256: Tomorrow is an Ice Day

Hey, John. All right. Are you ready for some follow-up, Merlin? How do you want to start? Are you ready for some balls? I'm ready for balls. I'm ready for your balls. Are you ready for all the balls? I'm pretty well... Okay, I think it's a lot to ask. You may want to know how many there are before you sign up for all the balls. Yeah, see, they have been tricked like this before. I've gotten more balls than I wanted because I agree to all of them. But it's the show.

Thanks everybody for joining us. We're going to talk about stuff this week. I feel like it's worth, you know what? You should do this. I always do this and I make such a dog's dinner of it, but you can support this program by going to relay.fm slash RD slash join.

I feel weird pitching this at the top, but, you know, because I'm sick to death of all the promoting people do. Sick to death of it. But we need this for money. So you can do that. It looks good on you, though. Ah, it looks good on you. Give me six of those. Then that expression he makes, and then the expression Ted Knight. My kid doesn't need to watch that. He's good. No.

But you get stuff. And I mean, like the biggest stuff, if I'm being honest, is the same reason I support people who don't even put anything out. I pledge many people who don't even do anything just because I want to be their ad hoc de Medici title. No, don't write it down. It's terrible. But I want to be a patron of somebody.

You know, it's like that Miranda July movie, you know, who are you the best patron of? But you could do that for us and it would really help us because we got bills, you know, just like everybody. But it gives you stuff as well.

And I guess I'll tell you that includes Discord access. I think Discord is an online chat thing. You can maybe watch people stream something. You'll probably have to wear headphones in one of those Garth Brooks mics, but... Discord is popular with people. There's a monthly newsletter. It tells you what's going on at Relay. Relay is a network.

And then there's two monthly podcasts. You just get this. You get Spotlight, where Kathy Campbell, our friend, interviews people on the network. And one called Backstage, where the founding days of the network, Mike, I'm Michael, and I, Stephen, answer member questions. and things about the company. You get wallpapers and, you know, ad-free episodes. And my favorite part, apart from you just giving us the money because you like us, I'm not going to name names, but I do that, John. I do that.

I give money to people whose stuff I don't even watch just because I like the person. Did you know that about me? You ever look at what I support on Patreon? I have. I do the same thing. Do you? Do you still support the D&D guy? Uh, no, I think I've switched off of him and onto some other people. I like to keep the rotated around, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Spread the wealth as they say. And, um, my favorite part though, is you get bonus stuff, which is that, um, when it's an odd.

numbered week, you get a regular episode, which is plenty for anybody. But when it's an even, when it ends with an even, as John says, numeral or digit or null, when it ends with that, a week like this, which is two, five, six, which I think is no balls.

Uh, you get, you get put in stuff and John, are you comfortable laying down some kind of a frame for what we're going to talk about in the after show? On this after show, in theory, as always, we are going to talk a little bit about some complaints. Some people have about doom prophecy. And we'll see what those are. That is a very, that's a very, oh my goodness. Okay.

I think some people have questions about their operational security and their information security. Yeah, we don't know which people and what complaints, but we'll find out. And we don't know what they're going to say. There may be spoilers for Dune Prophecy in that. There's a real good chance there'll be spoilers for Dune Prophecy.

And then also in the after show, there's an item that's been in the notes for a while now. Forever, yeah. And I don't know how it came up. I think something we were discussing on an episode months ago.

And I was like, oh, that reminds me of this. And then after we got off the recording, one of those recordings, I looked it up online. I'm like, oh, I should look at this. I'll send it to Merlin. I think you watched it at the time. And anyway, we talked about it. And then it just sat in the notes for a while. And then you totally forgot about it.

But we're going to come back to it and it has to do with both video games and music. What a very odd way to put that. You asked me to watch a video and I watched it and I said, that's a really nice song. And I thought it was really pretty and nice. Which I think, given what it's from, is already kind of a nice thing for me to say. Given what it's from, you know, it's checkered past its associations.

You want to hear my favorite video game song? I can't tell what that is. I think that's Donkey Kong. I also love... Oh, I see what you're doing. Love theme from Moon Patrol. And I would sing, this could be a secret weird thing, only I do. I would sing, I'm going to be a moon patrol ranger. I'm going to be, and I would, it's kind of like Pitfall, but on the moon. Does that help you in the game? Never.

No. Did you ever play that E.T. game? I got one of those in my basement. I believe I did play that E.T. game. It wasn't very good. It was kind of like that other... What's the other? Haunted House. Did you ever play Haunted House? I don't think so. Oh, man. It was so lame. It was really, really bad.

the tank game was better as far as the pre-pack games. But do you want to tell people what that is that we're going to talk about? This game from when you, this is a song from when you video games. No.

We'll have to wait until we have to find out. It's a video game John likes and there's a song in it. It's a video game song in particular. There's a cover of the video. Not a cover. A live performance. I guess it's not a cover. A live performance of a video game song, which is a thing that is very popular. Compare and contrast to the actual...

recorded version. I think we got into talking about it because you were off on some classical music thing. I think that was the connection. We'll see if we can figure it out. I wasn't going to jump in, but I think it would have to be. I'll look back in the notes and see if I can figure it out. But it's a very beautiful song.

