Overtired

Bryan Guffey returns to talk coffee, religion, and mental health, possibly all at once. Maybe. Show Links Bryan Guffey Don King Only In America Ving Rhames Baby Boy Katt Williams Club Shay Shay Interview Chronicling Prompt No More Secrets Sneakers Shell CMatrix Matrix Rain Starbucks App Ahead Loopback Rogue Amoeba’s Ultimate Podcast Bundle Brett’s Giveaways Hatchet Hall Colin Hanks Brett’s Pummelvision Joseph Arthur-In The Sun (Official Video) Petra Means Rock Stryper DC Talk Michael W Smith Amy Grant Saved! Cornerstone Sufjan Stevens 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 Don’t Be A Regex Princess with Bryan Guffey [00:00:00] Jeff: Hi, everybody. This is the Overtired podcast. I am Jeff Severins Gunzel, and I am here with my co hosts, Brett and Christina. Hi. And we have an awesome, awesome guest today, one of our favorites to have on, Bryan Guffey. Hello, Bryan. [00:00:22] Bryan: Hello! How is everybody? [00:00:26] Jeff: Hello! [00:00:26] Christina: We’re so glad to have you back. [00:00:28] Bryan: I’m so glad to be back. It’s [00:00:31] Jeff: I’m glad to be here with you, because I missed you. I missed you last [00:00:34] Bryan: Yeah, it’s really great, yeah, that we all get to be here together. I’ve been bugging Brett a lot, Jeff, being like, I want to, I want to be on a podcast with Jeff. I want to be on a podcast with Jeff. His brain, I love his brain. [00:00:45] Jeff: I hope it’s worth it. [00:00:48] Don King and Katt Williams [00:00:48] Bryan: Listen, your hair already does it for me. Like, I’m so here for your hair. [00:00:52] Jeff: Oh, man. I, I love my hair. [00:00:55] Bryan: No, absolutely. I mean, it is just very, like, it’s very on par with [00:01:00] like it fits you. [00:01:01] Jeff: I don’t, I, here’s why I, I love my hair, because it sounds like a fucking weird thing to say, but, um, I haven’t had to put a comb through it. Since, like, I don’t know what, because at some point I landed on the, like, Mad Professor hair, and, and I don’t have to maintain it, but I kinda, I like a little swoosh. [00:01:19] Jeff: There’s a lot about, about me I don’t love, but I like my hair. [00:01:23] Brett: both have a bit of a Don King thing going on. [00:01:26] Jeff: Oh, yeah! [00:01:28] Bryan: yeah, this is all hiding behind the, the, [00:01:29] Jeff: Well, yeah, Bryan just made it Don King. [00:01:32] Brett: who is actually black can pull it off [00:01:34] Jeff: Bryan, who is actually becoming Don King before us right now, I wish you could see it. [00:01:38] Christina: Yeah, I was gonna say, you, this, this is very much, um, who, who played Don King in the HBO movie? Cause like, you’re totally giving like those vibes right now. [00:01:47] Jeff: Who did [00:01:47] Brett: idea There was an HBO movie? Was it Idris Elba? I’m just kidding. Of [00:01:53] Jeff: Did anybody else I’m gonna be such a [00:01:56] Bryan: In, in the HBO, in the NDH, not in Ali, [00:02:00] then [00:02:01] Christina: No, it was Don King only in America. It was a 1997 film developed, uh, uh, directed by John Herzfeld and written by Cario Salem. Um, [00:02:08] Bryan: Ving Rames. [00:02:09] Christina: yeah, fuck yeah. That was actually who I thought it was. No. Okay. But, but I’m sorry. That’s who I thought it was. And I was like, I’m going to say that and I’m going to be wrong. [00:02:18] Brett: heh. [00:02:18] Bryan: that’s so awesome. [00:02:20] Christina: good, good job. [00:02:21] Bryan: to watch that, I love Ving Rhames. [00:02:23] Christina: He’s the best baby boy. Uh, RIP, John Singleton. But like, genuinely like that film like gets slept on and that’s like one of like the best films. [00:02:31] Jeff: Love John Singleton. That’s [00:02:33] Bryan: Right, isn’t, isn’t, and, and, Ving Rhames is in, he’s the one who’s in, he is, yeah, he’s the one that’s in every Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise, they’re like best friends. [00:02:43] Christina: Yes. He’s like the smart one. He’s, he’s like the one, he’s like, he’s like, he’s like, no, chill dude. what are you doing? [00:02:51] Jeff: heh. [00:02:52] Bryan: so good. [00:02:54] Jeff: Oh, [00:02:54] Christina: Bernie Mack is, was was in this, this is [00:02:56] Jeff: Bernie [00:02:57] Bryan: Oh, Bernie [00:02:58] Jeff: Did anybody follow the Cat [00:03:00] Williams thing? [00:03:01] Christina: Yeah. Oh my God. [00:03:02] Jeff: God, that was a blast. [00:03:04] Christina: That’s the best three hours of my life. [00:03:07] Jeff: And now on TikTok, my algorithm is so tweaked to Cat Williams because I looked at every response and watched every clip like three times that now it’s like all Cat Williams and monkeys in my TikTok feed. [00:03:20] Jeff: Baby monkeys, [00:03:21] Christina: so, [00:03:21] Bryan: That’s a really hilarious pairing, I just want to point out, and then we’ll move on from [00:03:26] Jeff: yin and yang, you know? [00:03:28] Christina: it is, just for background, for anybody who wants to go down this rabbit hole, because it is delightful, um, the, the comedian, Cat Williams, who has had problems, um, and, and, but I used to very much enjoy his stand up specials, does an absolutely unhinged, um, uh, podcast with a, who is it with, with Shannon Sharpe, right? [00:03:45] Jeff: Yeah, I think that’s it. [00:03:46] Christina: yeah, uh, [00:03:47] Jeff: all I see is Cat Williams in my head. [00:03:49] Christina: And, and so, and it’s like, it’s like over three hours long and it’s Saturday Night Live even parodied it. And he like makes the most unhinged like [00:04:00] declarations about all the people he’s ever had beef with and like just makes these like claims that are just provably false. It’s the most unhinged, delightful, insane interview you’ll ever watch. And then all these people like fact checked him on everything he said. [00:04:13] Christina: And it’s, [00:04:14] Jeff: And the problem is, like, if anybody else had done that kind of interview, I would have been like, ugh, gross, but it is irresistible. Like, the like, the extent to which Kat Williams is like, I’m not getting up from this chair, I’m not apologizing, I’m just gonna go deeper and deeper. [00:04:31] Bryan: And I think that’s partially because, like, Cat Williams over the past couple of years has sort of been, like, a truth teller in certain areas, about, and saying things like, calling out Dave Chappelle and some other [00:04:40] Christina: yeah. [00:04:42] Bryan: so I think people were like, Oh, we don’t expect this wildness from Cat Williams now, but here it is again, he’s back. [00:04:51] Christina: Right. He’s back. He’s like, he’d had some like incident a number of years ago. I can’t remember what it was when he’s, when he was having some problems that was like seriously [00:05:00] deranged. Um, but yeah, then he was like speaking truth to power and you’re like, okay, maybe he’s doing well. [00:05:05] Christina: Okay. Again. And you see this interview and you’re like, [00:05:08] Bryan: Nope. [00:05:08] Christina: this is, this is great. Um, uh, but, um, Yes. Yes. Shannon Sharpe was the one who, who, who did the [00:05:16] Bryan: you’re talking about NFL, the NFL’s Shannon Sharpe. [00:05:20] Christina: And, and, [00:05:20] Bryan: That’s even more [00:05:21] Christina: funny. And what’s funny to me is, [00:05:23] Bryan: a podcast. [00:05:23] Jeff: Watching him handle that was incredible. [00:05:26] Christina: Yeah. Well, okay. Well, Shannon Sharp, not only does he podcast, he has a very successful ESPN show, and he used to have a show with, uh, he was on, um, with a Skip Bayless on his, uh, um, a Fox Sports show. And then they had a very, very bitter breakup. [00:05:40] Christina: And, uh, now Shannon Sharp has, um, a, um, a very popular like ESPN show, but um, apparently it’s received 54 million views. So far, [00:05:52] Jeff: And the last thing, I mean, the one thing I want to say about it that was amazing about watching Shannon Sharp is like, here, Cat Williams is essentially firing a machine gun [00:06:00] over, just over his shoulder. And you can see him being like, I am not moving into the target. Like, I have to figure out how to both like, keep my own integrity in the midst of this and not end up in the line of fire somehow, either now or afterwards. [00:06:16] Brett: Alright, is it okay if I reign this in [00:06:18] Jeff: Yeah, yeah. [00:06:19] Christina: Yes, of course. [00:06:20] Brett: we decided this week to do a new format, um, maybe just this week only, but we’ll see how it goes, but we’re going to start the show with Graptitude, um, which is usually the final segment on the show where everyone talks about one favorite piece of software or developer for the week, um, I have mine picked out, do you guys, are you prepared for this early onslaught of Graptitude? [00:06:48] Brett: Jeff, do [00:06:48] Jeff: you suggesting that sometimes we pick our graftitude in the course of recording? [00:06:52] Brett: absolutely do. Yes. [00:06:54] Christina: I absolutely do as well. But no, I got one. Wait, did we do? We didn’t do one last [00:07:00] episode, right? [00:07:00] Brett: Nope, we didn’t. We skipped it [00:07:02] Christina: cool. [00:07:02] Jeff: ended up essentially being Chat GPT. [00:07:04] Brett: still two hours long. [00:07:07] Christina: right. No. Okay. Yeah. No, I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t share the one that I had last week, um, for, for, for this week. So, [00:07:13] Bryan: I love, I love Brad being like, it was still two hours long and I’m like, that’s what I loved about it. Even though I understand from like the perspective of being in it, how hard it can be to go two hours because your brain goes, And [00:07:26] Jeff: definitely. [00:07:27] Brett: Alright, Jeff, kick us off. [00:07:30] grAPPtitude off the top [00:07:30] Jeff: I will, I will kick us off, but first I’m going to suggest a slight change to our tagline, which can be Overtired, Tech, Mental Health, and Cat Williams. Just putting it out there. Um, I mean, you know, it’s just an option. So, um, okay. So. [00:07:44] Bryan: Cat Williams could also be, Brad has a new cat named Williams. [00:07:47] Christina: yeah, [00:07:47] Jeff: Oh, that’s good. I like that. Yeah, cat with a k though, [00:07:50] Brett: do, I have a cat named Morris. It would fit. [00:07:53] Bryan: Perfect. Oh, now we’ve got an agency going. [00:07:55] Christina: yeah, exactly. Yes. Well done. Well done.[00:08:00] [00:08:01] Jeff: Um, okay. So mine is actually something that, um, that, uh, Alex recommended. Alex Cox recommended on the first episode of the year, uh, in answer to My Graptitude Then, which was, um, Datum, um, which is a great app for sort of just tracking whatever it is you want to track. Um, and they had recommended at the time, um, Chronicling. an app by the developer Rebecca Owen. Um, and the first thing I want to say about this app, and then I’ll talk about the functionality in a second, but it is so, um, it is so incredible to me when you start using an app. It’s, it’s beautiful. The UI is intuitive. [00:08:40] Jeff: It, it has just the right kind of constraint, right? Like it does some of the things you need it to do right away when you go looking in the settings, but then it doesn’t, doesn’t give a person like me, too much opportunity to just fiddle and not actually utilize the app. And it’s in regular development and updates and meaningful features are added. [00:08:58] Jeff: And it’s just a wonderful app. [00:09:00] It’s chronicling, um, uh, uh, with a L I N G and not, it’s missing, let’s just say it’s missing a vowel. That’s all I’m going to say. So you go on that little, uh, goose chase. Um, but anyway, so it’s one of these apps that allows you to say, you know, I want to press a button every time I, actually call my father. [00:09:18] Jeff: I want to, I want to press a button. Um, every time I get an oil change, I want to press a button every time. I think a shower in my case is. Joking with Alex about that on Mastodon, but it’s not really a joke, like it’s a good indicator of mental health, right? And, um, and, and Rebecca in this app has made that not only very easy to do, but also very beautiful. [00:09:37] Jeff: And there’s also just kind of a, the cool thing is you can choose the scope of time in which you’re tracking these things. Is it inside of a week, inside of a month, inside of a year? And then next to each thing, each item on your, on the home screen is just a little chart. That just kind of shows a little line for each time inside of a week or a month or a year that you did this thing. [00:09:58] Jeff: And then also tells you how many days [00:10:00] it’s been since you did the thing. So I happen to know that it’s been 37 days since we trimmed our cat’s nails. Um, and [00:10:06] Jeff: It’s been 13 days since, uh, since I got a haircut. Um, and, and what I love about it is it’s not, it’s not at least the way it allows you to use it, not. [00:10:15] Jeff: So much for like habit building, like, I think a lot of those apps, I said this when we were talking to Alex about this kind of app, it’s like, a lot of those apps are designed in a way that makes sort of a judgment call, like, you’re supposed to decide what you’re supposed to do, and then you’re rewarded with haptics and confetti every time you do it, right? [00:10:32] Jeff: Which feels great. [00:10:33] Brett: prescriptive versus descriptive. [00:10:36] Jeff: Ooh, nice. And, and what I literally want is to be like, when’s the last time I hung out with a friend in person? When’s the last time we went out to a restaurant? Like, I actually want to see that stuff. Not because I feel bad when I see it, but it like, it helps me a little bit. I’m like, Oh yeah, no, I, I probably should get a haircut or whatever it is. [00:10:53] Jeff: You know? Um, haircut’s a terrible example. I have so many things I’m tracking in there, but a lot of them are about [00:11:00] Relationships and, um, and just like well being, like things that are sort of good indicators. Um, it does in some cases encourage me to actually do a thing. Like if I see it’s been X number of days since, you know, I took a long walk or something, I’ll be like, Oh, I should do that. [00:11:13] Jeff: But it doesn’t, it’s, I don’t know what it is. It’s the designer. It’s the overall vibe, but it doesn’t in any way inspire guilt. It’s just like, I just want to know, you know. [00:11:23] Brett: like this that have always worked for me are the ones that are descriptive that just give me the data and let me make my own, um, kind of judgments. And, and okay, this worked in this way, I should keep doing this, so I’m going to make, you know, a judgment call based on their description of what I have done. [00:11:46] Brett: Um, the ones that are prescriptive, the ones that are like, here’s my goal, now I’m gonna hold myself to this New Year’s resolution kind of idea. Where I’ll just feel guilty when I once again fail to keep them. Um, [00:12:00] yeah. I, I can appreciate that. Uh, by, by the way, that is how you spell chronicling. It’s not missing a vowel. [00:12:08] Jeff: uh, I wish I could say edit that out, but that’s not, that’s, that’s not what we’re gonna [00:12:13] Bryan: perfect. [00:12:14] Jeff: Um, I don’t know, that’s funny. Okay, fine. Fine. I didn’t finish high school. I mean, I, I work alongside PhDs, you know, like, I’ve seen their spelling errors, [00:12:27] Bryan: Absolutely. Spelling is not, spelling is not an [00:12:30] Jeff: No, like I need the red line. You know, I need the red line. [00:12:34] Jeff: Like, it’s fine to show me what’s wrong. Um, all right. Sorry, Rebecca. You’re, you’re, you’re also brilliant because you know how chronicling is spelled. I mean, that’s incredible. You know, like, it’s a thing to just remove. Here’s the thing. I’m not, I’m not defensive. I’m a little embarrassed. But like, the thing about assuming that there was a vowel missing is that, um, Okay. [00:12:54] Jeff: That’s what all apps are missing. [00:12:57] Brett: And, and [00:12:58] Jeff: saw that and I’m like, [00:13:00] Chronicling, what an interesting [00:13:00] Brett: and I didn’t look this up. I’m going for my own innate sense of spelling. So it could turn out in retrospect after this episode is out that someone like Harold comes along and says, actually it’s Proniculling and, and I was totally wrong. So last week I called Harold a pedant, a pedant, a pedant, a pedantic [00:13:21] Jeff: ask Harold. [00:13:22] Brett: And, and [00:13:22] Bryan: love that you said feed in. Are we, are we getting into, uh, [00:13:26] Brett: he. He laughed [00:13:28] Bryan: ahead. [00:13:29] Brett: He told me it was fine. I told him I was afraid that that came across as mean, but he was okay with it. But back to Chronicling. This looks good. [00:13:37] Jeff: Yeah. And also, I mean, like, uh, certainly, uh, uh, something that has to be true for me is that you can, you can export your data, right? So you can also export your data. You can pull it into something else you want. And the last thing I’ll say about it is like, that’s a good sign. Maybe it’s as much about me as anything, but like, it’s almost the end of January and I started it at the beginning and I’m still keeping stuff filled on it, which is like, So that’s gotta be something to say about the app. [00:13:59] Jeff: So anyway, that’s, [00:14:00] that’s my thing. [00:14:02] Brett: All right, Christina. [00:14:05] Christina: so my pick is the new version of Prompt, uh, Prompt 3 from, um, Panic. Um, I, um, You know, I don’t know. So, and it’s interesting. This is a universal app now, so it works on Mac as well as iOS. Um, it is moved to a subscription model. So how you feel about that, or I think you can buy it one time and the one time price is a little bit high. [00:14:27] Christina: I’m not going to lie. Uh, I think it’s probably more, more than I would spend. I’m going to do the subscription for a year, mostly to support Panic and to see how much I like it. There are a bunch of, at this point, I think, really good SSH clients for iOS. There’s, um, um, ISH, uh, which is, uh, available both from a test flight and, um, it’s in the app store. [00:14:48] Christina: Um, there’s, um, La Termina from, um, [00:14:51] Brett: Yeah, that’s [00:14:51] Christina: Miguel De Queza, which I really like a lot. Um, and then there’s the things like specifically for, for Mosh and, and, and whatnot. Um, but, uh, [00:15:00] but I love the, the, the team at Panic. Um, this had been an app panic, uh, prompt to, maybe I’m misremembering this, but I thought I remembered at one point that they’d kind of put it in maintenance mode or basically killed it. [00:15:12] Christina: And so I was glad to see this revived. Uh, and so, um, I, um, uh, and I do have to say like the, the intro video and stuff is really good. Um, again, it’s interesting that it has the, the Mac client. I don’t know how necessary that is when you have terminal, just being completely honest. But, um, you know, and certainly this is not as good of a terminal emulator as iTerm. [00:15:37] Christina: It’s, it’s just not. But I do think that this is, um, a, uh, a good thing for, for, for Mac, uh, or not for Mac, for, for iOS. Um, and I’m not mad. It now does have MOSH support. Um, you can, uh, it has a CLIFFS feature so you can have like your most frequently used commands and text snippets right there. That I think is actually Pretty useful. [00:15:59] Christina: And then of course it [00:16:00] works with Panic Sync, which I like a lot. Um, usually what I, I use these sorts of things for are for like, Using for, for jump boxes. Um, that’s mostly what I use, uh, the, the iOS types of clients for. But, um, anyway, I, um, I, I, this came out, I think it had come out last week when, uh, we were talking, like I was going to make my picket. [00:16:23] Christina: It had just come out. I’ve been playing with it a little bit. Um, and, and I like it so far. Like I said, I don’t know if this is going to be something I remain subscribed to all the time, but, um, um, I’m happy to see more apps like this. And. Always happy to see Panic have apps. So, [00:16:40] Brett: I gotta look back into Mosh. Like, I’ve been, I’ve been using Tmux Sessions. Um, and like all of my, uh, config files, when I SSH into a remote host, it always loads up a tmux with my last session. So before I disconnect from an SSH host, [00:17:00] I just exit out of tmux and then disconnect, and that has given me really stable, uh, SSH sessions. [00:17:08] Brett: But, uh, but I, I remember seeing Moush and thinking, oh, that might be a great answer and then forgetting about it. So, [00:17:16] Christina: same. And so I do remember from like the prompt two days that that was always like a much requested feature. Uh, and so, um, I was glad to see that, um, exist. I do have to say, I do like the, the, um, website that they’ve created for, uh, for prompts. [00:17:31] Bryan: I was about to [00:17:32] Brett: good. I was just [00:17:33] Christina: The aesthetic, yeah, the aesthetic is really good, and the music, um, when you install it, if you go through, like, the trial or whatever, is really good. [00:17:40] Christina: Also, the video and stuff that they created, um, I think, I think Christa still makes all their videos, is, like, just fire, so. Um, um. There are, at this point, it’s a different landscape than when, uh, Prompt 2 came out. Um, there are a lot of good options for iOS, but, um, I’m still gonna [00:18:00] make this my, my Graftitude. [00:18:02] Brett: I like, on their [00:18:03] Bryan: make status port again? [00:18:05] Christina: Yeah, right? [00:18:06] Brett: why, why did they cancel that? I don’t remember. [00:18:10] Christina: I think at the time, it was too hard to make money off of it. And also, like, Apple [00:18:17] Brett: it away for free. [00:18:18] Christina: Well, they tried. And then, and then, you know, trying to do kind of like IAP stuff. I think what was hard at the time, it would be different now, but at the time, this was right when Apple switched the connector type. [00:18:30] Christina: And so the AV connector from the 30 pin could let you do things that you couldn’t do from lightning for a long time. And I think that kind of fucked them. And then there were also problems where they had with like certain companies, like if you wanted to put in like API keys and other sorts of things, like. [00:18:44] Christina: Apple really limited what you could do and how, how you could customize those boards. Like, it’s weird. Like, this is a product that I honestly do think you’re dead on, Brett. Like, I think that you could revive this now and you could make it work. Honestly, web technology has gotten good [00:19:00] enough that you could just do, you know, like, some certain calls, you know, like, without having to do things the way they did them now. [00:19:06] Christina: Like, you, honestly, you could probably build it out even more as a web thing. But, um, [00:19:11] Bryan: Cable, are you listening? [00:19:13] Christina: yeah. Bring it back. [00:19:16] Brett: There’s, uh, in the, like, kind of video that’s running on the computer on the website, bus out to a Matrix terminal for a [00:19:25] Christina: I love that. [00:19:26] Brett: There are, you can install a matrix app through brew. [00:19:30] Christina: Yep. I [00:19:31] Brett: have an, I have an old bash script that uses TPUT and a random, like a random kernel to put Kanji characters on the screen, but what it’s super random and doesn’t create those nice falling columns, uh, that you get from whatever’s on homebrew. [00:19:48] Brett: I think it’s written in Rust. [00:19:49] Christina: Yeah, it is. I think so. Um, and then there’s also a, um, um, there’s a way that you can get like the sneakers, um, effect, uh, that, [00:20:00] that’s also, um, on, on GitHub somewhere. I’ll find that because I made that like [00:20:04] Brett: Yeah, drop that in the show [00:20:05] Christina: Yeah, I will. Yeah. [00:20:07] Bryan: Amazing. [00:20:09] Brett: Bryan, what you got? [00:20:11] Bryan: Okay, so, it was very difficult. I’m gonna do two. And the first one, I’m just gonna go super, super [00:20:18] Brett: allow it. [00:20:19] Bryan: I’m gonna do Basic White Girl, and it is the Starbucks app. I [00:20:25] Christina: It’s a great app. [00:20:26] Bryan: love It’s such a good app. It is such a good app. And they just added live activities for your, um, for your pickups. If you order, [00:20:35] Jeff: what’s that mean? Live activities. [00:20:37] Bryan: Yeah, it comes up on the lock screen, and it’s an updating, so it tells you like when your order’s ready and it’s done being made. Um, and like, it’s so great, and I just, I mean, and I, recently I hadn’t even realized that they had added like, uh, Siri shortcut support, so when you search for Starbucks, you can just press to like, order your regulars, and it’ll, it’ll ask you like, Hey, [00:21:00] is this what you’re getting? [00:21:01] Bryan: And then you can tell it, yes. And then it’s like, okay, so we have this much money on your card and we’re going to charge it. And it just walks through a shortcut and does the whole thing. You don’t even have to open the app to order stuff. I use this. I mean, it’s one of my most used apps. Like I use that app every single day, almost more than Nathan thinks I should. [00:21:17] Bryan: Um, um, and I, it’s such. It’s such a good app. It almost is like, there’s almost never any issues with it, even though they’re running a massive backend, web backend, it’s almost always up and running, like it’s just rock solid. And so I really love the Starbucks app. [00:21:34] Christina: To your point about like how long that has been, um, like it, it’s been an app that’s been around for a really long time. And I have to give, um, I think the Starbucks team immense credit that they have from the very beginning. I remember when that app launched and it was, Apple Pay didn’t exist, Apple Wallet didn’t exist, and they were already kind of creating a way where you could pay using kind of like the, the, the, you know, kind of a predecessor of QR codes, and we’re really kind of getting into that space where you could [00:22:00] make it easy to use, like they had their own kind of terminals and whatnot. [00:22:04] Christina: And I have to say, like, of all the various commerce apps, Most companies have stopped making native apps and, uh, because it just kind of doesn’t make sense. I mean, if they have them, they’re, you know, like little more than wrappers, but like the Starbucks team has continued to work really hard on that app. [00:22:19] Christina: And you’re right, like for the fact that it is a massive web service on the back end, it’s really performant and it works really well. But also, um, I didn’t realize that they’d added the, um, um, Live Activities feature either, but like that’s really great and um, they’re always, I think, like a really good iOS citizen. [00:22:37] Christina: That’s all I was gonna say. [00:22:38] Brett: What do you usually order at Starbucks? [00:22:42] Bryan: Oh my. [00:22:44] Brett: When, when Siri suggests an order, what does, what does Siri know you want? [00:22:49] Bryan: I normally order, these days I order a, like basically a decaf [00:23:00] iced coffee. So, um, which is complex sometimes because of what they have on they don’t make decaf iced coffee so you have to like order What I realized actually was that I was not ordering that for a long time when I was just ordering an iced coffee with decaf espresso shots in it. [00:23:18] Bryan: I had no idea. Um, which is now what I just do, um, because I was supposed to not be drinking caffeine because I was on Vyvanse, but surprise, my blood pressure’s been stable. Um, So, I mean, it’s usually an iced coffee with, um, far too much, far too much sugar and, like, far too many caramel, like, syrup shots, um, and caramel sauce shots, and then Stevia, as if that’s going to fix the problem of all the caramel sauce I put in. Um, and then also, [00:23:44] Christina: Right, right. [00:23:46] Bryan: and then also the Impossible Breakfast Sandwich. I love the Impossible Breakfast Sandwich. [00:23:52] Brett: Yeah, like for me, we have Starbucks here in little old Winona, but they don’t make great espresso. [00:24:00] Um, I make better espresso at home, way cheaper. And I’ve never figured out like, what the draw of like, intelligent adults is to Starbucks. Um, [00:24:14] Bryan: things. I [00:24:15] Brett: I’d be curious. I’m just curious. Like I, I know that a lot of smart people go to Starbucks that, that could [00:24:22] Jeff: Smart Bucks. [00:24:24] Brett: that, that could afford their own, could afford their own coffee setups and like cook their own breakfast. But is it a time thing? Is it, does it just save time? All [00:24:34] Bryan: Well, and the food, I love, I mean, their hot food is, their sandwiches are actually like, pretty banger. And so And also their pastries, like, uh, during the winter, like the gingerbread loaf during the holidays, [00:24:46] Christina: It’s good. [00:24:46] Bryan: the, I don’t know what they put in the icing on their, on their things, but it’s so amazing. It is, I, I’m really sad that they, they discontinued the Thanksgiving turkey sandwich that they used to have. [00:24:56] Bryan: That was also the greatest thing in the world. [00:24:59] Christina: Oh yeah, that was like the [00:25:00] Monica sandwich, right? Like, I never had it, but, but, I never had it, but, but it, that’s what, like, what it looked like. [00:25:05] Bryan: It was so good. Yeah. I mean, for me, it’s mostly, I love seeing the baristas and saying hello, even if it’s just through the drive thru, so there’s that part. And I used to spend a lot of time at the Starbucks, um, in Columbus when I lived there. [00:25:19] Brett: Yeah, so there’s a personal connection. That makes sense. [00:25:22] Bryan: And it’s also that I don’t have to make, like, I forget to make, uh, I forget to brew a pot of cold, brew some cold brew and so on, and I have to have it in the morning. [00:25:30] Brett: Oh, I would never forget that. Um, there’s a, there’s a bar here in town that has a big ceramic pizza oven. And, um, I believe they opened with the intention of being a high end bar, but also became a pizza place in the process. And they made a special pizza around Christmas that was essentially just a Neapolitan pizza. [00:25:52] Brett: And it was, in my opinion, their best pizza. And then it ended. Christmas ended and they stopped serving it. So, [00:26:00] like, I went back to the kitchen. Or I had, I had a, a hostess who’s, who had a boyfriend who worked in the kitchen. And, and she was my proxy to say, how can I continue ordering this year round? And we worked out a deal, like, here’s the code word, here’s what you say, because it’s simple ingredients. [00:26:18] Brett: It’s stuff they always have on hand. It’s just off menu, and, and I worked it out, and that’s why I would go out to a pizza place rather than make my own pizza, is that kind of, like, ability to order off menu, that, the ability to have some kind of personal connection. And I just assumed that you would never have that at Starbucks. [00:26:40] Christina: Well, weirdly, so for food, probably not so much because most of it is pre packaged, um, and or pre made, but like for the drinks, that is like, honestly, the whole thing is that it’s off menu. Like you can get it customized however you want. Um, and that’s why I think they make so much money. Now I live in Seattle. [00:26:57] Bryan: Cause you pay, you pay like three times as much for [00:27:00] your off menus. Like, when you start to customize the additional shots and everything, the price goes up in this. Oh, [00:27:05] Christina: Additional pumps, which is why, like, they had to, like, there was a whole bunch of drama. I remember, uh, God, this was so long ago, but I remember going down this rabbit hole because I loved the drama of people who would, like, save up coupons and things from their Starbucks stars and, like, really use it to get, like, the most ridiculous drink orders they could. [00:27:20] Christina: Like, they would basically find a way to get, like, 13 drinks. I’m not even joking. Um, you know, with, like, their, their, their coupons. And so Starbucks had to kind of, like, cut down on, on how much they were giving out the, the bonus points and whatnot. Um, I live in Seattle where there are a ton of Starbucks and we have a thing called the Starbucks Reserve. [00:27:38] Christina: And there aren’t many of them in the world, but we, there is one, um, literally like three blocks from my house. Um, and they have like the most expensive type of coffee machines and they do like really high end types of brewing and whatnot. Yeah. Oh, that they do. They do. [00:28:00] And, and, and it’s insane, and like, and that’s, that’s a good place to go. [00:28:04] Christina: We don’t have Dunkin and that I’m not gonna lie, like, I grew up my entire life having access to Dunkin at all times, and there are no Dunkins in the state of Washington because of the Starbucks mafia. And so, um, because Starbucks started in [00:28:20] Jeff: That sounds like a really lame reading group name. [00:28:22] Christina: It really [00:28:23] Jeff: Like a great, like a book club. We’re the Starbucks mafia. [00:28:26] Bryan: Jarvox [00:28:26] Christina: God, you know, you know that, you know that some bitches in Bellevue, like, some, like, some moms group have fuckin done that, or like, Woodinville, uh, all the fuckin wine [00:28:35] Jeff: one of them as a, as a food blog, Hubby’s, Hubby’s away this week. [00:28:39] Brett: there was a, there was a coffeehouse in, I think it was in St. Paul, um, and Their claim to fame was that they had bought three Clover machines when they opened, which are like, I think at the time, 20, 000 espresso machines. And [00:28:57] Bryan: every Starbucks has a Clover now. [00:28:59] Brett: [00:29:00] yeah, they had, this place had a small sign and their windows were always steamed. [00:29:04] Brett: Like you could never see inside the place and you could walk by it and never have any idea it existed, but I [00:29:10] Jeff: the, like the boxing gym in my neighborhood. [00:29:13] Brett: Yeah, we’d go there just for their clover machines. Um, that was, that was worthwhile to me. So, if every Starbucks has a clover, I might need to check it out again. [00:29:23] Bryan: Yeah, so if y’all remember, that was my, that was my, that was my basic one. So, the other one is this app called AHEAD, and AHEAD is a, it’s an emotions coach app. So this is a great lead into Mental Health Corner. So, um, It’s science backed, started by, I think, I forget, they’re in another country, because I met with one of the co founders just the other day. Um, but, I struggle a lot with, uh, anger, actually. [00:29:58] Bryan: Um, and I [00:30:00] didn’t realize it was anger, but like, underneath all of the defensiveness and all this other stuff, it’s just anger, anger, anger, anger, anger. Um, and AHEAD has been really helpful in teaching me how to be Uh, Less Angry, How to Get Less Defensive, How to Reframe the Angry Thoughts. And, it takes you through little bite sized lessons, it, uh, has, it like, it has you, like, draw little things on the screen to, like, commit to doing a thing. [00:30:26] Bryan: Um, it, it, it, then it gives you the opportunity to, like, record when you got angry or when you had an angry situation and, like, how it made you feel. And like what the underlying feelings were. And so then over time you start to be able to see like, oh, most of my angry moments come from feeling, feeling like misunderstood. [00:30:49] Bryan: And then that gives you, and then it gives you tactics on like how to address it. Like if you’re about to get angry in a situation before you do, like play out the situation in advance so that you can sort of, [00:31:00] like, like, pre feel the regret, or, like, imagine this is a comedy, like, imagine the situation that you’re about to get angry at as a comedy. And like as a kid would see it, and it’s really funny then, uh, like when, sometimes when I get into a big argument with Nathan about nothing, like this is a very hilarious if you’re on the outside. [00:31:19] Bryan: And it is really, really, it, the first thing that really helped me get my defensiveness under control. And so I’m just like really a big fan of it. They have, I think a seven day free trial, then they will charge you, I think 60 a year, but like I happily paid it and I don’t normally pay, uh, for apps like that. [00:31:39] Bryan: Yeah. [00:31:39] Christina: That’s awesome. Ahead? [00:31:40] Brett: Yeah, I found the, I found the link. It was hard to track down, but, uh, the link’s in the show notes. Um, I, when apps give themselves names that are just words in the English language, [00:31:54] Christina: I know. [00:31:55] Jeff: all the vowels [00:31:56] Brett: For example, Marked. Um, [00:32:00] it uh, um, it makes it hard to track them down, but uh. Envy Ultra is easy to find. Anyway, um, my pick for this week is Loopback from Rogue Amoeba. Um, I honestly could pick all of Rogue Amoeba’s apps, but, uh, specifically Loopback just fascinates me. Rogue Amoeba does black magic, and you know this because Every time there’s an OS update, all their stuff breaks, um, and the fact that they, within, within two weeks of, well, okay, two weeks before a new OS becomes public, they will come out with new versions of their apps and, and they have never failed to get their apps working with a new OS. [00:32:51] Brett: But the fact that they break every time means they are doing some, some deep black magic. And what fascinates me about Loopback, [00:33:00] uh, Loopback is the, the tagline is cable free audio routing for Mac. Um, and it lets you make these virtual audio devices that can combine Different inputs, different outputs, input from different apps, uh, pipe them to here, pipe them to there, and create, uh, like a, a literal audio device that you can select from your input or output menu, and Loopback doesn’t have to be running anymore once it creates the device, um, so for example, I have, uh, Uh, a complete audio six that has six audio inputs, and one of those inputs is from the Echo in my office, and that goes into the three, four, RCA inputs in my Komplete Audio 6, I can then combine that output into almost like a pass through for all of the other audio that comes out of my system. [00:33:57] Brett: So I can patch my [00:34:00] Echo and the output from my Echo, which I often use to play Spotify, I can patch that in as if it’s just coming from my system, and I And I don’t have to, I don’t even have to select a special audio device. It just acts as a pass through device. Um, and with this device that has six different inputs and my Wave XLR and my, uh, uh, uh, Solo 2, um, like I can. [00:34:30] Brett: I can basically pipe, in my case, eight different inputs to specific places and create single devices that can be used throughout any application. I don’t have to be like, Audio Hijack does a great job of doing this stuff internally, as long as you’re running Audio Hijack. But this brings that ability to pipe all your inputs to outputs and create literal OS Specific, like, audio inputs and outputs, and [00:35:00] I love it. [00:35:00] Christina: Yeah. And what’s great is that because of, of how it works, um, uh, like it’ll show up in all of your other apps as like a, a, a, you know, a thing that you can [00:35:09] Brett: Yeah, [00:35:10] Christina: So, so, so you don’t have to worry about like if Zoom or Teams. Teams is going to usually be the culprit here, let’s be completely honest. Um, you know, or, or something else, or something in a web browser, like you don’t have to worry about them supporting some of the features that they may not support. [00:35:26] Christina: You can just choose the, the, um, the group that you’ve chosen in Loopback, and it’ll just act like any other sound source. [00:35:33] Brett: another stupid but obvious use for it is you can create a virtual device for, so I can take my complete audios, six inputs, two outputs, um, I can, I can create a, a virtual device that acts with that as a passthrough and just outputs it. Directly the way it was, but by using that device instead of selecting the complete audio as my output, I now [00:36:00] suddenly have volume and mute controls that you wouldn’t have on an external device like that normally. [00:36:06] Brett: Um, so like the system, the mute button on any media keyboard, or if you assign it to, you know, your, your hackable keyboard, uh, your mute button will suddenly work with an audio device that normally wouldn’t allow you to mute it. It’s, it’s not a cheap app. It’s like a hundred dollars for this app, but honestly, I consider it worth it. [00:36:28] Brett: And [00:36:29] Christina: something quite as, quite as, uh, happy, as big as Loopback, you might be okay with SoundSource, which can do some of that. Um, [00:36:37] Jeff: is great! [00:36:37] Christina: SoundSource is great. [00:36:39] Brett: if you want to go open source, you could find Soundflower. I don’t know if it works anymore. Um, but yeah, like all of these kind of had that kind of patch, um, patch mentality. Sound source itself will add, it’ll do the mute for an external device and it will do, uh, I can’t remember what they call it, super [00:37:00] something, but it will allow you to boost volume. [00:37:02] Brett: on devices that at max volume aren’t loud enough. It’ll allow you to like 120 percent your volume. Uh, SoundSource is also from Rogue Amoeba and, um, I’ll be doing a giveaway on that later this year, um, [00:37:16] Bryan: woo! [00:37:17] Brett: com. So sign up for the mailing list, find out all about it. I didn’t convince them to give away loopback though. [00:37:24] Christina: what I will say for people, if you’re interested in some of the Rogue Amoeba apps, like if you think you would get some use out of them, consider getting their, their ultimate podcast bundle, which will basically give you all the apps at once. And um, like that it’s, it’ll end up coming in, in cheaper. Um, And, uh, the, the apps are, like, they wait a number of years between updates. [00:37:48] Christina: So, um, like, I, I made that, I made that outlay, you know, a number of years ago and I was like, this, this has paid off for me, but yeah. [00:37:56] Brett: you, have you ever used. Firago, or [00:38:00] Farago, or whatever their soundboard app. [00:38:02] Christina: I have, but it, like, not, like, I thought that I would use it more, um, and, and I think that just whatever my workflow was at the time, I didn’t. And now at this point, I feel like the apps that I use where that could be useful, like they have their own built in soundboards. So, um. It’s cool, again, like, what’s great about all the Rogue Amoeba stuff is that, like, it works independently of what app or program you’re in. [00:38:30] Christina: Um, and they are one of the only companies that I trust, uh, including Apple, to be very, very clear to, like, actually understand how the Apple audio, um, uh, like, APIs work. And, um, [00:38:44] Brett: than Apple. [00:38:44] Christina: Oh, I think they absolutely understand better than Apple, which is why I was so mad about the way that you have to install, um, some of the, their stuff, um, on, on various [00:38:53] Brett: still true? Like, you mean with the rebooting and disab or like, dis disabling? Uh, [00:39:00] there were yeah, there was a whole three step process that involved multiple reboots, and [00:39:04] Christina: Yeah. They, they, they, they make it very difficult for you to install their app. Well, yeah. [00:39:07] Brett: haven’t had to do that recently. [00:39:10] Bryan: They just put, they just, they just announced, um, that they’ve been working with Apple, and then I think in the latest OS update, it’s been changed now that you don’t even have to, um, you don’t even have to, like, put in your password in some cases. [00:39:29] Christina: Oh. [00:39:32] Bryan: Yeah, I just, I think I heard about this on, um, Upgrade, I think. Let’s see here. [00:39:41] Brett: Yeah, I would hope that’s gotten better, cause that was, that was some bullshit. [00:39:44] Christina: No, it was complete bullshit. Yeah, I, I didn’t know because I haven’t had to, because usually it was a one time thing. So once you got it installed, you didn’t have to do it again. Um, but I haven’t, um, I haven’t gone through the, the process, um, in a long time. And [00:40:00] so, um, [00:40:01] Bryan: yeah, they said here [00:40:02] Christina: that. But yeah, if you’ve gotten rid of it, that’s even better. [00:40:05] Bryan: Or they’re about to, maybe they shipped it, so this was, they released this in their 2024 status report by Paul on January 9th. And I think what happened was then there was the release of 12. 3, is it? 14. 3, 14. 3. [00:40:24] Christina: hmm. [00:40:25] Bryan: And there was a note that there was like a new permission in 14. [00:40:29] Bryan: 3 and Jason put the two together that he thinks that what happened is, so Audio Hijack, basically what they, what Amoeba has done here is that they’re going to be shipping updates that Airfoil Audio Hijack and Piezo will feature an installer free setup that won’t even need your administrator password and Loopback and SoundSource will new a, use a new audio capture plug in called. [00:40:51] Bryan: ARK, A R K, that won’t require a single system restart. So I’m not sure, maybe it’s out completely, but they, Jason figured [00:41:00] that probably they’ve been working with, um, Apple and Apple has made some changes around security in terms of what, like added a new, a new category of [00:41:13] Christina: So there’s like a new entitlement or [00:41:14] Bryan: setting. Exactly. [00:41:16] Bryan: Yep. And I think that’s, what’s going to address the issue. [00:41:21] Christina: Oh, well, that’s great. [00:41:23] Bryan: Oh yeah, Screens and System Audio Recording, it’s now called. So they added, yeah, System, there’s a System Audio Recording Only option now in, in 14. 3. [00:41:34] Christina: Oh, nice. [00:41:35] Bryan: Yeah, [00:41:36] Brett: Can I nerd out for just 30 seconds before we get to Mental Health Corner? [00:41:41] Christina: Please. [00:41:42] Now that’s service! [00:41:42] Brett: I. [00:41:42] Jeff: if nerding out isn’t what’s been [00:41:44] Brett: Right, so I got a request from a reader of my blog that he wanted to figure out when his VPN connection was disconnected and at that point [00:42:00] kill, you know, a QTorrent And so I had to look into how um, and I did ended up diffing, uh, ifconfig output when the VPN was connected versus when it was disconnected and found out there was a new. Network interface that showed up in ifconfig when it was connected. Um, so then I could just run ifconfig through a grep to see if that device, see if that interface was present, and then I would immediately know if the VPN was connected, um, and put that on a one second loop and just have it run until, uh, until the VPN is no longer detected and then pass through to a kill all command. [00:42:45] Brett: Um, so it’s like a seven line script that can actually kill it, kill an app when your VPN connection terminates. It was fun. I’ll probably post it on his blog, but I’m, I’m asking him for permission to, uh, share the script, not [00:43:00] like his personal details or anything, but. Yeah, that’s that’s that’s the kind of service. [00:43:06] Brett: Oh, and it was weird because I sent him like an example Just like an outline of like how I thought it could work and he came back and he’s like the parentheses don’t work I’m like the parentheses were the parts where you were supposed to insert the working commands and And I realized in the process that he was actually very new to shell scripting [00:43:27] Jeff: That sounds a little bit like helping me, Brett. [00:43:29] Brett: Right, except even more intense. [00:43:31] Brett: I sent him a two screen long email this morning detailing why it worked and how, and explaining the basics of shell scripting. And that right there is the kind of service I provide. [00:43:45] Jeff: That is, yeah, that’s, that’s very fucking Brett, and God bless you. God’s bless you. [00:43:51] Brett: Hey, I learned it the same way. I learned it from people who were like, whether it’s on Usenet or, or Reddit [00:44:00] or in, in private forums, [00:44:02] Jeff: Stack [00:44:03] Brett: you learn this shit from people that can tell you what you’re doing wrong and how it should work. And if you don’t give back, you’re not like, that’s, that cycle has to perpetuate. [00:44:15] Brett: Like [00:44:15] Jeff: is that like when you download torrents but you don’t seed them? [00:44:19] Christina: Ha ha ha. Yes. [00:44:21] Bryan: Yes, [00:44:22] Christina: or, or, or, or when you don’t reciprocate head. Like that’s honestly, like, [00:44:26] Bryan: yeah, absolutely, that’s a good one. [00:44:27] Jeff: it’s all, I think it all falls under the heading of unrequited, [00:44:31] Brett: Yes. Yes. back to Shakespearean, Shakespearean works. Yes. Um, so anyway, you want to get into a mental health corner? [00:44:42] Christina: yeah, I just came up, I just thought of a good pun though for what we were just talking about. Don’t be a regex princess. [00:44:49] Jeff: Ooh, that’s good. [00:44:52] Brett: that the show title? [00:44:53] Christina: Maybe that shouldn’t be. Don’t be a regex princess. I like that. [00:44:56] Jeff: sex princess with Bryan [00:45:00] Guffey. [00:45:04] It’s all Mental Health Corner from here on out [00:45:04] Brett: Do we have any volunteers for first mental health corner? [00:45:10] Jeff: We always give the guest the option. [00:45:11] Bryan: My mental health is better. It’s been a difficult few months. Like, my partner Nathan and I have been coming out of, like, a difficult stretch. I talked about, like, my defensiveness and, like, just I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a non Like, to be a neurotypical, live with a neurodivergent person who also, like, constantly wants to make everything your fault because they have a lot of their own, like, trauma. [00:45:43] Bryan: Um, Brett talking about complex, you’re talking about complex PTSD and, you know, uh, really You know, I’ve had that revelation with my therapist and psychiatrist as well. And just how much, one of the things that I [00:46:00] continue to sort of be amazed by is how much everything can come back to the trauma that you’ve experienced and how that shapes the way that your brain ends up working, you know, that again, like ADHD and. [00:46:12] Bryan: Autism and all of these things can be, you know, both downstream of the trauma that you’ve experienced because it’s shaped your brain in different ways, but also it can exacerbate those things. Um, and the other thing that I’ve been, I’ve been sort of dealing with a lot is just recognizing how often people will fuck you up without having anything but the best of intentions. And how, and how you sort of have to learn to reconcile that without needing to have them take responsibility for it. [00:46:48] Jeff: What did Merlin say last week? They’re doing the best they can, and that’s the problem. [00:46:52] Bryan: yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. I listened to that episode and like, and it was really weird, like having the, the, the super long mental [00:47:00] health corners the last couple of times, plus that I was like, wow, this is all just sort of coming together at the right time, you know? And so it’s, you know, also work has just been absolutely like just pouring water over top of you, like waterboarding levels of like overwhelming. And so I’ve really had, I mean like I was in a meeting earlier this week with my boss and she was like, she is also I’m pretty sure neurodivergent and like it is learning. to be a better manager still and is like a very good engineer but that means that like sometimes she gets really worked up about things and like when your boss gets worked up about things like then you get worked up about things and there was a moment in which i was just like i am screaming inside right now we just stop for a moment uh because like i cannot take any more information being thrown at me and be asked to like operate [00:47:55] Brett: Yeah. So [00:47:57] Bryan: It’s been, so it’s just been a really [00:48:00] intense period. [00:48:02] Bryan: And I’m like trying to get out of the house more and do more things. I was down in, uh, down in LA for the weekend. My mom was in town, saw my brother, my sister in law and my nephew and went out to eat, you know, um, at a restaurant that was mostly outdoors. Uh, if you’re in LA, go to the Hatchet Hall. It’s a phenomenal restaurant. [00:48:20] Bryan: Um, but it’s just been, it’s just been like really intense and overwhelming You know, just like, it’s one of those things where you’re like, oh, does it ever get, like, really, can I get life to be boring again? [00:48:38] Jeff: Yeah. [00:48:39] Bryan: all been going through that for years, right? But now, like, like, but there was a period where, like, COVID was happening, and I was like, well, my life is really boring inside of COVID, and I love it. That’s at home, doing nothing, like, same thing every day, had the same stuff delivered every two weeks for groceries, it was so awesome, and now people want me to do things again. And now, like, now, [00:49:00] like, all of the stuff that I thought I had figured out, but mostly I was just hiding in my house, which is, like, fine, except that, like, my partner does not have the capability to give me the amount of social interaction that I need. [00:49:11] Bryan: Um, Now it’s just like all of the other stuff is coming on top of it and COVID is still going on to some degree. Like, it’s so, it’s just like very, very exhausting. [00:49:21] Brett: I relate to this, I relate to this inclination to not do anything or to have things be the same every day. Um, that is where I feel the most comfortable, but in the times I am kind of forced or, you know, by circumstance, I end up Doing things outside of my comfort zone, I usually end up feeling a sense of, um, accomplishment and satisfaction. [00:49:48] Brett: Do you find, like, being forced to do things to actually be maybe good? [00:49:55] Bryan: Yes, I do. Like it is, it is, the struggle is that this, the amount [00:50:00] of time that’s available, right? Like the other things, doing the other things is great. But like, I’m not yet getting to choose to not do other things. You know, so there’s just not enough time at all at the moment. And, you know, it doesn’t, I, I love them. [00:50:17] Bryan: They are like one of the greatest joys of my life. But having nine dogs, um, is, you know, and particularly like the, the process of dog training right now, which is two nights a week for like three hours each [00:50:31] Brett: Yeah, that sounds [00:50:32] Bryan: is just like so much, it’s so much [00:50:35] Jeff: Hold on, pause, mental [00:50:38] Bryan: Oh, you didn’t know. No, [00:50:49] Jeff: That’s insane, I love it. [00:50:51] Bryan: we had zero, [00:50:52] Jeff: or are they all one breed? [00:50:55] Bryan: so they’re all Doxan mixes, um, they’re all [00:51:00] except one from the same bloodline and family and we have, we have mom, um, and All but three of them came into our lives on February 24th last year. Because they were born in my, in our, in my partner’s bedroom. [00:51:16] Jeff: Oh, right, because they were a litter of six, basically. [00:51:19] Bryan: Yeah, exactly. [00:51:20] Jeff: they do come in numbers, don’t they? [00:51:23] Bryan: They really do, and then we just decided we’d [00:51:24] Brett: Have you spayed [00:51:25] Bryan: Yeah, everybody is spayed and neutered, yeah. Oh, yes. [00:51:29] Brett: okay. Um, so remind me, I can’t remember, is your partner neurodivergent? [00:51:36] Bryan: So, according to, according to the tests, no. [00:51:41] Brett: Okay. So you are actually in a, a weird coupling. [00:51:46] Bryan: yeah, but he’s also like, [00:51:51] Bryan: So, I think people who are very, very, very highly intelligent, Exhibit their own types of what we, [00:52:00] what you like of non normative engagement. Uh, for example, Nathan doesn’t really forget anything ever. Um, and he knows something about almost everything. So like, you’re not normally in a relationship with somebody who’s basically never wrong. [00:52:21] Jeff: everyone’s in a relationship with someone who thinks they’re [00:52:23] Brett: Yeah, yeah, totally, totally, 100%. [00:52:25] Bryan: this is, but the problem has been that I have discovered, like, he’s actually, cause he, he, he does not say that he knows something unless he actually knows it, which is so foreign to me as an ADHD person who spent so much time in my life just being like, yeah, I know that because I didn’t want to look like I didn’t know something cause I couldn’t remember it. [00:52:46] Jeff: Totally. [00:52:47] Brett: I, uh, my, my partner, um, at, when we started our relationship, they thought they were neurotypical. And for the first five years of our relationship, [00:53:00] Uh, we operated under the assumption that I was ADHD and bipolar and they were normal. Um, and it wasn’t until [00:53:07] Jeff: Grading on a curve. [00:53:08] Brett: they got their diagnosis that Autistic, that we suddenly realized, oh, we are both neurodivergent in, in pretty drastic ways. [00:53:18] Brett: And it changed. It, like, we had been working out ways to deal with my shit, um, without realizing we also needed to figure out ways for me to deal with their stuff. Um, and, and that was a big turning point, but, uh. But, if I, like, I was journaling last night, that if there was one gift I could give to Elle, that would actually matter, it would be a shorter memory. [00:53:48] Brett: Um, because I can go into any conflict fresh. Like, This is, this is a new thing that we have to discuss. I don’t have a history for this. I don’t have a list of [00:54:00] complaints. I don’t have a list of grievances to bring to the table here. I’m just, I have a, I have a very short memory. I have an ADHD memory. I exist in the moment and I feel like I can deal with a problem in the moment. [00:54:14] Brett: But as soon as I’m hit with this backlog of data that I can’t prove or disprove, I could be easily gaslit. [00:54:22] Christina: totally. [00:54:22] Brett: as soon as I’m hit with that, I’m, I have to shut down. [00:54:25] Christina: No, I’m in a similar sort of thing and I have a memory like a steel trap, however, there are some things that you just, you don’t remember every sort of, you know, nuance, everything you ever said, everything you’ve ever done. Like I might know ridiculous factoids and have like a photograph, a photographic memory for things that I’ve, I’ve read. [00:54:43] Christina: Um, and, and, you know. Seen or whatever, but I don’t necessarily remember everything I’ve ever said in person or, or whatnot. I might remember, like, I might make a quip on this podcast that in 30 minutes I might not, somebody be like, oh, I can’t believe you said that. I’m like, what did I say? You know? Um, and, [00:55:00] and, and I think you’re right, Brett. [00:55:01] Christina: Like it is one of those things where I’m similar to you in that. Even though I have a decent memory, I don’t hold on to, I don’t want to say grudges because I think that’s too simplistic, but like I try to start fresh and I try to not let stuff linger, um, unless it’s had a real impact on me, in which case that’s a sign that I should have like a deeper conversation with someone and I try not to let it fester, right? [00:55:21] Christina: But I, I run into that, this problem with, with, uh, with my partner where, like, he will remember things very deeply and I don’t have a, to your point, like, I don’t always have a good way of knowing, okay, is this accurate or is this not? Because sometimes I’m like, I don’t think this is, like, your memory of this is different than mine. [00:55:38] Christina: And, but, but like, there’s, there’s no way to prove it, you know? [00:55:42] Brett: yeah. Without, without a list of data. Yeah. [00:55:45] Bryan: Right. Well, I’ve had this experience with Nathan. I mean, you know, so we’ve been going to couples therapy and we’re going to couples therapy with my therapist and it was very funny because Nathan was like, I, I was worried that if we went to couples therapy with my therapist, that like my therapist would [00:56:00] like be too hard on or Nathan would feel like my therapist was too hard on him. [00:56:03] Bryan: But no, instead, like my therapist was like, no, like normally she’s like, it’s your, it’s, it’s your, you’re the, you’re the problem here, Bryan. Yeah. like, it’s your problem, it’s your shit that’s causing the problem. A couple of things that have happened is that one, one of the things that I’ve had to learn, because my brain is so associative, um, as an ADHD person, like, it is not, you all know this, it’s not linear, it’s somebody says something that makes you think of something else. [00:56:28] Bryan: Which means, we are having a conversation about something that I did, Right? And it makes me remember the time Nathan did something kind of like it. And I want to talk about why are these two things different, or you shouldn’t have done that. And I’ve had to learn really, really, like, really deeply. We are talking about me right now. [00:56:46] Christina: Right. [00:56:47] Bryan: And the problem is, is that I’m, again, because of the forgetfulness. I worry that if I don’t bring it up now, I won’t get to. And there’s this feeling that, again, like I’m going to be taken advantage of. But he is, and this is the part that I’ve had to [00:57:00] learn, because I think a lot of us have had the experience of being gaslit and taken advantage of a lot. [00:57:04] Bryan: And so we, we jump on things when they happen immediately because we don’t want to lose them. [00:57:09] Brett: Mm hmm. Yep. [00:57:11] Bryan: I’ve had to really realize he is not everybody else in my life. He’s not all of those other people that I didn’t know as well who took advantage of me or hurt me, right? Like we actually have a saying that it’s, it’s been this idea to like really radically reframe things so that I didn’t start. [00:57:26] Bryan: And honestly, I have admitted now that like some of this came from Being so obsessed with social media for me and using like Twitter so much is that I got into the habit of responding to everything with a, but what about this? Or no, what it could, it should like, it was automatically adversarial the way that I would engage. [00:57:46] Jeff: Mm. [00:57:47] Bryan: Um, and in fact, when I started Not using Twitter as much, I started having more arguments with Nathan, my therapist was like, I’m pretty sure this is because you’re not fighting with people. Exactly. [00:58:00] Yeah. And so we’re actually do this thing now. I actually have on my home screen, it’s a picture of Nathan and then a piece of text that I put on there using like Canva. [00:58:08] Bryan: That’s just basically like, remember, Nathan is always right. And Some people got very words in my life like that’s very scary why would you ever say that like well I just think your partner’s always right and I had to clarify with them that what that [00:58:21] Jeff: sounds like something done under duress. [00:58:23] Bryan: right but like the idea here but the problem was was that I was always getting into arguments with him and then having to come back and apologize because I was wrong [00:58:32] Brett: Yeah, [00:58:33] Bryan: because, because your brain makes, like when you feel something strongly, when you feel righteous anger, you think, how could I be wrong? [00:58:41] Bryan: How could I be wrong? And we don’t realize how much of an unreliable narrator our brain is. [00:58:45] Brett: it’s super helpful to have that framing. If you go into the conversation assuming the other person is right and being willing to look at how you might be wrong, it doesn’t mean you’re conceding the [00:59:00] argument. You’re able to take a different look at it. The one thing I’ve learned recently with Elle is If I can present, if I’m feeling hurt, if I’m feeling offended by something, um, if I can, instead of saying you offended me, if I can come at it and say, I feel offended and then think about here’s why, here’s how that hit me, here’s what that indicates within me, we can have a long, deep conversation. [00:59:27] Brett: But if I come right out the gate and I’m like, you’re wrong, you hurt me, you did this. Incorrectly. Uh, it’s a totally different conversation that shuts down very quickly. [00:59:39] Bryan: For me with Nathan, it is that he does not have a problem. This is, he’s a scientist, and it’s, sometimes it’s very frustrating he’s a scientist. I’m not allowed to use the word research in this household, um, because research means something very specific, [00:59:54] Brett: Same as theory and hypothesis. Yes. [00:59:56] Jeff: can just say, Educate yourself, man. [00:59:58] Bryan: exactly. He’s like, or, or, [01:00:00] or, you know, or, or do some googling, you know, read some articles, learn some things, um, but, uh, he, he is more than happy to admit that he’s, when he’s wrong, like, annoyingly so. Also, like, even, and I have had, and, It’s been a combination of this plus a deep need for people to not be mad at me, and some real codependence, that I was often confusing, feeling upset or angry. [01:00:33] Bryan: With the actions that I took when I was upset or angry or how I engaged with him. Because I would watch him get upset and angry, but then also be like, I’ll take your feedback or I’ll think about that. And I’d be like, but you got upset or angry. We’re not supposed to do that. And my therapist, it happened in like in real time in one of them. [01:00:50] Bryan: And she’s like, no, the difference is he got upset. You could see it on his face. And then, and then he also still responded appropriately. And the difference is you get [01:01:00] upset and then you try to make it his fault. [01:01:03] Brett: Do you find a sense of relief when you do admit you’re wrong? [01:01:08] Bryan: Yes. [01:01:09] Brett: I have this instinct to, to argue for whatever I’ve stated, even if I don’t fully believe it or can’t fully back it up. Like I feel this, this, uh, [01:01:21] Bryan: be, to be wrong is to be bad [01:01:24] Brett: right. Exactly. Uh, but the moment I can say, you know what, like, given this new information, given this data that I was incapable of gathering myself, I can see, I can see that I was wrong. [01:01:39] Brett: And there’s this sense of relief that comes with it to just, to be able to say, Yeah, no, I was wrong coming into this. You were right. And it just feels like smoothing out all these waves of like emotion that I had. [01:01:54] Bryan: There was not a lot of space. And I think Brett, you can probably relate to this. There’s not a lot of space growing up [01:02:00] for me to be wrong, for me to make mistakes. And it was a combination of, uh, I don’t think my mom My mom always tells a story about how when she started school, which was right after Brown vs. [01:02:15] Bryan: Board of Education, her parents said to her, don’t do anything that will make these white people think you’re less than them. she has always been an overachiever. Also, uh, pretty certain she has ADHD. She’s actually finally going to talk to her doctor about it at 71. I’m so proud of her. And I’m pretty sure she’s autistic too, because this stuff runs in the family. [01:02:36] Bryan: Um, but, and, so And she, she was one of the, like, I learned to get over things emotionally, or at least act like I was over them, maybe it was part of the ADHD. And then I would go to her and she would not be ready to, like, talk to me yet. She’d still be upset. [01:02:53] Christina: Yeah, she’d still need [01:02:54] Bryan: Right, and so, [01:02:55] Christina: it. [01:02:56] Bryan: right, and so I was like, well then that means that I’ve, like, I’ve [01:03:00] done something bad, you know, like, and so I, and also my parents were always very confused about how I could be so smart. [01:03:08] Bryan: And still like make mistakes. And then they thought once they put me on medication, that that would solve everything because at the time that’s all they knew. [01:03:15] Brett: hmm. Mm hmm. [01:03:16] Bryan: Um, and it did not. And so, uh, learning that it is like, I still struggle with being able to recognize that, like making what, what happens is I’m constantly trying to recover from the mistake that I’ve made by not like, by not. [01:03:32] Bryan: Making another mistake. But in the, in the process of doing so, I keep making more mistakes because Nathan’s like, stop apologizing a hundred times because all you keep doing is bringing it back up and I’m just trying to like, I’ll forget about it in 30 minutes if you leave it alone and I’m over here still obsessing over it because I made a mistake and it’s the perfectionism of all of us of trauma survivors, you know, and [01:03:55] Jeff: mean, I can, I’m, I’m wired in such a way that like, when I, you had said to be wrong [01:04:00] is to be bad, right? Like, even though I have watched people in my life fuck up over and over and I’ve, they’ve never almost lost me. I assume that the fuck ups pile up when we get to four or five, it’s over. [01:04:13] Bryan: yeah, [01:04:14] Jeff: Never happened [01:04:14] Bryan: always, and that somebody is always hiding something and they’re not telling you all the reasons of the way that they’re feeling [01:04:19] Jeff: yeah, yeah, [01:04:19] Bryan: to surprise you. [01:04:21] Jeff: Exactly. Exactly. Surprise. [01:04:23] Brett: You should read my journal for the last week. Yep. [01:04:26] Christina: Yeah. [01:04:27] Jeff: he actually has a live journal page. You can read his journals there if you [01:04:30] Christina: Livejournal. [01:04:31] Bryan: my live journal. [01:04:32] Jeff: It’s all written in Russian, but [01:04:34] Bryan: I was flame, I, I, my, my, my, my handle was Flaminice. And I, it was a picture of Emmett Honeycutt from, from Queersfolk. [01:04:43] Christina: yes. Which is the perfect LiveJournal, like, like, show. Um, yeah. I, uh My username would be fairly easy to figure out. Um, let’s just, I don’t need to go further than that. Uh, because some of the stuff might still be there. Who fucking knows? Um, [01:04:59] Brett: a [01:05:00] guess. I have a guess, but it sounds like you don’t want us to guess. I’m [01:05:04] Christina: no, I mean, it, it, it’d be completely [01:05:06] Jeff: can bleep. We can bleep in this thing, can’t [01:05:09] Brett: doing a Google right now. [01:05:11] Christina: Oh, no, you can’t Google it. That’s the great thing. It’s not indexed. [01:05:14] Brett: Oh, nice. [01:05:15] Jeff: Yeah. [01:05:16] Christina: This was the [01:05:17] Jeff: almost everybody on planet Earth with a computer in those years. [01:05:21] Christina: no, that was a decision that Brad made, like, very, like, deliberately. It wasn’t, um, an accident. He made the decision to not index the stuff unless you purposely opted in. You had to go into your settings and opt in to be Google indexed because he understood because he was in college when he started this thing as a way to talk with his high school friends. [01:05:40] Christina: And then it blew into this, like, many million user service that like had to have an invite system, um, uh, for many years to scale that he was like, this is shit that people aren’t going to want people to find. And so by default, it’s not [01:05:55] Brett: by today’s standards. That’s highly unusual, but also a smart, like [01:06:00] admirable move. [01:06:00] Christina: Well, that’s because this is why Brad, I think he should be so much richer than he is because he created these underpinnings for what the whole modern web runs on. And I asked him once, I was like, do you ever get mad that like Mark Zuckerberg, Matt Mullenweg, like all these people have like, you know, David Karp, all these people have made, you know, money essentially using a lot of the software you’ve built. [01:06:19] Christina: And he’s like, if it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else. And A, I don’t think that’s necessarily true. But B. Just the fact that, like, that’s his attitude is, like, why he’s, like, one of the, like, best people that, like, I can call my internet friend for the last, you know, two decades. Well, and we’ve met in person, too, but, like, you know, I’ve literally known him for decades, and, um, that’s why Livejournal will always have my heart. [01:06:46] Christina: But that’s my slash rant, sorry. Didn’t mean to [01:06:49] Brett: That’s cool. That’s awesome. Um, I think we should let Jeff go because I don’t know what his schedule here is. [01:06:57] Jeff: I actually have a good, um, bridge here to [01:07:00] mine. Um, LiveJournal. Back in the, back in the day, I remember I went into the Punk Planet offices one day, which was just two people. Um, and, and Dan, who had created it, was the editor, brought me over to his computer. He’s like, check this out. And he, a friend had given him a URL that would allow you to look at. [01:07:18] Jeff: And, Um, all of the live journal images, uh, that have been updated in the last whatever amount of time. And so anytime you could refresh that and you’d be looking at like 40 live journal images from the full spectrum of live journal, right. Probably some ethical issues, but, oh my God, was it the most amazing? [01:07:36] Jeff: It’s like when you, have you ever, have you ever just sat and scrolled through like TikTok lives and just been like this? is all of the kinds of people, right? Like, that’s what it felt like. And I had a curated list, uh, I mean, a curated folder of all those, of my favorites of those photos that just, like, I had that same feeling of like, I’m looking across ways of living, you know, and being and [01:08:00] whatever. [01:08:00] Jeff: Um, as I describe it, I realized it’s a little problematic, but, um, let’s, let’s, and if I, I could be challenged on that, but I don’t do it anymore. I mean, this was 20 years ago and, and I was fascinated by seeing the world. Um, so I’m sorry, everybody, if it feels wrong. I’m happy to admit it. Uh, but anyway, that was also just a weird, that time of the internet thing that something that would even exist, right? [01:08:25] Jeff: Like that you could even kind of do that. I mean, you could scrape it obviously, but this was not, this was like, you could hit a URL and be like, here are the last hundred images that posted on live journal. [01:08:34] Christina: No, which is, which is amazing. I mean, at a certain point, like that very quickly, like got out of scale, but yeah, like that, that’s, it’s crazy how, um, fast things move to the point where like, I remember when, when Twitter, um, I, I know Brett remembers this, Bryan, I don’t know if you do or not. Um, and Jeff, I’m not sure about you, but I remember like the first probably, you know, year or so, like there was the live feed. [01:08:57] Christina: of Twitter that you could just look at. You [01:09:00] could like literally just go to Twitter. com and you would see the entire firehose of every tweet that was being sent on the network. [01:09:07] Jeff: Wow. [01:09:08] Christina: I, that’s how I discovered, that’s how I got a following. That’s how I discovered like people is I would just like randomly reply to people and you would just have random combos with people and you know, yeah, [01:09:18] Jeff: Amazing. So only slightly related, but it is an okay bridge. Um, this is actually a rare mental health corner where I’m just focused on something that gives me like quiet joy, um, which obviously is key with mental health. Um, so a long time ago, I don’t have a great memory. That’s a theme today. Um, but I have a lot of stories in my life that I want to remember that just make me smile. [01:09:41] Jeff: Um, and, uh, and as an example, Um, I’ll tell one in a second, but it, this whole thing stems out of a, um, out of a writing exercise I invented for myself some years ago, where I decided to focus on like, you know, my band probably did like six tours in the late nineties, but they were [01:10:00] like really formative experiences. [01:10:02] Jeff: And, and things happen on those tours that I never want to forget. A lot of them are just dinner party stories anyhow, but, but I just don’t want to forget them. So I decided I’m going to sit down every day for like 20 minutes, I’m going to write postcards from these moments, essentially. Right? Like I’m going to write them short. [01:10:15] Jeff: It’s going to be as if I was writing a postcard and it’s going to tell this story, just like the, the basic details of the story. Um, and, and I have one of those right now, which I want to share, and I want to tell you what I’m doing with them. That’s giving me quiet joy. Okay. Bye. I only just remembered this because I’m watching the show, The Offer, which is [01:10:32] Christina: Oh, so good. [01:10:33] Jeff: yeah, it’s great. [01:10:34] Jeff: It’s irresistible. I mean, like there’s times when you’re like, Oh, this isn’t like the best TV show in the world, but it’s fricking irresistible, especially as a fan of the movie, like it’s candy. Um, so Colin Hanks is in that movie, um, which is what made me think of this. So I was at a show and, um, This was actually a reunion show 10 years ago, so it’s not even on tour. [01:10:54] Jeff: And, um, and, and I’m backstage after the tour. I’m just like, after the show, I’m super sweaty. I’m sitting on a [01:11:00] chair. My friend brings down this guy and goes, Hey everybody, this is my friend Colin. And, uh, and he looks at me and he, and my friend looks at me and says, you guys are Colin’s new favorite band. [01:11:10] Jeff: And I look at Colin, who I do not recognize. And I say, Come sit in my lap. And so he comes over, sits in my lap, a photo’s taken that I never got. He gets up, whatever the night goes on. I find out the next day it’s Colin Hanks. And I’m like, you know how those things are. It’s like, you kind of can’t ask for the photo. [01:11:29] Jeff: Like, you know, his friend took the photo and probably his friend would feel weird about giving even though that friend was my friend. I never asked for the photo. Didn’t want to seem too needy. And so I don’t have it. Okay, so When you don’t have an image of a thing, right, like, um, it’s kind of, you know, one thing that, that I’ve experienced with trauma and we probably all have is that traumatic incidents can exist as frozen photographs, essentially frozen moments that won’t unfreeze for no matter how hard you try or wish them to, which is where therapy obviously comes in. [01:11:58] Jeff: Definitely for me where EMDR [01:12:00] comes in. My cat’s complaining. Um, but I wanted to create, so I decided I’m going to plug these little postcard stories into Dolly, um, and have it create just completely fucked up fake memory images of these moments. So I’d be like, create me a postcard image of this thing. [01:12:17] Jeff: Now, in this case, the best it could do was give me a picture of Tom Hanks sitting in Tom Hanks’s lap. Um, it’s no matter how hard I tried. [01:12:26] Christina: I love [01:12:27] Jeff: That’s all I would get, but that was, but that was great. But I’ve also, so I’ve been putting them in and it shoots back these pictures that are so wrong and something about engaging with the story itself and then, and then almost cartoonizing them because they are stories I love. [01:12:40] Jeff: I’m not putting hard stories in there. Right. It’s just like, it’s been a way to connect with. moments in my life that I love, or even in this case, I’m kind of proud of. I’m proud that my reaction was come sit in my [01:12:51] Christina: I am too! [01:12:52] Jeff: Like, and I love that Colin Hanks sat in my sweaty ass lap without hesitation. [01:12:58] Christina: weren’t even drunk, but also, [01:12:59] Brett: know [01:13:00] you weren’t [01:13:00] Jeff: one was drunk. [01:13:01] Christina: also, also, like, you, like, your band was like Colin Hanks favorite band, like, what the [01:13:06] Jeff: That night, yeah, I’ll take it. I’ll take it. So, um, another one I did that was just so, so delightful is like, I started plugging in dreams. So I’ve, I’ve had nightmare problems forever, but I also have the most delightful absurd dreams. And there was a dream once where I was driving a blue Cadillac convertible and an orange jumpsuit, not like a prisoner jumpsuit, but like a, like a seventies fly jumpsuit. [01:13:29] Jeff: And I crashed through the fence of a monkey farm. I crashed through the fence of a monkey farm, and the monkeys were so excited to meet me. [01:13:38] Jeff: So I decided to put this in, and the thing that was hilarious is that I had to keep re prompting with this one prompt. Make the monkeys even more happy to see me. But anyhow, this, this was like, I said, kind of like these are quiet moments of joy. There are these great things where it’s like these, these small little joy torpedoes, and they just happen with me [01:14:00] quietly with my laptop and my couch and these little memories. And it’s, It’s so much, it’s so interesting. [01:14:05] Jeff: Cause like, I feel like the way we share these things over time is obviously with people and the older you get, the more the people in your life have already heard those fucking stories. Right. Um, and so, but you still want to interact with those stories. They’re memories that like do something for you. [01:14:17] Jeff: Right. And so this has just been an amazing way to just interact with the parts of my life that delight me. Um, and, uh, and have it just be me and, but still have something reflected back at me, just like someone reacting to your story, you know? So that’s been really nice for me. And what has been like a. [01:14:33] Jeff: Like you, Bryan, just a tough ass work week or a couple of weeks, [01:14:36] Brett: I think I’ve, I think I have two questions and they’re actually for Jeff. Um, first, have you seen Life in Pieces? Oh, amazing show with Colin Hanks. Uh, second, have you seen the meme where they ask Dali to make John baptizing Jesus, but happier? And they have these two white [01:15:00] guy two white guys in a river in robes just yucking it up, just laughing and dunking each other. [01:15:08] Brett: It’s, and they’re very, they’re very white. Notably, John and Jesus are both very white in Dali’s recreation of John baptizing [01:15:18] Jeff: something crazy happened totally against their racist algorithm, which is that the very first thing I put in was the story where. We’re playing in Houston and at the beginning of the show, I hate Houston. I mean, I don’t hate it in a kind of way that I’m damning a city, but I never liked playing Houston. [01:15:33] Jeff: Um, it could, we run this label Amphetamine Reptile Records and it was just meatheads that came out to those shows basically, right? Like we weren’t really, it wasn’t our thing, but like, whatever. So this is like when you go to Texas on that label, you really get, can get meatheads. So no offense, Texas, or, but if you’re a fan and you went to an AmRap band show, you know, it’s true. [01:15:51] Jeff: Um, so anyway, beginning of the show, I’m already feeling angsty. There’s a street sign behind me, you know, how they used to decorate the clubs back in the day. [01:16:00] I reach back with my sticks to do some big like crashing thing and I slice my finger open on the sign and I’m bleeding everywhere. I was a little bit known for always bleeding. [01:16:09] Jeff: I was like G. G. Allen, but I didn’t mean to be bleeding. Um, and so I was always like my, my drum heads had blood on them, my sticks, but I was really bleeding. And by the end of the show, I was just, I don’t know, it was like in a young person angsty moment where I like, I didn’t even like playing for these people and, and I didn’t like how they looked at me and I just didn’t like it. [01:16:27] Jeff: Right. And so at the end of the show, as the, my bandmates were just making noise, um, I got onto a road case I had that had wheels and I, I, I surfed through the crowd throwing my bloody sticks kind of hard, like in a way that I don’t feel good about now. And, and as soon as the show was over and the lights came up. [01:16:47] Jeff: And all of a sudden the magic’s over, right? You’re not, you can’t be in that character anymore. I realized, like, I’d just thrown the last of my sticks and I had no money. And so I started looking around for the sticks and I, and I see [01:17:00] three of them next to a dude whose back is to me at the bar, who is a very big, strong man. [01:17:06] Jeff: And, and I don’t know if he kept those as evidence of someone hurt, almost hurting people or what, but I go over. I tap him on the shoulder, these are desperate times, and I go, hi, excuse me, those are my drumsticks, is there any chance I could get them back? He turns around, looks at me, and goes. You guys were fucking awesome. [01:17:24] Jeff: So I plug this in a version of this into the thing, and it makes me a black drummer with blood dripping off my hands, albeit, but like, I was like, Whoa, like, I normally actually will just say, as is my habit, anyhow, if I’m describing myself to people that don’t know me, I’m like a six foot four white guy. [01:17:44] Jeff: Cause right? Like white people don’t do that. They’re just like, Oh, I’m wearing a striped shirt. It’s like, Oh, okay. Well. I guess, uh, this is a test. I’m assuming you’re white. Like, it just, it’s a fucked up test of your brain. If you’re a white person, I like, I’m probably like all around. But I was like, [01:17:57] Brett: was trained on death and bad brains, [01:17:59] Jeff: [01:18:00] was the first time. [01:18:00] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. It was the first time I ever tried it. And I was like, they made me a black drummer. And then I had to write the really funny sentence of like, yes, but I’m white. Because like, I know this is like, okay, I love this, but it’s like, feel a little weird holding it. Anyway, that’s [01:18:16] Bryan: great. That’s amazing. That’s so good. [01:18:20] Brett: Mine can tie into multiple themes. Do you mind if I go next, [01:18:24] Christina: No, please, please. [01:18:25] Brett: Um, so, I, okay. Um, I, back in, I don’t even remember what year, but about ten years ago, I lost a couple terabytes of photos. Um, and History. Fuck you, Drobo. Um, [01:18:43] Jeff: What’d you call me? [01:18:45] Brett: and, um, and it, like, just gone, because I had trusted a backup system that was not to be trusted. [01:18:52] Brett: Um, so what I have left from those years exists in what I did upload to Flickr, what I did post to [01:19:00] my blog, um, what I did, what I did make available online, because I had no local copies of these memories left. And I was going through old YouTube videos today and I found one. It was, it’s a company called Pummel Vision. [01:19:14] Brett: It was an app that is gone now. Uh, if you try to go to their site, you get like a weird Apache error message. Um, or Nginx. I, whatever it, uh, it, it, it’s gone now, but what it does is take all of your. I think it was from Flickr, um, and it takes all of your photos and puts them up like two photos per second in this barrage of years worth of photos in like two minutes. [01:19:46] Brett: And [01:19:47] Jeff: dizzying. [01:19:47] Brett: yeah, it’s, it pummels you with these memories and it was crazy because I did not have, I had completely forgotten about All of this, because [01:20:00] it makes me realize exactly how bad my memory is, um, if I don’t have photographs, if I don’t have photographic evidence or a blog post that something happened, then it may as well have never happened as far as I’m concerned, um, which is why I’m pretty religious about taking photos and backing them up and uploading to Flickr and blogging Blogging about things I learned because I will forget a year later, I will, I will search for the solution to a problem, find my own blog and realize I have already solved this. [01:20:34] Brett: I have already done this. And this happens to me. I want to say, you know. Infrequently, but it, it’s like once a month, I find out I’ve already solved the problem, and I’ve blogged about it, and other people have linked to it, and I had forgotten about it, but this, this pummel vision, and then looking back through old Flickr photos, and like realizing that that segment of my life, it was about a two year [01:21:00] span, uh, that I had thought, you I had no memory of, but I did actually have online traces of. [01:21:06] Brett: And honestly, it makes me really thankful for things like Flickr, for things like LiveJournal, for, well, I mean, [01:21:15] Christina: Well, yeah. [01:21:17] Brett: were backed up, things like my blog, for things, uh, these, these external, we’ll say cloud based. Versions of our life that they’re curated. They’re what we want to remember. They’re not necessarily indicative of reality or what really happened, but they are the things that for ADHD people, we would forget. [01:21:41] Brett: Like they would be lost to time were it not for these services. And that has made me, it’s, it’s been a fascinating journey. And actually after watching that Pummel Vision, I reconnected with a couple of friends that I had forgotten even existed. And I’m like, Oh my God, I actually had [01:22:00] like a real connection with this person at one time. [01:22:02] Brett: They were important to me. We took them into our home. We gave them shelter. Um, when. When things were bad and I had forgotten about them entirely, and it made me reach out and, and reconnect. And that was, that was, I don’t know, man. It makes me realize how bad my memory really is. . But the other meaningful thing I don’t like, I find, I found an IFS therapist, um, I’d had my first meeting with them. [01:22:30] Jeff: family systems. [01:22:32] Brett: Um, I have my first meeting with them on, uh, Tuesday. Uh, it’s just a 15 minute, like, let’s find out about each other and see if we want to do this thing. Uh, but I might get to move forward with IFS, which I’ve decided, even though I’m. Super skeptical about the whole thing. Like I’ve read the books and I really think if there’s a way through CPTSD for me, it’s going to be through IFS. [01:22:58] Brett: Um, so I [01:23:00] am excited to have finally gotten off a wait list and gotten in to see somebody. But, um, the most meaningful thing I learned in the last week was, so anyone who’s grown up in an evangelical or Baptist type of, of setting, um, has experienced the idea of witnessing, where you are expected to share, uh, the message of Jesus Christ with your friends, um, and in your daily life you’re expected to, uh, convert. [01:23:34] Brett: And this leads to alienation, this leads to, um, arguments, and rarely does it lead to anyone coming to join your church. Um, and it was always this thing that I, I felt super embarrassed to do, but like, I felt this compulsion, like this, like requirement that I do this if I were [01:24:00] going to be part of the church. [01:24:01] Brett: Um, and what I learned was that this is actually, a technique used in psychological manipulation where you send somebody out to be specifically rejected by the out group so that they can return to the in group. And be lauded and comforted and told, you did great. They, they are, they are others. [01:24:25] Brett: It further others the out group and makes you feel connected to the in group. And it gives you this, uh, sense that everything outside is dangerous. And, um, and this was absolutely the case for me. And, uh, and it was the. The basic, like, tenets that I was taught of, like, questioning reality, of loving unconditionally, of accepting strangers, that weren’t truly practiced by the church, but those concepts, when applied about the [01:25:00] church, actually got me out of the church and moved me on to, like, a better place in my life. [01:25:06] Brett: So, like, I can’t They, they taught me some good things, uh, but this idea that witnessing was, was , psychological manipulation of the parishioner, not of the outer, you know, sources, um, that was actually really, it was fascinating to me and helped me put a lot of that in perspective. [01:25:28] Christina: That’s cool. I, I I would, I would love to talk to you like on a different venue sometime about like how you got what, what, what the catalyst was, um, cause you just talked about it a little bit, but like what the catalyst was for you, like stopping being a believer, like, like what got you questioning your faith and like moving away from the church because you did that as a teenager. [01:25:49] Christina: Um, and, and then like had a pretty radically different life. Um, uh, from like how what you’ve been raised and kind of expected to have. And it seems like it happened pretty quickly. I’d love to, [01:26:00] um, but, [01:26:00] Brett: can summarize it, like basically, I, I, enough people contradicted the things I was told to tell them, and eventually I was like, wait, so the majority of the world sees, the majority of the world believes evolution is real. Can the majority of the world actually be wrong? Which led me to do my own independent. [01:26:26] Brett: And decide, holy shit, no, there’s so much evidence for this thing that my church eschews that I think my church might be wrong. And that led to more and more questioning and more and more kind of deconverting. Like they didn’t call it that then. Um, this is back in like 92 through 96 that I kind of went through this deconversion process. [01:26:51] Brett: Um, but just like led to question things. In a way that I literally, I had been taught to question everything the world told me. [01:27:00] Um, but I just, I redirected it and, and questioned the church. [01:27:05] Christina: Okay. Well, see, that makes more sense then that you were taught to question things, but you were taught to question the outside world, not anything else. Cause I [01:27:11] Brett: taught that there was this core simple truth, and anything that disagreed with it had to be questioned. [01:27:18] Christina: Got it. So, it’s, it’s so interesting to me talking with people who, you know, um, uh, their religion changes or how they, you know, deal with faith or anything like that changes, um, because I think, uh, for most of us, it does usually follow a pattern where it’s, it’s usually we’re teenagers and, and we have these kind of moments of, of reflection where like, okay, this thing that I was taught, this thing I was told is not true or doesn’t feel true to me anymore. [01:27:42] Christina: Um, And now I’m having to question my entire belief system and like re evaluate that. Um, for me, it’s, it’s a little bit different because I didn’t have the same, I was raised religious. But, not in a way where, like, the outside world is lying to you and, [01:28:00] um, this is the only way to be, like, I, I think that, I have to be honest, like, all things considered fairly healthy in terms of, like, uh, you know, cause my mom is, is a very religious person and it’s a very pure thing and it’s a very real thing to her, um, but it’s not like a thing where there’s judgment on others. [01:28:18] Christina: It’s a very personal thing to her. And so. My faith was always very personal to me. And then it was a personal thing where I was like, I started questioning stuff and I went, okay, I’m, I’ve, I’ve, A, I have questions about, you know, some of the historical accuracies and whatnot because of the, the data and the proof that’s there where I can go, oh, I know that these books weren’t, weren’t written or were changed and how these things are translated or it’s fucked up. [01:28:42] Christina: But the bigger thing for me was putting that aside was like, I’m not getting out of this what I’m supposed to be. This is supposed to be offering me comfort and it’s not. And then that led to like a much larger existential crisis. But I digress. But, but like, um, but the reason I, I like ask though is just because I [01:29:00] think it is so interesting that we have like a nation really of a lot of people who were raised up to a certain point to have one belief system and then were changed. [01:29:10] Christina: But even when we change our belief system, we can’t escape, you know, that. Like formative stuff and it’s, it’s, it’s fucked. Like, I think that I don’t want to be a person who is, is like unilaterally shitting on religion because I think for a lot of people, it does offer a lot of good. And I think that there’s value in that, even if it’s not something that I get from an organized, structured thing. [01:29:33] Christina: But I do think that we as a society don’t investigate enough how much damage is done by these, by these groups. [01:29:40] Brett: have, I already talked about this concept of God’s love before, [01:29:45] Christina: I don’t think so. [01:29:47] Brett: this just struck me. This, this just struck me in the last, uh, last month or so, that I would hear, there’s this song by Joseph Arthur, um, [01:30:00] I forget the name of it now, but there’s this line that’s repeated, May God’s love be with [01:30:05] Christina: In the sun. Yeah. [01:30:07] Brett: In the Sun, yes, In the Sun by Joseph Arthur, and, and I listened to it And when he sings it, I, I remember that feeling I used to get when I was part of the church of being loved by God before it became nothing but judgmental, uh, before it began feeling like I, like I was going to hell, uh, that who I was, was going to send me to hell. [01:30:34] Brett: This feeling of this all encompassing, it’s just love. Right? And, and you attribute it to whatever deity you were taught to attribute it to, but I think it’s a feeling that any human can experience in any context. And I think it’s a feeling, for those of us who had to, uh, force ourselves out of religion, who had to [01:31:00] literally pry ourselves out of it, and we developed this idea that all religion is bad, And that, like, the entire concept of a god is, is detrimental. [01:31:12] Brett: And, and we can no longer access this feeling because it feels like it’s related to religion. It feels like something religious people feel. But I honestly, like, in exploring this, realized that this feeling is possible to feel and you can attribute it to whatever higher power you want to. You can attribute it to the universe, to universal energy, to God, to Allah, wherever you are most comfortable feeling this feeling emanating from. [01:31:49] Brett: And for me, it It’s not attributed to any higher power. Um, but I am able to access that feeling of just [01:32:00] being loved. And I think that that feeling for like the, the religion that you’re describing, Christina, I feel like that’s a bigger part of it. People have this faith because it’s about love. It’s about feeling cared for and about just feeling accepted and part of and, and I think that’s true for, I think it’s true for evangelicals, but they mix it with this also eternal damnation [01:32:27] Christina: Yeah, they, yeah, they, they, they, they mix it with these other things, with this judgment, like this thing that’s [01:32:32] Brett: Yeah, [01:32:32] Christina: opposite, this thing that’s the opposite of it in a lot of ways, [01:32:35] Brett: Yeah, exactly. It’s 100 percent [01:32:37] Christina: like, like, like, like genuinely, and so, um, uh, I’m gonna, I’m downloading this now, I’m gonna, like, send it to you, there was an EP, it’s no longer available to purchase, this is why I have, well, A, I wouldn’t care about Pirating it anyway would be, but there was a thing for, um, Hurricane, um, actually it might not even been, I don’t remember if it was Hurricane Katrina or not, but they did it. [01:32:56] Christina: Um, uh, Joseph Arthur did, um, like a [01:33:00] EP where he did, um, versions of In the Sun with, um, Michael Stipe and, [01:33:04] Brett: Oh, I have, it’s on YouTube. It’s on YouTube. [01:33:07] Christina: Well, I, I have, I have it, I have it purchased. [01:33:10] Brett: There are multiple versions with [01:33:12] Christina: Yes there are. [01:33:13] Brett: Stipe doing In the Sun. Like, I didn’t realize there was a connection. I discovered Joseph Arthur because a friend of mine was in NA with him [01:33:23] Christina: Oh, wow. [01:33:23] Brett: City. [01:33:24] Christina: So, I discovered [01:33:26] Brett: like, you should check out this guy. [01:33:27] Brett: He’s been playing shows here locally and he just put out an album. [01:33:32] Christina: I discovered him I think because, I think because In the Sun or something like that was featured on Dawson’s Creek. I’m almost [01:33:37] Brett: Also, that song was in the movie Saved, if you’ve ever seen Saved, [01:33:42] Christina: is a great movie. [01:33:42] Bryan: Uh, [01:33:43] Brett: a great kind of farce about [01:33:45] Christina: Religion. [01:33:46] Bryan: of S. A. T. E. [01:33:48] Jeff: Wow! [01:33:49] Christina: yes. No, sages so good. Uh, uh, Gina Malone deserved a better career. [01:33:53] Brett: me, let me add Save to our show notes before I forget. [01:33:56] Christina: But no, but Gina Malone really, she like, she almost [01:34:00] broke through. [01:34:00] Bryan: Boys briefly? [01:34:02] Christina: love them so much and I’m so happy for Kieran. Like that, I, like [01:34:08] Bryan: And I, I mean, I grew up with a cru Macaulay Culkin and I are near the same age, so, like, crushing on Macaulay Culkin. Macaulay Culkin, Jonathan Brandes, like, [01:34:17] Christina: Uh, [01:34:18] Bryan: my, these are my, these are my boy crushes. [01:34:20] Christina: Devon Sala. Um, uh, I never liked Jonathan Taylor Thomas. I always thought I [01:34:25] Bryan: I honestly liked, I liked, you know who I liked instead was his younger brother, [01:34:29] Christina: Oh, [01:34:30] Bryan: ended up being really tall and gothy. [01:34:32] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. Taryn Noah Smith. I, I, I know all their names because of course I do because I was like, you know, I, I was an elementary school girl, um, in the nineties. [01:34:41] Bryan: One thing I didn’t talk about that I want to share with you guys is that, you know, I grew up, um, in the church actually as well, uh, because my mom, uh, I mean, to this day is still very involved with the United Church of Christ, which is like the good church, right? The one that, you know, ordained women and queer people early.[01:35:00] [01:35:00] Bryan: And you know, um, [01:35:02] Christina: represent. That’s where I’m from. So I got you. Yeah. [01:35:04] Bryan: yeah, I mean, the Episcopals are like the, the, the Catholic light version of the United Church of Christ, like the good version, you know? The UCC is as like as left as you get before you hit the Unitarian Universalists. Who are like, anybody, anyone, you know, this week [01:35:18] Jeff: Today we read from the Gospel of Steinbeck. [01:35:21] Bryan: exactly, yes. And so I had the experience of thinking that everybody, like all churches, all Christians were cool with like queer people and everything, and then Yeah, and then we had a question on a boy in high school who turned out, like, to be, he’s like, I’m Christian, so, and he’s like, you’re gay, and I don’t understand the problem. [01:35:42] Christina: right. [01:35:42] Bryan: but part of, part of this is that I, but, so what’s interesting about this is, there weren’t, like, a separate set of Christian musicians that we listened to that were mainstream, because that didn’t really exist. So like, when I went to church camp, which I did for several years, we would listen to, like, [01:36:00] Michael W. [01:36:00] Bryan: Smith. [01:36:01] Christina: yeah, he did break through a little bit. He and Amy Grant, there were a few of them who kind of like, [01:36:06] Brett: Petra. You remember Petra? [01:36:08] Christina: Petra [01:36:08] Bryan: yeah, Pecha, [01:36:09] Christina: Petra [01:36:09] Brett: Petra [01:36:10] Jeff: of breakin through back then. Yeah. Ha, [01:36:12] Bryan: Yeah, and like, I just remember, like, I needed, but it was, I had this experience of this journey, like, so my connection to Christianity has always very much been about the music. [01:36:22] Christina: Totally. I [01:36:23] Bryan: much about the music, and it has been, it has been a very interesting journey as I’ve continued to grow older, of like, finding out that every single, like, Christian artist that you liked, like, does not like you, [01:36:36] Brett: Yeah, sure. [01:36:37] Jeff: ha, ha, yeah. [01:36:38] Bryan: know? [01:36:39] Bryan: And, but like, but also still deeply, deeply like, the music is so good. [01:36:44] Christina: Many [01:36:44] Bryan: I love the music. [01:36:46] Christina: Well, that’s the thing, like, worship bands Well, some, well, depends, cause like, um, like there was like, like Mute Math, like there was like this whole thing of like, like rock, like Christian type rock bands. Like Swiftfoot, I think is an amazing band and, [01:37:00] and some of these bands like, uh, then like later like had changed, you know, their, their thing to be like, Oh, we’re more secular or whatnot. [01:37:06] Christina: But like they started out as [01:37:08] Brett: They went where the money was. [01:37:10] Christina: they, [01:37:10] Brett: Christian Rock had a huge, like, that was profitable for people. Like, Striper is a good example of, like, following the money. [01:37:19] Jeff: with the Ah, man, they were following their own [01:37:22] Christina: no, uh, no, no, what, what, what I mean is actually more the inverse where these were bands that like got a following and then started to actually be played on mainstream where mainstream didn’t realize that they were Christian and then they decided they wanted to promote themselves more as, as secular. [01:37:35] Christina: Like Evanescence. Evanescence [01:37:37] Bryan: I want to call out is just that, like, like, worship music is some of my favorite music out there. [01:37:42] Christina: Oh, I agree. I, I [01:37:44] Bryan: progressions, yeah, and the, and the experience of, the other part is, it’s the experience of singing with other people, [01:37:51] Brett: It’s very [01:37:52] Bryan: that is just so, well, it’s [01:37:55] Brett: convince someone they’re having a spiritual experience, sit them through [01:38:00] three or four, like, praise songs with a, with a live band, and then hit them with this, like, do you feel, what you’re feeling right now is because of our Lord and Savior Jesus, and they’ll buy it because it [01:38:13] Bryan: and what I want to say about that is, Right, and see, what’s weird is, I actually, it’s so interesting, they are having a spiritual experience, but it’s not about any, like, particularly, particular god or anything. It’s about the incredible biological things that happen when you are in sync with other people and you’re singing with them. [01:38:36] Bryan: Like, that’s, [01:38:38] Brett: A lot of, a lot of, a lot of human development is like, there’s, there are theories that, um, tribal gatherings that involve music, uh, that [01:38:48] Bryan: is why I’m obsessed with acapella music. [01:38:50] Christina: Same. [01:38:52] Brett: a major, there’s a major component of human development that is based around the social construction of sharing music,[01:39:00] [01:39:00] Christina: Oh yeah. Without a doubt. [01:39:01] Bryan: and I [01:39:02] Brett: and participating, not just sitting and listening, but participating. [01:39:05] Christina: I, I was. Yes. No, I was just gonna say, like, I grew up in an Episcopal church, so our music, like, I would listen to them to worship music, my mom’s car, my aunt and whatnot, but it wasn’t like we had that in church, because Catholic light. Um, uh, but, like, Um, it definitely is manipulative, but then you, but I think the reason you have like, like Hillsong and like these like worship bands and things like that, you’re not wrong that it can, it can be manipulative and whatnot. [01:39:32] Christina: But there’s also, I don’t think we can discount the fact that for thousands and thousands of years, like that’s how people have been able to connect and share [01:39:40] Brett: there’s a real power to [01:39:41] Christina: yeah, [01:39:42] Brett: just, I don’t like it when it’s used, when it’s, when it’s attributed to something that isn’t responsible for it. Um, like the music is powerful and the connection of sharing music is powerful. And I think if we say that. It’s awesome. I think that’s, that’s, [01:40:00] that’s that kind of God loves feeling that I’m talking about. [01:40:03] Brett: That feeling you get from sharing that experience with other people. That is powerful in and of itself and doesn’t need to be a tru Who, who else here memorized DC Talk lyrics at the same time they memorized Vadila Ice lyrics? [01:40:18] Jeff: Oh, what if you memorized [01:40:19] Bryan: I memorized [01:40:20] Jeff: snob? Uh, [01:40:22] Bryan: memorized the same type of thing, but I wasn’t, I was not a DC, I was not a rock kid. Except like, I was R& B rock, I was Michael Jackson rock, you know. Um. But I memorized, I memorized all of the Michael W. Smith songs, like lyrics, right along memorizing like, Beat It, and Nuke is on the Block lyrics, like, absolutely, I’m with you. [01:40:43] Brett: DC Talk was the one group that had a black person in Christian Rock at that time. Um, and I thought they must be legit because they had, [01:40:55] Bryan: I love how this book, this, this thing happened to you, right? Through all [01:41:00] of, like, the, and I don’t know, I don’t know what your parents, like, uh, views on race are, um, but it is fascinating. Okay, it’s separatist. Okay. So, the fact that you are such a, uh, that like, even at that age, you’re like, TC Talk. [01:41:20] Bryan: They have a black person. They must be legit. Like, [01:41:22] Brett: It was a rebellion of sorts. [01:41:25] Bryan: well, that’s fine, but like, there’s a lot of people that don’t do the rebellion, right? And it’s fascinating that you did, that you found your way through that, that way, because there’s still so many people, yeah. [01:41:39] Brett: you guys ever heard of Cornerstone? [01:41:42] Jeff: yeah, I was in, I was in, uh, yeah. Yep, [01:41:45] Brett: It’s a Christian, a Christian rock [01:41:47] Jeff: Hi, Danny Glamour. [01:41:50] Brett: Yeah, um, [01:41:51] Jeff: Oh, oh yeah, Danny Glamour literally, possibly just shut the radio off. He was deep, he was deep in that, in that world. [01:41:59] Brett: [01:42:00] um, it was the first time I heard Christian death metal, uh, was at Cornerstone, and that was [01:42:05] Jeff: Christians die. [01:42:06] Brett: It was a, it was a turning point for me where I was like, when I realized that Christians in this industry, in this particular industry, were basically stealing music that was popular elsewhere and then attributing, like, forcing God into it. [01:42:28] Brett: And it made me realize maybe I would just like the pure version of this music. [01:42:33] Jeff: is it stealing and forcing? That seems, uh, ungenerous. What about just [01:42:39] Bryan: generosity about [01:42:40] Jeff: a link in the chain and just feeling like, I want to do that, but I have to do it, or I want to do it in this context. [01:42:46] Brett: we aspire different motives to it, because in my mind it’s very, um, very much a decision. Um, and there was money at that point in selling Christian music. There was like a captive audience of [01:42:59] Jeff: One Cornerstone had a [01:43:00] label. I [01:43:00] Brett: who would only buy things because it was Christian. And you could sell them anything as long as it was [01:43:07] Bryan: There are certain people that, I think to Brett’s, or to Jess point, there are certain people who have that mindset that you’re talking about, Brett. A lot of the actual individuals and artists did not. It was, this is what they were told they had to do. [01:43:20] Christina: Yes. [01:43:21] Bryan: But both, so both existed. [01:43:23] Christina: Yeah, and in fact many of them like I think had kind of like a it’s like okay Who’s gonna sign us? Like what can we do and then you would see like bands like like break beyond that sort of thing right to be like no This isn’t what we care about like, you know do other things then you do have artists like to say like like like Suzanne Stevens who is a very, like, like, faith based, like, musician, and, like, his early stuff, especially, was very, like, the only way you can read the text, like, he’s very explicit about, like, the, the, the Christianity behind it, but, I mean, he’s gay, and he’s one of, like, the best indie musicians out there, like, there’s, there are layers of things, [01:44:00] but if anything, like, it hurt his probably career To be, so to this day, like he still has to kind of fight like the whole like, Oh, I’m a Christian artist thing. [01:44:07] Christina: And he’s like, I don’t want to talk about my faith when I’m talking about my album, just because it is an inherent part of who I am, but it is not, you know, part and parcel for everything else. But, you know, the, to your point, like when the labels realized that there was a way you could make a shitload of money off these captive audiences, they’re going to make the money, but the bands don’t [01:44:26] Bryan: of those people were Christian labels too, who like, were absolutely doing the same sort of prosperity gospel [01:44:32] Christina: of course. Even [01:44:33] Bryan: those big church leaders were doing as well, [01:44:36] Christina: Arguably [01:44:36] Jeff: have an edge case. [01:44:37] Bryan: all times. [01:44:38] Christina: You tell [01:44:38] Jeff: an edge case, Brett, you’re going to love this. So what, first of all, I want to say that, um, Danny Glamour, friend of the show, uh, may or may not, um, have a partner, also a dear friend who drove Striper around on a golf course, uh, on a golf cart at the, um, Cornerstone Music Festival. [01:44:55] Jeff: May or may not have that experience in his home. Um, and the other weird thing [01:45:00] is that I for just a minute. I was a drummer in a band on the Cornerstone label that always played the Cornerstone Festival. [01:45:10] Jeff: Because Cornerstone was organized by this organization called Jesus People, USA and, and Jesus people, USA was like the Black Panthers of, of evangelical Christians. They had a label, they had a magazine they had, right? Like they fed, they fed kids like the whole thing. But, um, all of my friends that were there left, I mean, they left in, in a, in a pretty serious wave. [01:45:28] Jeff: But the , one of the things that helped me to be, uh, uh, in this band was that their albums had all been recorded by Steve Albini. And I thought, wow. I mean, I love the people in this band, but I was like, if I’m in this band. And we make a record, I get to record with Steve Albini. So there’s a bizarre, like, clashing of and Steve Albini’s partner, [01:45:45] Brett: That is the weirdest sentence I’ve heard in a while. [01:45:48] Jeff: Steve Albini’s partner then went on to make a sort of expose documentary on Jesus People USA. [01:45:53] Jeff: It’s just like, I just wanted to throw that in, but I also want to mention that, Christina, you’re, you’re up. [01:45:58] Christina: Oh, yeah. [01:45:59] Brett: real.[01:46:00] [01:46:00] Christina: For real. Um, no, so, um, I think probably the most pressing thing that has had an impact on my mental health corner since we talked last, because there hasn’t been a lot of changes. Um, I did try my, uh, husband’s, um, ProVigil, uh, uh, uh, like for two days this week. And I think that, um, when I talk to my shrink, um, like next week, I think, or two weeks, um, I’m going to bring it up to him, but, um, that might be like a good combo for things. [01:46:28] Christina: Um, but, uh, my, my week was pretty good in terms of trying to get my ADHD stuff on track. I had a lot of work meetings. Uh, which seems to be a similar theme across all of us. But the thing that, and it’s embarrassing for me to say this, but it’s not because fuck it. This is, this is our show. This had like the biggest impact on my mental health, genuinely, is that I can finally use my Twitter account again after two and a half months. [01:46:50] Jeff: Oh my God. Yeah. [01:46:51] Christina: I can’t get into the details of how, but basically, favors were asked. I’m very grateful for, some people who have a way to reach humans there because [01:47:00] again, like, I didn’t do anything wrong. Um, this has been the most frustrating part about this is that Most people in my life have taken the default assumption that I had to have done something wrong for me to be locked out of the account the way that I was locked out of it. [01:47:13] Christina: And I didn’t. I literally didn’t do anything wrong. Um, I, it was, it was some sort of like a tech snafu thing. And then because this is a company that is run by a megalomaniac, That has very few staffers, you know, in place. Like, you can’t reach a human being and, and it was just like, a problem. Um, and the thing is, is that I am probably going to spend, not even probably, I am going to spend less time on Twitter. [01:47:37] Christina: I’d already been spending less time there even before, um, I was locked out of my account on November 7th. But like, I want to do it on my own terms. It, you know, having your account show that you, um, might have violated Rules, which leads people to think, oh, well, what the fuck did she say? Which never in 16 years of using the service have I ever even received like a warning, you know, let alone violated rule. [01:47:59] Christina: [01:48:00] Like I, I don’t do that. You know what I mean? Um, I, and so, uh, then that gets people thinking shit that isn’t true. And then, you know, you have, um, people DMing you because they don’t know, you know, uh, what’s happening and, and you can see the DMs, but you can’t respond to them and you don’t have any other way of contacting them, which is awkward. [01:48:19] Christina: And then you have people who are, you know, like, again, like sending me, you know, messages other ways. It was making it very difficult for me to do parts of my job. Um, and also again, like, it’s a cautionary reminder for all of us. I think that like, we don’t control these platforms. We don’t control these followings and these things can be taken away from us. [01:48:36] Christina: And I always knew that. And it wasn’t like I was unaware of that. But when you experience that, I think it makes you like, Uh, at least makes me think doubly hard about, okay, how much do you want to invest on some of these things, um, without having any sort of backup plan? And certainly I could have continued my life without ever having a Twitter account again, but I’m incredibly relieved that I have access to it again. [01:48:58] Christina: I’m already more [01:49:00] Productive, which I know sounds fucked up, but again, like things that I do with my job, because people see me as one of the main contact forces for the company that I work at. And that means that people will at me and things, or they will try to DM me, and then I have no way of responding. [01:49:13] Christina: Now I can solve people’s problems. I can like, actually do work. And that’s just been like the Biggest relief off of my chest because I’ve had like just this in addition to the normal anxiety that I feel all the time I’ve had like this additional sense of dread and whatnot of like I genuinely did nothing wrong I could not reach a human being to get this, you know rectified um, this was like just like a bad situation and i’m You know, never changing my display name again. [01:49:42] Christina: Ever. Ever. Like, never, like, making any, you know, gonna try to make as most minimal changes to, you know, the thing as possible. But, like, fuck. Um, I, I, it sounds dumb, and I’m sure there are plenty of people who, in their mind, are like, Well, and I appreciate you saying that because you actually were [01:50:00] one of the few people who really understood that. [01:50:01] Christina: Jeff even commented, but how are you doing with this? This has to be like a big thing for you because a lot of people, their flippant reaction and I get it. Um, if you don’t think it through all of its logical things and how people can use tools differently than you use these tools, they can go, well, it’s not that big of a deal. [01:50:16] Christina: You shouldn’t be on it in any way and, and, and, and good riddance and this and that. And it’s like, okay, again, If I make that choice myself and I do it on my own terms, that’s one thing. When that decision is made for me and I don’t have any way of even having a goodbye message or even telling people, follow me these places. [01:50:33] Christina: I can’t even pin something. That’s completely different. Um, and [01:50:38] Brett: the key right there is like people who have left Twitter, more power to them. Um, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re looking out for their own mental [01:50:47] Christina: Which I totally appreciate. Yeah. [01:50:49] Brett: And we could do a whole episode on Twitter and mental health, um, or Facebook and mental health, like social media and mental health, but to have it, to have a communication platform [01:51:00] that you depend on in any way, that’s Taken away from you is an inverse effect on mental health. [01:51:07] Brett: That’s, that has the actual, absolute opposite, uh, reaction [01:51:12] Christina: no, [01:51:13] Brett: choosing to leave [01:51:14] Christina: than choosing to leave and, and I think, you know, and then for me, like, I mean, and so, okay, look, is this tied up in ego? Sure. But, but it is what it is. Like, I’m aware enough [01:51:24] Jeff: where, it’s where we all live. I mean, [01:51:26] Brett: I don’t think it is tied up in [01:51:28] Jeff: it’s like losing your passport. [01:51:29] Christina: was going to say it kind of is that, but I was, well, I was going to say this aspect, like what you’ve, what I’ve had to kind of realize in some certain regards, it’s like, okay, you know, like a lot of, I owe a lot of my quote unquote success to the personalities and the things I’ve built up online. [01:51:44] Christina: And when you lose access to that lever, even when that lever has been weakened over time, and even when people leave and whatnot, that’s a loss too, that you then have to like go through a lot of like. Me anyway, I have to go through like a lot of like internal things. Like, well, who am I? Like, do I [01:52:00] matter without having, you know, this thing? [01:52:02] Christina: Like, because, you know, well, will people still want to, want to talk to me or reach out to me if I don’t have this platform that they see as maybe being more important than it is? Like, I might know how. Unimportant it is and how, like, my reach is, is not what they think it is. But that gives people a certain sense of who I am. [01:52:18] Christina: What am I without that? And, and how do I exist without that, right? Like, so, and, and that, and that’s the ego part a little bit. And that’s okay to have, again, like those conversations. And I’ve certainly had to kind of grapple with like the, the waning influence as it were, which is fine. But again, to what you were saying, like, uh, Bretton agreeing with me, like, I, you know, do it on your own terms when, when it’s taken away from you. [01:52:43] Christina: It’s like, it is a negative mental health thing. And so. [01:52:47] Bryan: I mean, it’s a loss of, I mean, it’s a loss of, it’s a significant and severe loss of control. And also, ego, I just, I want to take a moment to reframe that word, which is that it is [01:53:00] important to have a healthy ego as a person. You know, like you need to have a level of self, like self actualization and self worth and self understanding. [01:53:12] Bryan: Um. People often think, well, you know, these ideas of, like, will I matter, or do I make a difference, or how do people see me, that these are somehow, like, I mean, it goes back to all of the bullshit of, uh, like, you know, like, uh, The specific of Evangelical Fundamentalist Christianity, the idea of we need to completely be devoid of the self, um, but like, you know, because then you’re not a functional human being. [01:53:45] Bryan: So, you know, worrying about those things, understanding who you are, understanding whether you matter, that’s why we do things. Very cool. We do things because we want to matter. We want to be seen. We want, we want to be seen to show [01:54:00] that people, so that we know we exist. One thing that I think about so much, especially as I think about, I thought a lot about the experiences of what my, like my identity creation has been as I have sort of pulled those away and thought about them is how often we are forced to place our identities. [01:54:19] Bryan: in the hands of others. Because so much of what we think about ourselves comes from how other people see us, because we don’t see ourselves. It’s just not a thing that we do regularly, [01:54:29] Jeff: hmm. [01:54:30] Bryan: you know? And so, and we are perceived far more, we are perceived by others far more than we perceive ourselves. [01:54:38] Jeff: Mm. [01:54:39] Bryan: so, We think about ourselves in the context of what others tell us about ourselves. And I think one of the hardest things to do, and one of the things that I am most impressed of by people who have figured out how to do it, is mainly because it is very antithetical to, I think, being a person in the world [01:55:00] today is people with very strong senses of self don’t get rocked by external things that affect the way others see them because it’s not, like, in some ways it’s not normal. [01:55:15] Bryan: Like, [01:55:15] Jeff: yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:55:17] Bryan: because, I mean, that’s how society is built, right? [01:55:20] Jeff: I was gonna say, who are these people you’re describing? [01:55:22] Bryan: My partner is one of them. It’s very weird, but I think he had to go through, he had to go through a pretty rough separation and divorce for like, to figure some of that stuff out. I mean, yeah, like we don’t, our society is, is literally founded on the idea that you should care what other people think about you because that’s how you build a community. [01:55:42] Christina: Right. [01:55:43] Jeff: Mm. [01:55:43] Bryan: And there are good things and bad things about that, and the internet has, to some degree, taken it to an nth degree, and we’re, we weren’t prepared for it, and now we’re trying, we’re trying to figure out how do we integrate that, because it’s not going back in the bottle. [01:55:54] Christina: Right. [01:55:55] Jeff: Oh, God, no, the bottle just gets bigger, at least. [01:56:00] That didn’t make any sense, but you get what I’m saying. Nerd! [01:56:05] Bryan: if we put it in the bottle, the bottle just keeps expanding. It’s like, um, a bag of holding, or the TARDIS. It’s bigger on the inside. [01:56:12] Brett: Nerd. [01:56:13] Bryan: Oh, [01:56:13] Brett: Um, are we officially a two hour podcast [01:56:17] Jeff: I was just gonna say, so whoever’s coming next, we don’t know yet, but the next person that comes on and we don’t go two hours, it’s gonna be awkward, but it’s not gonna be their fault. It’s not gonna be their fault. [01:56:29] Christina: Season four, year 2024 has been like the year of like the two hour, um, overtired podcast, which honestly does feel like it’s kind of two podcasts melded into one, but I kind of dig it. Like [01:56:39] Jeff: And it totally tracks with the fact that we’ve had a guest, intentionally, every episode since the year or the season started. Yeah. Which I love. [01:56:47] Brett: Yeah. I’ve loved it too. I, I think, I think Bryan and I both agree that maybe if we’re going to do a two hour podcast, we should have an intentional bathroom break at like the one hour mark. [01:56:59] Jeff: [01:57:00] For the [01:57:00] Brett: five minutes, five minutes to walk around, do your thing, make a cup of coffee, come back. [01:57:06] Bryan: Yeah, because I mean, definitely I’ve spent half of this episode. [01:57:10] Brett: Two hours straight with ADHD is rough. [01:57:14] Bryan: well, and I think one of the things that the two hours, the two hour, the two hour fit does it a little better actually, I think for Overtired to some degree is that most of us at different points in the podcast are off busy being ADHD. And so we can do that, and you don’t feel like, as previously, sometimes I felt like I didn’t get to, we didn’t get as deep as I wanted to because I was, I was off in the mist for 30 minutes. You know, on my [01:57:41] Jeff: yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Totally. I get that. I get that. [01:57:45] Brett: All right. Well, [01:57:46] Jeff: Well, thank anyone who hung to the end, we see you, and you definitely see us. [01:57:51] Brett: we’ll call it there. We love you all and you guys get some sleep. [01:57:56] Jeff: Get some sleep. [01:57:56] Bryan: Get some sleep. [01:57:57] Christina: Get some sleep. [01:58:00]

Merlin Mann, a mental health expert and generative AI aficionado, brings his engaging personality to an enlightening discussion. They dive deep into the complex relationship between trauma and emotional well-being, sharing personal stories and insights from 'The Body Keeps the Score.' The conversation explores the nuances of ADHD management, the importance of personalized mental health care, and the challenges within educational and healthcare systems. With a mix of humor and reflection, they emphasize the need for empathy and understanding in navigating life's emotional landscape.

