report and then I, it pops up and asked me what I was doing when I was away from my computer so I can write like, surprise visit from the utilities company that took half an hour. [00:01:55] Brett: Um. Utility Guy Story [00:01:56] Brett: Dude showed up at my house, just pulled into the [00:02:00] driveway and started banging on shit. And I walked out and I was like, Hey, what’s up? And he said that the meter reader had reported tight wires. [00:02:15] Jeff: That sounds like an amazing code in like the Cold War. Cold War, the meter reader has recorded tight wires. Got it. I’ll meet you at the place [00:02:25] Brett: So he was, he was pulling on shit, banging shit. And, [00:02:30] Jeff: to loosen the wires. [00:02:31] Brett: and ultimately he said, and I quote, I’m not gonna fuck with it. Um, [00:02:37] Jeff: just, you just bang on it for a. [00:02:40] Brett: well, he was like seeing like, are these wires tight? Um, and like I, my, my, uh, power comes in. I have like a rooftop, not an antenna, but like a post. That it’s all overhead, uh, power that comes in from the [00:03:00] cables on the street into the top of my house and down in, and that mast, I guess we would call it, um, has started to lean. [00:03:08] Brett: It’s at about a 15 degree angle and it is not currently pulling up any roofing tiles. Um, but he said, you should probably keep an eye on that. And I said, oh, it’s been in that angle since I moved in, so I never gave it a second thought. But yeah, that’s not a great sign. [00:03:29] Jeff: That’s not a great sign. [00:03:30] Christina: No, not at all. Not at all. I just shared this thing in our chat. Um, ma made me think of this not so much about, you know, like the, uh, utility guy, like banging on your door and just being like random and like, I’m just checking stuff out and you’re like, what the fuck? Flipper Zero and Productivity Tools [00:03:42] Christina: Um, but, but in terms of keeping track of time and like busy things, there’s, uh, so you guys are familiar with Flipper Zero, right? [00:03:49] Jeff: Well, what’s funny yes. Is you, you sent this, I looked at it, I’m like, it looks like a flipper. And then saw that it was a flipper device. [00:03:54] Christina: Yeah, so, so, so, so the flip, [00:03:56] Brett: this before. [00:03:57] Christina: So the Flipper Zero people just launched like [00:04:00] two days ago, like this new thing called, um, a busy bar. And, and it’s a little expensive, um, but it’s, you know, fully open and hackable and whatnot, so that’s pretty cool. Um, but it’s basically, it’s, it’s like, um, it’s, they’re calling it like a, a productivity multi-tool with like an LED pixel display. [00:04:18] Christina: And so it can integrate with software both on the desktop where that you write for it. And it includes like an offline API and stuff, JavaScript and Python, so that you can, it can be like an on air sign, um, and, and do shit like that. So like, if you’re recording a podcast, you could have it like outside your office and it would show like, Hey, I’m like. [00:04:33] Christina: Recording, but you can also have like, has like a button on it that you can like press and start and pause to have like a, a pdo, you know, type of thing. But it can also, I guess, probably work with other types of tools where you’re customizing things so you could like, you know, show like how much time you have left of a task or whatever. [00:04:50] Christina: I don’t necessarily know if this would be useful for you, Brett, but I saw this the other day [00:04:54] Brett: it’s a fun toy. [00:04:55] Christina: it’s a fun toy. Yeah. ADHD Conversations and Podcast Dynamics [00:04:57] Brett: For, for the listeners, I [00:05:00] will, um, acknowledge that our topic list this week has zero items on it. We all showed up [00:05:07] Jeff: I don’t think people need to know that it’s not it. [00:05:09] Brett: I, I feel like, I feel like it’s, I feel like it’s fair warning that this is gonna be just an a DHD conversation with zero limitations, zero guidance. We’re just gonna, we’re, we’re gone with the flow. [00:05:23] Jeff: I’m gonna argue with calling in an A DHD conversation ’cause I think it’s just gonna be a chat between friends. [00:05:28] Christina: Yeah, I think so. [00:05:30] Jeff: We don’t have to, we don’t have to diagnose [00:05:32] Brett: it’s like [00:05:33] Christina: I was [00:05:33] Brett: it’s not a gay wedding, it’s just a wedding. [00:05:36] Christina: well, exactly, exactly, because like every conversation with like the three of us, it’s gonna be an a DH ADHD conversation. You should just know that going in. So this is just a convo amongst friends. Like, I don’t feel like we need to, again, like to, to, to Jeff’s point, we don’t need to diagnose this. [00:05:49] Christina: We don’t need to like pathologize it like just a fucking convo. Um. [00:05:54] Jeff: podcast. It will be bullshitting. Welcome to [00:05:56] Brett: So here’s, here’s what makes an A DHD [00:06:00] conversation to me is my partner is autistic and is all about deep dives. Um, they like to, if a topic comes up that they’re interested in, they wanna drill down on it and they want to, like, they could talk about the same thing for the length of the party, like all the way through. [00:06:22] Brett: And for me as an A DHD person, I’m much more surface level. Like I wanna, like a topic reminds me of another topic, reminds me of a personal experience, reminds me of something I wanted to tell somebody. And like I just kind of skim along the surface. And it’s not to say I don’t enjoy like depth to things, but my mode of conversation is much more skimming and I guarantee you. [00:06:52] Brett: That unless Christina goes down a K hole for some reason, which could happen, um, UN unless that [00:07:00] happens, we’re just gonna jump around. It’s gonna be a bunch of topics and to me that’s an A DHD conversation versus maybe a normal or autistic conversation. [00:07:11] Jeff: It’s, it’s such a limited spectrum of options. Like I, I am just gonna say that I am gonna sit in my, I like to talk about a lot of things and whether I have a diagnosis or not, that’s just me talking about a lot of things. But it’s fine. It’s fine, it’s fine. Let’s do it. [00:07:27] Christina: have interest. It’s fine. Um, [00:07:29] Jeff: call this, let’s have it. [00:07:30] Christina: yep. All right. Mental Health Corner: Brett’s Turn [00:07:32] Christina: Let’s start with, uh, with, with Mental Health Corner. Who wants to go first? [00:07:35] Jeff: Hmm. Rock, paper, scissors. [00:07:38] Christina: Mm-hmm. [00:07:38] Brett: I can kick it off. [00:07:39] Christina: All right. Kick us off Brett. [00:07:40] Brett: Overall life is really hard right now. Um, I have found solace in, um, so I’ve been writing a, uh, Lauren Ipsum generator that is easily, um, adapted [00:08:00] to different styles. [00:08:02] Brett: Like there used to be like a bacon lipson generator and a hip sum, uh, like a hipster lips sum generator. [00:08:10] Jeff: someone that made one outta Metallica lyrics. [00:08:13] Brett: can do that. I just made a 19 84 1 this morning. Um, it’s super [00:08:19] Jeff: outta transcripts of this podcast. [00:08:21] Christina: Oh my [00:08:21] Brett: you go. [00:08:22] Christina: I was gonna say, I was like, I was, I was like, I’m gonna make a tailor of some gen. I’m sure. I’m sure someone already has, but Yeah, I should, yeah. [00:08:28] Brett: Yeah, like I, I’ve been using chat GPT, I’m, I’m just like, give me 100 plural nouns related to this topic and then like pacing them into the configuration files. And it’s a, it’s a pretty damn good Lauren MSO generator. I’m publishing it as a gem, um, um, that can be used as a library, but also comes with a binary and I’m incorporating it into my MD Lipsom project that outputs [00:09:00] markdown Laura sso. [00:09:01] Brett: Um, but I have found solace in that. That’s like, I wake up at between two and four in the morning and I code on that and it’s like the only comfortable part of my day while I’m coding that I can forget about. Um, I can forget about the last email from my manager, and it is, it’s all I have right now. [00:09:32] Jeff: That’s awesome. You caused me to look up, uh, a list of Lauren Ipsum, uh, generators, and I’d like to just, I’d like to just share a few, if that, if that’s, uh, okay. We’ve got the, um, Obama Ipsum, which, which fills out a paragraph as that is the true genius of America, A faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles. [00:09:52] Jeff: Okay, that’s one. We’ve got a, uh, busi as in Gary Busi, [00:09:56] Christina: in Gary. [00:09:57] Jeff: uh, which is [00:10:00] Busi Ipso. Ah, met. Have you urinated, have you drained your bladder? Are you free? Because if you haven’t, it will only come out later. I’m giving you some information that your bodily fluids may penetrate your clothing fibers without warning. [00:10:10] Jeff: That’s that [00:10:10] Brett: that’s very thematic. [00:10:13] Jeff: Let’s, uh, let’s pick, let’s just pick one more please. Hold on, please. Hold on. Um, let’s see. We got Sagan, uh, we got Heisenberg. Um, we’ve got, uh, tuna journo. Okay. Anyway, you get it. It’s a lot of fun. Uh, I’ll put this list in the, [00:10:30] Brett: So, yeah, and I made this, I made this tool that I’m making, you can add user dictionaries to it. So anything that you can compile, you have to each, there, there are a bunch of text files and each one is a part of speech. You get your articles, you get your, uh, verbs, your plural verbs, your singular verbs, et cetera. [00:10:55] Brett: And, um, and you just, you fill in all of those [00:11:00] files and you’ve created a dictionary that then you can call by its directory name and. This is outside of the GEM Configuration directory, so it’s completely static for the user [00:11:14] Jeff: Can I. [00:11:15] Brett: anyone who makes a good, a good one. I’ll add to the default repo [00:11:21] Jeff: So the question is what makes, uh, an app cross the line into being a Brett turp app? And the answer is, it starts with the sentence I made it so you can add your own blank. [00:11:33] Brett: that is, that is a principle I learned from TechMate up until I switched to Mac and started using TechMate. I had never. Really experienced the idea of extensibility. I had used Home Seer and I had developed like visual basic scripts for home automation, and that was, that was technically a extensibility, but this idea that you could [00:12:00] actually change the way an app functions and add your own features to an app blew me away. [00:12:06] Brett: Um, like a ogar became my hero because like his whole focus was extensibility. It was the giving power to his, admittedly very technical user base. But [00:12:21] Christina: Right. [00:12:22] Brett: I just got a review on set about basically how it was too complicated to configure, marked and set up. Set only allows a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Um, so it, it was a thumbs down. [00:12:40] Brett: Um, and he, dude, in this review, he listed at least four bugs that I wish he had reported through the bug tracker, but they were admittedly real bugs, so I’m not mad at him. [00:12:56] Christina: Well, no, I mean, and honestly, I’m sorry. We can’t [00:13:00] expect users to go through official bug reporting channels. Like, unless you make it super fucking easy. Like where people know, like as part of onboarding where a bug [00:13:08] Brett: when you’re on Set App or the Mac App store, it just, it isn’t easy [00:13:13] Christina: No, it’s not. No, it’s not. And, and frankly, like book reporting is a hard problem to solve and like you, and you [00:13:19] Brett: If you go to [00:13:20] Christina: you can. [00:13:21] Brett: if you go to the help menu and Mark, there’s a submit a, uh, submit an issue item that will take you directly to the ticket site. But yeah, that’s not obvious to your average end user, so yeah, I get it. The most common review I get on Set App is, um, when I create a new file, it’s just a blank page and I can’t type into it, even though the Descript is very clearly, clearly this is a previewer, not an editor, [00:13:56] Christina: Right, right. Well, but the [00:13:58] Brett: in the title [00:14:00] of [00:14:00] Christina: no, and, and, and I, and, and you’re not wrong, but you know, people don’t read. It might have to be one of those things that, like, even as a popup, like if you’re getting enough of that, even on the setup version where you can say, you know, note [00:14:13] Brett: Yeah, there’s a whole splash intro screen. There’s a, there’s like a whole first time you launch it, it explains all of this. These people are clearly just canceling out of the splash intro screen. And then trying to do what they, for some reason, assume it should do because they saw the word markdown in it and just plus it’s set up. [00:14:37] Brett: You didn’t pay for this shit, like, not directly. Anyway. [00:14:42] Christina: Yeah. I mean, never underestimate how entitled people are about stuff, right? Because in their mind they’re like, well, I pay for setup and everything I get on this should be valuable, otherwise I’m gonna cancel my, you know what I mean? Like, [00:14:53] Brett: I don’t, I don’t hate that idea. I, I think setup should be a curated set of [00:15:00] apps that should work and do what they say. You just should read what they say they do. If, and this, this last review that I’m talking about, he clearly knew what Mark did. And like I said, I’m not mad at him. He, [00:15:16] Christina: No, he reported a bunch of bugs, which are good. Yeah. [00:15:18] Brett: Um, and it’s useful information. Uh, it does bum me out to get negative reviews in general, but yeah, as far as negative reviews go, this one was legit. [00:15:30] Christina: Are you able to, um, uh, respond and at least be like, thank, thank you for the, you know, the, the, the, the bug reports. Um, I’d like to. [00:15:39] Brett: I always wait a day before I respond to a negative review just so I can like, absorb and like what I’m telling you right now is what I should reply with. Um, when I first got the review, my response was, yeah, it’s a complicated app. Of course it’s complex to set [00:16:00] up. [00:16:00] Jeff: Is this a good time to talk about your text expander expansion for, for responding to people who complain about the app? [00:16:06] Brett: Yeah, I feel like this, we have no topics. This whole thing could be one weird long mental health corner. I [00:16:13] Jeff: the story. Tell the story of that. I don’t know if that’s been talked about in a long time [00:16:16] Brett: Wait, which one? [00:16:17] Jeff: you used to have a text expander snippet when you had to respond to somebody writing you and being mean about the app that I think you typed like fuck right off and then it expanded to a very like, diplomatic response. [00:16:29] Jeff: I’m not sure [00:16:30] Brett: Yeah. I don’t have that one anymore. I’ve lost it, but yeah, uh, I can, I had it so that I could type my instantaneous reaction and it would expand to you. Thank you for your feedback, [00:16:45] Jeff: it’s a really, I mean that’s like a kind of a powerful move. [00:16:49] Christina: Honestly, I was gonna say, like, I was gonna say like, so I, I can’t use Text Expander, um, at, at work, but I, I could probably use like the, the built-in, um, macros [00:17:00] thing, or I could find another, you know, macro tool to, to, to use. Um, we just can’t use other people cloud stuff. Um, on, on a [00:17:08] Jeff: can use a Mac. [00:17:09] Christina: Yes, yes. Can use a Mac, but it’s just third party. [00:17:13] Brett: a Chrome pc, [00:17:14] Jeff: Well, Chromebook. [00:17:15] Christina: no. They, they, I mean, I, I mean they, they would like that I’m sure, but no, I, I was able to get a a, an M four, um, pro with 48 gigs of ram, um, only, um, 16 inch only, um, five 12 SSD, so that’s, you know, uh, [00:17:32] Brett: My work computer is a 256 gigabyte Intel 12 inch MacBook Pro. Yeah. [00:17:40] Jeff: Wow. Yeah. [00:17:43] Christina: Um, yeah, [00:17:45] Brett: Christina, you were saying you couldn’t use text [00:17:48] Christina: Yeah, I couldn’t use, but I could use something similar and No, but that, that could be like a useful thing where like sometimes you see stuff and you’re like, okay, I’m just gonna type in like my default reaction and it’ll, you know, expand to something nicer. [00:18:00] Like, um, and, and that would be useful in, in certain like, actually plenty of non-work scenarios too. [00:18:07] Christina: Like, I, I, I like that idea of being like, okay, go fuck yourself, can become I’m here. Your feedback and you know, I’ll take this [00:18:15] Brett: I, uh, I mentioned this last episode, um, but I shadowed this person who currently administers the AI and data science blog and no longer, I now administer the AI and data science blog, and they had a Confluence page with all of their response snippets, [00:18:41] Christina: yes, [00:18:41] Brett: and it takes, like, it takes that page, I’m not kidding, 20 to 30 seconds to load. [00:18:49] Brett: So you have to go to your bookmark. You wait 20 to 30 seconds, and then you manually copy the response out of the page, add it to [00:19:00] Wrike, which also takes 20 to 30 [00:19:02] Jeff: But gives you the time you need to breathe and settle down. [00:19:07] Christina: Yeah. Cc? [00:19:09] Brett: and then you paste it, and then you edit it. But with I, I copied that entire page into text. Expender [00:19:15] Christina: Yep. [00:19:16] Brett: added a bunch of fill-ins so that I could modify, like, based on the context of the reply. And I feel like this is exactly what text expander and text plays were made for is customer service replies, [00:19:32] Christina: Oh, no, totally. [00:19:34] Brett: what I’m doing. [00:19:35] Christina: No. No, totally. I mean, and I think that’s why like text expander, like pivoted, like to the enterprise market and, and some of those other, you know, things have too because, and, and consumers always get pissed off about that ’cause they’re like, what do I have to pay for a subscription and why do I have to do this and that? [00:19:48] Christina: And you’re like, I, I mean, I get it. Um, and, and there are, um, like there’s, um, who, who makes it text? Uh, it’s not text place. It’s, uh, [00:19:56] Brett: Um, type ator. [00:19:57] Christina: type in inter Yeah. Type it, which, um, if [00:20:00] I were going to use one, probably would be the one that I would be able to use at work. Like I, because I could make that work locally. [00:20:05] Brett: no, there’s no cloud. [00:20:07] Christina: Right. And so, and, and I have a license for it and it’s a great app. Um, also it’s lower resources, which sometimes matters like, it doesn’t matter like on my stuff, but it is lower resources. But like text expander. Yeah, you’re exactly right. Like for a customer service scenario where you have like a kind of a internal shared set of snippets that people can edit or just like take definition of an add to, like, you can imagine that if you’re in a call center or something, you have to have a tool like that, you know, in your responses. [00:20:38] Christina: Well, who am I kidding? Is all about to be AI soon, but like, assuming you still have a call center staffed by, you know, pseudo humans. Like this is totally, whether you’re doing email responses or chat or tickets or whatever, like if you know that you have, you know, the, the top like, like 30 or 50 most, you know, common things like having [00:21:00] like that library of stuff that you can just auto insert, you know, with a few keys has to be very useful. [00:21:07] Brett: I would like to take this opportunity to say that Text Blaze is a very good product and is very low resource. Um, I. Like, it doesn’t even show up on my activity monitor. It’s way down at the bottom and it has a few, I’ve like, it can’t expand after Whitespace the way text expander can, which has taken a lot of getting used to and it can’t run scripts, which is why I have been developing so many different APIs, like the Markdown Lipsom, API, because if I wanna, if I wanna alarm Ipso snippet, that’s truly dynamic. [00:21:48] Brett: I need, it can, it can pull from a web API, but it can’t run a script locally. So I just build web [00:21:56] Christina: So you, so you just, okay, so you’re, so basically [00:21:58] Brett: which is not accessible to [00:22:00] every user. [00:22:01] Christina: not at all. Not at all. Because most, most, most users are gonna be like, well, where am I hosting this? Or where is this being done? Or Do I have these API keys in my environment? Yeah. Um, but like, yeah. ’cause at that point, yeah. Um, is, is that like a design decision? [00:22:13] Christina: Do you know, from their like perspective or? [00:22:17] Brett: I think it’s just a shortcoming. Maybe they’ll get to it eventually. Um, I, the, the expand after spaces thing, I think is just a shortsighted, [00:22:29] Christina: Yeah. [00:22:29] Brett: um, [00:22:30] Christina: That seems like a [00:22:31] Brett: design. I think it seems like a design decision, but I think it was shortsighted, whatever it [00:22:37] Jeff: Is there anything about it that you would say it does, that text expander doesn’t, that you like? [00:22:45] Brett: Um, I had an answer to this question previously, but like when I, so Text Expander sponsored my blog for like a decade and, and I would [00:23:00] never use anything other than text Expander because they were so supportive of my work. Um, but then like Greg was. Greg left, retired, left the company, and when they reevaluated all their sponsorships, I didn’t make the cut and I don’t think they’re doing many sponsorships [00:23:21] Christina: No, no, I, no, I, I, I think, yeah. ’cause yeah, they used to, you know, sponsor like my podcast back in the day and things like that too. Like, and it, [00:23:28] Brett: then I started, yeah, I started exploring like other topics and a former employee of Text Expander was now working for Text Blaze and he got me in with a free, like enterprise level account. And at that time I felt it was important to let my readers know why I was even trying out text Blaze after a decade of evangelizing text expander. [00:23:58] Brett: And I had all the [00:24:00] reasons, but I’ve forgotten them. [00:24:03] Christina: Yeah, I mean, I think the resource thing is probably a good one. Like, again, like it’s not, it’s not a problem for a lot of people. I think the fact that, um, yeah, I mean, similar to me, like, like I use, well, so, and actually, you know what I could use ’cause we, ’cause people have it set up. What I could use at work and what I should use at work is, uh, Alfred, um, just, just set up Alfred, um, stuff for, for text expansion. [00:24:26] Christina: Right? [00:24:26] Brett: Yeah, well, launch Bar has [00:24:28] Christina: launch part does too. Yeah. Launch [00:24:30] Brett: or snippets anyway. [00:24:31] Christina: Exactly. And, and, and, um, uh, like Alfred’s allowed, um, Raycast is allowed, albeit not with the AI stuff. Um, [00:24:40] Brett: about keyboard Maestro, which can expand based on regular expressions. [00:24:44] Christina: Oh yeah. All that stuff is allowed. The, the, the only thing. [00:24:46] Jeff: keyboard. [00:24:47] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. The only, the only thing that is, is kind of like band at work is like if it’s, you know, relying on kind of like a, a, a third party cloud. [00:24:54] Christina: And even then, like, it’s not as if they, so the way I have mine configured it so that I is, is [00:25:00] that I have an exception because I’m a package managed user, which means that I use home brew. So I don’t have to like, go through this process of getting apps approved or not approved, like whether they’re allowed to run in your system or not. [00:25:11] Christina: And it, and it’s not that heavyweight of a process in comparison to how it could be, like, they actually do it pretty well, but they take security seriously. And like, I don’t wanna ever have anything that would be work related, stored in any cloud that is not like the corporate cloud that we use. Right. [00:25:27] Christina: Like, so, so like obsidian is allowed to be used, but you can’t use it. Um, like you can’t sync with your mobile device unless you have like a a, a [00:25:37] Brett: What about like, [00:25:38] Christina: device. [00:25:39] Brett: oh, you could use Google Drive to [00:25:41] Christina: Yes, yes. But it would have to be corporate drive. [00:25:44] Brett: Yeah, [00:25:45] Christina: Which, which the problem with that is, is that corporate drive then, like, I, I couldn’t use it on any other computer, but I could use it like, just on [00:25:52] Brett: what’s the point then? [00:25:54] Christina: Right. [00:25:54] Christina: Right, exactly. So, well, I mean, the point would be, I guess that if, if, if I needed to set up a new computer or if I used [00:26:00] multiple machines, right. So, which, which, which I don’t. So, but, but again, that, this kind of goes back to like, what’s the point? So like, you know, but, but at GitHub we didn’t have the same level of restrictions. [00:26:11] Christina: Um, because I mean, I think they would’ve liked to, they’re just the IT team’s not that big and, you know, they’re not gonna have the resources to, to be able to put that stuff in place. Um, but yeah, but I used, I used Ator, frankly, more for the resource usage stuff than kind of anything. Because if I had a lot of stuff running, like I did note that, you know, and I, I pay for tax expander. [00:26:33] Christina: I still do out of kind of loyalty. But, you know, it, it, it can, it, it can, um. Be kind of a resource hog where it’s like type data. Not having that wasn’t an issue. And then I, and then with the add additional thing, I’m like, okay, I know that I’m never going to have this, you know, um, I’m not syncing across multiple machines and I, I don’t need a cloud aspect. [00:26:57] Brett: you know, so, okay [00:27:00] vs. Code is a resource hog, but what shocked me last time my computer froze up. Um, and this is a computer with 128 gigabytes of Ram and it froze. And I got the, the force quit dialogue that listed all of the apps that were Resource hogs, Flo Todo, which I used to run like a Facebook SSBA single slate browser. [00:27:28] Brett: Um, so I just have a single Facebook app that is sandbox from everything else, and it was taking up 128 gigabytes of Ram. [00:27:39] Christina: So, so clearly has a bug. Yeah. [00:27:41] Brett: It has a leak, and it was ob, it was paging out, and it, it locked up my system. So negative for Flo Tado. [00:27:51] Jeff: That’s crazy. [00:27:52] Christina: Yeah. That is sense. I’ve, when that happens, I always, when we’re talking about like bug reports and like I try to be like the good [00:28:00] user who’s like, okay, if I notice that that this has happened, like yeah, there’s clearly a memory leak or there’s some sort of other thing going on if this is happening. And I usually try to report it and sometimes it gets responses and sometimes it doesn’t. [00:28:11] Christina: But Yeah, [00:28:12] Brett: I will, I will report it to Flo Tado, even though I’m not sure that app is actively, uh, in development right now, [00:28:21] Christina: Yeah, that’s always the hard thing about stuff like that. Yeah. Um, and um, yeah, um, SSBs are actually the hard thing at Google because obviously we can create progressive web apps. But we can’t, at least for work resources, um, for, for non-work resources, you can use whatever browser you want. And some people who do testing, which I don’t, can do testing on other browsers. [00:28:43] Christina: Right. If like that’s what their job is. But like, work stuff can only be used in Chrome, like period [00:28:50] Brett: Are you allowed to add extensions to Chrome? [00:28:53] Christina: Yes, yes. Now there are some that are going to be like, that are like unilaterally banned that they like, you know, full [00:29:00] on like block, but that’s few and far between. And then they do have like a curated Chrome store. [00:29:07] Christina: Stuff that maybe they’ve altered. Right? So there might be like, like versions, like people maintain forks. Sometimes it’s part of their job. Sometimes it’s just people wanting to do it because they’re, you know, committed to it, who will maintain a fork of a popular Chrome extension internally only. Right. [00:29:22] Christina: So that it doesn’t exfiltrate anything. Yeah, no, I mean, the, it, it’s weird ’cause like I, I go through this process of being both frustrated sometimes by the, the, the barriers that are set up, even though I understand why they are, and also being insanely impressed at like how much infra, like is internally built up. [00:29:42] Christina: Like, the fact that like so much, so many internal tools exist, or, or, you know, whether they’re recreations of things that exist elsewhere or not, is, I’ve never seen anything like it, like in, at least in terms of competence, like Microsoft. For has like internal versions of a lot of stuff, but [00:30:00] most of it is very similar to the, the stuff that they sell externally. [00:30:04] Christina: Um, and, and GitHub, um, obviously develops GitHub on GitHub but uses a lot of third party tools. Google like, does a tremendous amount of stuff all internally and sometimes they, there are like external versions and sometimes there’s not, and you’re just like, oh shit. Like, a lot of people way smarter than me work at this place and maintain [00:30:26] Brett: that’s so much cooler than working at Oracle. Sponsor: Rogue Amoeba [00:30:29] Brett: This episode is sponsored by one of our favorite developers, RBA makers of powerful audio software for the Mac. They’ve been developing audio focus apps for the Mac for over 20 years, going all the way back to OS. So Harold, Chris, Harold corrected me. [00:30:49] Brett: I always say iOS apparently, and this time I’m going to get it right, going all the way back to OS 10.2, which is Jaguar, since [00:31:00] it’s been a while. Their latest versions make it a snap to get started with. No need to restart your Mac. I personally love Sound Source and loop back and use them all the time. [00:31:10] Brett: Sound Source puts per app audio controls, including the ability to apply effects right in your menu bar and Loop Back is an amazing tool for routing audio signals and working with and multiple audio devices. And I would be remiss not to praise Audio Hijack the all purpose tool for recording and routing audio on [00:31:32] Jeff: All praise. All praise. Audio hijack. [00:31:36] Brett: It can do just about anything with application audio or microphone input and has a ton of automation possibilities. Learn more about all of Rogue Amiga software@macaudio.com slash Overtired. That’s mac audio.com/ Overtired. Listeners of Overtired can save 20% off any [00:32:00] purchase through the end of May with the coupon code Overtired. [00:32:04] Brett: Just go to mac audio.com/ Overtired and use the coupon code Overtired. [00:32:11] Jeff: Yes, you should. [00:32:12] Christina: Hell yeah. Mental Health Corner: Jeff’s Turn [00:32:14] Brett: Fucking A. All right, so we’re half an hour in and we’re still on what is technically my mental health corner. So how are you guys doing? [00:32:25] Christina: Jeff, go ahead. [00:32:26] Jeff: abdicating your mental health corner? Is that what we call it? Abdicating? Um, I’m doing good. It’s, you know, it’s sunny and warm. It, it makes everything go away for a minute. Um, but there isn’t too much to go away. Uh, yeah, I’m doing, I’m doing well. I’m, I had a really nice, I feel like I always report this when it happens, but I had a nice trip. [00:32:46] Jeff: It took my youngest son to spend a couple days alone with his older brother at college. Uh, it got to and stay in his dorm ’cause there was an empty bed there and stuff. And so it was really, it was really cool to be able to do that. And he went to some classes and [00:33:00] they went and saw a movie and hung out and who knows what else. [00:33:03] Jeff: I mean, I actually don’t think there was much else, but it’s not my business anyhow. Um, so it was really sweet. Uh, and, and just nice to have that time. My, you know, it’s like an 11 hour drive to where my son goes to college and I’ve found that those are just the best. Times with my kids because you’re not, it’s nothing’s forced. [00:33:24] Jeff: You’re not asking them to answer a question at the end of the day that, you know, they just don’t wanna talk about school. Whatever it is. It’s like you can just sit there. I always let them DJ the whole 11 hours, like, and you can just kind of sit there and like let things come up. And I find that to be an amazing way to just be with either of them. [00:33:42] Jeff: So that’s always just like, I just feel really good after that and kind of carry that with me. Um, other