And we'll talk about that in the after show. You can go to really.fm slash rd slash join. But really, you're doing everything I kind of feel like I could ask for, which is you're listening now. And John won't say it, so I'll say it for us. Thank you very much for listening, and we appreciate your... support just with your ears and whatnot but enough of that wallowing in hypocrisy do you know what that line is from when i say that enough of this wall

Maybe I knew at one point. I don't think you'll get it. It's pretty tough. It's Mighty Mouse. It's not a Wes Anderson thing, is it? No, 80s Mighty Mouse. Oh, there you go. Yeah, I think you've explained it to me before and I forgot. It was a really weird show. And the weirdest part was not the fake snorting of cocaine, which got blown out of proportion. No, the show itself was just... It was just... Man, that was a hell of a show. That and Pee Wee. My friend Michael Ferguson and I would...

Every Saturday morning that we could manage to get up, we would go and watch CBS cartoons when we were in college. And I live in Berlin, of all things.

We like to begin the show with something that John introduced the world, which is called follow-up. Last episode. I brought up, I don't even remember why. Oh, I know why. I'll tell you why, because I said 255. I said 255. I said, because I used to buy RAM for computers. And I said, we're one number away from being one of those computer numbers, aren't we? And then you said the words all balls to me.

Right. I did try to point out to you that 255 is in fact the computer number, not 256 really. So did I lose one of my K in RAM? Like I said, you start at zero. So you get zero through 255. It's 256 things. It's the zeroth K.

Yeah, zero through 255. That's 256 possible values. That makes stuff so hard. But one of them is zero, so the maximum value is 255, and it's all sticks, and that made me think of all balls. Don't look at me. I'm too good for ones. Yeah, and we talked about that last episode, but I...

I couldn't recall or didn't know what the origin of all balls was. You speculated it might be all... Was it speculating that it was like six zeros? Yeah, no. It's the time with all zeros in it. That's why it looks like all balls, because there's a bunch of zeros. According to this URL, now first, there's two things about this URL. I forget who sent this to me. I'm sorry. Your name got lost in the shuffle. But first of all, the thing that tickles me about this URL is that it ends in .pl.

So wait a minute. It's a dynamically generated Pearl page. Probably. I mean, a lot of the URLs... You don't see that too much anymore. Right. For the websites I made for maybe the first five to ten years of my career, my URLs also ended in .pl because I was using Perl to write them.

Yeah. And in the beginning, it was plain old CGI. I think that's what you put in CGI bin back in the day. Yeah. But even after CGI was, you know, old fashioned, still the URLs often ended in .pl. So this tickles me to see this. I don't even know. If it's a Pearl script, but I just like to think it is. Anyway, it's allballs.pl. And the second thing is the website it's on is atheistfrontier.com.

Why this website would have anything to do with all balls, I don't know. It says on the deck here, it says they're questioning what's real. There you go. Well, anyway, this is unrelated to atheism and is entirely related to the origins of a phrase. According to this webpage, they say all balls originated with NASA to represent midnight as 00 colon 00 colon 00 because the zeros look like balls. Yep. And it's easy.

more efficient and more convenient to say all balls than it is to repeat the word zero multiple times. Yep. Yep. So there you go. Yeah. Very definitive dot PL URL on the internet says NASA. Came up with all balls. And then, of course, Postgres put it in their database. And the rest is history. Do you think it's cached? Do you think it's like it's loading it up every time? Don't know. I mean, you sure could load it up every time because computers are fast.

I guess. Back in the days of movable type, that used to be kind of a thing. You had to regenerate your site because all the stuff was being generated. Sure, yeah, but computers are real fast now. Are they? Yeah. Huh. Thank you to Atheist Frontier for questioning what's real. Second item here, late breaking. I think it just came in today and I said we should put this in here. Hopefully this will not eat the entire show. We'll see how it goes. Oh, John.

you're so lucky you're so lucky you added it this afternoon or it would take over the whole show i know well that's that's the fun of it so yeah this was a kind of a question presented to us by listener ben uh ben says what do you think about the concept of reverse weird things people do. Actually, it should be reverse secret weird things people do. But anyway, you'll get it in a second. Things you've always considered weird.

but later learn that they're much more common than you expected. So to refresh everyone's memory, secret weird things people do are things... That you do and think are normal until someone points out to you that actually what you're doing is, in fact, very strange. And you had never thought of it as strange until someone had pointed out to you or you discovered it. Sometimes the part that makes it so indelible.

perhaps for you and definitely for me is this, this like sense of, uh, somebody going like, what, what are you doing? Or what are you talking about? To be a really good secret weird thing, it's one of the things we were like, it's not that I assumed everybody did this.

But I didn't imagine that I was the only person that did this. Or didn't give it a second thought. Surely it didn't even raise the level of ever occurring to you to think. There's a lot of this personal, personal, private stuff that doesn't come up. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like, you know, you turn light switches on and off with your hand?

It would never occur to you to think whether other people turn light switches on and off with their hand. You're like, what do they use their feet? Of course, everyone uses their hand. Well, maybe imagine if you found out one day that almost every other person on the planet turns light switches on and off with their nose. And you've been doing it with your hand your whole life. And you'd be like, wait, what? That doesn't seem intuitive. Yeah. Yeah. So reverse secret weird thing people do.

are things that you've always considered weird. Let's say you're going through life, turning light switches on and off with your hand. You're like, I'm so weird. I'm always turning light switches on and off with my hand. And then later in life, you learn. You learn. Everybody uses their hand to turn light switches on. And it can happen. The wonderful part, and just my quick gloss on this, is it can happen in very much the same way.