Yeah, it’s another 2-hour episode. Jay Miller is back to talk retail therapy, keyboards, and Tetris. We threw in the usual grAPPtitude picks, so don’t miss ’em! Sponsor Green Chef Green Chef brings you healthy, ready-to-cook meals to keep you not only fed, but nurtured. Go to greenchef.dot.com/60overtired and use code 60overtired to get 60% off, plus 20% off your next two months. Aroundsquare Find your next beautiful, unusual, functional item for the mind and body at Aroundsquare. Use the code OVERTIRED at checkout for 15% off. Show Links Little Snitch Next-gen Ergonomics Moonlander Ultimate Hacking Keyboard-The keyboard. For professionals. Riser 60 Model OLED Model OLED GB Starts on 2024.1.12 New NES Tetris Technique: Faster Than Hypertapping! CurlyQ Shapez Adobe Express 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 401 [00:00:00] Christina: [00:00:01] Christina: You’re listening to Overtired. I’m Christina Warren, joined as always by Brett Terpstra and Jeff Severins Gunzel. And this week, our special guest is one of our favorite return guests, Mr. Jay Miller. Welcome, everybody. [00:00:18] Jeff: Timber! [00:00:18] Brett: Hey. [00:00:19] Jay: up! [00:00:20] Jeff: Hi, Jay. [00:00:21] Jay: Always a pleasure, always a pleasure to be here, uh, and then I’ll go back and listen to it later and go, why the hell did I say the things that I said? [00:00:29] Christina: this is one of the reasons I do not listen to podcasts that I’ve been on. Like, it’s weird. I will re watch videos that I, that I do a million times to go over in my head every little thing that I did wrong and to assess my My performance and go, okay, you could have done this better, this better, or oh, that was actually a really good performance. [00:00:47] Christina: Um, podcasts, I don’t because it’s too cringe. And I also don’t want to be reminded of the things that I said that off the cuff of my, my tongue that I was like, oh yeah, that was probably pissing people off. Sorry about that. [00:01:00] Whoops. [00:01:01] Jay: See, I’m like the exact opposite. I will go back and listen to a podcast because I’m just like, eh, no one cares. Like, no one listens to this. The, I think, um, another podcaster I listened to like said, your audience isn’t real. Until they prove it, they’re not real. So, but like, videos, I refuse to watch myself do anything on video, because I will nitpick the hell out of myself. [00:01:23] Jay: And then Jeff will be like, Oh, Jade did this video one time. And I’ll go back and I’ll look at it and be [00:01:27] Jeff: yeah, that happened. [00:01:28] Jay: like, God, my hair. What was I doing? [00:01:31] Christina: like, you’re like, what was going on? See, it’s weird. I think that we do them for the same reasons. Like I, I, it, The reason I don’t go back and list a podcast is because they’re not real, whereas it’s my perfectionism nature, uh, that I’m like, oh no, but the video is real, and that will have consequences, so I need to be aware of that. [00:01:50] Jeff: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. [00:01:53] Ranting about Apple’s Vido Reactions [00:01:53] Brett: Um, um, um, um, um. Oh, I forgot. I had a, I had like a topic. I had a [00:02:00] topic and then Jay’s has reactions on, on his camera. And it was like, it was popping up random bubbles. And I got distracted, like checking my reaction settings. And I totally lost this topic that was brewing in my mind. [00:02:14] Christina: Can I can I okay, I gotta rant on that then, because They know that this is a problem. Apple, uh, meaning they. Apple knows that this reaction bullshit is a problem and that it has been a problem since the beta. People have reported it. People internally, uh, according to sources closest to the information, have reported it to very high up people. [00:02:32] Christina: This is supposed to be fixed. Um, [00:02:34] Jeff: They’ve gone to Steve Jobs grave. [00:02:37] Christina: I mean, Steve Jobs would not put up with this. I’m not one of those people who ever [00:02:41] Jeff: put up with Steve Jobs. [00:02:42] Christina: Well, I mean, I, but, but I’m one of those people who never wants to invoke the, this wouldn’t have happened under Steve. Cause it’s [00:02:48] Jeff: Yeah, yeah, [00:02:48] Christina: False fallacy thing. It’s a bullshit thing to do, but I will say this. [00:02:51] Christina: This is some sort of like slap sloppy ass like bad program managed bad like product development like bullshit When you have a [00:03:00] feature like this that you highlight and tout Somebody wanted it in the fucking keynote so that they could get promoted. That’s really what it was about they didn’t bother to actually think about the implications about what it would mean test it or do anything with any of the you know feedback and it’s Bad. [00:03:18] Christina: And, you know, makes people like, like Brett have to check their reaction settings to make sure that his settings are correct so that you’re not, with your fucking therapist, having balloons coming out when you’re talking about the death of someone. Like, genuinely. Like, what the fuck? This is such a bad feature. [00:03:33] Christina: All right, my rant’s over. [00:03:34] Jeff: Well, [00:03:35] Brett: meanwhile, Jeff is cycling through [00:03:38] Jay: found the button, [00:03:39] Jeff: Jeff is cycling through all of them. What about death? Uh, hold on. I can do balloons. Um, [00:03:45] Brett: Well, because the, the, the visual cue that turns on balloons is, uh, like a peace sign. And when I’m talking to my therapist and I am most frustrated, I, I do, like, listeners can’t see this, but I, [00:04:00] like, put my hand on my head in a way that looks like I’m holding up a peace sign. Um, and it’s more of like a look of frustration or like, [00:04:10] Jeff: a cry for help just a little bit now that I’m watching you do it. [00:04:12] Brett: and then I’ll be doing that and then all of a sudden balloons will come up and it’s always during like the hardest part of therapy for me, but I figured out how to turn it off. [00:04:22] Brett: It doesn’t just turn itself back on. So it’s, it’s cool. It should be opt in. Um, it should not be on by default, [00:04:31] Jay: The stupid thing is it’s based on the application, which is like, okay, cool, so Zoom, gotta turn it off. Okay, Teams, gotta turn it off. Slack, gotta turn it off. [00:04:40] Christina: see, that’s the bullshit. That, that right there to me is, that’s, that’s terrible design. And like, that’s the sort of thing where like, oh great, yeah, you’re making this available. Great, Apple finally listening, making their Query APIs available to other apps for once. Awesome. But if it’s going to be that way, maybe have a, I don’t know, if it’s part of a video app, have it as a toggle if you’re, if it [00:05:00] doesn’t work well, which, like, I don’t know, is Apple really the best company in AI? [00:05:04] Christina: Um, hmm, no, [00:05:07] Brett: It really should only be enabled by default for FaceTime. Like, I can’t imagine any other video circumstance where I would want balloons or fireworks or hearts popping up. [00:05:21] Christina: Right, right. I mean, especially it’s like, yeah, because basically what they’re saying is, yeah, we want to take our fun little whimsical things we’re doing for your personal conversations and insert them in apps that, other than Discord, are almost universally not going to be used for personal conversations. [00:05:36] Christina: And even in Discord you’re like, actually, motherfuckers, I, I, I want to control what my video looks like. Because I might be streaming this. [00:05:44] Jeff: This makes me want, like, a supercut of, like, this thing getting triggered on OnlyFans videos or something. Um, I’m gonna just search Mac OS Reactions Supercut. [00:05:55] Brett: heh. [00:05:56] Christina: Yeah, [00:05:57] Brett: Uh, [00:05:58] Jeff: Anyway. [00:05:59] Mental Health Corner Part 1 [00:05:59] Brett: so that [00:06:00] was, that was therapeutic, I think, for everybody. Speaking of therapy Um, hey, what Jay, would you like to kick off the mental health corner? [00:06:09] Jay: Yeah, so, this is, I guess, uh, a public announcement. Mental Health Corner for me, which is great. Um, so, Jeff gave me the calendar invite for every single Overtired that’s scheduled. [00:06:25] Christina: amazing. [00:06:26] Jay: I guess, I don’t know, am I joining the [00:06:29] Brett: I guess. I [00:06:30] Jeff: By the end of this year, like, every, it’s just gonna build, we’re gonna have five people, now we have six people, now we have seven people. [00:06:37] Jay: But, uh, yeah. We could talk about it, but I, uh, yeah, I, I don’t know what’s been going on. I mean, everyone around me has COVID, but I’ve been dodging that bullet. Like, uh, it’s been, it’s been wild. And then, uh, I’ve just been fighting these like really bad headaches and I’ve been depressed as hell. And a lot of that [00:07:00] was. [00:07:00] Jay: Over the holidays, I took, I took almost all of December off. Um, and then after, you know, talking to some people, there was almost like a question of like, do I take more time off? But I was off for three weeks. We had family coming through. Um, then they left and then they got COVID and I was like, yes, miss that one. [00:07:17] Jay: Um, unless I’m the problem. And then I got back to work and It was this pure, just like, I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to do this. Um, my retail therapy is out of this world. I didn’t get. A lot of things that I wanted for Christmas, which is fine because we were like on a budget. So, you know, New Year begins, I buy a 3D printer, I buy a whole bunch of, um, I got the Ender, is it Ender 3 V3 KE? [00:07:51] Jay: It’s like, basically like the, their Ender 3 like slightly better series that can Print [00:08:00] faster than the bed will actually allow it to. Um, so yeah, I feel like I overpaid but not by much. It was like 300. Um, [00:08:09] Jeff: I have the same printer. [00:08:11] Jay: oh cool. Yeah, I mean it’s solid. It’s just like [00:08:14] Jeff: Yeah, I [00:08:14] Jay: You can you can print up to 500, you know Millimeters per second or something like that and then literally it just throws your print like off the thing and i’m like, okay Maybe I can’t. [00:08:25] Jay: Um I’ve done that I bought um And, well, I should say my, my employer bought because I have a office allowance and it resets at the beginning of the year. Um, I bought a, a nice ortho linear split keyboard to help fight my arthritis stuff that I’m going through. Um, I don’t necessarily look at the keys while I’m typing, but I have zero confidence in my typing skills. [00:08:52] Jay: So, like, that’s been fun. Um, and we were, we were kind of waxing poetic about Having to [00:09:00] use your thumbs for multiple buttons that are in a different location now and like Nitpicking it to death of like, should, should the three rows of thumb buttons be space tab return? Should it be return space tab? [00:09:14] Jay: Should it be command option? And I’m just like, okay, I’m just going to type until I’m comfortable and then go back and fix the discomfort that’s still there. [00:09:24] Brett: Can we, can we come back to the keyboard conversation? I have like so many, so many things to say, but I don’t want to interrupt the mental health corner. Um. But yeah, [00:09:34] Christina: have things I want to say about keyboards and I want to hear [00:09:36] Brett: this [00:09:36] Jeff: But have you, but have you, [00:09:37] Brett: keyboard episode. I’m [00:09:39] Jeff: Jay, have you, have you finished your inventory of retail therapy? [00:09:43] Jay: Um, bought, I mean, everything else has been kind of like small purchases, uh, you know, you buy a new 3D printer, that means you gotta buy like 100 worth of filament and, you know, you, you use your sister’s college email address to get a [00:10:00] discount on like all the CAD software, [00:10:02] Christina: Yeah. [00:10:04] Jay: so [00:10:04] Christina: good, good, good for you for having a sister who still has like a working, uh, like college email [00:10:10] Jay: Oh, she’s still in college. [00:10:11] Christina: Well, I mean, well, good for you for that, too. Like, my, well, my sister never graduated from college, um, uh, and so, uh, that, I, I can’t, I can’t use that. Um, my, my college email lasted a really long time, and then it stopped working, and I’ve, I’ve, low key, I’ve done, I’ve tried to do the math. [00:10:27] Christina: I’m sorry to be interrupting, um, your mental health slash therapy, um, uh, corner, uh, retail therapy corner. Sorry. Um, but, um, I’ve done the math a few times and it doesn’t quite work out where I’m like, should I just enroll in a community college class to get the discount on stuff? And then I’m like, [00:10:43] Brett: So here, here’s good for you for actually paying for software, even if it’s with an EDU discount. [00:10:50] Christina: agreed. [00:10:51] Brett: Cause you could probably steal that stuff. [00:10:53] Jay: Yeah. I mean, a lot of [00:10:55] Christina: make it harder. [00:10:57] Jay: I’m just lazy. Like, it’s like, I don’t want to, [00:11:00] and, and the free versions, like they have free versions, but it’s like, okay, if you use like Fusion 360, you can have 10 save files. Like what? Like, that’s stupid. Um, [00:11:12] Brett: Are there cracks out there for subscription apps? [00:11:15] Christina: There are, but they’re hard. So this has been like, and Autodesk is notorious about like, and this goes back to the 80s, like this goes back their entire time, like they used to make people use fucking dongles, like special dongles, like through [00:11:29] Jeff: Pro Tools. Like Pro [00:11:30] Jay: yeah. [00:11:31] Christina: yeah. [00:11:31] Brett: my dad was an engineer and he always had AutoCAD. And yeah, I remember [00:11:35] Christina: So, so they are like the worst about that stuff. Now, are there ways? Yes. Um, no, I don’t know if you’re using, cause I haven’t used any AutoCAD stuff in, in forever. Um, I’m assuming that Fusion 360 or whatever works on a Mac and on Windows. Usually these cracks only work on Windows, but, um, and, and you have to do things. [00:11:54] Christina: If you do use it on a Mac, you’ve got to use things like, Oh, what’s the, um, what’s your favorite app that like is, is basically like [00:12:00] the, the network blocker. Um. [00:12:02] Jay: like, [00:12:03] Brett: Little Snitch. [00:12:04] Christina: Yes, yes, yeah, like a little snitch, like if you have like certain, you know, like block lists or whatever for it to go out to the servers, you know, you can get certain things working, but, um, I mean, I haven’t looked into the Autodesk stuff, I assume people have things that if you run it just right will crack, but A, I think that now I’m looking at this, I think like Fusion 360 is largely a web thing, so that would be hard, [00:12:25] Jay: and it sucks. [00:12:26] Christina: and it sucks. [00:12:26] Jay: not even good software. [00:12:28] Christina: Which does not surprise me in the slightest. But I know with things like Adobe, like, you’re stuck with like one version, and you can’t really get updates until people will release, like, an Atomic update. And the problem is, is that Adobe updates Photoshop, like, Every five seconds and now with the AI stuff, like you, you do kind of want to use the latest version. [00:12:47] Christina: So good for, again, good for you for just like paying for it. Like I, I, um, I get Creative Cloud through work now, but I have at various times over the years also had my own personal subscription. And even when like work [00:13:00] may or may not have offered it because there were, there were, there were politics with, uh, with Microsoft over like who could get a, a subscription and I [00:13:08] Brett: back to this conversation [00:13:09] Christina: Yeah, I was going to say, I’m sure you have thoughts on this too. And so they run like 50 percent discounts from time to time. And I’d be like, yeah, I’ll pay the 30 a month or whatever for creative cloud. Because to your point, Jay, I’m lazy. I’m like, yeah, I could probably find a cracked copy. Um, but, uh, it’s, it’s too much effort. [00:13:26] Christina: And at this point, like I’m not the poor college student or high school student that I was a million years ago. Although in college I could have used education discounts. So anyway. [00:13:37] Brett: I have a friend who bought a 3D printer, like, uh, maybe five years ago, back when they cost ten grand, um, and he, like, he, money is not an issue, the dude makes almost seven figures as an independent software developer, and it blows me away, um, and so he, he tried all of the CAD software and [00:14:00] everything, and ended up just, I don’t know what the site is, but he used a web based, yeah. [00:14:05] Brett: Modeling, System. [00:14:07] Jay: Sounds like Onshape or something like that. [00:14:10] Brett: maybe. Yeah, I don’t remember, but yeah, he just found that. And I needed, I needed, uh, an inset. I bought, uh, I’m, I’m gonna shut up. It’s your, it’s your mental health corner. I’m gonna shut up. [00:14:23] Jay: 3D print health corner. Um, well, the, the one that I wound up settling on is like Shapr3D. And the only reason I, yeah, because the fact that it has an iPad app, I was like, you know, Apple Pencil, you’re doing stuff. I’m not doing anything incredibly complicated. Um, And I mean, I think Fusion 360 was like 1, 500 a year, Shaper, like if, if you have to pay for Shaper, it’s like 300. [00:14:50] Jay: So it’s like, I mean, it’s the, it’s the better bargain. It is, I mean, they’ll be the first to tell you we’re not 3D printing software, we’re like modeling software. So, you know, you’re going to deal with [00:15:00] some things that suck, but at the end of the day, you just learn to work around it. Um, but anyway, all of that, all of that to say, spending money on stuff, um, it didn’t solve the problem. [00:15:10] Jay: The, the solution to the problem was, uh, as of this episode coming out, I have given notice that I will be leaving my job. So um, I, I have a new thing lined up already, which is good because I’m not the type that’s just like, obviously I just bought a bunch of a printer and a bunch of software and stuff. [00:15:30] Jay: So I’m like, I don’t, I don’t have like money that’s saved up or anything. Um, but I want to talk about how mentally Destructive, large corporations are with like exit, like early leaving. So I got a bonus when I joined. There was so much confusion. I mean, there was so much confusion around me moving across the country and whether or not I would take a pay cut. [00:15:54] Jay: Spoiler alert, I took a pay cut, but like I was [00:16:00] told, okay, you get all your bonus upfront. If you stay for a year, you don’t have to pay it back. And then I was like, okay, cool. It sounds fine. So, I get hired on and they’re like, oh, actually we lied, you’re gonna get half your bonus up front and the rest of it after you’ve been there for a year. [00:16:18] Jay: Okay, cool. So, now that I’m like, wait a minute, I’ve been here for almost two years, if I leave before the two year mark, do I have to give my entire bonus back? Do I have to give a portion of my bonus back? And like, no one can give me a straight answer. Everyone’s like, oh, we don’t know. Some people are like, maybe you won’t have to do anything. [00:16:40] Jay: And other people are like, you have to pay your whole bonus. And, and I would put it this way. Like, if they came back to me and said, you’re going to have to pay back your entire bonus, I would have to tell them, can I just not quit? Because you literally would bankrupt me. And that, like, there was a part of me that I, I [00:17:00] negotiated the hell out of my new gig because I, I was like, I am terrified of leaving and having this extremely large company send their goons out to be like, Hey, you owe us this money. [00:17:15] Jay: It’d be a shame if we had to garnish your wages for a year or [00:17:18] Brett: You could go on the run. It takes corporations so long to do anything. You could keep, you could stay ahead of them. Just, just hop from [00:17:26] Jay: Tell them I sent an email and that’ll give me six months. [00:17:30] Brett: So [00:17:30] Christina: a message. [00:17:32] Brett: sidetrack for a second. Um, my benefits for my job include, uh, healthcare as almost all do. And, um, there was this option to set up a separate flex spending account for a dependent. And they refer to my partner as a dependent on when I order like cards. It says. L. Newman, Dependent. So I went ahead and put extra money [00:18:00] aside for L. [00:18:01] Brett: Newman, my dependent. She tries to use it. I assume all year that it’s coming out of this separate dependent account when she uses her card. And then I noticed at the end of the year that nope, that money hasn’t been touched. I go to HR and they’re like, Oh yeah, dependent FSAs are only for children, which I don’t have. [00:18:24] Jay: me set it up? [00:18:25] Brett: So on early December, I said. I’m sorry, I didn’t know, like, this was an honest mistake, can I get this money rolled back over into, like, my HSA or my FSA, whatever, um, and it took them three weeks to tell me. Um, that it was my error and they couldn’t do anything about it, but they were changing my benefits for next year, which I had also already signed up for the, the, when I, when I updated my benefits. [00:18:57] Brett: Yeah. So they’re like, we canceled that for next year, but [00:19:00] that thousand dollars you set aside, I’m afraid that’s gone. So I, I went through like an appeals process and they said, We’re granting you a one time exception. I’m like, no problem. I’ll never make that mistake again. [00:19:11] Christina: What assholes. Well, I mean, good for you for going through the appeal process because I, I [00:19:18] Brett: not nothing. [00:19:19] Christina: no, you’re not wrong, but I’m like the sort of person who, and, and it’s, it’s awful because I spent my mother, I watched my mother spend like my entire life, like fighting with insurance companies over every last cent. [00:19:30] Christina: And so I know how to advocate for myself and I know how to do those things. But then I just get so lazy, or, or I just get like so frustrated with the thought of even going through it that I would just probably let it go dumbly, and then I’d be mad at myself for like another year. So, good for you for actually going through it, but also fuck them, and like fuck HR genuinely for not making that very clear because they know that. [00:19:55] Brett: is so slow and they, I hate, I hate working with HR. [00:20:00] Like I’ll ask every manager, every question I have, and I won’t contact HR until I get down to like, well, you’re going to have to go to HR with this. Cause most of the questions, like people who have been there for 10 years can answer. Um. [00:20:14] Jay: I ask employees at GitHub questions instead of going to HR. Like, I would much rather just ask, like, a different company. Like, hey, how, how do we do this? [00:20:24] Brett: I have 2, 400 in bills from, they’re paid, uh, but bills from a therapist that isn’t covered, that doesn’t submit to insurance. Um, and I pay them out of my HSA and that’s fine, but we went to submit all of these bills to, Uh, the insurance company to try to get refunded into my HSA. [00:20:49] Brett: And they responded with like, basically they said, Oh, these are already paid. They’re not our problem. Um, your plan allows this, but we’re paying 0. So, [00:21:00] so if it weren’t for Elle, um, that would be a dead end. I’d be like, fuck it. But Elle is willing to. If we team up like making, this is actually a good mental health corner right here, but making calls to an insurance company is stressful for both of us. [00:21:19] Brett: Um, sitting on hold, dealing with, uh, customer service over the phone, um, and dealing with things that we don’t understand and we honestly need help on and they are not, their goal is not to give us money. Their goal is to convince us that we don’t need the money. Um, so it’s a stressful call for both of us, but if we team up, even if I’m just sitting next to them on the couch and, and they make the call, um, it like, it’s a teamwork, it’s like, it’s like a, a group process. [00:21:54] Brett: And then I’m there to answer questions and stuff, but we both need that. Together, [00:22:00] Elle and I make one functioning adult. [00:22:04] Jay: Yeah, that’s, uh, shout out, shout out to my latest episode of Conduit, where literally it was called, I Wish I Had a Britney, because I was, like, waxing poetic about, like, oh, all of the stuff that I just struggle to do. Like, my partner just Picks it up and runs with it, and we, we kind of share that same load. [00:22:23] Jay: And Kathy was just like, I wish I had your partner too. And I was like, well, you know, [00:22:28] Christina: You’re like, sorry, she’s mine. [00:22:30] Jay: Yeah, exactly. [00:22:31] Christina: great. She’s really great. Um, [00:22:33] Brett: thought, I thought this was a, you were going to go into like work, bitch. [00:22:38] Christina: Ah, yeah. Haha. Wrong Britney. No, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, uh, uh, you know, um, a stable Britney. [00:22:47] Jay: But [00:22:47] Christina: I’m, I’m saying that without judgment, by the way. I’m just being honest. [00:22:51] Jay: But yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s my corner. I’m, I’m hoping that this, uh. This new thing is going to work out. I, you know, the last time I [00:23:00] was here, we did the DevRel episode and, you know, I am sticking true to like the, the modern meme of DevRel, which is like, you never stay at a job more than two years. Um, I am like, yeah, I, I would love to have some stability. [00:23:15] Jay: And this next role is a big promotion. Like I want to get into management. I want to be a DevRel manager. I want to like, Make cooler advocates out there and get people to stop doing the stupid shit that they do for no reason other than like, oh, but it’s an OKR. Um, but like, I’m hoping that this, this opportunity kind of laid itself out in front of me and they told me all the things that I wanted to hear without me asking them. [00:23:43] Jay: Um. So yeah, hopefully I’ll be leading a team in the next couple of years and that’ll actually give me a reason to stick around, you know, a single company for a while. Or, you know, I’ll [00:23:55] Brett: as long as it’s good. Yeah. [00:23:57] Jay: you know, or I’ll bounce and do something different, I guess.[00:24:00] [00:24:00] Jeff: you said in the interview? I [00:24:02] Jay: Ah, you know, [00:24:03] Brett: I, uh, I, so I’ve talked before about the manager turnover at my job and, um, I’m [00:24:12] Jeff: the last update was that there are no managers plus [00:24:14] Christina: And yeah, and then nobody knew you were [00:24:15] Jay: yeah. [00:24:16] Brett: So, so yeah. So what they did was instead of. Filling the manager position because it’s untenable for the VP to have a hundred reports and actually, you know, keep everyone working. Um, but they don’t have headcount, they say, um, even though stock prices are real good. Um, they, they made one team of, one member of my team, a team lead with no pay raise. [00:24:47] Brett: Just made him kind of like a pro temp manager and it is not like I feel bad for the guy He’s into it, but he’s just [00:25:00] taking on a bunch of responsibility And he’s the one who will have to answer for any failures of the team With no pay raise like that that just does not make sense to me [00:25:11] Jay: absolutely not. That’s, that’s been, that’s where I like draw the line. And luckily everywhere I’ve worked has realized that, that like, hey, we’re going to ask you to take on all of this extra responsibility. And I’m like, okay, well, how is my compensation going to be adjusted for this, this change in role? [00:25:27] Jay: Or how is my title and my compensation going to be adjusted? Like I, I refuse to. And I mean, you know, we can wax poetic about, you know, when I started at Microsoft, we weren’t an AI company. Like, we did AI things, but, um, we didn’t have a co pilot button on our keyboards. Um, like, the definition and the, the scope of my job, if I read, like, why they hired me, we don’t do that. [00:25:56] Jay: So I’m like, oh, well, I mean, you’ve put me in a new job [00:26:00] in any way without changing my role or my pay, well, you changed my pay just for the worse, um, so like, why would I want to stay, other than that my team is super dope, like I love my, my little small team, but like, They get it. They’re like, I wouldn’t blame you. [00:26:17] Jay: Like, so it sucks, but hopefully brighter things or at least, you know, that ADHD, like, oh, hey, here’s a bunch of new knobs to turn and new processes to learn. And, um, it’ll give me something to like super like hyper focus into for a little bit and we’ll see what happens from there. [00:26:37] Brett: So you’ve got the depression. You’ve had the depression. Is that, is that related to A DHD and are you doing anything about it other than buying a bunch of shit? [00:26:48] Jay: Um, is it related to ADHD? I don’t think so because it’s, it’s one of those, well, maybe it’s one of those weird situations where like everything in my life [00:27:00] is getting better, but yet mentally I’m challenged, you know, and, you know, see the last time I was on the episode, we talked about, you know, some of those things of just being Being in a different tax bracket, um, has done a number on me, but I’m, I’m making peace with that. [00:27:17] Jay: And now it’s like, okay, wait, the way things are lined up, I should be able to pay off my house in five years. And if I can do that, like, Before I’m 40, I’ll be debt free, uh, like, cars paid off, houses paid off, all we’ll have is our monthly bills. I can literally do whatever the fuck I want at that point. [00:27:36] Jay: Like, I can go, you know, teach seals in Alaska Python if I wanted to. Like, it would be fine because the bills are paid. But like, it’s, it’s weird that I’m being challenged at work, I’m learning new things, I’m, I’m in a very healthy [00:28:00] spot. The things that I’m asking for, I’m getting. And it’s not enough, it’s, it’s not doing [00:28:05] Brett: Yeah. I don’t think, I don’t think that this is related to your career or your paycheck or anything. I think there’s probably like an actual. Like depression, which is, you know, a, uh, a diagnosable thing. So are, do you go to therapy? Do you take medication? Do you do anything? [00:28:27] Jay: I lost my therapist when I moved, cause he’s not licensed, so, in the state, so now, I haven’t looked for a new one, um, and I definitely haven’t looked for, a new psychiatrist because the last one just I’m still reeling from getting burned for my last psychiatrist. Um, but I, I should, I don’t want to say I should grow up on that, but I probably should make better decisions [00:28:53] Brett: You should get a Brittany. [00:28:55] Jay: I should get a Brittany. Yeah. [00:28:57] Brett: Yeah. That will get you, get you an appointment with a [00:29:00] psychiatrist and take your existing diagnoses. And because I mean, retail therapy, you can afford it. It’s not going to kill you. Um. And it’s not, as you said, effective. Like it didn’t, it didn’t change anything. And the new job and the new, the excitement of like, uh, uh, pay raise and everything didn’t do anything. [00:29:22] Brett: So I think there’s something else going on. [00:29:24] Jay: I, I, and I think the, the problem with that is that it’s like, It’s one thing like bleeding into another. Like yeah, you’re right, I could afford the retail therapy, but to, to be transparent, you know, to make six figures and live check to check [00:29:39] Christina: Mhm. [00:29:40] Jay: in a, in a state that it is relatively inexpensive to live in. [00:29:43] Jay: Like it takes 20 to fill up my car. Like, like gas is dirt. Like I don’t, I don’t, I kind of don’t want an electric vehicle just because I don’t want to spend the extra money. Like it would be more expensive. Um, and I know that that’s. Maybe ruthless, but [00:30:00] also, hey, it’s, it’s the reality of it. So it’s like all of these things are happening in a, in a position where like, I, we should be better. [00:30:08] Jay: I should be better. And I feel like part of it is my fault and I’m like going in, Hey, I’m going to make more money now. And it’s like, okay, but yeah, that’s great. But if the problem isn’t solved, you’re still going to be making more money and still living. Living like you do. So it’s, I don’t know. You’re right. [00:30:23] Jay: I should definitely talk to someone about it. That’s why, again, I’m glad that uh, Jeff gave me the link to show up every Saturday. [00:30:32] Brett: Yeah, man, you’re doing, you’re doing so well. Like your career is blossoming. You’re, you’re doing exactly what you want to do. And it sucks that you would have to deal with depression in addition to all that success. So yeah, do something about [00:30:50] Christina: about it. But I think the encouraging thing there I would say is like, at least for me it’s encouraging, uh, for some people it might not be, but for me it’s encouraging when I can realize that the depression [00:31:00] is not situational, that it’s not based on the things going on in my life, that, hey, this is something that, that I, that I don’t have any control over. [00:31:06] Christina: This is not like a, you know, everything in my life is going great, so why do I feel like shit? Well, you know, Because something is wrong with my brain and that’s not on me. And so this is a real medical problem and I can talk to somebody and get it fixed. It’s, it’s a lot more difficult in some cases when it’s like, oh, well, all these terrible things are happening. [00:31:24] Christina: And that’s also making me feel like shit because I can’t control, I can’t control any of that, right? And even though I can’t control my, my, you know, biochemistry and, and make my, you know, like, uh, neurotransmitters, you know, produce endorphins and, and Things like that the right way, serotonin levels, all that shit. [00:31:40] Christina: Like, I can’t, I can’t physically, you know, make my, my brain work right. I can at least have control of saying, okay, well, I’m going to find a psychiatrist who will listen. I am going to find a therapist. I am going to find someplace to get a solution because I know that there’s a solution to this problem. [00:31:56] Christina: Whereas if it’s, you know, um, I, I don’t, uh, [00:32:00] make enough money or I’m unemployed or someone has died or, you know, other terrible things are happening. That, you could be at a complete loss for, for how to deal with, so, I don’t know. Plus one with what Brett said, anyway. [00:32:15] Brett: All right. Uh, do either of you want to go next? [00:32:20] Jay: Go Jeff. I want to hear from Jeff. I never get to talk to Jeff. [00:32:26] Jeff: Um, man, let’s see. I had a thought, a couple thoughts coming into this and they’re like, they’ve kind of left me, I mean, to stay on the theme of this episode, which is like the water cooler, like talking about, uh, work and professional stuff. Um, I’m definitely trying to figure out, I, you know, I’m, uh, I work for this, I’m part owner of this research and evaluation collaborative in Minneapolis. [00:32:53] Jeff: Um, which sounds really dull, but we do really awesome and [00:32:59] Brett: not sound [00:32:59] Jay: [00:33:00] I’ll say, pause that. [00:33:01] Brett: Yeah, [00:33:01] Jay: Jeff, do you let people work remotely? Because again, house paid off. I, I want to go do [00:33:09] Jeff: we only work remotely. We had an office, um, before the, uh, pandemic that we really barely used and, uh, ditched it and never went back. Um, and, uh, But anyway, like I, so for, so I’ve been there for 10 years, um, came straight out of journalism into this work and, and have really loved it and have loved, uh, being like a member owner of a cooperative. [00:33:34] Jeff: Um, there’s nine of us and it’s, uh, we’ve been able to, we’ve, we’ve gone from We literally borrowed our bylaws from grocery co ops in the beginning because there were like three of us and we had two contracts and it was just like, let’s just get it going. Um, and, and now we have, you know, we have professional development budgets and PTO and health insurance and all of the stuff we’ve been able to kind of start creating for ourselves and [00:34:00] for other members who, you know, may eventually come on and employees and stuff. [00:34:03] Jeff: And that’s been amazing. And I can’t imagine ever. Leaving, I also can’t, I knew this when I left public radio, which was my last journalism job, like I can’t go back to an office. I just can’t stand it. I can’t stand how much time is, is just lost and wasted, uh, on things that would otherwise not even come into your life. [00:34:23] Jeff: Um, if you were working from home, which most of us do now. Um, but, uh, until last year, I’ve only worked large contracts that are multi year projects and, um, It’s, it’s close to having salary. It’s like a very guaranteed amount of money for, uh, it’s hourly, but it’s a guaranteed, you know, at least baseline of money for, for, you know, two, three years. [00:34:47] Jeff: And, um, and that my last, the last of my kind of large projects ended, um, last year, and I’m now doing multiple projects that are. smaller, they’re shorter [00:35:00] in, um, in, uh, duration, uh, and they don’t pay, I mean, they don’t pay as much, um, which like even the ones that pay the rate I’m used to getting, it’s like, they’re over so fast that I might have just, I just have a weird balance of income. [00:35:18] Jeff: That’s making it really hard to budget, especially as we’re sending one kid off to college and paying a bunch for that. Um, and so I have been like super stressed because I, the hardest thing to adjust to in that case, I mean, the, the not being able to budget is really hard, like really hard and frustrating in work. [00:35:38] Jeff: What’s hard is, um, I do qualitative analysis. I mean, you do a lot of stuff, but, and I do a lot of data work. Like I’ll do a lot of data cleaning in order to, and I’ll build like custom data sets and do records requests when it’s, uh, when it makes sense for a project and all that stuff is slow work. And, um, The projects that I’m on now just don’t have the budget for slow work, and the slow work is how you [00:36:00] do the good work, especially, I mean, the kind of work that I’m really interested in, I work with people that are more trained as evaluators, or a couple of them come from more sort of, um, like health data backgrounds and stuff like that, but I’m, I’m, I come from, I mean, this is what I was in journalism too, is I, I love nothing more than creating journalism. [00:36:18] Jeff: Gathering up enough data or stories in one area that I feel like I can say something that hasn’t been said, or I can reflect an experience that hasn’t quite been reflected that way, or kind of, um, curate, you know, experiences in a way that is, um, you know, like one goal for me always is not to ever tell people’s stories, if I’m in the position of doing that at all, and I try not to be telling people’s stories, but to work with with people’s stories, like in the case of qualitative data, in a way that, um, That really kind of honors them and their story and, and doesn’t do the thing that journalism does all the time, which is cut them out of the meaning making the second you hang up the phone [00:37:00] or leave their house. [00:37:01] Jeff: Um, I love doing that kind of work. Uh, and I love creating, you know, databases that didn’t exist, like taking pieces of data, um, or data sources and, and like mashing it together in a way that’s very careful, but ultimately, and ultimately allows me or us to kind of show something that otherwise isn’t. You can’t really see. [00:37:23] Jeff: I love doing that. That is super slow work. And they’re just, it’s been really frustrating for me because the initial part of my learning process was just to still do the slow work and then realize I had burned through my budget. And I wasn’t even at the point where we’re writing or whatever else. And that’s been really annoying. [00:37:41] Jeff: Um. [00:37:42] Brett: Because you paid, you paid me for too much shit. [00:37:45] Jeff: No, that project, that project was never a problem that no, no, no, no, no, we are talking about the dream days when I was on a project that had like a practically limitless budget. And we could, and what was beautiful about that is you and I, me and [00:38:00] the rest of the team, we built things like we built things to do this work that are benefiting the work I do now. [00:38:05] Jeff: It was amazing. I had time to be slow time to experiment. Yeah. Too much time to be slow, but that’s okay. Cause that’s like how I build things. If I don’t have a lot of time and I can’t go kind of annoyingly slow, I don’t come out with something. I just come out with the same shit that anyone would have come out with. [00:38:23] Jeff: And, um, and, uh, so anyway, I’m just really, I’m struggling. There’s a lot of stress for me with both the money part being inconsistent and they’re not being like a guarantee. Like I I’m in a situation right now where it’s like, I got a couple of projects that if they come through, I’m fine. And if they don’t come through, I’m kind of fucked. [00:38:41] Jeff: And I haven’t been in that situation in a really long time. I had three salaried jobs before I switched to Terraluna. Um, and I’ve had really sweet project budgets ever since then. Um, so that’s just like, you know, everything’s stable in terms of like, you know, why my health insurance doesn’t come through Terraluna, but like health insurance [00:39:00] comes through my wife and that’s stable and our finances are like, basically sit, you know, we have savings, like whatever it’s that stuff is okay. [00:39:07] Jeff: Um, but I don’t. I start to get kind of mixed up and turn over on myself when I have to do that much sort of context switching while also worrying. [00:39:19] Brett: Yeah, [00:39:20] Jeff: um, and I already can kind of get turned around on myself just in how I kind of hold and manage files, even though I have systems that are basically Sound. [00:39:30] Jeff: I mean, I do everything in text files, which means even if it’s not organized, I can find it extremely easily. And I can, you know what I mean? Like I can, but, um, but yeah, I’m just having a lot of stress around the, the kind of my context being changed so dramatically and it taking me. Six months to figure it out, and the figuring it out being kind of painful. [00:39:51] Jeff: That’s kind of where, what I’m like, and I’ve just got headaches all the time, and like, I’m not sleeping well, and it’s other things contributing to that, but it’s, [00:40:00] it’s just like a, a time I’m looking forward to get, getting past, basically. Then add into that a tendency to overpromise and underdeliver generally, like , you know, like I feel like when I deliver, it’s always received well and I do feel like I deliver things that are unique and, and come from my very weird set of experiences, both life and professionally. [00:40:22] Jeff: But man, the under delivering is real. Also something you don’t say in job interviews. But I don’t expect to have, I don’t expect to have any of those. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s gonna happen to me. [00:40:34] Brett: I feel like, go ahead Jay. [00:40:36] Jay: I think it’s interesting that, like, one, everybody on this podcast, like, does long, slow projects, and does them well. Like, I mean, Christina, I’m not even going to talk about how you had me in tears, like, just from the last few weeks with Rocket, and, like, The download’s been going on through [00:41:00] multiple employers and like, I see you do stuff with longevity and it’s dope. [00:41:07] Jay: And I mean, Brett, you’ve been, I don’t know how you’ve managed to keep, I’ve, I have software projects that are like five years old and I’m just like, what is this mess? And you’re, you’re like, Oh, that’s cute. Like, you know, we’re over a decade on how, how Mark’s been around for how long [00:41:26] Brett: Over a decade. Yeah. [00:41:27] Jeff: yeah. [00:41:30] Jay: and even with like some of my work projects, like, I, I like the six month, eight month projects that are like, okay, we’re going to take our time with this, and we’re going to come out and we’re going to swing, and when we swing, it’s going to do numbers that no one has seen come from our team before, and it’s It’s hard when right now everything is being, you know, preached about faster. [00:41:55] Jay: Like, do this faster. Like, oh, AI is going to make everything faster. It’s the [00:42:00] same work, but better and faster, da da da. Well, it’s the same work, but mid and, you know, five times as fast. So for me, like, I feel like we’re in this position where there’s a lot of just the way that we do things, the way that we tinker, the way that we really invest ourselves in the work that we do. [00:42:18] Jay: I do feel like it’s getting attacked a little [00:42:21] Jeff: Mmm. Heh, [00:42:21] Jay: And [00:42:22] Jeff: heh heh heh [00:42:23] Jay: I don’t think that, I definitely don’t think that we’ve been obsoleted because I’ve seen that work. It’s garbage. But like I think I’m waiting for the rest of the world to realize, like, hey, you need someone that is methodical, takes their time on something, has a long standing relationship, has understood why things are, work the way that they do, that goes beyond the knowledge. [00:42:52] Jay: It’s there. It’s, it’s the experience, it’s the wisdom that comes with it. And I think that’s something that, you know, it’s, I think we’ll get back to it. [00:43:00] And I think when we do, I think everybody, you know, on this show will be slightly happier with the work that they have to do on a regular basis. [00:43:10] Brett: Yeah, I’m, I’m not looking forward to a day where my job is just basically coming up with chat GPT, uh, prompts. [00:43:20] Christina: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I, I, I think that I I think that you’re right, Jay. Like, I think that there will be a natural kind of move back, um, once the, um, I guess the, the fervor and the excitement is, is over a little bit. Right. Like, I think that’s one of those things where people will be like, okay, well, like, you know, we’re, we’re a little bit like, uh, we have a little bit like better understanding now of like what things really are. [00:43:44] Christina: And so we’re not going to be as, um, um, like gung ho about things the way that we are now. There will be a balance back. And I think that’ll be good. I think that there is probably going to be like a real profound change in some of the things that we do with automation or [00:44:00] AI. Really, that’s what it is. [00:44:01] Christina: It’s automation, you know, it’s more than it is. actual artificial intelligence. Um, but I’m hoping that we’ll be able to find a balance because, yeah, like I, I don’t mind doing some prompt engineering, um, because that can be fun and a fun challenge. But yeah, I, I wouldn’t want that to be my entire day either. [00:44:16] Christina: Like that, that’s, that’s depressing. But I also think that there’s like this opportunity, and this is the sort of thing where I think that, uh, especially people who do what you do, um, uh, Jeff, are in a really interesting position because there will be this, like, call for like, you know, the, like, artisanal non GPT, you know, type of, of long form investigations and, and, and data stuff, right? [00:44:42] Christina: Like, there is going to be, it’s not going to be as big as it was to be very clear, uh, but there is going to be like, uh, uh, I guess like a demand out there for people who have skills that are not in any way the product of automation. And, and, uh, [00:45:00] and there’s going to be almost like a way you can almost sell it. [00:45:01] Christina: It’s like, Oh, I’m a real writer. I’m writing this for you. You know, like, like this is, this is like grain free and, and organic and, and, you know, fed by whatever, like this is. This is, this is the real writing, right? This is, this isn’t any of that chat GPT, you know, fortified bullshit. Like this is, this is the real stuff. [00:45:18] Christina: Um, I think that there’s, there’s definitely going to be like a, um, a demand for that. Um, the problem is, is frankly, uh, for some people who are. Never that good to begin with, and some people who were good, to be clear, like it’s not going to be just the, the bad people who get, or not bad, but I guess mid people who get impacted by this. [00:45:35] Christina: And I’m aware of that, but is that the demand for the really good shit is going to be a lot smaller and that’s, that’s unfortunate. But I do feel like the stuff that you do, Jeff, has real value and I’m, I’m hopeful that that will come back. Not so much in vogue, but the people will be like very clearly aware, like, oh yeah. [00:45:53] Christina: Like, that’s, that’s what we want to actually pay more money for, because it has more cachet now, even than it did before, [00:46:00] because we can differentiate it as being like, Oh no, see, this wasn’t done with any of, of those fancy tools that, that you don’t know if you can trust or not. This was, this was done by a real reporter and a real [00:46:09] Jeff: Or, or even like, let our, pay us to let our brains decide how to use things like ChatGBT, [00:46:15] Christina: I mean, I think that’s the, that’s the ideal thing, I think, honestly. [00:46:18] Jeff: yeah, that is the ideal thing, because I mean, I certainly work it in at this point in ways that, um, it’s just like, I mean, we don’t have to go into this because we all know this, but it’s just like, it’s so much about how you use it, how you, how you approach it, how you, you know, treat what comes out of it, but like, [00:46:34] Brett: That’s, that’s the key right there. How you treat what [00:46:36] Jeff: And I, and I guess to that end, like, I do bring my, you know, decades as a reporter and a decade now as a researcher, like I bring that, I bring all of those, all that skepticism, all that kind of, you know, fact checking instinct, all that stuff to it, right? [00:46:53] Jeff: And, and that’s something we all probably have as a real advantage over somebody who’s trying to use it for their work and going, [00:47:00] WHAT?! And then maybe gets burned. Um. [00:47:03] Jay: think that’s the thing that’s going to get lost though. Like, I mean, I spent this entire week working on open telemetry and it’s like, I knew what open telemetry was, but I had never like played around with it. And in the moment I was like, okay. And if, if I do exactly what A, ChadGPT asked me to do, what Copilot asked me to do, because I’m working with a brand new product, it’s not going to work. [00:47:30] Jay: And it became a challenge of like taking what I know, understanding what I know about like Python as a programming language, what I understand about OpenTelemetry as a concept, and then what I know about like our cloud infrastructure and saying, okay. I can take these pieces and make sense out of them, but When I went back to the PM, the PM was like, Oh, so how was it? [00:47:56] Jay: I was like, Oh, it was absolutely horrendous. And here are the five reasons [00:48:00] why. And they were like, Oh, well, if you’re a new user, you’re not going to deal with that. And I said, Oh, you will when you’ve invested 15, 000 a month into some product and it’s not working. And you don’t know why it’s not working because there is no prompt for this thing that’s brand new. [00:48:21] Jay: There is, and like, You know, it’s fun because for us, we get to yell and we get to say, Hey, this big company could pull out hundreds of thousands of dollars a year because someone decided, Oh, let’s just stick with, you know, prompt engineering as the solution, instead of saying, let’s work with someone who has foundational knowledge. [00:48:41] Jay: The foundational knowledge is just going to slowly dwindle, especially as the people who have that knowledge are just like, I’m over this, [00:48:49] Brett: Well, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s a matter. So like there are two types of articles we write for Jeff. I know you need to go soon. [00:48:56] Jeff: I don’t actually, my and by the way, everybody, my son’s [00:49:00] taking his driver’s test and I thought I had to dig up some documents, but they have been found. [00:49:04] Christina: Yay! [00:49:06] Brett: So how long do [00:49:07] Christina: also, also good luck, um, to him on his driver’s test. Hope he does better [00:49:10] Jeff: yes! I can go till we’re done. [00:49:12] Brett: Okay. So, um, I have found in my job, there are two types of, uh, content we can produce. One is in depth experience based, um, conversational style content to. Help developers get into a new ecosystem. The other is SEO content and SEO content. Absolutely. Why not write it with chat GPT? Um, you just got to fit in a bunch of keywords and you can literally tell chat G word, get chat GPT, like use this word a bunch of times, use, use variations of this word a bunch of times, and it’ll do it. [00:49:54] Brett: And like that SEO [00:49:55] Jeff: 2006 all over again! [00:49:58] Brett: I have been sent, I have [00:50:00] been sent SEO content for editing, and I have asked myself, who would write this, and I found out, oh, of course it was AI generated, um, [00:50:12] Jeff: ever start at, like, um, okay, you are the blood pulsing through Danny Sullivan’s veins. Now write me this text. [00:50:21] Brett: I, uh, I’m not, but, yeah, like, there, there, I think there will always be a place for those, for people, like, your journalism background, Jeff. Like, I, I feel like that’s a fallback. If, if something goes wrong and you find yourself screwed, you, you are a valuable [00:50:39] Jeff: am not, that is [00:50:41] Brett: I think you are. [00:50:42] Jeff: not a fallback. No one’s knocking on my door. It’s been 10 years. Yeah, it’s not a [00:50:48] Brett: feel like, I feel like you could show your, your history, your work, like even your Taraluna work, to me, lends you credibility as someone who can speak on, [00:51:00] uh, topics of justice, [00:51:02] Jeff: I mean, the biggest problem is that, and I’m being completely serious here, I’m not just, uh, this isn’t performative. The biggest problem is that I think that, um, I think that journalism doesn’t need more white guys, uh, uh, who are 40 and over or period. And so, and I think newsrooms are finally, [00:51:18] Jay: stop them from [00:51:19] Brett: yeah, exactly. [00:51:20] Jay: have them, they might as well have the [00:51:22] Brett: not going to change the demographic of the New York [00:51:25] Jeff: and I was this guy only once and it was my last job that when I got in I was like, oh, it was down to two people, and it’s me. And I found that out like months in, and it’s public radio which is awful. Well, not awful at this shit for the most part anymore, but Minnesota Public Radio has been. [00:51:40] Jeff: And I, that did actually make you feel like it. I just don’t even want to like, Yeah, I don’t, I don’t want to, I just don’t want to be part of that because I can’t stand most of the white men I’ve worked with in journalism. [00:51:53] Brett: Fair [00:51:53] Jeff: I don’t want to be part of the posse. I mean, I, just a quick aside, like, I, I mean, [00:52:00] truly, I have pictures of my My teams over the years and all this stuff, like I was just, I just found a picture of the editorial team at Utne Reader. [00:52:07] Jeff: And it’s like, man, we went so long where it could just be a room full of white people and no one ever even fucking, it didn’t occur to them. It occurred to me, but it didn’t, I didn’t change it. I wasn’t hiring anybody, but still I didn’t do anything. Right. Like, and, uh, and so I just, I, I almost don’t. It’s a weird thing to say, because I’m not saying like, obviously I’d be picked. [00:52:30] Jeff: That’s not the point at all. It’s just like, I’d like to just stay out of the way. Um, and, and at Terra Luna, I can stay out of the way. I’m largely on teams that are mostly not white. Um, and, and that’s been. Like, that’s just been amazing. And, uh, so anyway, it’s an incoherent, uh, response to your thing. But also I just want to really clear, no one’s knocking at my door. [00:52:52] Jeff: I did have a former, a student, someone, someone who’s in the class I co taught at the U of M where they didn’t know, I didn’t have my high school diploma, [00:53:00] um, on investigative journalism and she’s now at ProPublica. And, and, and it came around to where she called me, uh, and I almost got to hire her for something. [00:53:09] Jeff: And I was like, it feels good to have a ProPublica journalist come around and be like, hey. Um, anyway, that’s, sorry. I, this is going to be the most like, um, it’s like the mental health part of mental health corner is like whack a mole. It’s like, it pops up. This is all fine. I think it pops up. Then we go over here, pops up, go over here. [00:53:27] Jeff: So I just took us over here. Sorry. Okay. Okay. [00:53:31] Brett: Um, before, before Christina and I vie for who goes next, I’m going to sneak in a couple of sponsor spots. [00:53:39] Sponsor: Green Chef [00:53:39] Brett: This episode is brought to you by Green Chef. Green Chef is a CCOF certified meal kit company. Green Chef makes eating well easy with plans to fit every lifestyle. Whether you’re keto, paleo, vegan, vegetarian, gluten free, or just looking for more balanced meals, Green Chef offers a range of recipes to suit your [00:54:00] preferences. [00:54:00] Brett: Choosing Green Chef means choosing real, wholesome foods that don’t just fill you up, but also support a healthy lifestyle. It’s more than just satisfying hunger. 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That’s AroundSquare, A R O U N D [00:57:00] S Q U A R E. com and use the code Overtired. [00:57:05] Mental Health Corner Part 2 [00:57:05] Brett: All right. So, Christina, do you have a mental health corner? [00:57:09] Christina: Yeah, I guess. I mean, um, I don’t have anything really, I guess, that pressing. Um, I’m going through some weird health stuff that I have to go back and get more blood work done on. And that was causing me more distress last week than it is now. Now I think I’ve kind of like calmed down a little bit about it, but that’s always like one of those things when you have like actual like physical health symptoms and you’re like, okay, what the fuck is going on? [00:57:31] Christina: Um, because then your brain goes into a million different places. Uh, I don’t think that it was helped by the fact that, um, a guy I used to work with, an incredible, incredible editor, Tom Skosha, wrote this amazing thing for New York Magazine about trying to figure out, uh, why his body has been eating itself. [00:57:48] Christina: And there was no conclusion, which was terrifying. Uh, but also Tom was an incredible writer. And so, uh, reading that was Anyway, it [00:58:00] brought up a lot of feelings for a lot of things. Um, but yeah, no, I mean, I’ve just had some, some health stuff going on, trying to figure out like why I’ve been losing weight and losing hair. [00:58:08] Christina: And uh, so far my blood work is completely normal. So I’m going back and getting more blood work done. Yay. Love to spend the beginning of the year doing that stuff. Um, but no, but otherwise it’s really, really cold right now and, and kind of gray. And so that isn’t great for Mental health, but at the same time I think I’m doing alright. [00:58:27] Christina: So, just trying to kind of get back into things. Um, I completely, like, I, I understand, like, the, all to, like, the, the stresses behind, like, all the things you’re trying to do around your job, and trying to figure out, okay, what is, um, my role and, and what is required of me, and is this, this sort of thing that I want to actually doing and things like that. [00:58:50] Christina: I’m, I’m fortunate that I’m, I’m in a good position right now, but I definitely know what it’s like to go through kind of those stressors of like, okay, is this giant company going to fuck me over? And, [00:59:00] um, you know, uh, there were layoffs in the tech industry this week, which, um, [00:59:06] Brett: Yeah. [00:59:06] Jeff: all. [00:59:07] Christina: I mean, that’s the thing. [00:59:08] Christina: It’s like, for some of us, not all of us, but some of us, like we left, like Brett and I definitely, like we left doing like more indie, like me journalism, him being like a sole proprietor. Like we went to big tech for the stability and then the stability is gone and we’re like, fuck, I’m like, man, I’m, I’m too late on all this stuff. [00:59:26] Christina: Like, right. Like I should have gone to tech. Like five or six years before, and frankly, I should do what, what, uh, Jay does and like leave every two years. I would make a lot more money if, um, I didn’t have my perverse sense of both loyalty and fear that like, no one will ever hire me again, which is a real thing that I do actually think I’m like, no one will ever hire me. [00:59:44] Jeff: Oh, I feel that. [00:59:45] Christina: Which, which I know is completely irrational, but at the same time it is one of those things that I feel, like, [00:59:49] Brett: It is irrational. Like, I can, I can validate, you are, uh, extremely hireable. Like, you have a future, but I understand, [01:00:00] like, I, I think that’s true about me too, but, like, I understand that feeling of, like, well, if I don’t keep this job, nobody else will want me. [01:00:09] Christina: Absolutely. [01:00:10] Jay: It took people messaging me saying, Hey, I want you to work with me before I did that. And for the record, I’m trying to stay in a company longer than two years. I just I just haven’t been able to yet. Um, I, I am, I get terrified. I’ve been like you and Jeff, like losing sleep, hair falling out. Like it, it is not, I, I know that it is definitely time to go, but I’m like desperately trying to find the right thing. [01:00:41] Christina: Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s, but I think that’s actually great, like, when you know that it’s time to go someplace. Like, I think that’s actually great. Like, I think the harder thing is actually when you know it’s time to go and you stay anyway. And I’ve done that. Um, uh, frankly, I did that at Microsoft probably my entire last year there. [01:00:58] Christina: And that was, in [01:01:00] retrospect, like I, I should have taken some jobs from other places that I would not have been happy, but made more money and then, um, made the move to GitHub. Like that’s, that’s what I should have done. So like, I, I really, really, um, am proud of you for recognizing that it’s time to go. And also, even though it’s hard and even though it can be scary, but also finding another place, you know, to go. [01:01:19] Christina: Um. Because I also know from past experience that even if the place you go isn’t like the ultimate place, like getting out of a situation that you need to get out of is a really good thing. So, um, but sorry, go on. [01:01:33] Brett: No, I’m, I’m just curious about the losing hair [01:01:36] Christina: Oh yeah, that I have no idea. Like that is not, I, cause I haven’t been under stress and I’m not really sure. Like my, my stylist was the first one who mentioned it. And then like last week actually, [01:01:47] Brett: it’s not like clumps falling on the shower. [01:01:49] Christina: no, it is. [01:01:50] Brett: Oh, it is. Oh, that’s scary. [01:01:52] Christina: Yeah, exactly. And that was what started last week. And so I was like, Oh, fuck. Like actually last Saturday. [01:01:58] Christina: And I was like, [01:02:00] oh fuck. Um, like, like I had like clumps of hair falling out and I was like, this is, this is not good. Like I, like more hair than usual. I’ve been noticing, you know, maybe it had fallen out, but like it wasn’t clumps and then clumps started and I was like, oh, this is a problem. So I immediately went in on Monday and got blood work done and it was completely normal. [01:02:18] Christina: And so she’s ordered more blood [01:02:20] Brett: the worst. [01:02:21] Christina: Yeah. [01:02:22] Jeff: Yeah, [01:02:23] Brett: when [01:02:25] Jeff: terrible, but completely normal isn’t nice. [01:02:28] Brett: debugging a problem with a customer, the worst thing that can possibly happen is that I can’t replicate the issue because I have no way to solve it then. And like going in and getting perfect blood work. Yeah, that just leads to like, well then what the fuck? [01:02:45] Christina: No, exactly. And so she’s ordered like a whole, um, a battery of other, uh, labs for me and I don’t know, I’ll have to call I guess tomorrow or not tomorrow, um, uh, Monday and see if they’re open on, on, uh, Martin Luther King Day or [01:03:00] not, I would think they would be, but you never know. Um, so one, one of the benefits that we get from our insurance, although I’ve got to check on this because they changed hospital affiliations, but either they’re, Their system didn’t update it with the insurance company or the insurance company didn’t update it because when I went into, like, after I’d had my appointment and had my blood work done at the one medical office, they were like, did you change your insurance? [01:03:25] Christina: Cause it’s showing inactive. And I’m like, nope. And everything looked fine. And then they’re like, yeah, well, we just changed hospital affiliations. And I was like, huh? So I contacted the insurance company and I was like, Are you still covering this? They’re like, yeah, that’s still showing, you know, this, this office is still within network. [01:03:42] Christina: And I was like, okay, but the affiliation you have listed is wrong. They’re like, yeah, well then they have to update it in their system. And I’m like, they say you have to update it in yours. And, and I was like, well, so I guess I just have to wait to see if you approve the claim. And then I have to like. [01:03:56] Christina: Fight it otherwise. And she was basically like, yeah. [01:04:00] So that’s, that’s fun. Um, the good news is, is that the hospital that they moved to is also covered under my insurance. So in theory it should be fine. It’s just one of those like additional things. But I was going to say like, uh, I don’t know if any of you ever used one medical, but it’s, um, unfortunately Amazon owns it now, but it is. [01:04:21] Christina: Very useful. It’s kind of like a, if you are in a city that has it and, um, uh, Jay, I think you’re the only one who might be, it basically have a bunch of primary, um, care clinics and you could make like appointments relatively quickly with people. Um, and you could go to providers, um, at any location, but they also have onsite labs. [01:04:41] Christina: So if you get lab from, Like, order from anyone, you can go there during their lab hours and just get your labs done. And it’s very convenient and very nice. So it’s, it’s a lot, it’s kind of like adding, you know, I, I guess I’ve never had an HMO, but I guess kind of like an HMO type of thing to people [01:05:00] who are. [01:05:00] Christina: Not on HMOs. So, um, I, I don’t know if their lab will be open on Monday or not, but if they, they are, then I’ll, I’ll go. Otherwise I’ll go on Tuesday. But yeah, I’ll keep you guys updated on, on, on what I find out. [01:05:15] Brett: yeah, please do. Oh, man. Alright, so, you guys, multiple people on this podcast have mentioned not sleeping well. [01:05:27] Christina: Mm hmm. [01:05:28] Brett: Um, Jeff, Jay, how are you sleeping, [01:05:32] Christina: Oh, I never sleep well. [01:05:36] Brett: What do you, what do you average per night? What’s your average sleep? [01:05:39] Christina: I mean, I don’t know because it varies. So, because a lot of times I won’t go to bed until like four or five o’clock in the morning and then I’ll get up at like 830. [01:05:46] Brett: Holy shit. [01:05:47] Christina: Yeah. [01:05:48] Brett: Oh, shit. Oh, so, so you’re dexedrine fueled and, uh, diet coke and dexedrine and that’s how you get through a day? [01:05:56] Christina: Yeah, basically. [01:05:58] Brett: Oh, man, I do best [01:06:00] when I have, um, like nine hours of sleep. Um, and for the last month, I guess? I have been an insomniac, not manic. Like, when I’m manic, I get up, I code, I, like, I surf the web, like, I do things. [01:06:20] Brett: And right now, I just lay in bed awake wishing I was asleep, uh, four hours at a time, and I listen to audiobooks, and Uh, will eventually drift off, but more nights than not, I’ve been getting three to four hours of sleep a night, and it is It’s frustrating. Really dragging me down. Um, I slept the last couple nights, but I’m kind of wondering if this isn’t some kind of more bipolar type one, um, where I’m like hypomanic for an [01:07:00] extended period of time, but like, I’m super tired when I’m manic. [01:07:04] Jeff: it. [01:07:05] Brett: When I manic, I can just like for three or four days, I can do anything on zero sleep. Um, and I can just, I can rock everything until like day three when it really catches up with me. But, uh, what’s going on right now is this extended period of insomnia. That’s kind of, it’s driving me nuts. I’m doing Everything I can. [01:07:30] Brett: I’m doing all the tricks I use to cut Manic episodes short. I’m doing, uh, this, like, mineral, uh, Mintran, it’s called. It’s like mineral tranquilizers, plus melatonin, plus my meds, which generally knock me right the fuck out. And I’m doing, uh, sleeping pills too, like Unisom kind of sleeping pills. And none of it keeps me, like, I’ll fall asleep right away and I’ll [01:08:00] wake up by like midnight. [01:08:02] Brett: And then I’m just up and I don’t, I don’t know what to do about it. And it’s, it’s really wearing me down last night though. Last night I slept my a good nine hours and that’s why I’m able to do the podcast today. Um, but yeah, that’s wearing me down. However, you may have noticed the, the beautiful color of the lighting behind me [01:08:27] Jeff: know, it really makes a difference. [01:08:30] Brett: It does. And I can change it to like all kinds of different, [01:08:35] Jeff: Blood [01:08:35] Brett: um, coloration. I can even set it to like flash with sound in the [01:08:41] Jeff: stop that, please. I didn’t sleep last night, I can’t handle that. [01:08:47] Brett: um, but I have found that, so I bought a bunch of Govee lighting, G O V E E, and it’s cheaper than trying to buy like hue products or anything. [01:08:59] Jay: And it’s more [01:09:00] reliable than HomeKit. [01:09:01] Brett: yeah. Yeah, well, I use, I use it with Alexa and I get a certain amount of automation, but most of it I do through the app, um, where I can, like, I have time settings where I can walk into my office early morning. [01:09:15] Brett: It’s, it’s a color setting I created called Fire, where all of the lights are red at the bottom, up through yellow, and then white on top. And it creates this like, um, it’s like being in hell, but also very comfortable. Um, and like, and then like noontime it switches into work mode, which is what I have going now, which is basically like daylight blue lighting. [01:09:42] Brett: And I used to think I just needed my office brighter and brighter. Cause I love, I love, I love designing lighting for a room. And I like to make every room feel the way it’s supposed to feel. And, like, around my house, I have archways that [01:10:00] are all covered in, uh, warm, white Christmas lights. Because those make me feel comfortable. [01:10:07] Brett: Those make me feel cozy. Um, and I have those all automated on my phone. I can turn them all off and all on at once. Uh, but I never had a room that I could completely control the color. And so you can see behind me, I have like a wall light, uh, on each side, I have a floor lamp and behind my desk, I have wall lighting and like this whole room can just change based on my mood and based on what I need. [01:10:39] Brett: And it has actually been amazing for my mental health and my productivity. Uh, it costs maybe, I think I spent about 400, uh, putting this whole thing together. And have you ever seen the accountant, the movie, the accountant, [01:10:57] Jeff: Uh uh. [01:10:59] Brett: there’s a [01:11:00] scene where Ben Affleck, uh, is like sucking himself up or something. And he turns on some crazy metal, turns on strobe lights, and then starts kneading his shin with a rolling pin. [01:11:15] Brett: Uh, because it’s all about this sensory overload. He I don’t know exactly, I don’t [01:11:20] Jeff: Ben Affleck is nuts. [01:11:22] Jay: Hard, [01:11:22] Brett: I don’t remember, like, what his particular mental illness was, but he needed this influx of stimulation of both sensory, like, visual, uh, physical, sensory stimulation. And I understand that. Like, as an ADHD guy, um, Sometimes, like a lot of times, I need no sensory input. [01:11:46] Brett: I need things to be quiet. I need things to be silent, um, just to exist. But then these periods come up almost daily where I need to be overwhelmed. I need to be [01:12:00] oversaturated by stimulation. And these lights, when they’re dancing to the music and I can blast the circle jerks and just have the lights going nuts, uh, it’s, it’s a perfect, like. [01:12:13] Brett: It’s for my mental health. I love it. I really love it. The other part of my current mental health is, I have been hanging out with and texting with old friends, which is like a mixed bag for me because my friends from high school were a bunch of assholes. And I’m going out to dinner with some of them tonight, and I am not at [01:12:40] Jeff: of the show. Assholes. [01:12:42] Brett: Assholes. [01:12:43] Jeff: of the show’s my asshole [01:12:45] Brett: I always felt like an outsider with my friends and when we all hang out as like, you know, adults, um, it, I go, I fall right back into that feeling like I don’t fit in, like I’m an outsider. [01:13:00] Um, and these are the people that were the most like me. In high school, we were the kind of outcast, insecure, uh, nerdy, uh, they were all into role playing and it should have been, but I had like religious trauma around that. [01:13:15] Brett: Um, but like, I just, I don’t, I don’t dig them, but when I got to college, I felt much more accepted and a much more a part of, so I, I’ve been hearing from, um, old, old college friends. Um, I spent last week hanging out with the guy who first introduced me to heroin, but also was [01:13:42] Jeff: You’re like, what else, what else you got, like, what have you come up with lately? [01:13:45] Brett: Also was like my closest friend through college. [01:13:48] Brett: He was the best man at my wedding. Um, he’s a great guy. And, uh, my, one of my ex girlfriends contacted me and like [01:14:00] developed a texting kind of conversation with me. And she’s hanging out with the guy who did all my tattoos. Um, who was like a roommate and a good friend of mine. [01:14:11] Jeff: This is really like, origin story, uh, people in your life. [01:14:15] Brett: yeah, exactly, exactly. [01:14:17] Brett: And it has been, it has actually been really good for me. Um, to, so there’s like two ways it can go, right? You can talk to someone who was important to you in your past and their life is a hot mess and you can feel like. blessed because you avoided whatever they went through. And then you can talk to them and they’re like, full on successful. [01:14:43] Brett: And like, you can appreciate and, and, uh, empathize, I guess. Like, I consider myself successful in, in what I do and what I am and, and my paycheck and my relationships. And, um, I don’t have to [01:15:00] feel Jealous of old friends so I can be like happy when they succeed. So that’s been a thing. I’ve, I have enjoyed this period of reconnection. [01:15:12] Brett: Um, it has, well, and I’m supposed to be more social according to my multiple therapists. Like I’m supposed to get out, I’m supposed [01:15:22] Jeff: Seems like you’ve got a therapist social life. Like, multiple therapists. [01:15:29] Brett: do have multiple therapists and, and like universally, they want me to, uh, have a social life. And, uh, the easiest way I’ve found to tap into that is to rekindle, uh, relationships that were good for me in the past, uh, even, even once it were bad for me, but have morphed into. [01:15:52] Brett: Like we’re, we’re grownups now. We’re adults and things are different and we can see where things went wrong. Like this [01:16:00] girl I’m talking to, she thought our relationship was serious and I thought our relationship was casual. And honestly, she was really cool and super hot and I could have been serious about her, but I thought she wanted a casual relationship, so I kept it casual. Shit went down, and apparently, like, I, I, I hurt her, um, and it was unintentional, and, uh, but now we’re reconnecting, and we haven’t talked about the way our relationship went down, we’re just talking about the way things are now, um, but it’s actually pretty heartening that she still wants to talk to me at all, um. [01:16:48] Brett: Yeah. Holy shit. We’ve been, we’re at an hour 15 and we’re just finishing up Mental Health Corner. [01:16:55] Jeff: I know, this is a conversation for offline, but I feel like that’s mostly what happens and maybe it’s just time to [01:17:00] not call it The Corner. [01:17:02] Christina: Yeah. [01:17:02] Jeff: And it just starts with, how are you doing, and everyone says [01:17:05] Brett: we, do we need two shows? Do [01:17:06] Jay: a side [01:17:07] Brett: separate [01:17:07] Christina: I was gonna say, I was gonna say maybe, yeah, maybe, maybe we need like, like two shows, like [01:17:13] Jeff: I think we’re, [01:17:13] Christina: Health, Mental Health Corner, which is the spinoff of Overtired and like Overtired, which is like us actually talking about like the other things we want to talk [01:17:21] Jeff: or we just call it Graftitude [01:17:22] Brett: occasional Taylor Swift. [01:17:24] Christina: yeah. Or we call it Gratitude. [01:17:27] Christina: Honestly, [01:17:27] Jeff: Yeah, exactly. [01:17:28] Brett: Oh my god. Um, so, I guess, Jeff, you have, you have a little time? [01:17:35] Jeff: I do have time, yeah, I’m good. [01:17:37] Can we talk about keyboards for a second? [01:17:37] Brett: Can, can we talk about keyboards for a second? [01:17:40] Jeff: keyboards. [01:17:41] Brett: Jay, tell us about your latest keyboard. [01:17:44] Jay: Okay, so, I preface, I’m not a keyboard nerd. Um. I don’t know. No, I, I, I don’t know key types or any of that stuff. Um, I just know what I got. Um, which was [01:18:00] originally just me being played. So, [01:18:02] Brett: that keyboard. You just held up, you just held up the, the full Apple USB [01:18:10] Jay: yeah, [01:18:10] Brett: Keyboard with the low, the low profile switches. I can’t remember what it was called. It was right before the magic keyboard, but it had the number pad and everything. [01:18:19] Jay: well, no, this is the, the new, this is the modern one. It’s the, just the traditional magic keyboard, but I have the one with the number [01:18:26] Christina: Yeah, I used to have one of those. [01:18:28] Jeff: fella? Same? [01:18:30] Christina: Because I have the regular one. I used [01:18:32] Jeff: Everyone hold up your keyboards! [01:18:34] Christina: used to have the main one, and I can’t see anybody’s stuff right now. I used to have the main one, but what I have had, and I’ve had this for a number of years, is I have this, which is a Logitech [01:18:42] Brett: that a Logitech? Yeah. [01:18:43] Christina: which I like better. [01:18:44] Christina: Because it has USB C, A, um, and, uh, uh, B. Like, I, I like, I like the keys better. Those are the low profile ones I use, but yeah. [01:18:53] Jeff: You know what? USB is already confusing, but when you say USB C A and B in a [01:18:58] Christina: I know, I [01:18:59] Jeff: wait, uh, what are [01:19:00] we talking about? Sorry, anyway. [01:19:02] Jay: so the, the new keyboard that I got, which it’s, it’s actually downstairs because I was, you know, hanging out downstairs trying to figure out how to type on it, um, is the Moonlander Mark I, which it’s a couple years old, um, It’s uh, the words that I believe they use is an ortho linear split keyboard. Maybe not ortho, maybe not the ortho, I know like it can rise up so it can like move at different angles. [01:19:29] Jay: Um, but it’s, it’s definitely a solid keyboard. I like the feel of typing on it. Um, I think I have MX Brown switches. I think they’re whatever the tactile, like they don’t make a super loud click, but there is a click. And like, when you press down, there’s a noticeable like engage and disengage, um, to it, which is really cool. [01:19:55] Jay: But yeah, the, the thing that, I mean, for me, it was, uh, [01:20:00] Again, I had office budget that needed spending, but then also like, you know, my, my fingers hurt. It’s getting cold. Um, I have lots of joint pain. Um, so for me, I was like, all right, whatever I can do that, you know, makes. It makes me able to type longer, um, preserving, I guess, increasing the amount of keystrokes I have in life, which I think Scott Hanselman, like, dubbed that phrase of like, you’re, you have a limited number of keystrokes that you can, you can apply, and the sad thing is you don’t know how many there are, uh, so if I can get some back, like, that would be, that’d be great, but I mean, it’s, I, I have a few of these, I think I have like a, what’s, I forget what it’s called now, it’s one of those super, like, Clacky, like, thocky keyboards, um, uh, it’s the Keychron. [01:20:54] Jay: Well, no, it’s like a Keychron. Um, I don’t, I don’t have keyboard money. Uh, I don’t [01:21:00] think people who have keyboards have keyboard money. That is like the most expensive hobby I’ve ever seen. [01:21:05] Christina: Genuinely, yeah, it’s a problem. Like I’ve been, um, I, I came across this, uh, actually because of Charles Tan, who I love, who like sent me this, um, this, um, model OLED keyboard that, um, this, this company, um, has on, on pre order right now, um, which is like a, a take on like the model M and it’s 450 and that’s just for the bare bones. [01:21:26] Christina: That doesn’t even include keycaps or anything. And yeah, sorry. So go on. [01:21:31] Jay: all of these keyboards, like they’re so cool. And at one point I was looking at, it was either going to be like this or like the, um, the UHK. And I know Brett like loves the UHK. And I was like, oh man, like if I had to pick between the two, I think the UHK, there was like a little bit more. [01:21:49] Jay: Like if, if they were going to put it together, cause let’s be real, I’m not doing it. Like, I was like, Oh, if, if I have to get it prebuilt, like I just, [01:21:56] Christina: part of the fun. Yeah. [01:21:58] Brett: It really is. Like [01:22:00] once, once you, once you get into, so like, I spent years thinking I was a low profile keyboard guy, um, like those older, like even the Magic Keyboard. Those, that kind of key feel made sense to me, but I lost sensitivity. I, my fir, my index, middle finger, and thumb have no feeling in them. [01:22:26] Brett: anymore and I don’t know what happened, some kind of nerve damage or something, um, but a low profile keyboard where I can’t feel any tactile response from the switch, um, became almost impossible to type on. So switching to mechanical keyboards was almost a necessity to me, but once you get into them, Yeah, like half the fun is like figuring out which switch you buy, like switch testers, and you test out all the switches and you figure out what’s the perfect one. [01:22:56] Brett: And then you order, you order a pre prebuilt kil [01:23:00] keyboard, but you order one with hot sw. Hot swappable switches. Uh, so if you ever decide to, you can just swap out all your switches, change all your key keys. [01:23:09] Jeff: Makes [01:23:10] Christina: then you get into like lubing all of your switches and uh, uh, and, and, and your, um, um, your, your stabilizers and all that stuff and yeah. [01:23:19] Brett: So does the moon tent, uh, in the middle? Can you turn it up? [01:23:25] Jay: So they have like these like nubs that can lock in. So those will allow it to tent a little. So, I mean, the audience can’t see my hands, but it’s more like that. [01:23:38] Brett: like a 20 degree. Okay. Yeah, that’s [01:23:40] Jay: there is a. They do have like a extra accessory that is a like much more radical tent that you can add to it. Um, again, for me, I was like, I just want something that’s going to be a little bit more comfortable as I’m typing. [01:23:57] Jay: The, the splitness of it [01:24:00] is, and like, I’m, I know, I know, like I took typing, like I, I, You know, I, I know the keyboard, but my confidence in it is, is broken. And then with linear keys, it doesn’t matter how well, you know, a QWERTY keyboard, because the keys aren’t staggered. So like I’m, I’m typing stuff at a snail’s pace and. Just being like, I don’t know where the, there’s like certain buttons that are not there. Cause it’s, it’s not a full keyboard, you know, it’s, it’s a keyboard that has multiple modes. So if you want a numpad, there’s a numpad mode that, you know, that you can customize and program and do all these things. And it’s, it’s like the perfect amount of tinker, but like, I, I kind of just want to, I want to get like. [01:24:48] Jay: Firm on the I can type on this before I’m like, you know, hitting plus by double tapping equals three times is probably not going to be the answer. [01:24:59] Brett: know what gets [01:25:00] me on any keyboard is, uh, curly and square brackets. I never, I, I’ve gone through typing tutors and tried so hard. So what I ended up doing is assigning one of the extra three thumb keys on my keyboard. Uh, so if I hold that down, then the home row H J K L becomes, uh, parentheses and, and curly brackets. [01:25:26] Brett: And like, it’s the only way I can, because for me, like typing a curly bracket is like a lot of key backspace, key backspace, key, especially when you’re in an editor that, uh, pairs up. Like you auto, it automatically doubles, like you, you type a left square bracket, it inserts the right square bracket, so you have to like backspace two bracket. [01:25:49] Brett: Yeah, so that’s the one that gets me, and that’s the one that I’ve been really grateful. I have a customizable keyboard that I can make memorizable [01:26:00] for myself. [01:26:01] Jay: The one thing I wish that this had, because since it does have those profiles, like they have, they have their own little service where you can, you can see how other people have programmed theirs and you can download their profiles and things like that. I wish that it had app awareness. Because, like, if I’m, if I’m using one of the Several browsers that I’m testing at any given time. [01:26:26] Jay: Like there are just certain keys that are different. And I would, I would like to have some consistency across the board, but I don’t want to have to sit there and like swap through profiles three or four times and like try to remember color coded combinations of like, Oh, this is the ARC browser profile. [01:26:45] Jay: Let me. Switch to that, or if I’m using Sigma OS, then it’s like, Oh, let me switch over to that thing and all the keys are different. And it’s, it would be nice if it just did it automatically. I’m, I’m [01:27:00] guessing [01:27:00] Brett: amount of luck with BetterTouchTool, [01:27:02] Jay: that’s what I was thinking is I’m, I’m [01:27:04] Brett: can be app aware. [01:27:05] Jay: Yeah. Like BetterTouchTool or KeyboardMaestro will probably be the solution that I go with on that. [01:27:11] Jay: There is one new feature that it had that I don’t. know if anyone’s talked about before. So we know about the hyper key. What about the meh key? Like m m e h. So the hyper key is the hyper key. The meh key is everything but the shift. [01:27:32] Brett: Huh. [01:27:35] Jeff: I like it. Evolution. [01:27:37] Jay: So I was just like, huh, okay, that’s, [01:27:42] Brett: Control, Command, Alternate, or [01:27:45] Jeff: some, this is some real good radio. So, so control command and no, that’s not right. Control. No, wait a minute. Wait, my computer’s tenting. My computer’s tenting. [01:27:57] Brett: ha ha ha ha! [01:27:59] Jay: [01:28:00] Yeah, because I am in that space where like I have a lot of, you know, customized shortcuts and stuff. And I, [01:28:05] Brett: but that combination is easy to hit. Like, that’s three fingers. [01:28:11] Jay: yeah, but it, it, it shifts your hand. [01:28:14] Brett: It does. Well, it’s easy to hit if you’re using a right hand combo key. If you wanted to hit, like, Control, Command, Option, W, that would be quite the chord to [01:28:26] Jay: yeah, [01:28:27] Brett: So like there was, there’s this, when you’re in Photoshop and you want to save when you want to export as a JPEG or like a web format, you hit control option shift S and like that, like I learned that chord, my, my hands just shaped to that chord and I know it’s possible, but hitting control command option S. [01:28:50] Brett: That would be a different story. And also, much like the hyper key, that’s a combination that no app, like you could make those, you could [01:29:00] customize those combinations and you wouldn’t, you would never override an app’s internal settings. So I can understand. Hyper plus meh would give you two extra keyboards worth of shortcuts. [01:29:15] Jay: yeah. So it’s, uh, it’s, it’s interesting again, I’ve only had it for, this is like day three. So I’m, I’m still in the, like. Telling my mom like, you know, Hey, I, I ducking love you. And it’s not, it’s not like I’m censoring myself. I’m just. [01:29:37] Brett: Um, yeah. So, have you ever tried box white switches? [01:29:43] Jay: No, I’ve, I’ve used, like, most of the stuff that I’ve used are, like, the MX, I think I have, like, MX Blues, MX Reds, and now I’m having MX Browns. [01:29:53] Jeff: Jay, what do I have to do to put you into these boxed white switches today? [01:29:57] Jay: Send me a set of them and I will [01:30:00] sit here with my little [01:30:01] Brett: a, get a key tester. Like, box white has, for me, the perfect amount of click to, like, thud when it bottoms out. I can’t remember, there’s a Specific keyboard nerd term for that, like, feeling at the bottom where it, like, hits. Um, but, like, Box White has been amazing. I was gonna mention, uh, UHK just came out with these risers. [01:30:27] Jeff: I narrate? Brett has just, Brett has just lifted his fucking weird ass keyboard that looks like he pulled it out of a. Tesla. [01:30:35] Brett: And you can, like, [01:30:36] Jay: does look like a Cybertruck, like, [01:30:38] Brett: any amount of tenting. [01:30:40] Jeff: this is how you shift. [01:30:42] Brett: So it can go up to 90 degree tenting. So if you really want to type sideways. [01:30:46] Jeff: Can we just say, sorry, I [01:30:48] Brett: I like this, I like this tent right here, which is 30 [01:30:52] Jeff: Can I just say that tenting, which I don’t really want to hear anymore, sounds like, you know, how, how was the, how was the date? It was cool. He was kind of into, he was kind of [01:31:00] into tenting and I guess that’s fine. He said we could do 90 degrees or 30 degrees, [01:31:04] Brett: Ha ha ha ha [01:31:06] Jeff: that’s what I, that’s all I’m hearing in this conversation. [01:31:08] Brett: could refer to camping or erections, I like it, as like a general term. [01:31:13] Jay: I will definitely say the, uh, the 3D printing world has a ton of mainlander accessories, and again, this keyboard’s been out for a couple of years now. So, um, there are a lot of tent kits. , so Sorry, Jeff, uh, I will, I’ll never look at the, the phrase tent kit again. Um, because of that. [01:31:39] Jeff: Awesome. [01:31:41] Brett: Yeah, but honestly, like a programmable keyboard, anyone who’s any nerd deserves a programmable keyboard. And something like BetterTouchTool can make. You know, your Apple keyboard, pretty programmable, but having one like the [01:32:00] UHK where I can load up the agent. And I think the Moonlander has similar software, uh, with like a TNC, like chip in it, and you can. [01:32:10] Brett: Program every key to do anything you want. You can program layers, you can program key, uh, key combinations. And you can save it to the hardware of the keyboard. Uh, so you don’t need a separate app running. And it’s, honestly, it’s so good. [01:32:29] Jay: And I mean, it, it solves one of the big problems that I had with. Using like better touch to like, you know, we have one PC in the house. That’s mostly for gaming and You know, okay cool all of my stuff one. I’m already confused because I’m on a PC and I’m like, what do I do? What? [01:32:50] Jeff: Yeah, [01:32:51] Jay: but I mean I have I have a couple of Mac Minis, a Mac Studio, a MacBook Air, and [01:33:00] then I’m going to be swapping the Mac Studio for a MacBook Pro soon. [01:33:03] Jay: And it’s like, having everything sync up, there’s, it’s all, it always deviates. Like there’s always these slight deviations, like for some reason VS Code works on my Mac Studio in Vim mode properly, but like on my MacBook Air, like it just gave up. And I’m like, well. I don’t know, having one piece of hardware with the programming built into it is so nice because now I’m not necessarily trying to program on the software side of the system. [01:33:32] Jay: It’s like I’m programming the software side on the keyboard and I can take that keyboard, I could, you know, fly to Minnesota and like plug it into Jeff’s computer and like, just, it’s still my keyboard. It’s not like, oh crap, you don’t have like these 15 things, like, hot keying everything. [01:33:52] Jeff: He was really into hot keying, which is super Whatever, it’s fine! You just gotta deal with it. [01:33:58] Brett: So, Christina [01:34:00] just linked, uh, the Novelkeys Model OLED, um, which apparently is like an IBM Classic Model M, but with one, with one OLED key. [01:34:14] Christina: Yeah. And that’ll turn on. I don’t, I can’t remember what the, what the, the mode is called, like the, the, the Soledic mode or whatever the thing is, you know, that like, is that really annoying sound that like some, um, keyboards, uh, can make or that, um, uh, like typewriters, uh, could, could, could [01:34:30] Brett: yeah. Solenoid? [01:34:32] Christina: Solenoid. [01:34:32] Christina: There you go. Thank you. So like that can turn on, like it has a hidden like solenoid in it. So this is from, um, a, um, A company called, um, I think it’s called like PlayKeys or something like PlayKeyboard. And, and they’ve been working on this for a while. I was like looking, um, after Charles sent me this yesterday, I was looking at their interest check or whatever. [01:34:56] Christina: And this looks like this is a really well designed keyboard. It’s [01:35:00] also 450. [01:35:02] Brett: Yeah. [01:35:02] Christina: Um, [01:35:04] Brett: I would never pay that for a keyboard that wasn’t split. I’ll never buy another keyboard that isn’t split. I love split keyboards so much. [01:35:11] Christina: But it does look great, and it’s one of those things I’m like, Oh man, this, this does look like a really cool thing. What’s neat about it is that they, they’ve like, found a way to like, you know, um, bend the, um, or curve rather, like the PCB. So, um, it, it’s um, uh, top mounted. So yeah, so it’s got that perfect rise. [01:35:28] Christina: So it like, it, it is like, just like, like they’ve, they’ve spent a lot of time with the attention to detail on the plates and everything, and it, and it looks really, really good, like, um, their actual photos that they’ve taken. of it. Uh, I’m going to put that in our chat right now so you can see like, look really, really good. [01:35:44] Christina: Uh, but uh, um, and, and I, I’ve watched a couple of streams of people who were sent early prototypes and were able to kind of like put them together or whatever. I think the OLED key, like, I don’t care about that. Like that seems completely incidental to me, but [01:36:00] the, the, the keyboard itself does look pretty awesome, but I’m just like, I don’t think I can spend that much on a keyboard. [01:36:06] Jeff: I mean, you [01:36:07] Brett: Yeah. [01:36:07] Christina: I mean, I can, but like, [01:36:09] Brett: a DOS plus a Stream Deck would get you just as far. [01:36:13] Christina: yeah, I know. But like, [01:36:14] Jeff: I love this thing, though. [01:36:16] Christina: I know I was going to say, I freaking love the aesthetic so much. I was like, I was like looking, I was like, Oh, I have some keycaps that would look really good on this. And this would be like a really fun, like, [01:36:25] Brett: those old IBM keyboards were Even the Apple What was the original Apple [01:36:31] Christina: uh, the Apple Extended 2. [01:36:32] Brett: Like those are, those were [01:36:35] Jeff: We have one of those old IBMs in the house right now with an old, um, computer my boys run Doom on, uh, and, uh, it’s the keyboard I learned Leisure Suit Larry on. [01:36:47] Christina: it’s the keyboard I learned to type on, right? [01:36:48] Jeff: It’s the kids I never learned to type, but it’s the keyboard I wrote my school papers on, for sure. [01:36:53] Christina: Yeah, I mean, it’s totally one of those, you know, we had either the IBM or the Apple ones, either way, like, that’s what I learned to type on, and so that’s what I’ll always associate with [01:37:00] childhood, is, is those type of keyboards, and I’ve looked at getting, um, some over the years, like, I know that there’s like the DOS, uh, keyboard, and, um, and I, I’ve, um, I might have had one of theirs years ago, I don’t know, but I’ve definitely thought about um, their keyboards and, but I don’t know, there’s something about this, especially just because the people who make this, I think, have put like a lot of attention to detail in it and it, it’s, it’s definitely, um, like this is definitely coming from enthusiasts, you know, for enthusiasts sort of thing. [01:37:29] Christina: Um, [01:37:30] Brett: happened to the happy hacking keyboard. I keep hearing from people who were obsessed and loved their happy hacking keyboards, but they’re talking about how it’s not made anymore and they can never get a new one. So they’re doing everything they can do. Is it? Did it [01:37:46] Jeff: He’s super into happy hacking. I’m sorry, this is the only way I can engage in this conversation. [01:37:51] Christina: I don’t know. I mean, I’m, I’m, I’m looking like they still have like their official website, but I don’t know, um, uh, if they’re still You [01:38:00] know, doing it or not, like, it looks like they’d had a thing like they’d in, like, they’d launched a studio, which has like a little nub on it, like at the freaking, uh, ThinkPad. [01:38:09] Christina: Yeah, I did, because it’s like a little nipple thing, you know, the little [01:38:12] Jeff: I never do this. It’s like the only thing [01:38:13] Jay: The little, the little eraser. [01:38:17] Brett: inside [01:38:18] Jeff: He said eraser. You said nub. Nipple. I’ve always said nipple, honestly, and not even to be weird. It’s just what it is. Let’s just call it what it is. [01:38:28] Christina: but I have no idea. Um, I mean, a lot of, a lot of, um, Keyboard companies have gone under the last couple of years because what happened is there was like the explosion of the hobby, uh, because of the pandemic. And I was definitely one of the people who had been kind of like on the periphery and then got super into it during the pandemic. [01:38:43] Christina: And I think what happened is that a lot of these, you know, companies run on pretty small margins and there are only a few manufacturers of certain things. And I think that they maybe got ahead of themselves and invested in stock and in other things and be like, Oh yeah, you know, this is going to be this long lasting thing. [01:38:56] Christina: And it wasn’t. And then it, you know, I think kind of like went [01:39:00] back down to like the more like. natural supply demand curve, which is the people who are really into these things will, um, you know, spend money on, on group buys and, and on specific keyboards, but then normal people will buy Keychrons or Logitechs or whatever. [01:39:16] Jeff: I like that during the pandemic everyone’s like, Well, I don’t have to work with this keyboard anyhow, might as well get one I can’t use. Sorry, [01:39:22] Jay: mean, I mean, the nice thing is they return to office and they bring in all these fancy keyboards and they’re like clacking and then finally just someone comes up and like takes their keyboard and throws it out the window. Brett, [01:39:32] Christina: you know, you work at Google and they’re like, oh, say, okay, so we’re going to make you come into the office, but we’re not going to give you a desk that is actually yours. You’re going to have to share it with someone on the days that you, that you’re not in the office, but you have to sit here. [01:39:43] Christina: Um, so, uh, you know, someone else is going to get to fart in your chair. Um, but if you leave your keyboard here, like, you know, they could steal it or you have to share a keyboard. You know what I mean? So like, that to me would be genuinely the worst of both [01:39:55] Jeff: Christine, I call that keeping the seat warm. Oh [01:39:59] Christina: Here’s [01:39:59] Jay: how [01:40:00] much was that tent on your keyboard? [01:40:02] Jeff: my god. Just go to his OnlyFans, you can find all about his tents, he’ll send you private tenting videos, like, it’s a great deal, super cheap sub. [01:40:11] Christina: this is like your third OnlyFans reference, Chef. Do you want to [01:40:14] Jeff: I know, isn’t that funny? I got nothing to say, [01:40:17] Brett: 90 dollars. [01:40:18] Jay: okay, yeah, because they’re charging 1. 