thing I, I just realized this is so dumb, but. I don’t read ever. Like, I mean I don’t read books ever. I love to read books, but I just cannot, I can’t read ’em when I’m laying down in bed ’cause I fall asleep right [00:34:00] away. [00:34:00] Jeff: And I had a book club, we had this book club for a while. I’ve probably talked about. That was kind of amazing ’cause the whole premise was to read the books that like you kind of were interested in that you feel like if it was 1940, uh, you would’ve read it in high school. But, um. But you don’t have any reason to read it. [00:34:16] Jeff: It’s how we read, like War and Peace. It’s how I read Donkey Hte, all these books, Moby, Dick, whatever. Um, and uh, and it was an amazing thing, but it just kind of fell apart for reasons that groups fall apart. Um, but this morning I woke up and I’m like, obviously been reading so much news and everything, all the obvious stuff that we’re all going through and, and how much space it takes up in our head. [00:34:36] Jeff: And I read, I don’t, nobody has to read, uh, Donte, but I highly recommend reading the prologue because it’s fucking amazing. Um, and so I just read the prologue ’cause I get a kick out of it. And then like the very beginning of the setup of Donte, which is also hilarious. Um, and it was not only delightful to read and laugh at something that definitely had nothing to do with this moment. [00:34:58] Jeff: I mean, you can make stretches and [00:35:00] metaphors or whatever, but, um, but what happened was then I, you know, I stopped reading and I started my day. I took my kid to work like whatever. But like, I. My head was filled with the book, like my head was not filled with the tariffs and everything else. And that was like the first time for a long time. [00:35:16] Jeff: Like I just had like echoes of impressions from just this very short bit I read this morning and I was like, huh, this, I think I just may have discovered an important, uh, durability tool for me, um, uh, in this, in this day. So that was kind of, that was really nice. Felt really good. Felt like an unburdening. [00:35:35] Jeff: Yeah. ’cause I can’t, I was like, ah, I’m not gonna even look at the news for a couple days, which I think is a good thing to do. I don’t think there’s any reason not to look at the news for a couple days. You’re not a bad advocate, you’re not a bad carer about the rights of people in the world. You’re not a bad anything. [00:35:49] Jeff: It’s just something you need to do. And I often can’t do it. Not in a, I’m not an obsessive news reader, but like I do, well I guess, I mean, like the way I read news is [00:36:00] I do open the New York Times app a few times a day and I tell. My dingus to tell me the news. Even sometimes, even though sometimes it means she tells me about the history of the juice. [00:36:09] Christina: right. [00:36:10] Jeff: I do ask her to tell me the news a few days, uh, a few times a day, but I’m not like crazy obsessive about it. But man, it’s a constant flow. It’s like constant, constantly flowing through my, my bloodstream. So anyway, that was, uh, it was a funny revelation to have, but it’s also just a very, like, nowadays revelation to have. [00:36:28] Jeff: And so again, I will say, read the prologue, Don Kte, if you love novels, like at all, if you love reading fiction, like you have never read a prologue and you won’t believe that this was written in like the fucking 16 hundreds or whatever is the 17 hours. I forget. So that was, that was nice. That, and the sun today has got me feeling pretty good. [00:36:49] Christina: I love [00:36:49] Brett: Jeff, do, do you get, uh, do you subscribe to Means tv? [00:36:54] Jeff: I don’t know what that is. [00:36:55] Brett: It’s a, we’ll call it an anti-capitalist network. [00:36:59] Jeff: Okay. [00:36:59] Brett: [00:37:00] Um, they just added some anarchist content, but it’s mostly socialist content. Um, and they have a means daily news. That is, if you wanna get, like, news that includes, like, successes in labor movements, you know, instead of just like what the tariffs are gonna do to the economy. [00:37:25] Brett: Um, it’s a, it’s a fun place to get news. [00:37:27] Jeff: you’re one of these guys that likes good news. See, I’m not even, I’m not attracted, I’m not even attracted to good news. I can’t even say [00:37:35] Christina: I’m, I’m, I’m exactly like you Jeff. Like, it, it, it, it doesn’t like, I don’t actually like, in some ways, like, it’s cool if it’s there, but like, I don’t want to curate that way personally. News Consumption and Mental Health [00:37:45] Christina: Like, I like my, my news addiction and it’s gotten a lot better and I’ve had to do it because it’s been, and sorry if I took over your mental health corner, um, uh, is that like, for my own mental health, I have to, like, I’ve had to disconnect and [00:38:00] disengage with news and, um, even though I haven’t been a reporter, uh, as my full-time job for a long time now, like, it, it took years and years. [00:38:10] Christina: Like it, I, I’ve, I’ve said this on the p before, like it was, um, it was January 6th. That was like the moment that kind of broke me because it was, I realized one of the first big, like. Massive, like mass casualty, kind of like real time, like scenario, well, not mass casualty, but like, you know what I mean? [00:38:28] Christina: Like, like one of those like, like felt at the time, like world changing [00:38:32] Jeff: There were things that died that day. [00:38:34] Christina: Right, right. Exactly. [00:38:36] Jeff: and a lot of things died. [00:38:37] Christina: right. And, and I had to process it like not a reporter, which was really fucked for me because I, it, it, it, you know, I had become so desensitized to having to process that sort of stuff in, in real time. [00:38:53] Christina: And you think about it as, okay, what are the stories that we’re assigning? What angles are we doing? How are we getting the news [00:39:00] out? What are the important facts? What is real, what is not, what is gossip? Like you, you just, you handle the, the trauma frankly, of it all in a different way. And, and I had to like process it like a regular person and, and that really fucked me. [00:39:13] Christina: But it was also kind of a good reminder for me to be like, okay, since this is not the sort of stuff that you’d live with day in and day out anymore. You don’t have to be part of this all the time. And I know that for you it’s different because sometimes you have to be connected to stuff for your job and you [00:39:29] Jeff: I don’t anymore. [00:39:31] Christina: right? [00:39:31] Christina: Well, but, but, but you have, but you know what I mean, but like, even some of your research, right? There might be things you’re like, okay, I need to be plugged in on this. And so I have to be aware. And, um, and, and certainly from my job now, like I need to be plugged in with like AI announcements and stuff. [00:39:44] Christina: And like, that can obviously go into lots of complicated, you know, like different ways to process things. But it’s not the same as like the world is ending, you know what I mean? Or, or, or, or democracies and shambles and like the terrible stuff [00:40:00] that’s happening around us. And so for my own, like mental health, I fully agree with you. [00:40:05] Christina: Like, it doesn’t make you a bad person, doesn’t make you anything. If you’re like, you know what? I don’t wanna fucking look at this right [00:40:11] Jeff: Because you’re not helping anybody by reading the news. There are things you can do out of having read the news that you can do to help people. It actually doesn’t help anybody that you’re reading the news, [00:40:18] Christina: Well, and the thing is, is I think that there’s a difference, right? Like there’s a difference between being like obstinate and willfully, like, uh, refusing to acknowledge what’s happening around you and refusing to do it and actively engaging in it, right? Like, like, like, like I feel like it’s a problem if you just, you know, put your fingers in your ears and you’re like, I don’t see it. [00:40:41] Christina: I don’t know it, it’s not happening, [00:40:43] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. [00:40:43] Christina: right? Like, I feel like that can actually be problematic. And, and, and if people need to do that for short term periods, you know, you do. You. But I feel like long term that is actually a problem. People don’t acknowledge the reality around them and, and, and the suffering and, and the bad things. [00:40:57] Christina: Like I feel like that’s a problem. But there’s a difference [00:41:00] between being like, I know how bad things are and I need to actively read every New York Times, or Wall Street Journal, or Bloomberg or whatever, headline, right? Like [00:41:08] Brett: there’s the, it’s possible to be aware of all the bad things that are happening without dwelling on it in an obsessive way. [00:41:18] Christina: Totally, totally. And, and like this is one of the reasons why, like, I’m not really posting about politics or anything else anymore on social media. And, and I think some people think that it’s because like, you know, it’s directives from bosses or whatever. No, that’s not at, although I’m sure that they would prefer that I not speak about political things. [00:41:35] Christina: Right. And fair enough. But like, that’s not what it is. It’s that it’s frankly that at this stage of the things that are happening, like I’ve had kind of a, a come to Jesus moment with myself where I’m like, my opinion doesn’t matter and I’m not helping anybody by like, I know what I mean. Like in some cases it does, I look back at like my, my past actions and I don’t regret them or anything, but I’m like, okay, [00:42:00] what were you accomplishing? [00:42:01] Christina: And, and, and at a certain point it does sometimes feel like, and people again, like other people can. Process and, and can comment and can do whatever they want, however they wanna do it. And I won’t judge that. Like I, I really do my best not to judge that. But like for me, it’s just kind of a thing where I’m like, okay, like what am I accomplishing by commenting and continuing to reify how bad this shit is? [00:42:23] Christina: Like, is this making me feel any better? Is this doing anything for me? And if it is great, right? For some people, like that could be a way of getting through some of the trauma and getting through some of the stuff would just be to talk about how bad it is. And I respect that. I just feel like, you know, we, we’ve gone through a really difficult last eight years and now things are just the point where I’m like, I don’t have it in me to do it anymore. [00:42:50] Christina: I just don’t. [00:42:52] Jeff: yeah. Yeah. I feel, I think a lot about like, um, seasons in life too. Like our lives have seasons, like they [00:43:00] have long seasons, but then there are little short seasons and like, I often think, I can’t help but think back to like a season of my life where I was willing to get like shot or blown up and almost did for my convictions and in order to care about a thing, an issue, a people, whatever. [00:43:15] Jeff: And I think that that was great. And I’m, I’m proud of myself for having, I’m proud of younger me for having done that. Finding Meaningful Ways to Help [00:43:20] Jeff: But like what I’ve settled into as an old man in this moment, and I learned this from the George Floyd uprising or, or sort of encoded it into my brain is like, I am very comfortable knowing that. [00:43:35] Jeff: I will see an opportunity at some point for a way I can help and I will help. And, and it may be, it may take me longer than other people. It may take me longer than some people think it should. But there is no too long because at some point you come into the game and the people that came in the first wave have burned out. [00:43:53] Jeff: And you do need a second wave. You do need new people. You always need people. And, and if I, I mean, if I waited [00:44:00] until I was 72 to do something meaningful again, um, will have, it will be meaningful that I’ve done it. And, and like one of the things I, I still think back to a lot, um, is like, so during the uprisings, like the first night. [00:44:16] Jeff: When everyone was outside the police precinct, the one that ultimately burned down and was, was abandoned. Um, I went out there ’cause I felt like I had to, and it was fucking scary. Like everything was off balance. Like, um, you know, everybody was, everybody on both sides was. Behaving in a way, and this isn’t a judgment, this is just what happens to humans when something is that elevated. [00:44:40] Jeff: Because what happened was so incredibly fucked. Um, everybody was just, it was, you know, it’s one of those things like any protest, and especially once the National Guard was here, the idea you, you, you look and see is a million protesters and a and a hundred, you know, national Guard. But actually what’s happening here, even if it’s basically [00:45:00] under control, is, is the line between chaos and, and great harm And whatever state you’re looking at now is just one person’s decision. [00:45:08] Jeff: And that decision could be, I threw a bottle and instead of hitting a, an officer’s. Or a National guards person’s helmet, it hit their face. And that national guards person then reacted as however they were always gonna react when they got their face hit right with a, with a bottle or whatever, like it was, that it’s that fine of a line. [00:45:25] Jeff: It’s true for things going well too, right? Like, it’s true for things that inspire movements, whatever. It’s often one person’s decision. It’s, it’s in the context of a movement and, and all these things, but it’s often one person makes one little decision. You may never know what that person was, who that person was, or what that decision was. [00:45:42] Jeff: Anyway, I, in all of that and that chaos, and it was scary. And, and you know, you’d have the windows open and you’d smell the smoke and hear the, you know, non-lethal rounds that, you know, would take people’s eyes out but wouldn’t kill them. Um, I got a call from a friend who was working as a medic [00:46:00] at the protests every night, and she knew I had a workshop. [00:46:04] Jeff: And she said, Hey, do you have respirators? And I was like, do I? And, and so what she did is on her way down to meet up with the medics before that night’s stuff really ramped up. She came over and like it was James Bond movie with the guy that has all the special weapons. I had laid out every kind of respirator on a picnic table. [00:46:21] Jeff: And she came by and was able to go, this one, this one, this one. And then she brought it down and they were tear gassing the shit out of people at this point. She brought it down and, and a handful of medics had had these respirators and were able to help because someone knew to ask me. I knew that that was an opportunity in a way I could help. [00:46:37] Jeff: And it felt really meaningful. And I think that in these times it can be so easy to beat yourself up ’cause you’re not doing this or that or to judge actions, whatever it is. But like. The only way movements or change happens is everyone kind of finds their place. Personal Protest Experiences [00:46:53] Jeff: And we’ve talked about this a million times. [00:46:55] Jeff: For me, the place was never holding a sign. I was at protest, but I could never hold a sign. I just [00:47:00] couldn’t do it. I could be a body there. I can’t hold a sign. I’m too much like, well, that just doesn’t say everything. Transition from Journalism [00:47:04] Jeff: I mean, well, you know, I, I just don’t know, not to mention copy editing signs, but, um, but like, the last thing I’ll say about this, ’cause it was something you, you triggered for me, Christina, when you were talking about ha like either having to, or also being able to process something not as a journalist, I still, there’s such a crystal clear point at which I knew I was not a journalist anymore. [00:47:27] Jeff: And it’s true ’cause I haven’t been one since then, but it was awesome. So I had been laid off from public radio and public radio is like so funny ’cause it’s so clearly like liberal and left leaning. But it, it works so hard to just, even in how voices are to just seem very reasonable, whatever else. And I always like, I both appreciate that and it drives me fucking crazy. [00:47:47] Jeff: Um. Yeah, it mostly drives me crazy. But, um, but anyway, there was a march commemorating the, the murder of Philando Castile here who [00:47:57] Christina: Mm-hmm. [00:47:57] Jeff: by a police officer. Um, [00:48:00] and this march was destined to make its way down a entrance ramp to highway 94 and, and to shut it down. And I was there. This was still the point at which when I attended protests, I put a long skinny notebook in my back pocket just ’cause I don’t know why, like, partly I just, that helped me. [00:48:15] Jeff: ’cause I would take, I would just take, write things down for myself ’cause it’s how I’ve always been. But also sometimes I knew I was going to see other journalists. I saw what the hell. Um, but this time I just had one because I, I wanted to be able to document ’cause those are great. No, those are great notebooks to put in your hand and document. [00:48:30] Jeff: And, uh, and I’m walking and, and it becomes clear. People are starting to go down to 94 and I’m not really a, like lead the way and shut down the freeway guy, but I totally will go and watch but stand in the middle and recognize that I’m both a witness and a participant in that sense. And so. The whole march starts, like veering down the, the entrance ramp and, and at the, at, just at like the sort of pivot point where it’s very clear who’s going down and who’s not. [00:48:56] Jeff: I run into two journalists I know, and one of them had, had never met me. [00:49:00] And, and the one goes, Hey Jeff. And then he says the other one, Hey, this is Jeff ler. You know, he used to work for NPR and all these say whatever the guy’s like, oh, I’ve always wanted to meet you. And they go, what are you doing here? [00:49:09] Jeff: And I was like, just checking it out. And I said, and I just kind of proceeded down to 94 and participated in the shutdown of the freeway. And, uh, and that felt amazing. I was just like, nah, just checking it out. And, uh, but, but I’m also walking down here as you can see, and I have no press pass. So I was like, all right, I’m not a journalist anymore. [00:49:27] Jeff: And that’s awesome. Not that I couldn’t still be a journalist, I wanna be really clear about that. But like, that was just like a, I think I wanna be on the other side of this now. [00:49:35] Christina: Which honestly is kind of freeing in a sense. Protest Dynamics and Personal Involvement [00:49:37] Christina: Like, I don’t know, like what the, what the, um, like rules and requirements were for the places you worked, but that was always a really hard thing for me. Like I remember. Um, uh, covering like some of the, um, like the protests like, uh, you know, in, in, in 2015 and stuff. [00:49:52] Christina: And like, I had to be really careful. Like, you know, I had like, I, I would cover them and, but I had to be removed in a [00:50:00] certain sense. Right. And obviously you can’t be, like, I would be, you know, shouting along with folks and like, if I needed to make an argument, I could that like, well I need to fit in so that, you know, people don’t like look at you weird or whatever, you know, and you’re documenting things in like a, you know, reasonable way. [00:50:14] Christina: And, you know, you go and you like have like the lawyer’s numbers, like written on your like arm and stuff, you know, in case you get arrested and, and, and, and all that. Um. Which never happened, but you know, there, you never know what it’s going to be like. And, but like there did always feel like there had to be like this separation to a certain sense. [00:50:33] Christina: Like even though I frequently what would happen is I would go just to go myself and then I would find out that I was the only reporter from my publication there. And then I’d be like, well, fuck, well now I can’t just be here for me now I have to be like less involved. You know what I mean? Like, I am no longer [00:50:49] Jeff: Seeing the news value. Just so you know, I’m here now and I can report back. [00:50:53] Christina: Right. [00:50:53] Christina: Well, well, right. And, and so, so it would be almost, the inverse would be like, I went at first like to maybe be involved and like, oh, I’m separate from this. This isn’t like my main [00:51:00] beat. This is me as a, as a, you know, citizen. And then it becomes, okay, now I have to shift him to being an observer. Right. And, um, and so I imagine like, I don’t know, like what the lines were for you, that there has to be something like, even though it’s weirder to not have the press badge and whatnot, there’s also something freeing about being like, well, no, I can participate however I see fit, and I don’t have to like, hold up, like those lines of like journalistic, like, you know, integrity or ambiguity or, or whatever, you know? [00:51:27] Jeff: Yeah, it’s true. I mean, I always, and, and even when I was a journalist, the thing I think I always considered myself secretly was a participant observer in research terms. ’cause like I knew that whether I was there as a reporter or not, if I’m a body in the crowd, I’m a body in the crowd. And, and that felt meaningful, uh, to me. [00:51:44] Jeff: But [00:51:46] Brett: The, uh, the best article I read in the last week was about how to make lock boxes. Are you familiar with lock [00:51:53] Jeff: yes, I grew up in the nineties. [00:51:54] Brett: Yeah. Um, like. Tools to [00:52:00] lock yourself to objects or to other people to impede anything from the downing of a tree to traffic on a busy street. And this article fascinated me because it talked about how to like build it with carabiners so you could quick release if you needed to run, but no cop could get their arm in how to add multiple midline bolts so that the cops wouldn’t know which ones to cut to get you out of it. [00:52:33] Brett: How to reinforce it with fucking Kevlar. It was, it was funny. It was funny, but also it felt, it felt pertinent because I also can’t carry signs. I just, I won’t do it because it feels like going to protest in general feels somewhat futile to me. Like the average protest doesn’t make [00:53:00] any difference at all. [00:53:01] Brett: A well-behaved stay within the fenced area, protest doesn’t make a difference. Um, but a protest that is, um, obtrusive, can make a difference, uh, can make a statement. And to me, like the idea of lock boxes of really like fucking shit up that I can get into. Debate on Protest Tactics [00:53:27] Jeff: I would just, I’ll, I’ll say one thing about protests. I never feel particularly great at like very kind of mainstream feeling protests, but if they don’t happen, then the slide goes faster. Like it’s important that they happen. But I’m with you. Like I don’t, I’m rarely at a protest and really inspired, but, but I am inspired by the fact that this is still a community that’s, [00:53:50] Brett: I wanna be a part, I want to be a part of the crew that enables the protest to be fully what it can be. I wanna be [00:54:00] the person that stops traffic. I want to be the person that distracts the cops. I wanna be the person that makes it possible for that protest peacefully to be all it can be. Um, being the protester doesn’t appeal to me. [00:54:17] Brett: I used to carry a lot of signs in my early twenties, late teens, um, and it, it, it grew on me that it was futile. Like we weren’t making a difference. But the black block, as much as protestors often fear, uh, what the black block does. Often provides cover and ability to your protest. [00:54:47] Christina: Yeah. [00:54:47] Jeff: Don’t get me started on black block. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll just have a fight. [00:54:51] Brett: No, it’s okay. [00:54:53] Jeff: I think that it’s. It’s literally masquerading as something more meaningful than regular protests. [00:55:00] Like I have watched so many black, black people, I’ve known them. There are people in my life I care about who are black block. [00:55:04] Jeff: I know people that have been, there are people in my life who are prosecuted by other people in my life for being black block, and I support them a thousand percent. Uh, you know, like someone’s indicted, like I know what side I’m on. Um, I have experienced black block in my life and in my long life as an activist, as spoiled kids who are looking for a fix of some sort. [00:55:27] Jeff: And easy cover, easy cover for provocateurs. Like [00:55:30] Christina: I, yes, no, I, I fully agree with [00:55:32] Brett: but I would say that the primary complaint about the black block is that they cause property damage. [00:55:39] Jeff: Oh yeah. That’s not a complaint of mine. [00:55:41] Brett: yeah, [00:55:42] Jeff: I mean, it’s, it’s like, it’s, I think that [00:55:44] Brett: is not people. [00:55:45] Jeff: it’s true. I will say, actually I’m gonna retake, I’m take my thing back. I have seen the property damage and looked at it and gone. You actually didn’t help. You only heard at this [00:55:54] Christina: Yeah, I was, I was [00:55:55] Jeff: broke a window of that small business over here, which happened a ton here. [00:55:59] Jeff: Like [00:55:59] Christina: I [00:56:00] was. I was [00:56:00] Jeff: That probably felt good, but it didn’t help anything. And if anything it ratchets up. I, this is what I don’t like doing things like that while masked to me. I’m not gonna say it’s like cowardice ’cause I [00:56:10] Christina: I am [00:56:11] Jeff: a whole philosophy. Yeah. I’m just saying like, uh, before I get to that, right, like to me, and this is what I found, find powerful about nonviolent action, and I might very specifically say nonviolent action because people think of nonviolence as, as passivity, is that when you hide and when you then do things hidden, it creates a sort of tension and a ramping up and a sort of calculus in a, in a crowd that I have only ever seen lead to near disaster for everybody. [00:56:42] Jeff: Whereas when you are locking yourself up to a tree or whatever else and you have no mask on and you are saying, this is a risk I’ve decided to take and I’m doing it. Masks are a tricky thing now because of surveillance and AI and everything, but like, I, I do not, I, it’s like property damage. Yeah. If I’m not like, oh my God, my heart [00:57:00] hurts because this capitalist entity got its window broken or something. [00:57:04] Jeff: But I don’t, I’ve only experienced it be as a threat to myself as an activist doing serious work. It’s only way I’ve ever experienced it is that now, now everything is ratcheted up a little bit, and now we’re in the land of you do that just a little differently than maybe would’ve happened and all of a sudden they’re shooting or there’s [00:57:22] Christina: I, well, this is what I was gonna say. [00:57:24] Jeff: for everybody when you do that. [00:57:26] Christina: I was gonna say, ’cause that’s what ha that, that, that’s my problem with it. Like I, I’m not a fan of property damage and it’s not because I care so much about the property. Um, although I think you make a great point about, yeah, there are small businesses and individuals and people like, who have their cars messed up, who like, might not have the type of insurance and stuff, you know what I mean? [00:57:43] Christina: Like, there are like people who didn’t do anything and you’re fucking up their stuff because okay, great. It made you feel better, but what did it do? But, but my, my biggest thing is exactly what you said, that second part, which is that I think leads to two things. One, I think it embodies people sometimes. [00:57:58] Christina: And I, and I agree with this [00:58:00] also with, with like sometimes the black box type thing. Is that, um, is that it? Um, black blocks, whatever, um, is that it like, uh, can enable and encourage, um, this comes with poverty, damage to people who aren’t involved and aren’t part of the whole thing to just take part in the melee. [00:58:18] Christina: And, and then the movement gets tainted by that, right? Like you see that a lot with looting, like people who loot stuff are usually not like the people who were part of the protest, but the people who came around and were like, well, we might as well, you know, like, if, if this stuff is here for free for all and then everyone gets tagged by it. [00:58:35] Christina: And then the secondary thing is that, yeah, this now creates an environment where law enforcement can go in and can and can take action because they, they can make a claim that things were at risk or that things were getting dangerous to, to a certain degree. And it can go into a much more, um, like [00:58:52] Brett: is pacifying law enforcement your goal though? [00:58:55] Christina: Well, I, I think that I don’t really care about pacifying law enforcement. I’m saying I don’t [00:59:00] want people to get shot. I, I don’t want people to get shot and killed. And if you are going there and you’re going with the understanding that, yeah, I’m gonna be willing to get shot and killed for my protest, all power to you. [00:59:12] Christina: But I don’t think that’s how most people are doing things. And, and I don’t think, and I, I think a lot of times some of your most vocal people are the, to your point, like what you said earlier, Jeff, are the fucking like spoiled like kids who don’t have any experience, who have places to go back to who don’t really, aren’t even there for the convictions. [00:59:30] Christina: They’re just there for like the surface stuff. It’s like the, it’s the fucking Occupy Wall Street bullshit. It’s, it’s the fucking like, like Chaz and, and chop bullshit. And it doesn’t accomplish anything. Like we had a lot of people who genuinely died, like in, in Chap and cha, uh, chop and Chaz and fuck law enforcement. [00:59:48] Christina: I’m not here for any of that. But like, when you create a kind of an environment that people try to portray as being like this, you know, like. Like great [01:00:00] kind of idyllic, uh, community environment. And it wasn’t that. And then three people got shot and died, like, fuck off. Like, you know, like it wasn’t a, a good environment. [01:00:09] Christina: Like it wasn’t some sort of like utopia sort of thing. It was, it was a bunch of people who might’ve had some good intentions and I supported them. Like we, we gave water and we were like in support of what they were trying to do. And then it just morphed into this thing that wasn’t, and I don’t think it was helpful. [01:00:25] Christina: And I think that it, you know, hurt a lot of things more ultimately than it helped. Um, I’m fully in favor of people if they wanna, you know, fight the system that way. And they wanna do it if they feel like violence is the only way to get it across. Maybe sometimes it is, but I don’t have to participate in that. [01:00:41] Christina: And, and I don’t necessarily think that always, um, furthers what the goals are. But I’m also, I wanna be very clear and I don’t have any problems with people who are this. Reflections on Anarchism and Activism [01:00:51] Christina: I’m not an anarchist and I have absolutely no desire to be an anarchist. That is not my bag. If that’s how people wanna, wanna associate and do things all power to [01:01:00] you, you have that right? [01:01:01] Christina: That is not my, my position or like my affinity. So [01:01:08] Jeff: This is [01:01:08] Brett: So Christina, how are you? [01:01:10] Jeff: wait, I just wanna point out what people can’t see is that through all the, all this conversation, Brett is leaned back, you know, pretty, pretty well in his chair, probably as far as it goes. And he has a, a beautiful, beautiful, furry cat, uh, up to his neck and he’s just slowly stroking the cat’s neck. [01:01:27] Jeff: And the nat the cat is so happy and it, you don’t even look like a mobster. You look like a, you know, something far nicer. Um, [01:01:33] Christina: little bit like a mobster. [01:01:34] Jeff: that’s a, that’s a layer in this conversation right now that nobody [01:01:38] Brett: I’m a very nice anarchist. [01:01:40] Christina: No. And I, and, [01:01:41] Jeff: of very nice [01:01:42] Christina: And again, like I, I wanna be very clear, like I respect like that, that, that is like the stuff that you follow and like, support, like I really do. Um, that’s just not my position. But like I don’t have any problem with people who do that. It’s just not like how I choose to, you know, express my, my beliefs. [01:01:56] Christina: But I have no problem with