Where somebody goes, what are you talking about? That's what everybody, that's how everybody does it. It's just a weird thing that I do. I'm really embarrassed about it. I don't like to tell people about it. And when you finally do tell somebody, they said, yeah, everybody does that. Yeah.

I love this. This literally was just dropped on us today. So I don't have this big giant list of reverse secret weird things people do or whatever name we want to come up with. But I think it's an interesting concept. I intentionally didn't think about it. before we came on the show, because I wanted to brainstorm some with you live on the air. Hopefully you did not do any homework about this. I... I...

I did what I normally do, which is I tried to phrase it in a way that makes sense to my own brain and then tried to think of a few general examples. But in that case, well, then why don't we, would you want to start with you? You've got too much free time. So he comes up today and already you're doing homework. John, no time is free. Mm-hmm. Free can mean multiple things, you know? Free as in beer. Free as in speech. Free as in speech. Yeah. Free as in AOL. Free as in kittens. Free as in Willie.

Oh, too soon. He's always knocking the kid over with his giant whale dick. What a shame. What a shame. Um, you want to start? Or shall I, shall I, shall I do my usual sort of like blah, blah.

Yeah, well, if you have some things you came up with in this short period of time, please tell me them now. Okay, a couple of cookies. I feel like secret weird things people do, and then potentially this new idea of secret... reverse secret weird things people do. They both come from a time before we had that many ways to learn how strangers acted in strange ways.

Basically, I'm saying that this has its basis in a sort of pre-internet world in a variety of ways, right? So it's not just like you can't Google stuff. Or like rule 37, your way to a good night's sleep. It's also that like you just aren't, you don't have exposure to that many people you don't know where you're reading or if you like hearing so many words from people you just.

don't know that like aren't in the newspaper it sounds like a very simple thing to say but i think that's part of it is you're just not exposed to as much um the ones i so what i said was uh one is things i figured that only I ever do or say or think, right? Like, it's just not that it matters, but I just assumed I'm the only person who's ever done, said, or thought this particular thing. And then...

per the rules of the thing, you're kind of shocked to find out that no, like a lot of people do that. And for me, a lot of those are words or phrases that I thought I invented. You know, do you remember when I discovered Boy Genius a couple years ago?

Because I'd never heard of Boy Genius. And then I heard about Boy Genius and I started telling her about Boy Genius. Have you heard the good news about Boy Genius? Well, you know, all three of these people are very accomplished in their own ways. I was like, yeah. You know, I hadn't heard about it. It's new to me. You know, it's like summertime on NBC. If you haven't seen it yet, it's new to you. Just two quickies. I thought I was the first person who ever called Target Target.

And for practical purposes, I was. I think that's like calculus, as you say. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Which I don't understand, but I get the analogy. And I use it a lot. No, but I'm talking about like in... Because when Target first came along, like, we got a Walmart in the town I grew up in in, I think, 85. And there was no Target. But Target came along in the late 80s and was like in the midst of the...

you know, Walmart's becoming the place everybody goes for stuff. Target was so exciting because it was, it looked cleaner, you know, they had like sort of designer-y stuff. It was just, it was more fun to shop at Target. And it was kind of funny in like a wine mom sort of way to say Target. because you're acting like it's pronounced in the style of the French. And then I discovered everybody does that. That's one. But I have a lot of these, because as much as I dislike puns, I do like wordplay.

And if I'm being honest right now, okay, John, I could pun a lot more than I do. Do you know that about me? Mm-hmm. You know that it's sort of like my hero Stuart Lee says, it's not that I don't know. how to write a joke. It's just that I don't like writing and telling jokes. And I feel that way about puns. But I wasn't above calling the convenience store little general. I wasn't above calling that little genital.

And I thought my group of friends were the only people who called it Little Genital. I've never heard of a star chain called Little General. So, you know, like 7-Eleven, Circle K. Yeah, I can picture what it might be, but it is Southern. It's literally like a little baby. I don't know if it's Southern, but it was like a little baby, like a little baby in the pole.

guy and we'd say little genital and i probably have more but those are the ones that came right to me and then you know i i bet this is such a rich topic that bumps straight up against the stuff a lot of the stuff that we and I in particular talk about a lot, which is like discovering that you, something from your internal world exists, not only in your internal world, you know, which is kind of a big deal.

You know what I mean? Like when you, the rule 37 thing, I keep repeating that, but you know what I'm saying, right? Where you go like, oh, you know, I didn't realize that there were this many people whose favorite Pearl Jam song. was Jeremy spoke in class today or whatever that song is called. Lemon Yellow Sun. That's the name of it. He hit him with a surprise. I think it's called Lemon Yellow Sun. Lemon Yellow Sun.

And by the way, I just want to mention in passing, a joke I stole in 1999, my friend Jonathan Lammers. Acting Like Trader Joe's has a theme song by Pearl Jam. How would you sing it? Yeah, I do know. Trader Joe's. Yes. I love this and I'm going to think on it. And now that I've filled a little bit of air, have you any of these you can think of?