12 for theirs, so I was like, okay. I just wanted to make sure I was in the realm of like, [01:40:25] Brett: Yeah, no, it’s kind of ridiculous because it’s just basically a piece of machine metal. Um, that I would expect to, if I found it at an ax man, it would be like 5 [01:40:35] Jeff: You just said Axeman to a bunch of people who don’t know what it is, which is an opportunity to tell people what Axeman is, which is the greatest place on Earth. [01:40:43] Let’s talk about Axeman for a second [01:40:43] Brett: Okay, Jeff, before we get into Craftitude, let’s talk about Axeman for a second. [01:40:47] Jeff: Briefly, I’ve been going there since I was five. Can I start? I’ve been going there since I was five, and since there used to be a back then there was a place next to it that was similar called Crazy Louie’s. And, um, Axeman is ostensibly a surplus [01:41:00] store. It is exactly what it is, but it’s all it’s like Tech surplus, it’s weird. [01:41:04] Jeff: Like here’s, here’s, okay. So here’s a shopping trip to, Axeman. Okay. I come out of it with a paper bag that has one, uh, I picked the Jabba the Hut head out of a bin of Jabba the Hut heads from Jabba the Hut, uh, action figures, like from the Star Wars kit, right? Like, just like the heads, they had a bunch of extra heads. [01:41:22] Jeff: Um, I had to walk by an iron lung to pick that up, an actual [01:41:26] Brett: been there for years. [01:41:27] Jeff: since I was five. And then there’s an entire aisle of just capacitors, transistors, and LEDs. Another aisle that’s just wrecked electronics. Another aisle that’s like, pin up posters and, um, targets for like, BB gun, uh, shooting. [01:41:43] Jeff: Then you’ve got like, um, there’s a bin of buttons. Uh, there’s a, I mean like, it’s, this isn’t even doing it justice. It’s the most incredible place. And it’s right next to the Turf Club, which is a club where a 7th Street Entry, Sai’s Place, which is the place attached to 1st Avenue. [01:42:00] And bands will regularly post on Instagram, post on Twitter, back when that used to be a thing that bands were on, that, oh my god, I just went to this place, it’s the craziest place I’ve ever been. [01:42:09] Jeff: Anyway, it’s a complete blast, and you mentioned it, and I have to say it. [01:42:12] Brett: if you, if you ever find yourself in Minneapolis, it will never be listed on like a tourism registry. But, but you owe it to, there’s, there’s one in St. Paul now too, I think. I think there are two Axe bands, but we used to play Back when I was at the University of Minnesota, we used to play a game called Assassin, um, where you would find elaborate ways to kill. [01:42:39] Brett: Uh, other people playing the game, and it would just basically be like whatever you’re doing, a sign pops out, like you open your mailbox, and a sign’s there that says, your mailbox is poisoned, you’re dead. And, I would go to Axeman and buy like, solenoid switches. And make, like, cans of jolt that if you pick them up, an alarm would go [01:43:00] off and you would be dead. [01:43:01] Brett: And, like, it got, yeah, like, it was so much fun and Axe Man fueled so many of the murders I committed in the game of Assassin. [01:43:12] Jeff: I’m sure it’s fueled real murders too. [01:43:15] Christina: ha! I was gonna say, it’s probably like, I mean, it does seem like it’d be a very good place, like, if you wanted to commit a crime, like, you know, they’ve got all the materials, you know, to accomplish what you [01:43:23] Jeff: And the, and it’s fully, it’s fully run and managed by crusty punks. The best I can tell the exact same, who have not aged since I was five, and they’re not gonna snitch [01:43:33] Christina: Oh, hell no, they’re [01:43:33] Brett: 80 to begin with. [01:43:37] Jeff: anyways. Uh, now that I’m, now that I’m actually, [01:43:41] Christina: name, actually. That’s a great band [01:43:42] Jeff: yeah, exactly, now, you know, you can picture it, it’s all brown clothes, it’s dirty, they got a pitbull. When the cops are trying to impersonate them, they wear new Carhartts, and that’s how you know. Um, but anyway, yeah, sorry everybody, X Men. Now that I’m actually on Mastodon, I’ll post a couple photos for you, Jay. [01:43:59] Jay: how’s, how’s [01:44:00] Mastodon treating you? [01:44:01] Jeff: It’s fine. It’s nice. It’s a nice, easy place for me to be. I mean, I don’t, uh, you know, I’m not in there at a, uh, high scale. Uh, I left my 2, 000 frozen followers on Twitter from when I was in journalism for my, you know, Jay was my first follower on Mastodon. Heh heh heh heh heh. [01:44:20] Jeff: And I mean, I’m like 21 deep now. [01:44:23] Jay: I asked him if he [01:44:23] Jeff: And that’s not just the tenting community. [01:44:25] Jay: yeah, [01:44:28] Jeff: All right. Graftitude, for God’s sake, get me out of this hole. Is [01:44:31] grAPPtitude [01:44:31] Brett: Let’s do it. Who’s starting? Jay. [01:44:34] Christina: I was gonna say, we do need to note just at the top, the BB Edit, uh, pick last week is actually out now, so, [01:44:39] Brett: Yeah, it was out, it was out the day after. I don’t feel too bad about breaking the embargo. [01:44:44] Christina: no, I think you’re fine, I think it just, uh, just wanted to, uh, be a reminder for people, if you hadn’t checked, BB Edit is out now. Sorry, go on, Jay. [01:44:50] Brett: sure. [01:44:50] Jay: downloaded it I haven’t, I haven’t fully tried it yet. But um, So mine, mine is a game. [01:45:00] It’s a really interesting game. It’s called Shapes with a Z. Um, I’m late to the party because Shapes 2, uh, the demo comes out next week. Um, and they’re making it, like, a 3D version of the original. Get the original. It’s like 10 bucks. In the last two days, I have sank probably nine hours into this game. [01:45:25] Jeff: Steam? This [01:45:25] Jay: It’s on Steam. Um, The best way to explain it is it is assembly line, like, watch number go up. But it gets really complex really quickly. You take simple shapes like circles and squares, you can split them into four quadrants, you can rotate those splits, you can add color, you can combine colors to make new colors, you can move them around this plane where there are tunnels and Tunneling tunnels, and [01:46:00] your ultimate goal is to send shapes of different patterns into the home base. [01:46:05] Jeff: Oh my God. This is insane. [01:46:06] Jay: like, incredibly easy to get started with, and actually, well, I’ll do it afterwards, because if I open that game now, you’ve lost me. So, like, I’ll send a screenshot to every I’ll post it on Mastodon, I think everybody’s there. Um But, like, oh my god, I, I listened to someone talk about it, and then I watched the preview for Shapes 2, and I was like, Alright, this looks cool, but seems kind of intimidating, and then I was like, let me just see what Shapes 1 is about, and I watched a couple of videos, and I was like, This looks really addictive, and then I played it, and then it was 2 in the morning, and I was like, oh shit, like, this is, this is not good, like, it’s, it’s, it’s low speed, it’s, it’s very Tetris y, so, if you need something, it’s something that you can just have running, [01:47:00] so if you gotta like, stop what you’re doing, and like, you’re supposed to be at work, or you’re in a meeting, like, it’s something, [01:47:07] Jeff: It looks like a good in meeting [01:47:09] Jay: It’s a definite good in the meeting. [01:47:11] Jay: Probably not podcasting, because you’re gonna have to think about it a lot. But like, it’s just one of those things that like, wow, I’m mad at myself for not finding this game sooner. Because Like I woke up this morning and was like, ah, I think I figured out how I can get that one piece going. And then immediately like turned it on and like tinkered with it until about 10 minutes before this podcast. So [01:47:37] Jeff: Awesome. [01:47:38] Jay: Shapes, it’s definitely a dope game. Check it out. [01:47:41] Jeff: I will definitely try it after a big deadline this week. [01:47:44] Jay: Yeah, [01:47:47] Jeff: Awesome. [01:47:48] Brett: try that, I think, what was it called? Finite? [01:47:51] Christina: I did, yeah, it was fun. [01:47:53] Brett: fun, but once you get to a certain level, I’m on like the third, uh, like [01:48:00] you get like silver, bronze levels, I’m on like silver two now, and it gets so hard that it’s no longer fun, and the beauty of threes is that it’s always the same game, and it’s always, you could, it, I thought it was going to replace threes for me, but man, like it got hard enough that if I need a waiting room game, I’m back to [01:48:21] Christina: Well, and the thing is for me to, like, I liked it, but it didn’t have, like, for whatever reason, 3 still has that pull for me all these years later, that, like, I just, it’s just a perfect fidget game, and it’s addictive enough that I could pull it in, whereas that game was fun, but, like, I didn’t ever, like, think about it, you know what I mean? [01:48:37] Christina: Like, I would, I would have had to, like, remember, oh, what was that game? [01:48:40] Brett: You don’t fall asleep dreaming about ones and threes [01:48:44] Christina: no, which is like also a Tetris thing, right? Like Tetris is perfect that way. Like, you know, I think that’s like a very common thing. People like dreaming of tetroids. And, uh, speaking of which, um, uh, did you guys see like the 12 year old who beat Tetris? [01:48:57] Jay: there’s two people that have beaten it now. Fractal [01:49:00] beat it. Oh, sorry. I’m in, I actually observed the competitive NES Tetris scene, so Yeah, the, the first, the first kid like came out of nowhere. No, everyone’s like, who is this? Like, um, Fractal, Fractal has Like, programmed his own, like, Tetris AI bot before and uses it to compete, like, uses it to train to compete at, like, the highest level, so Fractal beating it, people are like, oh, of course he did, like, [01:49:31] Christina: yeah, to me that’s not, I’m gonna be completely honest, I don’t care. Like, it’s the, it’s the kid. Like, that’s, that’s the one that’s like impressive to me. Because he was born, like, 20 something years after the original NES game came out, you know what I mean? Like, that to me is like far more impressive than, like, I mean, not, not taking it away from Fractal, like, go him, whatnot, but I’m like, you know what you’re doing, like, I, [01:49:52] Jay: But that’s, that’s the competitive scene, though. [01:49:54] Christina: Oh, yeah. [01:49:55] Jay: the best player currently, I think, he’s been the best player for three years now and he’s [01:50:00] 16, like, like, it’s, yeah, I, I, I [01:50:05] Christina: else has time to do it? I mean, honestly, [01:50:09] Jay: That’s true. [01:50:10] Christina: talk, like, genuinely, like, you, you will never in your entire life have the time to dedicate to, like, be perfect at a game as, like, when you’re, you know, in middle school and high school. Like, that’s, that’s the best time. [01:50:21] Brett: That is, that is the golden spot, yes. [01:50:23] Jay: There, there’s like a designer that I listened to that was like, Oh yeah, you’re, I’m getting this vibe. And they’re like, okay, let me, let me put the schism between me and that person. Like I could play Tetris every day for the next five years and not be at like 5%, how good they are. [01:50:45] Jeff: Yeah, [01:50:46] Jay: Like, like that’s, that’s the level of like skill that. [01:50:51] Jay: Some of some of these kids have, but I mean, it’s also just fast twitchiness. I’m also going to throw out there that like, hey, we’ve done a [01:51:00] lot in the mental health like space in terms of things that allow you to focus a little bit better. They got a good head start on us. Yeah. [01:51:13] Christina: For sure, for sure. No, I mean, and that’s the thing, right? And, and, and, uh, yeah, they definitely got like a good head start. It is funny though, um, cause I don’t, I don’t follow a lot of this stuff, but to see like some of the really old school, like from like, you know, the, the guy, uh, uh, I can’t think of his name. [01:51:28] Christina: He’s very litigious from, uh, um, uh, the King of Kong, um, that asshole, um, you know, people who used to be like really big in like the speed runner community back when, like, it. Was comparatively not that impressive and not that big of a deal, uh, trying to keep up with like this world of, you know, like, uh, 25 and under, you know, like, kids who are just like insanely good and are better than like the, the old guard will ever be or ever were, and watching them kind of come to grapple with that, which I can understand, [01:52:00] I can understand like both sides of that, I can especially understand like seeing people who are way younger than you, like better than you will ever be, like, you. [01:52:05] Christina: That’s depressing, but at the same time, it is so interesting just to see like how, how much, um, progress we’ve made and things. And also I think just like how instinctually, you know, kids just get stuff now and, and are able to do it. Like some of the, the rock band, um, competitor, uh, stuff. Like, which again, these are kids playing a game that’s been, was dead before they were born. [01:52:28] Christina: It’s, it’s impressive. [01:52:31] Jay: Yeah, if you ever want to figure out what level they’re on, just, I put it in the chat, but like, learning about rolling. They literally hold their controller differently than you, like. [01:52:40] Christina: They hold the controller differently because they figure it out. Okay, this is what you have to do if you want to achieve these things, uh, because they figure out like bugs in the game. It’s unbelievable. [01:52:50] Jay: Which speaking of, speaking of YouTube videos, um, is everyone like, is this the, the year that YouTube dies with, you know, like Tom [01:53:00] Scott leaving and then Game Theory and everyone else? [01:53:03] Brett: There are so many creators on YouTube. Their future is guaranteed. [01:53:08] Jay: is the old guard gone? Like, [01:53:11] Christina: Maybe, yeah, but like, if the platform is 18 years old, 19 years old, um, that’s, that’s gonna happen. I think the thing with YouTube is it goes in cycles and, and I think if anything it kind of shows that like YouTube fame for the most part is not forever, right? Like you, [01:53:28] Brett: There are so many different YouTubes. Like, for me, like, I’m on, like, Atheist YouTube. And I’m on, like, Vegan Cooking YouTube. And there are, uh, creators in those spaces that have earned their, you know, million plus subscribers. And, like, these For every interest, there’s a YouTube for you. And I don’t see YouTube itself going anywhere. [01:53:53] Brett: I see creators falling off. I see. Uh, I don’t, [01:54:00] unlike, unlike Substack, which is undergoing a massive exodus right now, I don’t, people who left YouTube to go to things like Nebula are coming back [01:54:12] Jay: back, yeah, they’re, they’re [01:54:13] Brett: like Nebula failed. [01:54:15] Christina: Yeah. I mean, because the thing is that Nebula, not a bad idea, right? Like it’s an interesting idea, but it’s going to be for a very niche audience. It is like upgrade. It is. It is better. Patreon, right? It is a thing that does not scale. The thing with YouTube and the reason creators will probably never leave it. [01:54:29] Christina: I mean, and it’s interesting because you see them always try to leave and they always wind it back. Live streaming is the one area where it’s a little bit different, mostly because YouTube doesn’t give a shit about live streaming. And. [01:54:38] Brett: Twitch does it better, [01:54:40] Jay: Well, [01:54:41] Christina: know, Twitch is having massive issues right now too. [01:54:43] Christina: They just laid off 35 percent of their staff and, um, they, and, and they pull out of South Korea cause they can’t make it work financially. And like live streaming is expensive and making money off of it is hard. But the thing is, is that YouTube, because of its reach and because of how Google has built its system, most creators will make more [01:55:00] money there than they will make anywhere else. [01:55:02] Christina: And that’s just the reality, [01:55:04] Jay: I think it’s interesting in that, one, I do think that some regulation is going to cause a rethinking of how YouTube works in terms of monetization. I think money, like, I’ve talked to people who full, like, full time YouTubers, and they’re just like, yeah, the money has dried up. Like, it’s, like, I’m having to work three times as hard to find advertisers. [01:55:25] Jay: I’m having to work, [01:55:26] Brett: Well, and a lot of my favorite channels get de monetized, like, they don’t run ads at [01:55:31] Jay: YouTube ad revenue is, is horri like, horrendously down. [01:55:35] Brett: you can combine Patreon with your YouTube creation, and that’s what most of the creators I, I watch do. [01:55:44] Jay: I just think that it was interesting in that the, the 20 teens was a world where people would say, when I grow up, I want to be a YouTuber. I don’t fully know that that’s going to stick around. I [01:55:59] Brett: [01:56:00] that’s, that’s still an aspiration, [01:56:01] Christina: I mean, I was going to say all the studies are showing that they want to be a creator. They might not say YouTuber, but like it, whether it’s YouTube or TikTok or, or, you know, Instagram, they’ll go wherever the money is. But yeah, [01:56:12] Jay: think that they’ll, they’ve learned that like diversification of platforms is, is going to be the most important thing. So now they’ll say, I want to be a content creator. I don’t want to be a YouTuber. Like I want to be a tech. I want to maybe still want to be a TikToker, but like, I don’t know, I don’t know how that works. [01:56:27] Brett: I’ve actually decided to be a Threads creator, [01:56:31] Christina: I mean, my God. [01:56:33] Brett: off, with an offshoot on Blue [01:56:35] Jay: I’m going to be a master tutor. [01:56:36] Brett: here. [01:56:37] Christina: Master tutor. I mean, this is like, this is why it’s disappointing for me that like, of all the, well, I’m still can’t access my Twitter account, which is very upsetting and whatever. But like, um, that my, my biggest following, uh, after that is on, is on Mastodon. And I like Mastodon a lot, but because there is no algorithm by design and whatnot like. [01:56:56] Christina: You know, it’s hard to grow, and it’s also hard, like, you know, if you ever wanted [01:57:00] to monetize or point people towards other things, like, it’s a, it’s a very specific type of audience that will never grow beyond that group of people. And, and, and that’s, and that’s fine, but like, if [01:57:10] Brett: a primarily white and highly male audience, as far as I can tell. Super tech nerdy. [01:57:17] Christina: And ideological, and yeah, and that’s completely fine, um, uh, but, like, there are other people out there and I have other interests too, and it’s sort of, you know, depressing sometimes where I’m like, fuck, you know, the one place we had on the internet that really did combine everyone together was Twitter, and that was ruined for us, um, like, for all the bad things about Twitter, like, that was the ultimate thing, like, everybody was there, of all different types. [01:57:41] Jay: I have recluse myself back to like discord, like private discords now. [01:57:46] Christina: Totally. And, and I, and I think that that, I think that we missed something like when we don’t have like the, you know, Omni channel, like the, the, the, you know, the town square, so to speak, because it’s great to have those individual places. But to your point, Brett, like you have, everybody has a [01:58:00] different TikTok. [01:58:00] Christina: Everybody has a different YouTube. Um, and, and, and you don’t all get to share in those things. Um, and, and then threads is. So bad at real time stuff that it just makes it hard for me to, I don’t get the crack addiction that I got, you know, from Twitter. Like, it’s terrible for live [01:58:16] Brett: Well, most, most of my [01:58:18] Jeff: much. [01:58:19] Brett: Most of my threads stream these days is just people saying, dear algorithm, send me people like such and such. Um, would you, if they list off all of their interests and you’re supposed to [01:58:32] Jeff: Santa, send me a man. [01:58:34] Brett: that is all I see all like 90 percent of my stream is just these like, dear algorithm posts from people I’ve never heard of and didn’t intentionally follow. [01:58:45] Brett: And the algorithm is like. Sharing them, and I guess it works for some people, but it’s like I get no actual social media out of, uh, threads these days. [01:58:56] Christina: Yeah. Well, I mean, and like, I was, uh, I was there for like the, [01:59:00] um, um, Golden Globes because I couldn’t be Engaging on Twitter, which was very difficult because the Golden Globes were horrible, but also amazing. I mean, it was the biggest train wreck I’ve ever seen a comedian do. And then what’s the best part is, and he’s a [01:59:13] Brett: Who [01:59:14] Christina: is the guy I’d never heard of, his name is Joe Coy, and I’ve never fucking heard of him. [01:59:18] Christina: Um, and, and now he’s just become so butthurt, like he can’t, he can’t own the fact that he bombed. And so he, he, so it’s not, now, he’s like, oh, I was really hurt by the reaction, and now he’s like, I, I got all pissed off, oh, well, they’re a bunch of marshmallows, they can’t take a joke. Yeah. You also were not funny. [01:59:33] Christina: Like Ricky Gervais, Ricky Gervais literally called them pedophiles. Literally. The last time he hosted he called them pedophiles. And people laughed. So, like, fuck you. You’re bad at [01:59:44] Brett: can’t take a joke. Anytime someone says you can’t take a joke, it means they fucked up. Like. Because people can’t take a joke. Anyone can take a joke if [01:59:53] Christina: can take a joke. The reason the Taylor Swift thing went viral, cause A, the joke wasn’t, like, that innocuous or whatever, it was [02:00:00] because her reaction was funnier than his joke. Like, her reaction was hysterical, his joke was poorly done. And the reason it was so bad, he’s like, he’s trying to give explanations. [02:00:10] Christina: I never even got to practice in front of a teleprompter or anything. Yeah, we can tell. [02:00:15] Jeff: It must be so hard for a comedian. Yeah, [02:00:17] Christina: Well, [02:00:18] Brett: good, good comedians come up from clubs and working their material out in front of an audience until it’s [02:00:25] Christina: Well, that’s the thing. He, he got the gig like two weeks in advance, and he didn’t have his writer, like the, it wasn’t written, like he didn’t have rehearsal time. And here’s the thing. That sucks. That’s why you don’t take that job. That’s why Ali Wong told him to fuck off. That’s why everybody else told him to fuck off. [02:00:40] Christina: That’s why you got the job. Because no one knew who you were, and you were the 15th person on the list, and they were all like, well yeah, this idiot will do it. Cause anyone else would’ve, anyone else would’ve gone, oh yeah, no, there’s no way that I can make this work. I mean. The, the live stuff I’ve done, which is never on the level of the Golden Globes, not even close, but like [02:01:00] the rehearsal and the practice and the, the teleprompter stuff you need to do, if you don’t have that, it’s not going to do it right. [02:01:05] Christina: And the part of the reason is jokes were so bad, weren’t just the jokes were bad, but the delivery was awful because he was reading them off of a teleprompter and had no idea how to do his pacing. And it’s like, that’s on you, but that’s on you, bro. Like you shouldn’t have accepted this gig. Cause They didn’t support you, but also you were bad at what you did. [02:01:25] Christina: Anyway, that’s why I ran on that, but, but, but, but Threads was awful for that in real time. It was like very not good. [02:01:32] Jeff: Uh, you guys, I do have to go, uh, and [02:01:35] Brett: We’ve only been here for two hours. [02:01:37] Jeff: why I have to go, [02:01:38] Brett: go? [02:01:38] Jay: gratitude really [02:01:39] Jeff: but I don’t, I, I’m going to come back and listen to The Graftitude. I don’t have anything I’m burning to say this week, and so I will save it for next week, but I do want to say, Jay, it has been amazing to have you on and to talk with you, um, and just a real pleasure. [02:01:51] Jeff: This is the second episode in a row where I, like, bail in the last ten minutes. I gotta go, [02:01:55] Christina: second episode in a row, we’ve gone [02:01:56] Brett: in a row we’ve gone for two [02:01:58] Christina: yeah, exactly. This is on [02:01:59] Jeff: right, [02:02:00] y’all, I’ll, so I’ll see you [02:02:01] Brett: is that the season four thing? We’re just a two hour show now? Alright, Jeff, good [02:02:06] Jeff: Bye. [02:02:07] Christina: Bye. [02:02:08] Jay: I’m happy to pass to the next person for gratitude. I just want to throw out there. There is a iOS app for shapes. It’s not good. Just get the, get the desktop app, like, or the desktop game, um, you will, your fingers will thank me later. [02:02:25] Christina: Okay, sounds good. That’s good [02:02:27] Brett: Alright, Christina, what you got? [02:02:28] Christina: Okay, so, um, this is a weird one for me to share, but I shared Canva as a Graftitude pick a while back, and I still really do enjoy Canva, like, for quick and dirty stuff, especially for like YouTube thumbnails, um, or social media posts, like, honestly, it’s really good, and I, I, um, I recommend it, but I tried out just as an experiment this week just because I might be doing a, um, Lunch and Learn, um, with, um, a team at Microsoft to try to help them make their thumbnail game better.[02:03:00] [02:03:00] Christina: Um, Microsoft will obviously not pay for them to use Canva, but, um, if you have an Adobe Creative, uh, uh, Cloud account, then you have access to Adobe Express, Which I had not played with in a really long time, but Adobe Express, uh, which I think is like express. adobe. com or something, I Um, it’s basically their, it’s basically their knockoff of Canva, but, um, it is pretty good. [02:03:22] Christina: It’s, um, in some ways that’s actually better than Canva because, um, the way that they do layering and layering management is, is really good. And if you have Creative Cloud, then you can actually do things like, uh, import in PSD files and, and other, um, elements into your designs. Um, it’s all web based, so this is just like a, a web based thing if you’re wanting to, you know, make, um. [02:03:46] Christina: Either like, uh, you know, do some videos or a flyer or something, you know, to post on Instagram or, or like I said, a YouTube thumbnail. It’s good. It’s also integrates well with, um, Adobe’s, uh, generative AI thing, which can be, um, [02:04:00] uh, pretty, pretty good stuff. And like, uh, and interestingly, their background removal tool. [02:04:05] Christina: Is better than the one in Photoshop, um, for whatever reason. And, and, and I’ve, I’ve long stood by the fact that like canvas background removal tool is better than like any app you can pay for. Um, I, I, I think that the, the Adobe express one is, is as good. I might try to compare them side by side, but, and I, and I’ve used all of them. [02:04:24] Christina: And no, the one that’s in Photoshop, the one that’s in, um, uh, uh, what are photo made or maker mater or whatever, uh, the one that’s in like, there are a bunch of. Yeah, Pixelmator, thank you. Um, they’re, they’re like a bunch of third party, you know, Mac apps that claim to be really great at that stuff. [02:04:41] Brett: there are some that focus only on background removal. There’s, like, apps for [02:04:46] Christina: yeah, and most of them are not, A, they’re, they have problems with hair and other things, and B, they’re absolutely not better than Canva on its own. Um, like, Canva’s better. Uh, and, and Adobe Express is really good. So, [02:05:00] um, uh, anyway, um, I, if you haven’t, I Their pricing, I think, is basically the same as Canva’s. [02:05:06] Christina: I would probably, if I didn’t have an Adobe account, would pay for Canva instead. However, if you have an Adobe account through work or personal, the fact that you get it for free makes it really compelling. So, um, I hadn’t ever used this until, uh, Friday. And I actually, I was like, when I was using it, I was like, Oh, this is going to be my Graptitude. [02:05:30] Christina: Because for people who might need just a quick and dirty, you know, kind of, uh, way to, to, to do graphics, um, this is a, a really good way of, of doing it. And you might already have access. [02:05:43] Brett: I came up in the late 90s, early 2000 as a graphic designer slash art director. And removing backgrounds used to be this process of intricate past selections, uh, [02:06:00] brushwork, especially dealing with hair. Like, hair was the bane of any Photoshop user’s existence. I went to entire conferences. About removing backgrounds. [02:06:11] Brett: I remember being in Vegas, uh, learning about new tools in Adobe Photoshop, like 3. remember. Um, but yeah, like it’s amazing what background removal with AI or with a little bit of machine learning behind it can do. Um, fascinating. Also makes me feel like I wasted years of my life. [02:06:35] Christina: No, it’s like we had to get the training somehow, right? Like, [02:06:39] Jay: mean, it still can’t do black people. [02:06:42] Brett: Really? Is that [02:06:43] Jay: still sucks. I get, my, half of my head gets cropped out every time, like, I have a, I have a green screen. [02:06:49] Brett: sad, [02:06:50] Jay: Yeah. I have a green screen that I need to set back up. I haven’t had to do thumbnails in a while, but like, that was the thing that got me to just be like, screw it. [02:06:57] Jay: I’m getting a green screen. [02:06:59] Christina: Yeah, [02:07:00] well, see, and for a lot of times, like the ones that I’m talking about, like, I will be removing a green screen from something and which should be theoretically the easiest thing to do, but they will still mess up around hair and other things. And so, and this will be like with consistent lighting, like with like a photo, like, or a screen grab taken from like, you know, a camera that’s been, you know, um. [02:07:18] Christina: That’s stationary and that has like a, you know, um, a uniform lighting setup. So like the perfect conditions for moving background stuff. And a lot of the apps that claim to do it really well, don’t. Um, Canva does. I would be curious, um. If like Canva, Adobe Express, how they work with, with Black people, if they work any better. [02:07:40] Christina: I’m not giving them credit to say they will. I’m just curious if, if their models are improved on that. Cause I know that Pixelmator, like didn’t they, didn’t they like have like an image, like on their website, like to try to pretend that they like were good with that. And then it wound up being like not good at all with Black people. [02:07:57] Jay: So Pixelmators is like decent, which [02:08:00] is high praise because that’s about what I expect these days, but there’s the way that they. It’s like an honest mistake, but it was like an also, like, you obviously didn’t have black people in the room to approve this because it was promoting their video background removal tool. [02:08:22] Jay: And it was a black person on it and it was good. It’s like, [02:08:25] Christina: Did it say remove color or [02:08:27] Jay: to remove. Yeah, it was like so easy to remove color. And I was just like, Oh God, like what’s happening? [02:08:34] Christina: That’s right. [02:08:35] Jay: oh man, it’s just those things were just like, please. Please, if you’re going, if you’re going to do something, like, just run it by someone. [02:08:43] Christina: Right. [02:08:44] Jay: it, hey, run it by someone that looks like the person that you’re, that you’re featuring on the thing. [02:08:52] Christina: Um, especially when, like, they very clearly, like, these were, like, um, you know, stock photos or something, you know, it wasn’t like they’d paid, uh, to take those photos, I’m [02:09:00] sure, you know, they found it on some, you know, uh, other sort of site and whatnot, like, it wasn’t something that they commissioned. Yeah. Um, which, To me, makes it worse because, yeah, you’re not, you’re, you’re, you’re going here because you want the, the visibility points, but then you’re not actually like, you don’t have anybody, uh, who works for you to actually give you a go ahead on anything. [02:09:25] Christina: But, yeah. Um, but no, but Adobe Express, uh, is, is, is my recommendation, especially if you already have access to Adobe stuff, because it’s, it’s good. And, um, for those things that, yeah, yeah, yeah, you should hire a designer. Guess what? Most of us don’t have the budget and most designers don’t want to do your social media posts. [02:09:41] Christina: So, um, it’s, it’s a good, good choice. [02:09:45] Brett: Perfect. Alright. So here we are at 2 hours and 10 minutes. Um, and I am, I am But, um, I am going to pick one of my own projects this week. Uh, [02:10:00] CurlyQ is a new thing I’ve just released. Um, if you do any kind of web scraping for, uh, scripting purposes, if you ever need to, like, say, find the largest image on a page, or find out Uh, all external links on a given site, or take a screenshot, or save a print version of a PDF of a site. [02:10:23] Brett: Uh, CurlyQ is my answer to that. Uh, it can currently only do GET requests. I The next phase is to be able to do post requests, and it does some stuff with JSON handling where it will, um, automatically cycle through different, uh, user agents, um, when, uh, requesting a response, which can save you some trouble with finding the right headers basically to send with, uh, with a JSON request, um, it does not do [02:11:00] extensive. [02:11:01] Brett: Anything JQ can do, you’re better off piping the response to JQ. It just saves you a little trouble, uh, with the curl setup. But for web scraping, uh, instead of like when you curl a website, you get the raw source of the website. Um. CurlyQ will give you the raw source, plus it’ll split out the head, the body, it’ll show you all of the links on the page, all of the images in the page. [02:11:28] Brett: You can query by a specific CSS selector to get just an element of any page. And, um, it does, uh, it, it incorporates, um, what did I put in? I forget. Uh, it incorporates a dynamic, uh, web browser, so it can actually load up Chrome or Firefox and save the content of pages like Amazon pages, where half of it is, uh, generated by JavaScript. [02:11:59] Brett: And if you curl it, [02:12:00] you just get. A bunch of script tags. It can actually load the page and then query it in the same method using CSS selectors, uh, to grab like the price of an Amazon product or, or the related links to a post. And yeah, I’m, it’s been a little obsession of mine over the last week. I, I like pitched it on Macedon. [02:12:22] Brett: I was like, would anyone want to use this? And I got. Maybe 20, 25 responses that were like, absolutely. Can it do this? Can it do this? Uh, and I put it out. I like, I coded it and I put it out and I got like zero response. I don’t know if everyone’s just like, Oh, this is perfect. I’m just going to use it. I had no complaints. [02:12:43] Brett: Um, but I would be super curious to get some feedback on like, where should it go next? Uh, like if it’s not the perfect tool for you, what does it need? Um, I’m always looking for that response. Join me on forum. brettterpstra. com and tell [02:13:00] me all about it. [02:13:02] Jay: I, I say this in the, the most, uh, positive way possible. Brett, you make me want to stop programming. Like, like, I’m, so, so, I will, I will share what I’ve done to Brett over the last, like, three or four months. I’ll just randomly text Brett like, Hey, I have this idea. And my thought is, is if it’s crazy enough that Brett can ideate on it, then maybe it’s worth pursuing. [02:13:34] Jay: And there have been like three or four times where Brett’s like, This just doesn’t sound like a good idea. And then like an hour later, there’s like a, But you could do this! And add five other things. [02:13:44] Brett: I do that to Ralph Hoosman too. He like constantly, I’ll like create a tool and he’ll be like. Oh, this sounds perfect. Can it work with this and this? Uh, can I incorporate it to create data graphic, data [02:14:00] graphs from my Markdown notes that I keep in this other application? I’ll be like, that’s not what it was designed for. [02:14:06] Brett: And then I’ll spend like an hour later. I’d be like, you know what? It probably could. If I just added this capability and then I just do it. So it’s people like you and Ralph that that really actually develop these tools into truly useful tools. [02:14:22] Jay: Yeah, one of these days, I will have A projects folder that is like a third of what you’ve got. And I will consider that an accomplishment. [02:14:34] Brett: My, I have a, I have a code folder on my desktop where I keep all of my projects and it has CD, code, [02:14:46] Brett: this is good radio right here. [02:14:49] Jay: Nice keyboard clicks. [02:14:52] Brett: It has 114 folders in it right [02:14:55] Jay: Oh, there’s no [02:14:57] Christina: Wow. That’s amazing. All right. I’m [02:15:00] registering for your forum now, Brett. I’m curious, should, for my username, should it be Christina or should I be Film Girl? [02:15:05] Brett: you should be Film Girl. I appreciate consistency. [02:15:08] Christina: All right. [02:15:10] Brett: I’m ttscuff everywhere, and it’s a horrible handle, like, nobody knows the story behind it. [02:15:16] Christina: Tee [02:15:16] Brett: a stupid handle. But nobody, nobody will ever steal it from me. And like, anytime a new social media service pops up, even if I don’t plan to use it, I go register ttscuff. And it’s just like, the way to find me everywhere. [02:15:31] Jay: I’m [02:15:32] Christina: I, I just, I, I, I try to get Christina when I can places, but, um, uh, but that’s a, that’s a vanity thing. But [02:15:39] Brett: You got Christina is, [02:15:41] Christina: I did. [02:15:43] Jay: going as KJ Miller on everything. It sucks because everyone defaults to KJ and I’m just like, like, no, it’s just, and then I used to tell me like the K is silent and they’re like, really? I was like, [02:15:58] Brett: So I, I [02:16:00] own the domain. Fuck yeah. Mark down.com. And it used to go to my tool Marke that would like, it was an API that would mark down Fify any webpage for you. But, but it broke. It broke and it’s defunct. I also know, I also own markdown rocks, and I don’t know what to do with these at this point, but I keep renewing them. [02:16:22] Brett: I [02:16:22] Christina: I know. I, I do the same [02:16:24] Brett: 20 a year, [02:16:25] Christina: I do the same thing. And in fact, I, I actually, one of my, um, uh, things was, was not renewed and I like went back and I like revived it cause I got my thing. It was like, oh, this was, you know, not, we’re not renewed and I’m like, shit. I, [02:16:39] Brett: maybe someday. [02:16:41] Christina: and I’m like, I gotta, I’m like, I gotta, um, you know, re uh, redo. [02:16:45] Christina: Um, I suck ltd.com because I have, I rule, I have, I own I rule inc.com, and I suck ltd.com because I was like, well, if you’re going to be, have horis, then you need to [02:17:00] also be self-effacing. [02:17:01] Brett: nobody, nobody is going to offer you money for those. [02:17:04] Christina: Oh, I know. [02:17:05] Brett: I keep hoping that some of these domains that I’ve held on on to for all this year, all these years will eventually, uh, get someone that’s like, I’ll give you five grand for the domain name. And I’ll be like, [02:17:16] Christina: I got like 600 bucks for PowerofWe. com, which I bought, um, to make fun of Theranos because, no, not Theranos, WeWork, because WeWork, like, when, when they, they’re aborted S1 and they call themselves the Power of We. And so I bought it and I, and I didn’t, and, and I forgot about it. And then like, I got like a, I did it literally as part of an ad read because when we used to get like, uh, spot on Rocket when we used to get domain sponsors, I would buy a domain name, um, usually like a shit posting one. [02:17:47] Christina: And, uh, like, I would be like, okay, that’s fine. You know, whatever the cover of the sponsorship will cover it and it’ll be funny. And I forgot about it and I did renew it for probably, you know, more years than I should have, but I was glad I did cause I caught like [02:18:00] 600 bucks for it. Like first I. Didn’t respond to the mail and then they like sent me a follow up where they just like raised the price and I was like, Cool, here you go. [02:18:08] Christina: That’s great. [02:18:09] Brett: You got it. All right. Well, that was a hell of an episode, you guys. We lost Jeff along the way. We lost some good people in the process, but, [02:18:20] Christina: it’s okay. [02:18:21] Jay: he’s out there tenting somewhere [02:18:25] Brett: thanks for coming back, Jay. Good to see you. Always a pleasure, Christina. [02:18:30] Christina: a pleasure. [02:18:31] Brett: You guys get some sleep. [02:18:33] Christina: Get [02:18:33] Jay: Get some sleep, get some sleep, Jeff.

Alex Cox joins the crew to talk about mental health, Raspberry Pi, the New York Times, and some awesome Grapptitude picks for the week. Sponsor Notion Notion AI can now give you instant answers to your questions, using information from across your wiki, projects, docs and meeting notes. Try Notion AI for free when you go to Notion.com/overtired. Aroundsquare Find your next beautiful, unusual, functional item for the mind and body at Aroundsquare. Use the code OVERTIRED at checkout for 15% off. Show Links 341 Haptic Support Alex Cox on Patreon | Haptic: Reaching Out to the Human Side of Tech Do By Friday Chronicling – Track Anything on the App Store Faust’s Gold Blitzed Look What We Made Taylor Swift Do (NYT) Cicada Mania Daytum Screens 5 BBEdit 15 Chronicling 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 Mental Health Overtime with Alex Cox [00:00:00] Brett: This episode is brought [00:00:05] Brett: to you by Notion. [00:00:07] Introduction to the Season Premier [00:00:07] Jeff: Hello, everybody. This is Overtired. This is Overtired, the podcast you’ve been waiting for all year. And here we are. This is episode 341. I don’t know what it’s called yet, but I’m here with Christina. Hello, Christina. [00:00:22] Christina: Happy New Year. [00:00:24] Jeff: Christina Warren, for those of you who are joining for the first time because you needed something new this year. [00:00:29] Jeff: Uh, Brett Terpstra, hi. [00:00:31] Brett: Yo, [00:00:32] Jeff: And we are starting 2024 with the amazing Alex Cox. I’m so excited about this. Hello, Alex. Amazing! [00:00:41] Alex: qualifiers on how you define amazing, but so happy here on the season premiere of Overtired. [00:00:50] Christina: Yes. Yes. [00:00:51] Jeff: premiere! Oh yeah, let’s make it a season premiere. Is it episode 400 because [00:00:55] Jeff: way that only we do our episode numbers? We juke stats! We juke [00:01:00] the stats, as they used to say in The Wire. Alex, host of, host of, co host of the podcast, uh, Dubai Friday, and, um, and haptic. fm. I listened to Dubai Friday, about three episodes, just to get ready for this, um, thing, and I really love that [00:01:15] Alex: Oh, I apologize. Oh, goodness, goodness [00:01:18] The Appeal of Conversational Podcasts [00:01:18] Jeff: much. Do you know what it reminds me of? One of the earliest, the first podcast I listened to, I actually listened to it in order to write this article about podcasts for a magazine, uh, way, way, way, way back, and it was the Don and Drew show, [00:01:31] Christina: my god, [00:01:31] Alex: Oh yeah. [00:01:33] Jeff: it this couple, was this couple in their barn, I think, and I think in Illinois, um, and they were really, um, Fucking funny. [00:01:42] Jeff: And the whole podcast was just the two of them talking to each other. And I remember being like this format I love. And to this day, I way prefer two people bullshitting to something super produced and beautiful, like a radio lab or anything else. Not to diss any of that. It’s an [00:02:00] amazing amount of work, but it’s like public access TV, man, but it’s just a little bit better. [00:02:04] Brett: How about four people bullshitting? [00:02:06] Jeff: Four people bullshitting is great. [00:02:08] Alex: my sweet spot is always the number three, so I’m absolutely ruining your season premiere. But I think with the amount Merlin talks, we kind of even out three people. [00:02:21] Jeff: Also, four people is fun, because it’s like bumper cars. and I kind of that. So welcome. [00:02:28] Alex: I’m so glad that I get to be here. Thank you so much. [00:02:31] Jeff: Thank you. Well, should we? Let’s do this. What are we doing? We doing some mental health? Corner? Who wants to go to the corner? [00:02:38] Brett: our format. That’s our, that’s our formula. [00:02:43] Alex: I [00:02:44] Jeff: we can refresh. What is Mental Health Corner, Brett? Hit it. [00:02:47] Mental Health Corner (Part 1) [00:02:47] Brett: Okay, um, what is Mental Health Corner? Mental Health Corner is three and sometimes four people describing where they’re at and what they’ve been through in the last week. In this [00:03:00] case, like the last month, it’s been a while. Um, but, uh, just like, uh, it’s a check in. [00:03:06] Brett: It’s a, it’s a way to, I don’t know, like, I feel like we learn a lot. I get a lot of email from listeners and the one thing they always mention is the mental health corner. Like people find something they can identify with. Between all of us and our various diagnoses, uh, we, we actually relate to a large portion of our potential listeners. [00:03:32] Brett: So, [00:03:33] Jeff: and I think beautifully, no pressure, no expectation. Like early in the podcast, Brett and I would be talking and he’d be like, you should talk about this on the show. And I’d be like, no, or he’d be like, you should talk about this on the show. I’d be oh yeah, maybe. so, uh, there’s no pressure to do anything at length or be any kind of level of vulnerable. [00:03:50] Jeff: It’s just, uh, it’s the corner, man. It’s a little place. [00:03:52] Complex PTSD and Religious Trauma Syndrome [00:03:52] Brett: corner. Um, so, I’ll kick it off if that’s cool, um, I have realized that, [00:04:00] uh, my CPTSD, um, one of the symptoms of that is black and white thinking, where I need, I need everything to be true or false, black or white, good or bad, evil or, or beneficial, and I don’t Okay, so, it’s, intellectually, I can, I can find the gray areas, and I can live in the gray areas, and like, my favorite TV characters are not good or evil, they are complex characters with, with justifications and reasons and history and background, and intellectually, I love that, but I find that In, like, an argument or in even like a simple debate, um, I need all the evidence to either send me to the right or to the left. [00:04:51] Brett: To the black or to the white. And I’m constantly this two dimensional scale. I’m like, okay, now I believe this. Okay. Now I believe this. I’m willing to change my mind, [00:05:00] but it’s a binary and that’s not super productive, especially when you are partnered up with an autistic person who literally everything is great to them. [00:05:11] Brett: Um, and before they can say, oh, that’s a great idea, or that’s a bad idea. They have so many questions and like, I want to start the conversation with. That’s a great idea. And here are the potential problems we might run into, but they want to start the conversation with, okay, so here’s, here’s what I see as potential issues and before I can tell you, this is a good idea, we need to solve these problems and I have this very bulldozer mentality, like if I’m faced with a problem, whether it’s a coding challenge or a work challenge or just something I want to do in my life, I just go. [00:05:51] Brett: And I deal with problems as they come up. I solve things on the way. Half the time I end up going back to the beginning and starting over with new information. And [00:06:00] that’s fine by me. Like, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna think about it. I don’t wanna plan. I just wanna attack it head on. Um, which is Kind of stupid, um, for, for most people, but it works for me, but it all comes back to this idea of like not being able to exist in gray areas emotionally. [00:06:21] Brett: So that’s what I’ve learned in this last month. [00:06:25] Jeff: And CPTSD, CPTSD is Complex [00:06:29] Brett: Complex Post Traumatic Stress [00:06:32] Jeff: I feel like is still a term that’s only becoming familiar. [00:06:36] Brett: and it’s not in the DSM. Like, uh, my diagnosis is PTSD, um, but the kind of like sub genre. Of that is complex PTSD as a result of religious trauma syndrome? [00:06:49] Alex: RTS, RTS isn’t in the DSM either, right? Because that’s something that, you know, both, I think it’s being recognized, obviously, [00:07:00] in the, quote, professional, psychiatric psychological community, but Also, uh, like you and other folks I know have both the, mostly tra trans folks or folks similar to you, Brett, who grew up in that environment, and I just really applaud the folks who are coming o forward, coming forward sounds like a very, I don’t know, like a gross term, but just talking about it in a way that makes sense. [00:07:30] Alex: unfortunately, is needed to validate it to, again, quote, professionals. And [00:07:37] Brett: Right. [00:07:38] Alex: thank you for sharing that because I, do you think that’s also like a byproduct of bipolar stuff? You’re still diagnosed with [00:07:48] Brett: Vice versa. Yeah. I’m diagnosed [00:07:50] Alex: I was curious. [00:07:51] Brett: But bipolar is a symptom of CPTSD. Emotional dysregulation a symptom of CP as are [00:08:00] attention disorders. Um, like this all comes like my and like I said, in the DSM, I’m just PTSD. And, like, that can explain all of my other various diagnoses. So, even though that’s the one I got the most recently, it’s also the one that I feel is at the root of everything else I’m diagnosed with. [00:08:21] Brett: Uh, which is quite the trip. When you, you, like, live your life believing, I am this, I am this, and I am this. These are my diagnoses. These are what are, uh, what, what the medical professionals have labeled me as. And then to find out, oh shit, this is all This is all stemming from a problem I didn’t realize I had until I was 45. [00:08:44] Finding the Right Psychiatrist [00:08:44] Alex: Yeah. I always find that sort of unhinged and shocking, the way that it’s, our diagnoses are often pushed on us in such a binary, and the reason I’ve stayed with [00:09:00] My psychiatrist of, uh, ten years. I switch, like, therapists the way I switch underwear, but which is often, I clarify, [00:09:09] Jeff: you mean switch [00:09:10] Christina: I was say, that lot of [00:09:11] Jeff: you change underwear? [00:09:12] Alex: just, yeah, just not, not so much the, uh, I suppose the, I don’t know, this only show where I would say that, say that, a lot, but I’ve been with the same psychiatrist for, gosh, like, almost fifteen years because his whole Yeah. [00:09:29] Alex: Methodology, which is wild for a white guy in the suburbs of DuPage County, which is in Illinois, to be like, Alright, yes, you are bipolar, you’ve been misdiagnosed as depressed because people see you as a teenage girl, and these antidepressants clearly are bad for you, but let’s not label that, let’s treat the symptoms. [00:09:57] Alex: rather than pinning down a diagnosis. [00:10:00] And that’s stuck with me, but I have seen it go the opposite way for so many folks, and I understand, like, gosh, I understand, I think, how difficult that must be because of, like, other binary terms that have been prescribed. So again, thank you so much for sharing this. [00:10:19] Alex: I know you did on another episode, but I wanted you to explain what PTSD was again. [00:10:25] Jeff: a big deal. [00:10:26] Christina: It is a big deal and, and I, I, I, um, I completely relate to you, Alex. I’ve had the same psychiatrist actually for more than 20 years and when he retires or dies and, and I’m not trying to be like, uh, morbid here, but like he’s in his, he’s in his seventies. So, you know, uh, he’s at some point, I, you know, I’m, I’m hoping that he will be active until, you know, he just keels over, but like, I don’t have 20 more years with this guy and I’m. [00:10:54] Christina: I’m like terrified of that because I’m like this is literally, uh, he’s, he’s unique in that he is a psychiatrist that will [00:11:00] also do, uh, therapy and he, and he listens and, and I, uh, for, for a white guy from the South, despite like we don’t share a lot of the same political opinions, that doesn’t matter. [00:11:10] Christina: He’s very open minded about different treatments. [00:11:20] Christina: It’s, it’s a, it’s a stressor to even think about, okay, like, where would I even go to start to find someone else? Right. Because, and, and, and I’m in a very fortunate position where for me, money’s not even part of that because he doesn’t accept insurance anyway. So I haven’t had, you know, like, you know, so, so I don’t even care like, oh, well, who does your insurance cover? [00:11:36] Christina: I’m like, that’s. That’s not part of the equation here. It’s like, how do I find somebody? How long do I have to get in? Because when I started seeing him, you know, 20 years ago, I was, uh, my, because my previous psychiatrist had, uh, was hired by an insurance company. Um, uh, and I loved Dr. Baker. Dr. Baker was Great. [00:11:55] Christina: And he was the first one that I’d found, I think after like five or six attempts when I was a, you know, starting when I was like 13 or [00:12:00] 14, um, when, um, he left private practice, I was on a wait list to get into my current, uh, psychiatrist for months. It was the better part of a year. So I’m like, and I had this guy that I used to just call Dr. [00:12:15] Christina: Kevorkian, who would just basically like write me a script. [00:12:18] Jeff: Friend of the [00:12:19] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I, that, that, that, that’s literally like what called in my live journal. I was yep. Saw Dr. Kavorkian today. You know, got, got script for, for my, for my stuff. You know, just completely just, so yeah. [00:12:31] Christina: When you find those people, it’s, it’s important, but it can also be really distressing to your earlier point when, you know, we, we don’t get diagnosed with the right things because of certain characteristics that we have. And then we, it’s like, oh, now we’re adults and, and we have all this stuff. And I’m like, well, yeah, that might’ve been useful to know earlier. [00:12:48] Brett: I will say my, my, um, psychi, my psychi, my original psychiatrist retiring was the worst thing that has happened to me. Um. There [00:13:00] is a dearth of psychiatric professionals where I live, um, so I got pawned off from, uh, uh, an aged and well experienced psychiatrist onto some PA from Iowa. [00:13:12] Jeff: And that was definitely pre, like, you could just get on Zoom with [00:13:15] Brett: Yeah, yeah, they took me off all my meds, and it was, and I two years trying to get back to some kind of stasis. [00:13:26] Christina: I mean [00:13:26] Brett: And I lost, I lost my job. I got divorced. Like, shit went bad. [00:13:32] Alex: would literally, I probably would die, like that is one of the most dangerous things I’ve ever heard happening to someone, it’s like, oh my god! [00:13:42] Brett: It was, it was rough. Psychiatrists do get old, though. It happens. [00:13:47] Alex: Gosh, I didn’t even really think about this until now, because I, he’s, he’s like, in his, gosh. It’s a little bit younger than my [00:14:00] parents, like so mid, mid to late 50s. And I’m realizing now, because I right now don’t have insurance and he, I basically have an under the table deal. I realized because of that privilege of growing up in the suburbs and I am so worried that I’m gonna just be, in order to, like, get my Lamictal, end up going to one of those, like, Uber, uh, psych doctors where you can be like, I, I, uh, Have, uh, uh, trouble paying attention. [00:14:36] Alex: Here is your Adderall. I know that is being, uh, sort of, uh, cracked down on, but man, I am gonna start looking into that now. [00:14:48] Brett: I I will, I will try to come for you insofar as Lamictal is, like, even your average MD, uh, like general practitioner [00:15:00] will prescribe you Lamictal. it’s not a scary drug for most prescribers. kind of Yeah. And it’s, it’s solid. It’s proven. Um, and if you, if you find yourself without a psychiatrist, you can often go to a general practitioner and say, look, I have this diagnosis. [00:15:18] Brett: I need this med. And, and they’ll fill that for you. [00:15:22] Christina: Yeah. [00:15:23] Alex: is so common that perhaps I’ve acquired it in a different way when my has been out of town, and I irresponsibly, which is, I mean, another thing that is important about having doctors who are willing to learn, grow, and change, because when I was younger I was on lithium, which most, was most common, yeah, and [00:15:46] Jeff: there. [00:15:47] Alex: as soon as, as soon as possible, it was like, hey, there’s new thing, Lamictal, [00:15:52] Christina: Oh, yeah. [00:15:53] Alex: yeah. [00:15:54] Alex: Oof. [00:15:55] Brett: Did you have a bad reaction to lithium? Oh, here’s Lamictal. Why didn’t we start with to begin [00:16:00] with? I don’t [00:16:00] Christina: Or, or, or, [00:16:01] Alex: a patent longer is the answer. [00:16:04] Christina: yeah, that’s exactly it. That’s exactly it. One is, one is cheap, one is not. And it makes sense. Well, it’s funny because when, um, uh, I was, I was misdiagnosed with, with being bipolar because I pissed off that psychiatrist. I mean, that’s actually what it [00:16:16] Alex: Oh, you mean you were a little, you were a woman and you were angry, [00:16:20] Christina: Oh, No. Well, and she was, no, she was a woman too, but, but I, I spoke really fast cause I was mad about something and I, she was really insistent that I stay on a certain antidepressant. I was like, you’re getting paid with the drug companies. This is why you’re prescribing this for me. You’re, you, you refuse to get off, you know, this bandwagon. [00:16:34] Christina: I’m telling you it no longer works. It was working. Now it is not working. I need to go on something else. And she was just refusing to do anything. And I was like, you’re clearly getting, uh, you know, paid by the drug companies. Turned out I was actually correct. Um, but she was upset about that. So she was like, oh, well you’re bipolar. [00:16:47] Christina: Yeah. And, um, and so, uh, put me, uh, first on, on, on Lithium and then on Lomyctol. Neither of those were, I’m not bipolar. So it was not a good for me. Um, but to that point, [00:17:00] you were saying about being able to get like a, a, you know, regular doctor to prescribe. I think this is, uh, just a, you know, And Christina is like, you know, FYI for anybody out there, note, get something in your file, get some sort of diagnosis from your psychiatrist so that you can keep it for your own records so that if you are in a situation where are there your insurance changes, your psychiatrist retires or they go off somewhere else or whatnot and you have a hard time getting your records and it’s not as easy to get our own medical records as it should be. [00:17:27] Christina: You have something so that if you are in one of those scenarios where you’re like, shit, I have to get my ADHD meds. I have to get my antidepressants. I have get. know, whatever, [00:17:36] Brett: no GP will prescribe ADHD meds unless you have an official diagnosis on your record. Um, and that diagnosis requires testing, um, and, and psychiatric approval. Uh, once you have that, most doctors are willing to kind of. Um, I guess Ben, like there’s, there are a lot of rules [00:18:00] that GPs have to conform to around things like Adderall and Biobans. [00:18:04] Brett: Um, and, and the one thing that will tip the scale in your favor is having that official diagnosis. If you have, if you’re going to someone who accepts insurance, when they file Their claim to the insurance, it has to include your official diagnoses. So going to someone with insurance kind of guarantees that you have that on your record. [00:18:27] Brett: Going to someone off insurance, you may have to pursue, uh, and make sure that they have a clinical DSM approved diagnosis on your record. [00:18:38] Christina: right. Yeah. [00:18:39] Alex: you guys are my favorite podcast. in past, it was sort of the Opposite for a lot of people, like, I was locked down, like, I don’t want any GP, anyone know that I’m bipolar because I turning, yep, well, not even that, because I was turning 26 [00:18:57] Christina: Yeah. And you were like, oh shit, I’m not going to get health insurance because[00:19:00] [00:19:00] Alex: eh, right. And I was so worried also about getting a job like, yes, HIPAA, but people get around that. [00:19:09] Alex: Luckily, I found I was employed by people, a bunch of weirdos like me, so it was not a problem whatsoever. And, uh, Now, like, I’m, we’re like, you know, going through health. gov and I’m, you know, one of those obnoxious Bernie Burrows who really wants universal healthcare, but at least Obamacare, uh, or whatever it is called now, it’s like, oh no, we, like, it is good, we have your pre existing conditions, which is Is something I did not know until, like, a few years ago, and was still masking it as much as possible. [00:19:44] Alex: You guys are just the best podcast. Oh, [00:19:47] Brett: when I did my intake for Oracle, um, bipolar was listed as an accepted disability. Um, and they didn’t make you declare, they just asked you, are you, do you have a [00:20:00] disability? And then they all the possible things. So I checked the box for yes. And that gives me a certain amount of protection. [00:20:07] Jeff: like, I also think of this as a superpower. [00:20:10] Brett: sure, but, but like, if, if worse comes to worst, I can say. Look, I have a disability and this was clearly defined in my intake. And that’s kind of new for me because I did always bipolar a liability when taking a job because I knew my bipolar could fuck with my ability to do my job. Um, and now I have a certain amount of protection, um, legally, [00:20:38] The Affordable Care Act [00:20:38] Christina: Yeah. No, is, is really important, which is really important. And, and, and, and, but it is, it’s one of those things that obviously varies where you work and, and all that stuff. And there is still stigmas there, uh, but it’s decreased a lot. And yeah, I mean, with the, uh, Obamacare or, you know, whatever the, whatever it’s called, um, uh, ACA. [00:20:56] Christina: Yeah. Um, like that was a, for all the [00:21:00] critique that I think a lot of them are, are correct. Um, you know, there’s [00:21:03] Brett: On both sides. I [00:21:08] Christina: no, not, not [00:21:10] Alex: by both sides you mean Democrats and obnoxious progressives like me, sure! [00:21:16] Christina: well, yeah, yeah, but, but exactly, [00:21:17] Brett: mean, people who support single payer, I guess, have the, have the most beef with [00:21:23] Christina: right, well, and they’re, look, they’re very valid things to criticize it for, because it did make things worse for some people, and it, and it did make things more complicated, and I’m not going to [00:21:31] Alex: website didn’t [00:21:33] Christina: The website awful. [00:21:34] Brett: It got capped [00:21:35] Christina: Of course, [00:21:36] Brett: the Republicans then, who could hold it up and say, look, it’s not working these, [00:21:42] Christina: no, [00:21:42] Brett: riders we slid [00:21:44] Christina: No, you’re completely correct, but I’m just saying, like, even putting all that aside, what I always say to people, because, you know, we have like friends of ours who will like talk about, it is ridiculous how much I have to pay, you know, for health insurance and, and, and whatnot, and, um, you know, through the, um, uh, the, the various, uh, marketplaces and whatnot. [00:21:59] Christina: And they’re not [00:22:00] wrong on any of those things. Not that that’s the ACA’s fault, but yeah, the website didn’t work and whatnot. But the one thing I will defend that forever is I’m like, look, that got rid of the preexisting condition. B. S. that for me, when I, you know, I was, I was able to stay on my insurance for a year longer than I should have been able to, and I don’t remember why, but they basically, we were able to get something done. [00:22:20] Christina: And then when I was 27, it was basically, uh, you know, I was like, okay, well, my meds at the time I was, it was taking ProVigil, which was not generic then. And it was like 1400 a month. And that was, that was like. You know, with the insurance discount. And, um, then I, you know, like, Cobra, I think, was like 1100. [00:22:41] Christina: So I was like, well, yeah, I’m gonna have to pay for Cobra. Because my med cost is higher than that, right, but I couldn’t get insurance any other way and, and because of where I was working at the time, like, we didn’t have insurance yet, and so it was one of those things where, like, I had to wait until the company got big enough to get, like, proper health insurance, and then, fortunately, [00:22:58] Alex: Yes. [00:22:59] Christina: passed, [00:23:00] you know, but, like, and I wasn’t in a unique [00:23:03] Alex: position. [00:23:03] Christina: So, so I was like this weird position where I’m like, you know, like 25 and I’m like healthy and I’m, I’m white and I’m a woman and I have, I’m thin, like all my health stuff is like perfect. Like I’m like the cheapest person to insure, right? And like I can’t get insurance because I have, you know, I was diagnosed with, with depression when I was 13 and you know, and it’s just like, okay, great that America is excellent. [00:23:25] Christina: Um, but [00:23:26] Monafadil and More [00:23:26] Brett: you ever, did you ever explore black market Manafeddo? [00:23:30] Christina: I did and, and I remember talking to about it [00:23:32] Jeff: Tom Waits song. [00:23:34] Alex: Christina, help me. What, what [00:23:35] Jeff: That’s a really good Tom Waits song. [00:23:37] Christina: Yeah. [00:23:38] Jeff: black [00:23:38] Alex: it sounds like a hot Natalie Portman movie to me. [00:23:41] Christina: It does. Oh my God, really does. Black Market and Modafinil. It really does. No, so Modafinil is the actual drug that is provincial, which is now generic. But yeah, but Brett, you used to buy it off of like Amazon. No, you used to get it off of, um, uh, uh, the, um, um, whatchamacallit, uh, the, [00:23:59] Brett: dark [00:24:00] [00:24:00] Christina: yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:24:00] Christina: Didn’t you get it off of, uh, Silk Road? [00:24:03] Brett: Yeah, basically with, with, I bought it with Bitcoin and like this is during the two years after my psychiatrist retired and I was just fucked. And I was looking for way [00:24:15] Christina: account is locked. [00:24:17] Brett: exactly. Well no, that’s because I tried to buy Vyvanse on the black market. Yeah. And that’s, and that’s when, and that’s when my pay, my Bitcoin wallet was like, okay, you’re out. [00:24:30] Brett: Um, but the Monafidil. [00:24:33] Jeff: Because Bitcoin has [00:24:34] Brett: never got in trouble for the Monafidil, um, and that, that, that was, it was alright. Um, it was not, it [00:24:42] Christina: was not [00:24:43] Brett: a stimulant, um, [00:24:45] Christina: Well, yeah, when Modafinil’s not as similar, I mean, it is and it’s not, it’s controlled, but it’s not the same thing. So, like, it, it’s, like, I used to do the two of them together. I used to have Dexedrine and, Modafinil together and, and I’d like to have them both back again, but it is expensive. [00:24:58] Christina: My husband recently was prescribed [00:25:00] Provigil, um, in lieu of his, um, Adderall. And, and he’s, he’s liking it, but, but he’s also, I think, kind of having a hard time with it a little bit because he’s like, I don’t get that speed. I’m like, no, you don’t cause it’s not that. [00:25:13] Brett: awake for fuckin [00:25:14] Christina: Right. Yeah. Cause it was originally a narcolepsy drug and then it turns out it also gives you a tremendous [00:25:18] Brett: it was originally, originally developed for the army, allow soldiers to not sleep. [00:25:24] Christina: Correct. No, genuinely. Like, [00:25:26] Alex: our version of, yeah, if folks have read the book Blitzed, which I, it’s a book about Nazis and meth, and it’s [00:25:37] Christina: Oh [00:25:38] Alex: to Nazis in any way, but it also goes into, like, the American drugs versus, yeah, [00:25:44] Christina: Yeah. Well, no. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I remember this. Um, there’s another one. Um, cause like all these things, um, so are wind up and, and this is what winds up ruining it for us who are trying to do it correctly is that all the athletes wind up using this stuff. And so it winds up fucking people who need it for [00:26:00] real reasons because athletes figure out how to like drug themselves to, to perform better. [00:26:03] Christina: So like. Provigil was used that way and a bunch of other things and a bunch of other hormones and other stuff, which is difficult for regular people to get because, you know, uh, Balco, uh, um, that’s a throwback and, and other people were doing that, but, um, um, there’s an interesting book. Um, I’ll try to find it for the show notes. [00:26:20] Christina: Uh, Blitz is a good one, but also about like the East German doping regime, um, it, for the Olympics, like during like the, the Cold War era. It’s freaking insane, um, all the shit that they would do and like the ways that they would dope, um, their athletes to perform well, um, it’s like insanity. But yeah, um, I, I contend that one of the reasons that insurance companies don’t to this day, like, Cover, Modafinil, um, as well as they should, like they’ll put caps on it and certain things and make it hard, is because, uh, What’s Her Face, who, who had like, she won a gold medal for, for Sprontane and some other things. [00:26:58] Christina: She was like a really famous, um, [00:27:00] runner and then she was like, ProVigil was amongst some of the drugs that she was found to have in her system when she was, when she was doping. Um, and, [00:27:08] Jeff: like, family tree slash, um, intersecting histories that surround every single mental health drug is kind of amazing. Like, we originally made this to stimulate bats to like, it’s just like a weird the other day, this is I just, while we’re on the sort of like, the border of like, Vyvanse and meth conversation, or like, Vyvanse and hard drug conversation, like, the other day, I’m off of Vyvanse now, I was taking like, 40 milligrams, which I never should have been, it was my own fault, I asked for an increase, but it was just, I was developing like, a twitch, and it was just not good, and I also realized like, I was having like, a prolonged manic episode, and it didn’t occur to me that it might be the Vyvanse, but anyway, I decided I was going to try to like, Break that dosage down a little bit. [00:27:52] Jeff: And even though years ago, Brett taught me how to do that with water, which I forgot, I tried to like cut it like cocaine, which is like cutting [00:28:00] cocaine on a dollhouse coffee table. Like, it’s just like, it’s that just this little bitty amount and you just kind of, how do I get, you know, I was trying to make a 10 milligrams out [00:28:07] Brett: Not, just to be clear, not to snort it, [00:28:10] Jeff: No, no, just to throw it in some water and take it. Um, [00:28:14] Brett: because snorting Vyvanse doesn’t work, I [00:28:16] Jeff: no, it doesn’t. That’s the [00:28:17] Christina: No, that’s the whole point Five Ants. [00:28:19] Jeff: molecule so that you can’t snort it like [00:28:21] Christina: exactly. That’s, that’s, that’s the only thing is Dexedrine, but with one thing changed, so you can’t abuse it. So they took like literally the thing that had the patent that had retired, like that had been retired earliest. They didn’t even use Adderall, they used Dexedrine because that’s the one that the patent like expired like in the 70s and they were like, Oh, what’s the, how can we get the most value out of this? [00:28:39] Jeff: Dexterdine is the one that used to be over the counter, right? Like, for [00:28:42] Christina: No, no, no. That was Dexatrim. Which was, which was [00:28:45] Jeff: in ninth grade, and I didn’t eat for like five and I lost all kinds of weight, and then I was like, I think I’m starting to [00:28:53] Brett: that same, uh, wasn’t that, uh, what’s in Sudafed? [00:28:57] Christina: yeah, exactly. [00:28:58] Brett: that they use meth? [00:28:59] Christina: Ephedrine or[00:29:00] [00:29:00] Brett: Ah, Fedrin, [00:29:00] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Dexatrim, I think was ephedrine. Yeah. But [00:29:04] Brett: you also used to be able to buy a Fedrin at gas station, [00:29:08] Alex: Merlin loves to talk on Dubai Friday about how much he misses a veteran. And I’m like, [00:29:12] Brett: I used to [00:29:13] Jeff: Oh man, [00:29:14] Brett: I used to do like tabs [00:29:16] Jeff: uh, what, but what’s the, what’s the, what’s the, what’s the brand? What’s the brand from? No, no, when we were kids, uh, there was, uh, Nodo’s. [00:29:26] Brett: was caffeine. [00:29:26] Jeff: That was just [00:29:27] Christina: It was just caffeine. Although, you know what? I did find this out the hard way. Um, if you took, you, you timed it just wrong and you took your Nodos and then you, you know, it maybe didn’t kick in for a while and then you took your Dexedrine, the two could fuse. And the end result was basically like being on, on like a massive Coke vendor. [00:29:50] Jeff: Yeah, the end result was basically Jackson Pollock [00:29:52] Christina: I mean, I have video of me somewhere, this happened to me twice, and it was like, it was insane. I’ve like, I, like, my friends, I [00:30:00] remember the first time it happened to me, I was like 16, and they were like, what the fuck? And I’m like, I don’t know. I’m like, I think my dodo’s and my dex is being infused, and now I’m magic, and I can do anything. [00:30:09] Christina: And I was like, and they were like, they like took me to like, I’ll never forget this, we went to Long John Silver’s, so like they could, they were trying to get like food in me to see, you know, like if that would sober me up. It did not work. Um, and I was like trying to like act low key, like not. Completely out of my mind, like, wired on meth or whatever, like, all day, did not work. [00:30:28] Brett: I would like to offer the disclaimer that everyone on this show right now is currently a responsible drug user. [00:30:36] Christina: I mean, [00:30:36] Jeff: I’d like to offer the little piece of history that without being able snort Adderall, Adderall, I never did, but without being able to snort it, you would have never had like Power Pop. [00:30:46] Christina: That’s true. [00:30:47] Alex: Powerpuff Oh, oh, okay, there we go. [00:30:50] Christina: you’re not wrong. I mean, look, uh, but rock and roll wouldn’t exist without cocaine. There’s a lot of things we could say that, like, wouldn’t exist without some of, uh, our, our, [00:30:58] Jeff: and roll wouldn’t exist without Little [00:31:00] Richard. [00:31:00] Alex: mean, [00:31:00] Christina: I, I agree. [00:31:02] Jeff: cocaine in Little Richard. [00:31:04] Brett: Right, [00:31:04] Christina: that’s what I’m saying. That’s what I’m saying, man. But yeah, no, we’re, we’re responsible drug users and, and everything I take is either prescribed for me or legal in the state of Washington. [00:31:12] Christina: So there’s that [00:31:13] Brett: Because we’ve grown up. So we’re, we’re at 30 [00:31:17] Alex: mean, I still, I’m too, I’m just too afraid. I’m like, I’m [00:31:20] Jeff: Same. I remain too afraid. I remain too afraid. I’ve never done, except for some gummies recently as my first drugs. [00:31:28] Alex: Oh, yeah, I guess [00:31:29] Christina: Oh wow, you’re straight edge. [00:31:30] Alex: uh, yeah, [00:31:31] Jeff: wasn’t straight edge and I wasn’t disposition. I was just, it was just where I was at. All my friends were either throughout my life, like including people I dated, they might be junkies. They might be like, they might be giants. Um, [00:31:41] Brett: was to, that [00:31:43] Jeff: of drug. But, but what happened was people just knew this about me without me telling them. [00:31:47] Jeff: So no one did drugs around me. there were people I didn’t know were snorting Coke before every show when I was in a band, but they were just like, let’s Jeff doesn’t have to see I’m I’m not a little porcelain, like. [00:31:57] Christina: no, well, no, see, love how we have the full [00:32:00] spectrum because like, like Brett has been in rehab and is like recovered and like had like a serious like addiction. Like you have never done things, Alex, you’re saying the same way. And then I feel like I’m like the person who’s just like a minimal but casual, like I will do edibles and stuff. [00:32:13] Christina: Experimental, but not even that so much as, but it’s just like, yeah, you’re at a party and like you’re in college and people like want to do drugs and you’re like, absolutely. You know? I mean, but it’s not a regular thing. It’s not a habit. You [00:32:22] Brett: yeah, but then you don’t go home, don’t go home and like find a dealer hook up on the street corner. [00:32:29] Alex: yeah, that’s what I’m afraid, well, I would get offered cocaine at parties, but then people would just assume I was on coke because I was manic, like, [00:32:38] Jeff: Oh, that happened to me all [00:32:39] Alex: I like a habitual coke user, and like, no, [00:32:44] Christina: like, I wish. [00:32:44] Jeff: When I was, when I was in eighth grade, I had a cafeteria table intervention by two of my friends who said, we, we think you’re taking speed. And it was not long after that Family Ties episode [00:32:55] Christina: Oh yeah. [00:32:56] Jeff: Keaton taking speed. And I think that’s where they learned the [00:33:00] symptoms. I was so shocked. [00:33:01] Jeff: Cause I was like, no, I’m not. And then once I was diagnosed bipolar, I was like, Oh, it’s that [00:33:07] Brett: all [00:33:08] Jeff: don’t realize, what is Pepsi? Anyway, I have a good transition to [00:33:12] Brett: What, okay. Can, because we’re at the 30 minute mark, can we take a quick sponsor break? And then we will come back to what is probably going to be a full episode of Mental Health. [00:33:23] Sponsor: Notion [00:33:23] Christina-1: This episode is brought to you by Notion. And Notion is one of my favorite apps. I’ve been using this for years. It’s a really great way to take notes, keep things around, plan things. You can even host websites on it and stuff like that. And so I kind of use it as a catch all for a lot of my different documents. [00:33:40] Christina-1: And one of the great things about Notion is they recently introduced some AI tools. And Notion AI is a way that kind of, in some ways, it’s kind of creating like a custom LLM. Based on all of your data. So, uh, for instance, I have all the different deals that are available to me as a Microsoft slash GitHub [00:34:00] employee, and rather than having to search through the many, many, many pages and weird web clippings that I’ve put into this folder, I can just kind of ask Notion AI and it’ll show me. [00:34:11] Christina-1: You know, this is your discount for Sonos and what you need to do. So Notion combines your notes, your docs, and projects into one space that is simple and beautifully designed. And the fully integrated Notion AI helps you work faster, write better, and think bigger doing tasks that normally take you hours in just seconds. [00:34:28] Christina-1: Like I said, I don’t have to search through a bunch of documents to find out that Sonos discount. Uh, one of the things that I’m actually going to be focusing on doing in 2024 is making a catalog of all of our Gratitude Picks so that I can have a website for us. I’ve been promising that for a while. And what I’m actually going to do to help me aid in that process is I’m going to be bringing in all of our show notes into Notion so that I can very easily just be like, okay. [00:34:54] Christina-1: Show me, you know, has this app, you know, been a gratitude pick? And, um, I [00:35:00] think that the Notion AI is going to help me get that process up, um, and going much, much easier. So, um, big fan of Notion and Notion AI. You can try Notion for free when you go to Notion. com slash Overtired. That’s all lowercase letters. [00:35:15] Christina-1: Notion. com slash Overtired to try the powerful, easy to use Notion AI today. And when you use our link, you’re supporting our show. So again, that is Notion. com slash Overtired. [00:35:28] Sponsor: Aroundsquare [00:35:28] Brett-1: This episode is also brought to you by Around Square. You know that experience of learning something new that would have been so useful last week, or finding something special that you hadn’t realized you’d been missing all these years? Well, today might be one of those days. Around Square is a company that you’ve Probably never heard about, but for certain people, the brand, the products, and the ideas just really resonate. [00:35:51] Brett-1: Since 2007, AroundSquare has been designing and producing beautiful, unusual, functional goods for the mind and body. Their specialty is [00:36:00] a range of intriguing little objects for everyday carry. Many of these are things that could be called skill toys, dexterity trainers, or fidget toys, but they really don’t conform to these labels. [00:36:11] Brett-1: And none of them really do the products justice. They’re striking, minimalist objects more akin to jewelry than playthings, but they’re also serious tools designed for creative exploration and peaceful manipulation, things to keep the hands busy and the mind at ease by providing just the desired level of stimulation. [00:36:30] Brett-1: AroundSquare’s eclectic range goes way beyond this and includes stationary, jewelry, functional clothing, and much more. at www. aroundsquare. com and use the code Overtired for 15 percent off. That’s AroundSquared. com and use the code Overtired for 15 percent off. [00:36:52] Mental Health Corner (Part 2) [00:36:52] Brett: Okay. Bye. Back to you, Jeff. Ha ha ha [00:36:55] Jeff: to say, I looked something up while we were talking because I was again, marveling at the [00:37:00] failure of healthcare. gov. Um, and how that launch was such a disaster. And I was like, how does this line up with what we learned from Edward Snowden about the technological capabilities of the NSA? And it’s the same year. [00:37:12] Jeff: And it’s a really funny thing to put next to each other. Like the utter failure of a pretty, not simple website, but not un Tried. Technology. the NSA was able to do. [00:37:24] Christina: Well, and you know how they managed to fix it? And this is true, uh, so, um, Uh, I can’t think of his name right now, shit, it’ll come to me, but, uh, cause he recently retired, but, um, he led all of our, um, COVID, all of Microsoft’s COVID response, really good guy, um, who’d been, like, at, uh, at, at Microsoft for a long time, like, left Microsoft to go to the government and fix their website, and then after that, he, like, came back to Microsoft as, like, the, as, like, the chief strategy officer. [00:37:52] Alex: literally, thank you for your service. My god. Oh, I [00:37:59] Christina: uh, but [00:38:00] yeah, he was, he was a great guy. Um, uh, well is a great guy. He’s, he’s retired now. I can’t think of his name, but, um, he, um, uh, yeah, basically like, um, uh, um, Ray, I, I want to say his name might be maybe, maybe Kurt, one of those. Anyway, um, he, uh, I think, I think, I think it was, [00:38:15] Jeff: His ears aren’t burning until we say his name. [00:38:17] Christina: I think his name was Kurt, Kurt, Kurt, Kurt, uh, Kurt Delbigny. [00:38:21] Christina: There we go. Kurt Delbigny. Um, and, and, [00:38:24] Jeff: Curdy D! [00:38:24] Christina: And no, but he, he’s a great guy, but like, he literally, [00:38:27] Alex: Friend Kirti D. [00:38:28] Christina: Kurt B., no, but great. Well, honestly, like the one like comforting part of the pandemic, like I have to say, we got these amazing weekly like reports and then they became bi weekly and then eventually kind of went away. [00:38:39] Christina: And then when Kurt retired, someone else took over and that person did not do a good job, but we would get these amazing like updates about like what the spread was at, where things were globally, where things were with the offices, what the Washington state situation was. And like, they were. He was collecting all this data and, like, working directly with, like, the Washington State Department of Health and all this stuff. [00:38:56] Christina: And, like, it was, it was a very, very, we had, like, a very [00:39:00] robust command center. In some ways, I think it was probably better than the federal government’s, uh, command center, uh, was at that time, uh, with that administration. So, um, like, I, uh, it was, uh, definitely, uh, uh, helpful to have that, um, Kerr was a good guy. [00:39:17] Jeff: Love him. [00:39:18] Christina: Yeah. So, so, [00:39:19] Brett: that wr That wraps up, That wraps up Brett’s Mental Health Corner. [00:39:26] Christina: Yeah. I don’t have much to add. I mean, I’ll just, uh. Okay. [00:39:29] Brett: I said it would be short, [00:39:31] Christina: was not sure. No, that went into a lot of other things. No, no, it’s good. That went on a bunch of other things. Um, we do have like one topic that, uh, that other than mental health that, uh, um, Jeff and I have to talk about because [00:39:42] Jeff: Well, that involves definitely your mental [00:39:44] Christina: Well, it definitely does. Maybe, maybe this as the segue for that. Um, [00:39:48] Jeff: it as your mental health corner. [00:39:49] Christina: oh, you know what? I [00:39:50] Alex: I I have feelings about that too. [00:39:53] Christina: you was gonna say yes. I gonna say, Alex, I was talking with them on threads about this, and we both were like, what the fuck? [00:40:00] Like, and okay, and okay, but to tie back to Mental Health Corner for a second, so, Um, my long running podcast, Rocket, ended last week. [00:40:08] Christina: Um, so if you are listening to this, uh, podcast for the first time because you’re a Rocket listener, hi, thank you. Um, uh, we love you. And, uh, that was, like, that was the end of a nine year, um, you know, Project. And even though it was our decision and like it was our choice and it was just time, um, you know, endings are hard and um, like there was a lot of emotions involved, but um, I’m actually, this is a good thing. [00:40:32] Christina: So I haven’t been on any antidepressants since basically Middle slash end of October, uh, when I came off of the new antidepressant that I went on, um, which I went on in hopes of kind of getting me out of a major, major depression that I was in, um, earlier this year that was pretty debilitating. And, uh, at first it was working really well and then it was not and I was having some really gnarly side effects, so I went off of it. [00:40:56] Christina: And um, so now I’m not on anything. Um, but I was talking [00:41:00] about this with my psychiatrist yesterday. Like I, I’m feeling good. I think that the one good thing of that medicine was I think it did like click me out of that like very deep, like kind of suicidal, like bad place depression. And um, I feel like almost like my brain like reset. [00:41:15] Christina: And so I’m not on anything right now other than my ADHD meds. And, but, but what’s affirming about this is that like, I went through like this, you know, like big end of a thing. Um, and, uh, which again, like it was our choice and it was, uh, time to do it. And it was, you know, for the right reasons, but it’s still, you know, endings are hard and it’s a lot. [00:41:34] Christina: And I think that I had like the right emotional response, but also what it didn’t, you know, take me into any other bad places or anything. So, um, that’s, that’s my brief kind of update. Things are good. [00:41:46] Jeff: I, I cried when I listened to your, [00:41:48] Brett: it was it was tearjerker. [00:41:50] Jeff: headliner [00:41:51] Christina: Yeah. Well, thank you. I mean, I meant everything I said about that. And, um, you know, all that emotion was real, which was evident in my voice and all of that. Um, but [00:42:00] yeah, you know, it’s just, um, it’s hard, you know, as we all know, sometimes when things come to their logical conclusion, and it doesn’t mean that, like, you’re, you don’t, aren’t grateful for everything that happened and all of that, but it can be a lot. [00:42:13] Christina: And I’m just glad that that didn’t, that, that In some universes could have had the potential to trigger other things, and so far, like, hasn’t. So that’s, that’s a good thing. Uh, the thing, though, that, uh, Jeff, Alex, and I do have to just, like, scream about, though, and this is, this is the reason I brought up Rocket as a segue, was that now that I don’t have a long running podcast that would have given me time to yell about this, I, I apologize for using Overtired as my soapbox here. [00:42:42] A Little Bit of Taylor Swift, but also Journalism Critiques [00:42:42] Jeff: you do have a podcast with Taylor [00:42:43] Christina: I [00:42:44] Alex: genuinely like a mental health thing for so many [00:42:48] Christina: Oh, God, you’re so right. [00:42:50] Alex: Oh gosh. [00:42:51] Christina: so the background is, is that the, the New York fucking Times, the New York Times, the newspaper of record, ran, um, uh, [00:43:00] a guest opinion column from one of the opinion editors. So this is like a staff editor, like at the New York Times who wrote this thing. And Jeff’s going to talk about that. [00:43:07] Jeff: host Christina [00:43:09] Christina: Yeah, exactly. It’s so weird. Called, Look What We Made Taylor Do, which goes full Gaylor. And if you’re not familiar with Gaylor, that is the conspiracy theory. And yes, I will use that word very like that, that term very specifically because it is that Taylor Swift is secretly gay and she has been sending her fans, um, coded messages for 10 years about her, her, or longer than that. [00:43:30] Christina: Some of them claim going all the way back to 2006, she’s been sending fans coded messages that she is. I’m actually not into boys named Drew and Steven and, um, uh, you know, Joe Alwyn and, and her current boyfriend or anybody else, but she’s actually, uh, a, a, a woman loving woman and is very queer and is, is, we are all just too blind to see it. [00:43:50] Christina: Um, [00:43:51] Brett: absolutely belongs in a Mental Health Corner. mental health. [00:43:55] Christina: yeah, because this, this theory has been going on for at least a decade. I’ve been watching some of these people [00:44:00] online for a decade plus at this point, and these are genuinely some of the most like, unhinged and unwell corners of the internet I’ve ever seen, like genuinely. And, and I, I don’t say that with affection. [00:44:10] Christina: I say that with like actually a little bit of like disturbance because then it’s made its way YouTube and all these other things. And like young people are taking it as actual fact and it’s, it’s not. It’s, it’s, this is like QAnon, but for, you know, fandom stuff and [00:44:27] Alex: hmm. [00:44:28] Christina: genuinely. And That was platformed this week by the New York Times in a 5, 000 word essay. [00:44:36] Christina: Um, 5, 000 [00:44:37] Alex: Felt longer. so much [00:44:39] Christina: It’s so long. It’s like, [00:44:40] Jeff: so much longer. I counted it towards the end and I was like, oh, that is still long, but [00:44:46] Brett: Jeff called it exhaustive and exhausting. [00:44:49] Alex: Mm hmm. [00:44:50] Christina: yes. That’s exactly what I said. It’s exhaustive and exhausting. Definitely needed a better editor. Um, it, and it, it really, really, really wants everyone to think that Taylor Swift is not just gay, but has been [00:45:00] sending this, as I said, hidden messages, expressing her gayness for years. And, and I, I’m both kind of amazed. [00:45:06] Christina: I’m mostly upset about this, but I’m also kind of amazed. I’m like, how in the fuck did this Tumblr discourse get into the New Times? Like, what the fuck? [00:45:18] Alex: I feel Mm. I don’t want to say I know, because I don’t want to go into the other conspiracy side thing of, uh No, it is true. Like, the New York Times does New York Times Oh, I apologize, that was a phone. Um, the New York Times doesn’t exactly have a stellar history of covering queer people, and so when they need, uh, like, they’re they’ve got some tokens around and sort of just plop something in, and like, this is palatable. [00:45:52] Alex: Right? Right, right, right? This is, oh, Times Person of the Year, [00:45:57] Brett: ha ha, [00:45:58] Alex: And reading this piece, I [00:46:00] was just, again, shocked at not just the Tumblerness of it. It was kind of funny to read a Tumblr post with the New York style. It’s Ms. Swift, Ms. Swift. [00:46:12] Christina: Yes. It’s so funny. so You’re come on now. Yeah. [00:46:15] Alex: Oh, gosh. Um, and I know the Gaylor stuff has happened for a while and it came to fresh off the wonder I mean, you would know more [00:46:28] Christina: One Direction. Yes. [00:46:29] Alex: but yeah. [00:46:30] Christina: That started it. Larry. [00:46:32] Alex: God, yeah, thank you, thank you. Yeah, [00:46:34] Christina: then that, that, [00:46:34] Alex: book that. It was [00:46:35] Christina: that’s the portmanteau about uh, uh, uh, uh, Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles, which, um, alleges that they were in a relationship together. And, um, that, that, that led up and included the fact that, that, that Louis actual child was a fake baby. [00:46:48] Christina: There was a person on the internet who I used to follow, like, I hate follow, but still, who like literally bought baby dolls that she would try to dress up and make to look like the pho like recreate the photos of Louis Tomlinson’s actual child.[00:47:00] [00:47:00] Jeff: Oh my goodness. That’s moon landing [00:47:02] Christina: Oh yeah, oh yeah, no, 1000%. And, and, and the thing is, is that, yeah, but you’re right, it started with, with, with Larry. Uh, and then the Taylor thing, like, [00:47:10] Jeff: It always starts with a Larry. [00:47:12] Christina: does, and what happened, [00:47:13] Jeff: suit Larry. Larry. Larry. [00:47:14] Christina: then Taylor [00:47:15] Jeff: Larry Page. [00:47:16] Christina: Taylor Swift started dating Harry Styles, and so the only way that the Larry fans could explain that was that not only was she his beard, but that he was also her beard. [00:47:26] Christina: So they were bearding for each other, and she was in a relationship with Diana Agron, who was on the TV show Glee at the time, which had a bunch of unhinged and young queer fans. Not to say that all queer fans were unhinged, but to say all Glee fans were unhinged, yes, absolutely. I am saying that. And I watched Glee, [00:47:42] Alex: It was, uh, my favorite show to hate watch. [00:47:45] Christina: I’m, totally, [00:47:46] Alex: uh, I have a question So [00:47:49] Brett: okay. So I’m completely outside of all of what you’re talking about. Um, are the people who are, um, kind of promoting these conspiracies of [00:48:00] Taylor Swift being gay, are they also queer and hoping for some like extra connection or are they straight and hoping for another reason to dislike [00:48:10] Christina: Oh, it’s mostly, uh, wanting the connection. And it’s a mixture, I would say. It’s mostly, the most visible ones are queer, but you definitely have plenty of straight gaylers as well. And I definitely don’t think that it’s a to dislike thing. It’s a, I think it’s two. I think it’s one, to your point, hoping for an extra connection and wanting to view things through a queer lens, which I support. [00:48:29] Christina: And I think that all art should be able to view through whatever lens you want. I think it’s completely different when you take an actual human being. And you start putting your own conspiracy theories and interpretations on their life because it’s like, she is the biggest star in the world. She’s also a person. [00:48:43] Christina: And that’s why I think this article was so gross, was that it did not at all acknowledge that this is a real person. It literally treated it like fanfic, which I think was just completely dehumanizing, um, on, on, on every level. But I think that the, so I think some of it is, [00:48:56] Alex: yeah, not just to her, but the queer community in general. [00:49:00] As being queer is just a s a way to stand the same sex situation. Like, it was so odd. Ugh. [00:49:07] Christina: the whole thing. [00:49:08] Brett: curious about [00:49:09] Christina: No, no, the motivation is usually I think to be close and I think the secondary motivation is we know something you don’t know and we have the truth and which is the same with a lot of conspiracy theories. I know what’s [00:49:19] Brett: conspiracy theory [00:49:20] Christina: Yeah, I know what’s really going on and you don’t look at me, come to me and whatnot and [00:49:24] Brett: your research. [00:49:26] Christina: exactly, and, and I think that, um, but I do think that, [00:49:29] Alex: Educate yourself. [00:49:30] Christina: but I think the primary But it’s interesting, because Gaylor’s interesting, because that was a great point you brought up, Alex, like it did, it was a spinoff of Larry, and Larry is almost completely heterosexual women who ship that, like that is almost completely straight women who were part of that, and I don’t even know if that’s a thing anymore, but that was almost 100 percent young, um, Straight girls who were really into these, you know, two hot guys together, which is a fanfic trope in and of itself. [00:49:56] Christina: Um, but then, you know, uh, Gaylor, which originally was, was, you [00:50:00] know, with Diana Agron, but then it really took off with, with Karlie Kloss, Kaylor. That was like more, more queer centered women, you know, at least, um, the vocal proponents of it. [00:50:10] Alex: Mm hmm. That’s when it really got to me, like, before, because I am not in, oh gosh, I have such a compli complicated relationship with Taylor Swift. I don’t know if I’ve talked about it with you, Christina, but pretty much, especially with 1989, in the way that I interpret and love that album in a way I know she didn’t write it, and, but has been like, oh man, I, like, that’s very much as a real, like, for, for me, it’s Odd because I started, I started listening to it at first, but my mom was such a huge country music fan that when I was a kid, it’s not that like I hated Taylor Swift, just like, [00:50:47] Christina: She me [00:50:48] Alex: Tim McGraw, come on. [00:50:50] Christina: right? Like it the music that on on the radio your mom would, you know, made you listen to I don’t like [00:50:56] Alex: Right. And it like, and she was like around, especially like, I’m [00:51:00] like, I don’t want to hear the song about 9 11 and then there’s like this woman. Okay, fine. Um, and you know, um, and then watching this young, I’m a little bit younger than her, but like seeing her progress and especially like 1989, that was, oh God, that was when I, God, I, I don’t think there’s another A parasocial relationship I have that has one of like, God, so much respect and like, iconic, just even if I didn’t enjoy any of her music, just the amount and stamina of her work is shock, shock. [00:51:42] Alex: People who’ve listened to this podcast, I know that you’ve said this many [00:51:46] Christina: No, I love hearing you say too. [00:51:47] Alex: It should be repeated, not just because it’s like, oh my god, there’s this, whether you like it or not, there’s this iconic art, but there’s a, uh, I don’t even want [00:52:00] to say a single person making this, I mean, like, yes, exactly, it is a single person that is Um, article is speculating on with fanfiction and it’s going to not just deeply affect her, because it’s the fucking New York Times, it affects her entire business. [00:52:17] Alex: Like Taylor talked about how she is a business in a really, I don’t know, I think like in a wholesome way, as odd as that might sound. And I, it’s just another commoditization of not just a woman, but an entire community. And it’s, Once again, affecting folks livelihood who just want to go about their lives, who have nothing to do with this, who just don’t It’s so It’s just another instance of the New York Times making life more difficult for people I know. [00:52:51] Alex: Like, it’s so messed up that Oh, you can swear. It is avid in the show, right? Right? [00:52:56] Christina: yeah, you totally swear. Absolutely go for [00:52:59] Alex: just [00:53:00] shocked how fucked, like, this national newspaper continues. To make, like, God, like, I know that saying an article about Taylor Swift is similar to its trans coverage might, is, is, it is different, but in the same casual way that it’s presented, and it’s like, well, it’s an opinion piece. [00:53:25] Alex: It’s just an opinion. We’re just asking the [00:53:27] Christina: just asking you questions. Well, and then what’s about this one is that that it came from, yeah it is, to me what honestly makes this a little bit worse in some ways, um, well not worse, but I guess different. I don’t want to say worse, but different from the trans coverage, is that this one’s coming from inside the house. [00:53:42] Christina: Like, [00:53:42] Alex: Oh, I think it is, it is worse. It [00:53:44] Brett: And that’s super fucked [00:53:45] Christina: that super fucked up. Like, this isn’t something that someone pitched and that like an un, you know, knowledgeable editor stupidly let through. Like, this is a [00:53:52] Brett: or somewhat of somewhat of notes submitted and they felt obligated [00:53:56] Christina: no, this, this is a person who works as an editor in the opinion section who [00:54:00] is probably, you know, the way I see it, they don’t have any extremely online people who are between the ages of 30 and 45 working in opinion. [00:54:07] Christina: Because if they did, then there’s no way this gets published. Because I would think that any extremely online person between 30 and 45 would be like, Oh no, this is insane, and, and, this is taking literally conspiracy theories from the most insane people, like, let’s put aside the fact that, let’s say this is true, and you’ve now just outed someone and basically told someone, on no uncertain terms, you have to come out for visibility because it’s important to us. [00:54:31] Christina: Oh, and all you other queer artists, which is amazing that’s happening right now, none of you matter. The only one that matters, and the only way that we will have any visibility that matters at all, is if the biggest star in the world lives up to these, these notions that we have, which are completely unfounded. [00:54:45] Christina: But like, putting all that aside, like, I think that you would have, if you’d had like, Actually, you know, online connected people working in the opinion section, they would be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The people that propagate these theories are actually very unwell and are not healthy. And, and no matter [00:55:00] how you want to interpret things yourself, putting out an essay like this is, is promoting the wrong things. [00:55:05] Christina: But you’d Don’t, I’m assuming. And so I, this is just conjecture on my part, is you take somebody who’s like, oh, well, we have this, this queer, uh, you know, editor and, and she already wrote this, you know, weird Harry Styles thing last year that got a lot of traffic. So she’s got this idea. It’s person of [00:55:20] Jeff: Oh, that was her too. [00:55:22] Alex: Mm hmm. [00:55:23] Jeff: Okay, I have a leading question for you, Christina and Alex. If it were true, isn’t it worse? I mean, it’s terrible as it is, but if it were true, isn’t it worse in a way? [00:55:34] Christina: All of it is tolerable. Yeah. [00:55:37] Alex: it, it just, God, and because a She is queer, right? The person who this. I wasn’t, I was so angry that I, um, like it, it just continues the narrative of tokenizing queer people and, uh, like, oh, see, look, it was by erasure. It was by erasure. And, [00:56:00] and, and there, God. And I think, Christina, this It’s You can answer this question more, but it again tries to put like, it tries to paint it as if like, well, she could be bi, but also like maybe not. [00:56:14] Alex: And also, you know, but she is a lesbian, but you know, uh, remember when she was a token? She’s not a token. It’s poorly written. It has a bad argument. [00:56:23] Christina: So poorly written. So poorly [00:56:24] Alex: I I mean, I don’t know, Christine, like, yeah, how did that make you feel as someone who just, you’re a bi woman and like watching this just weird binary proclamation, like this woman is saying things as if it just applies to an entire community about a single [00:56:45] Christina: About a single person? Yeah, well, the bi erasure thing is always a common thing in the, in the Gaylor kind of universe. And because, you know, there’s, because the whole theory really hinges on, we know more than you, and you’ve been lied to, and we know the truth. And so nothing can be, you [00:57:00] know, Um, uh, Real, right? [00:57:02] Christina: It has to all, all of it has to be a snow job. For reasons that make less and less sense. It’s like, even the article, which was very poorly written, talks about how, how many strides, you know, queer artists have made, but then still like, lives up to the basic conceit that the most powerful woman in pop culture couldn’t come out of the closet if she wanted to. [00:57:18] Christina: Like, come on, of course she could. And, and, and, and it, [00:57:21] Brett: could seriously [00:57:23] Christina: would be good for her business, if you think about it. Like, right now, to be, like, a, a young, like, queer musician, like, female musician, that is, like, brand catnip. Like, you almost have to be. Like, it’s almost one of those things, like, if you’re not, that’s kind of a problem, to be completely honest. [00:57:37] Christina: Like, it, it works, right? So, she, and Taylor Swift loves money more than she loves anything else, so she would get more sales, she would get more streams, she would get, like, whatnot. Like, I, I can’t, there’s no universe that [00:57:48] Jeff: she loves Johnny football? [00:57:50] Brett: Okay, [00:57:52] Alex: I did not know about that until Merlin Mann told me, like, Go with God, Taylor. I don’t know who that guy is. And it’s, [00:58:00] I just am, I don’t know, like, It would be so much, I get it. I, this rando on the internet, get yelled at for not talking about being gay enough. It’s, it’s weird. is gonna sound [00:58:13] Brett: super out of character for me But I think Taylor Swift honestly loves creating more than she loves money. has been very fortunate to, she has gotten a lot of money out of the deal. Um, honestly, as I’m a stand her by, I don’t really give a shit, but it seems to me like she gets paid for doing what she loves and what she loves is creating. [00:58:40] Christina: and I would agree with that. [00:58:41] Brett: don’t think she makes a bunch of money grabs. I think she tries to own her work. [00:58:45] Christina: no, I mean, I would [00:58:46] Brett: Like, all of her re [00:58:48] Christina: Oh, totally. No, no, no, I with you. No, no, you’re, you’re not wrong there. I’m, I’m being flippant, but I’m just saying she knows how to maximize, right? I think she, she creates first and foremost. She’s the creator, but she knows how to maximize for profit. And I, and I [00:59:00] cannot see someone who has very deliberately and I think in a, in A good way, like mind her personal life, you know, for her art and, and I don’t say that derogatorily at all. [00:59:08] Christina: I’m actually really respectful of think it’s an amazing thing that she’s done, um, as we talked about last episode, but I cannot see how like in this environment where that would get you more accolades, more streams, more sales, more whatever, that that would not be something that in the last five years would not have been part of the narrative if it were actually, if any of this had any actual basis in reality. [00:59:29] Christina: But the fact of the matter is, even if it does, it’s none of our business. And you know what I mean? Like, it’s, it’s, it’s gross to me that we’re even having this conversation. A, the biracial stuff I think is gross, but, you know, whatnot, but it, but I also, uh, love your opinion on this too, Alex. Like, the binary in all of this, which is, oh, well, if you act this way, then that is indicative of you being this type of, of, of person, and your sexuality has to be this. [00:59:53] Christina: Like, I’m sorry, weren’t we supposed to be getting away from that? Like, what the fuck? Like, [00:59:57] Alex: I worry about the fallout [01:00:00] now for Boy Genius, because they’re already fetishized for, and they openly celebrate their queerness as their [01:00:07] Christina: and they openly will shit on their weird ass fans, which, which I appreciate. Like, they will actually speak against it and be like, it, because, like, uh, apparently, like, last year [01:00:17] Alex: Stone, and I’m like, oh, I love you all. [01:00:20] Christina: totally, totally. When Phoebe was basically like, yeah, some of you assholes, like, bullied me, had my profile picture and bullied me on my way to my father’s funeral, if you do that, I fucking hate you and you are not, you know, don’t listen to my music. [01:00:32] Christina: Hell yeah. Um, Taylor Swift is not that artist, but no, I agree with you. I worry for, for, and the, some of the Boy Genius fans are insane, but, but I think that band deals with it a lot better. Um. But also, you know, Taylor Swift shouldn’t have to answer for any of this, but it’s, uh, the, the, the CNN clapped back through a person close to Taylor Swift, um, a. [01:00:52] Christina: k. a. her publicist, G Pain, um, and basically, let me find the, let me find the, uh, um, Let me find the quote. So the [01:01:00] headline is Taylor Swift’s Associates Dismayed by New York Times Piece Speculating on Her Sexuality, Invasive, Untrue, and Inappropriate. And then I’m just going to read this. So this quote is, there’s some shade here that I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but I kind of like it. [01:01:13] Christina: Um, it says, um, uh, this article wouldn’t have been allowed to be written about Shawn Mendes or any male artists whose sexuality has been questioned by fans. [01:01:24] Alex: Hell [01:01:25] Brett: sure. [01:01:25] Christina: Which, which is both true and also kind of a, a speculatory, is that, is that kind of like asking us all, I mean, is that kind of an invitation to be like, write about the real homo? [01:01:34] Christina: I don’t know. Um, and, [01:01:38] Alex: Who’s to say? [01:01:39] Christina: who’s to say? I don’t know, but [01:01:40] Jeff: feel like they decided to like get into the game. Yeah. [01:01:43] Christina: a little bit, a little bit, but yeah, no, but this is funny that a person close to, to, to Taylor Swift like spoke with, with CNN, uh, so AKA again, her publicist, but like, yeah, uh, the whole thing, it’s just, I don’t know how this got published and it’s, it’s insulting on. [01:01:58] Alex: the New York Times. Like, I [01:02:00] feel like I probably have the least amount of respect for the paper than folks here. And I, I mean, Especially because of the staff thing, and Christina, I was gonna disagree with you of like, um, this wouldn’t have been published if there were folks on staff who were at that age, but then you said like, people who aren’t online, because I do think the New York Times pretty much hires a very specific type of person, but then Has them write about things that you, we don’t know, this woman might not have wanted to write, like, that’s not an excuse, but, okay, [01:02:40] Christina: she was made [01:02:40] Alex: oh, right, I keep [01:02:42] Christina: no, no, no, no. she’s extremely online and she’s into all this stuff. She doesn’t have social media, which is probably good for her. Um, [01:02:49] Alex: yeah, [01:02:50] Christina: her name, but you know, she’s in every Reddit, TikTok, whatever. [01:02:53] Christina: Like she’s, she’s part of this, right? She’s deeply online, but that’s unlike most of like, I think that like most of them At least, [01:03:00] this is my experience, and I’m probably, you know, being too broad here. But most of the people I know who work at the New York Times who are millennials are not extremely online. [01:03:07] Christina: Now, I think that for Gen Z, I think it’s different. I think that, like, the Zoomers that are hiring probably are more online. And I, I, but I definitely, the reason to me is like, if you had anybody on staff who was able to make decisions about stuff like this, who was extremely online, They would have been able to tell you in a second, this is a bad idea for x, y, z reason. [01:03:28] Christina: But you didn’t have that. So you get like this boomer mentality. Oh yeah, this is what the kids like and this will be fine and this will give us representation. There’s nothing offensive about this, even though the entire conceit is offensive and disrespectful and dehumanizing, um, uh, whether it’s true or not. [01:03:42] Christina: Um, uh, and, but, but it’s because No one, like, running the ship, in my opinion, is like, you know, unhinged in, in a way that’s necessary if you’re going to run things like, or like, stop things like this from running, I guess. [01:03:57] Alex: Yeah, there’s there’s not like, as [01:04:00] someone who is pretty unhinged myself at times, like, at least I know when I’m missing the hinges. you know, [01:04:06] Jeff: Yeah, yeah, right, [01:04:06] Alex: gotta be like, Ah, yes, let me just screw this one in a little bit more, whereas there isn’t anyone there who can [01:04:12] Jeff: I just pictured a door running off like you lose your hinges and you’re door running off. Can [01:04:18] Alex: as a dork. One trim. I’m sorry. [01:04:23] Jeff: I just add like the one thing that’s kind of separate from all this that I found just deeply, deeply problematic, which is the very first in which they describe they are. Yeah. First, talk about Taylor, year she released her first record, and then describe a suicidal act that is, if you don’t know the person who’s named and don’t know whether she went through with it or not, which I didn’t. [01:04:46] Jeff: Is it she? Is it they? I, [01:04:48] Christina: it’s, it’s she, and not, don’t make that [01:04:50] Jeff: and she did not, which I learned later, but. I, this is a trope. This is a trope in true crime. And it’s a, and it’s something terrible that they did in this article, which is to take a [01:05:00] person you don’t necessarily know, put them in a suicidal act scene and not tell you what happens as a way of investing you, but also as a way of setting stakes that are never explained. [01:05:11] Jeff: I mean, they’re, they’re explained. I understand happening there, but what a horrible thing to do. And that was the part where I had not read that this guest opinion person was. An opinion editor, even though it’s right there. And I spent the rest of the article being like, Who is the fucking editor for this? [01:05:28] Jeff: Only to get to the end and be like, Oh, it’s like your friend. Like, I get it. [01:05:35] Alex: threads, like I’m not even that much of a, not that I don’t know that in a lot of cases trigger warnings are important and there’s a time and place for them, but I’m not like a huge trigger warning person, but I’m like, the very first sentence gives a very graphic description too, and I’m what is happening right now? [01:05:56] Jeff: as [01:05:56] Christina: Gratuitous shit and grotesque when you consider, like, you’re taking a real [01:06:00] person’s real situation about her actual life and about something that she went through, which was difficult for her to come out as a country music artist, to tie into your fan fiction theory where you fetishize a real person as, like, not real so that you can, what, like, play paper dolls? [01:06:14] Christina: Like, this is, this is, uh, uh, the whole thing is [01:06:17] Jeff: And having, having read the whole thing and been like, wow, this whole thing sounds like a really intense, hurtful version of the moon landing theories, like, where, like, you can imagine someone reading and being like, well, now that you say Um, but like, the crazy thing to me was that, that very beginning for me should have meant that for, I didn’t read anymore, right? [01:06:38] Jeff: Like, except I really wanted to read this. If it, if you weren’t saying, Christina, I want to talk about this on the show. I would have been like, Oh, fuck you. I’m not another word. And then instead I got 5, 000 words of, Oh, fuck you. I’m not reading another word, but I’m reading the next the paragraph. [01:06:55] Brett: this is intriguing to me because, like, some of the [01:07:00] people that responded to Christina talking about Overtired are like, I like it, but I don’t like the Taylor Swift. this isn’t really about Taylor Swift. This is more about the New York Times and, and they have a history, like their opinion section has a history of letting a lot of bullshit. [01:07:20] Brett: get into print. And so I’m gonna, I’m not going to label this episode as a Taylor Swift episode because that’s not [01:07:29] Christina: really [01:07:29] Brett: about, about bad [01:07:32] Christina: I, I would be as offended, I might even be more offended, frankly, if it were a less famous person, right? Like, I [01:07:36] Brett: If it were about [01:07:37] Christina: oh yeah, I mean, [01:07:38] Brett: seriously, [01:07:39] Christina: I mean, I think [01:07:39] Brett: it’s a hit job, matter [01:07:41] Christina: I mean, I think, honestly, the only kind of saving grace you can make at all about this in terms of just it’s, I mean, I think it’s bad to platform these ideas and to get this stuff into fruition and, and maybe encourage it about other people. [01:07:51] Christina: And like, it’s, it’s problematic and, and, and disturbing in a lot of ways. But I mean, the only thing I can kind of say about this is that like, okay, this is the most famous person in the world. Things are going to be said and [01:08:00] whatnot, you know, so, so it’s, it’s, I, I don’t worry about any harm to like Taylor Swift as a person, right? [01:08:05] Christina: Like, whatever. [01:08:05] Brett: But in the New York [01:08:07] Christina: But in the New York Times, like, do we really need to, as I said, take some of the most unhinged and unhealthy people I’ve ever observed on the internet, not the most, but some of the most, and like, let’s just platform all those opinions, and like, let’s just bring this into a conversation. [01:08:20] Christina: Yeah, let’s just talk about this. What the fuck? This is like, again, this is like QAnon shit. Like, [01:08:28] Brett: Yeah, [01:08:28] Alex: asking the questions! It’s the opinion section. that’s like twi that’s like, Musk’s approach to Twitter of [01:08:36] Brett: like it’s a, uh, what, uh, free speech absolutist. We say whatever we want. But it’s coming from the inside, as Jeff said. And it’s so messed up, [01:08:46] Jeff: And let’s not forget to mention the more than a dozen ads inside of that article. [01:08:53] Alex: got [01:08:53] Jeff: And they, [01:08:54] Alex: blockers. [01:08:55] Jeff: of money [01:08:55] Christina: was gonna say, I was gonna say, UBlock Origin works real well for me, and I pay for the New York [01:09:00] Times. Um, so, you know. [01:09:03] Brett: I, I, okay. Uh, si side note. I have two [01:09:07] On Depression and Suicidal Ideation [01:09:07] Brett: side notes. Can I, I, I’m gonna interject. [01:09:10] Jeff: One right, one on the [01:09:11] Brett: I know Jeff, Jeff has to leave soon, [01:09:13] Jeff: I’m okay. [01:09:14] Brett: number one, I finally got my raspberry pie for, and I’m gonna set up pie hole for my [01:09:22] Christina: Oh, hell yes. [01:09:23] Brett: Side note. Second side note, I talked in a previous episode about my own suicidal ideation. [01:09:30] Christina: an update from you on that. [01:09:31] Brett: And Christina said, this is clearly a med problem, and it turns out it was. I talked to my psychiatrist, I did a special session with her outside of her regularly scheduled sessions, upped my lamictal a little bit, and Honestly, like, all of that ideation is gone. I am back to, I am back to my normal, slightly depressed, but not suicidal self. [01:09:57] Brett: Um, so anyone who was following [01:10:00] that, I got a lot of letters after that episode. Um, for anyone who’s following that, I am okay. Everything is Like, when you’re okay, those kind of, those thoughts, those ideas seem so distant. Um, you can’t imagine, yeah, exactly. And that’s what’s so scary when you’re in it, it feels so real. [01:10:22] Christina: real and can’t remember what it’s like outside of it. I mean, I think that’s why depression is such a mindfuck because when you’re in it, it’s a black hole is how I always describe it. When you’re in it, you can’t remember what it’s like to not be depressed. But then when you’re not, you underscore like how bad it is and, and you don’t, it seems so far away. [01:10:38] Christina: And so creep up on you suddenly, like slowly. And then all it’s, it’s, you know, everything, everywhere, all at once, uh, you know, to quote last year’s best film. Um, and, and, and you’re like, what fuck, you know? [01:10:49] Brett: Yeah. Yep. But I’m okay. Thanks to everyone for your, your letters of support and concern and checking in on me. Um, Brian, friend of the [01:11:00] show, checked in on me multiple times. All of my Facebook friends checked in on me. I get emails. It was, uh, heartwarming and I just want to let everyone know I’m okay. [01:11:10] Jeff: It’s fantastic. [01:11:13] Alex: That’s another reason I love this show, is because you are able to talk about these things and not, I don’t want to say not cause a panic, but because there is such a stigma around talking about suicidal ideation and attempts, it’s so easy to be labeled as suicidal. The suicide person. And, uh, it’s, and, I, I mean, that, because I’ve been in those situations, so many, like, it is difficult to talk about because I think, Brett, because you talk about it so often, people know to check on you and to take care of you, but with a level of respect and don’t take away your [01:12:00] agency as a person, you know? [01:12:02] Alex: And, uh, thank you for talking about that and adjusting your medication. [01:12:09] Brett: Yeah. Yeah. I do the best I can. [01:12:14] Back to the Raspberry Pi [01:12:14] Jeff: Ugh. Yes. Did you make this is a hard, hard turn, but it’s still one of your side, uh, quests. Did you mean Raspberry Pi 5 or 4? [01:12:26] Brett: It’s a four. [01:12:27] Jeff: Okay! [01:12:27] Christina: I [01:12:27] Brett: know there was a [01:12:28] Christina: there was a, I had this, [01:12:29] Alex: know those five [01:12:30] Christina: oh, Jeff, I had the same question in my mind, I, [01:12:32] Jeff: insane! It’s like, basically now, [01:12:35] Christina: it’s like a full computer. Yeah, [01:12:36] Brett: I on, I was on a waiting list for [01:12:39] Christina: yeah, yeah, they were able to make them, [01:12:41] Brett: for a [01:12:41] Jeff: dude, I had five of them here. I should have sent you [01:12:43] Brett: Jesus. So, one finally showed up, and I already had cases. Oracle gave us, like, as swag, they gave us, uh, V4 cases. Uh, or whatever. Four. It’s something four. Um, and I had the case, so I wanted the four to fit [01:13:00] in the case. [01:13:01] Brett: Um, I don’t know if it would change between 4 and 5, like literally this is my first Raspberry Pi. Um, I’m exploring, I’m watching a ton of YouTube videos and all the shit I can do with it. I’m gonna set up home assistant and pie hole are my, my plans for it. Um, but now that I know there’s a five, I gotta get on a waiting list for that now [01:13:22] Jeff: Honestly, I feel like the five takes away a little bit of the fun as much as I want [01:13:26] Christina: Yeah, I have a few [01:13:28] Jeff: it was always going get to the point it’s like, okay, well now it’s like a Chromebook, but better. Like the, whereas like the four was the very edge of that when it started getting like eight gigs of memory [01:13:39] Christina: and I have, I do, I do have a number of fours, um, I have like two, two or three of them. Um, and I got them, like I got most of them like before the pandemic and then that was the thing. Nobody, they couldn’t produce them enough. And I think that’s actually the main reason why like the five is kind of even a thing is like, okay, it was actually net easier for us to just make a new thing than to try to like get the supply or, you know, [01:14:00] organized for, um, the, the, The four. [01:14:02] Christina: Um, they are backordered a little bit from some of the retailers, but it’s like a mid January thing depending on, on when you’re wanting to, to get them, depending on who you’re getting it from. So they’re not, it’s not impossible the way that it, that it was with the fours. Um, but, um, that’s a good segue for you, Jeff, and I don’t know if you have time to talk about your Synology stuff because a lot of the things that, you want to do in your Synology are things that Brett wants to do with his pie. [01:14:26] Brett: But we didn’t give Alex a shot at the mental [01:14:30] Christina: Oh, sorry about that. [01:14:32] Mental Health Corner (Part 3) [01:14:32] Alex: Oh, God, I, mwah, uh, no, uh, I mean, from, like, Jew by Friday, folks, listen, most will know that it’s been, like, 2023 was probably, like, I describe it as not the worst year of my life, but definitely the loneliest year, which I didn’t know until the end, and definitely self inflicted [01:15:00] loneliness with the, uh, This is a weird way to say something was a highlight, but from January to April, we, I was like taking care of my cat who has now passed away from cancer, and that was kind of what grounded me and gave me, it pushed away a lot of that. [01:15:26] Alex: Suicidal ideations and plans and was like, oh, someone needs me again. This is, um, yeah. And then after that, it was a big crash. This is also the first time I’ve lost a pet not from old age. And I think, yeah, Brett was even in town and I couldn’t see him because I’m like, oh, that was kind of like when she was really like, oh, it was time. [01:15:52] Alex: Um. And, uh, it, yeah, it’s, it’s, but, you know, she was Uh, well, I mean, obviously the best [01:16:00] cat in the world, but, um, being able to main like maintain a member of my family’s quality of life for as long as possible was something that really gave me an intense amount of meaning that I didn’t expect Thank you very much. [01:16:18] Alex: To be gone afterwards, expected grief and relief, um, and it was, you know, inside, like, grief and despair. And you can see the, like, decline of everything I made from, like, it was really good when my cat had cancer and then it just plummeted from April until really, really now. Uh, and it was Another one of those things where I mentioned being, having that self inflicted loneliness, but also the, again, desire to not take Lamictal to [01:17:00] get that high of not being depressed and, you know, just finding a way to get up in the morning. [01:17:08] Alex: But in the past, I didn’t have like a manic episode and get a new cat. I promise people were worried about that. But we a friend of mine was like, Hey, um, this I found this cat and she’s been returned multiple times to the shelter. But I think she is perfect for you. And so so we got a new cat who is a little terror and and perfect. [01:17:32] Alex: And it’s not I don’t want to say that this cat like totally improved my mental health, but it reminded me. How much? It is, one, unhealthy to need to be needed, and that is, like, I, I know that my partner, like, needs me, and I, when I am sane, I rationally know how heartbroken people would be with But, [01:18:00] um, accepting that I have a desire to need to be needed, whether that be at my former job, with my relationships, or, uh, now, I’m like, okay, I want to channel this Into something that, uh, yeah, I got this little kitten, um, that I am taking care of that has made me get out of bed in the morning, but I’m going about it in a healthier way, realizing that, oh, this is a great way to focus on mental health, but I’m not going to let it devolve into, I need it. [01:18:43] Alex: that meaning in my life just because I want to make people happy. Like, it makes me happy to make my family happy, not the, the other way around. Which has led to me, I think, [01:19:00] again, making I know it’s gross to call podcasts art sometimes, but I’ve been back to making and making, uh, just, just, uh, different weird art stuff. [01:19:10] Alex: Not because I want to please people and not because I’m so afraid of letting them down, which I feel like I’ve let everyone down through all of 2023, despite everyone saying that the opposite, even though I am difficult, when I say difficult to deal with. Um, people, I think a lot of folks know what I mean in the way that when someone is very depressed, it is difficult to deal with them just because they don’t have expectations of themselves, and you don’t know how to handle that, and like, You don’t know if you should put expectations on them or when someone’s manic and they either exceed expectations or just completely blow them off. [01:19:59] Alex: [01:20:00] It’s a rollercoaster. Which is why I’m sort of having Uh, hard time putting this into a cohesive [01:20:10] Christina: you’re [01:20:11] Alex: mental health corner type of thing because it’s like I am slowly emerging from my mental health corner and exploring the whole room, uh, in the past, in the past few weeks, but I’m doing really well, less months. [01:20:27] Alex: I’m not happy to hear that Brett was going through what Brett was going through next week, last week, or a few weeks ago. And I don’t know, I’ve just been reaching out to folks as well. And again, being like, I know you don’t need me, I just like that we are friends. And, uh, I’m starting to like myself a little bit more, which is such a cliché thing [01:21:00] say! [01:21:00] Alex: Oh, but Mm [01:21:01] Brett: talk about how hard it is for people to deal with depressed people, but I feel like when you’re depressed, you feel so hard to deal with, and you just assume that no one else can deal with you. Because, like, I found myself in that position, um, in my last round of depression, just like, Who the fuck could stand me right now? [01:21:24] Brett: I am unlovable. I am, am a piece of shit. Like, who could love me? Um, and it may not be as hard as you think for the people who love you to deal with you as it seems when you’re in the middle of depression. [01:21:41] Alex: Yeah, I, I go into the binary thinking that you were talking about before, of like, of course it’s, uh, dealing with, not, not even dealing with, like, having and maneuvering relationships with folks who have any sort of mental illness or [01:22:00] disability, and pretty much everyone is difficult, but they’re so, they’re so, So much nuance and there’s, you know, a difference, not just for every person, but for every situation. [01:22:12] Alex: But, you know, you, Christina, like you said, you’re just in that depth that you don’t remember what it’s like when you’re above the water. You just have the binary thinking of the bottom of the ocean. [01:22:26] Jeff: Yeah. [01:22:27] Alex: Uh, it, I don’t know, past few, I’m, I’m trying, though, this is, this is another thing that it feels gross when you’re bipolar, is sometimes people will assume when you’re doing better it might be a manic episode, and [01:22:47] Jeff: yes, is the thing, this the thing. [01:22:49] Alex: That, yeah, that’s that’s sort of my main thing now is being like, look, I am measured. [01:22:54] Alex: I’m not taking on too much. This is not like [01:22:57] Brett: we know when we’re stable. We can tell [01:23:00] we’re stable. [01:23:01] Alex: see, I don’t always know So I yeah. So it’s [01:23:06] Brett: That’s interesting. I’m very aware of that myself. [01:23:09] Alex: Yeah, it’s I think that’s because it’s one of those things where. Because being bipolar is sort of my main thing, or my main diagnosis that other symptoms stem from. My brain is just wired in a certain way, um, and this also can vary from folks who are Bipolar 1 and Bipolar 2. [01:23:35] Alex: Like, because of the Bipolar 1 ness, that it [01:23:43] Alex: For me, I know when I am ramping up or like [01:23:46] Jeff: Yes. [01:23:47] Alex: down, but I don’t, in the midst of it, know it all. Even realize [01:23:53] Brett: bipolar 1, [01:23:54] Alex: yeah. [01:23:55] Brett: and Jeff is bipolar 1. Okay, you got you guys have more in [01:24:00] common than with me. Okay. [01:24:02] Alex: it’s a fun one. That’s why people think that you’re on cocaine. And you’re not. Just, I have a lot of Diet Coke. love that. And, oh man, Aspartame. If they took that away from me, like, understand people who are addicted to nicotine. Um, like, If Aspartame was taken away from me, I would, oh god, I would be creating my own, uh, Silk Road, just [01:24:30] Jeff: From your, from your, from cold dead [01:24:33] Alex: yes. That’s, that’s it. Thank you for That’s [01:24:39] Brett: you, That was really good. [01:24:42] Jeff: That’s super helpful. Man, that’s a good one. [01:24:47] Brett: I don’t know how much time you have, Jeff, but do you [01:24:49] Jeff: I’m, I’m, I’m in it for the gratitude. You kidding me? [01:24:52] Christina: yeah. Hell yeah. [01:24:52] Brett: right. Oh, [01:24:54] Synology as Step Dad [01:24:54] Jeff: And the Synology topic, we’ll, we’ll hit another time, but I’m going to ask Alex this. So I’ve had a [01:25:00] Synology for a while and I, I wrote in the show notes, a little thing about this, which is like using my Synology feels a little bit like, like if you had a new stepdad who was like kind of forward thinking, but kind of locked in the Microsoft universe with just a little bit of flirtation with Linux, like that’s how it feels to me to be using. [01:25:16] Jeff: Uh, whatever, DSM 7 or whatever it’s called. Not DSM. [01:25:20] Christina: dss, [01:25:20] Jeff: Is it called DSM? [01:25:21] Christina: think it called [01:25:22] Jeff: operations? [01:25:22] Brett: correct. [01:25:23] Alex: Yeah, [01:25:24] Jeff: By the way, I have a therapist friend who recently told me he was reading DSM 1, and I was like, is that like reading the Old But anyway, um, but, but, uh, I, I met Brett and Christina told me about something called download station, which I know everyone knows about. [01:25:39] Jeff: It seems like if they have a Synology as a way of doing my torrents that I don’t have to keep my laptop open. And I was like, it’s one of those things where I’m like, wow, I have a Synology and I wasn’t using it for this. And I need to figure out all the other ways to use it. Um, while also letting my stepdad know he’s not my real dad. And so Alex, just a lightning round here. What is like two, what are two things that like you [01:26:00] use your Synology for that you’re like, wow, my life would be very different without these things. My technological life. [01:26:05] Alex: Honestly, the biggest thing for me is just the, the backup and storage. I underestimated how much I would use, I guess, the dumb features of Synology that aren’t big fancy VPN Casey less style stuff. But I will say the second feature is possibly the best feature of Synology, which is having Friends who also use synologies and can, uh, give you advice for when you inevitably break it, or give you ideas on cool things to do with it. [01:26:42] Alex: And I previously for Oh, I also use it for, uh, Plex, but I had A use net account was, uh, I forget what I use. So sonar or, and radar and all, all that good stuff. But I tr or all [01:27:00] the, all the extra Rs. Oh, is that because it’s pirate? why they, there’s an extra r. [01:27:04] Brett: it? Is it? never of that. [01:27:07] Alex: Oh, that’s amazing. [01:27:09] Brett: That just sounded on at least two of us at the same [01:27:12] Christina: That’s adorable. Yes. [01:27:14] Alex: Oh man. And, uh, I, as much as I, uh, adore transmission, I was listening to an older episode of Overtired and I was like, wait, what’s down? What, what, what? And so I am daning with that because it’s more. Or at least it’s more in my wheelhouse, so I don’t need to be texting Casey at 10pm being like, Hey, can I use your Plex to watch this concert you got, please? [01:27:43] Brett: has great search capabilities. That’s what that’s what differentiates it [01:27:47] Christina: Totally. I totally agree. [01:27:49] Brett: Finding. [01:27:50] Alex: Yeah, so I, I guess that I am a, uh, like, I’m more distant from my stepdad, I, I suppose, but I’m [01:28:00] trying to, like you, build up that relationship. [01:28:03] Brett: use for, what do you, how do you back up to your synology? What do you use? [01:28:08] Alex: I don’t even know. In fact, I, and I can’t even look because my current, uh, or my MacBook Pro is at, Uh, Apple, right now, torn apart for a reason, I know. Uh, but I have to say, my friend, let me borrow a, uh, M2 MacBook Air, and other than for encoding and, and doing, um, 3D, 3D video editing, even like 4K editing is pretty solid and without, uh, like, without using proxy media and stuff. [01:28:38] Alex: So, yeah, I don’t remember. [01:28:40] Brett: I will say, [01:28:41] Alex: me it up. [01:28:41] Brett: I use, I use Synology Drive to backup my entire user folder, I use Arc to backup specific, uh, external drives to my Synology as a, as a double backup, and I use Time Machine I use MySynology as a time machine [01:29:00] destination. Um, so between the three, it has saved my ass just in the last couple months. [01:29:05] Brett: Uh, few times I’ve been able to find revisions and versions and, and save external hard drives. Um, just from having this like triple backup MySynology. [01:29:17] Alex: I didn’t know Time Machine Counted, that was my original thing, but I need to know I also just drag my alternate home directory into the drive. I don’t have it automated yet, and I [01:29:30] Jeff: I totally do [01:29:31] Alex: I know that I should, but I’m just like, let me just Um, [01:29:35] Jeff: do that. [01:29:36] Brett: This can be automated. [01:29:37] Alex: Mmhmm. [01:29:39] Brett: All right, should we do a gratitude before Jeff has to take [01:29:42] Grapptitude [01:29:42] Jeff: Yeah, can I go first in case [01:29:44] Brett: Yeah, yeah, [01:29:45] Jeff: in the midst of it? Um, okay, so mine is Datum, D A Y T U M, uh, which is both a website and an iPhone app. Um, and I, um, I love it and it’s a way, [01:30:00] like, what I like about it, it’s a way to track all kinds of stuff, but it’s stuff that you decide you want to track. [01:30:04] Jeff: And Um, and so for instance, like I’m tracking a lot of stuff that is like, if I’m not doing these things, it probably means I’m not doing well. Um, and so I’m so far in the first week of 2024 doing a good job of like tracking that stuff. But it also involves like, I’m tracking like contact with my parents. [01:30:21] Jeff: Cause I kind of tend to disappear from my parents a little bit. I don’t really want to. Um, and so if I’ve like been physically with my mom or like have been on the phone with my dad, who doesn’t live here, like I just kind of mark it. So I’m going to see like, wow, it’s been a long time. Cause I think time. [01:30:35] Jeff: This is something I think maybe goes along both with some sort of dissociation stuff I’ve dealt with most of my life, but also bipolar, which is like time disappears. Um, and it’s really people. so hard for people you’re in relationship with to believe that and understand it. Right. And you have responsibility, but it’s like, not like that. [01:30:53] Jeff: It’s not. Such a simple thing as responsibility. Stepdad. Um, but, uh, but anyway, what I [01:31:00] really love about Datum 101, like my requirement for any of this stuff is that I’d be able to export my data in like a CSV somewhere, right? Like or whatever format. Um, but so every other tracking app is, is designed in a way that every design choice is a value judgment. [01:31:16] Jeff: Like as soon as you start making an app pretty, which this one is not, you’re making value judgments. You’re either making a value judgment of a color that suggests, yay, nice work. Right. And maybe you’re getting worse and you’re putting fucking confetti on there and haptics and shit. But like, but, [01:31:32] Alex: haptics are good, but [01:31:33] Jeff: haptics are great. [01:31:34] Jeff: I mean, I love it. No, don’t get me wrong. I’ve used those apps where when I marked like that, I took a shower. like, yay. [01:31:42] Alex: Oh, [01:31:42] Jeff: yes, I did a great job today. Um, but anyway, [01:31:45] Brett: need that. [01:31:46] Jeff: I appreciate, no, I love that. But appreciate that this thing feels really steady because there is no value judgment. [01:31:53] Jeff: It’s just what you assign to the thing. Right. Um, and I think there are accidental value judgments in design. Right. Of course. [01:32:00] Like, and so. I have just loved it for that. And you know, it’s like updated enough. It was like twice last year and like four times the year before, like, um, and it also seems like the kind of thing that could probably like live quite a while past the developer deciding to update it. [01:32:15] Jeff: Cause it’s like simple enough. [01:32:17] Alex: Yeah, he had not abandoned, but he had it had been like not languishing for a while, but it was inactive. And it sounds like you you started when like development had picked up again. [01:32:32] Jeff: I started this week. [01:32:35] Alex: the guy who makes it is really cool, like, he designs it to be like, if I abandon this, I want it to be able to go on, which is great, yeah. [01:32:45] Jeff: it’s, it doesn’t just seem that way. It is that way. That’s fantastic. Fantastic. That’s my choice. [01:32:51] Brett: Awesome. Have you ever used, um, shit, what is it? Um, oh, I totally [01:33:00] blanked and I can’t remember the name of it. We’re just gonna make it pointless. Uh, Exist. Exist. io, [01:33:06] Alex: Exist. io! [01:33:08] Jeff: no. Oh yeah. I remember exist. io. [01:33:11] Brett: they let you set up like custom tags to, it’s not, it’s not going to be equal to data. I’m not suggesting it as an alternative, um, but you can track all kinds of metrics, uh, on a daily basis and it reminds you to basically journal with tags. And the, and the tags add ticks to whatever metric you want to track. [01:33:36] Brett: Um, it’s a pretty good, like, and then you get like weekly, monthly, and yearly reports from it, which I appreciate. [01:33:43] Jeff: One thing outside of like life tracking I do with this that I like is like, so in the last two weeks, our oven, our fridge. And our washing machine have broken. And so I have a, I have a thing. I have a I have a I just called broken. I have, I created item called broken, uh, but it’s really just for [01:34:00] when break and there’s one fixed for when things, which could also be used for mental health, I guess, but like, um, but I’m using it just to be able to track like, wow, that a lot of shit broke this year and it took us like this long to fix it, but like we got through it [01:34:11] Alex: Oh, that’s such a good idea. [01:34:13] Brett: bought a new fridge. [01:34:15] Christina: I [01:34:15] Brett: Um, I need, I need a new washer and dryer. I understand. [01:34:19] Jeff: yeah, we’re, I’m leaving to buy a washer after this podcast. So anyway. [01:34:23] Christina: Have fun at, fun at Lowe’s. [01:34:25] Jeff: Thank you, yeah. go? Cause I have to soon and I want to make sure I hear yours. [01:34:30] Alex: I, well, very similar to yours, I think when I was on this, uh, around the last time I talked about When Did I, which is an app that just reminds you, or rather it does not remind you, you just make a note of the last time you did something. So I would be like, yep, called my mom, today I called my grandma, uh, this is, used it to track how often I need a haircut, which is very, very often. [01:34:58] Jeff: I’m tracking my haircut in [01:35:00] datum. Yeah. [01:35:01] Alex: yeah, yeah, yeah, and, uh, just because it was more, uh, it was simpler than Datum, and when I was having a real broken brain time, I just needed something new. So simple, the kind of way that, you know, like datum, I would get into the weeds of myself and, but what was great wi with, um, what, uh, when did I, is I could then import it to datum. [01:35:30] Alex: And so the thing that I am super, uh, gr fi gr uh, I’m very yeah, very gr. [01:35:42] Jeff: Very graptiful. [01:35:44] Alex: For, um, a new ish app called Chronicling, uh, from Rebecca Owen, that’s based pretty much completely off of Swift, and I think it is pretty, but it really [01:36:00] Thanks Is sort of bare bones in sort of like the default iOS, well I guess not, the crossover of iOS, macOS, um, and iPadOS. And I’ve just been experimenting, yeah, I’ve been experimenting with it as another way to track data but more importantly a way to experiment with bringing the datum info in and my when did I Info, and looking at the different correlations and whatnot. [01:36:35] Alex: Plus, it is the easiest way to, for me, it’s been the easiest way to get that information out and put it into chat GPT and find correlations, just the way the exporting, it just works with my [01:36:50] Brett: Correlations are the thing. Like what’s the point of all this data we collect if we can’t create the correlations, which exists as a decent job of, but [01:37:00] I’ve always, I’ve wanted more control and I’ve never gotten into like creating like our. Programs to like create these like very custom correlations. [01:37:10] Brett: So anything that create easy correlations and, and if you can incorporate chat GBD and create those correlations, that’s awesome. [01:37:19] Alex: Yeah, that’s, that’s my, like, custom. I guess I’m very, very Grappy that people are making a lot of custom GPTs specifically for this and that’s what I’ve been working on just for myself And it’s already been, been huge. Thanks [01:37:40] Jeff: that was inspiring. Thank [01:37:41] Brett: super grappy about [01:37:42] Jeff: everybody, I have to leave. I’m gonna come back and listen to the other Graptitudes. Uh, I am graptiful to you, Alex. It’s been wonderful having you. Um, you’re just the best. So thank you, everybody. I’m gonna Like duck out [01:37:57] Brett: We’ll it. We’ll [01:37:58] Alex: BP1 buddy.[01:38:00] [01:38:00] Jeff: That’s right. PP one buddy. Bye. [01:38:04] Brett: Um, Christina, do you want to [01:38:06] Christina: Sure. All right. So my pick is, um, Screens 5, which is the, the latest release of, of Screens. So this came out, uh, last month and I didn’t even know about it at first. Uh, I think because, um, uh, [01:38:20] Brett: it didn’t show up on, on Setapp. They, pulled out of Setapp. [01:38:25] Christina: leaving Setapp. It is now a Mac App Store only, um, app. And so if you have screens on Setapp, it’ll still work. [01:38:31] Christina: But if you uninstall, um, at a certain point, it’ll, it’ll stop, uh, being available to re install for you and whatnot. So it’s, it’s going away, which is a shame. Um, but I do understand, like, you know, They got to make business decisions that they’ve got to make. Um, but, but Screens 5, I did go ahead and upgrade to that. [01:38:47] Christina: And, um, and I like it. I think the new design is really good. And I honestly, I just really wanted to support, um, uh, Adobe, uh, because, uh, this is an app that I’ve used for a long time. If you’re not familiar with it, I think this is the best way to basically be able to remote [01:39:00] into another Mac, um, from wherever you are. [01:39:03] Christina: Like, obviously you can use things like tail scale and you can SSH in and you can have, you know, remote, um, uh, you know, um, uh, Uh, Access set up on your Mac and all that, but it, it’s still kind of a hassle. I think that Screens is like the best kind of all in one way of doing it. [01:39:18] Brett: need your VNC. Yeah, [01:39:20] Christina: totally. And so you can use it. [01:39:21] Christina: Um, it’s now a universal app, so it’ll work on, you know, Mac on Windows, Mac on, on, iPad and iOS, all part of the same subscription. Or you can buy like, I think it’s like a hundred bucks is I think what it was to basically say, I want to buy like a lifetime for the lifetime of version five. Um, and it has family sharing, so, you know, you can share it with people too. [01:39:40] Christina: But, um, I, I really liked the design. Um, like I said, I went ahead and I think it had been. You know, like, like, like four or five years since version four had come out. I definitely, uh, was one of those things where I was like, well, I definitely got like my money’s worth, even though I had it through set up, you know, I think I might’ve bought one of the mobile versions or something. [01:39:57] Christina: Um, that way, um, [01:40:00] if you have set up, if you have it already, if you’ve bought it in the past on, on any platform, they’re giving you like 50%, and I think even through set up, they’re giving you like 50 percent off your first year. Um, for, for the subscription. So that’s actually, um, pretty great. I went ahead and did the lifetime thing. [01:40:17] Christina: Just, I took the gamble that it’ll be X number of years before it’ll be a major release again. And it might not. I might have, you know, done better to just pay yearly, but [01:40:26] Brett: it’s a lifetime only for the current [01:40:28] Christina: I’m pretty [01:40:29] Brett: It’s not that’s not lifetime. That’s version time [01:40:32] Christina: Actually, I don’t [01:40:33] Alex: gonna, no, I’m going to defend that because it’s, I’ve used screens for, for so long that I would have paid, I think a hundred Wait, well, I don’t know. I was like, God, how long has it been around for? But I, I almost, I kind of want to ask, it’s like, Hey, what’s the best way to use your app that you get the most money? [01:40:53] Alex: And and I never know. [01:40:55] Christina: No, totally. actually, and it’s 75. I was wrong. So it’s 75. It’s [01:41:00] 25 for the yearly subscription, 75 for lifetime or 3 a month. Um, and, um, and like I said, includes family sharing in with it, which is good. Um, if you’ve got like, you know, uh, other people that you’re wanting to do it with, um, And you’re right. [01:41:16] Christina: I mean, the app is called Screens 5, so I don’t know when Screen 6 comes out if they will just like put like a different version in the app store or what. I don’t know, but to Alex’s point, like, I’ve gotten enough value out of this that I honestly just of want support them, right? So, [01:41:30] Brett: use I use screens almost every day like I have multiple headless minis in my basement and Like I don’t attach monitors to them. I [01:41:40] Alex: multiple headless minis in my base. [01:41:43] Brett: I I screed I use screens to control all of my extra machines [01:41:47] Christina: know, that’s [01:41:48] Brett: I use screens when I’m on the road and I want to get to, like, I can, you know, manipulate my Plex through my home studio, my Mac studio on the road [01:42:00] using tail scale and screens. [01:42:01] Brett: And yeah, [01:42:03] Christina: And that, and that’s, that’s of the new things that are going to be, it already works with Tailscale. You can already get it working, but that’s one of the things that, uh, is going to be coming with the Screens Connect 5 is that it’ll actually work even better with Tailscale because they know a lot of people that. [01:42:14] Christina: So anyway, I’m, I’m, I’m happy, uh, with this app. It, it, I use it all the time too. Like it was great when I was, um, uh, Visiting my parents over, uh, the holiday because I needed to get something off of my iMac. Um, uh, for, uh, we needed to check something basically. There was a file that I was like, Shit, I forgot to get this and I haven’t uploaded this anywhere. [01:42:35] Christina: So I was able to connect to my iMac, upload the file, you know, remotely to Dropbox, and then, and then grab it off. Um, and, and like that’s something that like otherwise [01:42:45] Brett: It’ll always help you in a That’s when it’s [01:42:48] Christina: That really is, and that was one of those things where I was like, I don’t know how I would get this file otherwise. Like, and like, it’s, it’s possible if that hadn’t happened that the, the final episode of Rocket that also included for Rocket Boosters, uh, a three hour bonus [01:43:00] podcast of Simone and I watching the movie Her together, that might, that wouldn’t happened because the audio of me, of my recording, um, Simone’s recording, Simone, uh, like Riverside had my audio on it, but the problem was I’d also recorded the audio of the movie and I was like, That’s an important thing to be able to have to intersect here as we’re like watching this together and I didn’t upload this and I’m a dumbass and how am I going to get this? [01:43:23] Christina: So, uh, screens, screens for the win. Um, and, uh, and congrats to them. Um, I, I think now they’re at like 13 years the app has been around and so, um, uh, you know, definitely like we all remember those days when Apple used to have a pretty good native built in solution. Yep. Uh, well, not even that, [01:43:43] Alex: I don’t remember When was [01:43:45] Christina: Like, like, pre OS, like, Lion, they, they, like, they had a lot, like, there were those things and also if you had the server SKU, like, you could get it server tools, like, they were some built in stuff that was really good and then they just slowly over the years have, like, neutered the hell out of [01:44:00] that and, um. [01:44:01] Christina: And so, oh, one thing I will say too, um, and I think this is free and they renamed it, it’s called Screens Assist now, but if you’ve ever got a family member who’s got something going on with their Mac and you’re like, I don’t know how to help you and I cannot, with you right now, to make you enable, you know, sharing and all that stuff and try to find a way to log into your, get you in a salt tail scale, like, this is going to be a disaster, you can use Screens Assist, which will basically, They’ll download something. [01:44:26] Christina: It’ll set up the right settings for them. They’ll get a generated link that’ll, you know, they can then share with you and then you can use your screens app to log into their, you know, machine and help them out. And that is fucking great. [01:44:40] Brett: It’s the, uh, Clipboard Sharing and the Drag and Drop File Transfers are like, it’s rem I feel like a remote desktop in the past was able to [01:44:52] Christina: It was. I think it was. I think it was. Yeah, I think you’re right. [01:44:56] Brett: with screens, honestly, I can drag a file from my [01:45:00] local desktop onto a screen’s desktop and it’s just there. It’s done. [01:45:04] Brett: I don’t have to handle any file transfer stuff. I can copy something I can copy a link from my web browser locally and then just go to my screen’s desktop and paste it into Safari and have it on that remote machine. It’s, it’s perfect. Seamless. Smooth. I love it. [01:45:23] Alex: Getting screens 5 right now, didn’t I? I’ve been using 4. [01:45:28] Brett: I’m still on, I’m still on four and I’m working with them to set up a giveaway on BrettTerpstra. com Which I currently have booked out through next September But yeah, I have so many devs on board But yeah, like I’m hoping next year. We’ll do a screens one year license giveaway, but [01:45:51] Christina: Hey, ask him, ask him, um, ask him if they have any interest in maybe doing something for Overtired. Maybe we could do an Overtired giveaway. [01:45:56] Brett: a sponsorship? [01:45:57] Christina: Sponsorship? Yeah.[01:46:00] [01:46:00] Brett: I’ll ask. I’ll see. They seem hesitant to do sponsorships. see. [01:46:06] Christina: saying. Even, even, even a giveaway. I mean, I’m, I’m just saying, like, whatever. [01:46:09] Brett: Alright, so my pick for the week is, uh, BBRH15, which may be out as this episode is published, but as of today, it is not yet. Um, it depends on the weather. I’m told. Um, I had a chat, I had a chat with Rich Siegel. Um, it was fun the, the woman who does press for Rich, uh, Naomi is married to Sal Segoian. [01:46:39] Christina: Oh, yeah. Amazing. doing? That’s [01:46:44] Brett: good. He seemed very good because like Rich was late and Sal had just come home from like running to the pet food store or whatever. Um, because not because they have pets, but because they feed the squirrels and birds. Um, But, [01:46:58] Alex: Feels like such a [01:46:59] Brett: but I [01:47:00] had, I had con I had conversation with Sal like off screen. [01:47:03] Brett: That was, it was, it was, it was heartening. I, it was fun. I love hearing from Sal. Um, but I talked to Rich and we talked about like the major features coming up in, uh, BBEdit 15 and one that was of particular interest. I don’t know if anyone here has used BBEdit 14, uh, but it has this idea of worksheets, Um, and it has like, it loads up almost an RAPL, like a REPL for like terminal. [01:47:32] Brett: And you can just type in commands and get the output on the page. And it’s like a, an interactive interface. And he set one up for chat GPT. So you can have a conversation in a document. Literally, like, the document just kind of writes itself, and you can ask it to write you code, you can ask it questions, you ask it to summarize things, and then you and it has, like, it, it defaults to [01:48:00] outputting as markdown, so all of the code it outputs for you has angle brackets as quotes, uh, but b, bbedit has a specific feature for copying text without markdown quotes, so you can just turn that right into code you can copy paste. [01:48:15] Brett: Um, Yeah, it has, plus he’s adding, um, [01:48:18] Alex: Oh my [01:48:19] Christina: yeah. [01:48:19] Brett: he’s adding cheat sheets, uh, so like it comes with like a markdown and a bbedit clippings cheat sheet, but these are configurable with JSON files. So he’s going to build tools that let you build your own cheat sheets that can be available anywhere in bbedit. mean, bbedit honestly is the most venerated editor, even more so than TextMate. [01:48:42] Christina: way, way more. mean, it’s totally different, right? It’s OG. Like, it’s been around for 30 years. I don’t [01:48:48] Brett: it has continually gotten [01:48:50] Christina: It has. I don’t use it for everything and it’s not even my primary, but I buy it. I buy it every, you know, two years or however long that base come out. That one that I always get because there’s always something I need to [01:49:00] do that only it can [01:49:01] Brett: The one, the one thing that you could sell anybody on is if you have a 5 megabyte text file. If you have a 100 megabyte file, BBEdit will open and it will fly through [01:49:14] Christina: you need to edit a [01:49:15] Brett: other text editor can [01:49:17] Christina: Yeah, if you need to edit a plist, if need to edit But yeah, I was going to say, my main thing is there will be files that will either be weird, or be big, or it’ll be something, but usually it’s a size and it’s like, I use VS Code for almost everything, um, but there you know, and it does pretty well with you know, normal sized files A hundred megabyte text file, it is not going to do well with, and um, most text editors, TextMate did not do well with that and um, you know, Sublime, none of those, but But [01:49:44] Alex: was, whew, disaster with the big [01:49:45] Christina: absolutely. [01:49:46] Christina: But BBEdit will. And, and, know, and it’s still, um, innovating. And, and I, I have like, when, uh, you know, I think the company turned 30 or whatever, like I bought one of their shirts. It was like, still doesn’t suck. And it’s like, fuck yeah. [01:49:59] Brett: And [01:50:00] between, between 14 and 15, the LSP, the Language Server Protocol, has improved, um, in, in significant ways. So, things like code completion and code highlighting are also, like, like one of the reasons to use VS Code or Sublime is the LSP. Um, and, and BBEditor has gone to great lengths to, to incorporate that kind of code completion. [01:50:27] Christina: I was trying, I was trying to, like, get them, like, officially, like, partnered with, with, um, um, Copilot, um, and, and that’s just, uh, we’re, I, I think that the, the, the focus is just on, you know, JetBrains and, like, other big things, but, but Vim, because NeoVim, rather, you has like a copilot integration and people have taken that LSP and been able to use it for other things. [01:50:48] Christina: So I sent that to Rich. Um, I’m pretty sure, um, I’ll have to follow up again and be like, you didn’t see this, right? Cause that’s actually open source. So there are some copilot like things, you know, that you can bring in, even if you are not on, [01:51:00] you know, like a, a giant, you know, platform where, um, uh, the engineering resources and, and other things like, you know, Make it tenable to make that stuff accessible. [01:51:10] Christina: But yeah, I’ve been very impressed with the LSP support that the BB Editor has been getting over the years because that has been, um, it’s weird. It’s like 15 years ago, the whole, or more than that now, God, um, you know, TextMate, it was all about, you know, like the extensions and like the packages and like plugins. [01:51:26] Christina: And like, that was the thing that like made that, yeah, right. Extensibility, right. That was the thing that made it like the game changer for all of us. And now that’s kind of table stakes, I think, for a lot of editors. But the real thing is LSPs, like that’s now the, that’s now the thing is like, okay, what’s your LSP situation like? [01:51:45] Alex: And like me, and you don’t need that at all, it’s still, like, I, I’m, I’m biased because Tex Wrangler was my first, uh, text editor since, it was like, this is the free BB edit! And is what I, [01:52:00] I, I just know and love and it, [01:52:03] Brett: Also champ with huge [01:52:04] Christina: also wish I had huge great. Great, great [01:52:07] Alex: I think it still, uh, is around, but like, uh, if, if, if, I think if you’re 30, buy, buy B Edit. [01:52:15] Alex: It’s, it’s so, I, I love VS Code, but I’m such a, a, a noob with all of this, and especially like, with Swift stuff and opening X things from and putting in X code, I’m just like, ah, oh no, and um, And there’s lots of mech nerds who can tell you how to use BBEdit if you’re, again, like me, and I’m like, help [01:52:38] Christina: No, there’s tons of them. And Text Wrangler is gone. But what you, what they have now is they have a free version of BBEdit that has all the same features that Text Wrangler had. So, but Text was amazing back in the day. [01:52:49] Brett: And, and BBN is still available for direct purchase. Um, the price has gone up slightly, uh, to 59. 99 for a direct purchase, [01:53:00] but it’s also available on the app store at a subscription, uh, like in app purchase. So there’s a free version you can download, um, and then, uh, sign on for the subscription. [01:53:12] Cicada Explosion [01:53:12] Brett: Last note, and this may be of particular interest to Alex, because I’ve been in Chicago when the cicadas have come up, um, and, it been loud, so there are 13 year and 17 year cicadas. [01:53:28] Brett: Um, that, and they’re all in sync, every 13 years, the 13 year cicadas all hatch at once, they fly around for a day, and then they die. Um, and then there are 17 year cicadas that do the same thing on a different cycle. Only every 221 years do they hatch at the same time. 2024 is that year. The 13 year and the 17 year cicadas will come out all at once. [01:53:56] Brett: It will be noisy, and it will be crazy, and the [01:54:00] trees will be covered in the husks of dead cicadas. And I’m actually pretty excited for it. This is going to be an event. [01:54:09] Alex: I mean, not, not gonna lie, it is, to me it’s absolutely horrifying when it happens, cause I’m like, oh boy, and it, it, also the two different kinds have a different crunch when you on afterwards. Cause they’re everywhere, um, so I’m excited to go and take a fancy mic out and record one of [01:54:29] Brett: There you go. [01:54:30] Christina: God. The ASMR stuff is [01:54:31] Alex: spite, they’re already dead, yeah, I wonder, I bet [01:54:35] Brett: consider, though, the evolutionary advantage of, so, like, every, it’s, they’re 13 years they’re underground, they’re impervious to predators, and then they all come out at the same time, so no predator could possibly take down any significant portion of the population. So, from an evolutionary perspective, this is like an invincible species. [01:54:59] Brett: That [01:55:00] will just continue to exist in like these 13 and 17 year caps. Yeah, I think [01:55:06] Christina: Like, like, like, like, that’s the thing, like, we’re all gonna [01:55:08] Brett: survive. They’ll survive the [01:55:09] Christina: Like, no matter, no matter what we do to this, to this planet, like, no matter what we, what we try to do to destroy it, like, short of us being able to, like, literally, like, pull like a Superman and, like, blow up the core from the inside, like, like, the cicadas will, will remain. [01:55:24] Alex: Yeah, general AI, like, no, no, no, AGI to take out those cicadas. No, no. [01:55:31] Brett: Yup. [01:55:32] Christina: like, we laugh right [01:55:34] Brett: Well, thank you both for this almost two hour episode. Thanks Jeff in absence. [01:55:40] Christina: don’t apologize. You were amazing. Thank you so much for joining [01:55:42] Brett: Yeah. No, you, you sat through an insanely long mental health corner. I, I appreciate you. [01:55:49] Alex: No, this is, uh, I think the only show I ask directly to be on and I really appreciate you having [01:56:00] me. [01:56:00] Brett: Oh, we love you, [01:56:01] Christina: We so much. [01:56:02] Alex: You are the best. [01:56:03] Brett: All right. Hey guys, get some sleep. [01:56:05] Christina: Get some sleep.