people who do do that. And I feel like we need people like [01:02:00] that who are out there. I’m just not one of them. Like, [01:02:02] Brett: You said [01:02:02] Jeff: don’t conflate. Don’t conflate anarchists with black block [01:02:05] Christina: oh, I’m not. I’m [01:02:06] Jeff: not you. I’m talking to Brett, like I feel like I have a lot of lovely anarchists in my life and some of them [01:02:12] Brett: Yeah. Well that’s [01:02:13] Jeff: black block, but they do. It’s not fair to anarchism [01:02:15] Brett: the people with the lock boxes, the people without the mask, those are often anarchists. [01:02:21] Jeff: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, [01:02:22] Brett: not saying like you have to be black block [01:02:25] Jeff: yeah, totally. I know you’re not, yeah, yeah. What does the cat [01:02:28] Christina: No. And, and, and to be clear, like I feel like people, like if you’re willing to put your own face and your own like, like name and stuff on top of it, like that is brave as fucking hell. And I think that’s amazing, right? Like if you’re willing to actually take the consequences to it, like that to me is incredible. [01:02:43] Christina: Um, [01:02:44] Jeff: what’s tricky now is like there are, I understand and I can hear someone saying as they’re listening or like banging their head against their, uh, I don’t know what, if you’re listening to this on your phone that like there are anew, there are reasons for people to wear masks and so it’s not mask wearing [01:03:00] that I think either of us is coming down on. [01:03:01] Jeff: It’s the sort of like, I am specifically, I’ll be honest, thinking of a kind of mostly young white activist who is masking up and breaking shit as kind of what I have in mind. And I also recognize that I am probably over overly narrow in how I describe it. Partly because I have a bo, I have a. Bodily response to it. [01:03:21] Jeff: Having watched that stuff draw people who have come to a protest without, um, without being prepared to get hurt, having watched people in that position get drawn into the risk of being hurt, including children in strollers. Um, because of what if I’m being really cruel and ungracious because of what feels like daddy issues, not anarchism. [01:03:42] Jeff: I mean, the black guys, [01:03:43] Brett: that’s [01:03:44] Jeff: I just, I look at like, oh yeah, that’s a daddy issue right there. That’s not anti-capitalist [01:03:49] Christina: Right, right, right. And [01:03:51] Jeff: dads can. [01:03:53] Christina: No, and, and totally like people, there are very valid reasons to have masks and stuff, but I feel like sometimes it, I, but [01:04:00] I will still say even then, like it’s one of those things where I’m like, I really respect, like, um, like there was this, uh, uh, employee protest, um, at, uh, at Microsoft, uh, last week, like on the fricking 50th anniversary, which is ballsy. [01:04:12] Christina: And look, I wouldn’t have done it and I don’t think it accomplished anything, but I respect the hell out of the people who did that, did that under their own faces and under their own names. And, and I’m like, you know what I mean? Well, I mean, look, if you’re going to, you know, interrupt like a, a major event or whatever, and, and you’re doing it for those reasons and you’re gonna do it for the things you claim, like, I’m sorry, I think you do need to do that with your own face and with your own name. [01:04:35] Christina: I think that if you do it, otherwise, I, I think it’s fucking cowardly. Um, uh, because it’s not like anybody was at risk for getting. You know, shot or anything like that wasn’t a risk there. Um, if you, but if you, like, if you’re gonna do that stuff and you know that you’re gonna get fired, and of course you’re gonna get fired, like, that’s really brave. [01:04:52] Christina: But do that under your name and your face. I think, again, I wouldn’t have done that and I don’t think it accomplished anything, but I really respect the people who did it, did it [01:05:00] like openly, you know what I mean? Like, that’s, that’s bravery. That’s bravery that I certainly don’t have. Um, I mean, I, I, I don’t know. [01:05:08] Christina: I guess if it was something I had strong enough convictions about, maybe right? But like, I would never pretend that like I have it in me, like I’m too risk averse to do a lot of that type of stuff. Um, but I respect people who, we do need people who will do that. You know, we do. [01:05:26] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. We need all types for sure. Brett and Christina, just because Brett brought up the nineties, uh, and, and the sort of direct action days, the, like the, really the beginning of the lockbox era in our generation, I have put a link to young child Jeffy interviewing Noam Chomsky in the, in the WTO protest era. [01:05:48] Christina: Oh wow. [01:05:49] Jeff: in the, a link in the show notes. I, I think I was, was, what is it, like 99 or [01:05:55] Christina: Yeah, that that was the [01:05:56] Brett: I was, I saw Noam Chomsky at the U of M in 99.[01:06:00] [01:06:00] Jeff: Did you? Yeah. I got to go to his office and interview him. [01:06:03] Brett: Oh, wow. [01:06:04] Jeff: It was awesome. And I, and there’s even a great scene at the end when he pulls down a couple of photos of his children and grandchildren that, that I really, that I [01:06:13] Brett: All right. [01:06:13] Jeff: So, and he says the word Pokemon, which was a goal of mine because I talked to a friend who was his literary agent. [01:06:19] Jeff: I’m like, look, I’m interviewing him. Chomsky One, I’m terrified. Two, gimme something, uh, that I can ask him about that isn’t gonna be an every other Noam Chomsky interview. Which of, as you remember, was like one a day if you were counting. And he is like, he’s fascinated with Pokemon and the, and the naming of it and the linguistics of it. [01:06:36] Jeff: I was like, got it. Thanks. So I did get him to say Pokemon at one [01:06:39] Christina: Which is freaking awesome. Awesome. Honestly, like I would be so proud of myself. I’d be like, I got him [01:06:43] Jeff: I was, I wasn’t even like, by the end, I wasn’t even like, I interviewed Noam Cho. I’m like, I got Noam Chomsky to say Pokemon. [01:06:50] Christina: which [01:06:50] Brett: was the same year I met Jello. B Alpha, [01:06:53] Jeff: Awesome. Oh man. My son just discovered Jello opera and, and just listened to one of [01:06:58] Brett: like spoken word. Yeah. Okay. [01:06:59] Jeff: well, [01:07:00] no, first Dead Kennedy’s [01:07:01] Brett: Yeah. [01:07:01] Jeff: and then, um, ’cause he is in a punk rock band. And then, uh, I was like, have you heard his spoken word? He is like, well, yeah, I was just wondering. I don’t really like poems. [01:07:08] Jeff: I was like, oh brother, these are not poems. You’re gonna love it. [01:07:12] Brett: I don’t remember what I said to Joe Biafra. I just remember like, this was at Little Tijuana’s before it was like a, [01:07:20] Jeff: Everybody, everybody in, in the nineties, if you, uh, if you had just left a punk rock show and you needed food, it didn’t matter if you were high or not high straight edge or not, you were going to little tiwan as, and you were in love with one of [01:07:33] Brett: For dollar pitchers of beer. I dated most of those waitresses, um, [01:07:39] Jeff: Oh [01:07:39] Brett: but I don’t remember what I said to him, but his reply was, don’t be an asshole. And I wore that as a badge of honor for so long. [01:07:49] Jeff: J Pi Alfred, who’s almost definitely an asshole, but I love him to death. Awesome. Christina, we we, uh, we gotta roll around [01:07:58] Christina: Yeah. No, and I [01:08:00] already, I already kind of talked about mine, I guess. I [01:08:01] Jeff: Yeah, you did. You [01:08:02] Christina: Um, yeah, I mean, so, uh, yeah, no, we’re good. TV Shows and Entertainment [01:08:05] Christina: Um, I, how one of the ways like talking about like disconnecting from like the news and stuff is like, I’ve been watching a lot more TV and um, ’cause it TV has been good. Uh, the last, uh, little bit like we had. [01:08:18] Christina: We had severance, um, which, which obviously ended was great. We had White Lotus, which I very much enjoyed. I don’t think it landed the ending. Um, [01:08:26] Jeff: still so fun [01:08:27] Christina: it was still so fun. Exactly. And, and, uh, and the drama now around that season that, that Jason Isaacs just being like a shit stir and just like giving these interviews where he’s just making it worse and you know that he knows it. [01:08:39] Christina: ’cause he’s like, I read everything about this. And I’m like, wow, man. Who would’ve thought that? Like, the guy that plays the dad, like, like the, like the doped up dad also, he’s British and he did such a great southern accent, like, [01:08:50] Jeff: Andy’s Daddy Malfoy, [01:08:52] Christina: yeah, yeah. [01:08:53] Jeff: took me halfway through the [01:08:55] Christina: Oh my God. [01:08:55] Jeff: I know this fucking face? [01:08:57] Christina: Yes, yes, you’re right. Daddy Malfoy. But like, he did such [01:09:00] a fucking good job, like playing like the Rich Southern guy. [01:09:04] Christina: And I know that, I know the rich Southern guy incredibly well. And like, he fucking like, nailed it, like, like the acts and everything, but then he’s just being such a shitster, so I’m like, I’m, I’m here for it. Um, the, uh, the last of us, uh, season two, uh, premieres, um, this week, I’m looking forward to that Hacks just came back. [01:09:24] Christina: Um, that’s one of my favorite shows. I don’t know if either of you have watched that, but [01:09:27] Jeff: No. [01:09:28] Christina: so, it’s a, it’s a, I think you both would really like it. It’s on, it’s on HBO Max whatever. Um, it’s, uh, stars, uh, gene Smart and um, uh, Hannah Eve. And it is, um, uh, created and written by um, two of the people who were heavily involved with Broad City. [01:09:47] Christina: Um, and um, and it’s, uh, but, but it’s um, and I love Broad City. Like I’m a broad city like all the way. ’cause it was my. You know, I wasn’t single, but like every other aspect help really did relate a lot to [01:10:00] my life at that time. It is a much better show. Um, it is, um, it, it’s, and it has a broader appeal, so it’s about this, um, woman who is a, a Las Vegas like standup comedian, like she’s in this universe. [01:10:13] Christina: Uh, I guess she maybe would be kind of like an Elaine Stitch type, although I guess younger, but like very famous, well known. Um, has like a, a show like on, on the strip, uh, at one of the biggest Dinos, um, is also a QVC person and they’re wanting to kind of. Kick her out. Um, and there’s this, uh, gen Z um, uh, bisexual writer from Los Angeles who got in trouble because of some stuff that she tweeted and they share an agent. [01:10:40] Christina: And the agent is like, you have to like write, she should write jokes for you. And they have kind of a, you know, love hate relationship with one another. And, um, and it’s going into its fourth season and, and the show has shifted a lot since then, but it’s, it’s a comedy and it’s, you know, one Emmy’s for being a comedy, but even though it’s like a half hour, like there’s a lot of heart [01:11:00] to it. [01:11:00] Christina: And it’s one of those things where it’s almost like, it’s like a comedy that it’s kind of a drama underneath and in some ways, but the acting is so good and it’s very funny. And, um, and season four already is really good. So watching that. Um, and uh, yeah, and like I said, I’m looking forward to the last of us, uh, season two, like very here for that. [01:11:22] Christina: Um. [01:11:23] Jeff: So here for it. I’m re I’m almost done rewatching season [01:11:26] Christina: same, same. I’m trying to like remind myself and I’ve played the game, so like I know the whole [01:11:30] Jeff: I have not, my kids have, but I, and I’ve not played, uh, the second game, so I don’t know anything about what’s about to happen, which is very exciting. Although I kind of bet it’s amazing to have played the game and then watch the [01:11:41] Christina: Yeah, no, the adaptation is so good. Like, I, I think I said this last year, I was more impressed by the fallout adaptation because they had so much less to work with. Like they had to capture the vibes of the game, and they did perfectly, like speaking of White Lotus and Walton Goggins, like, he was great on Fallout, but like, and I, I loved [01:12:00] Fallout for that reason. [01:12:00] Christina: But the last of us is like taking what, in my opinion, is like one of like the best like video games like ever and turning that into tv. And then in some ways, like there were some episodes in the first season that like transcended the source material, which you never see with adaptations. And very rarely do. [01:12:21] Christina: Right. Like the Godfather would be one of them. Right. But like, it, it’s, it’s [01:12:24] Jeff: Definitely better than the book. [01:12:26] Christina: well, I mean, I think the book is good, but like the, the movie is like other level and then like the, the sequel is like, you know, other level. Right. But like, you know, it, it’s rare that you have things that transcend the source material and like, it definitely did. [01:12:39] Christina: So, um, [01:12:40] Jeff: My godson is a kid in the next season of Fallout [01:12:44] Christina: oh, that’s awesome. [01:12:45] Jeff: it’s just, he’s in some scenes here and there, but he got to be in one scene that was just him and an actor that is not yet, uh, known to be in this season, and he didn’t know who it was gonna be, but the actor takes off his helmet and reveals himself in this scene. [01:12:59] Jeff: And, and I just [01:13:00] say it, it was like, holy fuck. Yeah. It was amazing. [01:13:03] Christina: That’s so [01:13:04] Jeff: He showed me all these scenes of getting his makeup set up and like all this amazing stuff. It was so cool. He is just like, uh, he’s about 10, you know? He is like a little [01:13:12] Christina: Nice. Well that’s, that’s fantastic for him. [01:13:15] Jeff: Shit, Danny Glamour. Did I get the age of my godson wrong? [01:13:18] Jeff: It’s Danny Glamour’s son. I, I take it, I [01:13:21] Brett: Friend of the show, Danny Gl, we haven’t heard from for [01:13:25] Jeff: He is gonna be in my house. He listens to every episode. He, he like basically live tweets, but on messaging to me when he is [01:13:32] Christina: Nice. Nice. I love that. Um, uh, the other of, and I just will mention it real quickly. Neither of you have seen it, but I will recommend it, um, that the pit just ended its first season. [01:13:45] Jeff: Looks good. [01:13:45] Christina: It’s really good. So a lot of people have made comparisons to er, which is completely fair because it is from, it stars, no. [01:13:52] Christina: Wiley as an ER doctor. Um, and, and, and, um, and, but this time they’re not in Chicago. They’re in, they’re in Pittsburgh. Um, hence like the [01:14:00] name is kind of a double entendre. ’cause like, they, they call the pit, like where like the, the ER is, and then it’s with two T’s because Pittsburgh, um, and the, the, uh, executive producer is John Wells, who was. [01:14:11] Christina: One of the main people behind ER and also the West Wing and the creator was a long time writer on er. Um, but the shows other than both being in emergency rooms, like they’re different, right? Like there are obviously it’s 30 years, you know, after er, so a lot has changed in emergency medicine and stuff, but it’s, it’s a really good show. [01:14:31] Christina: And the concert I think is really clever. And this is how they were able to, to have it to be a relatively low budget, like probably four and a half million an episode or so, which in these days is fairly low budget, is that they basically do an hour from each shift. So like, it starts at like 8:00 PM and then like, uh, or like 7:00 AM or something, and then like ends like. [01:14:54] Christina: Like midnight or whatever. So it’s like 15 hours of, [01:15:00] um, a whole shift in the er. So [01:15:02] Jeff: Oh, [01:15:02] Christina: what, so what’s cool about that is that you see like some of the same patients, like from episode to episode, because that’s one of the underlying things is that, that are 40 million, you know, people that health insurance and who use the ER as their primary doctor. [01:15:17] Christina: And so you have people who are like waiting all day and then you have like big, you know, events happen and like other stuff and like, you know, doctors kind of come in and off shifts, although most of them are throughout the whole time. It’s, it’s really good. It’s really well done. The acting is incredible. [01:15:30] Christina: Like the acting is so good and the writing is really good. And, um, and it’s already been renewed for a second season. They’ve already committed. They’re like, we’re going to. Um, do this once a year. It’s kind of like traditional tv. So like they’re already starting to write the next season and it’s gonna be back in January and like that. [01:15:48] Christina: I also appreciate, ’cause a, it’s like 15 episodes is almost like a network TV length series, right? Like it’s certainly better than what you, what we get in streaming for the most part and b, for them to be [01:16:00] like, no, this can be something you can count on, you know, to come back every year versus having to wait like however many years it’s been since the last of us, or, or whatever, you know? [01:16:09] Jeff: yeah. That’s all I should probably get to that. By the way, my godson is 13, I mean 12, sorry. 12. 12. But, but was a rockstar long before [01:16:18] Brett: Did you just text? [01:16:19] Jeff: fallout. Yes, I did. Yeah. [01:16:21] Christina: well, you know what, in fairness, in fairness to you, like if he’s 12, he’s probably pa, he’s probably playing 10. [01:16:26] Jeff: Hmm. Yeah, that’s right. That’s what I meant. [01:16:29] Brett: Yeah. Yeah, [01:16:30] Jeff: I was like, these are Hollywood rules. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Hollywood rules. Uh, last TV recommendation. Well, one, my wife and I are watching Season Two of Bad Sisters, which is just an awesome [01:16:41] Brett: That’s so good. [01:16:42] Jeff: So good. But we also are just finishing up. We got it took us forever to get to it, but season three of Sex Lives of College Girls, which by the way, when it’s up when my kids pass, I feel a little whatever, but, but I love, it’s a, Mindy Kaling is behind that show, but I love how afterschool special that show [01:16:58] Christina: Oh, totally. Totally. [01:16:59] Jeff: [01:17:00] so awesome. [01:17:01] Christina: No, totally. Although I will say like, after Renee rap left, like I knew it wasn’t getting renewed. I was like, your star is, I was like, your star is gone. Like, [01:17:09] Jeff: her so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, it’s a fun, [01:17:13] Christina: It’s a fun [01:17:14] Jeff: It’s stupid as [01:17:15] Christina: So dumb. But it’s, I [01:17:16] Jeff: it’s, but that’s what makes it like an afterschool special, but with sex, like it’s so awesome. Anyway. Also, Timothy Chala Me’s sister is, could not be more, more different than Timothy Chalamet and is fucking amazing. [01:17:31] Jeff: Better than Bob Dylan. [01:17:33] Brett: We’re an hour and 15 in, do you guys still wanna do a [01:17:37] Jeff: Yeah, [01:17:38] Christina: Yeah, [01:17:38] Jeff: got time. [01:17:40] Brett: All right, [01:17:41] Jeff: We’re just hanging out, having a conversation. Brett, having a, we’re just having a regular non diagnose. Uh [01:17:48] Christina: a conversational [01:17:49] Brett: Yeah. grAPPtitude [01:17:50] Brett: Alright, I will kick off. Um, uh, gratitude Mine is a well-known app among, I think our listeners and [01:18:00] you guys, uh, carabiner. Um, it is a, an app that at as close to system level as you can get, um, on Mac Os, will, uh, change the way your keys behave. And I have for a long time only use carabiner to create my hyper key, which is when you hold down caps lock and it functions as shift control, alt or option and command all as one key. [01:18:34] Brett: And I’ve done a lot of stuff with that. What I recently got into, like going a little crazy with it and my favorite current keyboard assignment is I can hold down, um, [01:18:50] Jeff: we fucking go [01:18:51] Brett: my, I can hold down semicolon with my right pinky, which is right where it is on the home row. [01:18:58] Jeff: while doing a [01:19:00] Kegel. [01:19:01] Brett: Then HIJK become, I’m sorry, H-I-J-I-K-L-I tried it with HJKL for a while, so I’m confused. [01:19:11] Brett: But, but JIKL become arrow keys for me. So I just hold my pinky down and then use my three remaining fingers to move my cursor around. And with carabiner, that still functions with like command and options. So I can do or, and shift, so I can do selections and everything with, uh, with just my right hand, never leaving the home. [01:19:39] Brett: So CERs my pick. [01:19:42] Jeff: I’d like to, I’d like to claim, claim a little bit of my time back. Uh, I don’t know. Is that what they [01:19:48] Christina: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I’d like, I’d like to, I’d like to reclaim my time. [01:19:50] Jeff: I’d like to, I’d like to give a joke I made there a little more space, um, and contextualize it, which is that for anybody that doesn’t already know, and I’m sure all you know, Brett has some of the [01:20:00] craziest fucking keyboard shortcuts ever and can somehow remember them despite claiming or, or not being able to remember last week. [01:20:08] Jeff: He and I just suggested that one element of your, um, your keyboard shortcut is that you have to be doing kegels while you, while you press these buttons. And I wanna point out that men should also do cables. I, I is what I understand, which [01:20:21] Brett: Exercising the PC muscle can give you way stronger orgasms. [01:20:25] Jeff: oh, thank you sponsor. That was not even why I was told it was good. It’s an, it’s incontinence as you get older, that is actually the thing. But, um. Anyway, just wanted to throw that out, get that joke back in there, make a little space for it [01:20:38] Brett: Well done. [01:20:39] Jeff: yeah. Brett, I’m sure most of the listeners have Overtired know about carabiner because of you as of like 13, 14 years ago. [01:20:46] Brett: Yeah, [01:20:46] Jeff: ’cause you have been pitching that one hard for so long. You’re the reason I had a hyper key, [01:20:50] Brett: Back so, so it’s currently carabiner elements, but. Like back when I started using it 13, 14 years ago, it was carabiner. [01:21:00] Um, so carabiner elements is actually my pick for the week, but I’m done [01:21:07] Christina: Nice. [01:21:08] Jeff: All right, Christina. [01:21:09] Christina: So mine and I, okay, I feel bad saying this because, um. Regular people can’t use it right now, although they are starting to issue out invites, which is how I got it. But No, but, but, but I mentioned it just because I, I think they’re gonna start rolling it out more. Um, uh, actively. So Arc, the browser company, uh, the company behind arc, they have a, a new AI focused browser that they are calling Dia DIA and it is WebKit based. [01:21:37] Christina: Um, which is interesting. Um, rather than, I’m not really sure why WebKit ’cause I don’t really think that there is an advantage to WebKit at all. Um Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, I mean, if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna use it, I would just use Blink. Like if you’re gonna use, like, in my opinion, I, I don’t, there’s not, there’s conclusively not an [01:22:00] improvement in battery life in WebKit versus Chromium. [01:22:02] Christina: There’s. Way less of an extension stuff, whatever, regardless. Um, I mean, I don’t have a problem with WebKit, I just don’t necessarily see the point, but, but this is, but it’s still an interesting browser, um, that basically is like AI centric. So like you kind of have like, um, uh, an always open kind of like, uh, window view where you can, you know, ask stuff with like chat GBT or other AI assistance and whatnot, and, and then also ask it about different things that you’re doing and researching. [01:22:30] Christina: And so it, it’s a cool idea. Uh, dia browser.com is, is where they have, uh, information about it. Um, I’ll see if I can get, uh, an invite for, for YouTube, but it’s, um, it’s, uh, it’s, there are a lot of really interesting, um, we’ve talked about this a lot over the last couple of years, like people taking on different rifts of, of the, the web browser. [01:22:50] Christina: And, um, I, I am a little bit. Concerned about what this means for arc. I have a feeling that it means that ARC is essentially [01:23:00] just in maintenance mode. I’ve been getting that impression too, which, which sucks because I really like arc, um, a lot. [01:23:06] Jeff: cool. Very [01:23:07] Christina: But, um, maybe, I think, I think that Dia they’re trying to basically be a little bit more broad because the only problem with ARC is that once you really get into it, like I think it’s awesome, but the learning curve and like the time that you have to spend with it is significant. [01:23:21] Christina: Like for me, even I will say that like I had to spend a lot of time with Arc to really have it click for me. And I don’t think that most people are willing to go through that time and I don’t blame them. Um, DIA just in the little bit of time I’ve, I’ve been using it I guess since like Monday, um, on my personal devices and it’s, it’s pretty cool. [01:23:37] Christina: It is Apple silicon only right now. I hope that they will bring it to um, uh, uh, you know, Intel Max. ’cause there are still lots of them out there. Um, and I would like to use it on my iMac, but, um, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s kind of a cool concept and there’s some really neat ideas and stuff that they’re doing. So Zoia is my pick. [01:23:54] Jeff: Awesome. Awesome. My, I, because I’m not a [01:24:00] Linux guy, this Linux pick I’m about to make, I will not go on and on about. Um, but I have, so I moved into an operations director role at my organization and we’re like member owned, cooperative with like seven member owners and just one employee who’s not a member. [01:24:16] Jeff: So it’s a small group, but, um, but like we’ve just never, in the history of kind of leadership in the organization, there’s never been a point where like there’s a lot of thought about security or, or how we might be at risk or how our use of, or, you know, the company’s email might or something goes wrong, how that could impact us, you know, various things. [01:24:38] Jeff: I’ve played with Kelly Linux, which is where I’m getting with this for over the years, like many times, um, just ’cause I find the toolbox insane. And for anybody that doesn’t know, it’s like it’s a distro of, of, of Linux that is just preloaded with every like, you know, quote unquote ethical and not ethical hacker tool. [01:24:55] Jeff: You can imagine. I mean, it’s definitely like you, it’s definitely like getting into a tank and [01:25:00] being like, well, this one lets me drive, but that one really fucks people up. Um, but, uh, but I’ve been doing this, I’ve been doing something that, like, I remember I went to a journalism, like a computer journalist nerd conference years ago, and there was a New York Times journalist there, and she did a, she did a whole session called Docs [01:25:18] Christina: Mm-hmm. Oh, I love that. [01:25:19] Jeff: was like, yeah, go see all the different ways you’re out there, you are exposed, whatever it is. And so I mostly do what they call, you know, like open source intelligence, uh, is what I’m playing with with Kelly Linux, where it’s just like simple things that there have been services for. [01:25:35] Jeff: Like type in a username and see. Um, you know, how many accounts exist out there. And honestly, I really recommend people doing that for themselves. ’cause it’s like, if you’re our age and you’ve been on the internet this long, you’re like, oh, fuck that one too. And then there’s a whole, like the, the CLI for have I been pod uh, is amazing. [01:25:53] Jeff: And you can use all the functions on the website, but you can use, I can like write a script with all of our members on it [01:26:00] and check it and you can of course check passwords, all that stuff. Um, and so I’ve basically been working on like learning all the various tools for open source intelligence and then writing a script that just checks every once in a while for all of our members and, and my family members and some friends. [01:26:15] Jeff: Uh, and then allows me to sort of like send them information so it can be like, Hey, just so you know, this is where you exist, this is whatever. Um, and it’s great. It’s a step up from what I did a long time ago, which was part of actually the Docs Yourself thing, which is I set up a. A Google, uh, alert for pretty much everybody in my family, every colleague, every whatever else, so that if someone shows up on the internet in a way that they didn’t mean to you, see it right away. [01:26:39] Jeff: But anyway, I, I love, I mean, I’m not a Linux guy at all, like, uh, but I really love, um, getting into an immersive world like that. And Cali Linux is just like, if you’re interested in a little bit, definitely takes some, like having a tutorial by your side. But like, it’s pretty, it’s pretty enlightening and amazing to just dip in [01:27:00] even just the open source intelligence tools and, and get a sense of what you can know about yourself online. [01:27:05] Jeff: But what can be known about you? It’s pretty powerful and like humbling. [01:27:10] Christina: No, I totally agree. I totally agree. And I, I think Cali is an awesome distribution. Um, it’s one of those that you can, like, if you wanna try it out, like you can run it in a BM or you can put it on a USB thumb drive and like [01:27:19] Jeff: I have mine on a raspberry pie and [01:27:21] Christina: I was gonna say, [01:27:22] Jeff: scale. [01:27:23] Christina: I was gonna say, I was gonna say, um, raspberry pie is great for another thing I would say. [01:27:27] Christina: Um, and I don’t have any, you know, listeners, this will apply to, uh, ’cause we know our listenership, but if you, because it, it can be so useful for the scenarios that you described, Jeff. I often use it, um, within, um, WSL, the Windows subsystem for Linux because they actually have a version that they’ve, uh, you know, uh, like a distro so to speak, that you can install for WSL. [01:27:48] Christina: They’ve even, like, we’re one of the first ones to become part of like the modern WSL infra. And so they even have like a whole way where you can even launch like the gooey apps from within Windows. So if you want, but one, and what’s nice about [01:28:00] that, and, and I I think especially think about like cis admin types or people who might be doing these things, is that like, okay, you have a Windows machine, you run, run, run some of these tools. [01:28:08] Christina: You can also have it integrate with some of like maybe your, your Windows files and other stuff to pipe through without having to do like the normal, you know, VM type of thing or, or, or, or SSH thing. So, um. So, yeah, just throwing that out there. ’cause um, I, I used to sometimes communicate with that team, um, when I would talk with the WSL folks and, and Callie was always like, in my opinion, like one of like the best, like WSL Distros, um, uh, like more, you know, specific ones other than like, you know, like the, a bunch who were fedora or, or whatever. [01:28:39] Christina: So. [01:28:40] Jeff: Yeah, well it’s great too because most of the tools, what’s nice is the whole menu’s there. It’s like going to a Denny’s, but you can go have a hamburger at home, like you can go onto your Mac and get into home brew and, and install most of these tools. But like it’s a nice place to just be immersed in it and be like, what’s this do? [01:28:55] Jeff: What’s this [01:28:56] Christina: well, that’s the thing. That’s, that’s why I think it’s so great to have it, like on a raspberry pie or on a thumb drive [01:29:00] or like a WSL like instance because yeah, to your point, you can have this installed basically in any Linux TRO or on Mac os. Um, but like, you don’t have to worry about that. [01:29:10] Christina: It’s all one place and, uh, and, and it, and that makes it really cool. [01:29:14] Jeff: Yeah. Awesome. [01:29:17] Brett: All right, well it’s two o’clock here and I haven’t had lunch and I have to pee so bad, so it has been so good talking to you guys. Thank you. But I think we should call it [01:29:29] Jeff: Get some pee. [01:29:30] Brett: get some, get some pee. I. [01:29:31] Christina: Get some pee.