I do have a thought that even though I said I was going to try not to think about it, so I would be able to sort of brainstorm on the air, as they say. One thought did immediately occur to me. And of course, my mind just sort of wrapped around that. But before we get to that, I do want to make sure that you are doing a bit when you say rule 37 and you haven't actually forgotten that it's rule 34. Oh.

This is like a wellness check. No, I didn't. No, thank you. No, no. I thought it was, I thought it was 37 because, you know, 37, if you ask somebody to pick a number between one and 100, most people will pick 37. Rule 34.

Am I adding? Should we? I mean, because 37 sounds like you're intentionally misremembering the rule to make a joke, but you've done it so much. See, it might have started that. It might have started that way. And which is also how a lot of not secret weird things that not everybody does. That's how a lot of the start is with misspeaking.

I mean, like think about stuff like somebody in the family, like, you know, you get a kid and there's another kid and the baby calls that person a funny name and then that becomes the person's name. They don't get any vote in it, but like their new baby sister calls them, calls them like pee pad. And like, no, your grandpa's just pee pad now. He doesn't like it. Best pee pad ever.

It's kind of funny to call him that. No, I am. I mean, for you, I'm imagining it's going to be. I'm not trying to overly guide you, but knowing the little that I know about you as a person. I bet it is behaviors and habits that...

you imagine because you're so used to being how you are and being aware of how you are that I wonder if like it surprised you sometimes to learn that other people are as careful about things as you are. Oh, like I said, actually the one thought that I. had about this, even though I did prevent myself from trying to make any kind of list was actually something you just touched on when you dove into this topic, which is how it relates to the internet age.

Because I think one aspect of the phenomenon Ben was describing stands out to me as one of the very important side effects, or not a side effect, one of the very important effects of the internet. Consequences. Yeah.

there you go consequences um this has always happened in interpersonal like in circles like you're at a party you're meeting a bunch of people you start talking about stuff especially people who you just met or you're just like excited to talk about about because you haven't discussed everything with them before uh if you meet a bunch of new people or make a bunch of new friends or in a social situation where you're talking to a bunch of new people um very often you will end up

discussing things like this where someone will describe something perhaps sheepishly or perhaps in a questioning tentative manner and lots of other people go yeah that also i also do that or that's also what i think or i have experienced the same or like yeah or like i have i have a similar class of it's also a great like first first time you meet somebody and hang out and end up making out a little bit like it's one of those that was wonderful

nights you have with people that can be so intimate just even being in public where you both are like pushing out all of these things that reveal You know, you like the person, you trust the person, and you draw them into your confidence by saying these things about yourself that are a little bit vulnerable and weird. And I don't know, I always think of that as an orientation week at college kind of thing.

in a good way. Like, you know, you haven't had that many opportunities to talk about this weird stuff with other weird people. And then to hear it echo back and to realize that whether it's that individual person or even a group of people, to realize that your experience actually isn't as strange.

weird and unique as you thought it was. And in fact, it is a common experience. And that is reassuring to learn that other people are experiencing the same thing you are. Well, the internet obviously is a gigantic machine for making that happen at vast scale.

And that's one of the things that I think is the most beneficial about the Internet. Just the simple, you know, in the beginning with the nerds, it was like, hey, guess what? In your school, it's just you and two other nerds getting beat up all the time. But in the entire world.

uh those two nerds from every high school can get together and you can have a quorum to discuss nerdy things that you have in common i didn't know that you're also obsessed with this thing well i'm also obsessed with that and then you have this common interest and even though you thought it was a weird

thing that you thought or did, you find out someone else, all the way down to the much more fraught, but much more sort of like deep and important ideas of like, there are other people in the world like me.

Right. But I mean, like, but it can also just be dumb stuff. Like, and I'm not saying this, but I'm just, as an example, it could be more like almost like a secret shame thing where you're like, you know, I've never really liked Tom Hanks. I wouldn't say that, but you know what I mean? The kind of thing where you could say to somebody, I don't really get this thing.

that other people love not to be controversial but then other people are like oh yeah that guy's always seen a little sus to me like it's weird there's but isn't that it's a similar kind of thing where you're almost like bartering vulnerability with people right or even just this is a very straightforward

I find feet sexy and I never wanted to talk about it. Yeah. But look, here's all these other millions of people who find feet sexy. I thought it was just me. No, because no one would ever talk about it. And that's the thing. That's the rule 34 part is then also finding out that like, I don't know why I always think of this. I forget.

which essay it was, but it's one of the essays in David Sedaris' wonderful book, Barrel Fever. I don't think it's the Elf one, but it's the one he's talking about when he... Anyway, in one of his books, he talks about going off to art school after growing up in... I want to say North Carolina, South Carolina, you know, and, and, and he had always been the artsy kid at his school. Like I think of it almost being like, like a little bit like kind of.

goth or sort of like beatnik kind of, you know what I mean? Like wears dark clothes, reads Camus in French, you know, that kind of thing. And he really, there's so many things I feel like he really nailed early in his career. And one of them was that... feeling of, let's just use his example, going to college and realizing that not only are you not the arty weird outsider that there are lots of other people who are already weird outsiders the the hurtful part or the the

revelatory part is like how many people do it and are better at it than you like i was so bad at being a punk i was always i always look so bad next to the other punk kids because i was such a you're too happy to be a punk yeah I guess like it's just while I was too suburban and like, I didn't have access to all the same spray paint or the same shirts or whatever, but you know, but that's, and, but didn't like to realize that the thing that I used as.