TW: Suicidal Ideation Taylor Swift is Time’s Person of the Year, mostly thanks to our tireless promotion at Overtired. Brett’s having dark thoughts and the gang helps him clarify a few things. Sponsor Aroundsquare Find your next beautiful, unusual, functional item for the mind and body at Aroundsquare. Use the code OVERTIRED at checkout for 15% off. Show Links 211 988 The forgotten employee T Swift Time Profile Brett’s Favorites 2023 Artifact Folx Download Station Readwise 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 Person of the What? [00:00:00] Brett: Hey, welcome to Overtired. I’m here with Christina Warren and Jeff Severins Gunsel. Uh, trigger warning at the top of the show. Um, we may be discussing some themes of suicidal ideation. Uh, we’ll see how that goes, but just, uh, just be warned if that is a trigger for you. Uh, maybe skip this one or fast forward to the next chapter. [00:00:28] Brett: We’ll see. How are you guys doing? Better than you, obviously. [00:00:33] Christina: I was to say, I well, I was doing okay. And then heard, uh, heard that. No. Um, I mean, I’m fine, but I’m, I’m more interested in how you’re doing. [00:00:46] Jeff: Yeah, I feel like, uh, let’s, let’s, let’s go. [00:00:49] Brett: Get that, [00:00:50] Jeff: Hi, Brett. Hi, Christina. [00:00:52] Mental Health Corner (TW: Suicidal Thoughts) [00:00:52] Brett: Let’s get that off the plate at the top. So I have been going through. Some dark, uh, dark [00:01:00] thinking. And it’s not all the time. It’s, uh, especially evenings. I just, I start, I’m not planning suicide. I’m not thinking about what I would do or how I would do it or anything like that. I’m just thinking how much I would like to not be here. [00:01:18] Brett: And, um, it’s not at the crisis level where I want to call a hotline, which I have done. Um, I’ve done the hotlines and, uh, anyone in Minnesota, 2 1 1 is a great resource. Uh, and Nationwide, 9 8 8 is a great resource, but, um, like I’m not It’s not at a crisis point where I’m like, if I don’t talk to someone, I’m going to hurt myself. [00:01:43] Brett: Um, I’m not hurting myself, but the thoughts get very dark and they scare me. And I don’t like to tell anybody about them because people aren’t equipped to deal with that kind of, my partner isn’t equipped to deal with those [00:02:00] feelings. Um, they’re very scary when you hear someone close to you, or even tangentially. [00:02:06] Brett: Like for me, when I, I was watching Welcome to Wrexham last night and I had been having a pretty good night. And then this girl that was kind of a main character in that episode, uh, talked about how her father had committed suicide and they were showing pictures of like him being happy and like a loving father. [00:02:27] Brett: And just like, it hit me like how dark, how people can be so outwardly. affable, and be so hurting inside. And just hearing about other people and, and suicidal ideation and suicide itself, uh, it, it hits me in the gut. Like, I cry just like, I sob when I hear that stuff. Um, it feels, it feels a little too close to home for me. [00:02:57] Brett: So, so that’s my mental health [00:03:00] check in. How are you guys doing? [00:03:03] Christina: I’m really, really sad to, I mean, thank you for sharing that. I’m, I’m really, I, I completely understand the hesitancy in sharing this stuff because you’re right. People don’t know how to deal with it. And my experience is it’s, it’s one of two responses. It’s either people who are really disturbed and really upset by it, or, uh, what I would find is arguably even the worst response, which is they’re not concerned at all. [00:03:26] Christina: They just assume that you’re full of shit and, and that, that you’re just saying stuff and that they [00:03:31] Brett: Yeah, that, that would be awful. I, I haven’t run into that. Everyone who I have talked to takes it very seriously. [00:03:38] Christina: um, with all respect, you’re a guy and, that, and, and that, that’s a, it’s a, it’s a massively, massively. Massively gendered thing. Um, uh, as, as mental health is in general. [00:03:51] Christina: Um, you know, like, like women are, have been historically treated so differently when it comes to our mental health than men have. Like, we were the ones who were sent to sanitariums. [00:04:00] We were the ones who, you know, are called hysterical. Like it’s, it’s, it’s a whole thing. So. I am glad people are taking it seriously. [00:04:08] Christina: Um, I makes me think, you know, you, you haven’t had, manic episodes in a while, right? But this definitely feels like this is like a depressive episode for, right. And, and as somebody who has been low key depressed for a couple of years and was in a really bad place, Earlier this year, um, you know, and I’m, I’m doing better now. [00:04:30] Christina: Like I, I can completely relate to, to what you’re saying. Um, I hope that your, your doctor, you know, you can look at like med opportunities and other things to try to find the right balance. [00:04:44] Brett: it’s weird Like I was I don’t have a relationship with my psychiatrist where I feel super Like I can tell her I’m doing okay. Like I I am by all measures like[00:05:00] [00:05:00] Christina: But you’re not [00:05:02] Brett: I know, I know, [00:05:03] Christina: that this, th th this is the trap though. This is the trap. We’re doing okay. I’m not actually gonna do anything. I just sometimes think about it, and I just would maybe rather not exist. I’m not planning anything. I’m not actually going to, you know, take those steps. It’s fine. It’s not fine. [00:05:19] Christina: Like that’s, that’s depression and that that needs to be worked on. And, and I, I get not having a relationship, maybe having that trust level, [00:05:26] Brett: so I did have, I did have plans to talk to my therapist very seriously about it very openly. Um, like I am, I have developed, my relationship with her is very open and honest and I will tell her like exactly how much I drink. I will tell her exactly like how my relationship with Elle is going and And I had every intention of talking to her about this, but she got sick this week and cancelled, so I have to wait a week, which is, it’s fine, I’ll, I’ll make it, but, [00:06:00] um, she’s, she, more her than my psychiatrist, which, she doesn’t prescribe my meds, um, and the, the, the shitty thing about being bipolar is It’s hard to treat bipolar depression because every psychiatrist is worried that they’re going to make you manic by giving you antidepressants. [00:06:21] Jeff: worse, they’re not worried. [00:06:23] Christina: Right. Right. But, but in this case, I mean, I do, like talking to your therapist is great and I completely understand the, um, hesitancy of talking to, um, your psychiatrist. But if this is something like in most cases, at least in my experience, this isn’t something that it doesn’t just go away. Um, and, and given your bipolar and given like the, Other like history of, of stuff you’ve had, I would be concerned, you know, about like, is this a metalignment thing? [00:06:53] Christina: So even though I completely understand not necessarily wanting to, to talk about this stuff, I do [00:07:00] also, I encourage you to talk to your psychiatrist. Um, because I, I think that, I think you have to, if, if, if you want to, you know, treat this the best way that you can. [00:07:11] Brett: Yeah, I find myself trying to be so upbeat when I talk to her because I don’t want her to fuck with like, what is working. Um, [00:07:19] Christina: and I, and I get it. Um, I, I completely, I, I, this year I get it more than anything. But, I also, like, is it really working? That would be the question I would ask. Um, you know what I mean? Like, like, cause, cause that, that’s, that’s the thing. Like, we can all be in our places. And, and this is why I think, like, depression is so fucking insidious. [00:07:40] Christina: Is that We will convince ourselves, we’ll go through so many mental gymnastics to convince ourselves that we’re not depressed and that things aren’t that bad and that everything’s okay. And, and we go out of our way to hide things. And that is why, to your point, why there are people who will look on the outside like they just have. [00:07:58] Christina: everything going for them and just have [00:08:00] the most awful personalities and are in a lot of pain and That is not an accident In my opinion, I think that most most of us who are depressed like you’re a very good liar. You’re a very good actor And, um, it, and part of that is because you feel a sense of shame around being depressed. [00:08:19] Christina: You feel a sense of obligation to not let people know you’re depressed. You feel a sense of just general, like, embarrassment. And then also there’s this aspect of, Oh, well, if I just fake it, it’ll get better. And, and there’s a certain truth to You know, how you act and how you put yourself out can have a real impact on your mental health and your energy and whatnot. [00:08:38] Christina: Like it certainly is better to be out with people, in my opinion, and to do exercise and do other stuff that can all genuinely have real, um, impact on, on your endorphins and on your serotonin levels, but it’s not enough to get you out of like a dark place. And, and so, um, we, we delude ourselves into thinking things aren’t that bad. [00:08:59] Christina: [00:09:00] Um, and then. If it goes on too long, it is that bad. So [00:09:05] Brett: have, I do have one friend who is also very open about her mental health. Um, and she suffers from extreme anxiety and depression and, um, and suicidal ideation, and I have been able to, um, be completely open with her and we can tell each other, you know, what you’re feeling isn’t. Real. Like, it’s real to you, but, but people do actually want you around and your life is actually important and we can, like, just basic affirmations. [00:09:40] Brett: Um, and that has been really good for me. We have her over to the house once in a while and just have a fun evening, but then our Facebook messages are where, like, we can kind of confide our darker thoughts in each other and, and support each other. And she’s been really good for me. [00:09:58] Christina: that’s really good. And I’m glad you have, you have a [00:10:00] person, um, like that. Um, you can talk to that openly. Um, cause I think it’s really important. And it’s rare, like even people who like, again, as you said, like people who. People in your life, your partners, family members, whatnot. The level of understanding is different. [00:10:15] Christina: Some people will take it very seriously. Some people won’t. And then there is a, there’s also kind of the fear which is like, okay, is someone going to take this to the level that I don’t need to take this to? Because like you said, you’re not calling 2 1 1. You’re not calling or 9 8 8 or whatever the, the number is. [00:10:29] Christina: Like you’re not at that point. It’s not at a crisis point. It’s just kind of a low level, you know, like Always I’m putting words in your mouth now, but but at least my experience It’s [00:10:39] Brett: correct so far. [00:10:40] Christina: it’s like it’s like a low level like always on kind of like malaise kind of undercurrent thing where when especially when you’re alone You have these intrusive thoughts that you can’t turn off that again It’s not to a point where you’re going to be, you know doing something to harm yourself, but you do have kind of this You know, like thought like, what if I just didn’t wake [00:11:00] up? [00:11:00] Christina: What if I just wasn’t here? You know, how much easier would things be if I didn’t have to do any of this? And, um, and then that’s, I’m really sorry you’re going through this. And again, I really encourage you, even though it’s difficult to talk to your doctor because Again, like, and I, I say this with full empathy because it’s what I’ve been dealing with for the last six months, but you think your med situation is okay. [00:11:32] Christina: It’s not if, if you’re still going through this. So I totally get wanting to salvage what’s working, but also like do some deep thinking about is it really working? Right. Because clearly what. You’ve been on has done a great job in stopping your every three week manic episodes. But it might have, you know, gone too far in the other direction and that that that’s that’s not livable either and in any I don’t know your psychiatrist [00:12:00] I know there are plenty of terrible psychiatrists out there. [00:12:03] Christina: I cannot imagine a psychiatrist who would be like, Oh yeah, we would much rather have someone be low key suicidal than, than, than have a manic episode. You know what I mean? It’s like, no, you need to find a balance. So anyway, I, I, I’m, I’m sorry you’re going through this and I love you and, and, um, if you ever need to talk off pod about anything, I’m obviously here. [00:12:21] Christina: So [00:12:22] Brett: Thanks. Just been quiet. [00:12:25] Jeff: You’re like, I’m not going to call it a hotline, but as soon as we start recording, I’m, I’m not, that’s not making fun. And I’m just, it’s a loving laugh at how funny we are as people. [00:12:37] Christina: totally. [00:12:38] Jeff: It’s such a hard feeling that maybe I don’t want to be here. And I’m sorry that you’re having that. I have had that feeling sometimes. [00:12:48] Jeff: I think. I’m not prescribing this to you, or even, but sometimes I think, wait a minute, actually, what I really need is for the rest of the fucking world to disappear for like two days, and just give me some [00:13:00] space where I don’t have, because for me, when I feel like that, half of it is that like, I’m anticipating some kind of either, connecting, uh, force coming towards me. [00:13:10] Jeff: Someone calls or is in my space or whatever else. And I just need to not have someone in my space, not have someone calling or asking anything of me. Um, and what I really wish I sometimes like, I wish I could just press pause in my life. I’m like, no, I just want to press pause on everything around my life. [00:13:26] Jeff: And I think I could just enjoy myself for a little bit. Oh [00:13:29] Brett: Don’t tell my employer, but we’ve gone through more management changes and it has left me in, um, a no man’s land where everyone thinks I’m working for someone else. And during this period of depression, um, I basically. Have been doing like the bare minimum and nobody seems to care. Like no one even notices. [00:13:58] Brett: It makes me worry about the long [00:14:00] term steadiness of my employment. But right now, I haven’t had to take disability. I just, I have just been granted this no man’s land where I have no weekly meetings with any manager. [00:14:16] Jeff: my God. [00:14:16] Brett: I have managers that are like, reach out if you have any questions. And I’m like, I, I don’t have any questions. [00:14:22] Brett: I can, I have automated a good portion of my job, which, you know, [00:14:27] Jeff: of course you have. [00:14:28] Brett: I deserve to be paid for that. That’s fine. Um, but yeah, it’s been actually, I’m really grateful that, uh, my, my day to day employment has kind of just worked out to. To work with my current state of mind, [00:14:45] Christina: Do you remember that, that, that story? I think it’s on, I think I just found the Google thing. I think it was from the early 2000s called, like, About the Forgotten Employee, about the guy who was, like, hired at this place, and they just, like, literally forgot that he existed, but he was still [00:15:00] getting his paychecks every week, even though he was literally doing nothing. [00:15:04] Christina: Um, and, um, yeah, that was, like, a great, um, [00:15:12] Brett: Yeah I get I get paid way too much for as little as I’m doing these last couple of weeks [00:15:18] Christina: I mean, but this is fine. A, A, this is a little bit on them for doing like the management thing that, that your employer is known to do, and hey, that my, um, employer’s owner is also known to do. Uh, B, it’s the holiday season, so everybody’s checked the fuck out. Like, everybody’s checked, from this point of time as we’re recording this, everybody’s gonna be checked out until like the week after New Year’s. [00:15:37] Brett: for sure [00:15:38] Christina: Like, everybody’s, everybody’s completely out of it. Um, and C, you do a lot, um, you know, and you’ve been productive in other ways, so like, let them figure it out. Like, I, I trust me, like, my, my self review for this, like, first half of the year, like, I’m not getting promoted, which sucks, because I really would like to be promoted, right? [00:15:54] Christina: I’d really like to get promoted, but I’m also like, no, I’m not getting promoted, but I’m also not getting fired, um, even though, like, I’ve been going [00:16:00] through a lot of shit and probably should have taken disability, um, so, like, be grateful that we work. Um, in an industry, um, unlike what Jeff does where we can actually like half ass it to the extreme and still be okay, which is kind of like, it kind of sums up what’s wrong with corporate America and, and the tech industry in general. [00:16:21] Christina: But you know what? I’m tired of like never taking advantage [00:16:24] Jeff: No, you were, when you were talking about this, I was thinking about how like I’m, I’m part of this member owned research collaborative and there’s like nine of us and we all work on teams together and we all, we’re all responsible. The, I’m like, oh my God, it sounds so nice. Although what I would like more than what you have, Brett, is more like what Big Head had in Silicon Valley where like, um, he’s, did you watch the show, the two of [00:16:45] Brett: I can’t remember [00:16:46] Jeff: He, he gets into a situation with all these other, these people that hang out on the roof where like they couldn’t cancel their contracts. And they need to just let them run out their contracts. And, but, and they need to be on premises. So they just sit on a roof doing nothing. [00:17:00] Um, and, uh, and I was like, every time I see them, like, I want to work at corporate. [00:17:04] Christina: Oh, no, totally. And it’s, although, the interesting thing is at this point, I think they’ve all figured out, like, this would be funny, I would love, I, in some, like, I miss Silicon Valley so much for so many reasons, like, it’s a great show, um, and, and they nailed the, the parody and the other stuff just, like, perfectly, but, um, it was also one of those things where I, um, am like, okay, um, they, uh, I would love to see them do it like today because today I think that they would just find a way to get out of the contract or they would just like pay the penalty and they’d just be like, yeah, you’re done. [00:17:37] Christina: You’re fired. Um, but, but I agree with you that that would be like the ideal thing, um, would just be to be like, yep, I just can sit out this. But in general also, yeah, I totally understand what you’re saying. Like Jeff, like Jeff has like real responsibilities and like has real people around and has like works in a, in a field there where people will definitely notice when you’re not doing it. [00:17:56] Christina: Um, and I think it’s hard for people like Brett and I who have come [00:18:00] from jobs where we had real responsibilities and people really noticing, it’s hard for us to then go into places where people don’t. [00:18:06] Jeff: Oh yeah. [00:18:07] Christina: where even, even better, where like, the bare minimum will make you be seen as a hero, and you’re like, wait, what? [00:18:13] Christina: And, and, and, and, because it moves so fucking slowly, um, in comparison, you’re just like, oh, [00:18:20] Jeff: No, it sounds [00:18:20] Christina: how people actually work. [00:18:21] Jeff: to me, like, I think I would be, I would be, um, mostly at peace with it, um, but it also sounds like, just the lack of definition is hard. [00:18:31] Christina: With lack of definition and slowness, I think, I think you’d be bored at certain times. [00:18:35] Brett: I wrote three articles this year, like my job, technically, I’m a technical writer, even though my, my job title is software developer. Um, I’m a technical writer and I wrote three total pieces of content. [00:18:50] Christina: But didn’t, but weren’t they some of the most successful? [00:18:52] Brett: one of those pieces of content made it into the top 20 pieces of content for the entire [00:18:58] Jeff: you’re a fucking great writer. [00:19:00] Which is not something that the people in your job before you [00:19:02] Brett: And so at my, at my, at my quarterly review, I got to say, yeah, I was in the top 20, uh, developer content that went out for the year, even though like I didn’t have much else to show that I did the bare minimum and, and I got patted on the back, [00:19:18] Christina: Absolutely. [00:19:19] Jeff: Yeah. [00:19:20] Brett: got, I got a bonus. [00:19:21] Christina: You got a bonus and, you know, you automate the shit out of a bunch of things. You build tools for a lot of other people to do stuff. Like, you’re a great, great, great writer. If I were hiring someone for a documentation team, I wouldn’t necessarily hire you to be a writer. I would maybe hire you to be like, maybe an editor, maybe someone to look over certain stuff, maybe someone to help with style guides, but I would really hire you to be like the tooling person and to be like the person to like help like come up with the efficiencies. [00:19:45] Christina: Not at all. That’s [00:19:46] Jeff: Cause you’re not gonna be able to help yourself, you will write the documentation. [00:19:49] Brett: that is, that, that is my niche for sure. [00:19:52] Christina: And, and I mean, I’m just, you know, being again, like, candid. It’s like, you’re such a good writer. Like, okay, I put Brett on like the really hard things, but I don’t want to waste [00:20:00] his time or his talents and having him do the day to day bullshit documentation stuff that anybody can do. [00:20:05] Christina: Like that’s, that’s not why I hire Brett. Like I would hire Brett to do the stuff that’s more complicated. Like the same thing, like you don’t hire me to write your code. Um, I can, I can come up with a great demo and, and I can, I can certainly, you know, like, like explain how stuff works, but like. That’s not why you hire me. [00:20:23] Christina: Um, if I needed to make that as like my day to day career, I could do that, but that’s not why you hire me. You hire me to be your person who’s hosting events and who’s giving talks and who’s, you know, kind of being like a, a public face of, of your company. Like, that’s why you hire me. You don’t hire me to be the person who’s, you know, building all the. [00:20:40] Brett: scenes writing. Yeah, [00:20:41] Christina: right. I mean, I’d be, I’d, I’d, or even behind the scenes as like a PM, like, I’d be happy to do that, but like, if I’m really gonna be in a PM role, it’s gonna be, needs to be one that’s more public facing, you know, that is the person people can blame or praise, um, to be clear. [00:20:56] Brett: We are so opposite in that regard. Like [00:21:00] by my, my current manager, who is actually like a VP, um, he keeps suggesting that I do presentations, um, that I do webinars or go to conferences and present, and that is not what I signed up for. Um, I try very hard to talk him out of. Relying on me for that kind of public facing stuff. [00:21:24] Brett: I’m like, you should get Christina Warren in here, because she could kill this. [00:21:31] Christina: Yeah. No, I mean, but so we should, we, we, we should start a Dere team with Yumi and, and, and Jay. Like, you know, honestly [00:21:38] Brett: Yeah, [00:21:39] Jeff: Hire me to [00:21:40] Christina: or, or even better Dere as a service where we [00:21:43] Brett: there you go. [00:21:44] Christina: rented out by like other teams. [00:21:45] Brett: Mercenary DevRel. [00:21:47] Christina: I mean, kind of, I, you know, okay. Like saying this out loud, I kind of don’t hate the idea. [00:21:51] Christina: I’ve been trying to, I’ve been trying to come up with like a Dere as a service plan for like years. I think that [00:21:55] Brett: Kind of brilliant. I love it. I love it. [00:21:58] Jeff: Is there a job opening for [00:22:00] someone to push the Raspberry Pi supercomputer around on a pallet jack over at your employer? Because that sounds fun. [00:22:07] Christina: Yeah. For you for sure. Also, you would be like, you could help be like our, our, our, our content strategist. [00:22:12] Brett: Do you know about, do you know about Chris, do Benson’s Pi Cluster? [00:22:17] Jeff: That’s what I’m talking about. Isn’t there a Raspberry Pi, like, supercomputer, [00:22:20] Brett: got laid off. [00:22:21] Jeff: Oh, so there is a job opening for pushing it around on a [00:22:24] Brett: no, they, they apparently didn’t appreciate his obsession with this thousand pie. [00:22:30] Christina: But it was so cool! [00:22:32] Brett: It was so cool. And like, it was the center attraction at some conferences. [00:22:37] Christina: yes, at Oracle World, I was gonna say, like, wasn’t, like, the only news that, like, came out of Oracle World one year was that? Like Like, what the [00:22:43] Brett: and he was so good at it and he made great video content. Like he had the whole setup with like the overhead cameras at the electronics bench and everything. And, and he was so dedicated to it and there was like an interpersonal conflict with him [00:23:00] and one of our three managers at that point. And, uh, and, and he got cut, which. [00:23:06] Brett: Sucks. I, I should check in with him. I assume he landed on his feet. He’s a goddamn genius. [00:23:12] Christina: Oh yeah, I have no doubt, um, that he, anybody who’s smart and has, you know, had gout would hire him. Um, but that just seems like such a waste. [00:23:21] Jeff: he’s now like Guilfoyle in a garage somewhere in Silicon Valley with his pie cluster. [00:23:25] Christina: That’s true. [00:23:28] Brett: So, before we wrap up Mental Health Corner, how are you guys doing? [00:23:31] Christina: Um, I’m okay. I’m, I’m okay. I’m in a, I kind of already talked about mine a little bit, like, I’m, I’m doing okay. Like I’m, basically, I think, I’m in a better place than I certainly was like earlier this year. And I think, uh, I’m looking forward to it. You know, seeing where things go. Like I said, I’m now at this point, I’m like at a month or so on no meds other than dexedrine and that’s been, that’s been doing okay. [00:23:56] Christina: So, you know, fingers crossed. [00:23:59] Brett: Yeah. [00:23:59] Jeff: He [00:24:00] just reminded me I haven’t taken my meds today. I was gonna, I was gonna rattle my meds for you here and then, [00:24:08] Brett: gonna, you’re gonna pop some Vyvanse in the middle [00:24:10] Jeff: not much. No, I can’t take my meds anymore. Uh, yeah, it. It caused a, I mean, I was, I had a sort of manic episode that was stronger than any I’d had since I was diagnosed. It wasn’t anything like that, but it was more, it more existed in like in the way my body sort of, shit in my body just banged around inside. [00:24:30] Jeff: Um, and I only have one medication treating that, um, which is Lamictal. And, uh, And I was taking Vyvanse and it was, it had been a month of just this on and off like rattling in me and I was not in a good place. I was having a hard time working. It wasn’t the kind of manic where it’s like, woo, at least I’m getting shit done. [00:24:47] Jeff: Um, and I, I met with my medication manager for the first time for a long time, like since I went to Kenya. I mean, I, which was like in June or July. And, uh, we’re going through everything. I’m telling her what’s been going on for me and stuff and she’s, and she’s listening [00:25:00] and let’s just check in on what medications you’re still taking or whatever. [00:25:02] Jeff: Um, it was five inches thick. Wait. Have you been taking the Vyvanse this whole time? I was like, yeah. She’s like, I think you need to stop. Let’s just see what happens if you stop. And I was afraid to stop, like, to just cut it completely, um, cause it doesn’t, it only takes a couple days to get over the weirdness of cutting Vyvanse completely, but like, sometimes those days really suck. [00:25:24] Jeff: And uh, but I did it cause I was like, I was just, I was in a really, I was having really bad end of days, basically. Now that was the end of my days, but like, [00:25:33] Brett: sure, sure, sure. [00:25:34] Jeff: I just realized I’m actually very good about taking my medication in the morning, but I have misplaced my pill sorter. And so, uh, when I’m done talking here, and I only have a little bit to say for my mental health check in, although that was probably it right there. [00:25:47] Jeff: Um, I, uh, You know, one thing that happened for me this week that was really helpful is, for various reasons known mostly to my therapists, I’ve been pretty paralyzed when it comes to trying to sit [00:26:00] down and work lately, which is something I’ve experienced for decades. It’s sort of a dissociative experience. [00:26:08] Jeff: It takes a long time to get into that, but it’s almost like the way I describe it is like, I’ll sit down at my desk feeling pretty clear headed about what I need to do, and then it’s like, It’s like a dream where like, there’s a thing in front of you and when you reach out for it, it disappears. When you put your hand back, it appears. [00:26:26] Jeff: Reach out for it, it disappears. And my, I, I actually experienced my brain just like going blank when I’m trying to just work. Um, and, and actually this wasn’t what I was going to talk about, but I, I rejiggered my Stream Deck. which I’ve used for a long time as like almost assistive technology because I’ve, if I’m in a meeting or something, often it’s just because my brain is thinking about too many things at once. [00:26:51] Jeff: Um, but if I’m in a meeting and, and I need to kind of pull up a document or I need to just quickly sort of reference something, the spark happens to do that. [00:27:00] Like the little neuron fires, but because I’m also in a relational experience where I’m talking to people, cause I’m very like in meetings, very sort of relational based. [00:27:09] Jeff: Um, it’s hard for me to then. Start just pulling up documents. And so for a long time, I’ve had my stream deck in front of me in meetings for whatever project I’m on. And the main documents are there. Cause I can just like reach over and press the button and it pops up. Um, even though I could do Alfred, I could do a million things. [00:27:24] Jeff: That is the thing that, that creates a kind of [00:27:26] Brett: Yeah, the physical button [00:27:28] Jeff: physical button. It’s kind of like how I still want knobs on my stereo in my car, which is why I still drive, drive a car that’s very old. Um, but, uh, but anyway, um. I kind of rejiggered that because I’ve been just really kind of freezing up. And so like one thing I added, just silly, but like, it’s not silly, but it’s a, it’s massive, it’s like, I have a shortcut on my computer without, like, if I run the shortcut, it’s a Mac shortcut or whatever. [00:27:53] Jeff: It just shows me my next five calendar events and I. Can run that a hundred times a day. Cause my brain, for [00:28:00] whatever reason, I can hold all kinds of stuff. Like I, I work at like a high level, right? Like I write a lot. I do a lot. I talk about a lot. And when it comes to that basic kind of executive function stuff, I can really, there’s just something that there’s something gets interrupted. [00:28:14] Jeff: So I have that button. Then I have a new one because every project I’m on has a damn Google, Google drive folder, which like I don’t love. Um, but I made another like. Uh, Mac shortcut where it’s like, I press a button on my stream deck and a little menu comes up with my, you know, five main projects. And it’s the main Google drive folder selected. [00:28:33] Jeff: It comes open and you have, that’s like loosen me up a little bit. Cause I was really dealing with this kind of like paralysis and I’m still dealing with it, but the thing that really helped me this week was my therapist was like, so part of a whole wider conversation, but she was like, I think it’s time for you to just kind of look at your environment that you’re working in and think about not just. [00:28:53] Jeff: Are there things you should take out, but are there things you should put in? Right. And, and it happened to be just the right kind of therapy [00:29:00] appointment where when she suggested that and I hung up, it was a Zoom thing, I was able to look around and be like, oh shit. Like I like my aperture was wide. I was like, yes, this and this and this and this and this. [00:29:10] Jeff: These things kind of stressed me out and they’re like all around me. And um, and I went and just like, I just actually sat in my, in one place and made a list of things that I think might be a little stressful for me. And then I went and started boxing ’em up. And it was great because I had, I mean, I keep a lot of like bullshit around like little trinkets, little like things that help me think of people or times or whatever. [00:29:31] Jeff: But like, most of those things are not neutral times or neutral people. Um, and, and most of them are almost like Battlescar type of stuff. And even if it’s like Battlescar, like it was a band that broke up and it was a painful breakup or something. And there’s a picture of me playing with that band or whatever. [00:29:48] Jeff: And so I went through it. I just kind of cleared that stuff out. And it felt so good, and I’m not done, I’m actually looking, you listeners can’t see this, but you can, I’m looking off to the left because I have, it almost looks like I got fired. Like, I have like a [00:30:00] box in the corner of the office, like a couple of picture frames popping out. [00:30:03] Jeff: Um, but the other thing my therapist was saying is like, so also think about what Could come in and, and that’s been huge for me. So I’ve really simplified, but then I’m bringing things in. I’m trying to talk my family and to let me take my son in eighth grade, had a, had a, had a class, an art class where they were also see making structures that people were making, like. [00:30:23] Jeff: Castles, and someone made a little princess house, whatever, and he made a fleet farm. And I’m like, trying, [00:30:30] Brett: don’t know if Christina knows [00:30:31] Jeff: farm, it’s just like, the best ever, like, it is a big box store in a certain sense, like a Home Depot, but it’s really a farm supply store, and it’s really an Ace Hardware magnified, right? Like, you can buy actual cow bells [00:30:45] Brett: When, when Ivanka Trump, when Ivanka Trump came to my town, she did a photo op at Fleet Farm because, because it was supposed to make her feel more relatable to rural [00:31:00] Minnesota, which is also why I don’t shop at Fleet Farm anymore. I shop at Menards. Um, [00:31:05] Christina: I know Menards. I’m familiar with Menards. [00:31:08] Jeff: it’s like Menards, but a thousand times better, like, [00:31:11] Christina: So is it like Menards and like a Home Depot combined? [00:31:14] Jeff: no, it’s Menards, a Home Depot, a tractor supply store, and a farm supply store. Like the one in my hometown has live chicks. Not like [00:31:22] Brett: if you want barbed wire and a shotgun and you want some feed [00:31:27] Jeff: And a bag of nuts. And a really big bag of nuts. [00:31:30] Brett: and, and maybe some bulk, like, um, what are those little puffy orange candies called [00:31:35] Jeff: Oh yeah, [00:31:36] Brett: always had? Yeah, um, like, if you want all that at once, you go to Fleet Farm, and it’s, it’s a disorganized mess, really, cause there’s just so much stuff, [00:31:46] Jeff: to your flea farm, but not in mine. [00:31:48] Christina: I [00:31:48] Brett: really, it’s well or, it’s, it’s organized, but you have to ask somebody, where am I headed in this [00:31:54] Jeff: Well, you know why I don’t have that experience? Because my obsession with Fleet Farms, and I’ve been to every one in the region, [00:32:00] is that it’s a place that I just go through every single aisle. Because at some point, I’m going to be like, whoa, horse mane shampoo. Like, it never occurred to me. [00:32:09] Brett: while you’re [00:32:10] Jeff: Yeah, like, anyway, so he made a fleet farm and, and I want that at my desk, like right in front of me, like it’s the kind of stuff I want like right now. [00:32:19] Jeff: And the interesting thing was that as I sort of simplified the space from things that were a little just Yeah, it just felt a certain way for me, um, including some like professional books that were like part of a transition from one life to another in a certain way. I realized I felt more and more like myself now. [00:32:37] Jeff: Like it was, it was such a, it was nice. Um, I often think that like by having all these things spread around me, it is sort of evidence of, it’s like evidence that I have lived. Um, and, and it is like, well, it’s in me anyhow, so here it is. But, um, moving it out was just like, oh, I do actually feel a little more. [00:32:55] Jeff: Like grounded in this moment without all these things, cause I would see him in my zoom thing and I would [00:33:00] see, you know, um, anyway, that was nice. I just, everyone talks about in productivity and stuff, your environment. Uh, and, uh, and I think mental health is another context to talk about how you construct your environment. [00:33:11] Jeff: Not surprisingly, I still have a lot of cash sitting in front of me right now. That makes me feel good too. [00:33:16] Brett: I, uh, I went, I went to the bank, um, um, instead of buying, instead of Christmas shopping this year, I am just sending 50 bills to all of my nieces and nephews, [00:33:29] Jeff: And podcast co hosts? [00:33:31] Brett: which, which I’ve done before. And it feels like the cheap way out, but honestly, as a kid, the [00:33:38] Christina: love it. [00:33:39] Brett: The gift I look forward to most every year was the 100 bill my grandma would send me. [00:33:45] Brett: I didn’t, like, every, everything else was, like, Um, uh, with ephemeral, like you’re going to like this toy for a month and then you’re going to be done with it, but a hundred dollar bill that, and I saved as a [00:34:00] kid, I had a savings account. Like I, I didn’t go out and blow it on candy and toys. Like I built up a savings account. [00:34:08] Brett: What it was, it was, it was like a, an endorphin rush to see like, Oh my God, [00:34:13] Jeff: I wish I had that [00:34:14] Christina: I was [00:34:15] Brett: a 10 year old kid with a thousand dollars. And [00:34:29] Christina: a, a fair amount in savings. It’d be more if I had a house and other things, but like, you know, I, I could do better to be very clear. [00:34:35] Christina: I could do a lot better. But I, um, definitely, um, as a kid, like, they would call it the Bank of Christina. And, and, I mean, I got to the point, like, I actually had to get, like, a lock on my door because my dad, like, really literally was, like, using me as, like, a personal ATM, and it was a problem. [00:34:51] Jeff: I’ve done that with my son, I’m like, Do you have a 20 up there? I’ll get you back. [00:34:54] Christina: Yeah, um, no, it was, like, a problem, but, like, you know, and I had a savings account, and then I got a checking account, and I would put money in it, but, you know, I couldn’t [00:35:00] put stuff in all the time, but, like, I would, like, take, like, the 20 I would get for allowance and other things and, and gifts, and I, I would, like, save it. [00:35:06] Christina: Like, I, I, I’ve saved enough. For one year, like, I basically bought, like, the, the monitor for our computer and the printer, um, uh, for, for, for the family computer. Um, I remember I had enough money one time and this was, like, the best, like, pre Christmas thing ever. So when the Nintendo 64 came out, this one, it was, like, this is the first console I remember that was, like, impossible to find in stores. [00:35:28] Christina: Like, I’m sure that there Difficulty finding other things, but like, from the time it was released, you could not get a Nintendo 64. And the games were really limited, too. Like, there were only a few games out at launch, and they were really hard to find. And nine days before Christmas, I was at a Target, And I saw some family like buying one and they didn’t have any accessories or anything. [00:35:48] Christina: And I went up to the guy and I was like, do you have any more Nintendo 64s? And he put one up on the counter. And I was like, I will be right back. And I went to my mom and I was like, mom, I was like, I have 250 in [00:36:00] You know, it’s like, like stored, um, in, in the, um, uh, the living room and in the drawer where you keep your Bibles, where dad won’t go. [00:36:08] Christina: And I will, I will buy this. I will give you the money as soon as I get home. I was like, but I, I, I, I need this. [00:36:15] Jeff: Picture your dad opening the drawer of Bibles and being like, Whoa, shit! Closing it really fast. Like, that’s safe. [00:36:20] Christina: Totally. So, so she, um, so, so I got it and, and, um, I had to rent a game because you literally could not get Mario 64 anywhere. So I’d like rent the game. [00:36:30] Jeff: a Redbox for video games? [00:36:32] Christina: Well, it was, it [00:36:32] Jeff: Well, the video [00:36:33] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was, it [00:36:34] Jeff: right. I forget that. It’s a generational difference. [00:36:36] Christina: Totally. It was a home, it was a home video, but it might have, actually might have been Blockbuster. I think home video didn’t have Nintendo 64 games yet. Um, so I think it was Blockbuster. I got that in a Wayne Gretzky game and, um, I, uh, uh, because like those were the only two games I could play and, and memory cards so that I could like save my progress, um, myself and then transfer it, um, uh, to, to the new game, uh, when I was able to finally get my own. [00:36:58] Christina: And my mom, this was the, the worst thing. [00:37:00] She still made me freaking like wrap it up under the tree. I bought it myself, and I still had to wait nine days. I still had to wait nine [00:37:07] Brett: are like that. I bought my parents a Loamy the like, uh, the thing that turns your kitchen refuse into compost overnight. Um, [00:37:16] Christina: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:37:17] Brett: I bought them that, uh, it was on Yeah. Oh, it’s amazing. I use, I use it, I use it daily. Um, so I thought they would like one. They were super interested. I bought it for them and I had them order it and I would just pay for it and they got it and they called me and they’re like, all right, we got it. [00:37:34] Brett: Do you want to come over and wrap it and we’ll open it on Christmas morning? And I’m like, no, start using it. [00:37:41] Jeff: yeah, that’s so funny. [00:37:43] Brett: It’s your Christmas present now. Take it and go. Um, do you guys remember savings bonds? [00:37:49] Jeff: Oh yeah. I had a, [00:37:50] Christina: I’m aware of them. I’m aware of them. I don’t think I ever got any. [00:37:55] Brett: oh, my aunt and uncle used to send me a hundred dollar savings bond every Christmas, which [00:38:00] is, it costs like 50 bucks, and you give it, I think, three to five [00:38:04] Jeff: later, it’s worth 110. [00:38:05] Brett: And, and I collected those all through my childhood and it felt like a big gift, but it wasn’t money you could spend right away. Um, so those all got set aside and it wasn’t until I was in like a financial crisis that I remembered, Oh my God, I have this drawer full of savings bonds. [00:38:24] Brett: And it added up to like 3, 000, but it sucked because I needed that 3, 000 just to get through like my current crisis. And then it was just all gone. So. [00:38:34] Jeff: all that time. [00:38:36] Brett: it felt like, it felt like a lot of, um, a lot of saving and a lot of effort for something that, it saved my skin, but it felt, it was disappointing. I, I really, as a kid, I really thought that was going to be [00:38:49] Jeff: Yeah, no, I did too. I was like, this is gonna be amazing. It’s like in No Country for Old Men when he’s like, do you know how long this quarter’s been on this journey to you? like those savings bonds, they were [00:39:00] just on this journey to help you with that one week. [00:39:03] Brett: I don’t think they, I don’t think you can buy savings bonds anymore. Or is it CDs? [00:39:07] Jeff: I mean, my grandma gave them to my boys up until about 15 or 20 years no, no, they’re not 20. Up until about 15 years ago, um, or maybe 12 years ago, she was still buying them. But I think she actually may have bought them all in bulk when they like, when each kid was born, she would buy a bunch, and then give them out, um, so [00:39:29] Brett: Oh, so maybe they were already matured by the time she gave them. [00:39:32] Christina: Yeah, I, I, I was gonna say, I think, cause it wasn’t the whole thing, cause like a CD is different, but like, from what I understood, and I, I never had relatives who got me saving months, like, uh, my, my father’s family who had money never gave us money for shit like that because they’re bad with it and, and whatever, um, and, and, and fuck his mother, but like, um, [00:39:55] Jeff: I wasn’t gonna say it. [00:39:56] Christina: well, I mean, you know, like if there’s a hell she’s there, but like, [00:40:00] um, My mom’s family, who ironically, like, didn’t have money and then wound up when they died, not only were their funerals completely, like, plots, everything prepaid, had they, you know, saved enough to pay for, like, all of their, their medical expenses and other things. [00:40:18] Christina: And paid off the house and, and other stuff. They still had like money to leave for the kids. Like it was kind of wild actually. Like that these very like simple, like, like people who like lived a very like modest life actually had like far more money to leave to their family than like the millionaire who turned out actually wasn’t like, um, was like living off the company money and like had the. [00:40:37] Brett: people are the worst tippers. [00:40:39] Christina: Oh, yeah. I mean, well, it depends on how rich you are. Like, like there’s like old money, rich people will tip well, but yeah, it totally, totally depends. But like, um, so they didn’t give me savings bonds. What they would do is I would just, I would get like, um, candy money is what my grandmother would call it. [00:40:53] Christina: And she [00:40:54] Jeff: my my aunt called it ice cream money. My great [00:40:56] Christina: yeah, she would call it like, you know, she put like, like, like 20 or something, you [00:41:00] know, for like, you know, a holiday and whatnot. But I always thought that savings bonds were like a scam. Like, that’s what I, my understanding always was, was that like there’s people like thinking that it was going to be worth way more and then it’s like, [00:41:13] Brett: it’s guaranteed money. Like, [00:41:15] Christina: I know [00:41:15] Jeff: It’s guaranteed to be a very poor return on [00:41:17] Christina: Well, that’s what I meant in terms [00:41:18] Jeff: like, it’s like, it’s a contractually, uh, [00:41:21] Christina: Right. Well, that’s what I meant. Like my scam, I meant like the return on investment for these things is like non existent. Like obviously it’s, it’s like, uh, you know, the, the, the bond is guaranteed, but like, you know, like it was one of those things that I think that you’d have, I always just imagine, and this is just from TV, which is my. [00:41:36] Christina: Mostly, my knowledge of savings bonds, you know, like door to door salesmen, they’re like, oh, it’s going to be such a great return on investment. This will be how you’re going to pay for your kid’s college and this and that, and just buy this. And it’s like, no, really what you want is you want like a, you know, whatever the, the, the sort of a Roth account is, and, and you want to do like these other things, like that’s how you really save for college, but like, you know, to get like [00:41:55] Brett: You know, until there’s a financial crash and your, your IRA becomes [00:42:00] worthless, [00:42:00] Christina: I mean, fair, fair, but, but, um, I mean, at that point, we had bigger fish to fry. [00:42:10] Brett: Alright, did we, did we just spend 40, 42 minutes on a mental health corner? [00:42:15] Christina: We did. We did. [00:42:16] Jeff: meandered [00:42:17] Brett: So [00:42:18] Christina: out. We’ve got a lot of other things. [00:42:20] Brett: I [00:42:20] The Pivotal Role of Overtired in Taylor’s Success [00:42:20] Brett: feel like it’s important that we acknowledge the pivotal role that this podcast played in Taylor Swift becoming a Times Person of the Year. [00:42:31] Jeff: And that’s you too, I came in late, so I [00:42:33] Christina: I mean, you came in late, [00:42:34] Jeff: little humble about it. [00:42:36] Christina: okay, you can be a little humble, but it is, it is more Brett and I, um, but I’m, I’m going to give you credit here, Jeff. Like Brett was really ready to like, not talk about Taylor Swift ever again. And you, and, and, and you, and you’ve been like willing to let me continue to talk about her. [00:42:50] Christina: And you’ve been willing to like, let me continue the conversation, especially this year, which was the pivotal year. So, so I know, I think, I think obviously it was our podcast. It was the [00:43:00] three of us. And that is why, did either of you read the profile? The profile was actually really good. [00:43:06] Brett: I, it was really long. Um, I, I skimmed it. I read, I read paragraphs that jumped out at me. I did not read the whole thing. I got some interesting tidbits. Um, she, she has led an interesting life and she has She has a lot of, she’s made some powerful decisions, uh, that have benefited her. Well, I did enjoy the story about her first, like right at the beginning of the article, it talked about her first heart, yeah, her first heartbreak when she was like scheduled to open and it was going to change her [00:43:40] Jeff: got the Kenny Chesney tour, it would change her career, she’d get so much money, and [00:43:44] Brett: And then he got sponsored by a beer company and she wasn’t old enough to be involved and he came back to her at like her 18th birthday party and gave her a check for all the money that she probably missed out on, um, [00:44:00] by being the opening act and she was able to like pay her band bonuses [00:44:05] Jeff: yeah, let me [00:44:05] Brett: for tour buses and [00:44:07] Jeff: yeah, that was good. I was gonna say, let’s just do the list of things that she paid for with that check. And then let us try to figure out how [00:44:15] Christina: How much that shuck [00:44:16] Jeff: check was for. So he is like, I’m sorry, this kid couldn’t tour with me, it would have been a big deal for her, she would have made a Ton of fucking money. [00:44:23] Jeff: And so he sends her a birthday check. Right. And it’s like, Brett just said, I’m searching this as I look. It’s like, she paid bonuses to her band. It paid for her tour buses, to her buses. Right. Like it paid for so much. How much was this check inflation considered? [00:44:44] Christina: I don’t know probably a million dollars I don’t know. [00:44:46] Jeff: And when I know Kenny Chesney makes a lot of money, but I think of people at his level of fame, which is probably bigger than I think, as like, not able to cut a million dollar check. [00:44:58] Christina: think in [00:45:00] 2006 I think he would be able to very easily because you got to think you got to think about a couple things there. One, the economy for the music industry had not completely collapsed yet. Like people were still buying CDs and and um, and so And he was selling a shitload of CDs. Like we didn’t listen to him because we’re not as demographic, but he was selling a shitload of CDs [00:45:19] Jeff: Hey man, I saw him in 07. It was Girls Night Out at the Indiana State Fair. I went with my mother in law and my wife. Girls Night Out. [00:45:26] Christina: okay. So you, which is, that’s, that’s a big thing to play too. Right? Like, like, so he’s playing like big venues, like Indiana State Fair is like, you know, he’s getting paid well for [00:45:34] Jeff: venue. [00:45:34] Christina: Well, not to mention the merch sales. Right. So like, you know, so you’re getting merch, you’re getting touring, you’re getting still CD stuff. [00:45:41] Christina: So. I think he probably could cut her, I don’t know what it would be pre inflation, but like equivalent of a million dollars now. And, and yeah, she’d be able to do it, which she didn’t expand upon in that article, but I do know from past things with her, cause this is brilliant. So they, they bought their, their buses and I think they actually bought [00:46:00] them from Kenny Chesney and they, um, [00:46:03] Jeff: this is money laundering. This is starting to look like a different deal. [00:46:06] Christina: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, [00:46:09] Jeff: Now I get [00:46:10] Christina: Now you get it. Yeah. No, I’m sure there’s some money. Definitely. Definitely money laundering. No, they bought the buses. But then what they did is they would rent them when they were not in use to other acts because her dad is, is like an actual, like financial, like advisor, like, Analyst, like, you know, stockbroker, like a guy who’s actually very, very good, like was paid for a very long time to manage other people’s money and like in the, you know, many, many millions of dollars. [00:46:36] Christina: So he’s, he’s the sort of person who you would be perfect to be like the dad of like a burgeoning like, you know, country pop star, right? Like this is not Britney Spears family who’s like, how much money can we suck out of this girl? This is like, oh no, okay, what, how can we leverage this the best we can? [00:46:53] Christina: And so he’s like, okay, well, we’ll. Buy the buses and then we’ll rent them when we’re not using them. And that way we can [00:47:00] get tax write offs, but also we can continue to make these, make money for us even when we’re not on the road. And like they, they [00:47:05] Jeff: income tour buses. [00:47:06] Brett: So what, what does Taylor Swift’s mom do? [00:47:09] Christina: she was in marketing and then I think she was a stay at home for, for Maryland and then she’s a stay at home mom. [00:47:15] Christina: Um, [00:47:16] Brett: so the, the, the [00:47:18] Jeff: And now she’s a baroness. [00:47:19] Brett: To becoming a billion dollar time person of the year is to be one, insanely talented, two, have a financial manager for a father, and three, have a marketing person as a mother. [00:47:33] Christina: Yeah, who’s also [00:47:34] Brett: and you’re, and you’re, and you’re well on your way. [00:47:37] Christina: And you’re [00:47:37] Brett: Yeah, and a check from Cheney. [00:47:39] Christina: and then the check from Kenny Chesney. Yeah No, I mean to be clear like she like it’s her talent alone I think probably she would have gotten a record deal, especially when they were giving everyone record deals. [00:47:50] Brett: Sure. But a lot of people got record [00:47:52] Christina: Oh, no, to be very [00:47:53] Brett: We don’t hear about them [00:47:54] Christina: Oh, no, no, no, absolutely. And to be very clear, I think the reason she’s been so successful, and she, I think, would be the first to admit [00:48:00] this, is like, she came from money. Her family was willing to move to Nashville for her. Like, they literally, like, picked up, like, were on, went from their, like, their palatial estate or whatever in, in, in, you know, um, Pennsylvania, went to Nashville, like, to help her pursue her dream. [00:48:15] Christina: They had the money to do it, and then they had the money to invest. And also, when she was, originally, she was signed to, um, a songwriting deal with, um, with one of the record labels. And they were like, they didn’t want her to perform her own songs. They were like, we’ll give you a record deal, but we want you to sing other people’s stuff. [00:48:29] Christina: And she’s like, this isn’t right. I’m not going to do it. I’m going to back out. And her mom is like, God, you know, we’ve worked so hard, you know, I can’t believe you’re going to do this. But she was like, okay, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll trust you. And that was when she then met Scott Borchetta, who let her do her own stuff. [00:48:44] Christina: And of course that relationship ended awfully, but it was very productive for like the first decade or 15 years or whatever of her career. So, um, Yeah, but to be very clear, like, having the right support system around you, which almost no one of [00:49:00] her age ever has, like, the dividends, and to this day she even says in the article, she like, that she considers her, you know, her thing like a small family business, because her dad’s still involved, her mom’s still involved, her brother’s involved, like, you know, they, they keep it tight. [00:49:17] Jeff: a friend who would frequently reference his family’s small business, and then I realized he was a trust fund kid who didn’t have to work, and that that family business was massive, but it was controlled by a small number of family members. It’s like, oh, [00:49:29] Christina: I think is basically this, [00:49:31] Jeff: Yeah, exactly. That’s amazing. [00:49:34] Jeff: My mother in law, when we went to see Kenny Chesney, I kept calling him Kenny Mick Chesney, I thought his name was. She thought I was being an asshole. [00:49:40] Sponsor: Aroundsquare [00:49:40] Brett: uh, now that we’re in a lighter mood here, I’m gonna, I’m gonna do a quick sponsor break. Um, this episode is brought to you by AroundSquare. You know that experience of learning something new that would have been so useful last week, or finding something special that you hadn’t realized you’d been missing all these years? [00:49:58] Brett: Well, today might be one of [00:50:00] those days. 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Check it out at [00:51:00] www. aroundsquare. com and use the code Overtired at checkout for 15 percent off. That’s aroundsquare, A R O U N D S Q U A R E. com, uh, and use the code Overtired. [00:51:16] Anyway, back to Taylor Swift [00:51:16] Brett: and now back to Christina for the Taylor Swift update. [00:51:19] Christina: And, and then now, now back to me for the, for the penultimate, for the, for the, uh, ending on this. So again, this very long article, but it’s really good one. And this comes towards the end. And basically the author is just kind of written about how he was kind of evaluating when he was talking to her. [00:51:34] Christina: She was kind of telling the story about how 2016 was this really low point in her life. And she didn’t think that anybody was going to listen to her music again. And, and that she thought that she, you know, had to go into hiding and all this stuff. And, and he kind of was thinking himself like, eh, but you know, you actually. [00:51:50] Christina: You know, that that lead single off that next album sold, you know, uh, that, that hit number one and the album sold 1. 3 million, um, you know, albums its first week and, and, [00:52:00] you know, you had this massive thing and, and, and it didn’t look, um, you know, like anybody’s career died. You know, you look like you were a superstar who, You know, I’m gonna read from him. [00:52:08] Christina: She looked like a superstar who was mining her personal experience as successfully as ever. I am tempted to say this. But then I think, who am I to challenge it, if that’s how she felt? The point is, she felt cancelled. She felt as if her career had been taken from her, something in her had been lost, and she was grieving it. [00:52:23] Christina: And then this is, this is I think really brilliant. Maybe this is the real Taylor Swift effect, that she gives people, many of them women, particularly girls, who have been conditioned to accept dismissal, gaslighting, and mistreatment from a society that treats that, that treats their emotions as inconsequential, permission to believe that their interior lives matter. [00:52:40] Christina: That for your heart to break, whether it’s from being kicked off a tour, or by the memory of a scarf still sitting in a drawer somewhere, Or because somebody else controls your life’s work is a valid wound and no, you’re not crazy for being upset about it or for wanting your story to be told. [00:52:55] Brett: That seems fair. [00:52:57] Christina: And I think, I think that’s like, I think he’s right. [00:52:59] Christina: I think that [00:53:00] is like the real, like, that, that’s, I think that encapsulates like why this year in particular, finally, like, I think she even says in the article, like, that she feels like she’s like, at like this precipice moment at 33. I don’t think anybody anticipated that she would have the year that she had, but I think that’s it, is that it’s, you know, it gives people, especially women and particularly girls, like permission to be like, yes, this shitty thing happened to me, and I might be over dramatizing it in my own head or I’m not, but I can feel this. [00:53:33] Christina: And that’s That’s pretty fucking great. [00:53:36] Brett: Well, [00:53:36] Jeff: goddamn video about it. [00:53:38] Brett: goes back to like what we were talking about. I’m talking about with depression, [00:53:42] Christina: Yes. [00:53:43] Brett: the, it’s the same feeling that like, uh, this can’t be that bad. Even though it feels wrong for me, I like, let’s put it in the context of everybody else and I’m not special and I don’t deserve to have these feelings. [00:53:59] Brett: And I think it [00:54:00] speaks to that kind of, [00:54:01] Christina: Yes. [00:54:02] Brett: yeah. [00:54:03] Christina: No, I mean, and you see it like at the concert. I can’t wait for you guys to watch the, the tour movie when it comes on streaming, um, and Plex accounts. Um, [00:54:11] Brett: saw it in the theater. No, I’m just kidding. I didn’t. [00:54:14] Christina: you did not, you liar. Um, it, [00:54:16] Jeff: They had the Taylor Swift popcorn buckets when I went to see Ghost in the Shell with my son. He brought me there, I didn’t bring him [00:54:22] Brett: Wait, Ghost in the Shell was in the theater? [00:54:25] Jeff: Yeah, it’s like a remastered version, this is a really good one. It’s good. Yeah, anyway, sorry, but we almost ended up with Taylor Swift popcorn buckets at Ghost in the Shell, which is funny. [00:54:35] Christina: that is funny, actually. No, but no, I can’t wait for you guys to like for, for that to come out so you can see parts of the, the, the concert because I’m not going to make you watch all three and a half hours. Don’t worry. But, um, it is actually, [00:54:46] Brett: a half hours. [00:54:47] Christina: she performs for three and a half hours. [00:54:49] Brett: Oh my [00:54:50] Christina: Oh, and they cut, and they cut, they cut, they cut songs from the, um, release version. [00:54:54] Christina: So it’s only three hours in the theatrical release. They cut like six songs. Um, [00:55:00] uh, well, I mean, genuinely it is like the most amazing, like, achievement of like artistic, like, um, athleticism I’ve ever seen in my life because, [00:55:10] Brett: I watched King Kong with a notebook and just mark down all the [00:55:15] Jeff: that was the name of a movie. [00:55:16] Brett: I thought they could cut. I think King Kong could have been a two hour movie. [00:55:22] Christina: yeah. [00:55:23] Jeff: That’s the hill you’re going to die at. You’re like of all the movies [00:55:26] Christina: Of all the [00:55:26] Jeff: to, to be like, you know, where [00:55:28] Brett: was that was [00:55:29] Jeff: fucking King Kong. Give me my notebook. [00:55:31] Brett: so Lord of the Rings like that could have been cut too. Um, but but like King Kong is the one I feel most wasted, like hours of my life. And like, I am almost vindictive about how long King Kong was. [00:55:48] Jeff: Um, before off of the Taylor Swift topic, I want to just tell you how this article highlighted a problem in Instapaper, which is that when I open it in Instapaper, [00:56:00] it says this, here’s the headline. Taylor Swift is Times 2023 person of the year. Bye. Taylor Swift comma time. I don’t know how that ended up happening, but it’s pretty, like, she really figured out how to [00:56:13] Christina: really figured out how to control everything. She, she even figured out how to like, like make Instapaper. Like, yeah, I know that’s very funny. [00:56:19] Jeff: She hacked into Marco Armet’s thing and that hacked into the New York Times and now here you go. She [00:56:24] Brett: Speaking of, speaking of Instapaper, should we do some Graptitude? [00:56:28] Christina: some Graftitude. [00:56:29] Grapptitude [00:56:29] Brett: Oh man, so I’ll kick it off. I just published my, uh, Brett’s Favorites 2023. I do this every year on my blog. Um, there is a second installment coming, uh, but I listed probably 30, 30 apps that I love this year. So I’m going to link that in the show notes and people can check it out. [00:56:51] Brett: Um, I think. Based on the mention of Instapaper, I want to highlight Artifact. [00:57:00] Have you guys used Artifact at all? [00:57:02] Christina: Um, that’s the uh, that’s the, that’s the news app from the Instagram guys. Yeah. [00:57:08] Brett: it is, it is pretty They went through a recent change where they started highlighting user comments more than news stories. Um, so it takes a little extra work to use it as a news app than it used to. Um But, I, I love it, it has AI generated summaries of every article, um, and then if you click it you go to the actual article on the web so that, that author gets like, you know, ad money, whatever, um. [00:57:40] Brett: I do love that if enough people report a headline as clickbait y, they will have AI rewrite the headline based on the content of the article in a non clickbait y fashion. So you can, like, I go through Apple News and I get frustrated [00:58:00] because It’s, it’s so many Newsweek articles. So many Newsweek articles [00:58:05] Jeff: Oh yeah. [00:58:05] Brett: get boasted on me. [00:58:07] Brett: Um, and, and Artifact has actually led me in the categories that I tell that I’m interested in. Um, it has provided a lot of Really good news from a variety of sources and not, uh, not just an echo chamber of what it thinks I want to hear. It’s, it’s pretty good. The, the algorithm is, um, people centric in my opinion. [00:58:33] Christina: Yeah. I like it a lot too. And, and obviously it’s, it’s from the, um, uh, Instagram, uh, the original Instagram team, um, that, uh, Mike and Kevin, who, you know, I think, uh, regardless of, I mean, look, however you use Instagram now and however it’s evolved, like, I think that is probably one of the most impressive apps ever. Like, to have a, a team of nine people sell like an app for over a billion dollars and it to remake a, a, a, a massive tech company [00:59:00] to be like one of the central like things like I think Instagram as a, you know, product and I think Facebook as, as a company like was greatly, greatly hurt when the two of them left like four years ago. [00:59:09] Christina: But yeah, so, so, um, uh, kudos to Artifact. Um, I actually, do you, do you have yours, um, um, Jeff Ready? [00:59:17] Jeff: Yeah. [00:59:17] Christina: Go for it. [00:59:19] Jeff: Uh, well, it’s, it’s really, so it’s, it’s this torrent app on setup called Folks, [00:59:26] Christina: Oh yeah! [00:59:27] Jeff: And like, it is a good app in a, in that any torrent app could be good. I mean, they’re all, it’s such a shit show that you’re navigating. And, and so it’s, it’s. Clean. And I, I get my stuff quickly and I don’t have to look at crazy ass ads ever. [00:59:40] Jeff: Um, and, and I’ve really appreciated it cause I haven’t found anything better. I don’t like love it the most, but I want to just say if anybody knows of anything that’s even cleaner and more elegant and has a, uh, even better search functionality, uh, I’ll, I’ll look at it. Um, [00:59:57] Christina: so you’re looking for something that can search for [01:00:00] stuff, not just something that will manage torrents. [01:00:02] Jeff: Yeah, and even just, I don’t even, I don’t seed shit. I’m a, I’m a one way Johnny. [01:00:07] Christina: Right. Okay. [01:00:08] Jeff: that, put that season one of Columbo in my pocket, and I’m [01:00:11] Christina: it. Okay. So, so Transmission won’t give you the search, but is a very clean interface if you have another way to use it. So Transmission, which was recently Within the last year or so, like, it finally got a massive 4. 0 upgrade. Um, 4. 05, I think, came out two days ago, so that’s now finally being actively developed again. [01:00:27] Christina: Um, and, and it runs natively on M1 Macs now and whatnot, and, and that is, um, it’s on, it’s on a number of platforms, but it was originally a Mac app. Um, that’s, I think, like, the best all around clean client. However, uh, it’s not gonna give you, like, the, the searchability stuff, so [01:00:44] Jeff: Yeah, and I mean, and I do, I, part of why I’m interested if there’s something better is not, I mean, cause they do an amazing job when you consider the shitscape that is Searching Torrents online. I mean, what you have to navigate to show you something. [01:00:57] Brett: you have a Synology, don’t you, Jeff? [01:00:59] Jeff: I sure do [01:01:00] have a [01:01:00] Brett: Um, there are transmission is available for Synology. Uh, there’s also a default package called download station that actually [01:01:10] Jeff: yeah, [01:01:10] Brett: really, really decent search, uh, really decent, like it’ll automatically find magnet links. And then you can just like. Pick a torrent and then come back the next day and you don’t have to sit and watch the number of peers and percentage download and everything and it just goes to your Synology while you sleep and [01:01:31] Jeff: tell me when the first three police academies are ready. [01:01:33] Brett: it works pretty well, yeah. I have found, I have found many, many a TV show unavailable on streaming using Download Station. [01:01:42] Christina: Yeah, Download Station is great and, uh, and Usenet, and, and Usenet is still a great thing too if you’re willing to pay for, um, uh, you know, some of the, the Usenet services. You can get a lot of really great stuff from [01:01:54] Brett: There are still Usenet services? [01:01:56] Christina: yeah, no, they’re, well, okay, again, it’s, it’s just for file sharing. [01:01:59] Christina: So, [01:02:00] um, but, but there’s GigaNews, there are a bunch of them and basically, like, they will have, like, really long retention times and you can use things like Sonar and Radar to search. and find basically anything you want and whatever quality you want and then just queue it up and it’ll download for you. [01:02:14] Jeff: Okay. Got it. Cool. Thank you. I will, I will start [01:02:17] Christina: We should have like a piracy episode sometime. Uh [01:02:20] Jeff: That’d be fun. Is there a great piracy guest we could bring? [01:02:24] Christina: huh, I’m thinking about [01:02:26] Jeff: An actual pirate? [01:02:27] Christina: mean maybe, maybe. I was actually, I was actually thinking maybe we could get one of the torrent freak guys on to talk. [01:02:32] Jeff: Oh yeah. I would love to pepper questions at a torrent expert slash piracy slash pirate. [01:02:42] Brett: Guaranteed to get us, um, top billing on the podcast apps. [01:02:48] Christina: I mean, you never know. I mean, like, it depends. Like, are they algorithmically determined? If so, then yeah, probably. [01:02:53] Brett: I [01:02:54] Christina: If there’s no human, like, curating that stuff, then like, yeah. [01:02:58] Jeff: Man. What’s yours, [01:02:59] Christina: [01:03:00] Okay, so we were talking about, um, uh, ReadIt, um, uh, later apps, and I have to say, like, I’ve been using, for the last year or so, I’ve been using, um, uh, ReadWise is, uh, Reader. [01:03:10] Christina: And, and it’s awesome. And so Readwise is, is a service, uh, Readwise. io. And, um, I, uh, and they have a reader service, which will also kind of act as like a read it later thing, which is really, really good. Like you can, it’s basically the idea is that you can kind of like import all of your highlights from like your Kindle and your Instapaper or iBooks or, you know, Pocket or whatever, you know, if you’re wanting to kind of keep track of that stuff. [01:03:34] Christina: And then Reader, they basically built like a read it later for Power users is how they describe it. And. I love it because you can basically bring in RSS, you can bring in PDFs, you can bring in like YouTube videos, you know, you can bring in other read it later stuff, you can bring in EPUBs, you can connect newsletters to it, and so it’s, they literally built an app that like, Would be like I remember when I first read about it. [01:03:57] Christina: I was like, okay This is the the perfect app for me Like [01:04:00] this seems like this was done for me and like I I’m still you know I think I might I have to check I think I still pay for Instapaper Pro I don’t even know anymore, but I was like a line I was like a but I was like a lifetime Instapaper person even though I haven’t used that actively in a really long time and and I never really got into pocket because I was team Marco and you know like Whatever. [01:04:22] Christina: Um, and, and like old grudges die hard, frankly. uh, cause I remember when that first started out as like a Firefox extension and they kind of copied like, like Marco’s whole thing. Anyway, um, like everything’s under the bridge now, but like, you know, I, I’ve always, like, uh, we used to say at, at Gizmodo, it was like, people were like, oh, we’ll just use Pocket, and we were like, no, we were an Instapaper family. [01:04:43] Christina: Um, and, but now I think I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m a, um, a Readwise reader family. Um, it’s a really, really good app, and so if you’re looking, go on. [01:04:53] Brett: I had heard about this, but I had never checked it out before. And I’m looking through the feature list and, um, yeah, [01:05:00] bringing like, especially if I can combine my like Kindle reading, uh, and my highlights in eBooks with stuff I find on the web and read later, tagging and, and note searching and it can sync to our sometimes sponsored notion. [01:05:17] Christina: Yep. [01:05:18] Brett: Yeah, that’s, this looks pretty great. [01:05:20] Christina: Yeah, no, it’s really, really good. And, um, the pricing of it, um, is, uh, like, uh, you know, you can, you can use, you can try it out. Um, but I think it’s like eight dollars a month or something, which for me is completely worth it. So, [01:05:36] Brett: Nice. [01:05:37] Jeff: and to any listeners who now have the song under the bridge in their head like I do, just because Christina said the words under the bridge, I see you. But I cannot help you because I can’t even help myself. [01:05:48] Christina: I’m sorry about that. But yeah, it’s a great song, though. [01:05:54] Brett: Last thing, last thing I’ll mention for anyone who has bought an Ultimate [01:06:00] Hacking Keyboard based on my recommendation. Um, they just came out with, they call it the Riser 60, and it is a, uh, tenting mechanism for your keyboard that gives you, I think, up to 60 degree Tilt, uh, from the side, which is ergonomically fantastic. [01:06:21] Brett: Like I tent mine at like 10 degrees using the built in feet, but I’m so excited to have it tented like almost vertically and tight from the side. That’s so [01:06:31] Jeff: wait to show you the keyboard that is, that is custom built for the three fucking fingers I use to type, because it’s gonna, it’s gonna do to you what all this does to me. You’re going to be like, well, I don’t know how to use a machine so complex. [01:06:44] Brett: I, you, I’m showing you, I did this to my finger and. [01:06:48] Jeff: showing me a cut finger which he’ll now retract. [01:06:51] Brett: it’s, [01:06:52] Christina: ha! Fuck off, Siri. Oh, okay. That was [01:06:55] Jeff: hard to understand. [01:06:57] Brett: uh, but I, I butchered my finger [01:07:00] and I couldn’t touch type with, with, because every time my keyboard was covered in blood, it was, it was wicked. So I started trying to type with my two, like, four fingers. [01:07:10] Brett: And trying to like, hunt and peck type, and I can’t do it. Like, my brain is so geared to touch typing, that I don’t know, it takes me so long just to type the word the. It took so much effort, it was insane, I don’t know how you do it. [01:07:27] Jeff: Well, see, now when everything gets even worse and people have their fingers all cut up, look who’s gonna still be writing. And you’re gonna be over there with your fucking tent typewriter or whatever the fuck it is you’ve got. I’m kidding. What are you doing? [01:07:40] Brett: It’s like a homeless shelter for typewriters. [01:07:43] Jeff: Aw, that’s nice. Alright. Oh, [01:07:46] Christina: We should have, um, um, his book, the shipping has been delayed because of slipcover madness, but when, um, when Martian’s, um, um, book comes out, like, we should have him back on the pod. [01:07:56] Jeff: Slipcover Madness would [01:07:57] Brett: have paid for that. I am anxious to get it. [01:07:59] Christina: Me too, [01:08:00] me too. It’s probably not going to happen by Christmas, but um, [01:08:03] Jeff: He was a guest when I was away, right? Wasn’t he a guest when I was away? [01:08:06] Christina: yeah, I’d love to have him back to talk with you, because you guys would like, I mean, look, he just, he fits this pot, like, perfectly. [01:08:11] Christina: Like, I met him. [01:08:12] Jeff: he tent his keyboards? [01:08:16] Christina: I mean, he has like the most insane typewriter and keyboard collection, like, of anybody you’ve seen. He literally wrote this book about, like, the history of [01:08:24] Jeff: I love it. [01:08:25] Christina: stuff. And, and he and I, um, met and like became friends because we talked about, um, about, um, uh, sneakers one day for like three and a half hours in Twitter DMs. [01:08:36] Jeff: The movie or the article of clothing? Okay, got it. Great. Does anybody call them sneakers still? [01:08:41] Christina: Uh, usually kicks, but yeah, I mean, something people come to. Yeah. [01:08:44] Jeff: That’s what the kids are saying. [01:08:46] Brett: up kicks. [01:08:47] Jeff: the [01:08:48] Christina: right, foster the people. [01:08:49] Jeff: I’m gonna, I’m gonna, [01:08:51] Jeff: fight you with [01:08:53] Brett: good to see you guys. [01:08:54] Jeff: under the bridge. Get some sleep under the bridge downtown. Bye.[01:09:00]

Brett and Jeff hold the fort down, with mental health checkins and some very, very nerdy talk of clean installs, Brett’s projects, and their favorite apps. Sponsor Notion Notion AI can now give you instant answers to your questions, using information from across your wiki, projects, docs and meeting notes. Try Notion AI for free when you go to Notion.com/overtired. AroundSquare Find your next beautiful, unusual, functional item for the mind and body at Aroundsquare. Use the code OVERTIRED at checkout for 15% off. Show Links MaxQDA Homebrew Homebrew Bundle MAS CLI Marked and Bear Peek PEP440 mdless Paste LaunchBar PopClip Fathom analytics 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 Maybe A Little Too Nerdy [00:00:00] Brett: Hey, welcome to Overtired. Christina is gone this week, but she will magically be back thanks to multiple technological miracles for an ad read of Notion, who is this week’s sponsor, so stay tuned for that. I’m Brett Terpstra, I’m here with Jess Severins Gunsel, and I think, I think we’re doing okay. [00:00:28] Jeff: Yeah, yeah. You just, you just reminded me of that. So Minnesota Public Radio, obviously our public radio station here, um, there’s just a lot of good people that either left or were laid off over the last few years. And some of them, they keep their voices on the spots. And, and they’re people who like it. [00:00:44] Jeff: Leaving was hard or was painful or was unfair, anything, right? And then they still come on, on the radio being like, you know, well, you’re listening to Minnesota Public Radio. What about, you know, it’s just like, wow. Anyway, but Christina is, is definitely coming back. She wasn’t laid off, [00:00:59] Brett: No, [00:01:00] she was not. Um. [00:01:02] Jeff: You’d lose a lot of income getting laid off from Overtired. Anyway. Hi, [00:01:08] Brett: that will you lose that sweet, sweet notion money. [00:01:11] Brett: Uh, [00:01:12] Jeff: man. [00:01:13] Mental Health Corner [00:01:13] Brett: Yeah. So, um, let’s, uh, let’s just kick it off right off with a mental health corner. Um, if you would like, I will start. [00:01:22] Jeff: Yeah, do it. [00:01:23] Brett: Um, so the holidays have proven to be, I never realized how stressful holidays were on me. Um, and looking back, um, it’s. I, I dread, uh, hanging out with my family. [00:01:41] Brett: It triggers me in all kinds of ways, um, but I’ve always just accepted it as kind of a, a price of existing. Um, [00:01:51] Brett: and with my last two partners, Um, they have hated my family enough, understandably, [00:02:00] that if I chose to hang out with my family, I felt like I was disappointing them. And if I chose to skip family gatherings, I felt like I was disappointing my family. [00:02:14] Brett: So I get faced with this no win situation, no matter what I choose. And I have this huge fear of disappointing people. Like, it has Huge, a dramatic effect on my, um, my well being, even on my physical health. Uh, I, I can’t stand to have people feel like they’re disappointed in me. Um, or even, or even for me to feel like they’re disappointed in me, even if they’re not. [00:02:44] Brett: Um, and, [00:02:45] Brett: and, [00:02:46] Jeff: we decide that that’s true and it’s not true. Yeah, yeah, totally. I experience that. [00:02:50] Brett: Well, and this, like, with my parents, I project all of the beliefs of the church onto them, even, and I don’t know that they [00:03:00] hold these beliefs, I just, I’ve amalgamated all of the things I learned in my childhood And, and put it on my parents. And, and like, I react to anything they say with that lens of, okay, you believe everything this fucked up church has ever told you. [00:03:20] Brett: And maybe they don’t. But they, they also continue to support that church, um, that has had, A horrible impact on many kids my age. Um, not that I’m a kid now, but like, I talked to you, [00:03:35] Jeff: That kid is in you. [00:03:36] Brett: I, I moved, I moved back to the town where I went to that church, and I have become friends with multiple ex Ex Pleasant Valley kids, kids who went through that youth group, kids who went through that church, and we all carry our own version of religious [00:04:00] trauma, um, and by and large, like, a lot of the, a lot of the people I know who survived it, um, are queer, and like, the damage that that church did to queer people is It’s unforgivable. [00:04:18] Brett: Um, like nobody can call themselves Christian and damage kids in that way. Um, so all of that is on my mind when I hang out with my parents. Um, my siblings are less problematic in that way. But, um, but I do, I do hold my parents accountable for a lot of that trauma. Not just to me, but to my peers. Um, and man, like, so this comes up in therapy, uh, in couples therapy and, uh, and I get, because when I imagine, or when I try to understand how I [00:05:00] will feel about something in the future, I project myself into that situation and, and I imagine all of the feelings from it. [00:05:07] Brett: And, and. Doing so will give me immediate stomach problems. Um, like I think three days after my last couples counseling, not the last one, the one before it, I was sick and like it takes a physical toll on me. And honestly, I never, I never put together that the holidays did this to me. [00:05:31] Jeff: Oh, yeah. [00:05:33] Brett: understood exactly how stressful, exactly how much of a no win situation the holidays were. [00:05:42] Jeff: And does that, when you say the holidays, does it start with Thanksgiving for you? Because that’s the first, right? That’s the first gathering. [00:05:47] Brett: My, my whole family got together in Ohio and I was invited and I declined. Um, so that was forgivable. Um, [00:06:00] missing Christmas would be less forgivable. But missing Thanksgiving, like I got text messages from the family saying, Hey, we’re having a great time. Hope you’re well. Like, nothing judgmental or, or ill intentioned. [00:06:14] Brett: Um, so that actually went okay. Um, I didn’t come out of that feeling a lot of guilt. Um, Christmas is going to be a We don’t have full family plans for Christmas. Like, no one’s traveling. It would just be, my parents are in town, where I live. Um, so I need to see them to feel like I have fulfilled familial obligations. [00:06:43] Brett: Um, so what we’re gonna do is, prior to Christmas, we’re gonna go out for pizza, and Um, at a place where I can have a whiskey sour and, and comfort myself. Um, and my mom will be on good behavior [00:07:00] because we’re in a public place to some extent. Have you, have you ever had someone close to you that loves sending stuff back to the kitchen? [00:07:09] Jeff: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I’ve definitely had this experience. [00:07:13] Brett: Yeah, [00:07:14] Jeff: Or worse, the person who’s like, you know, you really should send that back and you can’t just like get them off that horse. [00:07:20] Brett: yeah. So my mom is, my mom is the lady who will always If anything is wrong, send it back to the kitchen and make a big deal about it to the waitstaff. And then, like, dock waitstaff’s tip [00:07:34] Brett: because the kitchen mess, like, [00:07:37] Jeff: up with the tip. Never fuck with the tip. [00:07:39] Brett: dude, I tipped 30 percent last night because we had a server that was just, it was a quiet night at the grill. [00:07:48] Brett: Uh, she was just so attentive and would like sit and talk to Elle about like Yarnology stuff, like knitting and, [00:08:00] uh, she was just fantastic. So I left a, left a 30 percent tip on a 90 tab. It was, it was, well, my mom would never do that. Um, and going out to eat with my mom is always a little bit stressful, but not as stressful as dealing with her in her own home. [00:08:18] Jeff: I can’t. Yeah, okay, got it. Yep, yep, yep. It’s a little safer. [00:08:21] Brett: Yeah. Yeah. [00:08:23] Jeff: um, I’m not going to just free associate on restaurant, uh, ethics, but I have a lot of thoughts as you talk, but that’s not what this is about. [00:08:32] Brett: I, uh, well, I’m done. If you have something to say about restaurant ethics, [00:08:35] Brett: I’m open to it. [00:08:36] Jeff: so a couple of things, like one is I will never, um, I will never, uh, not tip at least the, the, the, you know, the base fair amount. Um, and part of that is, and I’ve had plenty of shitty surfers, right? But it’s like, maybe you’re shitty. You have to deal with people all day, and people are horrible. [00:08:54] Jeff: And I don’t know, maybe I’m horrible and I don’t even know it. Like, maybe I’ve done something in this interaction that is like, God, [00:09:00] I hate it when the, you know, like, yeah. You should also be tipped for having to do this job when it’s miserable for you. [00:09:06] Brett: so in Europe, tipping is unusual, um, tipping is if something is just fucking fantastic and, and you need to note it, but as a general rule, like this idea of a 20 percent tip is it’s non existent, but they also pay their servers a living wage. [00:09:29] Jeff: Right. Right. [00:09:30] Brett: Like, we get away with paying servers less than minimum wage, [00:09:35] Jeff: and then one other follow up that you maybe think of is, um, about being good Christians. Uh, so I was raised Catholic, um, and Lutheran at the same time, divorced parents. And, uh, I remember with my stepdad, we were leaving. Church one day, it was the Catholic Church, and everyone was just being a little rude and inconsiderate in the parking lot. [00:09:59] Jeff: He got [00:10:00] upset, and I think he was only half kidding. He’s like, these are not people who are being good Christians! And I thought of that, so the other night our family went to this Gaza Solidarity event. Um, and uh, at, at the, at the Heights Theater here, it was the, it was a international day of solidarity with the Palestinian people and that what was happening is in theaters all around the world, people were reading something called the Gaza monologues, which are the [00:10:25] Brett: I, that happened, that happened here in [00:10:27] Brett: Winona [00:10:28] Jeff: so these kids from the Gods of War in 2010, which feels a lot like the one now, um, it was really beautiful. But this theater, they have a church behind the theater and there’s a parking lot there. And at night when movies are happening, there’s no, the church has no use for that thing. But the church is so vindictive about towing people that if you go to this theater’s website, the first thing you see in all bold, almost like an old angel fire site where it’s like be blinking is like, do not park in the church. [00:10:52] Jeff: So here was the thing. Not only does this church tow you, um, Uh, from an empty parking lot, if you choose to use it for the movie [00:11:00] theater, the little independent arts movie theater. But they, this is in Minneapolis and they contract with a St. Paul, uh, uh, towing company. So you have to go to [00:11:08] Brett: Oh no. [00:11:09] Jeff: then you have to pay apparently an unusually high amount. [00:11:12] Jeff: And I was like, That is some fucked up Christian behavior. That is not Christian behavior. I don’t, whatever, if you’re like a textualist, there’s nothing about parking lots in the Bible, Old Testament or New, but I feel like you can infer that you should find a way to just allow people to park or at least make a mistake, right? [00:11:30] Brett: We, uh, there was a night in Minneapolis, uh, we were at our practice space, and our drummer Clay’s car got towed, and we walked to, it was in Minneapolis, it was near the Walker, there’s like an impound lot [00:11:46] Jeff: Oh, I know this lot. I, my car has been in this lot. [00:11:48] Brett: and, and we climbed the fence with a coat over the razor wire, and then drove his car through the fence, And just kept [00:12:00] going. [00:12:00] Brett: And as far as I know, to the best of my knowledge, there was never any repercussion from this. [00:12:07] Jeff: That’s like Breaking Bad when they, when they liberate the RV. [00:12:10] Brett: Yeah. [00:12:12] Jeff: That’s great. I think that that’s perfectly fair and just. [00:12:16] Brett: Fair play. [00:12:16] Jeff: Yeah, not all laws are meant to be followed. What did the John Lewis thing? That’s good trouble right there. That’s good trouble. [00:12:26] Jeff: I guess for me, uh, in terms of like mental health stuff, it’s, it something that has been on my mind a lot is not exactly about me. Um, so I, I’m doing this. work with a new client and there is this really amazing organization in Minnesota called Foster Advocates. [00:12:43] Jeff: And they, they do work to sort of promote the rights and needs and agency of foster kids. And in most states, definitely in this state where we have 87 counties and we have also tribal governments. Um, you know, foster care is, [00:13:00] is managed a little differently in all of these places, right. And so there’s, there are state Guidelines in their estate rules, but like, not only if you are a foster kid, like, and if there’s anyone out there, I don’t mean to speak for you. [00:13:11] Jeff: I’m kind of sharing what I’ve picked up over my lifetime is that not only are you in an incredibly precarious and ungoverned position by even just being in a foster home. Right? But you are in a precarious and, and, you know, there’s regulations for the system, but it just feels very ungoverned in many ways. [00:13:28] Jeff: System, right? And, um, so part of what I do and what I’m doing with this organization is like, they’ve done all these, um, group interviews with fosters in all the different counties, basically, in Minnesota. And, um, and they’re really amazing conversations. And also this organization, I mean, uh, uh, I think a majority Definitely a majority of the staff running this organization are ex Fosters, which is really cool. [00:13:51] Jeff: Um, and uh, and so I’m working with the transcripts of all these focus group sessions, focus groups used loosely in [00:14:00] the qualitative sense, not in the, you know, we’re trying to make sure that this, this Hollywood Marvel movie appeals to China kind of way, not like that, but like, um, not to pick on the Chinese, but I’ve come to learn that that’s really becoming a problem for the quality of these movies. [00:14:13] Jeff: Um, but anyway, um, So I’ve been working with these, um, interviews and part of what I do, I use special software and stuff and I, and I go through looking for patterns or whatever ways of sort of like, um, sort of representing the experience in a way that can be turned into something, turned into advocacy [00:14:30] Brett: Is that that MaxQDA [00:14:32] Jeff: Yeah, [00:14:33] Brett: Yeah, yeah, [00:14:35] Jeff: I wish I knew about it when I was a journalist. It’s just an amazing way to look at a lot of text and search across it and you code it and you can do just, it’s amazing. It’s my favorite thing to do. Um, anyway, so what will happen when I have When I work with a client like this is they might, you know, have a bunch of interview data or I might do the interviews and then they’ll say, can you look at these interviews? [00:14:56] Jeff: These, maybe it’s 12, maybe it’s 50, maybe it’s a hundred interview transcripts. And, [00:15:00] and can you look at it for, for this theme? So it might be like, uh, you know, um, you might be looking for a theme of, of harm versus hurt. Like what are qualities of, of harm in the system as they’re described, and what are qualities of hurt? [00:15:12] Jeff: So no one’s necessarily saying it explicitly, but you’re sort of drawing it out. Right. And in this case, I’m helping them. Among many other things, I’m helping them look at, um, over medication, over prescription, forced prescription, forced, you know, medication. And not only that, but like denial of medication, you know, the whole thing. [00:15:29] Jeff: It’s like, what’s in there? What are people talking about? And the thing that has just been haunting me all, all week, because I spent a day on this early last week, Um, that I hadn’t really thought about. It’s like, so my own experience being diagnosed bipolar two years ago, and then going through really a hell in trying to find the right medications. [00:15:48] Jeff: Like I was over medicated for it at first. And I sort of, I consented to that. I, I, the manic episode that led me to diagnosis was scary enough to me that I was like, yeah, hit me with the stuff, you know? And [00:16:00] we talked about this on past episodes, but like the work it takes to witness yourself when you are Essentially, I remember my medication provider said, look, I’m just going to say it straight. [00:16:13] Jeff: It’s always an experiment. It’s always an experiment. We don’t know what’s going to work. If it fails, we don’t know how it’s going to fail. And, and, and I, I don’t know about your experience of bipolar, but like, because, because like after, you know, a lifetime of having manic episodes, now I recognize that we’re not nearly this sort of. [00:16:33] Jeff: impactful. When I had one that was that impactful, what happened to me is I, and this was the hardest part, is I, um, I, I realized maybe I can’t trust myself. Maybe I can’t trust what I’m thinking or what I’m feeling because you have that experience of sort of grandiosity and you have that experience. And, and for me, I don’t know if this is true for you. [00:16:53] Jeff: I know this is a symptom of bipolar and like mania is like, I can be so fucking certain of what I’m [00:17:00] thinking and so righteous about it. And I’ve always tried to temper righteousness in my personality, even though I [00:17:05] Brett: course you have. Yeah, for sure. [00:17:07] Jeff: But I try to temper it because relationally it’s just a bad thing. [00:17:10] Jeff: You know, like it shuts off. It just. Kills relationships, right? But when I, when I was, had this manic episode and then when I was on some of the wrong medication, that righteousness was so intense. And I got to the point where I, what happened was, if I was feeling it, I could be like, oh, this isn’t real. [00:17:26] Jeff: Like there’s a, and there’s enough of a kernel of truth in it that you can defend it until you You know, turn to ashes in your shoes. But like, but like, I’m, uh, part of what my experience has been in the last two years is all these different ways in which I can be like, Oh, I’m feeling this thing. It feels very real. [00:17:41] Jeff: That means it’s not. And, and, and that is a really shitty feeling, right? [00:17:46] Brett: for sure. [00:17:47] Jeff: so it’s not just, so in the context of that, then trying to witness yourself and be like, I’m feeling this thing, I think it might be the medication. I need to talk to my medication manager, or I need to advocate for myself if my medication manager is [00:18:00] feeling certain that this is the right thing, whatever. [00:18:02] Jeff: And then what you experience, and I know you know this, when you do decide to switch, and even if you’re fully supported in switching, you may go through a whole new hell, right? And what I was reading in these transcripts, that was just crushing my heart, was all of the examples of young people saying, I knew this wasn’t right in me, but all that I would hear back is, Well, you’re not behaving well, you’re fucked up or whatever. [00:18:28] Jeff: You just take your meds. We decided what the meds are. You got to take them. There’s no, not only might you not inherently at that point, have the ability to advocate for yourself, or even understand that advocating for yourself is a thing, that you have that power, that you are inherently, Uh, the, the, the person that is most expert on you and your body, even if you have to learn what to trust and what not to, you are the expert, right? [00:18:53] Jeff: And it’s in everything you need to be the expert is there and it’s only there for you. I guess that’s kind of what I mean to say. And, and the [00:19:00] way that kids talked about how, um, they would try to say this doesn’t feel right. This doesn’t feel good. And what would come back is essentially like, Hey, look, you’re a fucked up kid. [00:19:09] Jeff: This is just what you need. We need to trust us, right? We’re the professionals. And in some cases, the quote unquote professionals are really just the foster parents who Maybe don’t have any kind of like intelligence around mental health or child development, right. Or any of that stuff, same problem with the juvenile justice system, the so called juvenile justice system, which treats, you know, kids as if they couldn’t possibly be expert on anything except being shitty kids. [00:19:33] Jeff: And, and even then it’s like, you don’t even know why you’re a shitty kid. Do you like it? That’s, that’s the like internalized message, or at least in the hundreds of interviews I’ve gone through, that certainly comes up. So anyway, from a mental health perspective, I was just. Realizing, and one of the things, and if anybody has any information along these lines that’d be interested, is like, am certain that for fosters there probably isn’t any really good sort of guidance out there in the world to be like, here are some sort [00:20:00] of ways of listening to your body and trying to understand, right? [00:20:04] Jeff: Uh, it’s complex, right? Or it’s complicated. It’s not always complex, but, um, But I just realized there’s no advoca there’s no, there’s no tool. There, there must, I, I don’t think, if you think about, if you think about the, the kinds of rights that foster kids, um, deserve, need, are sometimes given, at least in legislation, about, you know, whether it’s visitation with siblings or, um, access to mental health treatment or, um, you know, um, all these different things that you might have. [00:20:33] Jeff: It’s very difficult, um, To imagine a lot of energy around somehow, what, legislating? This idea that like, you deserve to have a voice in your medical care, which is a little easier to imagine than You deserve to be helped to understand what is happening in your body and what it might mean or what to expect. [00:20:59] Jeff: And I get the [00:21:00] sense that there’s just none of that and you’re all alone. I just think of these kids like you’re already so goddamn alone and you’re also alone in this fog of medication hell. Um, and I’ve just been thinking about that a lot. So, and, and, and of course, like thinking about it because I’ve had my own sort of experience in the last couple of years that, um, I hadn’t previously had of just like how, how not yourself you can feel and how hard it can be to trust yourself and how hard it can be to get good help. [00:21:26] Jeff: Like I had a medication manager I really liked, but that person made some really bad decisions on my behalf. And it impacted me in really significant ways that, that involved my body and [00:21:37] Brett: you went through it with the support of your family. [00:21:40] Jeff: yeah, and a, and a partner who’s a therapist and, but, but, but, but it’s, it’s still a, she’s my partner, not my therapist. [00:21:48] Jeff: Right? And so, so there’s still going to be dynamics where she might see one thing that seems really obvious and I’m still in a place where I’m like, no, no, I don’t see it. And, and in fact, yeah. Thing I’ve decided is what I’m staying with, you know, [00:22:00] whatever. So there’s like all over the place, but I mostly just want to say, just remember that, um, there are a lot of kids out there that, uh, deal with some of the stuff we talk about all the time and have no frame of reference for it. [00:22:13] Jeff: And, um, and almost no agency. [00:22:15] Brett: Yeah. Oof. [00:22:17] Jeff: Yeah, that’s my mental health check in. It was, it was hard to read. It was really hard to read over and over again. Um, which isn’t, you know, that’s, it’s, having to read it is a lot less problematic than having to experience it. But [00:22:29] Brett: I’m gonna link MaxQDA in the show notes because it is pretty amazing software for anyone doing text analysis of any kind. [00:22:41] Jeff: Yeah, one of the things I love to do in it, when I’m starting, especially when it’s interview transcripts with Well, mostly I’ve done this with interviews, transcripts with kids, either in the like juvenile justice system, so called, or now the foster system. It’s like, it has all these different ways. It’s like MaxQDA opens up a thousand [00:23:00] windows for you to look at text. [00:23:01] Jeff: And so I think traditionally the, not exactly, but like the most, I think assumed method of like coding and interviews. So, you know, you’re like, Oh, this section is about hurt. This section is about family, right? Is to read it. Front to bottom, or top to bottom. Um, but the way that I’ve come to do this work is almost exclusively to come at it. [00:23:21] Jeff: Sideways and diagonally and whatever else. And one of my favorite things to do with MaxQDA, which is just one simple feature. It’s not even one of the most powerful features is they create these sort of sentence diagrams so that you, you can put a word in and then it’ll show you where that word goes. [00:23:37] Jeff: Right. And like a really nice looking, almost like, who’s the Tufti, who’s the, whatever, like, it’s that, that style of like data visualization. And one of the things that I came to really, that I’ve come to really rely on is what I call I statements, which is like, The first thing I’ll do is look at that sentence tree for, I wish, I can’t, I never, I want, um, uh, and, [00:24:00] and, um, and it’s incredible when you take just something like, I wish, which I don’t mean at all to sound like, this isn’t like, um, The Children Are Our Future, kind of [00:24:10] Brett: Mm. Sure. Yeah. [00:24:11] Jeff: about what they wish, they’re talking about what hurts the most, often, right? [00:24:15] Jeff: Um, and to see the directions that the words I wish can lead to, and then to be able to, what, what’s been so powerful to me is like when you’re working with kids and