Hosts Brett Terpstra, Christina Warren, and Jeff Severns Guntzel welcome special guest Corey O’Brien, author of ‘Two Truths and a Lie,’ who shares his existential journey of writing and promoting his first novel, a rich “noir cyberpunk” entry. From the gritty soul of cyberpunk to the calming practice of metal welding, this episode is a rollercoaster of conversations, insights, and creative tools. Overtired style. 00:00 Introduction and Special Guest Announcement 00:54 Corey O’Brien’s Background and Career 02:43 Transition to Fictional Writing 05:44 Mental Health Corner 06:23 Brett’s Job Update 09:20 Jeff’s Workshop and Squirrel Saga 13:53 Christina’s New Job Experience 18:17 Corey’s Mental Health and Medication 28:33 Promoting the Novel 33:40 Inspiration and World-Building 46:20 The Evolution of Cyberspace 48:29 Economics of Memory 52:44 Queer Love Story in Fiction 58:49 Writing Dialogue Trees for Video Games 01:03:06 Tools for Writing and Productivity 01:26:08 The Importance of Business Cards 01:31:13 Closing Remarks and Recommendations Show Links Two Truths and a Lie Myths Retold Redfall Squirrel Obstacle Course The Through – A Raphael Johnson Devil in a blue dress Mona Lisa Overdrive The Peripheral Snow Crash Farewell my Lovely Inkle Twine Obsidian OEI Tools Scrivener Soulver Sendy Cork PowerToys on Windows NotebookLM Blinq Join the Conversation Come chat on Discord! Twitter/ovrtrd Instagram/ovrtrd Youtube Get the Newsletter Thanks! You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network 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 Two Truths and a Lie With Cory O’Brien Introduction and Special Guest Announcement [00:00:00] Brett: Hello, welcome to a very special Overtired. I am Brett Terpstra. I am here with Christina Warren and Jeff Severns Guntzel. And this week we have the Long Promise special guest Corey O’Brien, author of Two Truths and a Lie. How’s it going, Corey? [00:00:21] Cory: It’s going great. Happy to be here. [00:00:23] Jeff: Hi, Corey. We’re saying hello. [00:00:30] Brett: Um, yeah, so we’re, we’re definitely gonna talk about the book. I have filled Corey in on kind of our usual format, and he’s down for, for playing along with what we usually do. So, um, I, I feel a little weird jumping right into Mental Health Corner. I want a little bit more robust of an intro. Corey O’Brien’s Background and Career [00:00:54] Brett: So, Corey, tell us a little about you. [00:00:58] Cory: Uh, sure. [00:01:00] It’s a, it’s a, it’s a big question. [00:01:02] Brett: It is. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. That was so vague. [00:01:05] Jeff: Tell me who you are. [00:01:06] Cory: all right. Uh, I am a writer game designer man about town. I, [00:01:15] Jeff: that’s you. I saw. [00:01:16] Cory: yeah, yeah. I’m all over the place. You see a guy that’s me [00:01:20] Jeff: That’s you. [00:01:20] Cory: watching you, counting your teeth. Uh, I, I, uh, I, I used to write a website called, uh, mire Told where I would tell mythology like it was 3:00 AM and I was drunk in a chat room. [00:01:34] Cory: And I did that. I did that for many years, parlayed it into a small level of notoriety that somehow got my publisher to pitch me to everyone as the beloved internet humorist, which I still, I still find kind of embarrassing. But, uh, then, then over time, like what I’ve always wanted to do is write books. Uh, and so over time sort of parly the notoriety from the blog into.[00:02:00] [00:02:00] Cory: A career writing for video games. Uh, I’ve written for, uh, the comedy dating sim called Monster Prom. And then, uh, my favorite game that I, that I worked on is Hollow Vista, but you can only play it if you have an iPhone, unfortunately, which I don’t, I haven’t even played it in its native environment. I’ve played it, I’ve played it in like a browser version, but, uh, and then, uh, and now I work for like, um, for like fancy 3D games, writing dialogue, trees and stuff. [00:02:29] Cory: But, uh, my, my number one passion is writing books and I’m very excited that I finally have this novel out. And so that’s, that, that, that brings me to this present moment. [00:02:41] Christina: Um, so. Transition to Fictional Writing [00:02:43] Christina: How, how, um, I guess what was your process, I guess, moving from, uh, have you been like, I guess like writing short stories, like your whole life, uh, you know, I know you’ve done the, the, uh, the, the humor thing and, and you’ve worked, um, you know, um, game stuff. But what was, I guess, your process of transitioning to, um, [00:03:00] uh, fair, um, fictional, like narrative writing. [00:03:04] Cory: I, I have been writing stories for as long as like, I knew that was a thing you could do, and I, I used to write a number of short stories. I, like, I went to graduate school for creative writing. I wrote a lot of short stories then yeah, I left that part [00:03:19] Brett: Yeah, that’s an important piece. [00:03:21] Christina: I was gonna say that helps, [00:03:22] Cory: But I, I, I don’t think, I don’t think that graduate school, like graduate school certainly gave me a lot of opportunity to practice writing, but I don’t think, I don’t think it turned me into a writer. [00:03:32] Cory: I [00:03:32] Christina: No, you already were, but, but, but, but it, but yeah. But I think the opportunity to practice is, is probably helpful. [00:03:37] Cory: yeah. And also meeting people and being in an environment where that’s encouraged. I really think of graduate school as like paying an enormous amount of money to larp that you have the job that you wanted to have for, for like two years, which is, I, I had, I had the luxury of being able to do that. Um, but I, what I have always specifically wanted to do is write long form narrative. [00:03:59] Cory: I [00:04:00] wanted to write novels. I, I don’t, I don’t know exactly what it is. I think my best explanation for why is that the stories that have affected me the most that have given me like a real physical, visceral reaction have been books because they can set something up over a long period and then like bring it all together at once in this rush. [00:04:22] Cory: And, uh, so that’s, that’s always been really exciting to me. And so that’s always been what I wanted to do and I’ve just basically spent many years working myself up to that. ’cause writing books is hard. [00:04:34] Jeff: Writing books is like existential. I, I’ve never written a book and everyone I know that has, it’s like a, it’s a journey. It’s a, it’s a dark journey sometimes. A lovely journey. Is that true for you? [00:04:45] Cory: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I, I, I’m sure that there are some people, I mean, I know that there are some people for whom books are just like, they just, they just write ’em, they just [00:04:55] Brett: Jeremy Robinson. Jeremy Robinson puts out a book like every two months [00:05:00] in their, their bangers, and I don’t know how anyone does that. [00:05:03] Cory: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I, I have sort of come to grips with the fact that that is not my temperament. Like, I do like writing. I do like, eventually I do like the stuff that I write when I have enough distance from it. But it is a process, especially because I’m already always doing so many things. Uh, you know, maybe if I was locked in a room like they did with Douglas Adams later in his career, I could just like write a book real fast. [00:05:30] Cory: Generally write the first draft really fast and then like. Go insane. Trying to, trying to write the, the, the future drafts and really tear myself [00:05:41] Jeff: oh my God, I have so many process questions. I’m [00:05:43] Jeff: gonna Mental Health Corner [00:05:44] Brett: well, let’s make, let’s make this our mental health corner. Let’s make it all about Corey. [00:05:48] Cory: Yeah. [00:05:50] Brett: And, and I would be curious to know what your mental health was like while writing this last book and what it’s like now that it is officially [00:06:00] released. [00:06:00] Cory: Woo. That’s a good question. I don’t wanna be the only person doing a mental health check-in though. [00:06:06] Christina: Oh, no, no, no, no. We’ll all, no, no, no, no, no. We’ll, we’ll all go. We’ll, we’ll go. [00:06:10] Brett: Do you wanna go first or last then? [00:06:12] Cory: Well, I’m, I’m in your house, so I’ll, I’ll, I’ll do whatever the done thing is. [00:06:18] Brett: Okay, I’ll go first. I’ll kick it off. Uh, I’ll keep mine short. Brett’s Job Update [00:06:23] Brett: Um, my job, we talked last week at length about how messed up my job situation was. Um, I went to therapy for it and my therapist was very helpful in helping me see that my manager that I have so many conflicts with also had some IFS type parts coming up. [00:06:46] Brett: Um, and we were able to kind of hit like a working flow, but at the same time, and don’t tell my manager this, this is private, [00:06:57] Jeff: I think you’re telling your manager this. [00:06:59] Brett: I. [00:07:00] I reached out to a pre, like one of the first managers I ever had who had gotten moved off. There was a whole, like the first major shakeup was when she got moved off to another team. [00:07:11] Brett: Um, and I talked to her and I said, Hey, here’s what I’m doing these days. You know, any other teams that might be able to use that skillset? And she’s like, well, I could. Um, and her headcount is frozen right now, but she thinks she might be able to make an exception. So problem might be solved just by going to a work for a manager I already respect and I already get along with. [00:07:37] Brett: And that, that alone, just knowing that’s a possibility, has made it easier for me to deal with the present, um, and to not be in a constant state of panic and frustration. So, yeah. Uh, think things are better. This week I. [00:07:53] Christina: Good. [00:07:54] Jeff: awesome. What a good thing to hear. [00:07:59] Christina: sure.[00:08:00] [00:08:01] Jeff: Who’s got the birds? It’s such a nice sound. [00:08:03] Brett: thought that was you. [00:08:04] Jeff: No. Fuck no, man. We got nothing [00:08:06] Brett: I think, I think that must be Corey then [00:08:08] Cory: Yes, [00:08:09] Jeff: Thanks for bringing the birds, Corey, [00:08:11] Cory: Yeah, no worries. [00:08:12] Jeff: tropical, uh, Chicago [00:08:14] Brett: Well, and he is got the tropical shirt on too, so it’s just kind of a, [00:08:18] Jeff: it the shirt? Is it the shirt I’m hearing? [00:08:20] Cory: It is, it’s the shirt. The weather here has been wildly unpredictable. This is the time of year where you really can’t predict what the weather is gonna be from moment to moment. And [00:08:30] Brett: was almost 80 here yesterday and tonight it’s gonna snow. [00:08:35] Cory: yeah, yeah. That happened a couple weeks ago here, 80 into snowing. And so you see a lot of people around here, uh, when it’s 80 degrees wearing a sweatshirt. ’cause they’re like, don’t trust [00:08:44] Christina: don’t know. No, [00:08:46] Brett: It’s still March. [00:08:48] Christina: that’s still marsh. No, I mean, and that’s the worst because, uh, at least for me anyway, like my, my sinuses, my, like my allergies really go badly when there’s, uh, sudden weather changes. So if it goes from like really cold to really hot or like, [00:09:00] and the barometric pressure changes, like my migraines go crazy, my sinuses go [00:09:04] Brett: my, my pots and my dizziness get way worse with the barometric changes. Like today, with the barometer shifting the way it is, I’m like, I’m, it’s like I’m drunk walking around the house. I’m tipsy everywhere. But anyway. Jeff, Jeff, why don’t you go. Jeff’s Workshop and Squirrel Saga [00:09:20] Jeff: Uh, I’m, you know, this happens every year, uh, when it’s this time, but yesterday when it was 75, the rest of the week is forties. But, um. I officially opened up my workshop and, uh, and it’s all completely ready for projects. Um, Corey, I have a workshop where I rebuild very old machinery and I do some welding and, and woodwork and just general fuckery. [00:09:44] Jeff: Um, and, and it’s like my favorite thing in the world. It’s my favorite place to be. Um, and I feel most landed in that place. And, and in a time like this, especially being able to kind of open that up and just be sitting in there, it’s the best. And I get to, um, return to a [00:10:00] project I started in the fall, which is rebuilding this a hundred year old, um, lathe for doing metal working. [00:10:05] Jeff: It’s about two tons. Um, and, and it’s, you know, I, I, I cleared out grease, uh, from the Harding administration when I was cleaning it, and now I’m, I’m at the kind of rebuilding point and it’s awesome. And so I bring that, I, I bring that here. I mean, of all the other things, whether it’s medications, therapy, just generally taking care of myself, having a place like that where I feel. [00:10:28] Jeff: That landed, um, is such a huge, huge thing. The problem, which I won’t go into now, but maybe future episodes, is I’m in a prote protracted war with a squirrel that insists on living in my garage. And, um, and I’ve been taking a lot of video. My wife is constantly catches me outside arguing with the squirrel. [00:10:46] Jeff: Um, and it has become a defining, uh, part of my life over the last, uh, I think week and a half as of yesterday, it chewed through a fucking window frame to get back in. Uh, I respect this squirrel. Um, and it’s maybe giving me a, [00:11:00] this is mental health. It’s, it might be giving me a lesson in resilience, um, and durability, uh, in a hard time. [00:11:05] Jeff: So that’s my, there’s my check-in. [00:11:07] Brett: Have you seen the, he’s an engineer. He’s super charismatic. I can’t remember his name. He made the glitter [00:11:13] Cory: Oh, like Mark Rober is, are you, is that [00:11:15] Christina: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. [00:11:16] Cory: Who [00:11:16] Brett: Didn’t he? Was he the one who Yeah. The squirrel obstacle [00:11:20] Jeff: So good, so Yeah. Okay. I’ll, I’ll link that in the show notes for anyone who hasn’t seen it. [00:11:25] Brett: It is very entertaining. [00:11:29] Jeff: That’s awesome yeah, I, I am sorry that you’re having like, uh, uh, you know, the, this, it seems like the squirrel is winning your, your, your battle. I, I, I am sorry for that. [00:11:37] Jeff: so far. But the situation is fluid. [00:11:41] Cory: I just think it’s, I just think it’s sick that you have a workshop. That’s something that I aspire to for sure. Like [00:11:46] Jeff: It’s uh, [00:11:47] Cory: want that. [00:11:48] Jeff: it’s a lovely place to be. [00:11:50] Brett: I don’t, I don’t have a place for one. Or I would start, like, as I’m able to afford machinery, I would start building a workshop. I would [00:12:00] love to get into woodworking. Uh, I would love to get into metal working. Like I’m super [00:12:05] Jeff: Come up here, I’ll teach you how to weld. [00:12:08] Brett: I know how to weld. I know how to lathe. [00:12:10] Jeff: yeah. You welded in school, didn’t you? [00:12:12] Brett: yeah. Like I know how to do most of that stuff. [00:12:15] Brett: My, I’m a little rusty, [00:12:17] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. [00:12:17] Brett: it. I just don’t have any access to the tools. Yep. Got it, got [00:12:22] Cory: teach me how to weld. I don’t know how [00:12:24] Jeff: Come on over. You’re seven hours away by what kind, what kinda welding do you like Jeff? [00:12:29] Jeff: Oh, I do. What is, what is known as the hot glue gun of welding, which is MIG welding. Uh, I would love to learn tig, but, um, I, I don’t have, yeah, it’s not, not my time. [00:12:40] Brett: I, uh, I find a settling torch welding to be very meditative. [00:12:46] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. [00:12:47] Brett: and if you’ve never done it on heroin, let me tell you that is, [00:12:51] Jeff: I know. I haven’t tried that yet, [00:12:53] Brett: the most relaxed you’ll ever be. [00:12:56] Jeff: um, [00:12:56] Christina: Okay. I, I’m, I’m just gonna throw this out there for, for any of our, our past or future [00:13:00] advertisers, um, do not do heroin and, uh, and, and, and weld. Like, we’re not recommending that. [00:13:07] Brett: Eh, eh, [00:13:08] Jeff: but that’s like, I disagree. [00:13:10] Brett: I have, I have mult. I am, I have multiple art pieces around my house that, that beg to differ. [00:13:16] Jeff: I think when I think when one has an addiction, everything you do, you do with the addiction alongside, [00:13:21] Christina: I’m, I’m just, I’m, I’m just saying, I’m just saying. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t like this. [00:13:26] Jeff: this is the do not try at home. Warning [00:13:28] Brett: if it wasn’t obvious, I, uh, I have a history of drug addiction. [00:13:33] Cory: Okay. Yeah, I was, I was picking that up. [00:13:36] Jeff: that up, [00:13:37] Brett: You’re tracking with that. [00:13:38] Brett: All right, those writers, those writers don’t miss a thing. [00:13:43] Brett: so Christina, how are you? [00:13:45] Christina: I am doing pretty well. Um, I don’t have a huge update, I guess. Um, and I, and I don’t wanna talk, I don’t wanna get into the, the, the specifics, um, of, of, of anything. Christina’s New Job Experience [00:13:53] Christina: But, you know, I started a new job and, um, and it’s been going pretty well, but it has been a transition and it’s been, um, [00:14:00] it’s been a little bit difficult because. [00:14:02] Christina: My team is all located in other places, and so I feel sort of isolated from, you know, people because I, I have meetings and stuff and I get to, you know, meet people like over a video call, but I haven’t met anyone in person yet, um, except for a, a few of the folks that I worked with before, but I don’t work with them day in and day out, um, in the new job. [00:14:21] Christina: And so, um, but I had a, I had a nice meeting with my, with my manager this week. Um, I’m feeling, um, a little bit better about, about things. Um, but it’s just been sort of a process and so that’s just been kinda my general mental health for the last probably six weeks or so, is just like a lot of changes, a lot of adjustments, a lot of trying to figure out new systems, new ways of working, as well as new expectations and all of that. [00:14:45] Christina: Um, and then doing it in, uh, an environment where, you know, you aren’t, like physically with people, um, is, um, it’s challenging, but I mean, it’s not insurmountable or anything, but it’s, it’s, uh. It’s [00:15:00] different than the way I’ve, than the experiences I’ve had before. Like I’ve worked, you know, um, more remotely from my, uh, other team members, uh, frequently, but usually there were either more opportunities to get to know people like in a, uh, you know, non-work or even work context, or you at least had like one person that you knew like in real life, so you could, you know, kind of use that as a way to kind of, you know, bridge stuff. [00:15:26] Christina: Uh, this has been, uh, a little bit different. And so that’s, that’s been the thing that I’ve kind of been, uh, struggling with because, uh, and, and I, I have even greater empathy for people who like started new jobs in 2020 when everybody was, was completely, you know, isolated and, and remote because, I don’t know, uh. [00:15:44] Christina: I, I don’t think I would’ve been able to survive that if, especially if I wouldn’t have been able to go outside. Like, I don’t think that, that I would’ve been okay with that at all. But, uh, but no, but things are, things are improving and I, I like my manager a lot and I’m, you know, hopeful about kind of like where things are going is just a, a lot of [00:16:00] trying to sort out, okay, what are the things that I need to do? [00:16:03] Christina: What are the things I want to do? How do all these systems work? How can I influence getting to know and get to meet the right people? Because it is just a completely different, uh, world that I’m in from, you know, what I was used to before, which I, I, I knew the systems and the people really well, so it’s just been an adjustment. [00:16:22] Brett: Can I ask a personal question? Um, and tell me if I dig too deep. Um, ’cause this, this question could be a trigger for me. Um, but so when I’m in situations where I’m dealing with so many unknowns in like my professional life, in my personal life, I become very, uh, we’ll say inaccessible. Like I just don’t have room to be a good partner. [00:16:48] Brett: Um, and I end up leaning on my partner very heavily to like, help me regulate all the stress. How, how are you doing with all of these unknowns, [00:17:00] with all of this? Like, I, I mean, it’s stressful whether it’s like a rough situation or not. It’s stressful figuring all this out. How, how are you doing at home? [00:17:11] Christina: Um, I’m okay. I mean, I think that it, that things could, could be better, but I think things are okay. I think that I’m probably similar to you and that I just don’t have as much space to be able to give to other things. And so, uh, even not at home, just like my other relationships, frankly, have kind of fallen off a little bit. [00:17:28] Christina: Like some of them, you know, my more like surface like friendships, like, you know, the group chats are pinging like a thousand times a day, and that’s really helpful. But like anything more substantive, I don’t really have. Space for that at the moment. So, yeah, I mean, I think [00:17:42] Brett: Is your, is your partner forgiving about that? [00:17:44] Christina: Yeah, I think so. [00:17:45] Christina: I mean, I, but I, there’s also not really a, a, um, a choice in the matter, if that makes any [00:17:52] Brett: Sure, sure. That doesn’t, yeah, that doesn’t always mean it’s easy, but yeah. Okay. Thank you. Um, [00:18:00] all right, Corey, you’re, you are no longer the only one to go. [00:18:04] Cory: All right. Hell yeah. Thank you. Thank you for showing me the way. [00:18:08] Jeff: Oh yes, yes. Come along further. Now let us go to this room. [00:18:16] Cory: Uh, yeah. Corey’s Mental Health and Medication [00:18:17] Cory: So this month has been a maelstrom of events and responsibilities and travel, um, and the highest emotional highs and the lowest lows. I, um, I take, I take medication for bipolar. I, I I, I [00:18:43] Cory: feel to the club. [00:18:44] Cory: I, I feel weird about saying specific brand names because I feel like I’m advertising. But I will say that I took, I took antidepressants, various antidepressants for a long time, and none of them really felt like they were doing anything. [00:18:59] Cory: And, [00:19:00] uh, that taking just like a relatively low dose of a, of a, of a bipolar medication completely changed the game for me. Like I. I, I used to struggle a lot with suicidal ideation and just like, you know, the, the smallest things would send me into a pit of despair. Uh, and I’m doing a lot better with that. [00:19:20] Cory: The, uh, the problem is I’m very dependent on that medication, and so if I forget to take it for a day, like there will come apart, there will come a time in the next day where I will just completely crater and not know why for several hours and then be like, oh, oh, I see that, that happened to me a couple of days ago. [00:19:43] Cory: And it, it coincided with me trying to like, work on my next creative project and like ending up lying on the floor, being like, why am I even doing this? This is so fucked. I, like, I, why did I even try and do this in the first place? It’s broken, it’s gonna take me seven more years. And, [00:20:00] uh, and then, and then like, it wasn’t until like I had to go do something else, I had to go pick up my little brother. [00:20:05] Cory: Uh, and I was like driving on the way there and I was like. Oh, oh, I see what’s happening. [00:20:13] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. [00:20:14] Christina: Yep. Yeah, I think we, I think we’ve all had those moments. Uh, like, uh, if, if you’re on something, especially if it has like a shorter half-life where you start to feel either the withdrawal effects or like the lack of the medicine working one or the other, and you’re like, oh, okay. Um, this is what’s going on. [00:20:30] Christina: Um, it, it’s not, not not to compare the two ’cause they’re different, but it is some similar, like, there will come a time like every month where I will be like going through something emotional or, or feeling a certain way and I’ll be like, oh, right, right, right. Okay. I’m on my period. That’s what this is. [00:20:45] Jeff: Mm. [00:20:46] Jeff: Yeah. is, it, I think it is similar. I think it’s ’cause it’s a, it, it, it takes a little bit for, for, for my conscious mind, certainly to catch up to whatever the sort of chemical state of my mind is. [00:20:57] Christina: Yes. [00:20:59] Jeff: Yeah, yeah, [00:20:59] Brett: I, [00:21:00] we don’t, we don’t have to mention names, but I will because it is generic. Uh, but I take Lamotrigine for bipolar and [00:21:09] Cory: do I. [00:21:09] Brett: there you go. [00:21:10] Jeff: that’s, that’s three of four of us. [00:21:13] Brett: and, [00:21:13] Jeff: Christina, we can send you some. [00:21:15] Brett: Our guest. [00:21:16] Christina: I’m [00:21:17] Cory: No, don’t take some, because, because it true, it’s true. That part of the problem is the withdrawal. Like I, I do feel weird that I’m like [00:21:23] Cory: fully addicted to it is. Yep. That’s where I was gonna go. ’cause our, our guest last week also takes Lamotrigine. So this is basically a Lamotrigine podcast at this point. Is this the moine, uh, corner but I, I will get, if I miss my dose of Lamotrigine, I will, it’ll take about eight hours, but I will get all skin crawly and it’ll feel like, it’ll feel like withdrawal and, and I’ll get crabby and cranky and then the mood swings will, like, I won’t regulate as well. [00:21:57] Brett: Like ups become real ups and [00:22:00] downs become real downs and Yeah. Like I have gone, it, it is, I have, there have been times I have not realized I missed a dose until the next dose, [00:22:09] Christina: Right. Be because you didn’t feel it. Um, I, I was on a, an on an antidepressant, um, uh, fl lie, Effexor, I guess would be the, um, uh, professional, uh, name or, or the commercial name. And I’m not a, I’m not on this anymore, so this is not a, a advertisement, but I was on it for like, the better part of 20 years. And, uh, it has an incredibly short half-life, like to, to the point that it’s a problem. [00:22:32] Christina: Like you will, you’ll feel the withdrawal like quick and, and it is, and it is a bad withdrawal. And so I got, I had to get very good about not forgetting my meds because it would be like four hours that you would start to, like, I would start to feel like. You know, like wanting to peel my skin off and, and like the, like the bitchiness would like come out like times 10 and it would be like, oh, okay. [00:22:53] Christina: To the point that actually that medicine wasn’t working for me anymore and I needed to get off of it. And like, it was a very [00:23:00] protracted process to get off of it because the withdrawal was like not great. But, uh, so, which is all to say like, everyone, like take your meds at the right schedule. Like don’t fuck up your body [00:23:10] Brett: this is, this is, this is a frequent topic for us. Well, and I. [00:23:13] Cory: Take your meds on the right schedule and the smallest amount that you can get away with [00:23:17] Christina: 1000%. Yeah, I agree. I agree. [00:23:20] Jeff: even pulling back from specifics, I think the, one of the hard things about, like I, you know, I started, I think my first experience with medication was around 2020, like that 2020 is what we’re gonna call it. Um, and I think that like what usually leads to, in my case, what leads to me being, you know, prescribed a medication is something that I start to realize is like. [00:23:45] Jeff: Really off, but maybe can be helped rather than just being this like static thing that’s part of me. And so then you get the medication and there’s a little bit of relief if it’s working. Um, and, and I think I let my guard down a little bit and I forget to sort of be witness to myself. And, and [00:24:00] usually then when I notice something similar to what you were saying, Corey is, it’s like, and, and Brett, it’s, it’s the point at which my skin is crawling. [00:24:07] Jeff: And, and then I’m like, oh my God, how did I miss this? You know? Um, and, and I just like think that that experience, I was diagnosed with bipolar in 2021. And, um, one thing that came out of that that was just wonderful is I, I learned a lot about red flags. I learned a lot about where I could trust myself, but more importantly where I could trust that I couldn’t trust myself. [00:24:31] Jeff: Um, which was painful at first, but then became. Kind of, I don’t know. It, it’s great. It’s like any, I, I look for those opportunities now inside of these experiences to be like, okay, what have I learned about myself and, and, and how can I hold that without, uh, without, you know, this context of I’m broken, right. [00:24:48] Jeff: Just kind of like, anyway, but the specific to the ultra ultra gene, if I am, if I’m 36 hours out or less from having taken one, I am a, I am a mess. It is a [00:25:00] very, very unpleasant experience. So let us all remember. Yeah. It’s scary. It’s scary. [00:25:05] Cory: to be dependent on something like [00:25:07] Jeff: Yes. Yes, yes. Yeah. [00:25:09] Christina: we talk about that a lot too. Like, like there’s, there’s like a, like the, at least for me anyway, the, the, um, dichotomy between like knowing you need these things, uh, to function and to live. And then like, also be independent on these things where, you know, like, at least in my mind, like I, I, I have this stupid notion like, oh, I should be able to just control this myself. [00:25:30] Christina: And, and it’s like, no, but you actually can’t. Uh, that’s not how, um, the biology works. And, and that’s not how like, you know, like, like brain chemistry works. We can’t just will ourselves into these things. That’s, that’s, that’s not possible. Um, but at the same time, knowing it’s like, okay, there are these things that we put into our bodies that can have, uh, positive or negative, um, you know, impacts on how we act. [00:25:53] Christina: And that’s kind of a, that’s cool, but that’s also kind of fucked up too. You know. [00:25:58] Cory: yeah, yeah. I. [00:25:59] Brett: I am [00:26:00] demonstrating great restraint by not re by not making a heroin joke at this Oh, well, I was gonna [00:26:05] Christina: I was gonna say, I. [00:26:06] Cory: say something about heroin actually. [00:26:08] Jeff: Okay, well go. [00:26:10] Cory: I, I, I was, yeah, well, I, I have a complicated relationship with like the, the idea of substance dependency because my brother died of a heroin [00:26:18] Brett: oh my gosh. sorry to hear that. [00:26:21] Cory: Um, yeah. Yeah. It was a hell of a year. [00:26:25] Brett: Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I’m making light of it. I, [00:26:28] Cory: no, I mean, that was, that was eight years of my life, but I, uh, I fortunately survived. I, uh, I can relate though. [00:26:36] Cory: I make jokes about it all the time. Not about my brother specifically, but about [00:26:40] Brett: Sure. [00:26:42] Cory: Um, so it’s not, it’s not a big deal. It does get me sometimes, but, um, especially ’cause there’s a lot of, heroin has showed up in a lot of weird ways in my life throughout, throughout time. But, um, yeah, I have a, I have a weird relationship to substance [00:27:00] dependency because of that. [00:27:01] Cory: Because, uh, you know, I don’t, I don’t wanna end up that same way. [00:27:07] Christina: Right. [00:27:08] Cory: Um, and the book, the book is actually partially dedicated to him too. I think. I think he, I think he really would’ve dug it. And there’s some stuff in the book about, you know, watching someone who’s close to you sort of not be able to help themselves in a way. [00:27:23] Jeff: Older brother or younger brother? [00:27:25] Cory: brother. Much older. Yeah. I a half brother. [00:27:28] Jeff: Okay. [00:27:28] Brett: Is your brother George, was your brother, George? [00:27:32] Cory: Uh, George. Oh no, George is my grandfather. [00:27:37] Brett: Oh, okay. Case. Case Wine Yeah. My grandfather also died in 2016. [00:27:43] Christina: Oh, I’m so [00:27:43] Jeff: Really? Oh my God. [00:27:45] Cory: a hell of a year actually. Yeah. I, one of my, my, my, my only regret in terms of that dedication page is it should be dedicated to three people. It should be dedicated to case George, uh, and my buddy from grad school, Ryan, who killed himself the same year.