I don't know if it's a sword or a shield, probably a shield, but the thing that I used to differentiate myself and create a little area around me was never actually that distinctive. And that is now unavoidable, now that I'm surrounded with people who are better than that. So you might actually meet, like, Captain Insole, who's been running one of the most popular, you know, foot fora.

that's ever existed. He's been doing PHP BB since the, since the, since the beta and he's got feet, feet for miles. And you're like, Oh my God, I'm so out of the loop. I'm not even good at being like a weirdo. So other people are, have. embrace this much more deeply than me that's the less reassuring one where you feel like you have some part of your identity yeah i thought it was special yeah the most extreme case of this and you realize you're not

Um, but interestingly, and if you think this is like, okay, what was the old school internet where like the one gay person in Ohio found out other gay people exist because they got on the internet, right? Like that is definitely true and is a real thing and still is happening today with trans people who are in a place where they didn't realize that trans is even a thing.

thing somehow they've been so sheltered and then they get in the internet and realize oh a it's a thing and b it's me and c there's a lot more to know about that right so just that is like i feel like the positive aspect of but but the other thing that occurred to me is that

This phenomenon, reverse secret weird things people do, things that you think are weird, but then you find out are much more common, is essentially the basis of, I think, the most popular strain of present-day social media humor.

in the form of like reels or tiktoks or whatever it is people sort of it's like it's sort of the equivalent of 80s observational humor people describing a situation or reenacting a situation that reveals like an inner phenomenon or thought that the people watching it always thought that they were the only one thinking and they had never voiced, but then seeing it in a humor, seeing in the context of a humor thing makes them realize this must be common enough.

that this person is, A, this person who made it knows about this, and B, they're putting it out into the world and it's getting millions of views, which means that lots of other people are watching and relating to it. And through, you know, the act of- And they don't seem ashamed about it.

Yeah, through the act of scrolling your phone, looking at TikTok, looking at Instagram, looking at whatever you're looking at, this terrible activity that we all feel shame about or whatever, these tiny bite-sized pieces of entertainment, what you are learning over and over and over again is... I guess everybody has that feeling when the waiter mispronounces their name or when they mispronounce a food, or I guess everyone feels that way when they...

go in for their first job interview or have to have a performance review. Like, because they see the people in the thing voicing the thing they thought was the, they were the only person in the world who was ever thinking that inside their head. And then they see it put out. And I feel like that is so like dominant. in, you know, short-form social media humor. Well, and it can actually become a cliche in a way that would really surprise 1993 you. Like, if I always...

This is one that is such a cliche, well, in a certain group, but it really is true. Dermot Mulroney and Dylan McDermott, I will never remember which is which.

right i know that's a lot in your life i mean but like anybody else out there a had that problem and b made that joke yes and yes yeah what is it was the woman that julia styles and the other two people who look like her oh yeah that's complicated that was an older one from like the early 2000s i forget but there was like two or three uh actors who all looked essentially the same or even like like just something something as dumb as i was a

You know, I was a TV watching and TV thinking person and like just a thing you could do to talk to other cool kids is like, what the hell happened to Dick York that he was then replaced with Dick Sargent? after one season of Bewitched. That was really weird, and they didn't really talk about it. Like, those kinds of things where you're like, am I the only person who saw this, you know, sort of things, but...

Yeah, I do think – I'm going to pray on it because I think I might have some good ones. And I would like you – have you come up with any others while you're thinking about it? No, like I told you, the meta thought about how this is what social media humor is about, it really swapped in. Like I said, it's not like this is a new phenomenon in humor. 80s observational humor is essentially this, but writ small. There's just so much more of it now.

felt like the same phenomenon like I have learned by looking at things on my phone that a thought or feeling that I have had that I thought was Not exclusive to me, but perhaps not common. It's clearly super common because people can relate to it. Well, you could at least assume, taking yourself out of the equation as much as you can, you could still go, well, that's a very novel way to look at it. I thought I was the only person who looked at it in that novel way.

Yeah. Or like, you know, situations and feelings. Part of the beauty of the internet is just like this shotgun approach where everyone is making every possible kind of content. And so you cover so many more bases. Like there's some weird, obscure scenario that you had never thought of. And you're like, no, we're back in the olden days with, you know, more strict gatekeepers and stuff. It would never get greenlit to get through to the point where it's produced. That's why, that's why.

we value and treasure things like the simpsons saturday night live where like there was this the gatekeepers let through this tiny crack on the wall where people could smart people could sneak through these these things but now it's just like no everything is made and the efficient funnel of you know, engagement allows us to, you know, the most obscure thing it's getting made. And if it is relatable, if it actually is a reverse secret, weird thing.

It will be made by seven people and the top best one of those will make it through and it'll get 10 million views. And then you'll see it. The only reason you see it is because millions of things were made. It's like sperm. Millions of them were made. Almost none of them make it through. But every possible one.

is made. It doesn't stop us from trying. Right, yeah. I don't know. It is an interesting topic. That's why if I put it in late-breaking, I will try to think of specific examples. Thank you to the listener, Ben. That's a great topic. I'm going to think on that and we'll come back to it.