stories, um, that are often like stories of harm, or they’re at least like entangled in harmful systems, like, Oftentimes people fall into the trap of putting a story in front of you, which can be kind of voyeuristic and, and I think a little, um, and it’s ethically just a little not good. [00:24:45] Jeff: Um, and, and just from a cosmic standpoint, like, don’t just put my story out there so that you can make people react a certain way. But now what I do when I’m helping people do either advocacy or maybe they’re trying to facilitate sessions with the people [00:25:00] that. Uh, have power over these kids or whatever is you can curate these statements like an I wish statement And and if you have and have done this and if you have sort of like a curated diagram of these Sentences and where I wish can go what you’ve done is created like A sort of map of the ecosystem of the child, right? [00:25:18] Jeff: Because they’re they’re not just going to be talking about the system And they’re going to remind you through this or it’s going to remind you of all the Basic needs that we all have as humans. But we totally just box these kids in into like, Oh, well, their primary need must just be, I don’t know what to be free of the system, to have a better judge, whatever the fuck it would be. [00:25:36] Jeff: And, and in reality, um, it’s so many like, uh, intertwined, uh, desires and longings and, and rights and needs. And anyway, and, and, and so Max QDA, cause I am really just talking about software, um, just, it’s been amazing for me as a person who loves. People’s, who loves to like work with people’s stories in a way that hopefully honors them, like it’s amazing to [00:26:00] see all the ways you can come. [00:26:01] Jeff: And, and just one last thing, Brett, through, through the wonder of Torrance, I have, I’m a huge, I’m a Tolstoy freak. I fucking [00:26:10] Brett: Sure. Sure. [00:26:11] Jeff: angry bearded man. Um, and And I’ve always wanted to be able to look across text files of his books by a certain translator. And in this case, it’s a couple, it’s like a married couple. [00:26:25] Jeff: Um, and I, through the wonder of torrents, I got, I got the EPUB files of all of these. Uh, and like Resurrection, War and Peace, Anna Karenina, we’ve all heard the names, right? And, um, and I put them into text files and I did I wish statements. And, and it was incredible because if I looked across a book, like, if I looked just at I wish statements and Anna Karenina, there were only like 13. [00:26:48] Jeff: But they actually created an enough of an outline of the story that it brought it all back to me. But the thing I’m doing next is like If anybody’s read Tolstoy, you will know what I’m talking about, like, and that sounds like a pretentious statement, and [00:27:00] I don’t mean it to be, and I had to create a book club to read Tolstoy because I could never get through of it. [00:27:03] Jeff: But anyway, the way that he can tell you what a piece of shit you are by describing how you use your lips like one of my favorite things about Tolstoy, and so I’ve always wanted to do like a comprehensive review of how he describes particularly your lower face. when he really hates you. Um, so stay tuned. [00:27:23] Jeff: Uh, maybe I’ll do a reading in a future [00:27:25] Brett: Excellent. [00:27:26] Jeff: Also Max QDA. Anyway, sorry, that was a long. Woo! [00:27:29] Sponsor: Notion [00:27:29] Brett: All right. Um, so we’re going to use some of that magic, magic of technology right now. And we’re going to get a, uh, sponsor read from Christina. [00:27:40] Christina: Hey everybody, it’s Christina here, and I’m not on the show this week because I’m on a train to Portland to get a new laptop. Uh, more details on that later, but I could not let things go without talking about, our sponsor of this week’s show, Notion, and their new, Q& A feature. So if you’re anything like me, you might already be familiar with Notion, [00:28:00] which is the sponsor of today’s episode, as I said. [00:28:02] Christina: I use this all the time for, for notes, for documents. I have internal wikis of various things that I collect and I really love the interface and I really love how easy it is, , to, create docs. But, but now I also like how easy it is to find things because of a new AI tool they’ve launched called Q& A. [00:28:19] Christina: So this is basically a personal assistant that responds really fast with exactly what you need right in your doc. So. Here’s a real world example from me. I have a Notion doc filled with links and information about various discounts that I get as a corporate employee. This is kind of a difficult document to like, suss through because it’s actually the combination of like five different documents that I’ve sourced from a bunch of different places. [00:28:46] Christina: So it’s not super well organized. Well, this is why this was perfect to use Q& A with because I can just ask Notion’s Q& A I can say, okay, show me my discount code or my [00:29:00] discount URL for Avis and it will give it to me and I don’t have to go searching for, okay, was it in the transportation section or was it in the car rental section or was it in some other discount section? [00:29:11] Christina: It’ll just give me the information when I ask the question and this is the sort of thing that it can do for anybody. It doesn’t just have to be, you know, your weird, you know, link collections and, and, and documents. It can also, use your own personal notes, your docs, your projects. All that is going to be together in one beautiful space, and then you can navigate that space using Q& A, um, to, ask questions maybe about, like, next month’s Like, roadmap, uh, that you’re doing for next quarter or next month or, you know, a marketing campaign proposal that you’re looking for. [00:29:40] Christina: Um, or, you know, like I said, like what I’m doing all the time, digging up long lost links because that’s a problem that I personally have and that, uh, that Notion definitely can help, can help me out with. So if you haven’t used Notion, um, I think that you should definitely give it a shot and Notion AI can now give you instant answers to your [00:30:00] questions. [00:30:00] Christina: Using information from across your wiki, your project docs, your meeting notes, etc. So you can try Notion AI for free when you go to Notion. com slash Overtired. That’s all lowercase letters. Notion. com slash Overtired to try the powerful, easy to use Notion AI today. And when you’re going to use our link, you are supporting our show. [00:30:23] Christina: So once again, that is Notion. com slash Overtired. Try out the Q& A feature. Try out the Notion AI stuff. It’s really slick. I’m a big fan. Thanks a lot, Notion. [00:30:32] Sponsor: Aroundsquare [00:30:32] Brett: You know that experience of learning something new that would have been so useful last week or finding something special that you hadn’t realized you’d been missing all these years? Well, today might be one of those days. [00:30:42] Brett: AroundSquare is a company you’ve probably never heard about. For certain people, the brand, the products and the ideas just really resonate. Since 2007, a round Square has been designing and producing beautiful, unusual functional goods for the mind and body. Their specialty is a range of intriguing little objects for [00:31:00] everyday carry. [00:31:01] Brett: Many of these are things that could be called skill toys. Dexterity trainers or fidget items, but they don’t really conform to those labels and none of them really do the product’s justice. They’re striking, minimalist objects more akin to jewelry than playthings, but they’re also serious tools designed for creative exploration and peaceful manipulation, things to keep your hands busy and the mind at ease by providing just the desired level of stimulation. [00:31:27] Brett: Around Square’s eclectic range goes way beyond this and includes stationary jewelry, functional clothing and much more. Check it out at www. aroundsquare. com and use the code overtired at checkout for 15 percent off. That’s aroundsquare. com, A R O U N D S Q U A R E dot com. [00:31:50] On Clean Installs [00:31:50] Jeff: It’s just so nice to hear your voice, Christina. I mean, it’s your absence here and now to have you back for just that moment. [00:31:57] Brett: So this is going to be, I think, a [00:32:00] pretty technical episode, um, now that we’re through the mental health corner, which is messy as hell. Um, as, as so many of us are, but Jeff, we’ve talked before about your clean installs, um, that are a matter of habit for you. Um, but. [00:32:22] Jeff: This is an [00:32:23] Brett: it. Got a little different, like something changed. [00:32:26] Jeff: Yeah, I got medication. So this is the funny thing is that I haven’t done a clean install of my computer since I started becoming, uh, since I started medication for bipolar. And, and what I recognize, and Brett knows this from working with me for years, is that what used to happen to me all the time, and I think these were, this was a result of manic episodes of some sort, which is that I’d be looking at my computer and all of a sudden I’d be like, It’s all wrong. [00:32:53] Jeff: It’s all messed up. I’ve configured everything weird. I got to start from scratch. And then I would, I would very [00:33:00] abruptly do a clean install, which is not the way to do a clean install, right? Um, and, and I would do that clean install maybe in the middle of a workday. Not thinking about the fact that the next morning I have a Zoom meeting and I won’t have downloaded Zoom and I won’t yet have logged into my work email [00:33:16] Brett: Oh [00:33:16] Jeff: Mac so that I can quickly get into Google Drive or whatever the fuck it is people make me do, um, and, and, and it would become this horrible, um like obstacle course for me for weeks. [00:33:28] Jeff: And I will have messed up my basic like file system. I will have thrown everything onto an external hard drive called like clean install, you [00:33:34] Brett: mm-Hmm. [00:33:35] Jeff: Pro 2013 or whatever. um, and then I start from scratch without properly moving everything over. And it was actually very, like in its own way, when they talk about like, um, manic episodes, like that you would have sort of a tendency to, um, take risks. [00:33:54] Jeff: Right. [00:33:54] Brett: Right. [00:33:55] Jeff: It really disrupted my. My work life for probably two weeks at a time, whenever I would [00:34:00] do that. And when I would do it, I’d be like, Oh God, it’s coming. I know I got to do a clean install. Um, so anyway, I just did the first one in like two years and I’m not going to lie. I’m not sure it was the best and most stable decision, but I. [00:34:13] Jeff: I did it in a way that was very mindful. I got everything back up and running real quick. So I’m not running into like, oh, I never put this thing back on, right? Um, Homebrew makes that nice. Brewfiles, right? Like there’s, I’ve also developed ways to protect myself. [00:34:28] Brett: with like a brew file, like where you like, yeah, [00:34:31] Jeff: so if you use Homebrew, if you don’t use Homebrew, Package Manager like helps you, you know, download all kinds of apps and tools and you can create whatever you’ve downloaded for me over the last two years since the last clean install or two and a half is all on one list and I can just say, please install [00:34:46] Brett: It can, it can even do Mac app store [00:34:49] Jeff: Yes, if you install MAS. [00:34:51] Brett: Yep. [00:34:51] Jeff: You can even do Mac App Store apps. So anyway, why are we talking about this? Because before we came on, Brett and I were talking, and I said, Brett, I did a clean install. [00:35:00] Like, I felt like I had to come clean. And no pun intended. And what was cool this time is I realized It’d been so long. [00:35:08] Jeff: So I realized how many apps were just running back there that I’d really forgotten about that were really impacting my experience of my computer in a way that were really great. And like the example I gave Brett was like the App Peek, which is like a, an app you can get from the app store. And it, it not only allows you to do quick look, quick look on a lot of files, you know, you press the space bar and your file comes up a little preview, but it allows you, I mean, it’s like, there’ll be, um, if it’s code, it’s got the like, Proper sort of [00:35:37] Brett: syntax highlight. [00:35:38] Jeff: can copy and paste. [00:35:39] Jeff: If it’s a spreadsheet, you can do like a column. Like it’s incredible. [00:35:44] Brett: And if it’s Markdown and it has multiple headers, you get a table of contents for viewing your Markdown file and you can copy paste out of it, which is a big deal since like Mavericks, like when they stopped allowing select and copy and paste in quick look [00:35:59] Jeff: [00:36:00] Yeah. So, well, okay, that’s a question for you. So, that, there was a point at which QuickLook suddenly did not, I was like, [00:36:05] Brett: Yeah, I think it was around, I think it was around Mavericks, yeah. [00:36:10] Jeff: And so, having forgotten that it was Peek that was allowing me to do this, because I use QuickLook all the time in this context. When I did my first QuickLook and it just showed the icon of the file. [00:36:21] Brett: Yeah. [00:36:22] Jeff: do I, how do I get back to the thing? What the hell happened? Um, and so Peak was just a really great example of just something just absolutely, like, wonderful impacting my life in the background. Do you have, what’s something that you didn’t build that, um, that has that impact for you? [00:36:38] Jeff: That’s just kind of back there, making your life different on your computer? [00:36:42] Brett: I guess I would say Hazel. [00:36:44] Jeff: Hazel. [00:36:45] Brett: Haz [00:36:46] Jeff: it. I’m sure most people know what it is who are listening, but [00:36:48] The Magic of Hazel [00:36:48] Brett: So, Hazel watches for file changes and acts on files. Um, and you can have any set of criteria. If the file matches this file name, [00:37:00] if it has this label, if it’s this old. Um, and then have it run any series of actions on that file. Um, I would say Like, for me, my most common Hazel task is if I name an image file in the name, if it says percent, percent, and then a series of characters like R600 means resize to 600, O means optimize. [00:37:29] Brett: C means convert to JPEG. H means create 1x and 2x images. Half. H for half. And so I have just gotten in the habit of when I save a file to my desktop, I give it A name with percent percent and then the series of characters and Hazel just picks that up and I come out with, um, all of the necessary files for publication to whatever medium, um, and I [00:38:00] don’t Think about it being Hazel when I do that. [00:38:02] Brett: It just, it’s just the way I save files. Um, files in my download folder get labeled based on their age and anything that ends up with a red tag need, either needs to be deleted or dealt with. Um, anything with a blue tag gets ignored. Like, so if something is, this is a permanently a part of this folder. I just give it a blue tag and it gets ignored. [00:38:27] Brett: Everything else gets aged over time, one week, one month. Three months. Um, so I can see, like, what needs to be most urgently dealt with. Um, so yeah, Hazel is one of those things that is integral to my, uh, daily system that, in general, I haven’t actually opened Hazel, probably for months. [00:38:52] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. [00:38:54] Brett: like, you get It set [00:38:55] Jeff: doesn’t break. [00:38:56] Brett: just works. [00:38:57] Brett: It just works. [00:38:58] Jeff: I, one of the silly things I use [00:39:00] Hazel for is like, I’m one of these, um, Just monsters who keeps a folder on my desktop called Desktop. And, um, and, and Hazel just knows like if something’s been on my desktop that isn’t that folder for more than a day, I’m just going to put it in that folder. [00:39:17] Jeff: And that just becomes Where all that stuff lives and with downloads, I have a downloads like archive folder inside of it because I don’t want to search too much. And if it’s been there for more than a day, it just moves in. [00:39:26] Brett: mine is just called, mine is called Stuff2Review, and if it sits, if it sits in my downloads folder long enough, it gets moved to Stuff2Review, and I should have one that just automatically deletes anything after three [00:39:39] Brett: months. [00:39:39] Jeff: Yeah. I wish I had that in my physical space as well. If I have not laid a finger on this, [00:39:45] Brett: I do that, I, I do that with organizing, uh, when I, like cleaning my office, anything that I’m not currently using gets put into a series of boxes, and if over the next three months, I have [00:40:00] to open that box and dig through and find that thing, that thing gets moved into a more permanent location. If after three months, I haven’t looked for that thing once. [00:40:11] Brett: And I’ve forgotten it even exists. That box can go to Goodwill. Um, [00:40:16] Jeff: it. I heard of I’ve heard of people doing this. I almost think I can and I can’t. [00:40:21] Brett: it’s not easy. Like, it takes, like, I have to separate from my, uh, archival instincts. Like, I have this, this need to keep everything I’ve ever owned or ever written or ever read, like, somewhere where I can access it in the future. But the fact is, so much of it I just don’t need in my day to day space or my day to day, like, data life. [00:40:49] Brett: Um, and I do the same with, like, Envy Ultra notes. Um, every once in a while, I’ll just do a spotlight search for anything that hasn’t been updated or [00:41:00] modified in the last year, move it, move it to an archive folder, not delete it. Just move it out of the space. So if I need it, I have to search for it. And if I search for it, it gets moved back into regular rotation. [00:41:14] Brett: But after three months, that whole folder just gets moved to like, I don’t delete it, but it gets moved to like this analogy, uh, as like archival storage. [00:41:26] Jeff: Now, theoretically, what you could do with a, maybe you could do this with Hazel, you could certainly script it, is like, you’ve got that whole system going where like, if it hasn’t been searched, you’re moving it over. But you could also make it that if you do land on it in a search, it just automatically gets put back in. [00:41:40] Brett: Yeah, it, it’s feasible. You could do that. [00:41:44] Jeff: Because you can actually script Hazel too, right? So it’s like, yeah. [00:41:47] Brett: you might have to use some tagging to make it work, but [00:41:50] Jeff: Brett, I know you’re okay using some [00:41:53] Brett: oh, absolutely. [00:41:55] Brett: I [00:41:55] Jeff: just found my notes when I made you early when we started working together. I’m like, we’re going to spend [00:42:00] at least three hours with you talking to me about tagging. [00:42:03] Brett: I [00:42:03] Jeff: such good notes. [00:42:04] Brett: I have given up. I’ve given up on trying to convince people about tagging. If you haven’t gotten it at this point, um, you’re, you’re, you’re probably not a tagger, but I still, I still consider it like vital to a real file management system. [00:42:20] Jeff: there anything, um, and this is kind of probably an ignorant question, but is there anything about the way the OS has changed over the years, besides there was one major change in tagging. Um, but like, is there anything that’s changed your sense of. How tagging can be useful and how your own system works. [00:42:40] Brett: Like, so, there was, we used to use OpenMetaTagging, which put, uh, K O M user tag, no, O M user tags. Attribute onto files, and that’s how, and tags were able to move with the file wherever it went in the system. And then, I think it was [00:43:00] Mavericks again, where Apple kind of Sherlocked that and made the KOM user tags, and it worked exactly the same as OpenMeta, and OpenMeta became irrelevant instantly. [00:43:12] Brett: Since, since that time, I don’t think anything has changed other than Apple increasing adoption of this file attribute on iOS. So now your tags that you apply in Finder on your Mac show up on iOS and vice versa. Um, other than that, no, like nothing has changed that either promotes or detracts from the idea of tagging. [00:43:40] Jeff: And, and we, I don’t have to get into your specific way of tagging, but you, you changed my life with your tagging approach, especially from my work archives. It’s just amazing the way I can navigate through them now. Um, it’s really awesome. [00:43:53] Brett: It’s so much more intuitive than nested folders. [00:43:57] Jeff: Yes, which, yeah, yeah, which is like, what a [00:44:00] mess. And I still sometimes, if I’m in a hurry, I make a bunch of nested folders and I look at it and I’m like, what have I just done? This [00:44:06] Brett: Yeah. I, so I wrote an app, or I wrote a utility a long time ago, a time ago called TagFiler. Um, that That lets you tag using colon separated, like, lengthy tags and then automatically files them into a relatively shallow folder system. Uh, you can go as deep as you want, but the idea is to keep it relatively shallow but still organized so that if you ever were to You don’t lose all your tags, like you, you run them through like Dropbox and they come back with no tags. [00:44:43] Brett: You still have a shallow folder system to help separate your files. So that’s like the initial logic behind it. But in practice, like what it does, I don’t, I don’t look for folders. [00:45:00] I, when I want to find a file, I don’t look for folders. I look based on tags and macOS, if you separate, if you have a tag name that has a colon in it, you [00:45:11] Brett: can search, [00:45:12] Jeff: of the Brett Terpstra [00:45:13] Brett: can, you can search the portions of the tag name separated by colon. [00:45:18] Brett: So if the tag name is work, colon. mdless colon design, a complete theoretical tag. You can search any of those three parts. You can search mdless, you can search design, and you can group files based on this kind of hierarchical tag that you’ve created. Um, uh, macOS, their tagging system isn’t hierarchical. [00:45:45] Brett: It’s, it’s very flat, but using punctuation, right. But using punctuation of any kind, you kind of can nest tags. And it works really well. [00:45:56] Jeff: Well, and you know what? I was, I was revisiting Bear, the app Bear, which [00:45:59] Brett: [00:46:00] Yeah, yeah, [00:46:01] Jeff: way to write [00:46:02] Brett: it is. [00:46:02] Jeff: in Markdown files, but they, they introduced like this a few years ago, they introduced nested tabs where if, so normally a tab with them is like you do hash and then the, the word and that’s the tag, but if you then put a slash in, it not only becomes an actual nested tag, but in your like sidebar, it becomes a sort of nested folder of tags, which reminded me of your thing. [00:46:20] Jeff: Did they steal it from you or what? [00:46:21] Brett: No, no, that’s theirs, but did you see the marked preprocessor I wrote for integration with Bear? [00:46:30] Jeff: No! [00:46:30] Brett: Uh, there’s a, I’ll link it on my blog, let me make a quick note, but [00:46:35] Brett: um, Uh, about a month ago maybe? [00:46:38] Jeff: No, how did I miss this? Well, I only just started using bear again. I go back and forth, [00:46:43] Brett: Yeah, so I wrote a preprocessor for Mark that handles tags and nested tags and creates actual links, so if you click it in the preview document, it will open that nested tag in Bear, [00:46:56] Jeff: You motherfucker. [00:46:58] Brett: I created a new [00:47:00] preview style that exactly mimics Bear’s Markdown Preview, and Bear, Bear a long time ago integrated Marks, so you [00:47:08] Brett: can go to Note, Preview, and Marked, and you can see your note, but I added a preprocessor that handles all, like, highlighter, like, equals, equals, [00:47:18] Jeff: Yep. [00:47:19] Brett: uh, it handles all of the special Bear [00:47:21] Brett: syntax. [00:47:22] Jeff: Okay, good to know. [00:47:24] Brett: Yeah, you should check it out. I’ll, I’ll link, I’ll link it in the show notes. [00:47:27] Jeff: will you educate me, even though I could Google this, when you said, um, this term, Sherlocked, which gets used, what does it mean? Where does it come from? [00:47:36] Brett: so there was this app called Sherlock, um, that at, at one point in Apple’s OS development, I can’t remember what year this was, uh, but they turned it into Spotlight, and they didn’t buy Sherlock, they just duplicated it. And put Sherlock out of business [00:48:00] by just making it part of the operating system, which in the case of OpenMeta, they didn’t, OpenMeta was an open source standard, but they never acknowledged it. [00:48:11] Brett: They just made it part of the operating system, invalidated its existence. You know, outside of the base OS and, and like, they’ve done it multiple times over the years. I, I couldn’t even name all of the, all of the innovations in Mac OS that are the result of them just duplicating another app’s functionality, like a third party app that really nailed something. [00:48:39] Brett: And instead of buying it, they just stole it. That’s, that’s Sherlocking. [00:48:44] Jeff: Okay, well, while we’re doing this, what is dogfooding? [00:48:47] Brett: I don’t know. [00:48:48] Jeff: Hmm. What is dogfooding? Software engineers are hungry for excellence. Dogs are hungry for dogfood. No, that’s not what I’m looking at. Software development, the jet brain, the jet brain’s way, [00:49:00] dogfooding. A practice especially popular in software development industry. [00:49:03] Jeff: It means that a company fully tests its products first on itself, and now I’ve run out of the preview text. Hold on. So you not heard this term? Let’s see. It means that a company fully tests its products first on itself, using them as end users would, and effectively the company eats its own dog food. [00:49:19] Brett: Okay. [00:49:21] Less for Markdown [00:49:21] Jeff: Oh man. That’s, that’s fine. Sorry. That was way out. So let, I want to ask you a question. Um, you’ve been, you’ve been making these updates to your tool MD, MDless. And, and I, I love when you suddenly have a bunch of blog posts because you’re making changes to something and you’re making always very thoughtful changes, like it’s never, I know that if you posted about an update, I’m not going to be like, why am I reading this? [00:49:43] Jeff: It’s because it’s not only going to be an awesome update to that tool if I use it, but paradigmatically. It’s going to be inspiring and interesting. So will you talk about what MDLESS is first, when you made it and why, and what did, what caused you to make these changes and what are they? [00:50:00] Go ahead, caller. [00:50:02] Brett: So mdless is, okay, so if you’re, if you use the command line, you’re familiar with the command less and less is basically paginates any text document and allows you, and it has like built in tools for like vim style searching and Up and down navigation and, um, it’s just kind of like the default pager for most Linux and macOS systems. [00:50:31] Brett: Um, but it doesn’t do anything special with markdown. So, I wanted a markdownless, uh, something that would Process and Highlight, Syntax, Highlight, Markdown in a more readable way. So that say my, the readme file for the open source project I was working on, it didn’t have to open up in Markd or in another editor. [00:50:56] Brett: I could just view it on the command line, but view it [00:51:00] with some styling. Um, and that’s where MDless began. And the original version of MDless was all based on regular expressions. [00:51:09] Jeff: Oh my God. Really? Wow. [00:51:12] Brett: it would, it would detect, like, this is a code block, this is a list item based on regular expressions, and that led to a lot of edge cases, uh, where it was not behaving the way a Markdown processor would, um, so I [00:51:29] Brett: recently [00:51:29] Jeff: bit, something about Markdown [00:51:31] Brett: Yeah, yeah, so I, I recently re, remade it. [00:51:35] Brett: Um, there’s a Ruby library called, uh, Red Carpet, which is a red cloth, Uh, kind of revision that does all, uh, it’s a Markdown processor. [00:51:48] Brett: It’s, it’s one of the original like Ruby Markdown processors. Um, and Red Carpet, uh, it’ll basically generate the [00:52:00] outline for an HTML document from a Markdown file, but then it lets you write your own. [00:52:07] Brett: Um, Renderers, so you can create a renderer that, uh, you know, it sends you a request for a paragraph and you tell it what to output for a paragraph or a list or a list item. And so I basically made that work with command line and output like ANSI escape codes to colorize and and output all these elements. [00:52:32] Brett: So it, it lifted the burden of markdown, uh, Uh, interpretation parsing for me and let me just work on the output. Um, it got really complicated, like, with things like lists. Uh, it doesn’t, when it calls for rendering a list item, or an entire list, it doesn’t tell you if that list is nested, it doesn’t [00:53:00] tell you, uh, an index for the list item, it doesn’t give you any of that, so I had to write in all of these things that output Markers that then I could go through with regular expressions and replace with correct indexes for like numeric lists and indentation. [00:53:20] Brett: Like I had to be able to create, because in HTML, you just put a UL tag around the list and if it’s already inside another list, it’ll indent, uh, based on your styling. You can’t do that in terminals. So I had to write. A whole series of functions that would indent and then correctly index each list item, uh, which got, it, it, I spent three days getting numeric lists to work properly when they were nested and when they were interrupted by another list. [00:53:56] Brett: Um, [00:53:57] Jeff: is the thing that always goes wrong [00:53:59] Brett: [00:54:00] yeah. [00:54:00] Jeff: when rendering Markdown, like a preview, right? [00:54:02] Brett: So I was dreaming for two nights, I was dreaming about the problem and, and I came up the first night. I thought I had the solution when I woke up and I tried to implement it and realized immediately that there were major flaws in the plan. And I, I futzed with it for a day and then went back to bed and had a dream the second night that led me to the final solution. [00:54:28] Brett: And now it is, it’s pretty flawless now. It’s a sturdy solution. [00:54:33] Jeff: that’s awesome. And is, are lists the hard, when you’re trying to create something that processes Markdown for a preview, are lists the hardest thing? Is [00:54:41] Brett: Um, so the nested elements are the hardest thing, which are a part of lists. Um, because within a list, you can nest paragraphs and you can nest code blocks. And to maintain list formatting, when you’re dealing with. [00:55:00] Nested block elements, um, yeah, that is, I think, the hardest part. Um, for a command line parser, the second hardest part is dealing with And the escape codes. [00:55:13] Brett: So like you have a, you have a paragraph and you start it with the paragraph coloring, but then you hit a bold tag. And so you switch to the bold, like maybe it’s bold, maybe it’s a different color, maybe it’s underlined. After that tag ends, you have to go back to the paragraph coloring, but there’s no marker that says, okay, now it’s back to a paragraph you’ve just inserted an escape code. [00:55:40] Brett: into the paragraph that changes the color and then leaves it as is for the rest of the paragraph. So I, I had to write Uh, functions that looked, when there was a span element inside of a paragraph, it had to look at the text before that element happened, determine [00:56:00] what ANSI escape code would replicate the text right before that tag, and then reinsert it after that tag. [00:56:07] Brett: Um, it’s, [00:56:09] Jeff: What I love about this is that this is in such stark contrast to the simplicity and mission of Markdown itself. [00:56:15] Brett: right? Yeah, [00:56:18] Brett: yeah. [00:56:18] Jeff: amazing. [00:56:19] Brett: It gets complicated. Yep, you bet. [00:56:22] Jeff: I have a sort of related question. I don’t know where we are at on time. I don’t see a timer right [00:56:26] Brett: 52 minutes. [00:56:28] Jeff: Okay, just a, maybe we can save this, but I, if anybody’s still listening, they will also want the answer to this question. Anybody who isn’t interested is gone. [00:56:36] Jeff: Um, I, the thing that I have, I mean, the, the real, like, issue I want to be so much more seamless, and, and it will allow me to work in Markdown as a collaborator as much as I want, is for exports to be dependable. If I want to export a document I’ve created in Markdown into a PDF or a Word document, or whatever it is. [00:56:57] Jeff: And I’ve, I’ve never quite, [00:57:00] I mean, I think Mark does a great job with PDF stuff. I’ve, I don’t know that I’ve tried with Marked with, with DocX, [00:57:06] Brett: Oh, it’s not great. I’ll [00:57:08] Brett: tell ya, it’s not [00:57:09] Jeff: of Marked right now. So, cause I was starting to use Bear again and I wrote a whole ass like memo to a client and I’m like, Oh, shit. I just wrote this whole thing in Markdown and not in a Google doc. [00:57:19] Jeff: And so when it came time to export it, I was like, this looks like shit. And, and I’m wondering if, is there hope if I were to really nail down. A very specific style, a very specific, like say Pandoc template or something. Like, is there, is there a mountaintop I could get to where I was like, every time I write a memo in, for a client in Markdown and I export it, it does not look like some weird ass fucking Frankenstein that I didn’t have time to fix because I finish everything the second before I need to send it. [00:57:50] Brett: is your answer. [00:57:51] Jeff: And, and with Pandoc, what I’ve done in the past, you, you create. Like, say if it’s a Word document, you create the template, the basic template. These are what the headers look at, whatever. [00:58:00] Um, and I wonder if, so I’ve had good luck with Pandoc for sure, if it’s not a complex document. Um, if there aren’t a lot of images, if there aren’t, it’s images that start to really mess things up, or like graphics or whatever. [00:58:11] Jeff: Um, but, but, are you, are you encouraging me to go a little harder with Pandoc to try to find my special place in that? I will, I will climb that mountain. [00:58:22] Brett: There is [00:58:22] Jeff: get me up that mountain. [00:58:23] Brett: There is no substitute for Pandoc, especially when it comes to Word documents. Ulysses does an excellent job of creating structured Word documents. What Markt creates is basically an RTF file with Docx encoding. Um, but it’s, like, your H1 headers aren’t Objects that you can then style with a template. [00:58:48] Brett: It’s, it’s, it’s a hack. It’s a, it’s a bit of a mess. Um, I’ve, I’ve never promoted Mark’s, um, DocX capabilities. Pandoc, [00:59:00] if I need to create an EPUB, if I need to create a DocX file, If I need to create anything other than your basic PDF and HTML, Um, Pandoc. It does everything. And, and with, with a little tweaking, you can create a, a single command. [00:59:17] Brett: You can have like, make, makememo. sh and, and it’ll pull in your docx templates and make you the perfect document. [00:59:29] Jeff: I need to go deeper. I’ve used it forever for very simple things. I use Pandoc commands just to quickly convert like a bunch of RTF files to Markdown or a bunch of Word doc files to Markdown. I usually go that direction and [00:59:39] Brett: and it’s great for that too. Yeah. [00:59:42] Jeff: Um, that’s great. Thank you. For anybody who’s been listening this long and feels like we’re just trying to signal the other secret Soviet spies that we work with, with all of these various code words, uh, sorry. [00:59:53] Brett: Oh, I put, I put PEP 440 on our [00:59:58] Brett: topic list. We’re [01:00:00] not going to get into it, but I’m going to summarize. I just discovered this today because of a Sublime Text update. But are you familiar with semantic versioning? Like [01:00:13] Jeff: Only, not in a way I could speak it. [01:00:15] Brett: So like the, uh, a version number that’s like 2. 0. 12. You have your major, your minor, and your patch. [01:00:24] Brett: Two. [01:00:25] Jeff: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, got it, got it, got it. Yep. [01:00:28] Brett: So that’s pretty simple. And that’s what Apple uses. That’s what most software developers use. There’s this new standard that came out of the Python project called PEP440, P E P 4 4 0. And it adds all of these like. Epoch versioning, so if you’re using semantic versioning, but you’ve always used date format, so you like have like year, month, day, or whatever as your version numbers. [01:00:55] Brett: Now you can add an epoch to that, so you add like one exclamation point, [01:01:00] and then you can switch to like a regular semantic versioning, and it will know when it sorts them. That 1. 0. 2 is later than 2023. 12. And, and it adds, it adds handling for, uh, alpha, beta and release candidates. It adds handling for local versioning and dev versioning, and it is. [01:01:25] Brett: It’s complex. I’ve written parsers for semantic versioning for multiple of my apps, especially my command line utilities that can determine this version number is newer or older than this version number. And I can use it in rake files for things like bumping a version number by patch or minor, major. Um, this would require, uh, Like three times as much code to accomplish. [01:01:52] Brett: I’m, I’m kind of, it, it makes sense as a versioning standard. Like it covers, it covers all these edge cases, [01:02:00] but it’s so complicated. Um, but that’s a boring topic. We should definitely [01:02:05] Jeff: Although I have to say like epoch, like epoch, uh, IDs or numbering sounds. So, uh, that sounds like such hubris, like I feel like what if you even then went further and you’re like, you know, like, uh, what are the, what do they call, like the, the period of like the bronze age, the priest, or age? What are these, the, what kind of eras? [01:02:21] Jeff: I guess epoch seems like it’s more important than an era. Um, anyway, all right. Grab up aptitude. This has been all gude. [01:02:30] Brett: it, it kind of [01:02:31] Brett: has, [01:02:31] Jeff: still got [01:02:32] Brett: we got a lot of app links in here. You want to go first? [01:02:35] Grapptitude [01:02:35] Jeff: Yeah. Well, I already mentioned, um, Peak, which I really recommend. It’s on Setapp, which I also really recommend. That was the one other fun thing about doing this clean install was like, Oh, I just opened Setapp. [01:02:46] Jeff: It’s like a brew file and Setapp and then whatever, a little bit. Um, but there’s something I hadn’t been using that felt like a little too intrusive, but I really love, which is called Paste. And it basically remembers, like, God [01:03:00] help you, like, a lot of your Clipboard history. And if you hit the keyboard shortcut or you, you click it in the menu bar, this little, um, like graphical interface comes up at the bottom of your screen, which is in my case, my last, like, I think 10 clipboard ads, uh, sorry, the last like 10 things I added to my clipboard and I can just hit one of them and, and, and use it again, or when this is, I think even better, and I used to use some other. [01:03:29] Jeff: tool for this, maybe it was in Alfred. I used to use Alfred for this, but like, if I need to, if I’m looking at a document and I want a paragraph from up here, paragraph from down here, paragraph from the bottom, and then I want to paste them together, um, I can use this. I can just be like, one, two, three, there they all are. [01:03:44] Jeff: Um, And, uh, and I love it. So anyway, it’s a really fun tool and, um, man, set up has gotten good. I like, I, it’s been a while since I did, I went through every app and set up just to like, see, is there anything I want that I don’t use, or is there anything I want to use that I used to use? And I forgot [01:04:00] about, and, um, instead of first came out, I was like, eh, there’s like five things I really want on here. [01:04:05] Jeff: And I already own licenses to them. Um, but I loved how they worked and you described how as a developer, it’s a, it’s a better option in terms of. Getting paid. Um, and so I, I became dedicated based on that. So even if I have a license to hoot a spot or to clean shot or whatever it is, I, I use that, um, version now. [01:04:24] Jeff: Um, but I, if nobody uses Setapp, it’s like a subscription service and you can use a zillion apps [01:04:31] Brett: like 10 a month. [01:04:33] Jeff: like the Netflix of apps! [01:04:35] Brett: save so much money [01:04:37] Brett: because, because half the apps on there are subscription anyway. And, and you would be paying five to 10 a month per app. But with Setapp, you pay us a flat 10 a month and you have access. It’s up to over 200 apps now. [01:04:52] Jeff: God, we’re throwing sponsor money away right [01:04:53] Brett: I know, right? [01:04:56] Jeff: we’ll send this to you, Setapp, and if you’d like to hear this and more, [01:05:00] um, yeah, [01:05:01] Brett: as a counterpoint to your pick, um, I don’t, I’m sure Alfred has all the capabilities, but I use LaunchBar, and with LaunchBar on my system, I can hit Command Option Backslash, and I get all, everything that’s been in my clipboard, and And I can use, I can use type of head searching to find exactly what I copied, you know, 10 copies ago, I can find it and hit enter and it’ll paste it. [01:05:29] Brett: And it gives me command CC so I can highlight a paragraph, hit command C and then go highlight another paragraph, hit command CC, and it will append it in the clipboard to that previous paragraph. So I just keep hitting command CC until I’ve got everything I want to combine. Then when, when I hit command V it pastes. [01:05:50] Brett: The combined output. Um, PopClip. PopClip has functionality for concatenated copies too.[01:06:00] [01:06:00] Jeff: yes. I have, I am trying to operate without PopClip right now after my clean install. Uh, just out of curiosity. [01:06:06] Brett: Okay. [01:06:07] Jeff: use it all the time. I mean, I use it all the time, but I was like, I, it’s actually because, it’s not because I don’t love it, it’s because I want to know just how much it does for me, you know? [01:06:16] Jeff: Like, I want to, I want to appreciate it again. [01:06:18] Brett: You’re funny. It’s app mindfulness. [01:06:21] Jeff: App Mindfulness. That’s, that’s it. That’s it. Oh, that’s, I’m glad you reminded me of that because, and it actually feels less like a sort of counterpoint and more as, I can imagine using that more. I’m remembering now the Alfred, whatever plugin I used was something like that. Although this thing where it pops up a bar along the bottom and it’s all of you, it’s like looking at your search history. [01:06:42] Jeff: It’s like, Oh, wow, I was, why was I searching, uh, you know, like odd sizes of metric bolts, uh, [01:06:49] Brett: there was a, there was a utility, um, in the early days of my use of Mac OS. [01:06:58] Brett: Um, [01:07:00] no, no, there was, there was one that was specifically for clipboard. It was called like Clipboard Plus or something. And it gave you, like, when you would hit the shortcut, it would give you a sidebar on your screen with like little previews of images and text. [01:07:15] Brett: And, and rich text that you had copied and you could just click one and paste it. Um, I find the launch bar integration a lot more because I use launch like launch bar is always up for me. So it just makes sense that I would use its integrated features. Um, but yeah, it’s nice to have that little preview window and everything. [01:07:36] Jeff: Yeah. Okay, wait, now what’s your gratitude? Sorry, I just [01:07:39] Brett: Oh, so I’m torn between two. I’m going to go with Fathom Analytics. Um, this will be for a certain segment of our audience, but if you run a blog and, or you run an online shop, or you do anything where you use Google Analytics, you are giving [01:08:00] away your customer and your reader’s data to Google. For all kinds of nefarious purposes. [01:08:07] Brett: So I went out searching, when I really locked down privacy on brettterpstra. com, I, I knew I had to get rid of Google Analytics and I went out searching for a replacement and there are multiple options, but the one I landed on is called Fathom, F A T H O M, and it is. Very privacy oriented. It doesn’t collect any demographic info. [01:08:32] Brett: I mean, it’s, it’s a significantly less amount of info than you would get from Google Analytics. But for me, what I really needed to know was what pages were popular, how many people were visiting it, uh, where they went, uh, from one page to another, and, um, they recently added You can set up custom events without creating them [01:09:00] first in the interface. [01:09:01] Brett: Like normally, previously you would have to create the event and then add the code for that event into your JavaScript so that when that event happened, it would trigger. [01:09:12] Jeff: Yeah, [01:09:13] Brett: Now you can just write JavaScript, add a name for the event, add a value if you want, optionally, a value to the event, and it will just show up in your dashboard as this event happened this many times. [01:09:26] Brett: And you can create unlimited number of events so you can have them dynamically created. Like right now, every project on my website gets a custom event. So I can see exactly how many downloads. Each individual project got in a day and it makes, yeah, it’s super nice. [01:09:47] Brett: And, [01:09:48] Jeff: in that? [01:09:49] Brett: um, yeah, uh, less surprising. NVL still gets like 50 downloads a day. [01:09:56] Brett: Um, uh, search link, I was [01:10:00] surprised how many people were downloading search link and the Markdown service tools are surprisingly popular, even though I haven’t updated them forever. [01:10:08] Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re great. Yeah, [01:10:11] Brett: And, and I recently discovered I can get Statistics on how many people have installed my gems, my ruby gems. I, those had always been untrackable to me, but I realized that like on the main gem site, I forget, rubygems. [01:10:30] Brett: org or whatever. Um, it’ll actually tell you how many people have downloaded total and how many people have downloaded the current version. And it turns out I have like half a million [01:10:41] Brett: gem, gem downloads. I know. [01:10:43] Jeff: Wow. [01:10:45] Brett: I know it was crazy. I know, I mean, there are blogs out there that get that many hits in a [01:10:50] Jeff: Oh, yeah, [01:10:51] Brett: for me, that’s, that’s kind of a big deal, [01:10:54] Brett: so. [01:10:55] Jeff: Yeah, that’s amazing. [01:10:56] Brett: Yeah, so my pick is Fathom Analytics. Um, [01:11:00] I, if you are looking into increasing user privacy and you care about things like that, uh, Fathom. It’s like, I think I pay 140 a year. So I don’t remember what the monthly cost is, and I’m not going to do the math in my head. Um, but it’s not free. Google Analytics is free, but you’re selling your users [01:11:25] Brett: data. [01:11:25] Jeff: Yeah, exactly. [01:11:27] Brett: and that wasn’t, that wasn’t a compromise I wanted to make. [01:11:31] Jeff: Um, just a quick thing. I downloaded NV Alt for fun. I’m one of those people about two weeks ago. So I’m on your, I’m on your list there. And after, you know, many years and also becoming an NV Altra user. But man, I was NV Alt. Ooh, I was like, I’m going to try this out. I walked in. It was like, it was like a childhood home. [01:11:51] Jeff: But like, nothing’s changed. The furniture hasn’t changed. It’s just, everything’s a little dusty and, and smaller than you thought. That’s like how it felt. It’s like, [01:12:00] it was an amazing experience. Anyway. [01:12:03] Brett: Yeah. Uh, Envy Ultra is different enough from Envy Alt that. I, I’ve given up on going back to NvAlt. I haven’t run NvAlt for probably over a year. Um, just because there are things about NvAltra that, there are things about NvAlt that NvAltra is missing and I find it frustrating, but I don’t have the power to change, [01:12:28] Jeff: Encrypted notes. [01:12:29] Brett: sure, uh, simple node integration, which has recently, um, as one user put it, it has been in shitified. Um. [01:12:40] Jeff: I just looked at Simple Note yesterday because I, I, I’m clean installing. I’m like, let’s look at everything, you know? [01:12:46] Brett: so like NvUltra, like you can sync with iCloud or Dropbox or Google Drive or whatever sync system makes sense for you, um, and honestly for me, uh, syncing with [01:13:00] iCloud and then tying OneWriter on my phone into the [01:13:05] Brett: same, yeah, into the same box, like we have a version of NvUltra for iOS, but OneWriter is always going to be better than what we put out, like we want to complete the ecosystem But OneWriter is such a great [01:13:21] Brett: app. [01:13:21] Brett: I, [01:13:21] Jeff: way where like one writer on the Mac is not, [01:13:23] Brett: no, yeah, [01:13:25] Brett: but that, but the two work together [01:13:28] Jeff: Yeah, [01:13:29] Brett: They’re perfect [01:13:29] Jeff: your folder of notes. Put it wherever you want. [01:13:31] Brett: that is, that is, portability man. That’s the beauty of it all [01:13:35] Jeff: it’s great for someone like me who gets impatient and tries a million like notes apps is it’s always just off the same folder. And so there’s no, no problem. No [01:13:44] Brett: Honestly, if, if, if Notes app on Mac, which has come a long [01:13:50] Jeff: Oh man, [01:13:51] Brett: it is a fantastic app these [01:13:54] Jeff: So good. [01:13:54] Brett: If it could work with individual text files, I would be [01:14:00] sold. [01:14:00] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. I’m sure Tim Cook is still listening. Uh, so, Timmy Boy, T Dog, T Bone. [01:14:08] Brett: Alright. Well, that was, that was good. I, [01:14:11] Jeff: I love a good nerdy overtired. [01:14:13] Brett: we miss Christina, but yeah, we, we didn’t have any pop culture this episode. [01:14:19] Jeff: That’s true. We’re the pop culture. [01:14:22] Brett: I feel poppy. [01:14:23] Jeff: Poppy, super poppy, poppy. [01:14:25] Brett: Hey Jeff, get some sleep. [01:14:27] Jeff: Yeah, but not till later. [01:14:29] Brett: Fair enough. [01:14:41] Christina: Hey everybody, it’s Christina here, and I’m not on the show this week because I’m on a train to Portland to get a new laptop. Uh, more details on that later, but I could not let things go without talking about, um, our, our sponsor of this week’s show, Notion, and their new, uh, Q& A [01:15:00] feature. So if you’re anything like me, you might already be familiar with Notion, which is the sponsor of today’s episode, as I said. [01:15:06] Christina: I use this all the time for, for notes, for documents. I have internal wikis of various things that I collect and I really love the interface and I really love how easy it is, um, to, um, uh, create docs. But, but now I also like how easy it is to find things because of a new AI tool they’ve launched called Q& A. [01:15:25] Christina: So this is basically a personal assistant that responds really fast with exactly what you need right in your doc. So. Here’s a real world example from me. I have a Notion doc filled with links and information about various discounts that I get as a corporate employee. This is kind of a difficult document to like, suss through because it’s actually the combination of like five different documents that I’ve sourced from a bunch of different places. [01:15:51] Christina: So it’s not super well organized. Well, this is why this was perfect to use Q& A with because I can just ask Notion’s Q& [01:16:00] A I can say, okay, show me my discount code or my discount URL for Avis and it will give it to me and I don’t have to go searching for, okay, was it in the transportation section or was it in the car rental section or was it in some other discount section? [01:16:17] Christina: It’ll just give me the information when I ask the question and this is the sort of thing that it can do. For, for anybody. It doesn’t just have to be, you know, your weird, you know, link collections and, and, and documents. It can also, you know, um, use, use your own personal notes, your docs, your projects. All that is going to be together in one beautiful space, and then you can navigate that space using Q& A, um, to, you know, ask questions maybe about, like, next month’s Like, roadmap, uh, that you’re doing for next quarter or next month or, you know, a marketing campaign proposal that you’re looking for. [01:16:48] Christina: Um, or, you know, like I said, like what I’m doing all the time, digging up long lost links because that’s a problem that I personally have and that, uh, that Notion definitely can help, can help me out with. So [01:17:00] if you haven’t used Notion, um, I think that you should definitely give it a shot and Notion AI can now give you instant answers to your questions. [01:17:09] Christina: Using information from across your wiki, your project docs, your meeting notes, etc. So you can try Notion AI for free when you go to Notion. com slash Overtired. That’s all lowercase letters. Notion. com slash Overtired to try the powerful, easy to use Notion AI today. And when you’re going to use our link, you are supporting our show. [01:17:32] Christina: So once again, that is Notion. com slash Overtired. Try out the Q& A feature. Try out the Notion AI stuff. It’s really slick. I’m a big fan. Thanks a lot, Notion.

The hosts discuss topics such as internalized homophobia, the Grammy nominations for Best New Artist, their love for Wario games, and the recent news of Open AI imploding as a company.

Jay Miller joins Brett and Christina to talk about life in Developer Relations, a little bit of Taylor Swift, and some intriguing app discussions. Sponsor Show Links Jay’s HBCU list On the 1989 re-release Julia Zahra – Wrecking Ball Powerpoint Keyboard Maestro 11 ImageMagick 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 The DevRel Episode [00:00:00] Christina: Hello, you’re listening to Overtired. That’s right. There was not an error in your podcast feed. Uh, we are actually back with another episode. I’m Christina Warren, joined as always by Brett Terpstra. Jeff Severins Gunzel could not be with us this week, but that means that we are with, back with one of our very favorite guests, um, uh, your friend and mine, Mr. [00:00:25] Christina: Jay Miller. Jay, welcome back! [00:00:28] Jay: It, uh, getting on here the first time felt like a fluke, and now, now I just feel like I’ve, I’ve, I’m on to something. [00:00:37] Brett: Do we have a new co host? If, if, if, if Jeff ever, if Jeff ever bows out, we’ll give you a call. [00:00:44] Jay: as, as long as we don’t have to go through voting like 57 times to elect me as the, the new Overtired speaker, [00:00:54] Brett: Yeah. Christina, Christina is part of the Freedom Caucus. She’s gonna, she’s gonna block [00:01:00] your, uh, your, uh, nomination every time. [00:01:02] Christina: That’s exactly what it’s going to be. I’m going to be like, no, look, there, there are too many Atlanta people now. And so [00:01:08] Jay: I love it. [00:01:10] Brett: So, uh. We, just fair warning, we may be off again next week, but then we’re going to get back into a weekly, uh, uh, session again and try to stick with weekly episodes moving forward. We had a, we had a very extended summer break. [00:01:31] Christina: we did and we needed it. It was, it was, it was okay. Like, honestly, since the pandemic, uh, Brett, we’ve been insanely consistent. Like, like, like we’ve had a couple of like dips and dots that were big in there. But given the fact that we once went, I think, 14 months between episodes, I think that having like a few weeks away for our longtime loyal listeners, and thank you very much to those of you who’ve listened to us for a long time, um, Um, we were good actually at the top of that, [00:02:00] when I was at, um, all Things Open a few weeks ago, uh, I ran into Cullen, um, who told me that, um, Brett and, and I had gotten him through some really tough times and that was like the nicest thing that anybody has ever just like walked up and told me. [00:02:15] Christina: And so Cullen, I, I don’t know if you’re listening or not, uh, I don’t know if you still listen, but the fact that I had an overtired listener come up to me at all, things open and I had overtired hadn’t even been on in a while. And I hadn’t even announced that like I was gonna be there. Like that was the nicest and coolest and, uh, like most affirming thing. [00:02:31] Christina: So [00:02:32] Brett: Yeah, that always, that always feels good. Um, as someone who over shares constantly, um, I get, I get a fair number of emails. Um, at least weekly, sometimes multiple days in a row of people just saying, Hey, you, you made my life easier. You made it easier for me to talk about my mental health at my job. You made it easier for me to talk to my family about my mental health. [00:02:59] Brett: And [00:03:00] yeah, there’s a, there’s a place for us. We have, we have a purpose in the world. [00:03:07] Christina: There’s a place for nerdy geeks who really like to talk about automation and, um, nerd tools, uh, pop culture and, uh, and mental health. So yay. [00:03:16] Mental Health Corner [00:03:16] Brett: Speaking of mental health, should we kick off a mental health corner? [00:03:21] Christina: We should do it. We should do it. [00:03:23] Brett: Um, I, I can go, but I want to open the floor to Jay. Jay, do you want to kick off the mental health corner? [00:03:32] Jay: yeah, let’s, let’s talk about this. So, um, all of us have this fun role that we call DevRel. Um, no one really knows what it is. I love how every interview starts off with, how do you define [00:03:49] Christina: Yes. Thank you. So funny. [00:03:52] Jay: a large part of that for me was being out in the community and just hanging out with people. And, um, for those [00:04:00] that don’t know me, hi, I’m Jay, I’m black, and my voice sometimes does not show that. [00:04:05] Jay: Um, but, the other side of that is, I go to these conferences and I play this game of, like, how many fingers do I need to count the number of black people at conferences with me? Um, Usually it’s the single digit ones where I don’t go back, but, uh, I’m, I’m happy because I’ve been on the conference scene again lately. [00:04:28] Jay: Um, two weeks ago I was in Durham, North Carolina for DjangoCon US. Uh, that’s a Python web framework conference and like got to hang out with. I think we had like 30, not 30, sorry, wrong conference, about like 12, 15 like black folks there, which for a 200 person conference, that’s actually a higher number than you’d expect, um, but then, but the other side of that was [00:05:00] I started this community because I was tired of being the only person there called Black Python Devs. [00:05:06] Jay: We got to have our first in person meetup at that event. And it was so cool to be like, at an ice cream parlor with folks from, you know, different parts of Africa, different parts of the US, Latin America, and just be like, Yo, we came here for ice cream, but also to like just hug each other and be like we exist There are a lot of spider man meme photos Being taken and no we don’t all look alike, but that’s okay But then I got to go to like the reverse polar of that which is refactor tech, which is like a conference in Atlanta Designed for like, this is a space where no shits are given. [00:05:50] Jay: Like everyone is like, we’re here. We’re here to address these things that happen. Kim Creighton was one of the keynotes, like, um, and I got to give a talk that I’ve [00:06:00] been thinking about for almost a year now, which was called Python versus hip hop, how we can remix code, community, and culture, and. Just the compliments that I got were like so fantastic. [00:06:15] Jay: So I feel like I’m on cloud nine right now just because I’ve had two of the best conference experiences I’ve had in my career. Um, and they just happened to happen like back to back. And then next week I get to go to GitHub universe and hang out with super awesome, cool people. So like. This has been a good conference season for me mentally. [00:06:37] Christina: That’s so great. That’s, that’s really, really, I’m, I’m glad to hear that. And I hope, I, I, I don’t know, I’m afraid that GitHub Universe is not going to have the sort of, like, I, I, it’ll be more than one hand. But I, I don’t know, like, what our diversity stats will be for, for the attendees there. I hope on the community track we’ll have more people there. [00:06:56] Christina: But, um, yeah. [00:06:59] Jay: I’ll [00:07:00] get to hang out with some of my co workers that I’ve worked with for two years and never gotten to meet in person, so I’ll probably just be focusing a lot on that. [00:07:08] Christina: Yeah, yeah, but definitely, like, give us, legit, like, give us your feedback, not, and I, and I know you will, like, in terms of what you see and what not on that, because we talk a big game about that stuff, and, and I don’t know If we always do as good of a job as we can, um, although like on my immediate team, um, you know, we’ve done better than, um, a lot of other places that I’ve worked in terms of actually looking at like hiring diverse people. [00:07:31] Christina: And by that, I don’t just mean black people. Um, and, uh, but you know, we can always do better. So, um, I am glad to know that there were that many people, uh, at the, uh, the, the DjangoCon, like that’s, that’s really. Like, good to hear. [00:07:48] Jay: Yeah, I interviewed that organization team and they were just like, we’ve been working on this for ten years. Um, But I think the challenging part with that is, I then ask them a very [00:08:00] easy question. Hey, North Carolina A& T is 20 minutes away, did you reach out to them? And North Carolina A& T, for those that don’t know, historically black college and university. [00:08:08] Jay: One of the largest, like, collectives of black education, like, pursuers and leaders. And they’re just like, awww. Missed an opportunity there. And it’s, it’s, it’s one of those things that like Brett knows I am absolutely not shy about getting up somewhere and being like, where the hell are the black people at? [00:08:28] Jay: And they like sitting there in, in their confusion. And in the end, it’s just like, Oh, if you actually try, you get results. But also don’t be happy with your results. There’s always ways that you can improve. [00:08:44] Christina: Right. Right. No, I mean, and that’s the thing, right? And, and I think actually you bring up a good point on the education front. Cause I run into this, um, with, or I ran into this at Microsoft. I don’t know if this is the case at GitHub and I, I’m not going to pretend it’s, I don’t know if it’s still the same case at Microsoft now, [00:09:00] but when I would talk to our, like our, uh, our student team and like kind of like people who are trying to do recruit, recruitment and trying to, you know, bring in like more people from more diverse backgrounds. [00:09:09] Christina: I would often be like, okay, so why are all the colleges that we’re focusing on, like you say you want to do this, but you’re not going to a lot of historically black colleges and universities, you’re not going to a lot of, like, uh, you know, public universities that might have, like, good schools but, like, diverse backgrounds, like, you’re still focused on your very, like, Elite number of schools and, and then the University of Washington, because it’s local. [00:09:33] Christina: Um, like, do you, do you not understand why that’s a problem for your pipeline? Because you’re only looking at places that if you look at, you know, A, the number of students they have, which is usually small, and B, the percentages of, you know, people who are like, not white or Asian, who are like, Students there do not understand, and male for the most part in the engineering schools, do not understand why, like, this is why this is [00:10:00] the only people that you say you can hire. [00:10:03] Christina: Like, because you’re literally only looking at, you’re still focusing on, on these specific institutions, even though every single study shows that that doesn’t really determine the outcome of success for people, uh, by any means. [00:10:18] Jay: Can I shamelessly promote something that I made like two years ago? So I created this list pulled from the department of education’s like data set. And it’s just called HBCU list. It’s a GitHub repo. And all it is is sorted out by state, every single historically black college and university, or primarily black institution, which just means that they have a, like more than. [00:10:40] Jay: Large percentage of black students. Like I’m, I’m sharing this with, uh, the Python software foundation for this year. We’re going to be in Pittsburgh for PyCon US and like the goal is literally. Pittsburgh, surrounding states, finding every single school on this list and at least just inviting them and saying here are some free [00:11:00] tickets. [00:11:00] Jay: Like, it’s driving distance, you can come. Like, if you need to get a hotel, we have grants available. Like, it’s… It always amazes me how like, these little actions, you get like two or three people to show up and then the next year like 20 show up. So just, just doing something and yeah, feel free to use this list. [00:11:20] Jay: It’s, I mean, I stole it from the Department of Education. And I only say stole because this, the link that I got this from is no longer available. So I wonder if they want this out there. [00:11:31] Christina: Well, I mean, [00:11:33] Brett: Minnesota has zero historically black institutions. [00:11:38] Jay: That makes sense though. I mean, most of them are in the southeast. They kind of move north. I feel like the further west you go, the harder it is to find them, but if they don’t have any PBI’s, then that, I mean, yeah, that, that also kind of makes sense, but [00:11:56] Brett: Yeah, [00:11:57] Jay: think Minneapolis would have [00:11:58] Brett: I would think [00:12:00] so, [00:12:00] Jay: Yeah. [00:12:01] Brett: but we do like compared to Atlanta, like we have no black people compared to Atlanta. Um, it’s, you know, there is a, there is a population. There’s a, there’s a whole George Floyd incident. I don’t know if you heard about that. [00:12:19] Jay: Oh yeah. I heard about that. [00:12:21] Christina: yeah, I [00:12:21] Brett: a historically racist police department in Minneapolis. [00:12:26] Brett: I don’t know if you’re familiar with this at all, but [00:12:29] Jay: Yeah. Uh, no, it’s, it’s not ringing a bell. Um, I, [00:12:34] Brett: I’ll send you some links. It’ll be fine. [00:12:37] Christina: Washington also, not surprisingly, does not have any historically Black colleges or universities. We’re not as racist as Oregon, but, I mean, that’s a small bar, but we are very close to Oregon. So, you know. [00:12:52] Jay: I feel like that should be on the state flag somewhere. [00:12:55] Christina: Yeah, not as racist as Oregon. Like, we weren’t literally created [00:13:00] as a state to, like, have no black people, so, you know, slightly better there, but, yeah. [00:13:07] Brett: Alright. Is that what you got, Jay? [00:13:09] Jay: That’s what I got. [00:13:10] Brett: Alright. Christina, do you want to go or should I? [00:13:13] Christina: Uh, you go ahead and go. I’ll finish up. [00:13:16] Brett: So, I’m currently looking for a new therapist. Um, I don’t dislike my current therapist, but what I really want to do is internal family systems therapy, and she has decided she is not qualified. to do that. She, like, she started researching, she started reading books, and ultimately realized it would take 80 hours of online training to get certified as an IFS therapist, and that just wasn’t feasible for her. [00:13:47] Brett: So we’ve been looking around at options. In the meantime, I can, I’m continuing doing CBD with her, um, but, uh, I’ve been contacting I have [00:14:00] contacted 12 therapists, uh, in the state, uh, for telehealth sessions. And I have one that has a two month waiting list, which is fine. That’s, that’s not a big deal. Um, but everyone else is like, we’re not taking new clients and we. [00:14:21] Brett: Don’t foresee ever taking new clients or like, we can’t tell you when we’ll actually be able to take new clients again. Um, so I have, I have one, I have one hope for IFS. Uh, in the meantime, I’m working with my current therapist. We’re kind of using IFS language, which is like for anyone unfamiliar, like, IFS is this idea that you have all of these parts within you that are often frozen at various points in time and, and they can take, uh, like, um, uh, [00:15:00] guard roles. [00:15:01] Brett: in your forefront personality and, and can bring forward beliefs maybe that you don’t have, uh, like as your actual self and can make noise and, and react to things in a way that isn’t true to who you actually are. Um, and you deal with them by showing compassion, talking to these individual parts and Integrating them into your true self, uh, so that with the ultimate goal of acting from true self, which is like a compassionate, uh, uh, reasonable human being, which is what I want to be, um, And I, it’s, there’s parts of it that sound like a lot of woo to me. [00:15:51] Brett: Um, but also when I read about like what the goals of it are, it’s something I do really want. So I [00:16:00] am exploring finding an IFS therapist to go through this with me. Um, that said, I have found. My loudest voice is this little Christian boy that seems to be frozen around the age of 10. And he has a checklist of all of the things I do that are going to condemn me to hell. [00:16:25] Brett: And he is constantly fighting to make me feel terrible about things that I consider part of my identity. Uh, so working with my current therapist, I, I’ve been writing a letter to the little Christian boy. Um, I haven’t given him a name. I think it might be helpful to name him. Um, but, uh, writing a letter expressing. [00:16:54] Brett: Uh, Who I actually am and where, well, so the first, the first [00:17:00] draft of this letter I wrote about who I actually am and all the ways he was wrong. And, and I went into like all this detail about like, you believe this and here’s why this is wrong. And that was… That was the incorrect approach. What I actually need to do is say, you’ve done a good job, uh, with what, you know, and, and you’ve, you’ve really looked out for me doing the best you can in, in this state you were frozen in and just show some compassion to this part of me. [00:17:32] Brett: Uh, but like everything from my identity as like pansexual or my history with drug addiction and all of these things that. He considers, like, you know, reasons I should go to hell. Um, and I don’t need to spend time convincing him that I don’t believe in hell anymore. Um, I need to say, hey, good show, buddy. [00:17:57] Brett: You tried. Um, [00:18:00] and just kind of accept, uh, Or get him to accept that he did, he did his work and he’s done and he can fuck off now. Um, so that’s, that’s my, that’s my like current, uh, therapy status. I also have been in a lot of discussions with my partner about, um, our kind of, the way we behave in social situations. [00:18:27] Brett: Um, it started with a conversation about how I love to pick up other people’s check at dinner and she sees this as like a way of me showing off, a way of me like lording over them that I make more than they do and that’s not In any way, what it is for me, like for me, it’s like, Hey, how can I be generous and show these people that I love them and thank them for hanging out with us? [00:18:55] Brett: And like, this is like, we want to do it again. So I’m going to make it as easy as [00:19:00] possible. And I just, like, I’ll intercept the check when I see the, the, the wait staff coming up, I’ll just like, hold my card out and be like, just one check, take it all. Um, and then. And then the people at the table will be like, Hey, so where’s the check? [00:19:18] Brett: I’ll be like, don’t worry about it. I got this. And like, L sees that as like, um, haughty, I guess. But like, so, so I’m reworking like how I do this. And I want to make it more, um, I want to give them some agency in the matter. I want to, I want to stop and say, Hey, do you mind if I pick this up? And I don’t want to say you can get the next one, which was suggested to me when I brought this up on, on social media, they’re like, just say, I’ll get this, you can get the next one. [00:19:53] Brett: But I don’t want people to not hang out with us because they feel like it’s their responsibility to not pick up [00:20:00] just their check, but also mine. Like, I don’t want to put that out there. So I just want to, I’m going to, I’m going to start asking. Can I get this? Um, we’ll see how that goes. Uh, the other topic that has come up is When I don’t know how to fit into a conversation, I tell a dad joke. [00:20:21] Brett: Um, I will, I will interrupt a train of thought to tell a stupid fucking joke. And that’s my way of like, breaking in. Um, 4L, that entirely disrupts. Like the, the, the deeper conversation she was fostering for me in a party setting, like everything’s fair game. Like, let’s, let’s switch topics. Let’s keep this conversation like surface level and just skimming around. [00:20:52] Brett: But she likes to dig deeper. She likes a deep dive in her conversations. And, and I always screw that [00:21:00] up. Um, so what we figured out is We don’t, we need to not have conversations with the same people at a party. We, we attract different types of people. The people that will enjoy a conversation with me are different people than the ones that will enjoy a conversation with her. [00:21:20] Brett: And she spends time trying to rescue people I’m talking to from me. And I spend time trying to rescue people she’s talking to from her, whereas. What really should happen is we should get to the party, we should separate. We should talk to the people that each of us attracts or are attracted to and then, you know, check in with each other on occasion. [00:21:45] Brett: Do you need another drink? How’s it going? Um, you good? You ready to go? Etc. Um, but like, have separate conversations, which makes perfect sense to me. It doesn’t offend me at all, and I think [00:22:00] she’s down with the idea. Like, I’m not a person who’s like, I can’t believe you spent all night talking to someone and didn’t include me. [00:22:06] Brett: Like, I don’t care. I’m [00:22:08] Christina: Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that’s probably the right thing, and then maybe what you could find is that, okay, if you, you know, wind up, uh, being in a place where, um, you both, like, you meet someone who you think that L might like, or, or you kind of gravitate towards the same person, then you can have, like, kind of a, a shared conversation, right? [00:22:27] Christina: Like, where, but, [00:22:28] Brett: or at least an introduction and then bow out. [00:22:31] Christina: totally, [00:22:32] Brett: not the person for me, but you might be the person for Elle. [00:22:35] Picking up the check [00:22:35] Christina: Or, you know, if you think you might both like them, like, maybe you would have that comfort where you won’t do the interrupting while she’s talking thing to insert a, you know, unnecessary dad joke, um, uh, you know, which, uh, I, I totally get your impulse there. That’s also something maybe recognize that, like, if people are talking, like, you don’t always have to find your in that way, but, um, [00:23:00] I, I, I have a similar thing with you on picking up the check. [00:23:02] Christina: I. And I’ve never even thought about it as people thinking like, Oh, you know, she thinks she’s better than anybody else. Cause it’s… Never been about that for me. It’s like, I appreciate being with you and I would like to show that. I think the thing is, I think people like, I think like, uh, you said, asking people if that’s okay, I think that’s a good thing. [00:23:18] Christina: Um, the only thing there is you just have to be okay with, with people saying no. Um, [00:23:23] Brett: Well, and I am. Like, it’s not like a moral obligation I have to pay the check. I just think it’s a nice, generous thing to do. And if I can afford it, why wouldn’t I do it? If they’re like, Oh no, we got this, or we got ours, let’s split the check. Fine. Totally fine. I’m not offended in any way. [00:23:43] Christina: Yeah. [00:23:44] Jay: Kind of two interesting things on that, like the, the splitting the check thing, uh, Brent, you and I have talked about this before, like I clearly make more money than everyone in my family. So, yeah. And, and in some ways they remind me of that, not in a [00:24:00] aggressive way, but like, uh, Hey, we should go somewhere. [00:24:04] Jay: Uh, it’s not really in our budget to go somewhere right now. Um, okay, cool. Either I can choose to say, well, I want to go, so I will cover it. Or that’s cool. We’ll think of something that isn’t, you know, or that is more in your budget. We’ll do a, a game night at home. Like we’ve made investments, we got a pizza oven just to like. [00:24:25] Jay: Have my sister come over from college and be like, yo, let’s make pizzas and hang out. Like, you don’t have to spend money now. But I, I definitely feel that whenever I am with people of equal or greater, like, financial position that it gets, it gets weird. Cause then it’s like, uh, and usually the to cover it. [00:24:51] Brett: Yeah. [00:24:52] Jay: Like, I’m not going to say, Hey, Brett, Christina, let’s go to like, you know, Ruth’s Chris on me, or let’s go to Ruth’s quiz [00:25:00] period. Like if I’m balling on like McDonald’s budget, [00:25:03] Brett: Well, I think it’s, I think it’s a thing that you can, you can specify in the invitation. If you say, let us take you out to this restaurant. Instead of like, let’s go to this restaurant, let us take you out, and like, just set up that expectation from the beginning, and then if you say, let’s go, let’s meet at this place, then understand that the, the understanding is that you’ll be splitting the check. [00:25:33] Christina: Yes. Yeah, that’s how I feel. Like, I, I, I mean, yeah, that’s what I do. I mean, like, if I, if I want to invite someone someplace, and, and I’m in a similar situation with, with you, um, Jay, where I would say at this point about half my friends make the same as, or in some cases more than me, but a lot of my friends, like, especially my journalist friends, like, I now make way more than them. [00:25:54] Christina: So when we go out, thank you, Jay. Especially if it’s someplace that is pricier or whatever, like I usually [00:26:00] will buy like the first round of drinks or something else just because I understand sometimes that we’re in a, you know, situation where I’m like, okay, I know that I’m in a much better situation than you are just from a Paychecks point of view, um, although some of them might do better with savings and whatnot than me, um, but, you know, uh, and maybe if I’m there, you know, if I’m in New York or whatever, like I’m there on, on for work and, you know, um, I’m just like, okay, I’m, I’m. [00:26:28] Christina: In a place where I can totally just get the check or, or, or get our drinks or whatever. Um, but I, I also feel like it’s sometimes one of those situations where, like you were saying, Brett, you just have to know the expectations. Where if, if the whole reason that somebody doesn’t want to go out is because they can’t afford it, if I know that, then I’ll be like, Oh no, I got this. [00:26:45] Christina: You know, we, we can go out and do this. But if it’s one of those things where it’s like, you say to somebody, Let’s meet here, or have you wanted to go to this place, then I, I guess maybe wrongly, I, I kind of trust them to tell me if they can’t [00:27:00] afford it, or if it’s not something that’s within their budget right then, um, and then we can either find another place, or, you know, if it’s a place I really want to try, I can be like, hey, my treat, but, you know, generally, um, I don’t know, it’s weird, I think I have a good budget. [00:27:14] Christina: Like read at this point on what types of friends I can invite to really expensive places and what types I can’t and it is not always based on income. There are some friends who will just budget and use their money for those things. Then I have some friends who are really freaking rich but are cheap as hell and I would like never invite to like, uh, you [00:27:33] Brett: common, [00:27:33] Christina: you know what I mean? [00:27:34] Christina: Where I’m like, I would never invite them to an expensive restaurant because I know that they would like. Be weird about it. [00:27:41] Brett: I have been invited to restaurants that I know that I can’t afford. Like I can’t afford my check, let alone picking up someone else’s. Um, and in those situations, I’ve, I’ve accepted the invite because I have assumed this person makes enough money. They’re going to buy both of [00:28:00] our meals. Uh, even though it wasn’t explicitly stated, I know that if someone’s going to bring me a 200 steak, I’m not going to be the one paying for it. [00:28:10] Brett: Cause I would never do that to myself. And it’s always worked out. Like, uh, [00:28:15] Christina: Oh, that’s cool. [00:28:16] Brett: people that have taken me out, like in San Francisco, they’ve always, like, it’s never been a question. I got this. [00:28:23] Christina: that’s interesting. I think like there’s like this weird like wasp part of me that would like never ever assume that someone else was paying the check and would feel like compelled to pay my part even if I was completely broke and didn’t have it because otherwise like unless it was like very clear like with the invite, oh we want to take you out. [00:28:41] Christina: Or if you’re going out with, you know, a certain boss or something like my, my old boss, Prashant, Prashant pays for everything always. And that’s just how it is. And you go to really expensive [00:28:49] Brett: well, bosses, bosses should pay. Parents, parents should pay when they take their kids out. [00:28:56] Christina: It depends. [00:28:58] Brett: So, okay, the way I was [00:29:00] raised, I have never, ever paid for my meal when eating with my parents, or, you know, whatever partner I have at the time, like, they have never paid. And that is, like, that’s the way I learned. [00:29:14] Brett: If you take someone out, you pay for the meal, like, [00:29:16] Christina: Yeah, no, and I, I, I only do if I want to, right? Like my parents, it’s one of those things where I’m like, no, I’ll, I’ll take care of this. I mean, the assumption, yeah, I’ll be honest. The assumption always is for me that my parents are going to pay, but I, I, there have been times when I’ve been like, no, actually I would like to, you know, pick up the [00:29:33] Brett: Yeah. Well, and that’s your, that’s your option. That’s always an option. Um, but it’s never an assumption. And I think that’s for my parents. I think that’s a familial thing. I imagine when they go out with their peers, they’re not just assuming they’re picking up the check. Like they pick up the check for family, but I translated it in my brain to like whoever makes the invitation [00:30:00] And I don’t think that’s true, uh, for anybody. [00:30:05] Brett: I don’t think that’s even true for my parents who taught me this. Like, we invited you out for dinner, so we’re buying you dinner. Um, I, I’m working, I’m working through some stuff. [00:30:16] Jay: I, I can’t imagine, like, I think the last three times I’ve gone to dinner with my parents, I’ve picked up the check. But again, I know a lot of that is like, They are very content with eating the exact same meal every single day. Like, they’re like, we’ve budgeted for this. It’s pork chops and rice today. [00:30:35] Jay: It’ll probably be pork chops and rice tomorrow. Like, so for me, it’s like, if I don’t want to eat the same thing, I’ve got to be like, hey, let’s go here, my treat. Like, I’m more than happy to [00:30:46] Brett: to, to be fair, my parents idea of eating out is like Perkins or the Green [00:30:51] Jay: Yeah. [00:30:52] Brett: and like the check is never more than 80 for like a party of four, so [00:30:58] Jay: Yeah.[00:31:00] [00:31:00] Brett: It’s a different story than going out to an actually good restaurant [00:31:04] Christina: Yeah, yeah, um, yeah, but my parents are Bunch is a little bit more than that, but it is a similar thing. Like, it’ll be like, you know, like a chain thing unless it’s like a birthday or, you know, like a special occasion. And then even if it’s like their birthday. They always pay, which, you know, weird, but like, [00:31:22] Brett: It’s my birthday I get to pay for everyone’s dinner. [00:31:25] Christina: Okay, but you know what? [00:31:26] Christina: This year I took my mom to Las Vegas for a week to see Adele, and I paid out the ass for Taylor Swift era’s tour ticket. So honestly, at this point, [00:31:35] Brett: you can pick up your own meal if you want to. [00:31:39] Christina: for this year, absolutely. For this year, I’m like, I’m like, you know what? I’m good. [00:31:43] Jay: that’s a good rule of thumb too. Like, if, if you’ve been paid for. Substantially, like, make the effort to cover it once or twice, like. [00:31:55] Brett: yeah. [00:31:56] Jay: Even if it’s like, yo, let’s go to Burger King, my treat, like [00:32:00] just, just the act of being like, Hey, you, you really hooked me up [00:32:04] Brett: You, you spent ten grand on me, I can spend fifty bucks on you, [00:32:08] Christina: Totally. But I think that actually goes back to like the first thing you were talking about, Brett, which is just I think just showing like the whole reason I think a lot of us do these things is because we want to show that we care and we want to show gratitude. Like I’m sure for some people it is a flex. [00:32:19] Christina: But I don’t get that’s not the sense with you. Like that’s not the sense [00:32:22] Brett: And that’s not the sense I’ve ever gotten when someone picks up my check. It has [00:32:27] Jay: don’t hang out with [00:32:27] Brett: it has never felt like a flex to me. [00:32:30] Christina: No, I mean, I’ve only had that in a couple of instances, and it’s been when, like, it’s been like a really rich guy. I remember one time I went to, uh, one of Wiley Dufresne’s, uh, restaurants, uh, WD 50, which I don’t even think exists anymore, but, um, in, in New York City, and, um, it was like a 400 prefix thing per person before Uh, Wine. [00:32:49] Christina: And we had the wine tasting too. And, um, and Grant’s boss at the time, like, picked up the whole thing. And that was an understood thing, because again, like, if you’re going someplace where you’re talking about [00:33:00] probably, it was probably 6. 50 per person before, um, tip, you know, that’s a different sort of thing. [00:33:06] Christina: Like, I, although I have, I have been invited to go to French Laundry with people before, and they said, normally, you know, we would pay, but, you know, this is a, a special, more expensive menu, so. If you would like to come, you know, like with the, and I’m like, well, yeah, it’s French Laundry. I would not assume that you would pay for me in this context, but it, but in the, the WD 50 situation, it was a flex for sure. [00:33:28] Christina: And I absolutely accepted it. I was like, you can flex all you want. Thank you very much for the very expensive, you know, meal. Um, and, and in presentation, like that is, that is fine. Like you can absolutely. Be, uh, you know, showing off that you are a rich asshole. Like that is completely fine with me. [00:33:45] Brett: What does WD 50 mean? Is that 10 better than WD 40? [00:33:50] Christina: So the guy’s name, the chef’s name is Wiley Dufresne. And so I think that it was just kind of like a play on like, [00:33:56] Brett: Dufresne, sure. [00:33:57] Christina: so it is a, uh, molecular [00:34:00] gastronomy is the sort of [00:34:00] Brett: yeah, okay, yep. [00:34:03] Christina: So, so the whole, and then I think, naming after a chemical thing, actually it was a pretty great restaurant name. It was a good restaurant too. [00:34:08] Christina: I don’t, like I said, I don’t know if it still exists, but, um, it was a, it was a really good restaurant. But that was one of the more expensive meals, um, I’ve, uh, I’ve ever been to. No, it does not exist anymore. It closed, um, in, uh, uh, 2014. So shit. Yeah. Well, it, it, no, it was open for 11 years. [00:34:26] Brett: Alright, alright, that’s a good run. That’s a good run. [00:34:30] Jay: Brett, I have a question about the second thing you were, you were talking about with just kind of different. Not friend groups, but I would say maybe like friend types. Like, do you hang out with a lot of neurodivergent [00:34:41] Brett: Oh, 100%. Like, I don’t hang out with neurotypicals at all. [00:34:46] Jay: I, I wonder how much of a problem this actually is for the other, like the person in the conversation, because I’ve hung out with both you and Elle at the same time, and I am completely able to track [00:35:00] both the, both of the conversations, including the inserted dad jokes and just keep going without a step being missed. [00:35:07] Brett: So, The, yeah, um, the difference is when we hang out with you, it’s been in a situation where we were, where we will, we were all kind of already comfortable with each other. Um, and we had certain understandings in place about each other’s personalities. Um, the situations I’m talking about are party situations where you’re meeting people you’ve never talked to before. [00:35:34] Brett: You’re creating those first impressions, um, which. For me, first impression is like, I’m going to lay everything on the table. And if you can’t deal with it, we’re going to move on. And for Elle, it’s like, let’s feel this out. Let’s let’s discover each other’s like special interests. Let’s dive deep on things we share. [00:35:55] Brett: And for me, it’s just like, I’m going to spill my guts. And if you don’t [00:36:00] like it, you can leave and I’ll move on to the next person. Uh, it’s a different situation than one where there’s already a mutual respect and kind of a, like an acceptance. [00:36:14] Jay: Yeah, [00:36:14] Christina: Well, it also seems like this is a thing that might not bother the people that you are with, but this is just a thing that, that really bothers Elle. And so that, that, which, which is fair. Right. [00:36:24] Jay: I get that. Yeah. Like Brit. [00:36:26] Christina: that’s the case where it’s just like, it’s like people you’re with might not even be bothered by it. [00:36:29] Christina: Maybe they, they will be kind of like, you know, [00:36:32] Brett: Honestly, okay, to be fair, if I thought people I was talking to were bothered by a random dad joke, I wouldn’t tell it. Like, I have some, I have some inhibitions where if I don’t feel like something is appropriate, if I feel like people will react badly to it, I’m not gonna do it. Like, these are situations where I think it’s appropriate. [00:36:57] Brett: Um, but they, it offends. L. [00:37:00] It like breaks L’s concentration more than anything. [00:37:03] Christina: I was going to say, that’s, that’s honestly, that’s the real thing, right? Like it’s, it’s not so much about like what the, what, what it’s doing for the other people, cause yeah, you, you can have a read on whether it’s an appropriate time to insert something like that or not. But it’s the fact that, yeah, with her, it’s taking her out of it. [00:37:17] Christina: It’s making her, you know, like it’s changing, you know, whatever her, you know, concentration level or, or her feel on the conversation was, and it’s, it’s disrupting that, which totally fair. That’s, I think that you’ve come up with a good solution, which is just at a party when you’re meeting people, don’t meet them at the same time. [00:37:33] Brett: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. [00:37:36] Jay: This is so fascinating. Like Brittany and I are so different, like my wife Brittany, um, I talk all the time. I don’t shut up. She never talks. So we have like the exact opposite problem where people who are meeting us for the first time either think that I’m super talkative or that I’m like. speaking for her, or the, or the, or the worst is [00:38:00] like, oh, well, she doesn’t like us because she didn’t say anything. [00:38:02] Jay: It’s like, no, she just doesn’t talk to like anyone. Um, so if we want the conversation to continue, I, I pick up on that and like, I just speak. Um, but it’s, I would be I’d be interested to understand more, like, the feeling of like, hey, we both have things that we want to talk about, but we’re, we’re bumping into each other in the process. [00:38:30] Brett: yeah. It’s like, I honestly, in a party situation, I don’t want to talk about anything. Like I keep everything very surface level. When I’m first meeting someone, I’m testing the waters. [00:38:44] Christina: It’s a vibe check. [00:38:46] Brett: it’s a what? [00:38:47] Christina: It’s a vibe check. [00:38:48] Brett: Oh, yeah. So vibe check. Yeah, it is totally. And, and Elle is like, let me find the one common interest we have and like, dig into that. [00:38:58] Brett: And I’m [00:39:00] like, let’s find out how you react to [00:39:03] Christina: Right, [00:39:04] Brett: offensive jokes or stupid jokes. [00:39:07] Christina: right. Do I want to actually talk to you enough to even find out if I want to [00:39:11] Brett: Right. [00:39:12] Christina: Yeah, that’s, that’s how I am at some place. Like, hey, well, I mean, I’m like you, you, Jay, like I’m a talkative person and I’ll talk to anybody about anything, like, you know. It’s actually weird for me when I’m in a situation where I’m with someone who I cannot get To talk back at all. [00:39:27] Christina: And I’m not talking about quiet people, because that I can deal with. But I mean people who like, will just like, not give you anything at all. And you’re just like, okay, so we’re just gonna sit here in silence. Like that’s, and I can do that. But that’s, that’s weird and rare for me. I can usually get almost anybody to talk [00:39:44] Brett: Right. Yeah. When I meet a quiet person, that’s like a challenge. I’m like, I’m like, I get you. Like, I, I, I understand your social anxiety. I understand what you’re going through right now. I’m gonna. I’m gonna break your shell, and we’re gonna [00:40:00] find, we’re gonna find a common thing that’s gonna bring you out of your shell. [00:40:03] Brett: That’s like a challenge to me, and I won’t, I’m not, I don’t like, I’m not overbearing. I’m not gonna like, you must talk to me, or, or you have failed. Like, it’s like, I’m just gonna test the waters, I’m gonna keep trying things to kind of crack your shell, and see if we can like, bring you out, And like, that’s, that’s fun for me. [00:40:24] Brett: Like, I enjoy that. [00:40:25] Christina: No, I do too. I do too. Like, I think that that was the only, sorority rush was such always like a complete bullshit and like nightmarish week and whole situation and the whole thing is dumb. But the one part of that that I did enjoy was like, you have to have. 10, 000 conversations with random girls, you know, for like five days straight as you’re trying to kind of get to know them more and figure out like, who will you, you know, you know, present a bid to and who will you, you know, not and all this bullshit. [00:40:54] Christina: And so you have to, you’re faced sometimes with really awkward… Like conversations [00:41:00] and trying to get people to talk and get out of their shell. And this, this girl who wound up being my little sister in my sorority and like somebody who I loved deeply, I met her and I could not get her to talk to me. And it was the most awkward. [00:41:12] Christina: And like, I felt so failed and I was like, what the hell? But she kept putting us at the top of her bid list, like every single day. And we came back and wound up like, not only did she accept, like. I was the one that she liked the most. Like, she wanted me as her big sister. And then we, we wound up getting, I invited her over to my house, um, once she became a Pledge. [00:41:31] Christina: And I got all the Pledges drunk, um, and then we went out to a club. And, um, cause that’s what I, that’s how I, like, make friends. Is, I’m just like, we’re gonna get fucked up. And we’re gonna, like, Go. Like, you know, and then like, like, you’re making the freshmen do really stupid shit, you know, which like, like, they’re always like, Oh, no, you can’t, you know, tell the pledges to drink. [00:41:50] Christina: I’m like, yeah, you can. Um, I can absolutely tell you, I will absolutely peer pressure you into getting fucked up 100%. Um, and [00:42:00] I have zero regrets about that. But like, she, we you. She wound up really liking me, and like, once, like, I, her ambitions, like, like, her, um, guard was down a little bit, like, she was a completely different person, and I just realized, okay, she just really has to take things in, and, you know, wouldn’t put anything out there, but once she felt comfortable around me, then, like, she’d never shut up, and it was great, but it’s just, I always, I always try to, like, remember that to myself, because I thought that it was the most awkward, like, You know, um, like a warmed conversation, that’s what we would call them, warmed conversations. [00:42:33] Christina: I thought it was like the most awkward thing I’d ever had in my entire life. I was like, that girl hated me, this was awful, like I have never in my life had anybody just not respond. And, you know, I was pulling out all my tricks, nothing. And… Ended up being, okay, that was just a misread because, and I’m sure that she’s neurodivergent, um, but like, that was just, at the time I didn’t know that. [00:42:55] Christina: I was like, okay, that’s just, you know, once I got to know her, I was like, okay, no, she just really takes [00:43:00] people in first and then, you know, [00:43:03] Brett: Here’s my question that’s gonna make this okay for me. [00:43:06] Christina: yeah. [00:43:07] Brett: Did you protect a fucked up pledge? If you got them fucked up, did [00:43:11] Christina: Oh, yeah. [00:43:12] Brett: for them? [00:43:13] Jay: Yeah. [00:43:13] Christina: thousand percent. Without a doubt. Always. Yeah. [00:43:17] Brett: You didn’t just dump them at the club and [00:43:20] Christina: Are you kidding me? No way. No no no no no no no no no. Absolutely not. [00:43:23] Brett: That was my assumption. I just needed it stated clearly. [00:43:28] Christina: No. Absolutely not. No, especially if like, if they’re younger, they’re the pledge, like, even if they’re older, like, if they’re the pledge, no, you protect them and you make sure that they’re not gonna go home with somebody and that like, nobody’s Yeah, no no no no. Absolutely not. Like, no matter how fucked up I would get, like, you make sure that you’re not as fu you’re not too fucked up to like, you know, [00:43:46] Brett: All [00:43:46] Christina: protect Yeah. [00:43:47] Christina: One thousand [00:43:48] Brett: I just had to check. [00:43:50] Christina: No, no, no. I mean, good, good, good, good, good check. Good check, but no. Under no circumstances would I ever. Now, if I was with a, a, a sister, and, and we [00:44:00] were getting fucked up, um, no, I, I’m not gonna, like, necessarily look out for her the same way, because now, like, we’re, we’re on the same playing field, and if we both decided to get fucked up together, like, it’s not really my fault if you decided to fuck a guy in the bathroom. [00:44:13] Christina: Like, that’s kind of on you. But, like, if, if it’s a pledge to you, I, like, Was basically, you know, like peer pressuring into, you know, doing multiple shots before we got in the, in the taxi or whoever was, you know, um, driving us his car, you know, to go to the club. Yes, of course, I’m going to make sure that she’s completely okay. [00:44:32] Christina: Yeah, [00:44:33] Brett: So Christina, how’s your mental health? We’re like 43 [00:44:37] Christina: I know. [00:44:37] Brett: and we’re still on mental health [00:44:39] Still on mental health [00:44:39] Christina: I know. I know. Um, okay, so it’s, it’s, it’s good and it’s bad. Um, so the good news is, is that, uh, I’m not really feeling depressed anymore, which is great. The bad news is, is that the medicine, which I was really hopeful about. Not going to work at all. So today is actually my second day being off of it completely. [00:44:59] Christina: Um, so [00:45:00] far the withdrawal has not been super bad, which is good. Um, I had a little bit yesterday, but this is one that my doctor says does not have a big withdrawal thing. He was like, yeah, you can just go off of it. Like I’d been taking it twice a day. I dropped down to once a day, um, because I, I had to get off of it and, and, um, I didn’t have a call with him for like another, you know, like week. [00:45:19] Christina: And so, um, uh, and he was like. Um, I was like, so I was like, I’ve been on it, you know, taking it to once a day. I was like, you know, should I cut it in half? What I do? He’s like, no, you can just go off of it. So the long and the short of it is, although the depression was gone, um, and it was no longer giving me that initial side effect I had where I felt high without the euphoria. [00:45:41] Christina: Then it was going into this thing where I could just like. Read an article or be focused on something and be in it for like five or six hours and have no Level of urgency to actually get anything done that I needed to get done Like at all so it wouldn’t matter like how important I had a deadline or like you have to you [00:46:00] know Do something else or you need to book your travel or you need to brush your teeth or whatever Like I just would have absolutely no feeling of urgency to do anything at all and just continue focusing on whatever I was doing So it wasn’t like I was completely zoned out because I would actually be you know sometimes doing things and sometimes Occasionally productive things, but that sense of like, you know, that thing in the back of your mind that’s like, No, you need to do this so that you can, you know, function as a human. [00:46:24] Christina: Right, it wasn’t even hyper focused though. It was just more like, I didn’t care. Like, I would know that there were consequences to my actions. And that this was bad and that these were going to be bad things and that would maybe bring a little bit of anxiety in me, but not enough to actually get me to actually do those things. [00:46:42] Christina: So it was fucked up, right? And then I, and I explained this to my doctor and, and he was like, well, that’s not great. I’m like, no, that’s going to get me fired. Like that’s going to, this is the sort of thing that will get me no longer employed. So I cannot be on this. And, um, I think that he was [00:47:00] really kind of scrambling to try to find some way to salvage it. [00:47:03] Christina: Well, maybe we add another drug into it and this and that. And I was like, you know what? I think we need to just call this and say that this was a good experiment, but this didn’t work because I don’t have time. It’s so busy right now with universe and stuff. Like I genuinely don’t have time. To fuck around with this right now. [00:47:16] Brett: time. [00:47:17] Christina: And, and so, um, I’m only going to be on Dexedrine now, going forward. We’re going to figure out what my baseline is, and then we’re going to maybe look at some other things, but I would need to figure out kind of like what my baseline place is. And this will be the first time that I’ve only been on Dexedrine in like six or seven years. [00:47:34] Christina: And so, it’ll be a good time. I, I A number of years ago I was stupid and, and ghosted my shrink, um, who was still my current shrink and like went off of all my meds cold turkey, which was a dumb ass thing to do. Um, and that lasted like a year and a half or so. Um, but that has been, um, Like, like I said, it’s been close to seven years now that like I’ve been back with him. [00:47:56] Christina: So this will be the first time, um, in a really long [00:48:00] time that the only thing I’ll be on is dexedrine. And so it’ll be a good time, I think, to evaluate where things are and then we can go from there. And then I’m, I’m at, I’ve, as we kind of talked about, um, a few podcasts ago, I’m at the point where if I feel like if I’m trying other medicines, if I’m going through the same. [00:48:19] Christina: Issues that I went through this time, then if I have to take, like, medical leave or something, I’m gonna do that, because I, I can’t… I can’t risk like my, my career, you know, um, and that’s, that’s been a hard thing in some ways to kind of come to terms with, but that’s also, I think, been like the most mature thing that I can, you know, an adult thing I can do about it is to say like, okay, don’t be afraid if there’s going to be a job for you when you get back, don’t like have those things going through your head. [00:48:49] Christina: Do the right thing. Prioritize your mental health. Prioritize getting, you know, the right thing going on. Um, but I’m hopeful that, you know, we’ll figure out where things are. I’m also hopeful that maybe, [00:49:00] even if this medicine ultimately didn’t work, if it got me out of the massive depression I was in, and, and I, I don’t anticipate that I’m going to fall back into one because I’m not bipolar and, and that typically doesn’t happen. [00:49:11] Christina: That if, if it got me out of that, then, then maybe that’ll be… Uh, and then, you know, have time to start looking at, you know, other, um, alternatives because of, you know, uh, the reason I’ve been on something, um, consistently is been because like my doctor has been afraid, like because of how bad my, my depressions have been, especially when I was younger. [00:49:34] Christina: You know, it would be, it would be something I would have to be on like almost like as a maintenance and like as a preventative thing as much as anything else. Um, and, and I think that’s fair. Um, so it’s probably not a long term solution, but I think that I at least have some time to, uh. You know, not be drugged out and not be, like, horrifically depressed and then figure things out. [00:49:59] Christina: So hopefully [00:50:00] things are on the upswing. [00:50:01] Brett: All right. How much do you know about disability protections in our line of work? [00:50:07] Christina: I don’t. [00:50:09] Brett: I don’t either. Like when I, when I, uh, filled out my, uh, like onboarding stuff for Oracle, I, I said, I have a disability and they didn’t, they didn’t specify, like they listed what qualifies as a disability, but they didn’t make you say which one. [00:50:29] Christina: Right, exactly, because I can’t. [00:50:31] Brett: And then Moom. In the first three out of like six managers I’ve had now, I was, I clearly stated like, here are, here, here’s my disability. Here’s what to look out for. Here’s why I got like a month’s worth of work done last weekend. And here’s why I am going to be offline for the next two weeks. Um, and, and they were accepting of that and they, but it wasn’t at a corporate [00:51:00] level. [00:51:00] Brett: Um. And since, like, I’ve been through, like, manager upheaval for the last six months, like, I’m on my third manager in six months, and I haven’t had that, like, one on one discussion to, like, let them know where I’m at, and I, I’m always curious if, if I hit, like, a period of depression, just as an example, that takes me offline for a while. [00:51:28] Brett: A couple weeks or more. Um, do I have any protection by law? [00:51:35] Christina: Um, I think that it depends. I mean, I think the thing is, is that, again, this is usually what disability insurance is for, which, you know, companies will offer. And, like, they can’t fire you. If you let them know that this is like a disabled, like a thing, but if you pass a certain number of days that you are off, uh, I do know that, uh, at most places, and this is covered by law, it will go from, you know, sick leave, whatever, to [00:52:00] now you actually have to go on disability leave. [00:52:03] Christina: And, and, and, and, and that’s it. And the number of those things, that’s going to depend on, on where you work. Um, but, um, There is a certain point, a certain number of hours where it does, it switches, um, and, and you have to, uh, you know, go on, take your disability leave or whatever. [00:52:21] Jay: Yeah. That was my, the talk that I gave a few times last year was like dealing with, Hey, I have ADHD. What would I have? What would I have told myself? How would I have navigated this process? Um, as I was getting hired and I mean, again, like they can’t force you to tell them the ADA, uh, American Disabilities Act, um, the way that they define it as a disability is anything that requires some level of assistance to do your job. [00:52:53] Jay: So if you do disclose it and you can say like, Hey, [00:52:56] Christina: Mm hmm. [00:52:57] Jay: I do need assistance, like regular [00:53:00] therapy appointments, talking to a professional, certain equipment things, if you’ve specified that you need those things and they ignored them and then. terminated your employment agreement because of the things that you specified, then potentially they could be liable. [00:53:18] Jay: But a lot of that is if you have disclosed officially, probably with even including like HR, um, which again, I understand that there’s always that like, One, I don’t work for HR. You should talk to your HR before you go and like, listen to me just spouting off, but in the process of preparing for this, I talked to a few folks who are HR professionals and they all basically said, if you tell your boss, if you tell HR and you specify, these are the things that help me to do my job better, that does provide at least some level of initial protection for you. [00:53:56] Jay: But the, the problem is, is they [00:54:00] only have to. Accommodate you based on the needs of the role. So if they say, we can’t, we can’t meet those needs, and you know, the job wouldn’t be the same if we met those needs, they have to show proof, but so do you. [00:54:16] Brett: Sure. [00:54:17] Jay: you know, how much of a, of a battle with, and how many lawyers does your company have? [00:54:21] Jay: It’s kind of the challenge there. [00:54:24] Brett: Yeah. Alright. Well, that’s good info for the listeners. [00:54:29] Christina: Yeah, uh, yeah, and, and I’ll say too, one of the, one of the things is, is that just like if you go on any sort of leave, like if your job is eliminated for, Like some reason that they’re saying is, is not associated with your work or anything like that, but just there was a reorganization and this job no longer exists. [00:54:45] Christina: Then again, like you need to talk to an employment lawyer at that point, but, but they, they, they can do that. And, and that’s not, that’s not a thing that unfortunately, just like if you go on, you know, maternity or paternity leave, and when you come back, your job is not there. That’s a real thing that [00:55:00] happens. [00:55:00] Christina: And, and there’s not a lot of recourse you have over that, unfortunately. [00:55:04] Brett: And that makes sense. I mean, from, if I were a corporation, I, I don’t, I don’t support the idea of finding back roads to eliminate somebody, uh, to eliminate their position, but if honestly, I don’t support the You need to reorg and that position no longer exists. You shouldn’t be held responsible because that person had a disability. [00:55:30] Brett: Um, just from a very capitalist perspective, um, it makes sense that you can eliminate a position if you want to. You just can’t fire someone specifically for their disability. [00:55:44] Christina: Right, right. The only thing you’ve got to be careful with in that is that unfortunately there are, um, you know, not, um, uncommon situations where people will use that as an excuse to get rid of someone who might actually have a dis you know, because they have a disability [00:56:00] or some other thing, [00:56:00] Brett: Yeah. And I don’t support that. [00:56:02] Christina: No, no, I know you don’t. [00:56:03] Christina: I know you don’t. I’m just saying that that, that’s the thing is that they can use that sometimes as an excuse to really get rid of people they want to get rid of, but you know, um, uh, and every state is different. California is obviously going to be significantly better than any other state when it comes to employment rules. [00:56:16] Christina: New York would then be, um, next best after that. Um, but yeah, um, uh, there are like federal rules, but, you know, our federal government doesn’t really give a shit. Um, so, you know, check with those things, check with your employment lawyers. But I don’t know in terms of like our specific professions, like, that has been a concern of mine in some senses. [00:56:36] Christina: Just it’s like, okay, well, am I gonna, you know, like, that’s always been my fear about taking any sort of leave is… You know, will, will there be a job when I get back, you know, um, and I, I guess I’ve, I’ve kind of gotten over that to the point where I’m like, well, even if there’s not, you’ve got to do the right thing, you know, for your, for your health first, which as I said, that’s a new thing for me, uh, because historically I would not [00:57:00] prioritize my health. [00:57:01] Brett: Sure. [00:57:02] Christina: I would not prioritize anything over my career, [00:57:04] Brett: that’s, that’s an amazing development because you have, you have potential, like you could work for almost any company, same with Jay. I feel like I have a certain amount of potential. Um, we can. We can prioritize, we can prioritize our health, we can prioritize our well being over some cushy corporate job and know that we’re going to land on our feet. [00:57:31] Brett: Not everybody has that, uh, that security. Whether, I think a lot of people have that security and don’t accept it about themselves. Like, me for one. Like, I feel like if I lost my job, I’m fucked. Uh, even though, like, I think you would, you would both say, I have options. [00:57:55] Christina: No, see, I was gonna say, I think a lot of us have that same feeling where, like, [00:58:00] other people would tell us what you’re telling us, and then we would tell you the same thing that we’re telling you, or, you know, that you’re telling us. Um, but internally, we’re like, Oh, no. I’m fucked. Like, there’s no way I’ll ever get hired again. [00:58:11] Christina: And I think it’s especially hard, um, doing the sorts of things that we do, because a lot of times we are some of the first roles eliminated. Uh, and we see that, and we don’t necessarily take stock of our own situations and go, Okay, well… Our situations might be a little bit different than, you know, some of our peers, not, not to say they always are, but you know, we might not give ourselves the credit that we, we should give ourselves [00:58:33] Brett: this brings me back, uh, so at the beginning, Jay was like, nobody knows how to define DevRel, and I was talking with coworkers, Victor and Aaron, who have both been on this show, um, About how there’s also no metric for determining our effectiveness and success. Um, like we can say the [00:59:00] company’s stock value increased and sure. [00:59:03] Brett: We may have been a part of that, or we may not have, um, like our roles are very hard to quantify and therefore our jobs are always insecure, [00:59:15] Christina: No, totally. I mean, and, and there are ways that you can do OKRs and that you can get metrics out of it. And, and I’ve had various success in trying to identify those things on various teams I’ve been on, but you’re right to actually show the real value. A lot of it is a, is a complete hedge and is complete bullshit. [00:59:29] Christina: And so my. What my answer to that has always been, okay, um, you’re right. You, we don’t have traditional metrics and you can’t do traditional, um, things that you could do in a lot of other roles to show, you know, this number of, you know, bugs was quashed and, and quality software quality has increased this amount and we’ve shipped this many releases and this and that, like, those are not things that you can do what you can do. [00:59:51] Christina: And, and, and again, it’s, it’s going to be nebulous and it’s going to be unofficial because. The role is, and because a lot of these things are impossible to [01:00:00] really measure, but that means to me, I think, the way that you show your value is that you tell a really good fucking story. And you go out of your way to show your value that way by saying, these are the sorts of engagements that we’ve had, and these have been direct things we can draw from that, right? [01:00:14] Christina: Because in some cases you can say, hey, like, you know, I had an engagement with this customer, and then they increased their spend by this much, right? You don’t always have that, but you can. You can show No, not always, but I’m saying that you do have that occasionally, and when you have those things, you have to use that as your, whether that, whether that result was because of you or not, right? [01:00:33] Christina: Like, you have to, like, almost take credit for that, right? And so, you know, okay, you know, we had this many more people, you know, at our, our conference, or we grew our social media followings by this amount, or we had this many engagements, or whatever the case may be, you have to find these things that are not always attributable to what you did. [01:00:50] Christina: But find a way to then fucking tell that story to show this is the value we have. Um, but, but that’s… Way easier said than done. [01:00:58] Brett: For my year, [01:01:00] for my year end review, I wrote an article about advanced query parameters in the Oracle OCI, uh, command line tool, which was super niche. Like, I don’t, I don’t know who would be interested in it, but it made it into the top 20 articles on Oracle developers for the year. And I get to claim that and like, that’s a metric. [01:01:29] Brett: I can say this had, this had enough engagement that it rose to the top, top 20 out of thousands of articles that were published last year. So I. I have Ametric. [01:01:43] Jay: Christina has has definitely heard me share like the highlight of my career is, as our lawyers would say, I suggested that my work had been plagiarized by major publications and that was just a thing that I was not [01:02:00] mentally prepared for. So yeah, like any, any time that you can be like, yo, this thing happened and while it was good, also look at, look at the direct source from where this came from. [01:02:13] Jay: But it, it is kind of fun because I, the, the people in this call like match up to this theory that I have for like a really solid DevRel team where you have three aspects. You have a. General hype beast, a flava flav if you will. You have like the super technical like Chuck D type person and then you have like the producer who like makes things palatable and like makes things work. [01:02:43] Jay: Um, [01:02:44] Brett: name in Public Enemy? [01:02:46] Jay: I feel so bad because I don’t [01:02:48] Brett: Yeah, I can’t remember either. I want, yeah. I can remember NWA’s DJ, but I [01:02:53] Christina: I mean, uh, Fl Fl Flav, right? [01:02:55] Brett: No, Flava Flav was the hype man. [01:02:58] Jay: Yeah, he just shouted. [01:02:59] Brett: [01:03:00] and Mike D was the MC. [01:03:02] Jay: Chuck D. [01:03:02] Brett: Chuck D. Sorry, Chuck D. Oh, [01:03:04] Christina: Oh, uh, well, I had to look this up. It’s DJ Lord. [01:03:08] Brett: Org. Wow, I don’t even know that name. He just never, [01:03:11] Christina: no, no, no, no, no, no, you’re right. No, he didn’t know, because he’s right. Because he he didn’t join until the 40th anniversary. 