[00:28:00] [00:28:00] Cory: Um, he was an amazing writer and, uh, it was, yeah, it’s something that I still think about all the time, obviously, but yeah, it was just a, just a real wave of tragedy. [00:28:13] Jeff: Yeah. [00:28:14] Brett: We could also do a whole episode on suicidal ideation that could get really dark really fast. So we’re gonna avoid that since this is, this is technically part of your yeah. Yeah. Right, right. [00:28:26] Christina: I was gonna, I was, I was gonna say. Yeah. But, but, but you’re, you’re mentioning like at, at the top, like you’ve had some like the, you know, like highest highs and like lowest lows. Promoting the Novel [00:28:33] Christina: Um, and I don’t want you to get into the specifics of, of either of those, but can you talk a little bit about, since this is, um, this isn’t your first book, but this is your first, um, novel, like what has the, the process been in terms of promoting this and like sharing with, with, with the world and like, you know, um, uh, I guess like, uh, dealing with feedback on, on what you’ve obviously put a lot of, uh, time into and, and [00:28:53] Christina: have been wanting to do for a long time. [00:28:55] Cory: Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, it’s, it’s been, it’s been super cool. It’s like [00:29:00] I, I, I had sort of picked as a semi arbitrary thing that I wanted to publish a novel by the time I was 35. I’m 35, [00:29:07] Jeff: Nice. [00:29:08] Cory: novel, so I feel like I, I achieved the thing that I wanted to achieve. Um, and you know, on, on the one hand, there’s a lot of like excitement and pride associated with that. [00:29:19] Cory: You know, when I look, when I like, reread the parts of the book now I’m like, oh, this is actually good. Like this book’s actually good. And that’s, that’s cool. After doubting myself so much. Um, and it’s cool, you know, I went, I, I was in, I was in New York for part of the book tour and, um, it was, it was great to like have some, have a bunch of old friends show up to the book thing. [00:29:40] Cory: And also people that I didn’t know who the publisher brought or whoever, I had a really cool talk at the book event there with, um, Maddie Lipsky, who’s a really talented like writer and, and comic artists and stuff. And she, she interviewed me for that. It was really cool getting to meet her that, you know, that left me with a lot of energy. [00:29:59] Cory: Uh, I [00:30:00] went straight from there to Michigan and did a book event in Michigan. Um, and four people showed up to that. [00:30:08] Jeff: Book events, huh? Am. [00:30:09] Cory: but one of them was someone who used to read my blog back in the day [00:30:14] Christina: That’s so [00:30:15] Cory: that like, made me so happy that it didn’t, like it didn’t matter at all. Like, and, and the audience for all that. [00:30:23] Cory: It was small. It was, it was like great audience. Everybody had, everybody had questions like it ruled. Um, and so, so I’ve had, I’ve had experiences like that. I’ve also had at least one book event where the room just felt dead, just absolutely dead. And I sort of felt like I, I sort of felt like a presenter in a pyramid scheme where I was like, every, you had to buy, you had to buy my book ’cause you’re here, but it doesn’t matter whether you read it, you just have to buy it. [00:30:50] Cory: Uh, and that that left me feeling really low, left me feeling like a fraud and a scoundrel. You know, so like, it’s, it’s really, really both ends of the [00:31:00] spectrum, especially because, you know, once you crest the hill, once I crest the hill, I just see the next hill. I don’t really like, feel as if I’ve achieved something anymore because I’ve already, because I’ve already achieved [00:31:13] Christina: You’ve already done it. So, so, so, so, so then you’re like, well, what’s the next thing? Right? Like, like, well, well, what’s the next goal? [00:31:18] Cory: yeah. Which is make makes it easy to feel like I’m right back where I started, [00:31:21] Christina: right. I was gonna say like, I hope you can take some time to like internalize and like be so proud of like, what you’ve accomplished and then like that you did like, set like that arbitrary goal, you know, publish your first novel by 35 and you did it right. [00:31:31] Christina: And you’re like, you know, you have like a big publisher and you’re like, your book is out there and being read and like, you know, people are are, you know, somebody who like read your blog, like showed, you know what I mean? Like, I hope that, like that, that, I hope you can internalize and, and like feel like pride in that. [00:31:45] Christina: ’cause I think that’s really incredible. [00:31:48] Cory: Well, thank you. Yeah. In, in my best moments. I do. [00:31:53] Brett: Yeah, I think we understand. [00:31:55] Christina: Um, so, so, so for our listeners, do you wanna give us a little bit of an overview, just kinda like the, the high [00:32:00] level of, of what your book is about and um. [00:32:03] Brett: Yeah. Let’s move into, let’s move into the two true and lie discussion. [00:32:07] Cory: Yeah, let’s talk about it. So Two Truths and a Lie is a cyberpunk noir story set in a nearish future Los Angeles that is partially underwater, where information has replaced money. People buy, sell, and trade memories, and it focuses on this nasty old man, this war veteran named or. Who kind of gets dragged into the middle of a high profile murder investigation when it turns out it has something to do with an old lover of his, and it kind of goes from there. [00:32:48] Cory: That’s the, that’s the book. How’s that? I’ve practiced that a [00:32:50] Christina: No, no, I, I was [00:32:52] Jeff: A. [00:32:52] Christina: I was gonna say, you did a great job. So, so I, I have not read the whole thing. Brett has read it twice. I have not read the whole thing, but, um, what, [00:33:00] what I have read it, it was interesting. Um, and, and the pitch is, is, is perfect. It was so interesting to me. Um, and even the way that you described, um, it just now, but like, from what I read, like it makes sense that you’ve worked on, on games because a lot of, and, and I, I mean this in a very positive way. [00:33:15] Christina: I wanna be clear. Like, when I read this, I was thinking, I was like, oh, you know what? I could see a great game being based on this sort of thing. Um, and, and, and to me that’s like actually like, uh, that, that, that’s me giving a compliment because that’s, I love adaptations. I love to things, see things like that. [00:33:31] Christina: But I, in my head, I was kind of envisioning, I was like, this could be like a really interesting narrative game in some regards. And, um, I, I am curious like. Inspiration and World-Building [00:33:40] Christina: What your inspiration was in terms of how you were going about kind of creating the world that this takes place in. ’cause it is new, near future and, and you know, what your process was in terms of coming up with like, what’s the, the technology that they’re using and, and what’s kind of what, what are the differences and, and the similarities between what we have and, and, um, [00:34:00] how, how, how did, uh, what was your process for, for coming up with that stuff? [00:34:04] Cory: well, I, I definitely take it as a compliment that it would, it would make a good game. I like games, obviously. I play a lot of games and I think of the, the writing of a book, at least as, as the playing of a game, [00:34:20] Jeff: Mm. [00:34:20] Cory: to some degree. I had a, I had a, an instructor who I really, uh, admired in graduate school who. [00:34:27] Cory: Said basically that in order to write to the end of a book, you have to construct a sort of game for yourself. You have to have some rules that allow you to play out and generate the novel because writing an entire book is like an impossible task to conceptualize, right? It’s like so many words and so many events and, and so much stuff. [00:34:52] Cory: It’s very hard to like hold in your head at once. But hu I think human beings in general, certainly [00:35:00] me in particular, are able to hold very complex game structures in their heads and understand all of the sort of weights and balances, uh, and, and systems involved in a game. And so I kind of play these little games with myself, um, or sometimes rope other people into playing these games with me. [00:35:21] Cory: So the original idea for the story came when I was in grad school and somebody brought in, I went, I went to art school. This is important for understanding this story. Uh, ’cause in one of my classes, one of the other students brought in, uh, a book that she had sewed out of $1 bills. And she was like, this shows how information has become our new currency. Uh, [00:35:51] Brett: totally an art school [00:35:52] Cory: yeah, it’s a very [00:35:52] Christina: totally is [00:35:53] Cory: project. Uh, and I, and I was like, oh, but what if actually though? Like, [00:36:00] what if for real? And so I started spinning out like, well, what would it actually take? And, and I’ve, I’ve always really liked noir A mystery Seemed like a really natural place to explore that kind of thing, right? [00:36:13] Cory: Because information is already so important in a mystery. And so I started trying to build this out and it was really difficult. To, to make it all line up because it’s a, it is, it is very different from how our world currently works in some ways. In some ways there’s a lot of overlap. But one of the things that I would do is I would talk to people about it, and I would tell them, like, I’ve got this worked out. [00:36:38] Cory: Here’s what I, here, here’s how it works. And they would very understandably ask me a lot of questions about it. That, and, and I would not know the answers to those questions, but I would act like I knew the answers to those questions and I would answer them. And by doing that enough times, I eventually sort of built out an understanding of how this world was supposed to work.[00:37:00] [00:37:00] Cory: And I built out the story by asking myself questions like that. Um, [00:37:04] Jeff: Is that what you mean when you say making it all line up? Just making sure it essentially makes sense and everything follows a thread. Every little piece [00:37:12] Cory: Yeah, I, I try to be very meticulous about that. I like, I. I don’t think that that’s a requirement to write a story. I don’t think everybody has to be really meticulous about it, but I, [00:37:24] Christina: Mm-hmm. [00:37:24] Cory: I cannot be, I, I cannot allow myself to leave a, leave a loose thread or a plot hole. That kind of stuff really bothers me. [00:37:33] Cory: So, so, yeah, so like a lot of it was stitching up holes and patching things and bringing things together, which is tough because as, as you start, as I would start to revise something, if I changed one thing, then it, you know, changes something overweight in a different part of the fabric that I’ve gotta, like, bring into line, everything gets destabilized and then it’s gotta, gotta remake it all over again. [00:37:55] Jeff: Um, a friend of mine is, he is a author, a Raphael Johnson. He wrote a [00:38:00] great book called The Through, which I really recommend, but he had a theater background and, and so I’m, I’m obsessed with process and I could ask you questions about process all day. And like I said earlier, I’m gonna just ask a couple only, but he had this really great, I use this all the time in my own work. [00:38:14] Jeff: He had this, he has this great way of going over hi. His writing. When he is done, it’s like a theater person. He goes, I’m gonna do a lighting pass now I’m gonna do a wardrobe pass. I’m gonna do a sound pass. Right? Like, I’m gonna do all these passes, uh, settings pass. Um, so he is going through the book over and over with just that bit. [00:38:32] Jeff: Like it little different from making it line up, but just making sure that he’s created the world that is as kind of full as it is in his brain, but has gotten it to the page. You, you’re describing something that like fits into a category. Uh, with that for me, [00:38:44] Cory: Ian Fleming would do the same thing, uh, from what I understand, would write, write through the book, and just get the plot beats in place. And then the second pass was like, everyone’s like, what kind of watches is everyone’s wearing? [00:38:55] Cory: And like [00:38:56] Jeff: Very important. The Bond [00:38:57] Cory: and all of that, like, yeah, exactly. Yeah. [00:39:00] Uh, there’s a, there’s a really great quote that I like from Walter Mosley, who’s a noir writer that I really admire. He wrote, uh, devil in a Blue Dress, I think is, [00:39:10] Christina: Great book or screenplay rather. Yeah. [00:39:13] Cory: and, uh, and, and he was answering the question, how do you know when a book is done? [00:39:19] Cory: How do you know when you’re, you’re done drafting? And he said, what I would do is I would write a draft and I would read it, I’d see what was wrong with it, and go back and fix it. And then I’d read it and I’d see what was wrong with it. And I’d go back and fix it. And then I’d read it again and I’d see what was wrong with it. [00:39:41] Cory: I’d have no idea how to fix it. And that’s how I knew I was done. And I was like that, that I, I hold onto a lot because I can be such a perfectionist about things. And at a certain point, I just have to be like, the problems that remain are beyond my ability to solve.[00:40:00] [00:40:00] Jeff: yeah, yeah. But you also have to, I mean, the resilience that always amazes me about people who go through and finish a novel is like, you just described this cycle, but I always wonder, okay, when you hit that point where you’re like, eh, there’s something wrong with it. That can be a, like an existential crisis, right? [00:40:16] Jeff: Like, but then somehow you lift yourself up and go, I’m doing another pass. It’s like, almost like it’s very masochistic. [00:40:23] Cory: yeah, yeah. It’s, you have to believe that there’s something at the end of that, right? Like you have to, and this, this happens in making games too. Making games is a similarly torturous process. It can be, [00:40:37] Jeff: With the extra layer of the studio. [00:40:40] Cory: yeah. Well, even if you’re making a game by yourself, like, uh, games are so complex and every game is different from every other game. [00:40:47] Cory: Even more so than every novel is different from, from any other novel. You’re very much building the plane as you’re flying the plane. But the, uh, the thing that helps with both of them, with any kind of creative project for me is to have [00:41:00] some spark somewhere of what this thing is about. Like William Gibson, I think once, once said that he would write the first line of his book and he would never change the first line after he had written the [00:41:13] Jeff: Oh [00:41:13] Cory: I can’t do that. Um, I, I have definitely changed the first line of all, everything that I’ve ever written, but there has to be something that doesn’t change. There has to be something that gives the thing its identity that to hold onto so that no matter how much it changes, no matter how many drafts there are, there’s a way to know that I’m making progress. [00:41:39] Jeff: yeah. [00:41:39] Brett: S speaking of Gibson, um, okay, so I read a lot of cyberpunk, um, and I read a lot of Gibson. And when I first started, uh, to truth and a lie, I immediately thought this is Gibson esque. And then I had to ask myself what that meant because. [00:42:00] These days, like current Gibson, I don’t even consider Gibson esque. Uh, when I say Gibson esque, I mean Mona Lisa overdrive. [00:42:10] Brett: I mean, like early days, I mean like way back to like 400 boys Bruce Sterling era stuff. Um, like that to me is like the, the, or what used to be called hard, hard sf like hard sci-fi. Um, and that like when I started two Truths and a lie, I was immediately imbued with this sense of the old school cyberpunk feel. [00:42:36] Brett: But it’s more developed, like once you get into it, it’s richer than old, old cyberpunk used to be. So I felt like you, you straddled the line between what I would consider quote unquote Gibson esque, um, and like a, a more heartfelt. Novel. So I guess the question would be like, how do you [00:43:00] see this falling into kind of the pantheon of cyberpunk literature? [00:43:05] Cory: Yeah, that’s a, that’s a good question and I definitely take it as a compliment to, to have it be described as Gibson esque, like definitely I have been inspired by the velocity. Gibson’s early writing, the way that his prose moves. One of those visceral experiences when I, that I was describing earlier when I was talking about how books made me feel was Mona Lisa Overdrive. [00:43:29] Cory: There’s a passage in it. I can’t even remember what the passage was. I just remember, I remember where I was sitting when I was reading it, and I remember like closing the book for a moment and just going like, because it just like had such energy. Um, but I think, you know, that for me was a starting point in terms of one of my influences and how my, my, my, my prose writing developed over time. [00:43:55] Cory: But it was very much a starting point for me because there are also things that I struggle [00:44:00] with, with Gibson’s early writing. Um, and I, I, I remain a huge fan of Gibson. I love, I I love some of his more recent work too. Like the peripheral I [00:44:07] Cory: find Absolutely. [00:44:09] Cory: Um, some of, some like neuro answer the first time that I picked it up. [00:44:14] Cory: I, I got like a couple chapters in and I put it back down because there is this paragraph where like, it’s like half in reality and half in a hologram, and you can’t really tell what’s going on because the, the pros is so dense. And I, I was like, I just can’t, I just can’t parse this. This is stressing me out a little bit. [00:44:33] Cory: And I, and I put it down, I came back to it, I think after I read Snow Crash. Um, [00:44:38] Brett: Yeah. Steven Stevenson’s a nice break from Gibson. [00:44:41] Cory: And I, I blew through. I love Stevenson too. Um, and I, and I, yeah, and I, and then I, and then I blew through Neuro Me and I kind of got it, uh, a little bit more. But yeah, I wanted, I wanted to preserve the vividness and the momentum of the language, um, and create more clarity, but I [00:45:00] also wanted to develop my own aesthetic. [00:45:03] Cory: You know, Gibson’s, Gibson’s writing is very much like that. Early writing comes out of like, right, isn’t it like eighties Toronto Street culture? [00:45:12] Brett: Yeah, [00:45:13] Cory: Um, and I don’t have any experience with eighties Toronto Street culture. So it very much comes out of like my aesthetic more and the people that I grew up with and the, and, and what grime meant to me growing up, because there’s a lot of grime in the book for sure. [00:45:28] Cory: Um, and then, but like, but, but again, like having that core of something to know what you’re working on, part of the core of it for me is what I think of as the core of cyberpunk. It’s not the chrome or the laser whips or whatever. It’s, uh, it’s the stories of people who can’t afford space travel, [00:45:49] Jeff: Oh, Right on. Right on. [00:45:51] Cory: That’s, I, I, that’s, that’s not original to me. I think Bruce Sterling wrote that in the introduction to Burning Chrome, but I, but it stuck with me, [00:46:00] um, because it’s like, it, this is the, what, what it is about is it’s, it’s working class science fiction, you know, like it’s, and, and, and that’s what I’ve tried to hold onto is like, it doesn’t have the same technology. [00:46:13] Cory: You know, one thing that’s really changed, I think in the way that we think about, um, cyberpunk is the concept of cyberspace. The Evolution of Cyberspace [00:46:20] Cory: Uh, because cyberspace is no longer a place the way that it was when, when, when Gibson was first writing, like the internet used to be a place that you went. [00:46:30] Jeff: Yeah. [00:46:31] Cory: and now the internet is just sort of this, this like sludgy mist that surrounds us at all times. [00:46:40] Cory: This sort of ever present fog, uh, that both reveals and obscures. And, uh, and so having it, having it be more of a layer, more of an ever present thing that really changes the whole like way that a, that a world works. And I think a lot of other things follow from that. And I think that’s, that’s part of, [00:47:00] part of what is going on in two truths and lies is that, you know, that, that that technical world has so merged with the physical world that people are just, you know, buying and selling and giving up and trading their memories. [00:47:10] Christina: Mm-hmm. [00:47:47] Brett: la of like sidewalks and green spaces with a woman who was alive then, but didn’t have the technology to capture that memory at the time. And that memory is the [00:48:00] most valuable thing he can offer her, whereas it might not be worth anything to the next guy. But like he has, he has, and, and in the book or of, is dirt poor? [00:48:14] Brett: I mean, all things considered, uh, he’s, he’s barely surviving. Uh, he’s living at the bottom of society. Um, but he has a couple of memories that in the right context are super valuable. Economics of Memory [00:48:29] Brett: So how do you see, how do you see the economic impact of, of having, of memory versus what we consider currency right now? [00:48:42] Cory: Well, it, it, it, it definitely works differently than we’re used to. Money. Working money is traditionally fungible. Every dollar is the same as every other dollar. But also, you know, money is a really [00:49:00] elaborate fiction. Money. The, the, the, the idea in theory about money is that like I could go and turn it into gold if I really wanted to. [00:49:10] Cory: That hasn’t been true in a very, very [00:49:12] Cory: long time. Right now, now it’s just sort of like, well, why would you ever, you just trade the money? Um, but kind of the way that the information functions in the book is as, as a more directly backed currency, right? Each piece of currency can be traded. They can just be traded by file size if that’s what people wanna do. [00:49:31] Cory: A lot of the, a lot of the, the exchange takes place in the form of demographics ’cause they are pretty fungible. It’s just like a bunch of people’s software or, uh, soft drink preferences or whatever. And you, you, you trade those back and forth basically the way that you would trade fiat currency. Um, but all, all data has an end point where it’s uniquely val valuable. [00:49:53] Cory: Uh, which means that like there is not a separate vault. That all of the [00:50:00] money corresponds to the information is kind of its own vault. It carries its own vault with it, it carries its own value. Um, because, you know, eventually this piece of information is going to be genuinely useful to somebody, uh, which enables more of a, kind of an, a narco synthesist, uh, government a little bit going on in, in this, in this version of Los Angeles, where it doesn’t, there, there doesn’t need to be a central authority that says this information is valuable because the information is all valuable to somebody. [00:50:35] Brett: Sure. Yeah. No, I like that. I like that [00:50:38] Jeff: What, did you start with this book? Did you start with that? Did you start with that as this sort of rough idea, this kind of economy of memory? Or did you Yeah. Where did it start? [00:50:47] Cory: Um, the, yeah, the idea was I wanted information to be currency in some way. That was the kernel of the idea. And as, as, as I had to [00:51:00] actually make plot decisions, it gradually became clearer and clearer what that meant. Um, you know, originally it was a little bit more depersonalized, if I’m remembering correctly. [00:51:11] Cory: It was a little bit more like you had piles of data, but you, they weren’t necessarily your memories. And then over time, I started to realize like, part of the reason that we don’t pay money for most information now is because. It’s infinitely duplicatable. Uh, and so to have information function as currency, it has to, it has to be handled better than NFTs were handled where you could just right click and, and save the jpeg. [00:51:43] Cory: Like it has to actually be like a, like almost an object that only one person can possess. Uh, and so that’s kind of where the idea of, uh, taking and giving and removing memories came in. [00:51:57] Jeff: Yeah. Because when you pay someone a [00:52:00] memory in this world, you lose that memory [00:52:03] Cory: Right? [00:52:04] Brett: and it, it is not, it’s not duplicatable. Is that, I can’t remember. In, in the world of the book, is that a choice? Like, can memories be duplicated? [00:52:18] Cory: Uh, memories cannot be duplicated if they are, if they are minted to trade [00:52:26] Brett: Okay, so they are, they are, they are. The idea of NFTs, not the execution Yeah, yeah, yeah. Imagine. Imagine if, [00:52:35] Brett: Right, In this economy, what would money laundering [00:52:39] Cory: oh, that’s, you’d have to read the book to find [00:52:41] Jeff: Oh, good. Good. Queer Love Story in Fiction [00:52:44] Brett: So another, another topic is the kind of queer love story at the center of this novel, and I read a lot of queer fiction and the stuff I appreciate about the best of queer [00:53:00] fiction is that it doesn’t have to recognize that it’s queer. Um, it just sees like this is, this is a man who loves another man. [00:53:09] Brett: This is, this is a man who can love either gender, all genders equally. Like it doesn’t have to be brought out as a, as a you. You don’t have to draw attention to it. It just is, um, this character isn’t gay. This character is just a character. Um, and ORs love interest in this story is another man. But it becomes clear in the reading that Orv is not impervious to the wiles of the, the feminine kind. [00:53:42] Brett: Um, he is, as far in my reading of it, he’s pansexual if bisexual, if not pansexual. Um, and I appreciate that. That’s never, uh, elucidated like that never needs to even be [00:54:00] stated. It just is. Um, and from our, our pre-show conversation, my interpretation, and I don’t need you to, to confirm or deny this, my interpretation is that you’re a straight man writing queer fiction. [00:54:17] Brett: Um, and you’re, you’re welcome to, you’re welcome to debate me or to correct me on that. But, um, I think it was a really well done queer love story. [00:54:30] Cory: Uh, well, I, not that I, not that I have to answer your question, but the way I would answer your, I, I, I’m, I’m still going to, uh. I am, I, I am a, I am a cis man, married to a cis woman who has loved men. That, that, that is how I would, how I would describe myself. Um, and or is or, or does not exactly one-to-one map to my own predilections, [00:55:00] but, or Yeah. [00:55:00] Cory: ’cause Aura is definitely a disaster. Pansexual. He, uh, [00:55:05] Brett: I like that. [00:55:07] Cory: uh, [00:55:07] Jeff: Did you create that? [00:55:09] Cory: no, [00:55:09] Jeff: Okay. This is not a term I’ve heard, and it’s an [00:55:11] Jeff: amazing I’ve, I’ve, I’ve heard disaster bisexual. I’ve never, I, I don’t know that I’ve heard, but [00:55:17] Christina: was gonna say, I’ve, I’ve heard disaster buy Disaster pan though. I like, I I I [00:55:20] Cory: yeah. I feel like, I feel like it’s, I don’t, I don’t feel like that’s much of an innovation to say that, [00:55:25] Christina: but, but, but I like the riff anyway. I’m just, I’m just saying. I’m just, it’s, it’s a good riff. [00:55:29] Cory: Um, but yeah, so he, yeah, he, he loves who he loves and I think that, uh. [00:55:36] Cory: I kind of, I think I kind of took some inspiration from other noir for that. There’s a, there’s a Raymond Chandler book that I really love called, uh, farewell My Lovely. And you think of these private detectives as like, oh, they’re, they’re men’s men and they’re making out with all the women, and they’re, you know, and then, and then, and then they punch all the guys. [00:55:57] Cory: Uh, and [00:56:00] you know, Philip Marlow, for the most part is like that. He’s really kind of scornful and horny with all the women in the story at the same time. But there’s this beautiful moment where he like meets this dude on the docks, this, this, this gorgeous man with violet eyes. And, and he, he like gets this guy’s help to get him onto a boat. [00:56:22] Cory: And they spend a long time in the dark on this boat. [00:56:25] Jeff: Hmm. [00:56:25] Cory: He and he talks to the guy about how scared he is about this boat that he’s going on to, and the guy is like comforting him and trying to take care of him. And he, you know, he describes this guy, he keeps talking about his eyes and he keeps describing how he is the nicest man that he’s ever met. [00:56:41] Cory: And like, you know, and they touch and all of it. Like, and I don’t know, I, I really don’t know how intentional it’s, but it felt like it had to be intentional. You know what I mean? Um, and so there’s this weird, there’s this, not, not weird, but like very interesting interplay of these private [00:57:00] detectives who are very, very sort of isolated by their profession, isolated by some of the things that they’ve seen and experienced, uh, and don’t necessarily know how to describe themselves or how to relate to other people, how to be close to other people. [00:57:17] Cory: Sometimes find themselves being closest to people, uh, who. I don’t know who, who, who share something with them that they’re not even sure how to describe in themselves. Uh, and so I wanted ora to be, uh, complicated and fluid and, and tender more openly than, than like a 1950s more hero could be. [00:57:46] Brett: Yeah, I think you did a great job. Like it reads, it reads like great queer fiction to me. And I know in your, in your, uh, what do you call it, a soundbite synopsis that you [00:58:00] gave like queer didn’t come up. Um, and, and I feel like that’s not it. It, it’s not a focus of the novel, but I think it could sell that way. [00:58:10] Cory: Yeah. I mean, it has, you know, it has, it is, it is categorized, it’s been described that way. I feel a little bit uncomfortable describing it that way myself, because I am a cis man married to a cis woman, and so I don’t feel like, I feel like I don’t want to use that as a marketing crutch, even though it’s an element of the book. [00:58:29] Brett: I appreciate that. I [00:58:30] Cory: a, like, how, how do you do fellow kids kind of thing. But I just, I wanted to try and be, I wanted to give as accurate and genuine a depiction of, of love as I could. [00:58:41] Jeff: How do you do fellow disaster? Pansexuals. [00:58:43] Cory: Right. [00:58:47] Brett: Oh, that’s great. That’s awesome. Writing Dialogue Trees for Video Games [00:58:49] Jeff: Hey, wait, now I know, I know we’re running out the clock here, but, uh, I, I wanna ask you about, um, writing dialogue trees for video games. And, and [00:59:00] if you can, uh, describe what one is, it’s a little intuitive maybe to people, but describe what one is and describe about, uh, describe the challenges of that or the experience of that as opposed to writing dialogue in a novel [00:59:12] Cory: Oh God. quicker than that. [00:59:15] Cory: yeah, writing, writing dialogue trees is hard, uh, because you’re anticipating a bunch of different possible routes in the conversation, and it’s, it’s difficult to do that without diluting the effect of the conversation. One of the nice things about writing a linear conversation is you can pick the most dramatic, uh, responses to every, every moment in the conversation. [00:59:39] Cory: And when you’re writing a branching dialogue, if you want it to have the same impact, you need to have like three to five of the most, the most dramatic possible responses all prepared. And so it’s a lot of, it’s a lot of like holding a bunch of different possible versions of the conversation in your head at the same time. [00:59:56] Cory: Like, can players end up here from different directions [01:00:00] and will they have different information? And do I need to keep this somewhat vague so that it can work in both of the situations? You know, what are the gather points that I can use so that this doesn’t just become like an exponential mess that is like a million words for one, one-off conversation. [01:00:14] Cory: Uh, the tools are also important and usually kind of janky. They’re finally making some better branching dialogue tools. Uh, some I like more than [01:00:25] Jeff: What? What have you used and liked? I’ve tested them just as a creative experiment. [01:00:31] Cory: My favorite is that I’ve used is ankle. I haven’t gotten to use it much for work, but that’s something to use if you like. [01:00:40] Cory: Scripting generally, it’s like a scripting language, so, so you’re writing it out, um, in a sort of text editor. Other people, I think, prefer a more visual scripting language like Twine. Um, and there are a lot of visual scripting languages. The one that I use for work now, I think I can say [01:01:00] is, uh, OEI, it’s obsidian internal Dialogue Engine. [01:01:03] Cory: I don’t know if you have [01:01:04] Jeff: Oh, huh. [01:01:05] Cory: but, um, but it, uh, it, it is, it is like a node based system. You connect one node to another and you make a, make a web and that’s fine. Like, it’s, it’s decent for, for visualizing the conversation. Um, I think I prefer just because of my own predilections, I guess. [01:01:22] Cory: ’cause I like writing prose. I prefer to have it just written out as text. [01:01:26] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. One more. Uh, uh, uh, when, when you do level design, which you, you did with red fall, um, I was asking, I, I had my, my son look through all of this, he gave me an interesting history of red fall that we probably don’t have to go [01:01:39] Cory: Yeah, we don’t have to go into [01:01:40] Jeff: painful. I don’t wanna, I, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna cause pain. [01:01:45] Jeff: Um, but what is level design and, and how, you know, as opposed to narrative design for people that aren’t like immersed in this. [01:01:52] Cory: Uh, well, arcane was a, uh, a really exceptional studio, rest in peace, [01:02:00] um, because it was a very much like level design driven studio. The way that I would describe it at the time was like, there are a lot of people at a game studio whose job is to make pizza toppings, uh, make like really delicious pizza toppings, uh, or to make the, make the crust of the pizza, to make the sauce of pizza, to make the cheese and everything. [01:02:26] Cory: I, as a level designer would assemble the pizza. Uh, I wouldn’t even put it in the oven. I’d just assemble the pizza. Uh. QA cooks the pizza and serves the pizza. But, um, yeah, level designer takes all of the beautiful things that everyone made and arranges them into hopefully pleasing pattern. [01:02:46] Jeff: That is a lovely way to describe it, huh? Thank you for that. [01:02:50] Cory: Yeah. [01:02:51] Brett: Can we, before Jeff has to go in 10 minutes, um, can we talk quickly about