This episode of Reconcilable Differences is brought to you in part by Grist. You can learn more about Grist right now by visiting getgrist.com slash... Hey, does your team ever deal with a load-bearing spreadsheet? One that still technically works but threatens to collapse or maybe does collapse despite being incredibly important?

Or maybe it's one that gets mangled when it's edited by a whole team because everyone has their own unique approach. Well, it could be that you're trying to do modern work on old tech. And that's why Grist... is modernizing the spreadsheet. So you can collaborate in real time from anywhere. You can build drag and drop dashboards, analyze data using spreadsheet formulas or Python. Perhaps you've heard of it.

And you control access to your data. So the wrong people don't see that column of notes. That's for your eyes. Only secret is that Grist is a spreadsheet slash database hybrid. Gives you the benefits of a proper database without losing the interface that you and your coworkers know and love. I've played with Grist. It's very cool. It all just works in your web browser. It works a charm. You're in control of your data.

You can decide wherever it lives, whether that's on their SaaS or on your desktop or on your own servers. Grist is open source and fully self-hostable. So give your load-bearing spreadsheets a break without breaking them or breaking down. You try Grist for free by going to getgrist.com. That's D-I-F-F-S. Once again, that's getgrist.com. Our thanks to Grist for supporting Reconcilable Differences and all of RelayFM.

This next one is tied up in a bunch of young person slang. Are you familiar with young person slang surrounding this first word here? Wait, where? Where am I? Right here.

Oh. Oh, this is my topic. Yeah, I can't have too old. You think it's tied up in young person slang? Well, it is kind of the first word there. Do you know the slang related to that word? No. Hmm. Well, listen, let's not be cute about this. This topic, just a shorthand for this two-word description of this topic is cooking alone. What do young people, does it give cooking?

Is it Riz? Is it Drip? They cooked. You ate that. Lots of cooking and eating related things for things that I say that you have performed. No crumbs left? Yeah, I'm not conversant enough to use it naturally, so I would not attempt to. But if you just look up... What's the general idea? I'm not going to do that.

You really cooked. They wouldn't say that, but they're basically saying that you performed extremely well. You performed a song or you did a slam dunk in a basketball game or whatever. You ever go to Chachi PD and have it roast a given city? Yeah, there you go. That's a very... popular kind of topic I'm just trying to find out when I get 4.5

in my LLM. And so I'm looking at news articles and I realize, you know, there's a reason people, well, there's several reasons why people are so goddamn stupid about LLMs. And one of them certainly is this, this, this nonstop surfeit of articles that are like, ah. You know, um, this blogger roasts connected in New York with chat CPT and like, and they can do it for any city. And it's like, that's punching down. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't know.

cooking a lot. Well, I did a Google for it. I came up with a today.com. Uh, what does cooked mean? Teen slang explained. Uh, and it's, yeah, it's, I mean, November, 2024. So what'd it say? Oh, no, it's just I can't read today.com. Like, it's filled with pop-ups or whatever. Is that an NBC television show? Or they cooked. Or you are cooks, which is different. I don't like give and giving. It's really lazy. That is at least very easy to understand.

Did you watch the red carpet before the big game? Did you watch the red carpet before the Oscars? No, I did not. Really? Oh, it was so good. Does it surprise you that I would not watch the red carpet? Well, is that Lisa? Is that her name? I was telling you how cool she looked and she had like a tuxedo dress. No, I had no idea those were the same person.

None. That she's in Blackpink. Now, what about Rosé? Is White Lotus in Blackpink? Who's Rosé? White Lotus, the television show. An actor on that show sang a James Bond song in the Oscars. That's funny. Yeah. All right. Isn't she terrific? What's her name? I like her on the TV show. What's her name? She's got a cute name. Yes. I believe that is her name on the show. Cutest name this year is Beep Boop. You seen Companion yet? No. Okay.

Cooking alone. Sometimes topics for this show come up because of things that happen in real life. And I was just thinking in the way that I do. sorry, about how I, when I have the chance, when I'm making food for myself, by myself, There is a range of things that I think about and do very differently than if my family is around. And in particular, if I'm preparing something that is for them. And I'll bet.

I have got ample things to talk about with this, but it also then just made me think, what did I write down here? This is my Carrie Bradshaw moment. Imagine me on a... Imagine me laying on my bed in my power book. Are there things that you do differently, perhaps very differently, if you get to do it by yourself?

and for yourself. I think the most obvious one, and I think you would agree with this, is you might be making different things. Before we get to the process, just flat out menu choice. What are you making? All the stuff that's just verboten that I'm just not allowed to cook. Things that are not, let's say, widely popular. Well, you know, God save you if you enjoy seafood. Because if I cook anything that used to live in water, I hear about it for so long and I get...

Billy, you know, I love my son, but he is so passive aggressive about this. Are you stinking up the house? Are you putting fish in the microwave? I don't know. Popcorn fish. Yeah. No, but he'll just crack. Fish flavor popcorn, not popular. Fish flavor microwave popcorn. Get them on the market right now. You're going to shake the bed. You're going to distribute the salt. You're going to steam burn and dirty looks from everybody in the office.