40th world tour, so that was 99, so he’s not it. So Wikipedia failed me there. Sammy Sam? [01:03:22] Brett: Yes, that sounds right. Yeah. [01:03:25] Christina: would that would be correct, okay. [01:03:27] Jay: but like, good devrel [01:03:28] Brett: just to finish your metaphor here. [01:03:31] Jay: yeah, but like, good devrel teams need all three. Like, you can’t just have someone who… Like, I can write a super technical blog post, but then, like, don’t share it with anyone, or don’t get up on stage and have those conversations with people that point back to that blog post. [01:03:52] Jay: Because, I mean, that’s my problem. Like, I’m in, I’m in the Python community. Python people don’t go to Microsoft. com to learn stuff about Python. [01:04:00] So, like, you have to go where they are. And, and sometimes you just need someone who can get into that room and shout Flava Flav as loud as possible. [01:04:08] Christina: Bingo. [01:04:09] Jay: And, I mean, you, you do really need all three. [01:04:12] Jay: You need someone that can, like, manicure a really tight production, someone who can get super technical, super deep on things, and then someone who literally just shouts Flava Flav. Now go look at that blog post. And exactly, like, and it’s cool that, I think good advocates know kind of where they fit in that model, and then they surround themselves with the other individuals. [01:04:41] Brett: Yeah. [01:04:43] Christina: No, I think you’re exactly right. Um, and, uh, yeah. And I, um, I’m also just a side note to close the ones. I’m so glad that you were able to give that talk, um, about, uh, uh, hip hop and the Python community, because when you talked to me about that at a, what was it, it was a scale this year, [01:05:00] like that I was like, yes, I need to see that. [01:05:02] Christina: So I’m really glad you were able to, to get that talk, uh, written and accepted. [01:05:05] Jay: The first comment that I heard was like, but for real, can we just stop and talk about Jay’s talk straight fire? I was like, yes, that’s, that’s going on my, uh, my highlight reel. [01:05:18] Brett: Nice. All right. So we are Over an hour in, and we just finished Mental Health Corner. [01:05:26] Christina: that’s just the episode. We’re just going to have to go into gratitude. I think. [01:05:30] Brett: do, do you, okay, how much time do you guys have? [01:05:35] Christina: I mean, I have time. [01:05:37] Jay: I have time, I don’t know how much time our listeners have. [01:05:39] We had to do some Taylor Swift stuff [01:05:39] Brett: Sure, you know what, if they sat through a DevRel discussion, they’re still with us, I think they deserve to hear Christina’s thoughts on the 1989 re release. [01:05:53] Christina: Okay. Thank you. I will try to be brief. Alright, so, background. Taylor Swift is re recording all of her [01:06:00] albums, at least the ones that she did for Big Machine. Um, so that’s gonna be her first, uh, six, uh, debut, Fearless, uh, Speak Now, Red, 1989, and Reputation. So far, Fearless, uh, Speak Now, um, Red, and as of this week, 1989, have been re recorded. [01:06:17] Christina: 1989 being her, her biggest… The commercial selling album, the one that has Blank Space, Style, Shake It Off, uh, Wildest Dreams, New Romantics, and I’m missing a single as Out of the Woods as the singles, uh, you know, [01:06:33] Brett: A. K. A. her best song, sure. [01:06:36] Christina: I mean, I, I mean, I would argue [01:06:38] Brett: Bratz Top Picks. [01:06:40] Christina: Brett’s top picks, absolutely. I was going to say most people’s top picks. [01:06:42] Christina: Most people, when you hear Taylor Swift, you are thinking of those songs. Like, at least if you came up, if you became aware of her during her pop era. Um, so this is her biggest album, um, and, and so this is the big one to be re recorded. And it came out on the 9th anniversary of the original release, [01:07:00] which was exciting. [01:07:01] Christina: And I, I’m going to be honest. The re record of Red… I wasn’t in love with because I thought the mixing was wrong, and I thought the mixing was bad, to be honest, on a lot of tracks. Some tracks I was not at all happy with what happened, some I was fine with. The thing that saved that album for me was that A, we got the 10 minute version of All Too Well, which is the centerpiece and a masterpiece, and we got the short film. [01:07:26] Christina: And we had some really, really exceptional, um, uh, bonus tracks, uh, or from, from the Vault tracks. And so that… To me, kind of let go of my, uh, I guess, disappointment with the fact that songs like Holy Ground were not mixed well. And, uh, the vocals were great, but were not mixed well. And that means that I will forever be listening to the original versions. [01:07:46] Christina: And, and Swifties who are like, you can’t listen to the original versions. Go fuck yourself, first of all. I will stream or listen to them as much as I want because I bought them. I bought all of them. And I bought many, many, many, many copies of all of her Taylor’s versions. And I’ve spent [01:08:00] thousands of dollars on her for concert tickets. [01:08:02] Christina: And fuck off. I will listen to whatever versions I want. And she’s still getting half of the royalties anyway because she’s the songwriter. So… Honestly, she’s a billionaire now. She doesn’t need you to defend her. Moving on. I was hopeful about 1989 because Speak Now, her third album, the re record on that was excellent. [01:08:21] Christina: The mastering was really good. The vocals were good. There was one lyric change that I’m still not over. But aside from that, like, it was great. Like, Enchanted, which is in my top three songs, I was very concerned that that would not be able to be recreated well because her voice is older now and better. [01:08:39] Christina: It was brilliant. It was perfect. So I was very hopeful that 1989, like my second favorite Taylor album, depending on the week, was going to be good. Listeners, I regret to inform you that she fucked up. And she, um, if you are not a person who has listened to that album hundreds or thousands of times as I [01:09:00] have, you won’t pick up on all the intricacies of how the fuck up happened. [01:09:04] Christina: Out of the Woods is fine. Style is not. Style, which is… Also one of my top three songs. The mix is terrible. It is just, if you listen to the two back to back on Spotify or Apple Music, or from your own collections, you will hear that the mix is fucking terrible. And I, my new favorite Twitter account called, uh, TaylorIsALiar, um, which that has been the Which is, that has been their username for a long time. [01:09:26] Christina: I love this Twitter account. And they were sending out some of the funniest memes about what she did to style. And I was like, I am following you now. And they followed me back because they saw some of my tweets. And I was like, I feel, um, good, uh, that we are like on the same page here. Um, but no, the, the mixing is… [01:09:45] Christina: Not great on a lot of the tracks, and I’m going to put it to you like this. She, for whatever reason, did not bring back Max Martin and Shellback to produce the album, especially Max Martin. And they co wrote most of the big hits on [01:10:00] the album. Shellback did come back for Red, and he did 22, um, um, uh, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, and um, uh, Um, the one with the, anyway, um, I Knew You Were Trouble. [01:10:15] Christina: He came back and produced those, and he also came back and worked on, um, Wildest Dreams, which was also one of her singles, and that was re recorded and re released earlier because she wanted to sell the sync rights for it. He did not come back on any of the other tracks on Red and Max Martin, or not, uh, excuse me, 1989, and Max Martin has not been involved in either. [01:10:35] Christina: The rumors are that Taylor, uh, didn’t want to pay Max Martin the money he wanted, and that he wanted You know, maybe like more producing credits than she was willing to give him. I think that was a mistake. Um, uh, that album is every bit as much his as it is hers. And he would not have mixed it the way that it was mixed. [01:10:53] Christina: That’s all I’m saying. Like you can, I’m not saying he’s the greatest producer or songwriter in music history. I’m not claiming that. I am saying that he [01:11:00] would not have mixed it the way that it was mixed. The Jack Antonoff song sounded better than the Max Martin Shellback songs, but Jack Antonoff then got in his studio and did all of his Jack Antonoff shit and made it like. [01:11:10] Christina: There are some background things that are good, and there’s some where I’m like, I get what you were doing, dude, because you had no adult supervision and no editor, and you wanted to make these things different and sound better, but I don’t know if this really was additive or not. But it didn’t take away, but the Max Martin tracks The mix is terrible, and so, I’m very, very upset, and uh, I think that she, I think she whiffed it. [01:11:32] Christina: It’s not gonna matter, this will still, I think it sold over a million copies, uh, which is insane for a re recording. Um, and, and it’s gonna be this monster hit, and she’s gonna now be able to sell the music rights, uh, to all the different, you know, commercials and movies and anything she wants, so she’s gonna be fine. [01:11:48] Christina: But, um, yeah, no, I regret to inform you, it’s not good, and, and I’m very upset, and that’s, that’s my rant. [01:11:55] Brett: That was, that was under 10 minutes, and I have to say, I was watching Jay’s [01:12:00] face through the whole thing, and he was fascinated. I don’t think he gives a shit about Taylor Swift. Like, your level of nerdery, your like level of knowledge about this was like, he’s like, oh my god, that’s [01:12:15] Jay: I, so only because I do want my wife to hear this at some point, I am actually a bigger Miley Cyrus fan than I am a Taylor fan. Um, but my, in my head, I was just like, Hmm, it sounds like Taylor needs to reorg her DevRel team. [01:12:34] Christina: Yeah, yeah, she does. Also, Taylor, and I love, she does, and here’s the thing, I love Taylor, but I was having this conversation with my friend Shantani about this, because we were all of us, we stayed up late, we were like listening, we were all excited, and then we were like, wait a minute, and some people were like, well, it’s just because it’s different. [01:12:50] Christina: If you had never heard the originals before, you wouldn’t have any problem with this. You’re probably right. However, the originals do exist, and, and your, your goal is now to convince me to listen to the [01:13:00] new ones, not the, um, old ones, and you failed. Failed. I do like some of the vault tracks, but, like, I’m never gonna listen to these other re recorded versions ever again. [01:13:09] Brett: I don’t understand how someone with Taylor Swift resources… Would fuck up a mix. [01:13:15] Christina: It’s hubris. She didn’t think she needed him. And I don’t know how much she cares about… I don’t know. Like, to me, Speak Now was done with a ton of care, and it was almost proof that, like, I feel like that’s maybe, like, her favorite album, secretly. Like, I feel like maybe she loves that one the most. And Red, the whole thing wasn’t fucked up, it was only a couple of tracks. [01:13:40] Christina: And again, the All Too Well thing was such a big part of that, that it made me think that was the focus. But it makes me wonder, if like, she just doesn’t give that much of a shit about 1989. Like, she knows that her biggest, most successful album, but she’s also kind of like, Well, this set me up for like, a really genuinely awful part of my life, when everybody came after me, after the success of that [01:14:00] album. [01:14:00] Christina: So maybe she was just kind of like, I just need to get this so that I can sell the sync rights. I don’t really care and I don’t think I need Max Martin because I have Jack Antonoff and I have these other guys and fuck you Max Martin, you want a million dollars, you want, you know, producing credits, I’m not going to give you that. [01:14:16] Christina: And I think that’s a mistake because I think that, again, every bit as much his album as hers. And… I don’t think he would have let it go out with a mix like that. I’m just saying. Like, maybe he would have. Maybe I’m wrong. But I don’t think he would have let the mix go out sounding the way that it sounded. [01:14:30] Jay: I wonder if it’s, I wonder if it’s similar to the situation Jay Z had when he became the president of Def Jam. Like a part of the deal of becoming the president was he got rights to all of his tracks that were under them. So getting, getting rights to your masters is like. A super big deal as an artist and for him it was more like I don’t really care about the music. [01:14:53] Jay: I want my kids to be able to do whatever they want with [01:15:00] the art that I’ve created. And I feel like maybe in Taylor’s case there’s this level of like I don’t really care how it sounds as long as I can say it’s mine. [01:15:12] Christina: I think that that might be true, but I also think that she does care very much about the stuff. But I think she cares about the originals, right? Like, This is my, this has been my working theory. She is doing everything she can to devalue those original masters, so that she can buy them back for like 150 million. [01:15:28] Christina: And she’s close to doing that at this point. Because at this point, all of the streaming services will not playlist. Any of the originals, they will only playlist her versions. And that means that the way that the next generation of fans are going to hear these albums, they will never hear the originals. [01:15:45] Christina: They will only hear the Taylor’s versions. And that also means because she’s the songwriter, the only way that these things can be, um, uh, licensed to, to television or movies. are if they license the Taylor’s version and she will never let those original copies be [01:16:00] licensed. So at some point, the owner of those masters are going to, I think, be faced with a situation where they have to write down, you know, their purchase. [01:16:08] Christina: And I think she’s just waiting for that to happen. And then the second that happens, she’s going to resell us the originals. Because She loves those, like those she, she did work on, and she did care about, and like, she’s compared them to, like, in many ways, like, you know, like, her scrapbook of, like, growing up, which is true, like, the music videos are literally, like, it’s her childhood and, and early, like, adolescence and, like, early adulthood are those albums, and they are owned by someone else, and that has to be devastating. [01:16:38] Christina: But with the exception of Speak Now and Fearless to a certain extent, I don’t think she’s put in that much care, at least in the mixing aspect of 1989. The one thing I will say that is better, also sometimes not, because it doesn’t, maybe being better doesn’t matter, her vocals are So much better [01:17:00] in the in the nine years and and it’s it’s one of those things where you hear the power and you’re like Wow, she’s been taking voice lessons and that is actually pretty amazing to hear because you expect it maybe on the earlier albums I didn’t expect to be able to hear that difference Between 1989 and now, because in my mind, 1989 still feels like it was released a couple of years ago. [01:17:21] Christina: Uh, blame COVID, blame whatever, you know, blame the fact that it is, you know, one of the biggest albums of the last decade, but like, it doesn’t feel like that album is, is, you know, a decade old. But the vocal difference is profound in some cases, and, um, the production just isn’t. So, better vocals, worse production, some decent bonus, uh, vault tracks, but I’m, I’m never going to intentionally stream. [01:17:46] Christina: The Taylor’s versions. I’m just, I’m just not. [01:17:49] Brett: Alright. [01:17:50] Jay: game, if the long game is to [01:17:52] Brett: Oh, you’re gonna keep this conversation [01:17:54] Christina: no, no, no, no, [01:17:55] Jay: I’m genuinely [01:17:56] Christina: No, no, I love it! I love it! Do it! Do [01:17:58] Jay: If the, if the long game is [01:18:00] to re release the originals with, with Taylor being the owner. I feel it benefits her to have the sound be just sonically different so that people have a reason to want the originals back. [01:18:15] Jay: Uh, [01:18:15] Christina: Yeah, I mean, to be clear, it’s close enough that if, again, if you didn’t know, and most people who are gonna hear this on the radio are not gonna be listening in, like, high end headphones, And you’re not gonna know. [01:18:24] Jay: people that buy the album, they’re going to be the people that stream it on YouTube or Spotify or Apple Music. The people who are going to buy the album will definitely notice the [01:18:31] Brett: buys albums? [01:18:32] Christina: Taylor Swift fans. [01:18:34] Brett: Okay. [01:18:34] Christina: Genuinely. Like, she sold, I think she’s gonna do a million pure sales, or close to that, of this album. Most of it in vinyl. Um, and, and, and it’s, yeah, most of it in fucking vinyl [01:18:44] Jay: Cassettes flying off the shelves. [01:18:46] Christina: cassettes, yeah, vinyl cassettes and, and different colored CDs. Um, I think she had seven different vinyl colors this time. [01:18:53] Christina: Um, yes, I bought all of them. Whatever. Um, You know, like, it is what it is. [01:19:00] Yeah, no, but Taylor Swift fans are the ones who buy albums. So, I think you’re right, Jay, like, when she re releases them, who knows what’ll happen on streaming. But, yeah, maybe she wants it slightly different. I just think that, that’s just my personal theory, is that as soon as she can get them cheap enough, she will buy them back. [01:19:17] Christina: And then re release them to all of us, and make us buy them in, like, a big, huge box set. [01:19:24] Jay: 200 box [01:19:24] Christina: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And they will fly off the fucking shelves. [01:19:29] Brett: should we do some Graptitude? [01:19:30] Christina: Let’s do it. [01:19:35] Brett: I, I, [01:19:36] Christina: thank, thank you, Brett, for indulging me. [01:19:38] Brett: Honestly, like we could become a Miley Cyrus podcast. [01:19:43] Christina: actually. We would love that. [01:19:44] Brett: I’d be down with that. Uh, [01:19:46] Jay: I’m also, just, [01:19:48] Brett: when Jay becomes a co host, we’ll, we’ll consider rebranding. [01:19:53] Jay: I, I, Noah, most talent. [01:19:57] Christina: Noah’s very good. Noah’s very good. [01:20:00] Yeah. [01:20:00] Jay: But, but I do, I do love the evolution of Miley just [01:20:04] Brett: Yeah. Yeah. It’s kind of fascinating, [01:20:06] Christina: Actually, it’s funny. It was like all, like, me, Brett, and, and, um, and Jeff have all talked about that. Like, we really do love Miley. Um, Noah, I, I kind of agree with you most talent, but she doesn’t have the, she doesn’t have the star appeal. That’s the problem. Like, like, like Miley. Has, like, the it factor. [01:20:21] Christina: She just does. [01:20:23] Jay: I feel like it’s mentorship though. Like I, I could imagine in 30 years, Miley is the Dolly Parton of that era. [01:20:33] Brett: You think [01:20:34] Jay: And again, that’s, that’s who her mentor is. Like [01:20:36] Christina: Uh, I don’t know. [01:20:39] Brett: I don’t think Miley has had a Jolie or a 9 to 5. [01:20:43] Christina: No, [01:20:44] Jay: Well, she recorded those, but… [01:20:45] Christina: she [01:20:46] Brett: did, she did. And she did a damn good job [01:20:48] Christina: okay, here, [01:20:49] Brett: It was, it was spot on. [01:20:51] Christina: Here’s the thing. I think that, like, God, and it’s a decade old now. My God, I cannot believe this. But, like, We Can’t Stop is, is, [01:21:00] is a fucking, like, nearly perfect pop song. [01:21:02] Brett: A banger. [01:21:03] Christina: it is a true banger, um, from bangers. Uh, so, so I, I don’t know if that was intentional or not, Brett, but very good work. [01:21:11] Christina: Um, I mean, everybody always talks wrecking ball, but like, honestly, the, the song from that album for me is we can’t stop. Like that is the song for me. Um, I mean, wrecking ball is iconic, but we can’t stop. Like, I just, I watched that. I, I just get happy every time I hear that song or watch that music video. [01:21:26] Christina: Cause I’m like, that actually looks like like a. person who’s like 20 years old’s party, like genuinely, you know, like [01:21:34] Brett: I’m gonna. In the show notes, I’m gonna drop, um, an acoustic version of Wrecking Ball, a cover that, honestly, like anyone who cares at all, or even if you don’t care, even if you think you hate Miley Cyrus, this acoustic version of Wrecking Ball, You’ll be like, I [01:22:00] gotta admit, that’s a good song. [01:22:01] Christina: It is. It is. Now, to be fair, she did not write [01:22:05] Brett: Oh, understood. She, I don’t think she has writing credits on a lot of her stuff, [01:22:10] Christina: Most of them she doesn’t know. On her last two albums, she does. Um, uh, and she does have a writing credit on We Can’t Stop, but she’s way on the bottom of the list. So that goes that far, but no, Wrecking Ball is, is a Dr. Luke song. So, [01:22:25] Brett: yeah. But it’s a, it’s a good song and she made it. [01:22:29] Christina: She made it great. [01:22:30] Grapptitude [01:22:30] Brett: All right. All right. Craptitude. Let’s, let’s kick it off with Jay. [01:22:37] Jay: Um, I, I was conflicted by this. Um, I, I, I work for Microsoft. I’m not telling you that you should spend the money and get an Office 365 license. But I will say that, um, one, if you do, make sure you put in a note somewhere that it was directly because of me. Um, again, [01:22:57] Brett: Sure, cause that’s the only metric [01:22:59] Christina: Yeah. Cause[01:23:00] [01:23:00] Jay: exactly. Exactly. But, but the other side is if you do presentations, consider PowerPoint. [01:23:08] Jay: Like, there are so many new features, especially if you haven’t touched PowerPoint in like, There’s so many new features like automated transcriptions, things to do like, you know, practice a lot of the stuff that that Apple released in Keynote has been in PowerPoint for a while. Uh, we were talking earlier about like the easiest way to. [01:23:31] Jay: Build PowerPoints now is literally to start with a white background, black text, put what you want on the screen and then hit the designer button and just let it like wrap your images and move things around and come up with custom icons for them. Like it is absolutely fantastic. And YouTube has me pegged because now whenever I look at YouTube shorts, at least 15 of them in like, Three minutes will be, [01:24:00] here is some PowerPoint hack that, you know, takes you 30 seconds to learn. [01:24:05] Jay: And I am genuinely having fun nerding out on like, as I’m trying to do more eccentric styled talks, like I’m just nerding out on like, how can I really like add pop and flair to these? And again, it, it sounds corny as hell to be like, yeah, PowerPoint, you should totally check that out. Also Excel, Python, it’s coming. [01:24:27] Jay: Um, That’s enough promotion for my employer, but like, for real, if you haven’t played around with PowerPoint, just like, open it up and see what’s in there, and like, try to do some really fun stuff with it, like, you can, you can definitely get away with doing something. [01:24:42] Christina: Yeah. [01:24:43] Brett: about the toolbar? [01:24:45] Jay: I don’t even think about the toolbar. [01:24:47] Christina: Yeah. The ribbon, the ribbon’s like, that’s, I don’t know. I feel like that’s an old conversation at this point. Like I feel like, yeah, because it’s been changed significantly over time and it’s [01:24:56] Brett: can’t even, I can’t even use it. Like, I, I have to use [01:25:00] PowerPoint for work, and I have been impressed with the designer and transcription and stuff like that, but it loads up, and I get that toolbar overjammed with things that change as soon as [01:25:15] Jay: no. [01:25:16] Brett: as soon [01:25:17] Jay: Type in help and go directly to what you’re looking for. [01:25:19] Christina: Yeah, I was gonna say that’s what I do. [01:25:22] Jay: Or look for the, if you can set up panes, like, the arrangement. The thing that completely morphs your window and puts everything in a bunch of different rows and you can slide them back and forth, that’s flashy and all, but like, if you go to the actual arrangement, like selector, it’s literally just a list that you can drag up and down. [01:25:41] Jay: And like, that’s the easiest way to select specific assets, like on a particular slide. So [01:25:47] Christina: Yeah, and I would say actually in that regard I think it’s like better than, than, than Keynote, um, you know, at this point, uh, because, you know, Keynote’s inspector or whatnot, like, it’s just, I, I agree, like, seeing that pane and seeing, like, how it visually shows off how that stuff [01:26:00] works is really nice. Um, Control Command U, Brett, uh, just remember that, that’ll immediately get you to just, like, typing in, like, the search bar, and yeah, I, I would agree with, with Jay, I usually just search for what I wanna do rather than fucking with any of the… [01:26:12] Christina: The menus. [01:26:13] Brett: Control command U. All right. That’s [01:26:15] Christina: But, and I’m gonna plus one you because I haven’t, I’ve been afraid to share this, um, publicly, but yeah, PowerPoint at this point, it’s kind of like my usual go to if I’m not doing my thing in like a markdown situation. Um, uh, sorry Google Slides and, and sorry Keynote, but I feel like Keynote, which was the greatest app for… [01:26:34] Christina: Years and years and years has basically just become abandonware and Apple is like completely in keeping the lights on mode with all of, you know, their office products and, uh, yeah, like the transcript stuff and the designer stuff alone, not to mention the fact that it’s more compatible with everything at this point means that like, I, I don’t really use Keynote anymore. [01:26:56] Brett: true. Pages, keynote numbers have not [01:27:00] gotten, they haven’t been part of a keynote address for as long as I can remember. They are keeping the lights on. You’re right. You’re right. [01:27:12] Jay: PowerPoint, that’s me. [01:27:15] Brett: All right. Christina, tell us what you got. [01:27:17] Christina: All right, so my pick is going to be Keyboard Maestro 11, which came out, uh, I think like last week. And, uh, this is just like, this is an app that we’ve talked about before. Um, I love it. I, um, really, really, um, Like it’s one of these apps that I don’t use as much as I could, but that every time I jump into it just a little bit, I realize how much I like it. [01:27:37] Christina: And there are a lot of different automation apps out there. Um, you know, there, there’s a better touch tool and, and obviously you can do some similar things with things like text expander, but I really love the interface and the stability of, um, Keyboard Maestro. And so I oftentimes use. All three of those for different things. [01:27:54] Christina: But, um, if you’re somebody who, you know, wants to have a really good way of automating stuff or, or [01:28:00] doing very specific things with keystrokes, I love, love, love Keyboard Maestro and the new version includes a CLI. Which is very exciting. So now you can just run Keyboard Maestro, um, in your command line to run, um, some of your automations, which I think is really cool. [01:28:17] Christina: And, uh, so, um, uh, congrats to them for, you know, uh, continuing to put out a really, really good app. And, and this was one of those things I got the email about my upgrade and I was like, that is absolutely, I was like, this is the easiest, like, 18 dollars or whatever that I could spend. Yeah, totally. So, Keyword Meister is my pick. [01:28:36] Brett: not just for, for keystrokes, like you can, you can find so many different things as triggers and keyboard maestro, um, like MIDI keys, for example, like you can have, you can have a chord on your, on your MIDI keyboard next to your desk, launch an app. [01:28:54] Christina: yeah, you can use it with your, uh, with your, with your stream deck. [01:28:57] Jay: Yep. [01:28:58] Brett: Yep. All kinds of crazy [01:29:00] stuff. [01:29:00] Brett: Um, I think, [01:29:02] Jay: Bunch. [01:29:03] Brett: yep. Yep. I, I do actually. I use [01:29:07] Jay: I think I have a [01:29:08] Brett: my Stream Deck to trigger Keyboard Maestro to trigger Bunch. Um, but it’s, uh, the, the, when Shortcuts came out, And they included a command line utility for running shortcuts. I feel like that prompted some of the automation, all, some of the like venerated automation apps to like come up with a command line utility, which I think has been a good step forward because a lot of us, a lot of us who are capable of creating complex keyboard maestro actions. Probably want to call it from the command line, um, you know, or through a script. And so I think that’s a, a very wise addition. [01:29:57] Jay: Oh, yeah, I, I have [01:30:00] definitely written a video about using Keyboard Maestro to launch other automation tools like Bunch. Also, shout out to like, two years ago, Hair, oh my goodness, that was, that was a phase. Uh, [01:30:16] Brett: All right. So my pick for the week, here we are. We’re an hour and a half in, this is going to be, this is a [01:30:23] Jay: stop bringing attention to it, they won’t notice. [01:30:25] Brett: They’ll never notice. Cause this has been so riveting that no one has paid attention to the progress of time. Um, I. I’m gonna pick ImageMagick, and, uh, I had originally had, uh, Things vs. [01:30:41] Brett: OmniFocus on my list here, but then we started talking about how I’ve automated my, uh, giveaway posts on my blog and every one of those posts starts with a picture of a robot holding the icon of the app I’m giving [01:31:00] away and then ends with a picture of the robot holding the icon on top of a confetti background. [01:31:06] Brett: And it’s the same for every post and I thought, I thought, God, I should be able to create these automatically. And RetroBatch could do it. RetroBatch can’t overlay images in that way. So I dug in and I got down to ImageMagick, which is a command line utility you can install with Homebrew. And it’s… It’s, um, capabilities are immense and it’s command line options are intense. [01:31:38] Brett: Um, you will have to Google everything you want to do, uh, in order to put it together. But now I can type robot and then the name of any application on, uh, my local machine or on Either the Mac App Store or the iOS App Store, [01:32:00] and it will automatically generate the robot holding that icon, and it will generate the confetti image, um, in, in one keystroke, and it will automatically create the, uh, WebP and I, I, uh, Twitter and Facebook sharing images for that, uh, post header and it is, it’s. It’s an intensely complex command line utility, but, uh, honestly, like, there’s nothing else that can do what it does. [01:32:36] Christina: Yeah, nothing even comes close. Like, it is, it’s literally the FFmpeg for images. Like, if you’ve wanted to use something, you know, similar to FFmpeg, uh, but dealing with images, like ImageMagick, and the, um, the maintainer of it is, is really great. And, um, you know, the stuff that’s added, like, like Brett was saying, you have to look up every single thing you do. [01:32:57] Christina: It is insane. [01:32:58] Brett: There is, [01:33:00] there is room, there is space in the app community for a graphic interface to ImageMagick. Like, someone who could do something like what RetroBatch, have you guys ever seen RetroBatch? [01:33:15] Jay 2: I was going to bring up RetroBatch? [01:33:17] Brett: Like, it can do so much stuff, but if it could do what ImageMagick does, if it could provide a graphical user interface, a GUI, if you will, to Retro, uh, to ImageMagick, it would, it would be an amazing tool. [01:33:35] Christina: No, I totally agree. Um, uh, we’ve talked about, it’s been a previous Graftitude pick of mine is, um, uh, FFworks, uh, which is an FFmpeg front end, which is really, really good. Uh, I, I would wish that somebody could do that or, you know, if, if Gus wants to, you know, expand, um, you know, um, a retro batch to, to taking on more of the, uh, uh, image magic stuff, uh, that would be greatly appreciated [01:34:00] too. [01:34:00] Jay 2: I wonder if there’s like a, uh, just a simple endpoint that you could add similar to like what Brett does half the time. We’re like, Hey, if you want to just do some scripting type thing, just paste this code in, like Keyboard Maestro does this, Bunch does this, Alfred does this. Like. Yeah. [01:34:16] Jay 2: RetroBatch, just give me access to the CLI for ImageMagick, and then like, now you can do everything else, which I’ve been using, I’ve been using Pillow because it’s a part of like the whole Python image library stuff to do automated, what are those things called? [01:34:31] Jay 2: The meta tag cards. [01:34:32] Christina: Yes, [01:34:33] Brett: Open Graph. [01:34:34] Jay 2: Yeah, I would love to switch that out to use ImageMagick because, like, right now, it’s, it’s so janky. Like, anytime you have to add text to something, I’m just like, I, I give up. [01:34:50] Christina: no, totally. And now would actually be a great time for somebody to do a GUI tool because to your point about the Open Graph things, you know, Twitter got rid of the fact, well, headlines on [01:35:00] links. And so what I think that people need to do now is you need to do an overlay of what your headline is on top of your image. [01:35:08] Christina: And that’s something that you could completely automate with ImageMagick. So if somebody made like a good GUI tool, you know, to kind of take on that feature. You could sell shitloads of copies to basically anybody who publishes anything on Twitter, whether they want to or not, because now, [01:35:24] Brett: take, if you take the sample code for an image magic command overlay text, it’s going to, it’s going to work, but it’s going to look like shit. And it takes, it takes some knowledge and finesse to actually make it look good. And a GUI could totally make that customizable and easy without constantly tweaking drop shadows and kerning. [01:35:48] Brett: And yeah. [01:35:49] Christina: and, and yeah, and the thing is, is that people who are publishing a lot of times these things are never going to do that anyway, and so if you were able to do that, you could Yes, absolutely! You know, like, [01:36:00] look, I don’t want somebody to just do it for, you know, publishing to Twitter, but it you if you, um, you know, even, or, or publishing to open graph stuff. [01:36:07] Christina: But like, if, if you made a, a good gooey tool, you could have like a quick like part of it that would let you do just that and you could again, like sell so many copies because that’s a, that’s a thing that people a need to do already, and b, increasingly. Um, I’m, I’m waiting, like I’m shocked that the New York Times and people haven’t already built this into their CMSs, to be honest, because they have the resources to do so, you know, having a way to like, overlay the text on those images so that, yeah, when people now look at these things on Twitter, they can actually know what the fuck they’re clicking on. [01:36:38] Christina: I [01:36:40] Brett: All right. I feel like that wraps up a 90 minute episode [01:36:43] Christina: think so. [01:36:45] Brett: Alright. Jay, thanks for being here. Appreciate it. [01:36:48] Jay 2: Anytime. [01:36:50] Brett: Alright. you, guys, get some sleep. [01:36:53] Christina: get some sleep. [01:36:54] Jay 2: Get some sleep. [01:37:00]

A little dive into Guardians of the Galaxy and Brett’s history with raccoons. The group does mental health, Grapptitude… and ‘Grapptibitching.’ Sponsor Show Links Charles Edge TRS-80 Journal CLI No Name Bar The Spotify playlist for No Name, Sept 28, 2023 The mentioned Rocket Raccoon podcast is no longer available due to copyright claim Rocket was the real protaganist Giveaways on BrettTerpstra.com Interlink https://interlinkhq.com/ Spillo Pins Deckset IA Presenter Noteplan 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 Rocket Was Always the Protaganist [00:00:00] Brett: [00:00:03] Brett: Welcome back, Overtired listeners, it has been a minute. Um, [00:00:08] Jeff: I’m Sam Sanders. Sorry. [00:00:11] Brett: we, we have been, we have been on a little bit of a break, but I am Brett Terpstra. I am here with Jeff Severins Gunsel and Christina Warren. How you guys doing? How you holding up? [00:00:22] Jeff: I wish I was Sam Sanders and I wish he was still hosting. It’s been a minute because he’s phenomenal. It’s still a great show. Sorry. I’m good. Hi, Christina. Hi. [00:00:30] Christina: Hi, I’ve missed you guys. [00:00:32] Brett: Yeah, how long’s it been? We, we took a couple weeks off. I think two, maybe three. Um, we had a lot of, there was a lot of travel, a lot of end of summer stuff going on. And, uh, and we, and we have zero sponsors for the foreseeable future. So if we need a week off, we’re taking a week off. And, uh, [00:00:53] Jeff: Does anybody have like a, like an AA sponsor they could bring on? I’m [00:00:56] Christina: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, or, or, hey, but, but genuinely, if you have, um, a, [00:01:00] uh, you know, a product service app that you would like to get out to an audience of, uh, you know, um, nerds and, uh, and whatnot, uh, hit us up and, um, sponsor, sponsor the pod. [00:01:11] Brett: for sure. I, um, it’s, it’s kind of nice not being beholden to anybody. [00:01:17] Christina: Oh, totally. I’m just saying. [00:01:19] Brett: But yeah, I mean, and I know from experience that people will forgive this show for disappearing for like up to a year at a time, and they keep, and they stick around, they keep coming back. We had a couple years of very sporadic podcasts, and when we started back up, our downloads were about the same as they were when we left off. [00:01:44] Brett: To be fair, In the past, when we were on 5×5, our show got 30, 000 downloads a week, which is very respectable. These days, I’m not going to throw out numbers, but it is far less than that. [00:02:00] Um, it is, it is a fraction of [00:02:03] Jeff: select group of people that we allow to listen to this [00:02:05] Brett: But we have very loyal listeners who, who know us and, and if they met us on the street, they would all be very kind. [00:02:13] Jeff: I love you, Danny Glamour. [00:02:15] Mental Health Corner [00:02:15] Brett: We all love Danny Glamour. Um, uh, so anyway, we should kick off a mental health corner, find out where everybody’s at. Uh, Jeff, how you doing? [00:02:26] Jeff: I am doing pretty good. Um, I, I am doing pretty good. I have, uh, yeah, I’m doing good. I, I said that six times now, which probably means I’m not doing good. No, I think I am. Um, I, uh, I’m, I’m in the midst of, uh, preparing for a, um, Pretty whack a doodle, uh, uh, yard sale of tools. Um, that is, uh, the tools I will be selling cover a bizarre range of things from the industrial to the eccentric and, uh, [00:03:00] and much of what’s there is the result of a, what I, what I, you know, now understand was a, a manic episode. [00:03:07] Jeff: Two and a half years ago, a month long, I’ve never had anything like it. I’ve, I’m diagnosed with bipolar, um, but I, and, [00:03:16] Brett: Type one. I [00:03:17] Jeff: and type, yeah, whatever the one where people go, oh, bummer. Um, and, uh, And, and I’ve, and I now understand what manic episodes have looked like in my life and they never looked like this. And I was obsessed with this idea that I was burned out in my work. [00:03:35] Jeff: And I loved working in my workshop. I have a kind of extensive workshop. I like doing metal work. I like just like doing random commissions. I like, uh, fixing old, old things. Um, and, and I decided that’s, I’m going to figure out how to make a life. Out of this, and it’s going to be funded by flipping, uh, by flipping old tools that I, that I restore using my great judgment, which of course, when you’re manic, your judgment is incredible. [00:03:59] Jeff: [00:04:00] Um, and so I started going to, I started bidding in auctions for about a month. Closed, like steel factories that were closing down and like, uh, this old man in Spooner, Wisconsin had died, Charlie, and he was basically they were like auctioning off his entire shop and I bought a bunch of like, valuable vintage tools for nothing and, and bought way too much of them and, and almost, almost destroyed my van trying to drive it home. [00:04:27] Jeff: Um, and so anyway, I, I thought it was the best month of my life until I realized it was probably the worst. And I brought home so much stuff in that month and, and spent so much money. Um, and it really kind of brought my whole life, uh, to a grinding. Halt, I guess. Um, as I sort of lost that energy and realized what had happened and it was difficult in my home, in my relationship, it was difficult for me because the workshop I loved, that I was already struggling to keep clean now, was basically, [00:05:00] you couldn’t navigate it. [00:05:01] Jeff: And I, and because that led to my diagnosis and, and that led to a long period of trying to find the right medications, which led to gaining a bunch of weight, which led to getting diabetes, which led to getting diabetes meds that caused me to lose a bunch of weight, like, uh, not to mention, you know, different the way different drugs impact you and how long it takes you to realize it. [00:05:21] Jeff: And then how painful it is when you stop, you know, like it was a two year process that ended not that long ago, maybe like six months ago. And I feel great now and I feel really even and I, and that’s just wonderful. But, um, I had to let all that stuff just stay in this terrible condition. I had to just, I essentially made it a time capsule. [00:05:38] Jeff: And, um, and, and recently through just a lot of hard work and therapy, I was able to kind of face it cause like one of the things that I learned about having a really destructive manic episode is like. It’s really painful to feel like you can’t trust yourself, because I, I’ve always felt like I can trust myself, trust my gut, and I have, I think, been able to do that, and it’s served me well, [00:06:00] um, but my judgment in that period was so fucking off, and, um, and it was, it was exaggerated parts of real me, right? [00:06:09] Jeff: Like, it wasn’t like, oh, I’m not me, it was like, no, I’m definitely me, and, and all of the, the, the dials, and I’m not going to see up to 11, it’s overused in our culture, but all the dials are just, all the faders are up, [00:06:21] Brett: then some. [00:06:21] Jeff: Yeah, I was fucking Jeff, right? Like, um, and, uh, and so anyway, it’s, it’s this beautiful thing. [00:06:29] Jeff: Cause I, I finally realized, okay, I think I can go in. I think I can sort through this stuff. I think I can make sort of a really fun sale. And the concept of the sale. Is it’s, um, I’m, I’m liquidating my Uncle Ray’s, uh, uh, workshop and collection. My Uncle Ray was a little bit of a hoarder. Uh, he, he passed recently. [00:06:49] Jeff: Um, he was an eccentric. He’s a wonderful guy. Uh, and I, I really love him. And he asked me in his last dying wish was just make sure my stuff goes to a good home. And if it can’t [00:07:00] take it to the dump, um, and, and I, I created that idea, which I may not even go with because I loved the possibility. Let me tell you, when I have this sale, it’s going to draw in some weirdos. [00:07:10] Jeff: And, um, and, and so I didn’t want to have to argue with people about whether something works or the value of something I wanted to be like, look, man, I can’t tell you if that thing’s working. It was Uncle Ray’s and I can’t tell him. I wouldn’t lie. I wouldn’t say something works when it doesn’t. I literally sometimes don’t know if it works, right? [00:07:27] Jeff: Like the cables cut or something, but it’s like a really valuable thing with a cable cut, whatever. Maybe. So the leftover manic part of me still thinks probably. Um, but I, [00:07:38] Brett: how are you advertising this? [00:07:40] Jeff: Well, I only decided today I’m finally going to do it next week. My, my wife was like, here’s the deal. Have the sale you can have. [00:07:48] Jeff: Because I was like, there’s going to be a popcorn machine. There’s going to be, you know what I mean? Like, [00:07:54] Christina: You’re like, this is gonna be a sale. This is gonna be like a good old batch of like, rummage [00:07:58] Brett: This [00:07:58] Jeff: We’re gonna have, we’re gonna have [00:08:00] balloons, uh, you know, and, and Laurel at one point was like, you know, I, I see you, I love this Uncle Ray thing, I think it’s great, I think it’s a great way to kind of have fun and probably part of healing from this thing and having a little distance from it so you don’t have to answer the question of why do you have all this stuff, dude, right? [00:08:16] Jeff: But she’s like, I see you possibly spending too much time on the backstory of Uncle Ray. And I was like, fair enough, fair enough. And then the other thing she said that was so helpful was exactly that, like, just have this lady you can have, have it next weekend. So until the moment we started recording or met up here, I’ve been prepping for this yard sale, which is about so much more than selling tools. [00:08:39] Brett: Wow. [00:08:40] Jeff: Yeah. [00:08:42] Brett: Yard sale as mental health coroner. I [00:08:44] Jeff: Yeah. We’ll see. I don’t like, I do not like, uh, having garage sales. I don’t want, I look at people that come and look at my shit and I’m like, what the fuck are you doing looking at my shit? Even though I put it out there, you know, it’s [00:08:54] Brett: don’t deserve [00:08:55] Jeff: You don’t deserve this. Yeah, you don’t know what to do with this. [00:08:57] Jeff: Uh, so, we’ll see if I can [00:09:00] pull it off. That’s why it’s good that it’s Uncle Ray. I’m thinking of having a picture of Uncle Ray with like a born and death date. And then, and the last bit is, anybody who, who says, who is, are you Uncle Ray? They get a 20 percent discount. If they figure it out, they get a discount. [00:09:14] Jeff: So, I’m not trying to just straight up lie to [00:09:16] Brett: uh, [00:09:17] Jeff: Um, that’s my story. That’s my check in. [00:09:21] Brett: I went to a garage sale once when I was maybe 16, and… There was an Oscar, like the computer, the, like, briefcase computer, the Oscar, um, and they were real cagey when you first started asking questions about it because clearly they wanted it to go to a good home. I believe the magic words were when I asked, is that a 300 Baud modem? [00:09:51] Brett: And… And they were like, okay, this guy, this guy might want this. Um, maybe it wasn’t even the Oscar. Maybe like I bought [00:10:00] that summer, I bought an Oscar and I bought an AT& T Unix machine, one of their first [00:10:05] Jeff: Damn. [00:10:06] Brett: AT& T machines. And that was the one that had a 300 bud coupler modem that like came out the side and you. [00:10:12] Brett: You put the phone receiver into it and, and like, and then it was like a 300 baud connection to your gopher servers or whatever. [00:10:21] Christina: right, right. [00:10:22] Brett: Um, I learned Unix on that AT& T machine. That is where I learned most of my Unix skills. Um, but anyway, I, I feel like the idea that people who have garage sales really do want their shit to go to people who will cherish it. [00:10:42] Brett: Oh, nice. [00:10:43] Jeff: TRS 80, the Trash [00:10:46] Brett: Trash [00:10:46] Jeff: I just pulled out my Mint Condition Trash 80, which I’ll talk about after this. I just want to say a little bit about vintage computing when we’re done with our check ins. [00:10:54] Brett: 80. Jeff is currently holding up a Trash 80. [00:10:57] Jeff: A portable Trash 80. [00:10:59] Christina: I have to be [00:11:00] honest with you guys, um, I’d always like, heard like, what a trash AD is or whatever, but like, I didn’t know what it looked like until maybe, I don’t know, like a year or two ago, and then I was like, oh, damn. That’s [00:11:10] Brett: had [00:11:11] Christina: Cause, no, no, no, did, did all of them have, um, integrated screens or were, or was that only some of [00:11:15] Brett: Like, one line screen. [00:11:17] Christina: Yeah. [00:11:18] Jeff: this one’s like a, I think a five line [00:11:20] Christina: Yeah, yeah, [00:11:21] Jeff: Yeah, [00:11:21] Christina: did they all have [00:11:22] Jeff: there was like a desktop [00:11:23] Christina: Okay. Okay. See, this is why I was confused because in my mind I’d always anticipate, I’d always thought that it was like a, a desktop thing, right? And, and normal desktop computer, you know, home computer thing. But then I saw it with the screen and I was like, oh shit, if I’d known that it looked like that, like I would have been way more into it. [00:11:38] Christina: So I think, I think that’s what it was. [00:11:39] Jeff: since we’re in it, I’ll just give you the quick story of this thing. So I had posted a photo that my sons volunteer at a place here called Free Geek and, and part of Free Geek is just taking apart electronics so they can recycle them. The other part is a electronics thrift store. Um, and, and so last week actually, I saw a Commodore 64 executive, which is like, you [00:12:00] pick it up with a big handle and it’s got a little integrated screen and the keyboard comes out and they had one of the old Heath kit computers there. [00:12:07] Jeff: Anyway. So we had picked up a, uh, an old like 90s PC pre Pentium and the boys run Doom on it and play Doom on it. And I put a picture of that on Facebook and, and Eric Ringham, who’s, I knew when I worked at Minnesota Public Radio, greatest voice in radio, um, had worked for the Star Tribune, which is our local Minneapolis paper. [00:12:26] Jeff: And he messaged me and he’s like, Hey, I have a TRS 80 if you want it. And I was like, yes, I want it. And I went over to his house the next day. It’s in mint condition. It still works. And it had the Star Tribune’s, um, instructions for use, which called it instructions for using the Trash 80 is what it said. [00:12:42] Jeff: And it actually was, he took it to China and he used it as a foreign correspondent, but because he could never figure out how to use the modem, um, he, he still had to call his editor and read the copy that he, that he typed on this. And sadly he had programmed Space Invaders into it, but it’s still, it doesn’t exist there [00:13:00] anymore. [00:13:00] Jeff: So anyway, that’s how I ended up with the Trash 80. Um, it’s beautiful. [00:13:03] Brett: Do you guys know who Charles Edge is? [00:13:06] Jeff: Oh, name only. [00:13:07] Brett: Um, I met him a while back and he is, he contributes to like Huffington Post and he writes books. Um, but he is basically, aside from being a computer scientist, he’s a historian of computing. And that guy, you give him like a model number and he can tell you like the history and the capabilities of just about any… [00:13:33] Brett: Historical machine. He’s very interested. He’s also very good looking. Straight, straight, but very good [00:13:39] Jeff: You know, I, just a thing about Huffington Post, cause it’s been the case for many, many years, maybe nigh on decades, that saying you write for Huffington Post is the same as saying you write for Myspace. It’s like, it’s not, it’s not a thing that was like, we’re picking you anymore, but that’s all right. [00:13:53] Jeff: That’s all right. [00:13:54] Brett: Yeah. Um, let’s see. He also writes for ink. [00:14:00] com. That counts for something, right? [00:14:01] Jeff: Sure. Is that a tattoo rag or? Uh huh. [00:14:05] Brett: All right. Christina, how’s your mental health? [00:14:08] Christina: My mental health is good. Um, I think that the new antidepressant is working. So yay. Um, applause everyone. Um, so that’s really, really good. So I actually spent, like last week, this week has been fine. I’ve been just doing work stuff. Um, work is starting to get hectic, but last week I actually had like a, a week of like concerts that. [00:14:27] Christina: The concerts were great, but it was also one of those things where, like, I’m reaching the age where I go to see concerts and, like, I look at the crowd and I see how old the crowd is and it, like, makes me uncomfortable with my own mortality. So I went and, so the first thing, so my friend Erin and I basically did, like, a week of concerts. [00:14:42] Christina: So she lives in Raleigh. We work together. She’s my GitHub work wife. Um, I, I usually get married to at least one person, um, per job, but she’s my GitHub work wife. And, um… She was, she was in Seattle visiting some friends that she has. Yeah, I think that’s you. And, [00:15:00] uh, so we went to see, cause we, we have similar taste in music. [00:15:03] Christina: And so we went to see at a winery and I’d never been to this winery before. I’d never been to this part of, um, Washington before, Woodinville. And I’ve been wanting to go there. We saw Dashboard Confessional, who I’ve seen many, many times and we’ve talked about on this pod. And I saw Counting Crows. And Counting Crows is one of my favorite bands ever. [00:15:20] Christina: And they’re actually one of the best bands, amazing band. And live, they are phenomenal. Um, Erin had never seen them live. And I told her, I was like, no, like they’re one of the best bands you will ever see live. And she was like, it’s kind of skeptical. And then afterwards she was like. Holy shit, you’re right. [00:15:36] Christina: I was like, yeah, I know. Um, they, uh, they were amazing. They did this right after the, uh, Prepare to Feel Really Awful, the 30th anniversary of August and Everything After. [00:15:46] Jeff: Oh, dude, everything’s the 30th anniversary for me, and we’re getting up on 40th with some of these [00:15:50] Christina: But, but, no, but, no, but that would like mindfucked me and, uh, but they, they, they were amazing. They did a lot of great songs. They opened with my favorite Counting Crows song, which I was not [00:16:00] expecting. And so that was kind of like a whole thing. And, um, they cover Taylor Swift actually, like on their, on their set list, which like was to me, like they covered the one from, um, Folklore, which I, I was not expecting at all. [00:16:13] Christina: And I was like, okay, my two worlds are colliding here and, and, and I don’t know how I feel about this, but I love it. Um, but then so, so we did that on, on Saturday and then on Sunday we flew to Raleigh and I stayed with her. She was gracious enough to host me and we saw Ben Folds on Wednesday in Raleigh. [00:16:30] Christina: Um, he’s doing, um, solo piano shows, um, across the U. S. because he just released a new album and I love Ben Folds. Love, love, love him. But he’s from South Carolina. And we, um, uh, basically that was like the, the hometown show. Like we, we paid to do the meet and greet. We did not pay for the photo op because I’m not going to pay 75 for a photo. [00:16:50] Christina: I already have photos of me in binfolds. I’m not going to, to do that. But I did pay 75 for the meet and greet, which had an AMA part, which was great, which was lovely. And like his [00:17:00] One of his original music teachers was there from like elementary school, as well as like a guy that he went to high school with. [00:17:05] Christina: Like it, so it was, it was pretty cool, like just in the, in the audience. So that was pretty cool. And, um, and he was great. And then we, so, so we, our whole thing is, so we were like, okay, we’re going to go see him in Raleigh. And then we got on a plane at 5 AM on Thursday morning and flew to DC to see him at the Kennedy Center. [00:17:26] Christina: And, and so I spent the weekend in [00:17:28] Jeff: Damn, that’s quite a week. [00:17:30] Christina: Yeah, yeah, it was. It was, it was really, really fun. And, you know, this is the sort of shit that I usually do, like, when I’m feeling like me, like, I will totally just be the sort of person who’s like, yeah, one of my favorite bands is playing two shows, and they’re a city apart. get on an airplane and do it. Like, I do that shit, right? But I haven’t done that in a But I haven’t done that in a really long time, and I planned this when I wasn’t feeling [00:18:00] good, but I’m so glad I was feeling good when [00:18:04] Jeff: That’s amazing. [00:18:05] Christina: I did it. And then we went to a Nationals game, saw the Braves. The Braves beat the Nats, go Braves. [00:18:12] Christina: Um, I just had a really nice weekend in Washington, D. C. with my friend, and I just, I was like, I don’t know, it like, hit me. I was like, I feel like myself. Like I’m gonna cry because I felt like myself for the first time in a long time. [00:18:26] Brett: you planned this when you weren’t feeling like yourself, did, were you? Yeah, exactly, were you, did you plan it in the hopes that you were gonna feel like yourself in time? [00:18:36] Christina: I think so. And, and, and if not, then it was one of those things where I was like, well, I’ll just, I’ll do it right. Like I can just, this couldn’t just be one of those things that I just kind of like, you know, suck up and do. Right, right. But, but it, but it wouldn’t have been the same thing because live music, um, invigorates me and, and sustains me in a way. Basically, like nothing else. That’s why I always go on like my concert adventures, like [00:19:00] people, you know, some people, people spend their money on different things. I don’t judge, um, and, and so I know people look at me sometimes and they think it’s weird, you know, um, that I’ll, I’ll fly to different cities, um, frequently, you know, to, to see concerts, but, um, live music really does, um, um, Invigorate me. [00:19:17] Christina: And, but this, yeah, you know, I, I planned this before I was feeling good and, and I, I, I guess I, there was a hope in the back of my mind that I’d be feeling good, but I, I didn’t, I didn’t appreciate how much better it was to feel good and do that, you know, and, and, and also to just, you know, be with my friend and, um, you know, uh, like, and you never know, that’s the thing too. [00:19:39] Christina: You never know when you first I guess like travel with someone and you’re with them for like a long period of time like is this going to work out like are we the types of friends who can travel together or not? And, and Aaron and I definitely are which is great. Um, I found that out earlier this, this year too with my friends Catherine and, and, um, Alex when we went to Disney World together. [00:19:57] Christina: But like, you know, we, we, Yeah, [00:20:00] and like, we had like, you know, we were adults at Disney, not adult Disney fans, to be [00:20:05] Jeff: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That’s an important distinction, I [00:20:07] Christina: is an important distinction, but like, when we did that, like, you know, but that’s always a nice thing too, because you never know, um, especially like, when we are adults, like when you travel with people, it’s not like when you’re in college and you can just kind of like… [00:20:18] Christina: Go along with it. You know, if somebody’s lame and you’re like, okay, it’s whatever, like it sucks if you’re spending like seven days with someone who you don’t really like that [00:20:27] Jeff: god. No, that’s not something to do. [00:20:30] Christina: No, no, no. So we, so Erin and I travel well together and, and which was fantastic for both of us to learn, which was great. So, um, yeah, so that was, that’s, that’s my update. [00:20:39] Christina: Um, I’m feeling a lot better. I’m feeling like myself again for the first time in a really long time. So yay. [00:20:45] Jeff: Congratulations. [00:20:47] Christina: Thank you. [00:20:47] Jeff: I love it so much. That’s amazing. Uh, yeah. Brett, I know you got some business to tend to. [00:20:55] Christina: The raccoons. I’ve been promised raccoons. [00:20:58] Brett: yeah, I think, honestly, I [00:21:00] think I wanna make the raccoons a section after Mental Health Corner. We’re gonna, we’re gonna get [00:21:05] Jeff: might be my favorite sentence, uh, in, in the history of this podcast. [00:21:10] Christina: of it all. [00:21:11] Brett: As far as mental health goes, um, things are actually pretty good. I had a brief manic episode a couple weeks ago, uh, for the first time. It was right after I told you guys that I hadn’t had a manic episode for like six months. It [00:21:24] Jeff: Someone’s listening to the podcast! Heh [00:21:26] Brett: Literally the next day, literally the next day, I realized that I was manic again, but it only lasted about two and a half days and then it ended. [00:21:36] Brett: The depression was mild and I have been stable ever since then. Um, in the interest of collecting data about this kind of thing, I can’t remember if I had this out last time we talked or not, but I, I wrote a, a command line tool called Journal. [00:21:54] Christina: yeah, we didn’t talk about it, but I’ve been following your blog and I’ve been obsessed with it. [00:21:57] Brett: And you can, [00:22:00] using a YAML config file, you can, you can add questions, um, [00:22:05] Christina: I love you so [00:22:06] Jeff: I’m not following you enough! [00:22:07] Brett: to ask yourself, and you can give yourself, like, numeric ratings on a question, you can give yourself text input, um, you can ask yourself, or you can add, like, weather data, and I just today added moon phase, Data that you can collect. [00:22:25] Brett: So go ahead. [00:22:27] Jeff: Pause. So I normally keep up with what you’re doing. I used to look at your, your site every day because I wanted to see what new fucking bananas thing you were working on, but I only just logged on having, having learned just now about journal and I already know how deep in you are because your most current post is historical weather for journal CLI. [00:22:44] Jeff: It’s like, Oh fuck, I missed a lot. [00:22:46] Brett: Yeah. Yeah. Because like one of the features is if you miss a day. So like the idea was it stores your info in a JSON structured data file that you can then [00:23:00] use for analysis and querying. That was the important part to me, but it can also store markdown journal entries and it can. Add to day one. So however you want to journal, but to me, the important part was I needed, I was scoring my, our couple’s therapist asked us to rate our own kind of bandwidth and our partner’s bandwidth, uh, daily on a scale of one to five. [00:23:27] Brett: And I started doing that in day one and then realized I had no way to query or output. These specific numbers, and I couldn’t correlate them to any other factors, so I wrote journal just to allow me to keep this JSON file of all of these numbers and all kinds of other peripheral data that might affect them so I could draw correlations later. [00:23:53] Brett: So that’s the primary function of journal. Um, it is already led to some [00:24:00] enlightening. Uh, Discoveries. I am interested to see how Moonphase… affects some of these scores because I’m not into astrology. I don’t, uh, at all, at all, not even a little, [00:24:13] Christina: completely fake. [00:24:15] Brett: I have noticed that on full moons and the two days surrounding full moons, I don’t sleep as well. [00:24:22] Brett: And I don’t know if that’s just extra light in the room or what, but [00:24:26] Christina: the thing. I think that there’s Okay, I’m gonna like be a hypocrite here. I think that like, astrology, like the co You know, like, like horoscope, all that stuff is complete Bunking [00:24:35] Brett: total bullshit. [00:24:36] Christina: complete bullshit. There’s nothing. I mean, that, that, that is, that is fantasy on a level that like, I’m not like, like religion. [00:24:42] Christina: I, I can sort of, I can understand the appeal behind it. I can’t even understand the appeal behind this because it’s literally made up nonsense. Right. But I think that when it comes to like the stuff that can happen with moons and the tides, I do think that can, that can affect how you [00:24:57] Brett: because it’s, it’s legit [00:25:00] gravitational changes. [00:25:01] Christina: Yeah. [00:25:01] Christina: Like, like, [00:25:01] Brett: could, that could affect, I don’t know, things like mood and sleep, and so, so I’m tracking this, and now I’m collecting this data as well, um, and I’ve been slowly writing, like, Journal itself, the CLI doesn’t offer any query tools, um, like basically you, you get a JSON file that you can um, parse and work in whatever language you like and do whatever you want with. [00:25:28] Brett: Uh, so I, I write scripts in Ruby that output different correlations and I’d be really curious. It also, I found out there’s like this data view plugin for Obsidian that [00:25:41] Jeff: that’s a great plug in. [00:25:43] Brett: it could use YAML. Headers in your journal entries and output different, like, different ways to view your data. So, Journal now, when it outputs a markdown entry, which you can point to your, your [00:26:00] Obsidian vault, um, it includes all of your numeric and weather data as YAML headers that you can then use, uh, Obsidian data view to, to map and… [00:26:15] Jeff: Because we’re still in Mental Health Corner, I need you to stop saying Obsidian because I’ve had to bar myself from using it because I, um, become so obsessive in using it that I, I lose all of [00:26:24] Brett: Yeah, I feel like that’s a major pitfall to Obsidian. I, I honestly, like, I test it once in a while, and I see, I see all the potential. It is. It really [00:26:36] Jeff: awesome! I still read the changelogs. [00:26:38] Brett: I remember [00:26:39] Christina: is, and I use it, but like I have the same problem where like I could literally lose 12 hours and, and I’m, I’m not actually even being like Christina hyperbolic. I’m being completely serious. I could lose 12 hours of my life to configuring and dealing with all the little things that I would want. [00:26:54] Christina: And maybe that would be a good use of 12 hours. I who, who’s to say, but, but, but I could, I can [00:27:00] totally like get sucked down those rabbit holes. I completely understand. [00:27:02] Brett: I talked to, I talked to a developer from Obsidian early on, I think maybe even before their first public release. And he, he said to me, I don’t see this as competition for NB Ultra. Um, however, it 100 percent is [00:27:19] Christina: Oh, but absolutely. [00:27:20] Brett: it is, and it does so much more than NB Ultra even aspires [00:27:24] Christina: Which I think is a good thing. I think that’s the one area where it’s not competition, right? Like, it absolutely is. And for some people, I think it will replace exactly what they would use in VUltra for. But in another sense, I think this is, it’s almost a good thing for you, where you’re like, okay, if you need to go beyond, I don’t have to build that. [00:27:41] Brett: And here’s the thing is both apps work with a folder full of markdown files. So you can access your Obsidian data in NVUltra and you can use NVUltra for quick entry into Obsidian. So there is, there’s some [00:27:57] Christina: path for [00:27:57] Brett: synergy. Can we say [00:28:00] synergy? [00:28:00] Christina: no, definitely, right? And look, I think that they definitely, and I think they even admitted it, like, took, you know, things from Indie Alt, right? Was, was definitely inspiration for it. Um, but I think that in one case, cause we’ve talked about the, this before, but yeah, they were like, Oh, we don’t see it as competition. [00:28:15] Christina: It’s absolutely competition. But, I think they serve different purposes, and for you specifically, Brett, like, I think that it’s actually good that there’s this app that in many ways could go down all the Brett rabbit holes, but you’re not the one building it, and you don’t have to be in charge of it, because you can just make your app your app. [00:28:33] Jeff: You guys, stop. I opened Obsidian. It’s not good. It’s not [00:28:36] Brett: is, there is so much that if I could convince, Fletcher, my partner on NVUltra is very, like, you have to absolutely convince him with data that a feature is worth adding before he will consider adding it to NVUltra. [00:28:54] Jeff: in beta? [00:28:56] Brett: It is, it is, it [00:28:57] Jeff: I’m saying that knowing that this is not on [00:29:00] you. I would never say that if it was strictly your situation. [00:29:03] Brett: So like, there are all these things that Obsidian does that I’m like, Oh my God, we should totally figure out like an even better way to do this thing. And it’ll just be a no go with Fletcher because I can’t. I’m not a logical person. Like I can’t, I can’t debate. I can’t debate. If, if a debate is all about like logic and data, I’m kind of lost. [00:29:29] Brett: Like I get screwed over when the conversation becomes overly technical, uh, in any kind of debate. Uh, I have, I have [00:29:38] Jeff: You’re a doer. [00:29:40] Brett: but I have an ADHD brain that doesn’t retain a lot of facts and, and data points that I can use to prove my argument. So I get. I get, uh, bulldozed very easily when I’m dealing with someone who is very logical. [00:29:56] Brett: But, anyway, um, so [00:30:00] journal aside, mild manic episode aside, I also DJ’d at [00:30:06] Jeff: I was gonna ask you about that. [00:30:08] Brett: At Ed’s No Name Bar. It’s no longer called Ed’s because Ed sold it. But back in the day, this guy named Ed Hoffman, uh, wanted to open, and originally it was supposed to be a wine bar. He was going to open a high class wine bar, but he gave up on that and opened A dive bar, but dive bar in like, in a hipster way, like a very, like a hipster bar with like the Christmas lights around the, the, the liquor selection and everything. [00:30:38] Brett: And, [00:30:39] Christina: bar parenthesis aesthetic. [00:30:41] Brett: and, and he didn’t, he didn’t come up with a name. So it just became known as Ed’s No Name Bar. Um, he sold it. Now it’s literally. registered as no name bar. Um, and I had a friend bartending there and I tweeted, I tweeted, uh, Spotify had given me this [00:31:00] list of recommended songs and I’m like, holy shit, I want to, I want to DJ this for a crowd, um, for anybody who would listen. [00:31:09] Brett: And so I tweeted that and, and Christian was like, Hey, uh, Ed’s on Thursday. Four to four to eight. So I showed up with my iPhone and my playlist ready to go. Nobody there. And nobody was there for the first three hours of my set. Um, but it was still a blast to sit. at the dive bar and talk to Christian and listen to fucking old school punk rock for three hours and then people finally started showing up but it was at the point I got to about two hours into the playlist and I decided to mix in something other than classic punk uh and it went to like Sage Francis, and Fugazi, and Mudhoney, and K [00:32:00] Flay, and it kind of like, it became a more diverse playlist at that point, and that’s when everyone started showing up. [00:32:06] Brett: So people missed out, like, the first six songs on the playlist are Rise Above by Black Flag, California Uberalis by the Dead Kennedys, Fuck Shit Up by Blatz, Ever Fallen in Love by the Buzzcocks, I Love Living in the City by Fear. [00:32:20] Jeff: love living in the city! [00:32:22] Brett: Yeah, and Living in Exile by Blood for Blood, and then it just goes on with that kind of theme from there, but it was so much fun just to, just to be in a bar, even though there was nobody there. [00:32:36] Brett: Uh, just to be in a bar, listening to it, yeah, exactly! It reminded me so much of the bars [00:32:43] Jeff: want to play dice in the corner? I, [00:32:45] Brett: We’d hang out in bars in New York City, like in, in Queens, and we’d be in this like just shitty bar, almost nobody there, and they would have a jukebox, and we would play whatever Runaways, whatever Joan Jett, whatever [00:33:00] N. [00:33:00] Brett: W. A. they had, and we would just kind of run the sound system for an almost empty bar, and it did remind me of being on tour. Yeah, [00:33:11] Jeff: like practice, but we’re in Pittsburgh. [00:33:13] Rocket the Raccoon [00:33:13] Brett: you guys want to talk about Raccoons? [00:33:15] Christina: Yes, let’s talk about raccoons. [00:33:17] Brett: Okay. [00:33:17] Jeff: wait. Can I ask a journal question really quick? Um, first of all, this reminds me of, um, Simon. What’s his last name? I’ve talked about it before, but his, um, dataset, uh, [00:33:29] Christina: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Willison, Willison. [00:33:31] Jeff: Yeah, and his, like, personal, uh, lifelogging, uh, sort of attachment, yeah, [00:33:36] Christina: Simon Willison. Yeah, he’s the best. Yeah, [00:33:38] Jeff: it has that spirit, but I wanted to ask, like, so, you’re building this stuff in, I assume there’s at least six or seven more things that’ll be built in in the next month, and by the way, without a manic phase, nice work. [00:33:48] Jeff: Um, and that’s, that’s amazing. I just wanted to point that out. Uh, but is it, is there a way to just like say, I want to hook this API to journal as a user, uh, and, and, [00:34:00] and, and there’s like a pathway to that. Can that be a thing? [00:34:03] Brett: No, but that, it can be a thing. [00:34:05] Jeff: Yeah, that’s what I mean. Can it [00:34:06] Brett: good idea. [00:34:07] Jeff: Yeah. Because I love that thing of like, you’re, you’re identifying all these things that you wonder maybe impact your mental health and, and I can imagine then my brain racing off and being like, I’m going to go grab a, uh, baseball scores. [00:34:20] Jeff: Um, I do not watch baseball, but that’s [00:34:23] Brett: define a key and a question type. And a question type right now can be numeric, it can be an integer or a float, it can be, uh, text, it can be multi line text, it can be weather. Like, you have all these different types. And I could easily Have a type that was API and either through a plugin architecture or just if there was like a URL you could query and, and bring in like JSON or any kind of structured data, then yeah, I could add that. Yeah, [00:34:56] Jeff: I’ve noticed I’m always a little off when the International Space [00:35:00] Station passes over. [00:35:01] Brett: there’s [00:35:01] Jeff: A, that’s an [00:35:03] Brett: There’s only maybe 200 people using Journal [00:35:06] Jeff: 201 after this podcast [00:35:08] Brett: or 200 who have tried it. I don’t know how many kept using it, um, but I have yet to receive any major feature requests, just some bug reports, um, so I will consider that a valid feature request, consider it on the docket. Okay, so when I was, when I was in my 20s, um, My ex wife and I were driving along a road and we saw a baby raccoon and We pulled over because it looked lost and we had just seen a dead raccoon in the road a little bit before, so the safe assumption was that that was the mother and this young raccoon was lost and we picked it up and we brought it home and it had nothing in its eye [00:36:00] sockets, just empty eye sockets, a totally blind raccoon, so Uh, apparently born that way, just, it didn’t look, there were no scars, just born without eyes, and we named it Charlie, uh, a Ray Charles reference, and, um, and, and we cared for it for probably three weeks, um, feeding it and, and loving it, and it be, it was super sweet, like, it would, it would, it would do itself chirping, uh, when you’d come in, and it would feel your face, and, And, like, uh, [00:36:36] Jeff: Amazing! [00:36:38] Brett: and it, like, got to know Aditi’s face even better than mine, I think. [00:36:42] Brett: And, uh, we eventually found a sanctuary in Baraboo, Wisconsin that would take him. And, uh, We went back to visit him multiple times and he would come running up and he would feel Aditi’s face and just start [00:37:00] like chirping like so happy to see her and her nose ring he she he loved her nose ring [00:37:06] Jeff: Oh god, careful! [00:37:08] Brett: but like [00:37:09] Jeff: Yonk. [00:37:10] Brett: So, have you ever felt a raccoon’s paws? [00:37:13] Christina: No, [00:37:14] Brett: They are, they’re human. They’re so soft. They’re, it’s like human skin. And, and they’re very gentle with their paws, and they just, they pat and feel and, and. And wash their hands in water, if you’ve ever seen that, it’s adorable. Um, [00:37:30] Jeff: paws once, but we can talk about that later. [00:37:32] Brett: but I, I came to love raccoons and then when I first saw Guardians of the Galaxy, I felt a connection to Rocket. [00:37:42] Christina: right. [00:37:42] Brett: Um, [00:37:43] Jeff: Trash panda. [00:37:44] Brett: and then I saw Guardians of the Galaxy 3. In which you realize that the story was never about Star Lord, the story was Rockets the whole time, and Rocket becomes, I won’t, no [00:38:00] spoilers, everyone should absolutely see Guardians 3, um, you should probably watch all three in order, but, um, Rockets. Storyline, when you look at it, he goes from victim, like you get his full backstory in Guardians 3 where he is, uh, the product of experimentation and is almost, like, put to death because he has served his usefulness, he goes from victim to advocate to, to hero, to leader. [00:38:35] Brett: And, and you see, um, you see the progression of him emotionally, and it is… Every time I watch Guardian 3, which is three times now, I sob. I cry the whole way through. There’s a part where, where Rocket almost dies. And I know, after the first time, that he doesn’t die. I know, I know in my heart he’s gonna be okay, [00:39:00] and it’s still. [00:39:01] Brett: Hits me. James Gunn is a goddamn genius and, and obviously he wrote this story for Rocket. Like, this was Rocket’s story all along, and it has, like, it has led to all of these deep realizations about my own trauma, about my own story, and honestly, like, No, I rarely cry. Like, I’ll tear up a little for an emotional scene. [00:39:29] Brett: But this is like, I watch Guardians 3 and there are tears streaming down my face. And I have to like, I’m like, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s snotting into my shirt and it’s, it’s amazing. I, uh, have you guys seen Guardians 3? [00:39:45] Christina: I haven’t, um, I’ve wanted to, is it on Disney Plus now? [00:39:48] Brett: Yeah, yeah it [00:39:49] Christina: cool. Alright, I’ll watch it, uh, cause I, I wanted to see it, um, this summer and I just wasn’t able to. Um, but, uh, but I like the first two and, and I always kind of agree with you. I thought that Rocket was like, [00:40:00] uh, a very underrated character and like, should’ve like had more, especially after the second one, I was like, okay, this character fucking rules like this. [00:40:06] Christina: I, I, I’m, I’m, I’m into the, the [00:40:08] Brett: Well, he’s got this whole, like, tough guy persona. He has to be, like, the toughest guy in the galaxy, right? But he’s just covering up his own insecurity and pain. And there’s this amazing scene where, I can’t remember the character’s name, the blue guy, Yondu or something like that, um, starts yelling at him about… [00:40:27] Brett: He’s like, I know who you are. I know what you are. And he starts explaining like all of these things that hit Rocket to his core. And then he’s like, I know who you are because you’re me. And Rocket’s response is, what a pair we are. And like, it’s, it’s so cutting. It’s so biting. It’s so good. Um, I’m going to link a, um, a podcast on Rocket. Um, I can’t remember the name of the podcast, but it’s, uh, um, uh, [00:41:00] Filmmaker and a psychologist and… I want to say a film critic, um, that come together to talk about Rocket’s kind of trajectory through this whole thing. Um, anyone who is at all touched by this, whether you’ve seen Guardians 3 or not, um, go check out this podcast. [00:41:19] Brett: It’ll be in the show notes. It’s, it’s a YouTube video podcast, a videocast. Um, but it, it is absolutely worth seeing. Even, you could watch it as a prequel too. To seek, to seeing, actually seeing Guardians 3, but yeah, so that’s my raccoon thing. Oh, and Elle is knitting me a raccoon. Um, she started this before Guardians 3 came out because she knew I loved raccoons to begin with. [00:41:51] Brett: Um, after we saw Guardians 3, I’m like, We are naming this stuffed animal you’re making me, we’re naming it Rocket. And she, [00:42:00] so I have this brand on the inside of my right forearm that is this spiral that I made with a twisted up coat hanger and a blowtorch and it represents, for me, it represents like serious trauma and depression And healing. [00:42:18] Brett: Like, there’s like a whole story to it, and she’s gonna tattoo, and we’ve talked about like doing couples tattoos, like her taking on this brand as well, in the form of a white tattoo, but she’s gonna put this onto my stuffed raccoon, and I was like, oh my god, that is, that’s amazing. Will mean so much to me. [00:42:40] Jeff: Yeah. That’s beautiful. Also, if I’m not mistaken, the picture of you in the blind raccoon is gonna be the show art. Right? [00:42:47] Brett: It will, yes. [00:42:48] Jeff: I love that photo so much. When I, when I showed my kids, they’re like, is this the same one that had an arrow through its head? I was like, I don’t think so. [00:42:56] Brett: That did happen, though. Was that a goose? [00:42:59] Jeff: No, you.