tools, uh, that you [01:03:00] used, uh, for the actual [01:03:02] Jeff: Yes. And I have, I have more time now, so I, [01:03:04] Cory: Oh, [01:03:04] Brett: Oh, okay. Tools for Writing and Productivity [01:03:06] Brett: So yeah, what, what platforms do you write on? What tools do you use? How do what, what all goes into bringing your novels together? [01:03:16] Cory: I, uh, discovered partway through the process of writing two truths and a lie, a tool that I really like. I use Scrivener. [01:03:26] Brett: Yes. I was really hoping you were gonna [01:03:29] Jeff: so [01:03:29] Christina: I was too. I was too, [01:03:32] Cory: I do have some problems with Scrivener. Um, the fact, the fact that like, you can’t select text from like multiple sections at once. I, I find irritating. Like little, little, little irritating [01:03:44] Christina: The, the, the, the sync is bullshit. Can we just, can we all admit that, that, that their syncing stuff [01:03:49] Jeff: I haven’t used it in a while. It was rough in the past. [01:03:52] Cory: Oh yeah. I never, I [01:03:53] Christina: Don’t do it. Is is basically what they even tell you. They’re like, yeah, Google Drive, it’ll probably break. Dropbox is better. Don’t use [01:04:00] Box under any circumstances. [01:04:02] Christina: iCloud is not a thing, but like if you’re ever wanting, at least for me, if I ever wanna write something like on my iPad, and then I wanna access the same thing, I’m like, are you fucking serious? Anyway, that’s my only gripe with Scrivener, [01:04:12] Cory: yeah, I, I, I just use it on one computer and straight up, but I will look, I could, I could, I could talk shit about all the little details, but I know all the little shitty details because I use it so much [01:04:22] Christina: Right, exactly. [01:04:23] Cory: it has a lot of functionality that I, that I can’t get anywhere else. [01:04:27] Cory: Being able to rearrange, being able to rearrange chapters and sections. Um, being able to, the, the, the feature that I use, maybe the most other than that is, uh, taking snapshots of, uh, of text, uh, before I rip out a bunch of it and change it. And I, I almost never actually use the snapshots that I [01:04:48] Jeff: But knowing it’s there, [01:04:49] Cory: Exactly. It allows me to do the messy work and [01:04:52] Cory: not I am like that [01:04:53] Brett: with Git for sure. [01:04:54] Cory: that I, yeah. That I’m gonna be like, I’m gonna be like with my guts all the way up inside the, or my [01:05:00] hands, all the way up inside the guts of the cow and then be like, oh no, oh, I shouldn’t have done this. Now, [01:05:06] Jeff: all been there, Corey. We’ve all been there with the cow. I [01:05:09] Cory: yeah. [01:05:09] Cory: With the cow, we’ve all, yeah, whos amongst us. Uh, but, and then, and then the third feature that I, that I, that I love about it, that really got me through. I have a, I have another manuscript that I’m, that I’m polishing up right now. Um, and I don’t have a lot of time to write because I have my day job. So in order to get through the first draft of this newer manuscript, I was like, okay, I am gonna write 500 words a day, which is gonna give, which, which if I do that five days a week and in no time, I’m gonna have 70,000 words, which is what I’m trying to hit. [01:05:46] Cory: Um, yeah, I, I, I feel like that was like three or four months or something of, of writing. I don’t know. You can, you can do the math. I’m done doing the math. But, uh, but I basically, I just put all of those there. There’s like a [01:06:00] writing target tool in Scrivener, and I put all of those numbers into the writing target tool and it would just be a little window every time, every time I logged on and I didn’t have to think about it, I could see a little progress bar fill up and it felt really good. [01:06:12] Cory: And it got me through, uh, to the end of the first draft, which is the, the first major hurdle of, uh, [01:06:20] Jeff: Okay. Here’s a question. Uh, I, I’m trying to picture, I’m imagining your Scrivener uh, uh, set up right now. And so you’ve got, you’ve got your book, you’ve got it up in the, you know, you’re in the left hand column. You, you start at the top, you’re working your way down. You see the chapters, but then there’s like the dumping ground. [01:06:35] Jeff: Um, where you can have all kinds of shit. What kind of, like, did you have reference material in there? Is that where some of the, you know, older versions lived? [01:06:43] Cory: Um, well, the oldest versions of two treats in the lie were just written in, uh, open office, uh, which has its own problems, especially with loading large files. Uh, as much as I, as much as I love it, [01:06:57] Christina: Corey, are, are, are, are I was gonna say are, are, [01:07:00] are, are, are you a Linux on the desktop user [01:07:01] Jeff: I held back. [01:07:02] Cory: No, I, no, I’m, I’m not. I have, I have, I have, I have, unfortunately, I have windows on all my machines. Uh, I try and use Microsoft products as little as possible, but I’m not quite well versed in computers enough to go without, entirely. [01:07:17] Jeff: He says open office. Every one of our brains goes, Hmm. Linux [01:07:20] Christina: Hmm. I was gonna Exactly [01:07:22] Cory: just, it’s just, it, it’s, it’s free. This is the [01:07:26] Christina: Fair enough. Fair enough. [01:07:27] Cory: Um, but yeah, I was doing it all in open office. It, it, it was, it was a little bit, it was a little bit rough. So the, the old versions are all like ODT files and then, and then, yeah, like pieces that I cut out would go in that bottom section. [01:07:44] Cory: But the other thing that would go in that bottom section is sometimes I just get stuck and I still need to do my writing for the day. And so I’ll just like open up a document in that note section and I’ll just like, freak out. I’ll just be like, oh, what am I [01:08:00] doing? Oh, I don’t know what this problem is. [01:08:01] Cory: I’m gonna try and like, let’s try and, you know, lay out at least the bounds of the problem so that I can start trying to solve it. And like that generally is pretty effective for me. [01:08:10] Jeff: That’s great. Nice. Um, do you ever use, this is totally random, but have you ever heard, oh, you’re not a Mac user, you’re a Windows user? And so I’ll tell you, there’s this app called Silver, um, which is a, it’s a text-based calculator [01:08:28] Christina: Yeah, it’s really good. [01:08:29] Brett: And, and when I’m programming and I just get my, like, stuck on a calculation, I’ll go into Silver and I’ll just write out like what’s frustrating me. [01:08:42] Brett: And like, by putting it into words and seeing it together, silver can extract from that a calculation Hmm. and. And like, give me the answer. And in the process I’ll figure out the formula I need for the [01:09:00] function to come up with the answer I desire. Um, is it’s magic. It’s [01:09:06] Jeff: is magic. [01:09:08] Brett: But I imagine that’s the same as like opening up, uh, a scratch document and Scrivener and writing, writing that you have a problem and writing out the aspects of the problem and what it is you’re trying to solve. [01:09:23] Brett: And in the process, coming out with potentially an answer for the problem. [01:09:29] Cory: Yeah, yeah. That’s, that’s definitely, that’s definitely a part of the process. [01:09:34] Jeff: I keep two documents open when I’m working on projects. One is a scratch pad, which is just to dump in whatever you want. And the other one is called distraction dump. So that every idea that comes that I want to go look up or whatever it is I just put there, I know it’s there. I can go like explore that thing that has nothing to do with what I’m doing later. [01:09:51] Jeff: And uh, and the amazing thing is I never do it. [01:09:53] Cory: Yeah. gonna say, do you ever, do you [01:09:55] Jeff: No. But it lets me keep going. It lets me keep going. Right. Like it’s amazing. [01:09:59] Cory: I, [01:10:00] I will say the other, the other tool that I use where my actual structured note taking is, is I use obsidian [01:10:06] Jeff: Yeah. I love obsidian. [01:10:08] Christina: Sitting is the best. [01:10:09] Cory: I [01:10:10] Jeff: I finally went full in about two months ago and it stuck this time. [01:10:14] Cory: I don’t actually use any of the advanced features of it, like I don’t link internally or anything. [01:10:19] Cory: I just, I just have a bunch of files in there. I use it for work too, [01:10:23] Christina: I do too. I do too. It, it’s one of the few tools that’s like allowed, like, on our corporate systems, um, which are, are pretty, uh, stringent and, um, and, and I, I can’t access my, my corporate accounts on my personal devices. Um, and so, um, it, that does make it a little bit difficult for work stuff. I have to use a different, a, a special version of Google Drive, um, to, to sync things. [01:10:45] Christina: But the fact that I can like, use like a familiar tool is really nice, even if I can’t access my, my stuff anywhere else. But that’s okay. ’cause it’s work stuff. But yeah, it’s nice to at least be able to use like a [01:10:56] Brett: I love that all the tools you’re mentioning [01:11:00] are cross platform. So you’re, you’re, you’re a Windows user talking to a bunch of Mac users and we’ve all used all the apps you’re [01:11:07] Brett: talking about. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I, I, I, I wanna believe that we’re coming back out the other side of the era of, of like jealously guarded proprietary platforms. [01:11:21] Christina: Yeah. know if that’s true. [01:11:22] Christina: I don’t think we are, but I feel like the web has still sort of like, despite everybody trying to kill it is still kind of, you know what I mean? Like [01:11:32] Cory: more what I mean. I don’t mean that those platforms aren’t gonna continue to exist and exert their influence. I think that there’s just starting to be a growing appreciation again for having control over your own shit. [01:11:42] Brett: Yeah. Okay. [01:11:43] Christina: No, I agree with that. I agree with that. And, and I, I feel like, like cross platform or at least like not being as, as, as you said, like jealously, like guarding, you know, for one or the other. Um. It is getting better. Uh, EE even with games, right? With things like the steam deck and, and stuff like that. [01:11:59] Christina: [01:12:00] Making it at least more accessible to access games on, [01:12:03] Brett: seam deck? What is [01:12:05] Jeff: Steam deck. [01:12:05] Brett: Oh, I think [01:12:06] Christina: deck. Sorry. Yeah. No, I, that was my [01:12:08] Brett: gotcha. Okay. Um, speaking of tools, [01:12:12] Jeff: Nice [01:12:12] Brett: you guys, would you guys like to do a GrAPPtitude? [01:12:16] Jeff: Hell yes. [01:12:18] Brett: Corey you down for a gude? Do [01:12:20] Jeff: Corey’s like, I’ve been doing gude for 10 minutes. [01:12:22] Cory: feel like, yeah. [01:12:24] Brett: Yeah. And, and, and if Scrivener is your Gude, we’re good. Um, I, I’ll, I’ll kick it off my pick for the week, and I cannot remember if I’ve mentioned this before, um, but there’s a tool called Sendi. [01:12:39] Brett: It is a PHP server based platform that is an alternative to MailChimp [01:12:45] Christina: Yes. [01:12:46] Brett: I think, 60 bucks one time fee. You get your own mail list server that uses Amazon’s email service. Uh, so for about a dollar, you can send out [01:13:00] thousands of emails to your list. Uh, it can keep track of your email, your mailing list. [01:13:07] Brett: Uh, so if you’re a blogger or a content producer that wants to keep a mailing list where you have close contact with your. Fans, patrons, viewers, um, send, makes it like the, doing the same thing on MailChimp. In my experience, like the, the Envy alt mailing list, the Envy Ultra mailing list has, uh, about 13,000 subscribers. [01:13:37] Brett: And it got to a point where if I wanted to send an email out to all of the people on the list, it would cost me a hundred bucks. And it, it got, like, it got to the point where I just couldn’t afford to do it anymore. Given NV Ultras very extended development period, um, and complete lack of [01:14:00] income. Um, so [01:14:01] Jeff: unrelated. [01:14:04] Brett: And now with Cindy, I don’t have to worry about it for a buck. I can email everyone on that list and as I develop my own mailing list for like Brett secher.com, um, which is a significantly smaller mailing list. But even as such, I can for pennies email everybody. So I, anyone who has a mailing list of anything over a hundred people, Cindy is, uh, an amazing tool. [01:14:37] Jeff: Awesome. [01:14:38] Christina: Uh, it’s funny, I went to their website, um, ’cause I, it was the tool that I thought there, there are a couple of these like this, but I think this is the one that, um, that gets like the, the best, uh, reviews in terms of user interface. Um, and uh, like Brett, you’re right there, like on their homepage. Like one of [01:14:52] Brett: Am I really? [01:14:53] Christina: Yeah. One of your tweets is like right there. Or like as like a, it’s funny because our friend cable, uh, Sasser is, is on there too. And our friend John Gru [01:15:00] were like, a lot of our people, like, I’m looking at their thing, but if I scroll down, I was like, oh, yep. I was like, there you go, Brett Terpstra. [01:15:06] Christina: Cool. [01:15:07] Jeff: In the pocket. A big mailing list. [01:15:09] Brett: And, and it has a good API so you can automate, like I create, when I, when I email my Brett tur.com mailing list, I write, uh, an email in markdown with a couple of YAML headers with like, uh, email subject line and send date. And then I run it through a script and it just sends it out automatically to whatever lists I need. [01:15:36] Brett: Um, so yeah, that’s it. I’m done. [01:15:39] Christina: That’s [01:15:39] Jeff: Awesome. Christina, what do you got? [01:15:42] Christina: Okay, so I was actually, it was funny because before we started about this, I was hoping that we would get to talk about tools ’cause that’d be like a good gratitude thing. And Scribner was going to be a thing that I chose, but I’m not gonna choose that now. ’cause we already talked about our, our love of Scrivener. [01:15:55] Christina: So, and, and Scribner’s. Great. Um, uh, and it is available on, on [01:16:00] Mac, windows and, and iOS, maybe Android. I have no idea. I don’t use Android. But, um, [01:16:04] Cory: Worth the price [01:16:05] Christina: definitely worth a price. Not very expensive, but like, it’s like 60 bucks or something. And like, I, I think it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a good app. Um, and, and any of my criticisms about it are because I really like it. [01:16:16] Christina: Um, I really like, also like, it’s, it’s corkboard like mode. I, I don’t know, just in terms of thinking stuff out, like I think it’s a, it’s a really good tool. But, uh, no, my pick, this is gonna be nerdier, so I don’t, I can’t remember if we’ve talked about this or not, so. I don’t have a problem with the command line. [01:16:31] Christina: Um, but, um, I was, uh, you know, like there’s a, a cool home brew gooey app called Cork. I dunno if we’ve talked about it. Um, it is, you can compile yourself and build it for Xcode. So Home Brew, um, uh, Cory is a package manager for, um, Mac Os. Um, the, the Windows equivalent is called Wing Get, and it’s actually pretty great. [01:16:51] Christina: But, um, basically a way to easily install software, um, if you don’t want to have to go to websites or, or other things. [01:17:00] And, um, uh, or, or if you wanna get things that, that might not be installed in a, in a traditional way. Um, but Cork is an app that, um, Are you saying cork? Or? Cork? [01:17:10] Christina: Cork, CORK. [01:17:13] Brett: Oh, okay. [01:17:14] Jeff: Not taking us back. [01:17:15] Christina: Um, uh, so it, it’s uh, like, like, like the whole thing is that like if, if, if it’s home brew is, you know, having, um, I guess, uh, casks and, and is all about like the brewing, um, idea then like cork is, is I guess, uh, taking that same kind of metaphor, but it, it, it’s, uh, the, the website is Cork mac.app, but basically it’s just a, a really nice gooey, um, app for home brew and I really like it and it wasn’t that expensive, but like I said, it is completely open source. [01:17:46] Christina: So if you wanna compile it yourself, you can, but I really like it. Yeah, [01:17:51] Brett: you. You can also in store cork with home brew. So [01:17:55] Christina: Yeah, you can [01:17:56] Brett: just brew and sell cork and you’re good. [01:17:58] Christina: yep, exactly. And if you like [01:18:00] it, then yeah, you, you can, you can pay for it. It’s like 25 euros or something, or pounds, like through their website and [01:18:06] Jeff: In Seattle, they use Euros. [01:18:07] Christina: Well, no. Well, well, the, well, the developer is, the developer is, is, is, uh, is, is is British, but like, uh, but no, it’s, it’s, it’s really cool. [01:18:14] Christina: ’cause you can also, like, you can update packages like from like the menu bar if you don’t wanna have it open. And, um, you can like access basically all the home brew features that you would otherwise have to maybe deal with the command line for. Anyway. That’s my, that’s my pick this week is cork. [01:18:28] Brett: Very [01:18:29] Jeff: Awesome, awesome. I’ve been installing Homebrew stuff sometimes through Raycast lately, which is [01:18:36] Christina: Oh yeah. No, I love, I I love that inter, that inter, the raycast integration is really good too. Yeah. [01:18:40] Jeff: yeah, in the end, I always prefer just going back to the command line. I don’t know what it is, [01:18:44] Christina: Yeah. Um, I, I, I will say, while, while you mentioned Raycast real quick, just for the Windows users out there, um, there’s a free, um, open source project that Microsoft actually runs, but they’re really good people called, uh, power Toys. And Power Toys Run is their version of like raycast or [01:19:00] Spotlight or whatever. [01:19:00] Christina: And I, I know that team really well, and, and they’re fantastic. And so, um, they’re actually even building some stuff in to do some solver like stuff in terms of calculation things, in terms of being able to use natural language. So power Toys is power toys is, I, I, we’ve mentioned that before, but I’d give that another shout out for anybody on Windows. [01:19:19] Jeff: Nice, nice. Well, I could go and then Cory, if you still have one, you could, it could be a Cory GrAPPtitude sandwich. I. [01:19:27] Cory: Okay. [01:19:29] Jeff: Um, so I am just a, like, slight context, uh, but I’ll be brief about it. Um, one, so I work in, in my work, I work with interviews all the time. Um, I do interviews. I, I work with other people’s interviews on specific topics. [01:19:42] Jeff: I’m a researcher and a kind of program evaluator. So right now I have a hundreds of hours of interviews with, with foster youth. I have, um, many, many hours of interviews with young people who have been in the juvenile justice system. I have interviews I’ve been doing with agronomists, um, and for [01:20:00] years as I’ve worked with interviews, first as a journalist and now doing what I’m doing now, when I could, what I would do is I would pay somebody to transcribe and I’d pay somebody different to read the transcript along with the audio and correct it. [01:20:12] Jeff: Always someone different. And when, um, when AI came along, um, I’ve been, more than a year now, I’ve been playing, trying to get to what felt like a really, a really like. As predictable, as is realistic, um, workflow to, to be sure that some of the jargon and, and some of the, you know, dialect stuff, anything like that is being caught. [01:20:36] Jeff: And so that I can, before I’m even reading through a transcript, I can get it to as good a place as I can. And ideally as good a place as it would’ve been with a second person, which was still imperfect, um, you could have maybe done a third and then you would’ve had it perfect. Um, and so I had, my pick is actually Notebook l lm, um, so I’ve been using Claude Chatty, GPT I’ve, [01:21:00] I’ve messed with so much of this, actually was on the phone with Merlin yesterday just learning his workflow because I’m trying to, trying to like get this workflow just right and I just had this kind of breakthrough. [01:21:09] Jeff: And I, and I, the reason I select Notebook LM is that one thing that. Chat GPT is really, really bad at or good at, depending on how you look at it, is verbatim quotes. If I were to give it a transcript and say, even just say, do you know what a verbatim quote is? Start there, give me an example. Three examples of verbatim quotes. [01:21:28] Jeff: Okay, if you win that one, then I say, now I want five verbatim quotes on this topic. Whatever. Right? Um, always making shit up. Always, always, always. No matter how much I like banged up against it notebook LM is amazing because it will give me verbatim quotes with a footnote that I can hover over and see exactly the point in the transcript it pulled it from, and so that I can be sure right away ’cause to be clear to anybody who might be in the field and worrying. [01:21:54] Jeff: I don’t use quotes just because chat GPT gave them to me. I go and I find them and [01:22:00] that’s how I know it’s making them up. Um, and, and Notebook. LM has been great and what I’ve been doing, I. Which I’ve tried elsewhere, but it works better with them is I just feed it all these documents that are in the relevant area, that have all the various jargon, terms, whatever it is, frameworks, all that stuff. [01:22:16] Jeff: And I’m able to say, Hey, reference this stuff and, and transcribe this and then clean it using that, you know, that those reference materials and, and I still end up using a combination of that and Claude both are just really good, but Notebook, lm, which I had tried early, had set aside, but they’ve now added some features, including just a huge, you know, a very generous limit to how much context documents you can give it just so generous, [01:22:42] Christina: Yeah, no, I, I, I do know. So, so, so I, because I know my team does not work on notebook L, but it uses the underlying like, uh, Gemini stuff. Um, and so, um, uh, yeah, that, that is an important thing to note. You mentioned about the context, like that is one of the really good things is you can upload like. Like [01:23:00] hundreds and hundreds of pages worth of stuff. [01:23:02] Christina: Um, and what’s nice about that is that especially if for what you’re doing, like transcripts and whatnot, like you don’t have to, like, it will be able to kind of keep that in. Its in its memory right then and there not having, so you don’t have to do like, separate rag stuff if you’re wanting to get specific things, you can just, you know, uh, one shot all of your, you know, files or, or, or transcripts or whatever and, and, and ask questions about it, which is really [01:23:25] Jeff: yeah, yeah. It’s amazing. And it’s become part of the stack because look, I have four pinned tabs in my browser all the time. Notebook, lm, Claude Gemini, and ChatGPT PT because at this point in the development of all this stuff, trying to get to where you want to get usually involves kind of chaining some of [01:23:42] Christina: Fully agree. [01:23:44] Jeff: Um, so anyway, I, I really have appreciated coming back to Notebook lm and being like, this is now exactly what I need. [01:23:50] Christina: That’s awesome. That that’s great. And if you have for, uh, further feedback, let me know and I’ll, I’ll get it to the right people. But, um, uh, yeah, so, uh, and, uh, Jim and I has a good, uh, YouTube [01:24:00] support now too, both in the consumer app and in the AI studio thing. So if you give it like a link, it can like, go through the transcript of like what’s, you know, in that link or give you a summary or give you, you know, like timestamps and stuff. [01:24:12] Christina: Um, and I think it works for private stuff too. I’m not, I’m not sure. So that’s, that’s something to think [01:24:17] Jeff: here. Here’s the feedback. Let me fucking change the word spacing. The line spacing and the fonts. ’cause the default sucks and you can’t change it at all. That’s my own. You go to Claude and it’s beautiful, right? [01:24:28] Christina: No, that’s really good feedback. I will, I will, I [01:24:30] Jeff: very ugly. Corey in Corey, in case you didn’t pick it up from context. Christina’s new job is that Google. [01:24:37] Cory: Oh, cool. Congrats. [01:24:40] Christina: Oh, thanks. [01:24:40] Jeff: Ask her anything and she can answer. She’ll just answer with AI first. [01:24:44] Christina: I, I, and you ask me anything and I can be like, dunno if I can answer that. [01:24:49] Cory: Yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. [01:24:51] Jeff: All right, Corey, take us home all. [01:24:53] Cory: Well, I, I will, I will say first I, uh, one thing that I would’ve liked to di to discuss a little bit, unfortunately we’re gonna be out of [01:25:00] time, but I would’ve liked to talk about, uh, the, the way that AI shows up in, in two truths and a lie. Also, because I would’ve liked to talk to you guys. [01:25:07] Cory: ’cause you have a very, like, practical on the ground understanding of ai. Which, [01:25:12] Brett: Oh, now I really regret we didn’t get to that. [01:25:15] Cory: oh yeah, no, what it, it’s fine. Just, just have me on again. [01:25:19] Christina: yeah. We’ll have you on again actually, genuinely we’d love to have you on. [01:25:22] Brett: would you, [01:25:22] Cory: yeah. Yeah, I’d come back. I, like I said, I like talking to people, so Yeah. Bring me back. [01:25:26] Jeff: We’ll cut you at the end of your end of your promotional [01:25:28] Brett: right. Let’s do a part two. [01:25:30] Cory: There it is. No, it’s so cute that you think the promotional period ever [01:25:34] Jeff: No, that’s true. That’s true. Sorry. That’s my first day. [01:25:41] Cory: uh, as far I, I’ll I’ll, I I, I was like, I was like frantically looking through apps on my phone, trying to figure out which one gave me a hit of [01:25:49] Jeff: It’s what we all do at this point. [01:25:51] Cory: yeah, yeah, yeah, [01:25:52] Christina: literally that, that you just, you just described how gratitude works on this show. [01:25:55] Cory: yeah, yeah. Hell yeah. So, uh, the one, the one that finally [01:26:00] stuck out for me is I went, I went to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week, and I’m so tired, but it was very fun. The Importance of Business Cards [01:26:08] Cory: But on the way there, I realized that once again, I had forgotten to print out business cards. Ordinarily what I do is I just get nice watercolor paper, cut it into the shape of a business card, and write my business cards by hand. Um, [01:26:24] Christina: really cool. [01:26:24] Cory: find, people find it very striking, and [01:26:26] Christina: Yeah, I was gonna say, I was gonna say like, that’s one of those things where like, you know, it’s, it’s like the reverse American psycho thing where you’re like, actually, like having, this is the most impressive part. Like this is the biggest flex to have this really pretty handwritten card versus my perfectly lly, you know, print red on, on, on, you know, [01:26:43] Cory: think my handwriting is nice. So it, it, it, it works. It also, like people say, to give out your business cards like candy, I, I would rather be thoughtful about who I give my business cards to, but this year I didn’t have the paper on hand, or at least I couldn’t find it. And so I reached for another option and I [01:27:00] ended up with this app called Blink with A-Q-B-L-I-N-Q. [01:27:05] Brett: have seen this. [01:27:06] Cory: and it makes, it makes a business card. It lets you make a little business card and then you can, and then it gives you a widget too, where you can put a, uh, a Q QR code on some, somewhere on your phone. So I just had like a separate pane on my phone that was just the QR code. And so I would unlock my phone, go to that thing, people could scan it, it would take them to my business card, and I could put whatever information on it. [01:27:28] Cory: I could make it look nice. And it wasn’t just a link to my LinkedIn, which as much as it’s fine to connect with people on LinkedIn, I, I am trying to create as much of a, like, network of influence outside of commercially top-down controlled platforms as I can. Um, I, you know, I wanna have people’s emails. I wanna, I want, I, I, I already, like, I already get the maximum number of spend calls possible, so I don’t really care about people [01:28:00] having my phone number. [01:28:01] Cory: Um, so, so like, I wanna, I wanna be in direct contact with people. This allows me to give out direct contact information and get back direct contact information too. ’cause when people scan it, they get a little button to download my contacts, like, and just like, you know, get the, whatever the, the, the contact file is on your Yeah, yeah. [01:28:21] Cory: You get a V card, uh, instantly and then it gives, and then it prompts you to put your information back in and then it sends me an email. With whatever contact information [01:28:31] Christina: Oh, that’s awesome. Oh, it also, it also looks like they support, um, um, like Apple Wallet and, and Google Wallet, which that’s really cool. So you can share this as like a, a, a wallet item. That’s a, because I’ve actually, I’ve wanted to do that before for various things. That’s really, really cool. [01:28:45] Cory: Yeah. It felt, it felt very easy. It, you know, it took me like 10 minutes to set up and it immediately ended my panic about business cards. So like, that’s why when I was scrolling through my apps, I was like, oh, this one actually did me a real solid recently. [01:28:57] Christina: That’s awesome. That’s fantastic. Yeah. That’s [01:28:59] Brett: [01:29:00] I would, I would, uh, tack on, uh, last time I went to a conference, instead of printing business cards, I developed a QR code that I, that downloaded my V card and I made it into my iPhone’s wallpaper. [01:29:20] Cory: Yeah, yeah, [01:29:20] Brett: Like the lock, the lock screen wallpaper. So when someone look at you info, I would just unlock my, or I would just hit the uh, wake up button on my phone. [01:29:32] Brett: They would scan my screen and they would get my V card info. It did not have the added benefit of requesting their info and return. It was a one-way transaction, but it worked out [01:29:43] Brett: pretty so much of this life. [01:29:45] Brett: All of all of my QR codes on business cards go to my website slash qr, and then I just have an HT access file that redirects slash qr [01:29:58] Jeff: It’s the most Brett thing ever. [01:29:59] Brett: to, [01:30:00] to whatever place I want people to go. [01:30:03] Brett: So usually it goes to like some old about me page, but I can like. or, or Like, I can redirect that to whatever the current hip, uh, like about page kind of thing is, or LinkedIn or whatever I want. Um, so just like all QR codes, go to that one URL and then I can change where that URL goes. [01:30:28] Cory: That’s cool. [01:30:29] Jeff: Nice. That’s a good one. Weird tip. [01:30:31] Christina: No that. No, no, no. That’s a good one. I feel like you could use like the Blink thing, and now I’m like on Blinks website, they sell like NFC business cards, so you could like print a custom business card that you could put all your stuff in and then when somebody brings their phone up to it, it’ll just transfer that information like wirelessly. [01:30:48] Christina: That’s actually kind of hot. That’s pretty cool. Well, great [01:30:53] Jeff: Okay. [01:30:54] Cory: there’s a free version though. [01:30:55] Christina: Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no. I was, I was, I [01:30:57] Cory: be [01:30:57] Christina: yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no. It looks like it. It has like a [01:31:00] full free thing. I was just noticing and it was, but it was inexpensive. It’s like $14 to get an NFC business card, and I was like, actually that’s not a bad idea. [01:31:06] Christina: Like that’s actually kind of a cool, like have one, that way you carry one card instead of like a hundred. [01:31:11] Cory: Yeah. [01:31:12] Christina: But All right. Closing Remarks and Recommendations [01:31:13] Brett: Well, in closing, I would like to recommend that everyone go out and buy two truths and a lie. And I do not say that lightly. Like seriously. I did not have to read it twice to do this podcast, but I did because it was that good. Um, I would love to see an audio book version of There is an audiobook [01:31:34] Cory: version Is Yeah. It literally just saying, show it [01:31:37] Cory: came out at the same time, uh, as, as the book. Yeah. [01:31:42] Brett: fuck yeah. All right. did you do the reading or did someone else. [01:31:45] Cory: I, I did not, I’m not quite Grammy enough. [01:31:48] Cory: I got a, I got a very accomplished voice actor named Tim LBOs, uh, who is, yeah. He did a really good job with the noir voice of it. [01:31:56] Brett: Oh, I’m gonna go get that too. I want the whole time. [01:32:00] I was like, I would love to hear how a a, an accomplished audiobook reader would, would in tone this line. Um, I also always read books from like, in my mind, I’m always trying to convert it to a screenplay, and I’m like, how would I, how would I demonstrate this? [01:32:18] Brett: Yeah. Anyway, it gets nuts. Um, but anyway, please everyone check out two truths and a lie. It’s so good. Um, and thanks Corey for being here. [01:32:31] Brett: I Thanks. Thanks for having me. It was great getting to know all of you. [01:32:34] Christina: Likewise. [01:32:35] Brett: are going, we are going to take you up on a part two. We’ll be, we’ll be in touch. All right, everyone, get some sleep. [01:32:43] Jeff: some sleep. [01:32:44] Cory: Oh, some sleep. [01:32:46] Jeff: See ya.