But he'll just like, so we've got one of those, um, God, Andre Torres introduced me to these, the simple human cans where like you hit it. He's got a little pedal. The trash can you mean? Yeah. Trash cans, yeah. Depending on how you use it, it's like two sides, and you can pick what the sides are for. Ours is on the right side is trash, left side is compost. Fish, left side is fish.

at all but like we try to utilize that but billy just grabs the entire bucket of that opens the side hatch door puts it in the side hatch closes the door he's he's mad that dad made crab why would i get a crab a food and a affordable, delicious, luxury item that I have eaten for years, especially when I didn't have a lot of money in Florida. Do you remember the MTV ad that said, hmm, crab legs, and they had stop motion animated crab legs? Do you remember that? I don't, no. That was good.

You remember the red lobster ads where they showed people saying, mmm, crab legs. They were just really pushing crab legs in the 80s. I don't. I know that endless shrimp sounds like a terrible dare. I mean, like it literally, literally come on in because it's literally not going to end. It's endless shrimp.

That's eldritch horror. No, but anyway, take it any level you want. Of course, I've got examples of this, but I just want to toss out to you, I'm calling it Cooking Alone because I think it's a good and brandable name, but what are the sorts of, and feel free to start with cooking. I'll give you a hint on another one of mine, okay? Can I give you a hint on another one of mine? Sure. How I choose and conduct the watching of media when I'm the only person in the house.

Oh, you get to use the big speakers, number one. I get to use the good speakers. I get to un-reduce loud sounds. I open up the goddamn Sonos app and increase the volume of TV and music. I do all those things. Right. Which I, you know, and honestly, seriously, this sound bar that we've got has helped so much with these longstanding.

mini dramas in the house about whether it's too loud, it's too boomy, it sounds like a movie theater. Well, heaven forfend, it sounds like a movie theater when we're watching a movie. But I just want to toss it out. Cooking Alone is what it's called, but are there other kinds of things where... And because I feel like this is an interesting topic to me because...

Well, I don't want to spoil it, but the other part of this is like, is it that much better when you get to do it by yourself? Not that you're like lonely or something, but like, I just think it's, I think it's interesting to be. live in a house with other people and to the best of my ability i try not to be horribly annoying to them but like i'm not allowed to use msg

No, what do we call it? Secret salt, you mean? We call it secret salt. It's called secret salt. That's what Billy and I used to call it. And I'm not going to go on a rant because I've been getting a little ranty. Did you do some the other night? No kidding. Oh, she made a bolognese that really kicks ass, but... I put a little secret sauce on it. I'm forbidden because according to some people in the house, oh boy, does that ever cause problems? So if it's for me, now if I'm cooking at night...

Like a person does sometimes when I'm by myself, when I'm making dirty race, I can do that on my own and nobody cares. Nobody notices. But if I want to make crab legs, they better be out touring schools. You know what I'm saying? i don't know is this interesting to you yeah so one of the this will not surprise you i'm sure but i think this is a phenomenon in many households but one of the privileges of being the person who cooks is you do have

a little bit more say over what gets made than if you were not cooking. This is true. Because you're the one doing it. That's not to say you're just going to like, this is to contrast. No, I agree with you. Not only do I agree with you, I agree with the premise of why you feel like framing it that way. Yeah, it's true. It seems obvious, but like there's still constraints to what you do, but like.

I, I'm from Ohio and I'm weird. And I think there's usually three things on a plate and they should all be piping hot. And I, listen, honey, I always want to starch. It doesn't matter. I always want to starch. I don't need bread. My stepfather always demanded bread.

had to have hot bread with every meal. But I'm a starch guy. Like, if there should be a rice, I often will make a noodle. Sorry to interrupt you, but isn't that like a similar kind of thing where like you can guide it, you take what they want, and very importantly, what they never want, you try to form that. and you know them and you love them and you want it to be delicious. But yeah, that control only goes so far.

yeah like so the way this manifests though is like uh not that i haven't just oh i'm gonna make what i want and tough luck is because you know if you're looking for the family you especially when you have younger kids you

got to make stuff that they're going to eat. Otherwise, you're just making everybody's life miserable, including your own. So it is counterproductive to say, well, I don't care what the kids want. I'm making this. In some ways, if you do it willfully, often, it's kind of a dereliction of duty, in my opinion.

Yeah, and plus you want to make crowd-pleasing things. You want the family to be excited about what you're making, right? Absolutely. But the way this manifests for me is when we are making something that... you know, that everybody more or less likes, I will make it the way I want to make it. Even if people might prefer some tweak to it, because I'm the one who's cooking it, I'm like, well...

It's not like you don't like this when I make it the way I want to make it. You might prefer it slightly differently, but it's not. You know, it's not like you object to it entirely. And you haven't, importantly here, there's no trick where you're undermining the basic foodness of it. So if Kate really wants grilled onions with whatever you're making, you'll make grilled onions and you'll make it in a way that she likes.

To give sort of a canonical example, if this is not the case, but if I had people in my family who wanted, who always liked their pasta to be overcooked, I would simply never make them pasta. But if we do make pasta, I'm not going to overcook it. I love you. I love you so much.

And how am I going to make the pasta? I'm going to make it the correct way, according to me. And, you know, like, they don't object to it. And that differs with each pasta. But if you don't think, you know, you say you want those little stars or those orzos or whatever. Boy, you really need to ride that kid or that is going to turn into a porridge.