[00:43:00] [00:43:04] Jeff: First of all, thank you for that. Secondly, how the, I don’t think a goose could have an arrow through its head and be walking around. It was a raccoon. You told me the story. You and Aditi actually both told me the story. The one time I met her and the first time I met [00:43:16] Brett: Yeah, [00:43:17] Jeff: uh, that, that you looked out your, I think your, your deck sliding glass door and there was a raccoon with an arrow through its head walking around. [00:43:25] Brett: yeah. That sounds very true. My memory is so foggy, but, um, speaking of pets though, speaking of rescued animals, so, we, I’m sorry, I’m taking up a lot of time here, but, um, [00:43:40] Jeff: That’s all right. [00:43:41] Brett: We got a cat from the Humane Society, uh, we went in and we looked and there were a couple of long hairs that we really wanted, but they were like, there’s four people on the waiting list for these already. [00:43:54] Brett: So we brought home a cat whose name at the Humane Society was Connie, short for [00:44:00] Concrete, having something to do with her origin story, but she had been fostered and returned because was too underfoot, um, she was too loving, and they considered her dangerous to have around the house. So we named her Hazy, short for Safety Hazard. [00:44:20] Brett: And we spent, we spent a week with her, but she proved to be, um, an exceptional escape artist. Uh, we just spent thousands of dollars getting new windows in her home, and they have these screens that you can squeeze and pop out. And she figured out. How to pop the screens out and I came home from getting groceries and there was a screen lying in our front lawn and sure enough she was gone. [00:44:46] Brett: She didn’t go far. I sat down on the front porch. She came up. She was, she was wrapping herself around my legs within minutes. So we thought, okay, from now on we can only open the windows from the top because both sides slide, right? [00:45:00] So we open it from the top. Next day, we’re watching a YouTube video in the living room, and we look out the front window in the rain, and there’s a very wet hazy looking in at us. [00:45:10] Brett: Um, and that’s untenable to never be able to open windows in our house again. So, so we took her back, and when we did, they’re like, So you know those four people waiting for these long hair cats? They all, they all bowed out [00:45:27] Jeff: Oh my [00:45:27] Brett: and were like, perfect. So right now up in my room as like the quarantine room, I have two long haired cats. [00:45:34] Brett: We’re debating on names. We have considered Data and Lore. We have considered Wilhelm and Jacob, uh, the Grimm brothers. Uh, we have considered Niles and Frasier, but right now we’re kinda leaning towards Morris and Dick, or Richard. And, because, like, I had an Uncle Morris, she had an Uncle Dick, and we’re gonna name them after our uncles, the personalities [00:46:00] fit pretty well. [00:46:00] Brett: One of them is super gregarious. And like, just out there loving you. And the other one hid under my bed for the first 24 hours he was home. And now is like coming out and it’s like being a little more social. But I love these cats. I really think they’re gonna work out. Still have to introduce them to Bod. [00:46:20] Brett: But I’m excited. [00:46:22] Christina: That’s great. Thank you. [00:46:22] Jeff: That’s [00:46:23] Brett: I’ll shut up now. I have talked for like 10 minutes straight. You guys, you guys. [00:46:27] Jeff: No, I got nothing. [00:46:29] Christina: Um, [00:46:30] Jeff: also close to a gratitude [00:46:32] Grapptibitching [00:46:32] Christina: I was going to say, I was going to say, it’s almost Gratitude time. Uh, before we get into Gratitude, uh, I want to do, um, uh, uh, Grapto Bitch and, um, complain a little bit about some, uh, [00:46:41] Brett: Oh, yes. [00:46:41] Christina: of the things with macOS, uh, Sonoma, which I have to admit, I look, I didn’t test a lot of the things in the beta. [00:46:47] Christina: Like I had it in on like an external drive. I did it in VMs. I didn’t do it on like, you know, bare metal or whatever, because I’m not about that life anymore. I don’t have to be, so I’m not, so fuck that. Um. But, okay, [00:47:00] first of all, the default behavior of when you click on the desktop. What the fuck, guys? What the fuck? [00:47:07] Brett: You don’t like that? I love that. [00:47:09] Christina: I [00:47:10] Brett: That makes me so happy. Okay. It makes me happy because I, I added like 10 widgets to my desktop and now I don’t have to use the, the mouse gesture. I can just click anywhere on the desktop and see my widgets. That works for me. [00:47:26] Christina: which is fine, but like, okay, but didn’t there used to be a way, like, you could do basically two things. Like, one, which is I could click on my desktop and keep my windows there, fine. And then there was also an option where you could just see your desktop the way, with all the widgets, well, everything moved away. [00:47:41] Brett: like a five finger swipe out on a trackpad would move all your windows. Yeah. [00:47:46] Christina: And that’s gone now. I don’t have that option anymore. And [00:47:49] Brett: No, that’s like, you can, oh, maybe better touch tool gives it to me, [00:47:53] Christina: Maybe better touch [00:47:54] Brett: trigger it. [00:47:55] Christina: I mean, I’m going to have to set up a better touch tool to do that, though, on like, across a bunch of [00:48:00] devices. So that pisses me off. Like, don’t fuck with my default behavior like that. Like, that’s number one. Don’t move my cheese. I’m becoming that person. But the real thing that I want to rant about is Okay, it is the year of our lord, 2023. [00:48:11] Christina: It is almost 2024. What the fuck, Apple Music for Mac? What the fuck? Like, actually, what [00:48:17] Brett: used it. Is it bad? What, what [00:48:19] Christina: still, it’s still awful. That’s the point. Like, Spotify is what I use on desktop. I cannot open the music app. I know, [00:48:28] Brett: Spotify on [00:48:29] Christina: Yes. Yes. [00:48:31] Brett: It, like, it glitches every, like, 15 seconds or so my sound cuts out, ever since I installed Sonoma. Oh, it’s been bad. [00:48:39] Christina: Okay, mine doesn’t do that. So, uh, but they did update the interface in a way that I don’t like, but that’s beside the point. It’s still better than the shitshow that is Apple Music for the Mac, where, I, I, like, I don’t know, guys. Like, what the fuck? Like, genuinely, I, I, I know that you had to kill iTunes or whatever, but, like, did you? [00:48:57] Christina: Because, honestly, it’s, it’s this [00:49:00] shitty, shitty, shitty app that runs poorly. I don’t know what it is supposed to be. And here’s the worst part. People, And when I bitch about this on, on Macedon or, or Twitter or whatever, but usually on Macedon because that’s where I mostly do my, my, um, tech bitching because Twitter is whatever. [00:49:16] Christina: Um, [00:49:17] Brett: it’s called X now. [00:49:18] Christina: oh, fuck you. I’m never going to, I’m, I’m going to, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, that, that, that should be like the, the preview for our, uh, for, for our episode. That should be the, the, the, the teaser. Oh, fuck. You know, actually it’s called Macedon. It’s called X now. It’s called Macedon. It’s called X now. Fuck you. Yeah. [00:49:33] Christina: Um, no, no, fuck off for real. I’m never calling it X. Um, Fuck off. No, but like, when I, when I bitch about this on Mastodon, I’ll inevitably get people who will be like, Oh, well, just use the web app. Okay, first of all, fuck you too, because [00:49:48] Brett: For Apple Music? Oh, God, no. [00:49:52] Christina: correct, correct, correct. That’s a weird being so far up Apple’s asshole, right? [00:49:59] Christina: [00:50:00] Honestly. But B, I would, except the whole reason that I use Apple Music, the entire reason why I like it over Spotify. The only thing that it has over Spotify for me is that it has the Decades, and it is plural now, of music that I’ve purchased from, from iTunes in the cloud. Um, not all of which, in, in fact, a fairly substantial amount is not available on Apple Music. [00:50:24] Christina: And it has the decades, again plural, of music that I’ve uploaded over the years that I’ve gotten from other places that might not be available in Apple Music. So that’s the whole reason that I prefer it, because it has my cloud. It’s basically a cloud version of like my local library that I used to have to carry around all the time, as well as the entire catalog of songs. [00:50:45] Christina: Otherwise, I would just say, fuck you, I’m using Spotify, they had better playlists anyway. But I can’t because I like having some of my specific, you know, versions and other things. So I primarily use Apple Music on my phone and my iPad for mobile, [00:51:00] and then I use Spotify on the desktop. I would like to use Apple Music on the desktop, but I can’t because it’s a piece of shit because it consumes so much memory and it’s awful. [00:51:08] Christina: And if I open it, it does all kinds of things and it’s just a bad experience. And so, but here’s the, here’s the kicker. The web version of Apple Music does not let you listen to any of your local library uploads. It doesn’t let you listen to any of your iCloud uploads. So it ruins that for [00:51:22] Jeff: which you can do on your phone, [00:51:24] Christina: yes. [00:51:25] Christina: And on your Mac, but not on the web service [00:51:27] Jeff: No, I’m saying you could use that everywhere else. And it’s, it’s not, [00:51:30] Christina: not, not, not there. Exactly. So, so fuck you Apple for, for ruining, like you had the best music app thing in the world and you threw it away, um, more than a decade ago when you ruined iTunes, but like started with that goddamn icon, but like fucking. [00:51:48] Brett: so much more money on it [00:51:49] Christina: I, I know, and I don’t care, and like, can you dedicate some of your resources to making the fucking desktop app work so that I don’t have to live in this weird two universes? [00:51:59] Christina: I’m [00:52:00] sorry, that was, that was a really long rant, and that was [00:52:02] Brett: No, that’s cool. I, um, I actually don’t use Apple Music on the desktop, so I haven’t, I, like, it frustrated me a long time ago, and Spotify was just [00:52:13] Christina: Better. [00:52:14] Brett: Um, I, I really appreciate Spotify, however, I cannot use Spotify on my Mac right now. Um, every, every 15 seconds or so, it cuts out for maybe two seconds and then comes back, not paused, like it’ll skip two seconds of whatever I’m listening [00:52:34] Christina: god, that’s awful. [00:52:35] Brett: yeah, so it’s unusable. It’s, it’s absolutely pointless for me. Um, so I have just been listening on my phone and pushing it to my speakers in my office. Um. Through my echo, weirdly enough, um, completely outside of Apple’s ecosystem, but, uh, [00:52:58] Christina: fuck them, man. [00:52:58] Brett: it works. [00:53:00] And, and I, I do love Spotify. I really [00:53:03] Christina: I do too. I think their playlists are so much better. It’s like scary how much better they are. Like, it’s, it’s like scary. [00:53:09] Brett: for sure. Apple, the last couple of times I’ve loaded Apple Music, I haven’t even seen the For You playlist. I don’t even know if they’re doing [00:53:17] Christina: No, they are. They are. In fact, they’re making it better. They’re supposed to introduce like a 4U station and they’re trying to do other stuff. But, but they’re so far behind what Spotify does for Spotify. Spotify Discover, but also Spotify will take like, they’ll customize playlists based on your listening thing where they’ll be like, okay, this is a playlist for this type of genre or this thing and we’ll customize it. [00:53:37] Brett: six a day [00:53:39] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. [00:53:40] Brett: genres. [00:53:41] Christina: But, but even beyond that, they’ll be like, this is a playlist on this thing, but for Christina Warren. So it’s, it’ll be like their own kind of, so really a cross between curated and algorithmically determined based on your history, like, which is fucking brilliant. Like it’s. And I discover so much, I discover so much new music from Spotify that I never [00:54:00] discover new music on Apple Music ever. [00:54:01] Jeff: Oh man. Yeah. Spotify is incredible for that. [00:54:04] Brett: I, all, all of the bands I have learned about in the last year have been because they’ve, they’ve created a playlist for me that is about half songs that I have loved in the past or songs that I listen to frequently. And then half songs I’ve never heard, but makes sense based on my listening history. [00:54:25] Brett: And I have found like so many new bands. All the new bands I listen to are because Spotify suggested them. [00:54:32] Christina: Same. Same. I like, I listen to all these like, you know, like 20 year olds who are making, you know, like indie lo fi throwback to like, you know, late nineties, early two thousands music. And I’m like, God, I don’t even want to contemplate the fact that this is throwback for you, but I love, but I love it so much. [00:54:49] Christina: And I’m like, and I find about, I’ve learned about it on Spotify, you know, uh, like Apple Music. You tried, but, and I pay you still, so fuck you, but like, I, I [00:55:00] pay, [00:55:00] Brett: the, I do the Apple one. [00:55:02] Christina: same, but I, I, I still think I pay, I pay regardless, but like, because of, again, I like having my local music stuff, but the Spotify stuff is just so much better. [00:55:11] Christina: It really is. [00:55:12] Jeff: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. [00:55:14] Grapptitude [00:55:14] Brett: All right. We should do Graptitude because I have yet another thing to interject in my Graptitude, [00:55:20] Christina: Okay. [00:55:21] Brett: but I’ll keep it short. I promise I’ll keep it short. But Christina, I think you have one to go start with. [00:55:26] Christina: I do, I do. Okay. So my pick this week is called Interlink, and Interlink is an app from the creator of Pins, which is a cross, uh, it’s a not cross platform, but it’s a Mac and an iOS, uh, Pinboard, um, um, app and pinboard, meaning pinboard dot i n. Here’s the thing with Pinboard, uh, Brett and I have both used it for forever. [00:55:46] Christina: I don’t know if you’ve ever used it, Jeff, but, um, okay. So we’ve, we, all three of us have used this for forever. I think we’ve all noticed that it has basically been in maintenance mode for a while. In fact, I think that, uh, Message, like, took, like, a year plus off and, like, [00:56:00] didn’t do anything with it. Like, I don’t even know if he was responding to, you know, user requests, because there used to be, like, a monthly thread on, on Hacker News, like, is Pinboard still alive? [00:56:09] Christina: Um, and so, and so he’s ostensibly, I think, back, but… He’s not putting any effort into it. And that concerns me a little bit as someone who has like tens of thousands of links in this app or, you know, in this service. So it also, I think, concerns the creator of Pins. So he’s created this app called Interlink, which is basically, it’s a link, it’s basically Pins, but with, uh, his own kind of backend, um, to address Pins shortcomings, mostly due to API limitations. [00:56:36] Christina: And I’m reading this from, um, his, uh, from, from the, the, the Mastodon, um, account. Um, Fast forward to 2023, I’m building a new link organizer to address Penza’s shortcomings, mostly due to API limitation, limited syncing capabilities, lack of bulk link management, batch processing, among others. While I’m aware of similar offerings, bookmarking is so last century, I want something mobile first instead of web first. [00:56:59] Christina: [00:57:00] This becomes Interlink’s roadmap. Kind of has a whole thread on that. Um, it’s only available in TestFlight right now, uh, for, for Mac and iOS, but it’s really good. It will import all of your links from pins. There’s a bookmarklet, uh, that’ll work on browsers as well as a browser extension for Chrome browsers. [00:57:17] Christina: Um, and, uh, if you go to interlinkhq. com, there are some docs. Like I, I will be happy to pay whatever he needs to, to charge for this, um, once it’s, it’s ready. Um, I’m, um, I’m, I’m, I’m in, like, this is, this is really great because it’s basically pens but better and with somebody who seems, you know, mostly committed, I think, to actually, uh, keeping this up and running. [00:57:45] Brett: Yeah, so that, that would be my concern is Pinboard did this interesting payment plan where everyone who signed up paid like a penny more than the person who signed up before them. [00:58:00] So signing up now costs you like, what, like 15 bucks a month? I don’t even know. [00:58:04] Christina: I’m not sure about that, but with you, what, what it was is that it used to be, you used to be able to buy like a, um, like a, a lifetime plan and, and I think you and I were definitely on that. But I eventually upgraded to. Being able to pay, like, I think to make things like, I pay like a certain amount for archiving, um, [00:58:21] Brett: Oh yeah, 25 bucks a year. [00:58:23] Christina: or $33 a year or something like that. [00:58:24] Christina: And, and I do that just because I get so much use out of the service. And I even asked him, I was like, look, how will you get more money if I, if I, you know, opt into paying you, you know, for an account, um, that I, that I have or buy, you know, doing the, um, archiving. He was like, what you’re doing is fine. So, but that was a couple of years ago. [00:58:42] Christina: I don’t know what the situation is [00:58:43] Brett: so, longevity is my concern. As you mentioned, we both have thousands of links in these services. Um, uh, Pinboard imported my Delicious links. [00:58:56] Jeff: Oh, yeah, same [00:58:58] Brett: all of, Pinboard’s API is [00:59:00] basically a duplicate of Delicious. Um, that was his goal, was just parody with delicious, and then he did, he stopped. Like, he didn’t, it didn’t need much more than that, and it works fine for me. [00:59:14] Brett: Um, if I were going to switch to a new service, I would need to know that they were dedicated to… Longevity, and I would need an API similar to Delicious or Pinboard, uh, to access my bookmarks, uh, because I do, I do a lot of command line work with my Pinboard bookmarks, and, and it, it works, like, he can take a year off, I don’t care, like, it works, and everything feels safe. [00:59:43] Christina: yeah, I think the problem that I had, like, there was a certain amount of, um, stuff where, um, like, uh, people’s, like, backups were not working, and, and so that, that was sort of the problem, right? So, [00:59:56] Brett: like exports or? [00:59:58] Christina: like, like, like, like, so that [01:00:00] was, that was sort of the problem, so I, I, I, and I can understand that, so, um, anyway, [01:00:07] Brett: Yeah, cool. No, I’m excited that there’s, you know, some forward movement in this space because, yeah, nobody should be using browser bookmarks anymore. [01:00:18] Christina: no, [01:00:18] Brett: They’re unmanageable. There’s, there’s a limit to, uh, how useful they can be once you have more than, say, a hundred. And. And for like, read later applications, they’re pointless, like, just a waste of, of… [01:00:34] Christina: 100%. And, and I like matter a lot and I like what they’re doing a ton, but I just, this, these things, like they accomplish different things for me. So, um, like I, I can, I can siphon some things that I use in Pinboard or interlink into matter, but there are some things that are just different. Right. [01:00:50] Christina: And obsidian is the same way. Like, I can have my, my links ex, you know, different stuff that I want. But like, I, I love, I mean, I don’t know, I, I use Pinboard, um, so much. [01:01:00] Um, and so anyway, Interlink is my pick. Um, I’m still using Pinboard. I’m still, you know, using both because I’m, I’m, you know, whatever. I’m never going to stop using Pinboard. [01:01:07] Christina: But like, um, but, but I’m, I’m excited about, about Interlink and, and he updated the test flight, uh, just the other day and that’s why I thought of this. And so, um, I, I hope that he continues like working on it because I really like pins and, and he updated pins as well. But like, I, you know, I, I, if he’s getting frustrated with limitations with the API and whatnot, like that says something. [01:01:26] Christina: And so I’m, I’m glad that he’s scratching his own itch. And I hope that. That this can be something that can be sustainable. [01:01:32] Brett: I’m still using Spillow even though it is not terribly compatible with more modern operating systems. Pins is good. Uh, Spillow offers a more, um, newsreader like interface that I love. Um, but anyway, I’ll, I’ll add Spillow and, and Pins to this show notes. Jeff, what do you got? [01:01:55] Jeff: I’ll be brief because I’ve already mentioned it, but I’m actually like in a phase of not trying new apps [01:02:00] too much because of how fiddly I can get. And I’ve had so many deadlines. Um, but I’ve had to, I’ve had to build decks for client work and client presentations over the last couple of weeks and, um, deck set. [01:02:14] Jeff: I know there’s, it’s not the only thing that does this, but you know, it’s, it allows you to create a deck from Markdown file and my, um, My ability to create a, like an effective and cohesive slide deck that does not have me working on stupid formatting, like is incredible. I also just, I mean, there’s something I’ve never said about what I love about it, which is that, yeah, I’m not working with a client. [01:02:39] Jeff: And they’re like a large organization and they, a lot of their information is stored in PowerPoints. And, and that is like the craziest way to write, uh, your information because you’re, it’s not even a creative constraint, right? You’re constrained by when the font gets so small that you can’t. Use it anymore in a slide, right? [01:02:59] Jeff: Or like [01:03:00] you’re, you’re constrained by the time that you waste, um, trying to make that diagram that nobody understands anyhow. Um, and, and what I love about, uh, writing a deck in Markdown is that I can, I can write without worrying about, does it fit on the slide? And I can break up the slides later. And And it’s made me such a more effective sort of like, not just deck creator, but like facilitator with decks. [01:03:22] Jeff: I hate using decks. I hate them. Um, but I just, I’m so glad for Deckset and, and, and obviously by extension for plain text and Markdown in general. [01:03:34] Christina: Yeah. Um, and I’ll, I’ll mention once again, DexEdit is great, but I’ll also mention, uh, because I mentioned this, uh, a few Graptitudes ago, IA Presents, IA Presenter rather, which is new at, and does a similar thing from the people behind IA Writer is fantastic. It’s really, really good. [01:03:49] Brett: I don’t, I don’t know about IAPresenter, but I love that DexSet makes it easy to add builds so you can have, like, uh, line by line, uh, bullet lists [01:04:00] that come [01:04:00] Jeff: I still never use that. I’m in too much of a hurry because here’s how I create decks. I don’t know how it works, but I always finish my deck two seconds before I log onto the Zoom. And so that’s about when I, that’s about when I want to do that build. [01:04:12] Brett: I went to, I went to Sal Segoyan’s Command D conference a couple years back, a few years back, and, um, I wasn’t on the speaker list, but then Andy Hidnako canceled. He got sick, and he canceled, and they came to me, and they’re like, hey, can you do, like, can you do the keynote presentation? For, for this. Um, and, and I was like, shit. [01:04:40] Brett: Yeah. Okay. Um, so I sat down with deck set and wrote out an entire presentation in markdown about O s A script, the command line, apple Script utility, and, and I output a deck that I was able to use on stage. And yeah, deck [01:05:00] set has saved my ass multiple times. [01:05:03] Jeff: That’s great. And, and IA Presenter looks really cool, by the way. I’m going to download it and just peek at [01:05:07] Christina: Yeah, you should. It’s really, really good. And, and obviously the people behind it make really great apps. [01:05:12] Brett: I don’t know how actively DexSet is, uh, developed [01:05:16] Jeff: I don’t think it is. There’s not really a community around it [01:05:18] Christina: There’s not that this is, this is why I got into iPresenter, um, and you might’ve been gone for that, that week, Jeff, um, when, when I, uh, talked about this one, but yeah, cause this is, this is one of the ones that I’m, um, uh, I’ve started using it because yeah, I mean, I work at one of, uh, uh, GitHub is not huge on, uh, like storing things in, uh, presentations, but I have to give a number of presentations and whatnot. [01:05:43] Christina: And, and it’s very nice when I can build them out, um, in Markdown. And then, if I have to go back and format it into something else, I can, but it’s really nice to just be able to do it that way. [01:05:56] Jeff: That’s awesome. Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah.[01:06:00] [01:06:00] Brett: of Markdown, my pick for the week is Noteplan. Have you guys ever used Noteplan? [01:06:07] Jeff: I just started using it again. I do that every [01:06:09] Brett: Yeah, yeah, I, I had let it go for a few years and then was talking to the developer and got myself ushered into a free license and, and started making more use of it, [01:06:25] Jeff: It’s on Setapp too. [01:06:27] Brett: yet. Is it really? Are you sure? [01:06:29] Jeff: Mm hmm. [01:06:30] Christina: I see it right now. [01:06:31] Brett: I could have been using it this whole time and I didn’t know it. [01:06:36] Christina: I haven’t used this in a long time, um, but, but I’m, I’m into this. [01:06:41] Brett: I have to update a certain YAML file now. [01:06:43] Jeff: Also allows you to just work out of a, out of a file of Markdown, you know, like a folder of [01:06:49] Brett: So like, so like the idea behind NotePlan is you store daily notes and they can contain to do items and it [01:07:00] has an interface. If you start typing a date, it’ll pop up a little date picker for you and you can. Schedule due dates and defer dates, and keep everything in plain text, um, but with like project management capabilities. [01:07:16] Brett: So you can see all of your upcoming to dos, all of your to dos for the day, and you can create checklists just using real simple Barkdown syntax. Uh, and organize it all in one place. And it is all stored as plain text that you can open and edit in other applications. And it’s, it’s a very impressive, like it’s, it’s just super elegant for, for as kind of complex as the idea is. [01:07:50] Brett: It makes everything super easy. I [01:07:52] Jeff: Yeah, it has these, [01:07:53] Brett: enjoy it. [01:07:54] Jeff: I love the idea of sort of the day file. So you open up a day file and if you create a to do list in there, it’s really easy to [01:08:00] actually have it moved to the next day. And I actually use it and I, I don’t ever fall into a sustained pattern with no plan, but it does so much that I need. [01:08:11] Jeff: The thing that I always feel like it has the most potential is because it’s integrated with your calendar, I can go through the week and I can just create, I can kind of use a template to create meeting notes for all the different meetings. And I can, that are going to happen that week. It’s going to, it’s going to live in that day. [01:08:25] Jeff: So I won’t see it until I get to that day. And then I can also kind of create prep stuff where it’s like, okay, I have this meeting in a, in a, in on Thursday. Here’s what I need to add to my prep for now, whatever. I’ve never been able to really, truly integrate it, um, into my workflow, but like, that just seems like something that should be amazing for [01:08:45] Brett: just the idea that you’re mixing notes with to do items. Like, you can use something like, uh, Things or OmniFocus, and they focus on to dos, to which you can add notes. But, [01:09:00] Uh, Noteplant kind of reverses it where you’re writing notes, you’re writing journals and notes and, and incorporating to dos into the notes instead of vice versa, which is, once you, once you get into it, it’s actually a really fluid way to kind of document and plan. [01:09:20] Brett: I, I really appreciate it. It’s a good app. [01:09:23] Jeff: It’s awesome. [01:09:24] Christina: That’s great. I like that. I tend to do that myself, and so it’s funny that I, I think I’ve used Notepad before, maybe I haven’t, but now I’m definitely going to be, um, using it because [01:09:34] Jeff: And, oh, [01:09:35] Christina: this totally just fits my mind model. [01:09:37] Brett: So [01:09:38] Jeff: this is something that’s very actively developed. [01:09:40] Brett: yes, speaking of Noteplan, um, just a heads up, I am offering giveaways right now on BrettTerpstra. com. Every Monday I’m giving away a different app. Noteplan is coming up. Uh, just to give you a taste, uh, upcoming apps include Timing, Hookmark, Text [01:10:00] Expander, Scrivener, Hazel, Noteplan, Default Folder X, Towers, Solver, Spam Sieve, AppTamer, Kaleidoscope, Curio, Keyboard Maestro, Bartender, MarsEdit, FastScripts, Taskpaper, OmniFocus, Tech, uh, Black Ink, Things for Mac, Bike, FlexiBits Premium, which gets you access to Fantastical and Scheduling and Cardhop, uh, Eagle Filer, Unite 5, Omni Graffle, BBEdit, OmniPlan, and Dropzone. [01:10:29] Brett: Yes. So, [01:10:30] Christina: all my favorite apps. This is like a graphics tool smorgasbord. Like, shit. [01:10:34] Brett: so all of these, all of these will have free licenses, uh, offered to random drawing winners over, like I have them, they’re spread out through April now, um, so check bretterpstra. com every Monday, subscribe to the RSS feed, if you get on the mailing list, you’ll get it. Notifications every week about what’s, uh, what’s being given away. [01:10:57] Brett: Um, my, my mailing list has [01:11:00] increased by 400 people since I started this series. So I’m pretty psyched about it. Every developer I talked to is like, Oh yeah, cut me in. I’m a hundred percent. And I have not had a single rejection yet. And every time I think of an app, I’ll like email the dev and they’ll be like, yep, cut me in for five, 10 licenses. [01:11:19] Brett: Um, Omni was like, yeah, we’ll give you three, three pro licenses for every app we have. Um, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s going to be awesome. So keep track of that. [01:11:30] Jeff: That’s great. [01:11:32] Brett: All right. I feel like we’re, we’re now hour 11. [01:11:36] Christina: Yeah, I think we’re [01:11:37] Brett: And honestly, zero edits. [01:11:39] Jeff: No, I can’t. Yeah. Yeah. It’s great. [01:11:42] Brett: That’s great. [01:11:43] Christina: yeah. [01:11:44] Brett: All right. So thanks everyone for listening to this unedited episode of Overtired. You guys get some sleep. [01:11:53] Jeff: Get some sleep. [01:11:55] Christina: Get some sleep. [01:12:00]

The gang’s all here once again to talk mental health, macOS video reactions, and our favorite software of the week. Show Links Sonoma video reactions Ivory Insane Mastodon thread Arc Boost Zap Lossless Cut 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 Overtired 335 [00:00:00] Christina: [00:00:02] Christina: Welcome back, everyone. It’s me, Christina Warren. You’re listening to Overtired. Yeah, that’s right. I’m back. We’re actually doing an Overtired episode with all three of us, which means I’m here with Brett Terpstra and Jeff Severns Gunsell. Hello, boys. How are you? [00:00:19] Jeff: Man, one of those people is me. [00:00:21] Brett: it’s been like a month since people have heard your voice. [00:00:24] Christina: I know. I know. And it’s been like a month since I’ve heard either of your voices. So, and it feels like even longer, uh, because of the various things that… I’ve been going through this summer, so [00:00:34] Mental Health Corner, Part I [00:00:34] Brett: Feels like, feels like we had a summer vacation. [00:00:37] Christina: It does, it does. And, and uh, maybe we should do like a little bit of a round robin on that. [00:00:42] Christina: Like, what did you do on your summer vacation [00:00:44] Jeff: it’s funny, my, [00:00:45] Christina: health corner? [00:00:45] Jeff: my kids go back to school on Tuesday, so it feels very [00:00:48] Christina: because uh, Labor Day, [00:00:49] Jeff: Yeah. [00:00:51] Brett: Um, yeah, let’s, let’s do that. Let’s, uh, let’s kick off a mental health corner that includes what did you do this summer? [00:01:00] Which for some of us might be the last two weeks, but, uh, uh, Jeff, do you want to start? [00:01:06] Jeff: Yeah, actually, mine is directly, it’s not exactly what did I do this summer, but for my oldest son who’s going into senior year, it was the last summer break of, you know, potentially him living in our home. And, uh. [00:01:20] Christina: Last one is a family unit. [00:01:21] Jeff: Yeah, and, and that’s, that hits in a new way or in a new context like all the time and it’s really hard for me right now, like, we are a super tight family and like loose family, but like tight, like we joke with each other, we have good shared bits, we, I think I would say that both of our sons have like a real sense of freedom to bring up any kind of topic and not worry about us freaking out and, um, And we have a dynamic between the four of us. [00:01:50] Jeff: My youngest is, um, is 14. And it’s a balance, right? Like, it’s a balance of these four personalities that have, like, developed even as, you know, we’ve developed [00:02:00] as parents, right? Like, and, and we’re at a point that we love, like, we don’t, neither, we were talking about this this morning, I see people with babies, and even though I’m, like, pre grieving my oldest son leaving, I Do not at all look at people with babies and go like, Oh, if only I could turn the clock back. [00:02:15] Jeff: Because like, I don’t want to, I loved, I loved being a parent at every single stage, being a father or dad or whatever at every single stage. But there, there’s never been a point when I didn’t love the current stage enough that I didn’t wish for another stage. I wished for when they were more snuggly, for sure. [00:02:32] Jeff: They might, like, come into our bed or something, that’d be super weird now, so it doesn’t make any sense to wish for it now, um, but uh, but yeah, like, I’m, you know, he’s looking at schools out of state, um, and that, and I get that, man, I get it, I fuckin shot off like a rocket when I almost finished high school and it was over, um, and uh, so I understand, you know, like, that’s just like a part of… [00:02:57] Jeff: In our culture, at least, like, definitely in American [00:03:00] culture, that’s a part, that’s a ritual of growing up, is you go away, way away, um, and he’s looking at that, he’s also looking at schools closer, but like, um, my actual, like, my mental health corner topic today was exactly this, it’s like, it’s like trying to get out of the trap of pre grieving something that hasn’t happened yet, even though… [00:03:21] Jeff: It’s not like it’s, there’s that thing of like, don’t, don’t wallow in something that may not happen. Like this is definitely happening. Um, and, and it’s so great for him because it feels like an end for us, but it’s like the beginning of everything for him. And I, I have such a different perspective now on. [00:03:42] Jeff: For instance, the way that when I was like 22, I went to war zones. Like, I now know that 22, a child who’s 22 is not going to feel like an old child, right? Like, he’ll definitely feel like someone who’s growing into adulthood, whatever. But like, I now don’t understand how my parents… Stood [00:04:00] that. Um, so anyway, like, I was dealing with this in therapy this week. [00:04:03] Jeff: I was like, I don’t want to spend the next year getting sad every time I think about him leaving, or every time he talks about being excited about going to school in Los Angeles if he gets accepted and stuff like that. Like, I don’t want that to be weighed down or burdened by my own, like, kind of sorrow, because I know that he’ll have some too, and, and it doesn’t help us, like, and it doesn’t… [00:04:23] Jeff: And it takes me away from really just continuing to enjoy what I know will be this last year with him. And, uh, and then also just the, this isn’t about grieving, but this is my last bit about this, is also just realize that my 14 year old, like, we’ll have three years of him in the house where we’re a three person family, like, practically in the house, right? [00:04:46] Jeff: Definitely a four person family. Um, And I, I only realized that recently, and I, I’m like, I have no idea what that dynamic’s gonna be like. He’s gonna lose, he, he and his brother are so close, they’ve never, I’ve never [00:05:00] seen them fight, I’ve never heard them fight. And no matter what we do, if they’re with us, they are behind us, walking wherever we’re walking, just like, bullshitting with each other. [00:05:10] Jeff: And, and so he’s also gonna lose, like, And, and like, yeah, like a role model, for sure. Um, and so I’m just in this space of like, holy shit, I didn’t realize how Destabilizing, this would be inside me, even a year before it happens, and so I’m really trying to work on not wallowing in grieving something that hasn’t happened. [00:05:32] Jeff: Especially when the grieving exists because I love what we have. So it’s like, just be there, be there! [00:05:41] Christina: be there, but I think it’s also okay for you to acknowledge that you’re going to be grieving and there’s going to be a loss and to be going through those emotions proactively so that it doesn’t just hit you in May. You know, or, or, or even worse, like next August. Like next August is gonna be really hard, but you don’t want to only start dealing with it then. [00:05:58] Christina: I think it’s smart for you to be [00:06:00] dealing with it now. I think what’s exciting though for your youngest son, like as close as he is with his brother, and there will be that loss and like that, you know, fear and whatnot. But this is also gonna be an opportunity for him to figure out who he is without his older brother. [00:06:10] Jeff: exactly. Yeah, I’m excited for that. I think the part, you’re right about kind of preparing and that’s definitely a thing. The part that seems untenable is that I’ve had a couple weeks of like, I just practically start crying whenever I think about it indefinitely if I’m talking about it. And so I’m like, okay, that’s too intense right now. [00:06:30] Jeff: I need to recognize what that is and like, be like, that’s actually amazing. Um, but then like, like you said, like, figure out a way of kind of holding the reality but not Uh, being sort of just stricken with intense emotion every time I think about it, you know? Because here’s the thing, if he goes to some college somewhere far away, and he calls us after week one, and then also month one and month two, and he’s like, I am so happy here. [00:06:55] Jeff: I will not feel that sadness. I will just be glad that he’s happy. Now, if [00:07:00] he’s super miserable, that’s its own thing, but I’m definitely not thinking about that. That’s a bridge I’ll cross another time. So anyway, that’s my, that’s my [00:07:07] Brett: Have you, have you studied, uh, attachment theory at all? [00:07:11] Jeff: Yeah, I mean, I’ve, insomuch as I have attachment issues, [00:07:16] Brett: Yeah, same, same. You’re not alone. Um, do you, it sounds like you actually have a pretty secure attachment to him. Um, it doesn’t seem like an anxious attachment. [00:07:28] Jeff: and vice versa, I think not to speak for him, but I really think that’s the case. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s good. That’s a nice, that’s a nice element to bring in. It’s like, my therapist kind of got to that too. It’s like, you guys have a great relationship. That’s Yeah. Thanks. That’s a lot more than you may realize right [00:07:44] Brett: yeah, yeah, for sure. [00:07:47] Jeff: Yeah. Anyway, the other thing is though, he, both of our boys, somehow we got them like a few years ago to each have a post dinner responsibility. One, one cleans up and puts away all the food and wipes the counters down. The other [00:08:00] one loads the dishwasher, although the other one is 17 and does that at one in the morning. [00:08:04] Jeff: Um, [00:08:04] Christina: Hey, but he still gets it done. [00:08:05] Jeff: but yeah, my wife and I were just like, we’re going to [00:08:08] Christina: We’re gonna have to, we’re gonna have to clean up. Ha! [00:08:13] Brett: You’re losing your free labor. [00:08:15] Jeff: the more selfish, less emotional, uh, uh, like, pre regret. So anyway, that’s me. [00:08:20] Brett: That’s just an adjustment. That’s not an emotional, an emotional loss. Um, Christina, do you want a Rochambeau for who goes next? [00:08:30] Jeff: Ooh, Rochambeau. [00:08:30] Christina: Uh, yeah. [00:08:33] Brett: All right, you ready? One, two, on three. One, two, [00:08:37] Christina: two, three. [00:08:38] Brett: god damn it. I, we both drew, we both had scissors. All right, try again. One, two, three. You go, you go, [00:08:51] Christina: Alright, I’ll go. Alright. [00:08:53] Jeff: We [00:08:53] Christina: Okay, so, um, what, how have I been, my mental health corner update slash what I’ve done on my summer vacation. They’re [00:09:00] kind of the same thing. Um, so as I was talking last time, um, trying a new, um, antidepressants, that is actually why I was not on the last pod and I was very sorry to, to miss our friend Jay, but, um, I, um, woke up and I was like having withdrawal and other issues. [00:09:17] Christina: I was just like, I can’t do it. I’m out. Um, things seem to be going better. This week has been a lot better than past weeks. Um, so I think that I’m now through all of the… Withdrawal hoops, and I think even some of the side effect hoops, we will see. But so far, it is, this was the first week, like I would say basically from like Tuesday on, where I’ve felt better. [00:09:40] Christina: There was a period of time where I was not, like, the depression was better, but I was definitely not. feeling like myself and I was like, I’m going to have to go off of this stuff. This is not going to work. But now I’m kind of hopeful that that’s not the case. So, um, I’ve got another, I have an appointment with my doctor, I think on like [00:10:00] the, the 11th or the 12th. [00:10:01] Christina: Um, let me check. I think it’s Apple Day. Um. No, it is the 13th. It is the 13th. Um, also, uh, side brief tangent, this is gonna get us cancelled, or not us, this is gonna get me cancelled, but, um, [00:10:17] Jeff: take me with you! [00:10:18] Christina: it’s, it’s been in the last four or five years or so, but like 9 11 is finally funny, and, and, and I, I keep like wanting to know, like, and it, and look, as like the generation who like, it was my friends who like went off to war and died, like, I feel like I can, I feel like, Older millennials and New Yorkers are the people who are most impacted, and so I feel like all of us know that it’s, it’s sort of funny now, like, obviously the event is not, but like, we can like poke fun at various aspects of it, like the memes. [00:10:46] Christina: I finally feel like it’s great to use the memes, but I keep wondering, like, when is it going to be safe for Apple to schedule an event on 9 11? Like, like when is that gonna be a thing where it won’t be just like [00:11:00] this taboo thing? Cause like if you, if you, if, cause like if you had, if you had been on D Day, like nobody would give a shit, right? [00:11:06] Christina: Like people wouldn’t be like, whatever, right? But like, so when is it gonna be okay for someone to have like a big press event on 9 11? [00:11:12] Brett: I feel like you’re right, like, the statute of limitations is kind of up on that, um, like, you could schedule it and some, like, right wing news source would be outraged, and maybe take a few people with them, but most people would be like, yeah, September 11th, that’s fine. [00:11:31] Christina: exactly, right? So, anyway, going, that, that was just a slight pivot and, and apologies for that. But like, um, so I’ve got an appointment with my shrink in, in two weeks, or a week and a half I guess to assess and see. Where things are and if I’m going to continue on this medication, things seem to be going a lot better. [00:11:47] Christina: Um, but my summer, to be honest, you guys, like has been me coming to terms with the fact that I had been depressed for years, um, And I knew that, but I hadn’t really wanted to focus on it, and then it [00:12:00] got to the point that the depression was so bad that it started impacting my work. And that was when, as I always do, like, you know, the first time I ever had one of the debilitating issues and I couldn’t get out of bed, it was when I was in high school. [00:12:13] Christina: And then I was in college, and now, you know, I’m, I’m an adult. And so, it’s been a difficult summer insofar as having to… Face the reality that, yeah, you’ve been depressed for years, and now it is finally at the point that it is impacting, you can’t cover it up anymore, it’s not just a thing that’s impacting your personal life and your at home life, like, it’s actually impacting your work, and if you don’t get this under control, you’re going to have to, um, take a leave of absence, and, and that was honestly my biggest fear, I was like, I don’t want you to have to Take a leave of absence and have to, you know, try to figure things out or God, I don’t even know if going into like a treatment facility would help, right? [00:12:50] Christina: Like, I have no fucking clue. I don’t think it would, but I don’t know, right? Like, you know, but I definitely didn’t want to have to take like medical leave. And so this was sort of my wake up moment [00:13:00] when I had to, that was end of June when I had to kind of face that. And then, you know, the last, you know, two months have really been all about, um, Trying to try out new drugs and, and get out of it and do a lot of self assessment and thinking and talking to friends and talk to my mom and talk to my shrink and, you know, get out of my own head. [00:13:23] Christina: And so I feel like it’s been good. I feel like the light is coming out of the tunnel. Um, but it’s felt like it’s just, it’s really been a summer of rebuilding and, uh, [00:13:34] Jeff: Yeah. Wow. And that, I mean, just hearing you say that when you start asking yourself that question, like, is there maybe an inpatient solution here? Um, I’ve been to that point once, and it’s really intense. Even though my friends who have done it, it’s like, I’m so happy for you. Right. Like, but wow. Uh, so just, just [00:13:53] Brett: Or even, even [00:13:54] Jeff: to that? [00:13:54] Brett: Even intensive outpatient treatment. It sounds, it sounds like, [00:14:00] um, I’m I’ll, I’ll talk about it in my, in my little segment of this segment, but, uh, it has been suggested to me that I might benefit from inpatient treatment and it sounds like so much. Work? Like, to, to take time off work and spend time, if I’m going to take time off work, I want to enjoy myself. [00:14:25] Christina: No, that’s kind of where I’m at. And so that’s been the thing that’s been a struggle like balancing and I felt kind of like an asshole because I, I mean, look, it’s been a slow period at work, which I’ve been lucky about. It’s about to get really busy. And so that’s okay too, that I’ve been able to sort of, you know, Not be super on it this summer, um, but I’ve had to even be more candid with people than I normally am. [00:14:47] Christina: I’m like, yeah, I’m going through medication change issues, which I’ve never had to do as an adult with, like, a corporate, you know, high paying job before. Um, I mean, I’ve had to do it when I was going through, like, awful medication [00:15:00] withdrawals. But that’s different than, than trying out new drugs and getting the side effects and dealing with that. [00:15:05] Christina: Like, withdrawal is one thing. The side effect fuck up shit is completely different and not knowing if it’s gonna work or not. And that’s why I put off admitting to myself how depressed I was for so long. Because if I’m being completely candid, I was at the point when I probably should have started doing this probably two years ago, right? [00:15:24] Christina: And… Um, I just let it, you know, fester and fester and fester and then it got to the point that I couldn’t anymore. So, I’m, I’m glad that I’m taking care of it. I’m glad that I’m at least able to recognize where I’m at and I’m glad that I didn’t get to the point where I would have to, yeah, like, go on medical leave and, you know, and the reason I think that I would maybe potentially do an inpatient thing, because, because part of me is like, is like, would that be any better than doing what you’re doing now? [00:15:54] Christina: And I’m like, well, yeah, maybe you’d be forced to do it. [00:15:56] Jeff: yeah, yeah, it [00:15:59] Christina: that would force you to [00:16:00] actually focus on it. [00:16:01] Jeff: I’ve always wondered about that, like, so I know, when I think about that, it feels like such a fracture in my entire story, right? But that’s not what it’s been for the people I care about who have done it, right? It’s been like… Yeah, I needed that. And also, I just want to acknowledge, we put a false frame around this, given what you’re talking about, of summer. And you’re describing something that’s two years, more than two years in the making, and that you’re, sounds like you’re very much in the middle of. [00:16:30] Christina: Yeah, but [00:16:30] Jeff: that, is that true? [00:16:32] Christina: It’s true, but it feels like I’m coming out of, right? So it feels like the nice thing has been summer and, and the break or the things that that represents. And it’s weird, you know, again, this is such an American thing and this is not the case for all industries at all. But at least, you know, in my world of tech, like I’m fortunate that, that Microsoft as a company is basically off in August. [00:16:52] Christina: And as a result, GitHub as a company, even though we have slightly different cadences and do different things, we are not going to [00:17:00] be as active either. And, um, that was a complete kind of shock to my system because the news never stops. You have slower periods, but the news doesn’t stop. But I was incredibly grateful for the fact that August is essentially A no one is around month, and you can, historically what I’ve done is I’ve used it to actually get shit, shit done and like, kind of, you know, uh, get myself prepared for, for, for the future. [00:17:26] Christina: This time I was able to just kind of like, okay, get yourself into a place that once it starts getting busy, you know, because September through, you know, early December is gonna be. Bam, you know, a ton of shit, um, you know, step up. So I’m feeling like I’m in a good place though, but that’s, that’s my long, what I did on my summer vacation slash mental health update, which to me kind of feel like the same thing. [00:17:54] Christina: Oh, there was also, there were also three Taylor Swift concerts in the middle, which, uh, which honestly was, was [00:18:00] good, was good therapy and was good, good stuff. And she’s going to be bringing that experience to movie theaters this October. [00:18:07] Jeff: Oh, nice. [00:18:08] Christina: everyone can [00:18:09] Jeff: was there? So, okay, I have a question about the Taylor Swift concerts. I, I’ve only seen so many, uh, I’ve only seen a few aspects of the stage design and, and performance. And the one that obviously you see the most is when she dives into the stage. Um, That must, now that I’m thinking of it in the context of how you’re feeling, I’m curious, is there one aspect of that show that you saw three times that felt like, I imagine that feeling like a relief? [00:18:36] Christina: That… [00:18:37] Jeff: yeah. [00:18:38] Christina: And then, so, I mean, the thing is, it’s such a weird experience because it’s like three and a half hours, but the whole day, like, you’re there for like six hours, right, if you, you know, by the time you get there and you’re just with all these people dressed up and everybody’s singing at the top of their lungs and screaming and excited and it’s unlike any concert or music or any experience I’ve ever actually been around. [00:18:57] Christina: before because I’ve never been around that many [00:19:00] people that much, you know, like everybody comes to it with their own perspectives and their own stories and their own affections, but I’ve never been around that many people who all love the same thing that you love. Um, that’s kind of fucking powerful. Um, but when she does the all too well 10 minute version on her guitar, that’s and everybody is, is singing every word of that 10 minute version of like my favorite song. [00:19:29] Christina: And it’s been my favorite song of hers before it was the fan favorite. Like the minute, like Red leaked on the internet before it came out on like, it’s supposed to be out on Friday and it came out on like a Wednesday night and I got like a pirated copy of like the deluxe edition or whatever. And I remember listening to it, you know, back to front, front to back, whatever. [00:19:46] Christina: And I remember coming back to that track five after I listened to the whole thing again, listened to it again and again. I remember, I think I remember even saying to Grant, I was like, This fucking song is really good and he just, he was dismissive but like, I remember like that it was [00:20:00] enough and I knew he’d be dismissive and that’s fine but I knew, I was like, I loved that song and then when she, you know, wrote the 10 minute version which I do not at all believe were the lyrics that she wrote originally in 2012. [00:20:13] Christina: I do not believe that for a second. Uh, [00:20:15] Jeff: So part of it is it’s expanding on this thing that already meant so much to you. [00:20:20] Christina: Yeah, and then she made the short film about it, right? But then doing that live, because I’ve seen her do the song, um, live before, actually before this tour I’d never seen, yeah, I had it on the Red Tour, yeah, I’d seen her do it live before and I’d watched millions of videos, but seeing that song would be enough within the 10 minute version, because it’s 10 minutes long, and it’s like, everybody in the crowd is just like, it’s this very emotional song and everybody just kind of, you know, screaming all the lyrics out is just, I don’t know, it’s kind of, uh, it’s kind of, like, exhilarating. [00:20:48] Jeff: Yeah. Sounds [00:20:49] Christina: So that, that, that, that, that’s, that’s the moment. But I love the, the stage jump moment, too. That’s, that’s so cool. That transition’s my favorite transition of all of them. Because then it looks like she swims underneath and then comes out the other side. It’s [00:20:59] Jeff: [00:21:00] since I have an opportunity to actually ask, what is the context of the stage, and to describe, right? I’m sure everyone’s seen it. She jumps into what looks like water, it’s a hole in [00:21:08] Christina: It looks like water. [00:21:09] Jeff: on some slide underground, and [00:21:11] Christina: Yep. So, so, so basically, I think that the setup for that particular one, I’m trying to think what she’s getting ready for, it’s switching one of the setups between like two of the eras, and I can’t think of what era to what era it’s doing. But basically, that’s how they’re transitioning. [00:21:27] Christina: I think, oh, I think when she comes up, that’s when I think that the, um, um, Uh, Folklore Cabin comes up, and she starts, um, doing, um, songs off of Folklore, um, I think, uh, when, when, uh, when she comes up, because they, uh, there’s, uh, a number of different set pieces, but one of the big ones is that the cabin for Folklore, which was featured in the music videos, but she also used it in her Grammy performance. [00:21:52] Christina: That’s on the main stage, which is not where she spends the majority of her time. She spends the majority of her time like on the catwalk or at the diamond in the center or at like a [00:22:00] front stage, but there is like a back like main stage area where this cabin comes up like from under the ground and it looks like it’s all moss covered and tree covered and it looks like it’s coming out of the earth and the trees are coming in. [00:22:12] Christina: And you know, it’s like this whole other world is taking you by. It’s actually pretty cool. The, the cool thing about this is, because they, so she announced this week that she’s bringing the experience to movie theaters, which is unreal. Um, and it’s going to be, I’m sure, you know, they’ve shot incredibly well. [00:22:29] Christina: So people will be able to see. What this was, and I’m sure it’ll then come to streaming, but it’s, it’s, it’s unheard of for something like this to go to theaters this way, um, And, uh, uh, Brett, some details about the financials behind it. She’s fucking smart. Her, and her, her parents are fucking smart. And, it’s, I, I now think that she’s trying to take on like, she’s trying to do Barbie sized dollars at the box office is what she’s trying to do. [00:22:54] Christina: And I think she will. Anyway, I’m done. That’s, that’s my whole, sorry, [00:22:57] Jeff: just to, now Brett, we gotta get to [00:23:00] you, I just wanna say my favorite phenomenon from this whole Taylor Swift thing, and a couple friends did this, is people getting registered as security guards. And, and, and working. So I have a friend who did that and he’s right, his back’s right to the stage, but then of course she’s walking around. [00:23:12] Jeff: So you’re still, you have like a front row seat. And, and I don’t think you have to do that much work as a security guard at a Taylor Swift [00:23:19] Christina: no, nobody’s, no, no, that’s the thing. Everybody knows they’re like, oh, there are snipers. There’s nobody’s getting close to that stage. Like, everybody, it’s, it’s like very [00:23:26] Jeff: Wait, are there literally snipers? Okay, [00:23:29] Christina: no, I mean, I don’t know. [00:23:31] Jeff: I get it, I get it. [00:23:33] Christina: I, I don’t think so, but at the same time, I probably think so. Like, if I’m being honest with you, [00:23:37] Brett: like, you don’t know, and that’s what keeps you from, that’s what [00:23:40] Jeff: Yeah, that’s the point. [00:23:41] Brett: You can’t be 100% [00:23:43] Jeff: be snipers. Alright. Heh heh. [00:23:47] Christina: In South America, I guarantee you there will be snipers. [00:23:52] Brett: Alright, so I have a question for both of you, um, leading into my, my mental health corner. Uh, you’ve [00:24:00] both talked about, uh, certain destabilizing. Hey, there it is! We’ll get, we’ll get to, we’ll get to that in a second, we’ll, we’ll try to figure out why that happened, but, um, uh, so you’ve both talked about certain destabilizing events, uh, that have brought forward mental health issues that you hadn’t been forced to deal with before. [00:24:24] Brett: And I have also had the same experience recently. Um, I am currently completely destabilized and flailing, but at the same time, I find myself really grateful that, um, that I’m being forced to deal with things that had always existed, [00:24:44] Christina: Mm hmm. [00:24:45] Brett: but that I had never… Uh, been bothered to deal with before. Do you guys have a certain feeling of like gratitude for this destabilization? [00:24:59] Christina: [00:25:00] Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, there’s frustration sometimes with myself for waiting as long as I waited. Right. But no, but, but, but no, definitely I think there, when there are things that, you know, have been there that you’ve been able to avoid and that you’ve like put off, and then no. There is a certain sense of, of gratitude to be forced into dealing with it. [00:25:17] Christina: I think so. For Absolutely. Because you know you need to deal with it, [00:25:22] Brett: Yeah. Yeah. Like the stuff that I’m going to therapy for right now is stuff that I know I’ve felt before it’s stuff that has come to the surface before, and I’ve always found ways to circumvent it. Um, but instead I’m being forced to actually confront it. And that’s been. That’s been good. So, okay, what I did this summer was work and exist and then last weekend I went to Minneapolis. Our couples therapist [00:26:00] recommended that I give Elle some time Because I work from home, and she works out of the house, so I get hours every day where I have the house to myself. [00:26:11] Brett: Uh, but if she’s home, I’m home. And I don’t go out much, and she doesn’t get much of a break. She never gets the house to herself, so I’ve started trying to schedule more, like, Instead of doing lunch with friends, I’ve been doing dinner with friends, um, drinks with friends. And I decided to give Elle a whole weekend and I would just take off and go to Minneapolis. [00:26:36] Brett: I got to see Jeff. I got to eat a bunch of great food. I got to meet Jeff’s kids, which was awesome. [00:26:41] Jeff: I just assumed your therapist said you needed a weekend where you got to see me and meet my kids. [00:26:46] Brett: sure. [00:26:48] Jeff: Heh heh heh heh heh. [00:26:48] Brett: Like, it doesn’t hurt to, um, increase my social FaceTime with other people. Like, that was also recommended by a therapist. So, it was a kill two [00:27:00] birds with one stone. Um, by the way, the, uh, the asteroid… Hitting the earth that killed the dinosaurs. Greatest, greatest historical ratio of killing birds to one stone. [00:27:16] Brett: Um, so, [00:27:18] Brett: it was a great trip. Um, I had a great time. Uh, honestly, I don’t think it was enough time for Elle to feel truly like refreshed and like ready to have missed me. Um. I think she needs more like 10 days before she’s actually like, Oh my God, I can’t wait for you to get home. Um, three days was… It was enough for her to get some sleep, I guess, but, um, but yeah, it was, it was good. [00:27:48] Brett: Uh, and then the other thing that I’ve been doing in the last month is walking on my treadmill desk. Like, I have a treadmill desk, and I’ve always [00:28:00] had the option to be walking while working. Um, but I, for a long time, have rarely taken advantage of it. Uh, since… Since the beginning of July, I have walked between 3 and 10 miles a day, every day. [00:28:16] Brett: And I really thought that would help me lose more weight than it did. Um, it turns out my body just has a set weight that it wants to be at. But I’ve built up a lot of strength and a lot of endurance and, and I am no longer like winded. Going on, going on 30 minute walks with the dog because I’m walking hours a day anyway. [00:28:42] Brett: Um, so that’s been good. I’ve also been lifting. Um, so some of my failure to lose weight could also be attributed to gain in muscle. Um, [00:28:53] Jeff: well done. [00:28:54] Brett: un unknown. I guess I don’t have a… A [00:28:57] Jeff: why I, when I’m trying to lose weight, I [00:29:00] never lift weights, and in fact, I never lift weights at all. [00:29:05] Brett: Yeah, [00:29:06] Jeff: I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna fuck up the data. [00:29:08] Brett: but I’ve been stable as far as bipolar goes. I’ve been stable for six months or more. [00:29:14] Christina: Yeah, I was gonna say, it’s been so long. I’m so proud of you. [00:29:18] Brett: Yeah. Well, yeah, like there’s a certain in historically that’s been a kind of shitty thing for me because, because without mania I don’t get anything done. But I have found, I have found that new stable that I was looking for, where I am actually like energetic and productive without tipping over. [00:29:41] Christina: I was going to say, that’s the thing, if you can find that point where you don’t have to use, because I, I don’t want to speak for you, but having been on this pod with you for so many years and talking to you, it does feel like sometimes maybe you’ve used those periods of mania as a crutch. Knowing that you could, you know, get things done and do other things and almost like, you know, [00:30:00] you, you kind of like, you know, use it as this thing and not to say that there can’t be good, it, it, not that it’s not amazing that you could do great things with it, right, but I think it’s even better if you are able to get things done without it. [00:30:11] Brett: agreed, [00:30:12] Jeff: In the past, you’d be like, Ooh, organic cocaine. Um, excellent. Uh, I also wanted to say, Brett, about that six months. I almost, it makes me wonder, this is a question to you. Um, I wonder, has it allowed you to get, I wonder if there was just an amount of time in which you are going to be bound to be asking yourself, what am I without X, right? [00:30:35] Jeff: But then after six months, you have to have answered that. [00:30:39] Brett: Yeah, so between the, uh, extracurricular meds I’m taking, um, and, and just a general shift in my overall, uh, like mental stability, like the new, the new [00:31:00] stable kind of just came about without Um, after, after a few months, I just found like a way to be productive, a way to keep coding, a way to keep creating, uh, without the mania. [00:31:16] Brett: And honestly, like the point I’m at right now, I could comfortably exist in for the rest of my life. Um. Like, I, I no longer feel a need to like, try to trigger mania, just to, just to get that spark of creativity, just to get that, um, uh, burst of productivity, like, I finally have like, a stable, and it’s every day, right, like, instead [00:31:47] Jeff: kind of count on it, you’re not flinching, maybe, or are you still flinching sometimes? Like, oh boy, is this it? [00:31:51] Brett: Oh, no, there have been a couple times when I’ve gotten, like, a bad night’s sleep, and I think, Oh, God, now I’m going manic. Um, that happened on my last [00:32:00] night in Minneapolis. Uh, I switched to a different hotel, and the bed was uncomfortable, and the AC was too loud, and it was just a shitty hotel. Um, and… I didn’t sleep at all that night and I drove home, I drove the two and a half hour drive back to Winona on about two hours of fitful sleep and I thought for sure that was gonna be the trigger that made me manic and it, it didn’t happen. [00:32:31] Christina: awesome. I [00:32:32] Brett: Yeah, and that night that I, it was like Southside Minneapolis and I was pretty far from, uh, the kind of centers of good restaurants, like the, the clusters of good restaurants. But there was this place right across the street from my hotel called, uh, I want to say the Clay Pot, and it was an Indian restaurant. [00:32:59] Brett: And [00:33:00] they had little symbols on their menu for gluten free, dairy free, and vegetarian, vegan. And, um, 90% of their menu was gluten free and dairy free. And then, like, 70% of that was also vegan, which is, like, that’s my sweet spot, right? Gluten free, dairy free, vegetarian. And I could order anything. And I… I had such a good time there. [00:33:29] Brett: And they asked me, do you want spice level one through seven? So I was like six, I can do six and it was mild. And I wish I’d done seven. And then I wish I’d asked, do you have like a white people versus like Indian people scale that I can like get in on? Cause I, [00:33:50] Jeff: example of, of totally useless, um, data definition. [00:33:55] Brett: right. Um, I’ve been really into hot [00:33:58] Jeff: six? Are you kidding me? [00:34:00] Like, you go up to six and six is not hot? That’s just a one, two, three [00:34:03] Spicy, Policitcal Digression [00:34:03] Brett: yeah, yeah. Um, I’ve been really into watching Hot Ones lately. [00:34:08] Christina: the Hot Ones. [00:34:08] Brett: It’s, it’s so great. If you love celebrities and you want to see them sweat, it’s [00:34:13] Jeff: And if you love good interviews! [00:34:15] Christina: I was gonna say, he’s a remarkably good interviewer. Like, you know? [00:34:18] Brett: Yeah, um, I introduced my, we’ll call her my sister in law, I’m not married, but my, my girlfriend’s sister, um, I introduced her to it just last night and, and we had a blast watching, um, Anna Kendrick and LL Cool J. [00:34:35] Brett: Um, [00:34:36] Christina: You should, um, you should watch the SNL parody of Beyonce on [00:34:39] Brett: seen it, I’ve seen it. [00:34:40] Christina: really good. It’s so good. [00:34:42] Brett: um, but I watched so much of it that I was like, I wanna order these hot sauces and do this along with them. Um, so [00:34:50] Jeff: that a thing? Is that a thing, or is that your invention? [00:34:52] Brett: yeah, no, you can do that. Um, so I’ve been like, doing the wing challenge along with people and getting that [00:35:00] fuckin body buzz you get from Excessive heat. [00:35:04] Brett: Like I have the, I have the Last Stab XXX, which is like three versions of the X Pepper, which is the hot, hotter than ghost peppers. It’s, and I love it. Like I can eat, I can, I can drink that right out of the bottle. My spice tolerance is insane right now. [00:35:22] Jeff: Awesome. Christina, you just went into sports broadcaster mode, with that microphone all of a [00:35:26] Christina: I did. [00:35:27] Jeff: Yeah. [00:35:28] Christina: I know, I know. Well, I’m sitting on the floor to record this. And so I, um, so I’m just, yeah, wanting to make sure that it’s near my mouth. That’s all. [00:35:36] Jeff: I just learned, I don’t know if any of you listen to the Political Gapfest podcast, it’s one of the few [00:35:40] Christina: Yes, I have for years. I go on and off, but it’s probably my longest lasting podcast. Because it’s been on for almost 20 years. And I’ve [00:35:46] Jeff: I haven’t, I haven’t, oh yeah. I haven’t missed an episode in, I think, 10 years and, and it’s not even like I totally relate to everyone’s politics all the time. But anyway, for people that don’t know, it’s John Dickerson, who is just a very kind of like, [00:36:00] he may be sort of center, but he’s got such a heart and, and he’s got such an amazing way of talking about political conflict. [00:36:06] Jeff: And also he’s amazing at analogies and metaphors. And then you got David Plotz, who’s just like, kind of like, I mean, he’s the animal, the wild animal of the bunch of them. Like he’ll, he’s the most willing to say something that everyone else is like, what the fuck? And then you got Emily Bazlon, the, the New York times reporter. [00:36:22] Jeff: And, and she works at Yale law school. She’s yeah. So anyway, I just learned that Emily Bazlon in one of the podcasts, not only I knew she recorded in her closet every episode, but she records on her knees. In every episode. And apparently has in the entire, like 20 years, they’ve been a podcast. I was like, man, if I was on my knees, I couldn’t get up. [00:36:42] Christina: That’s nuts, because I used to always think, because it originally started, they were, they all worked for Slate. Now I don’t think any of [00:36:47] Jeff: none of them work for Slate. [00:36:48] Christina: But it is still Slate produced and Slate distributed. Um, but I thought they all worked out of, like, probably the Slate DC office is what I [00:36:55] Jeff: they used to. Yeah, they used to. Yeah. Yeah, they used to. Now they’re all over the place. I mean, I [00:37:00] think John [00:37:00] Christina: Oh yeah, no, I know, I know they all have a [00:37:01] Jeff: studio, [00:37:02] Christina: Exactly. John Dickerson’s in the CBS studios. David Plotz has his own empire of various things that he’s bought. And, and Emily with her, you know, uh, you know, distinguished Yale professor and, and New York Times Magazine, you [00:37:14] Jeff: they still act like they’re in a tiny sweaty studio together. I mean, I [00:37:17] Christina: They do. [00:37:18] Jeff: love that podcast [00:37:19] Christina: love that pod so much. And I love, again, like I love the, um, their cultural gab fest is one that they’ve had. That one’s had like a rotating thing of crews, but, but Dana Stevens has been with that, um, for a long time. But yeah, like I love that they are still all with it and they do it. There’s something comforting to me. [00:37:36] Christina: About the Political Gap Fest. Like, I just, I love it. [00:37:40] Jeff: It’s [00:37:41] Brett: Is it at all like Pod Save America? [00:37:43] Jeff: They’re such bros. And, and these three are, they are so different and none of them for me, I mean, they’re all just such wonderful personalities. And I’m never like, Oh, fuck, now he’s talking or she’s talking, you know, and with Pod Save America, I’m just like, I don’t want to listen to this guy [00:38:00] again. [00:38:00] Brett: All right. [00:38:00] Jeff: And I loved it. I mean, leading up to the Trump, like the [00:38:04] Christina: I used to like it and then I just got, [00:38:05] Jeff: I was obsessed. I was obsessed. Do you like it, Brad? I mean, we sat here shitting on [00:38:09] Brett: I have enjoyed it in the past. Um, I feel like their YouTube episodes are way too long for my attention span. Um, [00:38:19] Mental Health Corner, Part II [00:38:19] Brett: but anyway, last thing I’ll mention before. [00:38:21] Jeff: Yeah, sorry, . [00:38:22] Brett: Um, I have been a I’ve been officially diagnosed with PTSD, um, as a result of religious trauma, although that’s not part of the official diagnosis, and, and, like, technically it’s complex PTSD, which is PTSD that results from repeated, um, trauma, and not from a single role. [00:38:46] Brett: instance of trauma. Um, and, uh, I, it has been suggested that I do inpatient treatment for this PTSD because it kind of rules my life right [00:39:00] now. And, and I didn’t realize this until things were destabilized. Um, but like I said, inpatient treatment, there, I have some stigma around the idea. And also it just sounds like such a. [00:39:15] Brett: Dedication? That I’m not at a point yet where I’m eager to do that. Um, [00:39:23] Christina: I see, I understand both of those things. I mean, the stigma, I think, no matter what we all talk about, I mean, look, we are all open and honest about our issues, but there is always a stigma around those things, because, at least for me, I always hold up, I’m like, okay, well, there are, you know, people like me, and then there’s, like, legitimately fucking crazy people, and I don’t want to be one of those, like, legitimately fucking crazy people. [00:39:47] Christina: Um, and, [00:39:49] Brett: hour holds and, and suicide watches, and yeah. [00:39:53] Christina: and, and, you know, uh, acting deranged and, you know, seeing, um, hallucinations and, and doing all kinds of [00:40:00] shit, right? So, um, people who are, like, in a frequent state of psychiatric breaks. So I, I understand that aspect, that there’s a stigma involved. But I think the… I mean, I think the thing there is because you’ve, you’ve, you’ve done rehab, right? Right. So like, you understand that sometimes it’s not about anything with you. It’s like, okay, this is what I need to be able to take the time to focus on this. But I under, also understand from your point of view being like, okay, this seems like this would be so much work. And even though it’s work you need to do, it might not be a work that you are wanting to, like, [00:40:35] Brett: Like, I’m going, I’m going to two different therapists right now. I have a couple therapists, and I have a, a private therapist. And that seems like enough work to me. Like, I am… And I’m actually, I’m actually seeing my personal therapist twice a week right now. [00:40:52] Christina: Yeah. I mean, you’re doing a ton. I mean, I would ask two things. I would ask one, would this actually be that much more work? Because it, [00:41:00] I, I kind of feel like it wouldn’t [00:41:01] Jeff: that’s an interesting, that’s a great question. I would [00:41:03] Christina: I mean, I, I think one would be that, like, would it actually be that much more work, like emotionally and whatnot? Because I, I, now that you’ve talked about all the stuff you do, I kind of feel like it wouldn’t be. [00:41:11] Christina: But I think then the second question is, Is this something that right now, at this moment in your life, you think is important enough for you to be able to take a pause on everything else? That you have to go do this thing for however many weeks? [00:41:23] Brett: cause that’s the thing is like, this destabilization has brought up issues that I’m kind of desperate to deal with. Like, I kind of want these over, I kind of want these solved, I kind of want a way forward. So, the answer to that question is yes, I do think it’s worth… Taking a pause. And I think I would be more likely to consider an outpatient program, like an intensive outpatient program, um, where I had some time in between sessions, uh, to just live my life and maybe take the [00:42:00] time off of work, but, but be like actively daily working on some of these issues. [00:42:07] Christina: That might be, that might be like a good counter, like, like, middle ground because I know like for me when I was kind of, and I wasn’t at the point where a doctor was suggesting anything to me, I was just doing my usual thinking 10 steps ahead of every potential outcome thing, which is what I do, I was, Like, my, my big, like, I guess, fear, like, you know, concern about inpatient things is like, okay, I know that you need to focus on this, like, outpatient might be better, because I was like, look, I, I can understand that this needs to be focused on, but I also don’t want to be in a scenario where it feels like I’m in jail, like, I don’t ever want to go to any place where they’re like, oh, you can’t be on the internet, you can’t do whatever, like, fuck you, like, like, I, I, I’m not, you know, like, if I’m paying money for this, and I’m choosing to do this to better myself, if I’m not being held by the state, if I’m not being ordered By by, you know, the government, if it is not part of, like, my way to get out of jail, I’ll be goddamned if you tell me what I [00:43:00] can and can’t do, [00:43:00] Brett: As someone, as someone who has done that and has been in locked ward treatment programs, um, there is a certain, uh, relaxation that comes a couple days in when you realize you just no longer have the option to be on your phone, to be on the internet, to be involved in any way in your day to day circumstances, and you have been given the freedom to Just focus on the issue at hand. [00:43:30] Brett: Um, there’s a, there’s a relaxation that comes [00:43:33] Christina: Oh, I, I, I don’t doubt that. I think I would just want it to be my choice, right? Like, I would want it to be my choice to be, to say, I’m choosing not to talk about anything work wise, I’m choosing not to engage with anyone in my life, but if I want to relax and read An article on the internet or whatever, or watch videos on YouTube. [00:43:53] Christina: I can do that. I don’t wanna be, you know, deprived of, of those things. Or if I wanna talk to a [00:44:00] friend, you know, I don’t wanna be like deprived of that, which to me, that would be the things that I would have to look into personally. Like, I’m not speaking for you, but like, if I were ever to go in an inpatient thing, it’d be like, yeah, okay, so what are the restrictions? [00:44:10] Christina: Because if, if it’s gonna be like jail or like drug rehab, When I’m not a drug addict, and I’m not here by, you know, force of someone. No. [00:44:20] Brett: of my longer stints in rehab were entirely voluntary, um, which does make a difference because I’ve been in like 48 hour recovery centers that weren’t my choice, um, and that is That’s a total freakout, kind of like, yeah, uh, agency is paramount in that kind of break. [00:44:47] macOS Sonoma Celebrates Your Pain [00:44:47] Brett: But anyway, so, okay, next topic, and it doesn’t have to take long, but, uh, you guys were matching the balloons that were coming up in my avatar. [00:44:56] Brett: And this has been a thing because I do telehealth for [00:45:00] therapy, and I’m running Sonoma, and [00:45:03] Jeff: is what, I don’t even know what that [00:45:04] Brett: the latest macOS. [00:45:06] Jeff: Oh, duh. Oh man. I am out of touch. I used to watch all the events. [00:45:10] Brett: And, and like, it has this thing called reactions that apply to anywhere your video camera is used. So I would be in like a private portal for a therapy session, and I would be talking about trauma, and balloons would come up over the screen. [00:45:28] Jeff: some good AI. That’s some great AI, man. [00:45:30] Brett: and I still haven’t figured out what triggers it. Like, you guys saw it, but I wasn’t doing, I wasn’t making [00:45:35] Jeff: Let me just say that there were three points at which balloons came up and it was a super fucked up contrast. [00:45:41] Brett: Exactly. And, and you can imagine how thrown my therapists were as I’m talking about intense trauma. [00:45:50] Christina: what’s fucked up to me, like, I understand in FaceTime, why this would be active. Why are they putting this for any app that uses the fucking video API? Like, [00:46:00] that’s fucking [00:46:00] Brett: a very good question. And you can disable it, but you have to disable it one at a time for every app that uses your camera. So it can surprise you if you’re using like Teams for the first time, all of a sudden you have to go in and disable reactions there. Um. And there’s a bunch of reactions that are supposed to, like, you’re supposed to be able to make a thumbs up, and it shows a thumbs up on the screen, like a little emoji [00:46:27] Christina: Right. [00:46:28] Brett: of the thumbs up, and, like, I can’t actually trigger these on purpose. [00:46:34] Brett: And, and I, and it’s always accidental, and it’s always a surprise. [00:46:39] Jeff: I’m thinking about checking myself in for treatment, balloons. [00:46:44] Christina: Yeah, it’s like, [00:46:46] Jeff: Balloons. [00:46:47] Christina: my cat died, balloons, like, [00:46:50] Brett: Yeah. It’s very, [00:46:51] Jeff: 9 11 is funny now, balloons! [00:46:55] Christina: I mean, that would [00:46:55] Jeff: I have, I have, I want to pick up on that topic before we’re done, but, uh, I have some, uh, [00:47:00] it is actually funny, but it’s a different kind of funny. Okay. [00:47:03] Brett: Okay, that was all I had to say, is I think it’s a, it’s a weird future, feature that needs some smoothing out. Um, [00:47:12] Jeff: It’s just, that was generous! [00:47:14] Christina: it needs to not be enabled by default, and it needs to not be enabled on third party apps at all, like, [00:47:20] Brett: I agree. [00:47:22] Jeff: That’s definitely an opt in situation. [00:47:25] Brett: for sure. [00:47:26] Jeff: Opt in to balloons. I mean, the chaos monkey in me loves it. [00:47:31] Brett: because [00:47:31] Christina: Oh, me too. [00:47:32] Brett: when I, when it started [00:47:34] Christina: Oh my god, can you imagine the Jeffrey Toobin Zoom scenario with this? [00:47:37] Jeff: Yes! [00:47:38] Christina: Holy shit. They come in and not only do they see them whacking off, but they also see balloons everywhere. [00:47:44] Brett: the, uh, the, when it started happening, I did not know why. All I knew was in all of these conversations I was having video with people, uh, just randomly balloons were coming up. [00:48:00] No matter what app I was using, balloons were coming up. And it’s the only one I’ve ever actually triggered. It’s the balloons, [00:48:07] Jeff: what are some of the other options? I guess I should look [00:48:09] Brett: There’s like thumbs up, there’s smiley face, there’s like, I don’t know, you have video, you’re seeing people’s faces and their hands, like why do you need to emphasize that in any way? But when it’s [00:48:24] Christina: you have a [00:48:25] Jeff: have a theory, I have a theory. [00:48:26] Brett: When it started happening, though, I had no idea why, and it took me a while and some, some Mastodon posts to come down to, like, Oh, you can go up to the camera icon in the menu bar and disable reactions for each app. [00:48:41] Jeff: So, this could be the fault of Big Hot Air Balloon because when I search Sonoma Balloon, I get a lot of Sonoma County Hot Air Balloon [00:48:50] Christina: Ha ha ha. [00:48:52] Jeff: Those people got their fingers in this. Dirty little hot air balloon fingers. Oops. Ooh, episode title. [00:49:00] Uh. [00:49:01] Brett: uh, should we take a quick sponsor [00:49:02] Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, [00:49:04] Sponsor: Lackadaisical Attitudes [00:49:04] Brett: All right, this episode is brought to you by Lackadaisical Attitudes. Lackadaisical Attitudes is your podcast getting fewer sponsors than normal. Is your work giving you a smaller bonus than you’d hoped for? Try a Lackadaisical Attitude and just do your best to be interesting. [00:49:20] Brett: The sponsors will come back. The market will improve. In the meantime, a lackadaisical attitude can help you get better sleep, have more energy for the things you care about, and spend more time with your family or pets even if you don’t have enough money for them. Lackadaisical may also be sold under the brand names lazy, half hearted, laid back, or passive. [00:49:41] Brett: Side effects may include dizziness, explosive diarrhea, unexpected hair growth on the brain, and in rare cases, imaginary discharge. Thanks lackadaisical attitudes. [00:49:53] Jeff: Did you make this up? [00:49:54] Brett: Yeah, I just [00:49:55] Jeff: Oh, every once in a while you write a comedy sponsor [00:49:58] Christina: No, I love, I love, I [00:50:00] love that. Now I understand why you asked me something before the pod started. That’s a great sponsor. And also, you can take Lackadaisical Attitudes with GiveZeroFucks. And it’s a great combo. [00:50:11] Jeff: good. [00:50:12] Brett: Yep, that should have been in the read. [00:50:14] Jeff: Um. I wanna just… [00:50:16] Christina: known what you were doing, I would’ve like, helped you, like, punch it up. I would’ve like, helped you on this. Cause I’m, cause I also, [00:50:20] Brett: we should have workshopped this [00:50:22] Christina: we should’ve worked on it, I was gonna say, cause I have, I, I’m having a, I’ve had a big seeping heem, um, you know, spoonfuls of, of uh, lackadaisical attitudes as of late. [00:50:30] Christina: Fuckin love it. We [00:50:31] Dark humor out of collective trauma [00:50:31] Jeff: Um, I want to pick up on 9 11 and then probably we should just do Graftitude, huh? Um, so I, I had a bad habit for a long time. Anytime someone said, you know, uh, Oh, that will be like, if you’re setting an appointment together, how about 9 11? [00:50:49] Jeff: I would have to, I would either say or have to hold back, never forget. Um, and I recognize that that wasn’t. Really funny, but I also just want to say in terms of, of anything like that, [00:51:00] any mass trauma event being funny, it’s an exhale, right? It’s like a, because it wasn’t just that event. Like, so for me, two days later, there were so many flags up everywhere. [00:51:09] Jeff: And I was biking home from my job at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and a car came by me with a flag haphazardly Tape to the antenna. And that flag almost blinded me. It almost went straight into my eye. And I just remember thinking like, this is both funny, not funny right now. But like this, if, if it continues like this, we get to own some of this and say, this is absurd, right? [00:51:31] Jeff: So the tragedy of it, it’s not funny, but the like historical moment in which Clear Channel, my son just researched this. I didn’t even know the extent of this when Clear Channel sent out a list of songs that radio stations. They owned Could Not Play. That list of songs is bananas. [00:51:46] Jeff: My baby, she sent me a letter that was banned, um, because it had an airplane in it, right? Like. [00:51:53] Christina: Eat World had to rename their album Bleed American to Jimmy Eat World because Bleed American was like not, and it [00:52:00] happened to come out like on 9 11, so it was a whole thing, and they had to like rename the fucking album so that it could be released in stores. [00:52:07] Jeff: Yes. You know, if I’m, if I’m not mistaken, the hip hop group, The Coup, yeah, I’m confirming that now, had a record that was supposed to come out maybe on [00:52:16] Brett: Oh, that’s [00:52:17] Jeff: and, and it showed exploding World Trade Center. Um, And anyway, so it was an insane time and I think anyone who lived through it, um, has every right to exhale, to like blow off, like, I remember once, um, I was, I did a, I spent three days with a forensic anthropologist who’s basically developed the field of unearthing and examining bodies in mass graves, right? [00:52:41] Jeff: And, and I, he was showing me a picture from Guatemala where he was working and there was the families of the people that were being dug up or that they hoped would be in there were sitting in lawn chairs, eating ice cream at the edge of the grave. And one child had an ice cream cone and was kind of laughing. [00:52:54] Jeff: And I said, talk to me about this, this context. And he’s like, you know what? When you’re in a [00:53:00] situation like that, you actually have access to every human emotion, because you have so much of the hard stuff that people never experience, but you’re also human, and so there’s going to be boring moments, there’s going to be humorous moments. [00:53:11] Jeff: And, uh, and I think there’s something in that for this, but I just wanted to share a couple of stories about this. So… Uh, just like, but as part of my work, um, uh, organizing against the Iraq war in 2003, cause I’d been traveling back and forth and stuff, I was doing a, a tour, like I was traveling around the Southwest with my friend Raheem El Hajj, who’s a incredible oud player. [00:53:33] Jeff: He was actually jailed. In Saddam Hussein’s Iraq for writing protest music without lyrics, um, and was tortured the whole thing. Right. And so we were driving around the Southwest together, but at one point we got to go to Taos, New Mexico for a film festival that we were going to speak at. So basically what happened is like, I’d tell stories from Iraq. [00:53:51] Jeff: He we’d like go back and forth. He’d tell stories and then play a song. I’d tell stories. He tells stories. But it was awesome. And so, um, he, we [00:54:00] were at an airport to take a small like prop plane to, um, Taos up, but we were, we actually flew along the Rio Grande. [00:54:06] Jeff: It was amazing. And, uh, he had his oud case, which is a very, it’s a, it’s an unusual looking instrument if you’re from here. Um, and, and, and it has an unusual case, no matter where you are, it’s cause you can’t see it’s an instrument. And the security guys, we were checking in, it was a little airport thing, right? [00:54:21] Jeff: It was like, yeah. Okay, what is this? And he’s Iraqi, right at a time when Iraq is considered our enemy, you know, like whatever. And, uh, he’s like, what is this? And he’s like, well, it’s an oud. And he goes, don’t worry. I know how to fly a plane, but I don’t know how to land. [00:54:40] Christina: ha ha ha ha. [00:54:42] Jeff: I was like, holy shit, too soon, but amazing. [00:54:46] Jeff: And it wasn’t too soon because he His entire family and country was about to be destroyed because of a lie about September 11th. He gets to make whatever fucking jokes he [00:54:55] Brett: I feel like, I feel like having a sense of humor takes, [00:55:00] um, some bite out of trauma. Um, I mean, I feel like the entire comedy industry is full of people full of trauma who have learned to laugh at their own… [00:55:11] Christina: Totally. Well, cops. You know, gallows humor. You know, you will never find people who make, like, more, like, fucked up, but, like, pretty fucking funny jokes than, like, police officers. Because they’ve seen some shit. And, [00:55:21] Jeff: I mean, and I want to just I want to asterisk for all the shit about police. But yes, they see every shitty thing every day. No, no, I know. And that’s fine. I just had to explicit it. Not because you were doing anything I felt like was wrong. [00:55:34] Brett: We had to explicit [00:55:35] Jeff: Okay, but let me just here’s another one. And this is more about Coloring in, um, the story of 9 11 and, and some of its victims, and I don’t speak for anybody except this, except to describe this one amazing person. [00:55:48] Jeff: So I was working for like a, you know, peace organization or whatever, right? After 9 11. And we helped to organize, um, a delegation of people who had lost loved ones. in the World Trainsetter Attacks, [00:56:00] who wanted to go to Afghanistan, um, and, and make the point that this is not what we wanted, right? Like, um, and one of them was this woman, I’m not even going to say her name because, but she was like in her, um, early seventies and her, I don’t know if you remember this story, but there was a guy who, um, died because he was trying to help someone in a wheelchair get down. [00:56:19] Jeff: And, and this was her brother. And, um, And so she’s, you know, this isn’t, this is, by the way, is only, it’s not even a year after 9 11, right? And, and so she wants to take that grief, but also say, fuck you, you can’t have it, um, to, to kind of destroy Afghanistan. And, uh, so she goes to Afghanistan and she, when she comes back, she comes to our apartment where we also ran our organization out of. [00:56:43] Jeff: And she’s sitting and having coffee with us. And I was like, so tell me like what, tell me something about the trip. She’s like, I got to fire an RPG. And I was like, wait, [00:56:52] Christina: yeah. [00:56:53] Jeff: She’s like, yeah, it was somebody, one of these guys had an RPG and there was like an old, like a destroyed car. And he’s like, do you want to shoot the car? [00:57:00] I was like, fuck yeah, I want to shoot the car. And so like here, this is what I love about humans. It’s like, they were on an honest to God, like peace activist mission, but she’s like, yeah, which is what I would like. Fuck yeah. If, if I had, if I was actually offered to shoot an RPG, hell yes. [00:57:17] Christina: Agreed, I’ve never shot a gun, I’ve never wanted to fire a gun, but if somebody offered me, like, the chance to, like, blow up a tank or something, like, fuck yeah! [00:57:24] Jeff: So just [00:57:24] Christina: if I know no one’s, I know no one’s gonna get hurt, I know, like, what, like, absolutely. [00:57:28] Jeff: yes, [00:57:29] Christina: why not? [00:57:29] Jeff: There had to be, yeah, there had to be moments of levity like that because it was such a, it was first a national trauma and then it was a national absurdity, um, while, while people were [00:57:39] Christina: While still being a [00:57:40] Jeff: trauma. Yeah. Like clearly, [00:57:41] Christina: an absurdity while it was a trauma, and then it became, like, uh, yeah, it became used for these other things. Lies told by the people, you know, um, uh, propagated by the press, you know, to, to sell these things that didn’t happen. Uh, this is funny. Judy fucking Miller is an idiot. And this is how I know that she’s an actual fuckin moron. [00:58:00] I was in the green room with her, uh, not the green room, I was in the makeup room with her at [00:58:03] Jeff: we’ll say something lying ass New York Times reporter that basically assisted in a way in making the case to [00:58:09] Christina: The only good thing about her was that she did go to jail, rather than giving out the sources. I will give Judy credit for that. Well done. But, she fucking sucks. But, I was, I was, we were both in the makeup room at Fox. I was going on one channel, she was going on the other. Bitch didn’t know how to do copy paste on her iPhone. [00:58:27] Jeff: Oh. Nice. [00:58:28] Christina: had to, I had to show her how to copy and paste something on her iPhone, and, and I did, mostly so I could tell the story that I had to show Judy Miller in like 2013, 20, no, like 2014, 2014, I had to show Judy Miller how to copy paste on her iPhone. [00:58:42] Brett: a writer, all [00:58:43] Jeff: the New York Times reporter at the [00:58:44] Christina: she’s one of the most famous journalists, like, yeah, she like went to jail rather than giving up a Scooter Libby. [00:58:50] Brett: okay, [00:58:51] Jeff: I mean, you don’t go to jail rather than giving up someone named Scooter. [00:58:55] Brett: right. [00:58:55] Jeff: You just don’t. And I had a big brother type named Scooter, but, and I [00:59:00] would go to jail for him. But, um, that’s amazing. Wow. Yeah, what a time. I mean, and just to like, be clear that if anybody’s doubting we understand the gravity, I was, um, I lost nobody. [00:59:12] Jeff: I was in, um, I was on the Lower East Side a week after the, uh, a week after September 11th, and I will never forget, there was nobody, and the walls were covered, and everything was, every surface was covered in missing person, um, flyers, and I, and that haunts me. Haunts me. That was a week after though. [00:59:32] Jeff: That was when driving from Chicago to New York. It was incredible because it was this like parade of construction workers heading to help, right? Like, despite health risks, despite everything, that was a moment to be [00:59:44] Christina: Everybody, everybody, everybody came together. 100%. And then it turned into this, and then it, it turned into this, you know, like, uh, jingoism, you know, like, other thing against the wrong fucking people. But I digress. Um, not, not that like Saddam didn’t have [01:00:00] plenty of reasons to be against him, but like not under these reasons, like it was such, so, yeah. [01:00:04] Christina: Uh, [01:00:05] Brett: I just thought of the perfect episode title that I absolutely will not use. 9 [01:00:09] Christina: Okay, tell us. [01:00:10] Brett: 11 is a joke in your town. [01:00:13] Jeff: Oh my god! Wow! Yeah, I was just gonna say, how’s that not happen, but exactly the reason you’re not gonna name it is why that [01:00:21] Christina: love it. I love it. But no, it can’t happen, unfortunately. That’s some always, that’s some always sunny shit. And uh, and even they might be like, eh, I don’t know. And they’ll do anything. [01:00:32] Jeff: And also, just to end this, I just, a little paradigm shift, um, it wasn’t the three thousand who died on 9 11, it’s the hundreds of thousands who died alongside those three thousand in the response, and I don’t think, I don’t think anybody who can’t accept that is, is, is truly in touch with their brain and heart. [01:00:52] Jeff: Anyway, uh, [01:00:53] Christina: But also, but also, but also the George Bush, like, reaction memes where you’re saying like, you know, [01:01:00] Ariana Grande is dating Spongebob, like, and it’s, you know, somebody whispering into his ear, [01:01:05] Jeff: Yeah, that’s right. [01:01:05] Christina: My Pet Goat. That’s fucking funny. That’s fucking funny. [01:01:09] Jeff: That was something. [01:01:10] Brett: this would be an awesome time to lead into a sponsor, but we don’t have [01:01:13] Jeff: Yeah, yeah, right, right, right. [01:01:15] Christina: It would. If you do want to sponsor us, because we find things like 9 11 funny, um, you can, uh, contact us at, uh, sponsors at, at overtiredpod. com, um, or, or contact us other ways, but yeah, please sponsor [01:01:27] Jeff: for listening to our season finale. [01:01:30] Christina: Absolutely. [01:01:31] Grapptitude [01:01:31] Jeff: Series finale. Um, all right, should we do Graptitude? Just for like a totally bizarre shift? Tweetbot, [01:01:39] Brett: I can kick it off. [01:01:40] Christina: You kick it off. [01:01:41] Brett: Alright, I’m picking Ivory. Um, from the people who brought you TweetBot, the, what was formerly TweetBot, right, we all love TweetBot. We all, we all used to love Twitter. [01:01:53] Jeff: miss you. I still have it installed [01:01:55] Brett: I’m sorry, X. Um, Yeah, no, I, [01:02:00] I also, I also cringe at the thought of actually saying X. Um, it’s so stupid! But, anyway, Macedon has become my new home. [01:02:12] Brett: Um, I’m on Threads, I’m on Blue Sky, I’m not on T2, cause… I don’t care. Um, and uh, Macedon, like I accumulated a critical mass of followers and following uh, that it is interesting to me daily in the same way that Twitter used to be. Um, and Ivory is my client of choice. Uh, Tweetbot creators, Tapbot created Ivory and uh, if you have a Tweetbot subscription I don’t know if they’re still doing it, but it would allow you to, uh, switch your subscription over to Ivory, um, and support them in that way, uh, [01:03:00] which I gladly did, and I’m running Ivory on Mac and iOS, and I love it. [01:03:07] Christina: Yeah, it’s a great app. Um, my, um, Twitter, uh, my TweetBot subscription ended, like, my yearly one, like, was right at the time that basically they had to shut down, so there might have been, like, 14 cents or something. That was remaining, but it was one of those things where I was just able to not have the, you know, subscription renew and it wasn’t a big deal. [01:03:28] Christina: So it hadn’t like renewed for another year or anything. So I was fortunate about that. But then I, of course, immediately did like the 2499 or whatever the thing is, you know, to, to be able to support them, get the Mac app and the iOS app. And, um, uh, they’re, they’re great people. It’s a great app. Um, I’ve been spending a lot more time on, on Mastodon as well. [01:03:46] Christina: I haven’t been on any social media for the last few weeks. That’s been sort of a choice. Might talk about it at another time. Um, but, uh, when I do, like, I, I definitely, I… There are parts of Mastodon that I definitely, um, like to [01:04:00] dunk on. There was a person who genuinely, this was not a joke, and then had like very long conversations with people afterwards that I desperately wanted to dunk on and now the moment has passed, who very earnestly said that if you call Twitter, Twitter, and not X, that that’s this, that’s akin to deadnaming. [01:04:19] Christina: And, um, [01:04:20] Brett: fuck [01:04:20] Christina: and, and, and that, exactly. And that’s the sort of, that’s the sort of Tumblr, like, internet eating your brains. That’s the sort of 2014 Tumblr bullshit that I love and I adore. But I also really want to dunk on, like, And, and the only thing is, like, 2014 Tumblr, you’d have those unhinged stuff and you could absolutely dunk on them and nobody would come at you. [01:04:39] Christina: There are some of my Mastodon followers who would be like, You’re punching down, you’re being mean. I don’t care, honestly, if you’re that unhinged, if you’re that dumb, like, I feel like we should all be able to call you out on being a fucking psycho. But, um, I do love moments like that on Mastodon, I’m like, never change, you, you weirdo, like, far too left to be actually useful, like, [01:05:00] fuckers, um, it’s, it’s akin to deadnaming, um, for that reason alone, I’m never gonna call Twitter [01:05:06] Jeff: Wait, what is deadnaming? I don’t know. I feel so [01:05:09] Brett: It’s when you call someone who’s transitioned genders by their old name. [01:05:15] Jeff: Oh, Jesus. Okay. Yes. I know this phenomenon. I did not realize it was called that name. [01:05:19] Brett: Which is a ridiculous comparison to renaming a corporate brand. [01:05:24] Jeff: Yes, [01:05:24] Christina: and on every level, it’s, they’re like, oh, this is respecting this and that. I’m like, okay, there’s [01:05:29] Brett: Respect for whom? [01:05:31] Christina: exactly. And then, and then, then, uh, like you, like, this person, like, they got into like, maybe I’ll actually put the, put the thread, um, of this in the show notes, because it was truly remarkable. [01:05:41] Christina: They got into like, yeah, A lot of people had, like, very good faith conversations with this person, who, again, was not shitposting, was being completely earnest and honest about this. Like, they thought through a lot of things and were just very committed to this. And it wasn’t a bit. If this had been a bit and they were committed to it, I would have found it hilarious. [01:05:56] Christina: But they weren’t. This is not a bit. This is actually genuine. And I’m, like, [01:06:00] horrified, but also sort of obsessed. Anyway, um, Ivory’s great. Love it. [01:06:07] Jeff: Awesome. Oh, Jeff. Um, last week, uh, Jay and, and prior to that, Christina had mentioned the ARC browser. Um, and, and I finally gave it a shot because I do, I, well, I’ll just say like, I’m repeating, but I also want to talk about it one particular feature. Um, it is, who’d have thought that you could be awesome. Utterly stimulated, even overstimulated, by the reimagining of the browser. And, and that is what happened to me. And I, and I’m still, you know, part, so I have this like really hard balance, which is, it’s so much fun to play with it that the part of me that tries to tweak everything and then doesn’t get shit done. [01:06:48] Jeff: is, is like, is really activated, especially with this feature I want to talk about, which is so cool, but which I have to keep my hands off of, which is Boost, which allows you to basically, I mean, you [01:07:00] can customize how a site looks in like developer mode on any browser, right? But it allows you to kind of save your customizations so that you can change any website. [01:07:08] Jeff: In any way you need to, um, and leave it that way for anytime you go to it. And so doing that almost killed me. Cause the first thing I wanted to do was change Hacker News, which someone has done, you can use their boost, but I was like, Oh my God, my first thought was like Hacker News, like I can make it bigger so I can read it, I can take it. [01:07:24] Jeff: So the part that I love in there that isn’t unhealthy for me is inside of these. This boost functionality are zaps and with zaps, you can basically highlight any type of element on the page and you can just say, I don’t want to see this. You don’t want to see that one, or you don’t want to see all elements like it. [01:07:38] Jeff: And that is so fun to play with because you can really simplify sites. I did that with Hacker News for sure. I, I zapped a ton of data under each link. Cause I just don’t, I don’t engage at that level. I don’t care that it’s being voted up or how many times I get it. It’s on the homepage. Right. Um, And I had so much fun and I really think I should probably block out some time for myself to just, [01:08:00] without guilt or shame, play with ARK, but nice work fucking re imagining the browser, my god, it’s like re imagining the bed, it’s like, what the fuck? [01:08:10] Christina: No, I, I And, and I love the, I love the workspaces stuff. Like that’s where I can also lose like a shitload of time by just like customizing every workspace for all the little features and things that I want. Like this is what model I’m in, which for me works a lot better than profiles. Um, Because I have a million browser windows open always. [01:08:27] Christina: But if I have, you know, certain things, yeah, I really like Arc and I haven’t played, I haven’t played with the boost stuff because I didn’t know what it did. To be honest, I didn’t look into it. And now this is going to be a thing that I look into and play [01:08:39] Jeff: it’s so fun, um. [01:08:41] Christina: it. [01:08:42] Jeff: Alright. [01:08:43] Christina: All right, my pick, and I don’t think I’ve ever given this one before, but it’s called Lossless Cut, and it is a kind of a front end for ffmpeg for editing like mp4 or other sorts of files losslessly. [01:08:58] Christina: So like if you needed to cut [01:09:00] out like 20 minutes at the beginning of a video or 20 minutes in the middle, you could use QuickTime for that. And QuickTime Pro, RIP, QuickTime 7 Pro. Used to be even better, where if you needed to do, and again, I don’t want to open up my NLE, I don’t want to open up, you know, Final Cut or Premiere or whatever, I’m wanting to do this losslessly, I don’t want to have to re encode, I’m just needing to move like the, you know, trims a certain part of it. [01:09:24] Christina: I can do a lot of this in QuickTime, but I can’t do, like, More hyper specific things, or if I want to like combine a cut where I’m like, okay, I’m going to, you know, grab these two parts out, but then I’m going to keep the rest of it. Um, Lossless, uh, cut lets you do that. The interface is not great. It’s, this is open source. [01:09:41] Christina: Um, it’s available for all platforms. I think that it’s written in some sort of either Python thing or in, um, you know, it’s, it’s not written in kind of a native thing. So the interface… It’s not great. I don’t care. It gets the job done. It’s free. This is like the sort of good open source software shit that [01:10:00] I’m glad exists and that, you know, um, I, I do wish that maybe like a, a, a, a good like Mac designer, um, um, uh, you know, coder would step in and, and help with this. [01:10:13] Christina: Um, it’s kind of like, it’s better than Colibri, which is, It’s a fucking monstrosity of a piece of software, but also necessary. And so I’m grateful for that guy, but I’m also like, God, this is a piece of shit. But I’m also like, but there’s nothing else and you’ve done all this work for free. So thank you for this, you know, book, e reader software. [01:10:32] Christina: It’s better than that. But like. That’s a low bar. Um, but this is, this is my pick of the week because I needed to do some stuff where again I did not want to have to transcode. I did not want to have to re encode. Which when I take things into my NLE I have to, and even with, you know, M1 processors, M1 maxes, like, that takes time to, you know, export those files. [01:10:54] Christina: And it’s stupid if you’re literally just taking something from the middle or taking something from the top or [01:11:00] bottom. So, [01:11:01] Jeff: Yeah. [01:11:02] Christina: Lossless Cut is, uh, is my pick. [01:11:04] Jeff: It looks awesome. Wow. Um, cool. I’m gonna play with that. Uh, just a final word. Um, school’s starting up, or it has in some places, and I just wanna salute all you teachers out there. Cause holy shit. Thank you. Especially if you’re good. Hehehe. [01:11:23] Brett: I saw a really interesting video on… Um, Christian homeschool parents who made the decision to send their kid to public school and like the top reasons that like led them to trust public schools even though like a lot of far right Christian churches are very… I’m scared of public schools, uh, convinced that they are factories of the devil for churning out atheist children. [01:11:58] Brett: Um, if I [01:12:00] can find that video, I’ll link it, [01:12:01] Jeff: Okay. [01:12:03] Brett: but yes, it was in support of, of teachers and our hardworking, especially public school teachers who, who, uh, are doing their best to raise up smart, critically thinking children. [01:12:19] Jeff: And the private school teachers who bust their asses well sometimes. And maybe get paid [01:12:24] Brett: No, [01:12:25] Christina: Uh, no, they usually get paid worse, actually. They actually usually get paid worse. [01:12:28] Brett: no shade on [01:12:29] Jeff: yes, the public school, I mean, just to say, like, my sons are going into their school that has no air conditioning, it’s gonna be almost a hundred all week next week, we were in there to see his classes. Last week, each teacher has about six industrial sized fans, um, so public school teachers, it’s different. [01:12:45] Jeff: I see that. It’s different. And thank you. Extra thank you because you are in the trenches. [01:12:52] Brett: All right. [01:12:53] Jeff: Awesome. Get some sleep, teachers. [01:12:55] Brett: to see you. [01:12:56] Christina: you. Good seeing all of you. [01:12:57] Brett: Get some sleep. [01:12:58] Jeff: Get some sleep. [01:12:59] Christina: Get some sleep, [01:13:00] everybody.