This week, Merlin Mann, a pioneer in blogging and podcasting, joins the crew for a lively chat. They tackle the humorous side of managing medications and the chaos of personal health. The conversation swings from nostalgic reflections on childhood literature to the struggles of corporate reorganization. Expect laughter as they discuss tech productivity hacks, the emotional depth found in music, and the vulnerable side of discussing politics. It's a blend of heartfelt insights and not-so-serious banter that keeps everyone engaged.

Brett and Christina dive into a sleepless whirlwind of tech chatter and media binges in this wildly overtired episode. Brett recounts his struggles with insomnia, trazodone, and Gabapentin while lamenting the lack of manic productivity. The pair highlight a futuristic cyberpunk novel and tease an exciting author interview. Together, they traverse the realms of new Macs, Framework desktops, and nostalgic gaming. Rogue Amoeba’s audio software gets a fanfare, and gratitude overflows for essential apps like Audio Hijack and AlDente Pro. Expect deep dives, late-night coding, and lots of tech talk. Sponsors Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code OVERTIRED at incogni.com/overtired and get 60% off an annual plan. Rogue Amoeba has been making the highest quality audio apps for Mac for over 20 years. Save 20% off any purchase with the code OVERTIRED at macaudio.com/overtired! Show Links LOST Severance Yellowjackets Marked 2 Apple reveals M3 Ultra, taking Apple silicon to a new extreme Apple unveils new Mac Studio, the most powerful Mac ever, featuring M4 Max and new M3 Ultra New Framework announced All8Bit G11 Pro AlDente Pro Audio Hijack Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Podcast Updates 01:13 Exciting Book Interview Announcement 03:57 Mental Health Corner: Sleep Struggles 10:37 Media Consumption and Mental Health 27:44 Sponsor: Incogni 31:03 Tech Updates: Mark and Envy Ultra 41:11 Exploring Setapp’s Developer-Centric Approach 42:12 Subscription Models and Lifetime Licenses 46:27 New Mac Announcements and Benchmarks 54:54 Framework’s New Desktop and Laptop Innovations 01:00:17 Retro Gaming and Emulation Challenges 01:06:17 Sponsor: Rogue Amoeba 01:16:12 Battery Management with Al Dente Pro 01:22:17 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Join the Conversation Come chat on Discord! Twitter/ovrtrd Instagram/ovrtrd Youtube Get the Newsletter Thanks! You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network 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.

Brett and Christina return from a break (sans Jeff for a couple weeks) with an episode that’s part health saga, part tech chatter, and part retro gaming geek-out. Christina boasts a new gig at Google DeepMind, while Brett recounts his personal health battle featuring an unexpected guest: shingles. They commiserate over the state of big tech job markets and share their takes on ReadWise and the latest AR glasses. Sponsor Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code OVERTIRED at incogni.com/overtired and get 60% off an annual plan. Show Links Google Deepmind VITURE glasses Analogue Mister Pi Mister FPGA Retro SuperStation kindaVim Readwise Reader Shortcutie Supercharge (now on Setapp) Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Catching Up 00:12 Christina’s New Job at Google DeepMind 01:42 Job Market Challenges 05:02 Mental Health Check-In 05:11 Health Updates and Shingles Experience 13:07 Reflections on Disabilities and Empathy 19:32 Social Media and Digital Presence 25:32 Sponsor: Incogni 27:38 Brett’s New New M4 MacBook Pro 29:03 Exploring Viture XR Glasses 29:44 Comparing Viture XR to Oculus and Vision Pro 33:24 Retro Gaming Consoles and Emulators 41:47 Gratitude and App Recommendations 46:45 Readwise and Productivity Tools 53:13 Closing Remarks and Sponsor Shoutouts Join the Conversation Merch Come chat on Discord! Twitter/ovrtrd Instagram/ovrtrd Youtube Get the Newsletter Thanks! You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network 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 426 [00:00:00] Introduction and Catching Up [00:00:00] Brett: Hey, welcome back after a little break. This is Overtired. I am Brett Terpstra. I am here with Christina Warren. Christina, how’s it going? [00:00:11] Christina: I’m good. I’m good. Christina’s New Job at Google DeepMind [00:00:12] Christina: Uh, I am no longer unemployed since we last talked. I, I have, I went on a cruise and uh, and then I started a new job. [00:00:21] Brett: I, I’d be willing to bet that there are a lot of people in our audience who are dealing with the frustration of how hard it is to find a job right now. So everyone’s jealous of you just hopping around between jobs like a, like a, like people used to in tech [00:00:39] Christina: No, I [00:00:40] Brett: jobs got so hard to get. [00:00:42] Christina: No, look, I, I, I don’t in any way, like I’m, I’m, I’m incredibly, incredibly grateful. Um, so, uh, I, I, my new job is I, I’m working in, uh, developer relations, um, at Google DeepMind. So that, that was, uh, that was the job that I took and I’m, I’m, um, I’m really excited. Um, I’m, it’s been a couple of weeks, uh, since I [00:01:00] started, there’s a ton to learn, um, uh, a ton of new processes to, but, but there’s a ton to learn in both ways, both about the company and how they work compared to, you know, what I’ve been doing the last. Three years at GitHub and then culturally kind of, you know, like five years before that at Microsoft. Um, and then, um, there’s a, just a ton to, to get caught up on, on, on all the, the, the Gemini and, and, um, AI studio and, and, and Jim of the open model stuff. So there’s just been, uh, it’s been, um, a lot, but, um, I’m incredibly, incredibly grateful that I have a job and that, that I was, you know, um, I guess like able to do, like you said, kind of like the traditional job movement kind of thing. [00:01:41] Christina: So Job Market Challenges [00:01:42] Brett: Did you know that while unemployment is still pretty low, um, and it was like record low a couple years ago, but it doesn’t [00:01:52] Christina: that was a lie. [00:01:54] Brett: but job hiring, job hiring is actually at [00:02:00] like great depression rates right now. Like it is, there’s a job freeze out there and I know I felt it like I’m ready to, I’m ready to look around, but the more I look around and the more I do like initial interviews, the more I realized, like, I just don’t have a lot of options right now. [00:02:17] Brett: And, um, I’m grateful that I have a certain amount of stability with my job right now. We’ll see how long that lasts. [00:02:24] Christina: Yeah. I mean, the only thing that I’ve kind of like come to terms with over the last like few years is it’s like the only certainty is that there is none, right? Like the days of stability, um, I think in, in, in big tech, like regardless of like where you are, like is gone, which is. Um, because that was obviously like [00:02:44] Brett: Oh, it used to be, yeah, [00:02:45] Christina: used [00:02:46] Brett: I can barely remember that, but it used to be like, if you can get a job in tech, you’re set. [00:02:51] Christina: Totally. Totally. And, and I was one of those people where I was just like, Oh man, like, uh, I felt like I kind of missed the wave a little bit because like I, I went from an industry that did [00:03:00] not have job stability and then like I had like a good five years or so, you know, and, and, uh, you know, and there was some, and then like it, it hit and it’s like, there is not anymore. [00:03:09] Christina: Um, and, uh, but, but yeah, no, your, your point about like the hiring levels being low are, um, or non existent are so true. And then the other thing too is like, When a few years ago, when the, the, uh, Biden administration was like, Oh, we have record low unemployment. Even then I was like, you’re full of shit because you only count unemployment, not underemployment. [00:03:31] Christina: And there are so many things there that don’t get like reported. So if you have any job at all, or if you’ve worked anytime in like the last, like whatever the, the, the, you know, the, the way is that they’ve like rated it, then you’re counted as an employee. But that means that there are people who’ve been laid off, but now we’re driving occasionally for Uber. [00:03:48] Christina: Or are, you know, doing like an occasional freelance thing, like is counting, you know, [00:03:53] Brett: who have given up on finding employment. They’re no longer [00:03:57] Christina: huge, they’re no longer counting because they’re not paying into the, they’re [00:04:00] not getting unemployment benefits that my pain into the system. And so we just celebrated, Oh yeah, it’s, it’s so great. No, it’s not. [00:04:05] Christina: And it hasn’t been, and it’s really terrible and like not to get too ahead of things or whatever, but like, it does make me feel sort of conflicted because like my current employment and like the things that I’m interested in focusing on the future for lots of reasons, like AI. Are actively also being used to go potentially like reduce employment across industries. [00:04:30] Christina: So like, I, I don’t not feel weird about that. I, I, I’m fully aware of, of the dichotomy and, and, uh, like, uh, you know, hypocrisy and what I’m, I’m fully aware of it, but I’m also, I’m just going to fucking be honest. We live in a system and we live in a society, you know, as, as the saying goes, and I, I’m not going to opt out of, you know what I mean? [00:04:56] Christina: Like I’m going to be selfish. So like as, as much as that sucks to [00:05:00] say, [00:05:01] Brett: Yeah. All right. Mental Health Check-In [00:05:02] Brett: Should we do a mental health check in? [00:05:04] Christina: yeah, yeah. Let’s start with you because, um, I want to hear how you’ve been doing, especially with your health stuff and everything else. [00:05:11] Brett: yeah. Yeah. Health Updates and Shingles Experience [00:05:11] Brett: I’ve actually been doing really well So I I got my diagnoses we talked about that and I started doing some simple interventions for some of my health problems like the passing out I just I drink three liters of water a day with five grams of salt in it And that on its own, simple over the counter remedy, I, I no longer get dizzy when I stand up. [00:05:42] Brett: Um, I don’t pass out at all. Uh, most of my life is because of that returning to some, some, it’s a new normal, but it’s a normal, and I’m able to like drive and get myself around and. Uh, We go up and down my [00:06:00] stairs so I can get down to my office easily. And, um, so that’s all been really good. I got shingles last week. [00:06:07] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. You sold us that. And like, that’s insane. How, okay. First of all, like you had chicken pox as a kid, right? [00:06:13] Brett: It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t shing chickenpox does not immunize you from shingles. Chickenpox doesn’t even technically immunize you from chickenpox. Uh, there’s a certain, there’s a certain, they don’t know exactly how many years it gives you immunity for. But it’s certainly not a lifetime. And the virus that causes chickenpox stays with you your entire life. [00:06:34] Brett: It never goes away. It just waits for an opportune time and then it can surface as shingles. Um, and, and you shouldn’t be able to get shingles again within like they, they say minimum of a year. Um, and you have to wait a year before you can get the shingles antivirus vaccine. Yes. [00:06:53] Christina: whatever. Yeah. I was, okay. That’s what I, okay. So, but like, but you’re so young, like that’s cause like, I was just thinking, I mean, [00:07:00] I guess [00:07:00] Brett: Oh, my, my ex wife Aditi got shingles when she was, must’ve been about 32, 33. Um, and yeah, it’s, it can happen at any point, um, in your adult life. Even with or without chicken pox, like when I was a kid, we still had chicken pox parties. I don’t know if you were around for that, [00:07:24] Christina: No, no, I was, [00:07:25] Brett: in the neighborhood would get chicken pox and all the parents would get all the, and get everyone fucking chicken pox and, and supposedly immunize them for, you know, their life. [00:07:36] Brett: But it might prevent childhood chicken pox from happening again. But since it only happens once, why force it on anyone? They don’t do that anymore. Nobody does chicken pox parties [00:07:48] Christina: No, no, no, no. So I was like, right at the era when like there was the vaccine, but I still got it because this girl in kindergarten, Brandy, her dad brought her in. [00:08:00] And I remember this because I knew, I knew like there was something wrong. And like, she was kind of sitting like, she was sitting near me and she was like using my crown. [00:08:07] Christina: And I was like, Brandy’s sick and I’m going to get sick. And I think like the dad was like, brought her in, like, didn’t know, I think she might have chicken pox or something. And, and I don’t know, I don’t know if he said that. Uh, I just remember knowing that she was, yeah. Not well, and that she was using my crayon and I was like, I’m going to get sick. [00:08:23] Christina: And yep. Like, like that is how I got chicken box. Like that is, I know it, that is how I got chicken box. I woke up like on a Saturday and I had like something on my face and I still have a little scar on, it was like the first one, like on my chin and I was like picking at it and I was like, why do I have a pimple? [00:08:36] Christina: And my mom was like, Oh shit. Um. And, and I might’ve given it to the next door neighbors, but, but this was like, it was that weird time because the vaccine had just come out. Um, but because I got it like naturally, you know, it was like too late. [00:08:53] Brett: Um, yeah, well, so this happened after I had 10 days of insomnia over the course of 10 [00:09:00] days, I got like a total of 15 hours of sleep, maybe 18 hours of sleep over 10 days, um, which comes out to, you know. Less than two hours a night. Um, and it was my body and my immune system was just wrecked from not sleeping. [00:09:15] Brett: And, um, finally my doctor put me on trazodone, which helped for a couple of nights and as soon as I started sleeping again, then I got shingles. Um, and at first, like, so I’ve started also as part of my, uh, mass cell activation syndrome, I get, uh, histamine reactions and apparently All kinds of foods are high in histamines. [00:09:40] Brett: And I had really didn’t know what histamines were until this started happening, but like any food that you leave in the fridge for three days starts to build histamines, but things like aged meat, take things like pepperoni, things like, um, tofu and soy sauce, all are high in histamines. [00:10:00] And if I hit a certain threshold of histamines in a day, I get like horrible skin burning. [00:10:07] Brett: And, uh, I guess that’s the primary, the primary way it manifests for me is with this intense prickly skin burning that I get. Um, and so at first when I got shingles, I thought I was having some kind of histamine reaction that was showing up as like pox on my skin. Um, and, I believed that for a good 12 hours, but my histamine reactions really only lasts for about half an hour and then they fade and this kept going. [00:10:37] Brett: And I was like, Oh, this must be a really bad histamine reaction. So then I started Googling, started doing a little web searching. Why is this happening to me? And the first thing that came up was shingles. And I was like, Oh yeah, I’ve heard of this. So I went to the doctor and they’re like, yep, you have shingles. [00:10:54] Brett: And, uh, they put me on Valtrex and. [00:11:00] They prescribed gabapentin for my pain, but I was already taking 1800 milligrams of gabapentin. So that basically I was already covered at night anyways. So I got through it. It lasted about, um, five, six days and then I was fully recovered. I feel fine now. Yeah. So that’s my health, mental health wise. [00:11:29] Brett: I’m also doing pretty well. Um, I had to cut, right. I had to cut back my Vivense a little bit. My doctor, while we’re trying to figure out my whole sleep thing, wanted to like reduce my stimulant intake a bit, which is fine. It didn’t, it hasn’t really affected my like daytime concentration levels going down like 10 milligrams. [00:11:55] Brett: And. Uh, my focus has been pretty good. I’ve been getting my work [00:12:00] done. I’ve been, um, still a little slow getting back into doing the dishes and walking the dog after the shingles. But like, I’m starting to pick back up on that. And I would say overall, um, if I can keep my sleep up, I’m doing all right. [00:12:19] Christina: Good, good. Well, I’m really glad to hear about that because I’ve been worried about you for both the health and the mental health stuff. So, um, [00:12:28] Brett: Yeah. It’s, it’s been a, it’s been a ride, but I think, uh, I think things are leveling out for me. [00:12:34] Christina: good. I’m really glad. And, and I hope that like keep the other stuff like an in check, like I’m glad, like you’re not passing out anymore or anything, but like, I hope that like this new normal can still be more temporary and that, you know, you can get to a point where you’re feeling like you were like before, you were having [00:12:50] Brett: Yeah, I feel like that’s possible now for a while there. It seemed like, like I was screwed and my life would never be the same again, but it seems like, yeah, I [00:13:00] might get back to, uh, to feeling more like a whole person again. [00:13:05] Christina: That would be really good. That Reflections on Disabilities and Empathy [00:13:07] Brett: Not that being disabled makes you a non whole person. I don’t [00:13:11] Christina: No, I know. Well, that’s not that. That’s not. [00:13:13] Brett: have, like, I got really down about my perceived disabilities and it made me really aware of like, what. Disabled people go through and the kind of, um, internal and external, uh, discrimination they do face. [00:13:32] Christina: Oh yeah. [00:13:33] Brett: and I, I’ve always been careful about that, but now I’m like truly aware of it and, and trying to catch myself from being ableist when I can help it. [00:13:44] Christina: Yeah. But I mean, like, I, I think though, the, just saying like, cause obviously you’re not saying the people who, but, but, but I think there’s like important things to differentiate between two, right? Like there, there are like, when you have a temporary thing and this isn’t in any way to discount or, or, or like, like make a qualification about, [00:14:00] uh, people who, who live with disabilities or whatever, but like when it’s temporary, I think that we can feel and like perceive like. [00:14:08] Christina: You know what I mean? Like if it is a loss and it does suck versus like, and how you cope with it is different than if something is permanent, right? Like if something is permanent, whether you, whether you’re born with it or you acquire it, like you can, you can come up with solutions and like you can come up with like ways to, to, you know. Exactly. And, and even just like mentally like deal with, with, with it, right. Or it will figure out like, okay, I can still thrive regardless of this. Right. But when it’s like a temporary thing or you don’t know if it’s going to be temporary or longer, like it’s, it’s much more frustrating. Like I gained a lot of empathy when I, um, uh, was hit by the car and I broke my wrist and I, but, but when I was still in traction before I got the cast on and I couldn’t type and I had to like use my left hand for everything. [00:14:51] Christina: And I was like, what am I going to do? Right. Like, I, I can’t like. You know, uh, and this is before, uh, voice to speech stuff was as good as it is now. [00:15:00] Now, we are at a place I think where I would have been able to even do some coding type of stuff, you know, with my voice, which just was not even really a thing seven years ago, which is, which is wild to think about, but it wasn’t. [00:15:11] Christina: Um, but, um, Like, but just that, that brief kind of period and kind of realize, and I was like, wow, I’ve taken so many things for granted, but B, it did make me think when I was looking at solutions, I was like, okay, if I had to live like this all the time, I would be able to figure out a one handed keyboard. [00:15:26] Christina: I would be able to, you know, figure out like other stuff, but when it’s like a thing and you’re like, okay, this is maybe like a, like a, a six week thing. It’s different, you know, and, and, and it’s, and it’s a different challenge and it doesn’t, yeah, you know, like, again, like you like not trying to be like ableist in any way, but just acknowledging, like, it sucks when things, especially related to your, your physical body change and you can’t do what you used to do. [00:15:56] Brett: So how are you? [00:15:58] Christina: I’m good. I’m good. Um, [00:16:00] I’m mental health is okay. Um, you know, going through a lot of changes and just kind of like dealing with all of that stuff. Um, but I’m just, um, which in some ways like being overwhelmed can be a good like way to press down anything else that’s going on. So, you know, it’s just like, just overrun your senses. [00:16:19] Christina: So yeah, I’m, I’m doing pretty good. Like [00:16:21] Brett: What else could be going on? I don’t know what you could be talking [00:16:24] Christina: yeah, exactly. I I’m honestly, I’m doing everything I can to like, not focus. And I know this comes from a place of privilege. I get it. I’m not discounting that, but I also have to protect my own mental health. And for my own mental health, I’m like not, I’m actively trying to not engage as much as I possibly can. [00:16:41] Christina: Cause I just can’t do it. [00:16:43] Brett: Yeah, I’m the same. And we can we can talk about that separately, but go on with your mental health. [00:16:49] Christina: no, that, but that is kind of part of it, right? So I’m just, you know, trying to stay, you know, focused on other things and just, and yeah, avoidism, you know, sometimes it’s a necessary thing. Like I’m all about [00:17:00] confronting stuff and facing it, but if there’s nothing that we can really do, [00:17:03] Brett: Exactly. Like why, why lose sleep when you can’t make a difference? Like do what you can figure out where you can fit in. But paying attention to every little news story right now and getting. You know, online upset about every little thing that happens is going to kill you because it’s not going to stop and it’s not going to let up and you’re asking for a life of torment. [00:17:33] Christina: totally, totally. [00:17:36] Brett: Yeah, I was, um, are you done with your mental health [00:17:41] Christina: I’m done with my mental health. Yeah. [00:17:42] Brett: This isn’t on our list to talk about, but I was going through. My, I, I added basically like my entire data hoarding life to Devin think, [00:17:54] Christina: Uh [00:17:54] Brett: and it was surfacing some things that I had forgotten about. And I [00:18:00] found the, when Tua shut down, I made everyone books of everything they’d written for Tua. [00:18:07] Brett: Um, I think I have yours somewhere, but I really only kept track of my own and I was reading through it and man, I was actually a pretty good writer. I don’t know what happened to me since then, but [00:18:20] Christina: You’re a great writer. I think, [00:18:21] Brett: I don’t remember writing any of those words. [00:18:25] Christina: If you have mine, I would love it. Like, if you’re ever able to come across it, I would, [00:18:28] Brett: Yeah, I’ll see what I can dig [00:18:29] Christina: That would, that would be fantastic. But, because I would just love to go and see, like, early Christina writing. It’s always so funny because writing is one of those things that, like, You really do. [00:18:39] Christina: It is a muscle and it is one of those things that, that you can, um, uh, you get better at it the more you do it, but you can also get like rustier, like if you don’t do it all the time or if it changes. And I noticed that even with myself, right? Like I don’t write the way that I used to and I can get it. I can get it back. [00:18:55] Christina: I feel like, but it’s not like if I, if I was to go back into the thing where they’re like, [00:19:00] you need to write this number of posts a day or this number of things a day, I could do that. But like, it would take me. At least like, you know, a few weeks, you know, [00:19:10] Brett: a few weeks a month. Yeah, [00:19:11] Christina: yeah, a month, a month, a month to like ramp up again. [00:19:14] Christina: Um, [00:19:16] Brett: that muscle every day and getting back into it. [00:19:18] Christina: well, this is why, like, honestly, maybe this is a thing I need to like, um, make myself do like for my own mental health is I used to like journal or at least write for myself like every day. And I haven’t done that in years. And I feel like that would be. Social Media and Digital Presence [00:19:32] Christina: Uh, a good thing for a long time, like, like Twitter and social media and things like that, even though it wasn’t long form, was at least still a way to like, write, um, and, and express and kind of exercise that a little bit, but all of that is such a cesspool and hard to, you know. [00:19:48] Christina: Navigate like, where do I post and where are my people and all that that I’m just like, and yeah, I, I am still on Twitter or X or whatever. Um, and, and that is largely for work reasons and no, I’m not going to apologize for it [00:20:00] and I’m not going to defend it. It is what it is. Like we all have things that we have to do. [00:20:03] Christina: And if people are unhappy with me for that, I respect that. Um, I’ve tried to be on some of the other platforms too, but it, it just sucks because everything is, you know, dispersed and, and [00:20:13] Brett: I held out on Twitter for quite a while. I just deleted my account last week, um, because I had checked it a couple times over a few month period and I was not getting any DMS. Like the reason I was hanging onto it was mostly because I used to get like, um, Mark tech support questions, uh, via DM there. [00:20:35] Brett: Um, and sometimes like press inquiries and sponsorship inquiries and things like that via DM and that was not happening and. Um, I wasn’t active there anymore. [00:20:47] Christina: Right. I mean, at that point, there’s [00:20:49] Brett: of wanted [00:20:49] Christina: there. [00:20:50] Brett: the only reason I would have kept my account there is so that no one else could take my handle and, and make fake [00:21:00] statements on my behalf. [00:21:01] Brett: I don’t know that I’m a target for that kind of thing. I don’t think I’m popular enough for that to be a concern. Um, so I just. I just, I couldn’t, I couldn’t in good conscience maintain any presence on the platform anymore. And no judgment, like, I [00:21:19] Christina: No, no, no, and, and, and, no, no, no, no, and, and, and, and I don’t feel judged that way, and I, and I respect that. Like I said, like, I feel like if that’s people’s, like, thing, like, that is, I completely respect that, and I wouldn’t tell anybody, like, oh, well, that’s. You know, uh, uh, you’re, you know, invalid for, for thinking that, or, or your morality is, should be focused on more important things. [00:21:38] Christina: Like, that’s not at all what I think I’m like, you, that’s how you feel. And if you’re not getting anything out of it, you shouldn’t be someplace like even putting the morality stuff aside. And, and I don’t think we should, but even putting that aside, if you’re not getting anything out of someplace, like you don’t need to be there, right? [00:21:51] Christina: Like if, if people aren’t, if your people aren’t there and if it’s not [00:21:54] Brett: If you’re not getting anything out of someplace and it’s actively toxic. [00:21:58] Christina: Right, right. Then, then, [00:22:00] then, like, then, then, fuck it. Right? Um, and, and I certainly don’t get out of it what I, I once did. Right? But there are reasons that I have to be there. And so, that is, that is fine. Um, for, for me. But it sucks though, just because it’s like, again, like, all the platforms suck in their own ways. [00:22:16] Christina: And you know, you know, we have to kind of, and if you have people who are everywhere, then it’s like, you have to replicate things everywhere. Like even just when I announced like that I was changing jobs, I had to like do it like on six different places where before, like I could just like pen a tweet, you know, and be like, okay, everyone knows. [00:22:33] Christina: Um, it is what it is, but [00:22:37] Brett: I keep forgetting about LinkedIn and all of this and like, as much as I don’t want to think LinkedIn matters for, for my, for my circle and my tech job and all of that, like, I, I log into LinkedIn and I’ll always have like 40 to 50 messages waiting for me because I haven’t checked it for like a month. [00:22:58] Christina: And that’s how I feel. I’m terrible with [00:23:00] LinkedIn. Like, and I know it’s important and I know it should be like more active there. I just, I can’t. [00:23:05] Brett: Of course, out of those 50 messages, like five of them will just be LinkedIn trying to sell me on LinkedIn premium. [00:23:12] Christina: Yeah. And, and I, I, I, I, I pay for LinkedIn premium. Well, okay. So Microsoft gives people, gives employees a 75 percent discount. So it’s like 20 a month. Now, as an alumni, I apparently. They have an alumni program where you can still get the discount on LinkedIn and some other things. And for the first year, the alumni program is free. [00:23:35] Christina: So great. So it means that I still get access to the employee discounts, at least like for the software and, um, a couple of other things. And then I think it’s like a hundred dollars a year or whatever. And, and, um, and I don’t, I don’t know if I’ll renew. Well, it depends if I’m still using LinkedIn premium because there. [00:23:51] Christina: The benefits of LinkedIn premium is you can send a message to anybody. And there are a couple of other things too that are, you know, can be useful, especially if you’re ever asked to like post [00:24:00] content or whatever. But like, um, I would never pay personally, I would never pay 60 a month for it. Um, Oh, you also get LinkedIn learning, LinkedIn learning, which is valuable. [00:24:08] Christina: So that’s like lynda. com, but like a lot of. You know, the library, I think most, most public libraries have deals with LinkedIn learning, um, pro tip, if, if you’re wanting to like get really good training courses and whatnot, check with your local library and see if they have a LinkedIn learning subscription, they probably do in which case. [00:24:24] Christina: You know, you get access to a ton of stuff because, because LinkedIn learning is actually a really great resource, but like I would personally not pay 60 a month, but 20 is, you know, different. And I was not able to expense it before if I’m actively using things in the new role, I might be able to, I don’t know. [00:24:45] Christina: Um, and, uh, but, but regardless, 20 is. Is, is a much different, um, uh, like calculation, so, you know, like that, that’s, that, that’s fine. [00:25:00] But, um, uh, Yeah. So I don’t get those, but I get like a lot of, and I’m sure you get this too, because you work at a big tech company. Like you get lots of people connecting with you because they want, and I completely understand, but they, they, they want jobs or they want advice on how to get a job or other stuff. [00:25:14] Christina: And I’m like, I, I don’t know how to help you, especially if you’re [00:25:17] Brett: Yeah, [00:25:17] Christina: country where we’ve never met. Like, I, I, I don’t know how to help you, you know? [00:25:21] Brett: I do. No. All right. I want to tell you about my new AR glasses, but first I am going to. Take a sponsor break. Um, Sponsor: Incogni [00:25:32] Brett: this episode is sponsored by Incogni, a cutting edge service designed to safeguard your personal data. Did you know that data brokers collect and sell your sensitive personal information? This leads to unwanted spam, identity theft, and a loss of control over what’s shared online. [00:25:50] Brett: From people search sites to targeted scams, the risks are real and they’re affecting lives every day. But there’s good news. 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You can extend the same robust protection to up to four additional family members. This means that your entire family or your close circle can benefit from incognis [00:27:00] vigilant data removal and monitoring service, providing peace of mind for everyone. [00:27:05] Brett: Take control of your digital privacy. Now visit incognito. com slash overtired. That’s I N C O G N I and secure your data today. Sign up and enjoy a 30 day money back guarantee. Protect your privacy with incognito and experience peace of mind. [00:27:23] Brett: Knowing your personal information is safe. Take your personal data back with incognito. Use the code overtired at the link in the show notes or visit incognito. com slash overtired and get 60 percent off an annual plan. Brett’s New New M4 MacBook Pro [00:27:38] Brett: So, um, so I’ve been working on, I got my new, new. M4 MacBook Pro, this time with two terabytes of storage instead of the mistaken 256 gigabytes of storage that I had gotten, um, and two terabit, two terabytes is the right amount for me.[00:28:00] [00:28:00] Brett: Um, like I immediately filled up about a terabyte of it and now I have a terabyte of like room to breathe. Um, so I’m, I’m pretty good with that. I. It is so fast. I got the M4 Max Pro Pro it’s the pro and it it’s 10 cores and 48 gigs of RAM. And it is so nice to work on that. I actually have been neglecting my M1 studio. [00:28:30] Brett: Um, And that has meant on my, on my studio, I have two 32 inch monitors, um, that. I was really used to, and at first working on a laptop, even a 16 inch laptop screen seemed very confining. Um, but I got really good at using spaces, which and full screen apps, which I [00:29:00] had never. Appreciated before. Exploring Viture XR Glasses [00:29:03] Brett: And then I just yesterday got a pair of Vicher. [00:29:09] Brett: It looks like virtue, V I T U R E, it’s Vicher. Um. They’re not even AR, they’re VR glasses, but, um, they [00:29:21] Christina: think they call them XR or something. [00:29:23] Brett: what does that even mean? [00:29:25] Christina: I don’t know. Like, uh, yeah. Yeah. I can’t remember what the XR stands for yet. I think [00:29:31] Brett: Yeah, I think you’re correct though. And, they look like, like a pair of Ray Bans. And, um, like I own, um, Uh, what’s the metal one? Oculus. Comparing Viture XR to Oculus and Vision Pro [00:29:44] Brett: I, I own an Oculus and it’s okay, but it is ungainly and it can’t connect to your, your Mac. Um, like you can’t use it as an external display in your Mac. So that’s what intrigued me about the Vire, vier [00:30:00] Vitor, um, glasses is, they’re like 400 bucks and um, and you can set up multiple desktops. [00:30:11] Brett: In the glasses for your Mac book and they connect over a USB C port. And so sitting at my Mac book, I can see through the bottom of the glasses. I can see my keyboard and my track pad if I need to. And then I have, right now I have it set up to have three desktops. Um, and I can pan left and right to see all three desktops, um, at once. [00:30:36] Brett: And. I am pretty impressed. I think it’s a little jittery compared to like the Oculus and I’m certain compared to like, uh, the vision pro, uh, for 400 bucks, it does the trick [00:30:50] Christina: Yeah, I mean, like, like, let’s put this in perspective. Yeah, I think like the price for the because I’m looking at their website right now. It’s it’s 4. 59. But the limited time [00:31:00] offer is 50 off. And I bet that limited time offer has been the limited time offer for a while. [00:31:04] Christina: Um, [00:31:05] Brett: be, uh, [00:31:06] Christina: correct, right? So you’re talking about like 410 before, you know, tax or whatever. And, um, they’re claiming, um, you know, uh, 135 inch, 120 Hertz, full HD display. Um, and, uh, you know, so that’s obviously going to be lower resolution than the vision pro, but the vision pro is starts at 3, 500, but. But you know, like that’s only going to give you like, I think like the smallest amount of storage. [00:31:34] Christina: So if you want anything decent, you’re starting at like, I think like 3, 700 and then you’ve got to add in, you know, getting the right strap because the straps that come in the box are garbage. You’ve got to get the Falcon strap and you’ve got to get like some other things and you probably want to, you know what I mean? [00:31:49] Christina: By the time you get tax involved, you’re spending over 4, 000 period. End of story. Unless you live in a tax free state. So like. [00:31:56] Brett: it’s 10 times as [00:31:58] Christina: It’s ten times as much and, and, [00:32:00] and, you know, oh, and there are no apps. So, you know, your experience is, is pretty limited. Whereas this, um, uh, now, is there an app that you use with it? [00:32:10] Christina: Like, is that what controls? Okay. [00:32:12] Brett: It has, it has this app called space Walker, um, and it pops up and. Asked for screen recording permissions, and then it gives you a menu of like one display that is basically just a mirror of your desktop display or, you know, any up to like six stack displays. Um, and the only one I’ve tried so far is the three horizontal. [00:32:37] Brett: Configuration, um, and that, cause that’s pretty much the way I usually set up my desktop, like in IRL to, [00:32:46] Christina: Right. Yeah. [00:32:48] Brett: so yeah, it’s, it’s working [00:32:52] Christina: yeah, I’m like looking at it because I’m actually kind of interested. There would be some [00:32:56] Brett: great for watching movies on your iPhone [00:32:58] Christina: Well, that’s what I. [00:32:59] Brett: it when [00:33:00] I travel. [00:33:00] Christina: Well, that’s what I was thinking. I was like, if I was thinking for movies, it could be really good. And I was also thinking like, um, I’m looking at the website, like they have like it showing it with the steam deck and the steam deck. [00:33:09] Christina: I feel like that would be a really perfect like way of, of getting, you know, I [00:33:15] Brett: Yeah. And, and with a switch, it’s supposed to be really good with a switch too. [00:33:20] Christina: Yeah, yeah. Um, I have to say, like, sorry, go on. Retro Gaming Consoles and Emulators [00:33:24] Brett: no, you don’t, I’m sorry, I’m changing the topic cause I just found this, um, Uh, this product, I think the company was called all eight bit. Have you seen this? Uh, it’s like a little HDMI box. That’s like four inches by one inch. And it has like every classic emulator, every time, every classic, uh, console emulator dating back to probably Atari. [00:33:51] Christina: Oh yeah. I’m seeing this now. [00:33:52] Brett: And it comes with like every game and it’s like, I think it was like 200 bucks and you’re basically buying [00:34:00] like 10 different classic console systems and hundreds of games. And I’m not a big like gamer, but I do have nostalgia for like old NES, a super SNES games and even some like Nintendo 64 is included in there. [00:34:20] Brett: And playing like Mario cart would be a blast. So I went ahead and I bought that. I haven’t gotten it yet, but I bought it. [00:34:27] Christina: No, I’m interested to see what it is. I mean, I have a, I have a feeling like I need to like look at the, the, the specs of a feeling like, um, I, I know like there, there are a lot of these, these, um, types of boxes out there, but this, this one’s cool, like in terms of it coming with, um, the controllers and, and obviously, and, and, and the cores, which is what the systems are known as being, um, you know, installed. [00:34:47] Christina: And then, um, but, uh, I’ve been using this thing, so there’s, are you familiar with, um, uh, The, uh, the Mr. FPGA program, um, um, um, I guess like a project. [00:34:59] Brett: No, [00:34:59] Christina: [00:35:00] So, so, so Mr., uh, or known as like Mr. FPGA, it’s basically an open source project that like will recreate, um, classic gaming consoles, but it will do it on an FPGA based hardware rather than emulation. [00:35:12] Christina: So, um, are you familiar with FPGAs? [00:35:15] Brett: I am not. I was going to ask you to explain that to [00:35:18] Christina: Okay, so an FPGA, I think that stands for, I think it is Field Programmable, uh, Graphics Array, I think that’s what it is. Let me check that FPGA wiki. Um, [00:35:30] Brett: golf association. [00:35:32] Christina: I was correct. Uh, no, it’s not graphics. It’s Field Programmable, um, Gate Array. But basically, this is like a, a type of, um, circuit that can be, like, programmed to, Exactly emulate or not even emulate, but I guess like basically be like the same, like run the same instruction set. [00:35:47] Christina: It says another type of hardware. So like how people started using these things or how I first found out about these things, uh, probably like, like 10 or 11 years ago was that people would, would program these, these boards to basically, um, [00:36:00] uh, perfectly, um, uh, like emulator or playback the byte code of like older, um, uh, like, uh, Computing systems, you know, like Commodores or Amigas or even like early Macs and and they were able to to do that. [00:36:12] Christina: And so that’s made them really, really good for video game consoles, especially older consoles like like the Nintendo Super Nintendo, you know, um, Um, you know, PlayStation, um, even the Nintendo 64, if you can basically get a board that’s powerful enough and has like enough memory and whatnot, you can program it. [00:36:30] Christina: And then what that will do is that means that you can play the ROMs or in some cases, like at the actual physical hardware, byte for byte, the exact same way as a regular system would. So you can basically like, it’s this board of, it has the right software on it, you can, you know, use the other stuff with it. [00:36:45] Christina: And it’s not emulation in the same way. It’s like, it’s hardware emulation, but like that. The software will play and we’ll output that the same way as other things did. And so there’s a company called analog, a N a L O G U E. Um, [00:37:00] and their sister company is eight bit dough, eight bit dough, which, um, makes like, um, uh, both a new and, um, uh, new controllers as well as like Bluetooth, um, uh, accessories to connect more modern controllers to. [00:37:13] Christina: Older consoles, but, um, and vice versa, but, um, they basically have like a, a professional, uh, like, I guess, closed source version to a certain extent of Mr. FPGA, which is a project. Sorry to go back. So Mr. FPGA is an open source project basically designed to like figure out, okay, you can build your own FP with your. [00:37:32] Christina: The proper FPGA board you can build and the right software you can build your own like mini console system that can play, you know, ROMs back the best way possible and you can output it both to analog or digital depending on what, you know, For as you get in, what set up you do. Um, and it’s pretty cool. [00:37:47] Christina: Analog makes like a more professional version of this usually aimed at like. One specific console and with analog is actually designed to work with the original hardware. So if you have like the, the, um, analog super [00:38:00] Nintendo, um, uh, system, then like you can use the real cartridges the same with their [00:38:05] Brett: Oh, wow. [00:38:05] Christina: one. [00:38:06] Christina: Um, and I have there. I have their Super Nintendo and I have the Nintendo 64, um, pre ordered and they came out with the Analog Pocket, um, a few years ago, which will play back Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. Um, and I think Game Boy Advanced as well. Um, and, uh, so, um, but, um, there’s this other company, but the Mr. [00:38:27] Christina: FPGA program is really, really cool. Uh, but the problem is, is that the boards to, um, build those systems have become really expensive in the last few years. And so, like, it used to be a couple hundred dollars to be able to, to get in on one of these systems. And now you could spend like 400. And like, at that point, most people are going to be like you. [00:38:46] Christina: They’re just going to buy, like, the regular emulated box. You know, that you can get that has a bunch of ROMs, right? Because they don’t fucking care enough about like the, the bite for bite stuff, but it is still really cool for people who like to tinker, right? You want that. And so there is this [00:39:00] guy, um, it goes by tacky Udon, um, on social media. [00:39:03] Christina: And, um, he started a company called retro remake and he was basically able, he created a project called Mr. Pie. We’ll have all of this in the show notes. Um, and it is not a raspberry pie, even though like the name, he’s taken it from that, but he has taken kind of a raspberry pie approach where, um, and, and, and unfortunately his boards are not in stock very often. [00:39:23] Christina: Um, and they kind of go in waves, but he has like a, um, you know, sold, um, last year, like he was able to get like. Um, a Mr. FPGA completely compatible board with some improvements even in my opinion, about how the design was done, where you could get a completely completed system for like 180 bucks. So I did like, you’d have to bring your own ROMs, but it would be assembled and it would have with the analog and the, um, you know, uh, digital output and, you know, there like other things involved, really cool stuff. [00:39:51] Christina: Um, he started a project, um, uh, that, that he launched, I guess, like. End of January or in February called the [00:40:00] superstation one and I’m going to send you this link in our chat, right? Now, um, so that you can see it. And this is really, um, cool. Um, it is, um, like he’s calling it. He’s basically, this is his take on, um, the, the analog consoles. [00:40:21] Christina: So he’s calling it the retro, um, uh, the superstation one, and, and he’s calling it the world’s first affordable FPGA gaming console, a recreation of the best console, the nineties open source from day one. So all this is very different from the, um. Existing things. So he’s made it look like a PlayStation. [00:40:36] Christina: Um, specifically PS one and actually the redesigned PS one, but it will work with any of the other systems and cores and then he’s also going to have a doc that he’ll have available, um, that will play CDs. So you could even use like. You know, like your old like discs or burned or roms or whatever. But, um, [00:40:58] Brett: bucks. That’s nuts. [00:40:59] Christina: yeah, [00:41:00] this guy is incredible. [00:41:01] Christina: The stuff that he’s been able to put out. And like, I have to say, I got my, my Mr. Pie, um, last year and, uh, it was great. Um, like I bought it kind of on a whim and I was just like, like. Anyway, he he’s like one of the few reasons kind of like worth using Twitter because like he’s he’s active on Twitter and stuff. [00:41:18] Christina: But like, um, yeah, um, so this could be a rabbit hole for you. I think you’re going to love the system you get and I want to hear a review on it. But, um, if you find yourself liking it and want something like. Maybe it goes to the next level, like maybe, maybe consider getting one of the, like the, the, um, retro station, the superstation one rather. [00:41:37] Brett: Yeah. That looks super cool. Really slick. Nice. All right. Well, that was a. A diversion from anything we had planned to talk about. All right. Gratitude and App Recommendations [00:41:47] Brett: So, uh, let’s do a gratitude. Um, do you want to kick off, [00:41:53] Christina: Yes. So, um, this one, and I don’t think we’ve mentioned it before. Um, I actually bought it when it first came out, but now it is [00:42:00] available on set apps. So Sandra Sorjas, who we’ve talked about before, because he’s just like, uh, epically like prolific with his GitHub profile and releasing, um, open source apps and free apps. [00:42:10] Christina: And he makes a lot of like Mac apps too. He has two things that are, that he’s released recently that are cool. Um, the first is one called shortcutty, which is a Mac app that is basically like a, uh, a shortcuts app for, for, for Mac. So like you can do a, um, it’s, it’s similar to actions, which is his iOS app for, for, um, iPad and iPhone that will like give you more functionality for the shorts cause app. [00:42:33] Christina: Um, and, uh, but, but, but shorty, uh, or short cutty rather short cutie, uh, I guess it’s probably the way it would be announced, which is cute. Um, it’s like 8, um, uh, to get it from, from Gumroad. It’s not in the app store, um, but it’s a, it’s a Mac app and it’ll like basically include pre done actions where you can like, you know, um, get selected text or clear notifications or, you know, um, open, um, uh, uh, an app. [00:42:58] Christina: You know, um, [00:43:00] in something else where you can like pass across like a URL or, or create a new instance or whatever, you know, you can hide all windows, quit all apps. Like a lot of these things you’ve been able to, you can do in other utilities, but this is all just with shortcuts, which is pretty cool. So, but, but short cutie is not the one I’m talking about. [00:43:15] Christina: The one we’re gonna talk about is a supercharge, which is also a Mac app. It is also paid. I bought it. Um, Uh, I guess when it came out, but it is now available on set up and it’s a menu bar app that will basically just, uh, be able to do quick actions to just do a ton of different things. Some of them are similar to some of the things in short cutie, but a lot of them are, um, you know, like, you know, you can like show the markup tools by default, you know, in your screenshot preview, you know, you can, um, uh, you know, Copy, you know, the, the message link, you know, from, from within mail, you know, um, toggling, you know, night shift or, or true tone mode, toggling the low power mode, um, stuff like that. [00:43:55] Christina: And [00:43:55] Brett: close and minimize, close and minimize and hide and quit apps [00:44:00] directly from mission control? Which is, you know, for someone who’s just getting into spaces more, [00:44:05] Christina: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, uh, this is a pretty great app. Um, and, uh, it came out, I think last fall. Um, but, uh, as of, uh, end of January, I think it’s now part of set up. So, um, uh, uh, supercharge. Um, it’s a, it’s, I, like I said, like I’ve been, um, uh, I bought it, uh, when it came out. Um, and, um, I’ve been like, yeah. [00:44:30] Christina: Really, uh, I’ve been really happy with it. I, but also I just think that Sindris work is really, really good. So, that is, uh, that is my craftitude. [00:44:38] Brett: that’s awesome. I, um, I linked this app, uh, in a web excursions a while back, uh, before set up, I think, uh, before it was on set up. I mean, not before set up itself, but, um, At the time when I looked at it. It, it was very impressive in its scope, but pretty much everything it did. I already had like my own [00:45:00] hacky ways of doing, um, and I didn’t see a need to replace all of them, but it looks to me like it has expanded since then, and I’m seeing a lot of features on here that I could actually make good use of. [00:45:13] Brett: So nice pick. Thanks for, thanks for bringing it back up for me. [00:45:17] Christina: Yeah, no problem. No problem. [00:45:19] Brett: Since you kind of did too, I’m going to kind of do too, too. Um, so I, quick mention, there’s this app called kind of him. Have you seen kind of him? [00:45:31] Christina: No, I haven’t. [00:45:33] Brett: It’s, it’s a little utility that can bring VIM keyboard shortcuts to any app on your computer. Um, so. [00:45:43] Brett: For me, I trick, you can trigger it multiple ways. I have it. So I hit J and K at the same time and it, my screen dims, except for the foreground window, and then all of your VIM movement keys work. And so like in finder, if I want to, if I’m at the bottom [00:46:00] of a list of files and I want to jump to the top, like there’s no keyboard shortcut and finders to do that, but if I hit JK and then hit GG. [00:46:10] Brett: Which is top of page for Vim, it jumps to the first selection in the list. And then I can use J and K to go up and down and then to exit Vim mode. I just hit I or A and, and in like a text editor, if like in text edit, for example, I can hit JK. Navigate around when I hit a, it will append or I will insert, um, just like it would in them, but in text edit and it’s very cool. [00:46:40] Brett: It’s like, I think two or three bucks a month to subscribe to it. Readwise and Productivity Tools [00:46:45] Brett: And I, and I love it, but my actual pit for today is read wise, um, which is a service that it’s 10 bucks a month, I think. And. Um, it’s basically [00:47:00] you load in like RSS feeds, you forward emails to it, [00:47:06] Christina: It’s a read it later app, but for everything, like, like, like it’s your, it’s like Instapaper and Pocket and RSS and like your [00:47:14] Brett: and EPUB reader and, [00:47:16] Christina: like, like, it’s like, it’s like, it’s everything. It’s really [00:47:19] Brett: and you can, while you’re browsing the web, you can have the ReadWise extension. So on any web page you’re looking at, you can turn on the extension and then use. Your cursor to highlight passages in the web page and then view that page and it’s highlights in read wise. Um, well, their app is called reader. [00:47:40] Brett: It’s the read wise reader, but that’s the read wise service. And then readers, the interface for the service and, um, 10 a month seems steep to me at first, cause I was also just getting into Devon think and was kind of trying to use it as my read it later app. Um, but read wise, the, [00:48:00] the reading tools and read wise are just so handy. [00:48:04] Brett: And I find that. Uh, highlighting passages helps me retain it. And then it has built in reviews for your, your highlights. So at the end of a day, it can send you like your top five or 10 highlights and you can review them and then you can even turn them into flashcards that’ll come up. At intermittent periods, um, to like, if there’s a piece of information that you really want to retain, you can turn it into a flashcard that’s either fill in the blank or Q and a, and I’ve just started using this feature and it’s really helping me like when I read something and I’m like. [00:48:40] Brett: It would be really good to remember that next time I’m in a debate on this topic, I’ll like turn it into a flashcard and like start building up actual knowledge for myself, which is hard as an ADHD person to retain all of that information. I know Christina, you’re fantastic at it. I am not. Um, so this is [00:49:00] really helping me [00:49:00] Christina: No, well, it helped. Well, look, the thing is I have to like work at it. Like it helps me to like, like I’ve been doing Duolingos for the last 114 days. And, uh, and I haven’t missed yet. I’ve been, I haven’t had to like, you know, use their, their, their thing where they’re, yeah, I haven’t, yeah, I haven’t had to use like a repair thing. [00:49:17] Christina: Um, but, um, I did have to like use, uh, gyms or whatever, because I got kicked out of the diamond league. Cause I didn’t like actually use it enough to get enough points one week. And I was like, I don’t want to lose my status. Um, but, but no, but like, but like, but trying to learn French has kind of taught me, like, Yeah, I’m really good at retaining information, but trying to go through your language, especially, it’s like one of those things I’m like, no, you need repetition, you need like to be reminded, and like, that’s really great, like when you can have that can be like, okay, this can become like, you know, Anki, like, like flashcards or whatever to like, get that kind of wrote kind of stuff. [00:49:52] Christina: Yeah. [00:49:53] Brett: And for anyone who goes down a similar path to mine, where they’re into Dev and Think, [00:50:00] but also love ReadWise, um, I do have a script, you can find it on my blog, that will import every day your ReadWise highlights, and it’ll download the Markdown version of the article you highlighted. It’ll highlight Your highlights in the markdown file in Dev and think, and append all of the links to your highlights, your notes, and your tags in the annotations on the file. [00:50:25] Brett: So I get the best of both worlds and I can search and, and collect all of my. Uh, important articles in Dev and think, but without having to think about it, I just use read wise. I highlight my text, I tag, I add notes, and then it just shows up in Dev and think for me. So that’s not my pick, but read wise is my pick. [00:50:47] Christina: Yeah, no, Readwise is awesome. I’ve been using it since it was like in beta, beta the first time. So I think I’m, I’m, I’m like on legacy pricing, which is not that much cheaper. I think it was like the equivalent of 8 a month instead of 10. Um, but I’m charged annually, so it is what it is. [00:51:00] But, um, I, I, I, I agree with you. [00:51:02] Christina: Like I, when I first heard about the idea, I think I, I think it was in Mac stories. I think Mac stories wrote about it, um, early on, uh, about reader. I think Readwise was out first, but they’d wrote about like the, the reader. Option or like the thing that was going to be created. I was like, okay, this actually sounds like everything I’ve wanted from like an all in one kind of reading service. [00:51:24] Christina: Because my problem has always been like, I, um, you know, I used like Instapaper for years. I might even still pay for it. I, God, I really need to use rocket money or whatever to go through all of my recurring subscriptions on stuff. But, um, I, you know, I would have to have like multiple. Tools to try to do everything like a pin board and I have you know Instapaper and I have my ebook thing and I have all this other stuff and I’m like, you know And you have RSS I’m like, can I just have it like Everywhere, right? [00:51:53] Christina: Like one, like one thing, which, yeah, [00:51:57] Brett: Yep. I have all my, all my RSS feeds are in [00:52:00] their, uh, news. Email newsletters that I, that I actually want to keep track of. I redirect, uh, I have Mailmate redirect them to my Readwise email account. I dump EPUBs in there that I want to easily mark up and, and memorize. Um, pretty much only like nonfiction stuff. [00:52:23] Brett: I’m not like reading. Fiction books in and read wise, but for like the book on Devon think, uh, from take control books. I put into read wise and use that to highlight. Cause I want to do a talk on Devon. Think it max suck this year. So like stuff that I wanted to like, make sure I remembered about Devon. [00:52:44] Brett: Think as I read it, I highlighted it and now they flashcards for me. So I’m memorizing Devon. Think via read wise. It’s fun. I like it. All right. Well, uh, it was good to see you. [00:53:00] It’s, I don’t remember how long it’s been, but [00:53:02] Christina: been like a month. [00:53:03] Brett: a month, a month. [00:53:04] Christina: it’s been like six weeks. Oh my god. It’s been six weeks because it was, yeah. Or, or, five weeks. Anyway, regardless, it’s been a while. Closing Remarks and Sponsor Shoutouts [00:53:13] Brett: uh, um, barring major catastrophe, we will be on for. Weeks in a row. Now we have sponsors rolling back in for this quarter. Um, and we will be financially obligated to keep the show going. Um, so thanks to all of our listeners for your support, go click on sponsors, buy stuff. It makes us look good. Um, [00:53:38] Christina: Uh, click around. Uh, yeah. Uh, please. No, [00:53:42] Brett: but seriously, incognito is awesome. Like [00:53:44] Christina: is awesome. I was gonna say, I, [00:53:46] Brett: from incognito, like 137 new services contacted. And [00:53:50] Christina: well no, I, I, I, I, I’ll disclose even though like Brett did like the ad read, like they did give me like a, a, a, I guess, you know, account to like try it out with. And I, and I’ve [00:54:00] usually pretty good at being able to find some of this stuff and like send out things to have things removed. Like I’d actually have mine pretty locked down. [00:54:07] Christina: Um, at least through the major, major data brokers. However, like this got found things that I definitely didn’t want out there. Like phone numbers, like my phone number is my main thing. Like emails, unfortunately, I can’t do anything about that. Right. Address. I don’t love, but like, it is what it is, but like my phone number, I really don’t want that. [00:54:23] Christina: Out there and, um, and yeah, I found a bunch of things and I was like, okay, this is really useful. And I, having gone through personally, like how much time to try to scrub things from systems before. Like, and the thing is you can get it from one, you know, at one point and then it might show up again, like a year later. [00:54:41] Christina: So it’s [00:54:42] Brett: well, and [00:54:43] Christina: to do it for you. [00:54:45] Brett: we’re not getting paid for this part, but I will say that since I started using it, my volume of spam phone calls has gone to zero. Like I get some stuff from like Amazon business, uh, trying to sell [00:55:00] me on like seller accounts and stuff that I just have to, you know, block, uh, because Amazon has my data and they’re not letting go of it. [00:55:09] Brett: But, um, but like random spam calls, I just, I don’t get it all anymore. And it’s very nice. All right. Well, good talking to you. [00:55:19] Christina: Good talking to you too, Brett. Um, hope we can continue feeling better and, uh, get some sleep. [00:55:23] Brett: Get some sleep.