Well, yeah, so that's a similar thing. Which pasta shape goes in which type of pasta dish? I have very strong opinions about that. And in general, I'm going to pick what I want to pick. And it's not going to turn them off of the dish. They may prefer a slightly different shape, but the bottom line is they're not going to say, oh, now I can't eat it because it's the wrong shape. Yeah, you don't introduce things you know would be a showstopper.

And so in that way, I do sort of enforce my own taste and opinions pretty strongly in the places where I can, where like if I'm, if I have a green light for the dish anyway. I'm going to do it the way I want to do it as long as the way I want to do it is a way that people don't object to. And this works out well for me because I'm like, say I was a person who loves really spicy food. That wouldn't work. I couldn't be like, well, when I make this, it's always super spicy because.

Little kids don't like super spicy food. It wouldn't work. But most of my opinions about how things should be made don't cause the dishes to be objectionable. So I do get that luxury of being the person who's cooking. and being able to make the food the way i want to make it even if you get one or two chirps so talking about cooking alone what's different

What's different? Is it just the same? Because I'm always doing everything the way I want to do it. The whole stack can be different depending on what your purpose is. So like I said, the first difference is the thing I'm making. I have to make sure I'm making generally crowd-pleasing things.

You know, now my daughter has been a vegetarian for umpteen years now. So at the very least, there has to be a vegetarian thing. And then a non-vegetarian thing, which is a whole complexity, but I'm making it for myself. I don't have to worry about any of that. It's the luxury that...

that parents and i guess married people both married people and parents don't realize this is luxury until they've been married and or parents for many many years which is deciding what to eat where the only person's opinion you have to check on is your own Right? That is a thing that you don't think about. Sorry to make it in pigs and bunnies, but if you're a couple and you go like, hey, I've been wanting to make chicken Parmesan. Is it okay if I make that on Thursday and take care of that?

Oh, and wrapping back around to the reverse secret weird things, this phenomenon I have seen in social media and it made me realize many years ago and continuing to this day. That is way more common than I thought. Have you seen a social media joke or a common Internet joke where it shows a married couple and or parents talking about how they didn't realize?

What an incredible burden it would be that every single night you have to decide what you want to eat and what you're going to feed to your family. That is a joke that I've seen many times over. And it is the thing that I felt. The joke is a joke. It's a joke for people who do have to think about that by the Delta, showing the Delta with back when you could just do whatever you wanted.

yeah just the joke is like i didn't i didn't realize that like you know they'll dramatize it'll make a thing like every single night I just thought of something to eat for dinner last night, and tonight you're telling me I have to do it again? I have to come up with a menu of things that everyone in the house is going to eat, and then I have to get the food for it, and then I have to prepare it?

I know. And when I'm done tomorrow, I have to do the same thing forever and ever. You never ask for that. You never ask for that. And like a friend Marco says, I don't know if Marco originated this phrase, but it's instrumental in my life. It's not my fault, but it is my problem. There's a lot of stuff where it's like, I'm always like.

Dunning and hurting people starting as early as like two, three o'clock. It's like, so you guys want to eat? Yeah, because here's the thing. I know that it will always fall back on me. And like, I don't want to get yelled at if we accidentally bought, you know.

Fried goat butt. Nobody wanted that. Getting into fights about what we're going to have for dinner. But also scheduling, John. That you might think is something weird that only you were doing until the internet comes along and shows you every family and every married couple is stealing that burger. Yesterday,

Yesterday he had track and he, but he skipped ice skating. And like, I, you know, they only invite me to the important meetings. And so, but like, and I don't want to be a jerk about it, of course. I've written down a lot of things over here, John. There's a lot of stuff talking to me on the after show. I'm going to give you some real stuff. But nobody uses the calendar.

Not anymore. We used to use the calendar, but now, whatever, everything's just up in the air and we don't know and who's got the car and what time they'll be home. You're going backwards on calendar usage? I'm not. I don't like this trend. Usually the calendaring increases with time as people learn their lesson. Let's just say, you ever try and get your family to use a password manager?

That's kind of like where I am with calendars. But I feel like calendaring, like, yes, no, it's difficult to get people to do it, but it should be, the train line should be up. It might be a shallow slope. Why are you telling me this? I'm begging. I'm begging. I'm literal. I'm begging. I say that. You're not begging me. I don't want to be Ed Bagley Jr. I'm begging them. And I say, I beg them. And I say.

By the way, I'm not going to respond to that anymore. But I'm begging them, just so you know, but I'm not going to respond to your remarks about my pronunciation. You've responded three times. Keep going. I'm begging them, and I'm not going to respond to that, but I beg them. I say to them, you know, you can do this. You say, hey, dingus.

Schedule a meeting with blah, blah tomorrow from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Boop. Like, it's so easy to add. The Fantastical is so easy. Like, just if you know there's a thing happening. And, and, and like, I'm gonna write this down for later. I can't talk about it now, but if you're going to work at home on an unusual day, let me know because not because I'm going to have people over here having a hand job contest title, but because like, I want to give you your space.

Right. I want to be out of the way. Maybe I'll go bowling. Maybe I'll stay at the office. But like, I, I'm asking that not to be like up in your stuff, but because I want to, I. it's demon dogs it's demon dogs and it just drives me crazy that we're all like loosey-goosey but then 6 15 somebody comes barreling through the door wins dinner and i'm like oh i don't know you never told me what you were doing

You know, I'll just make something out of whatever. I'll just go through the crisper and be sad. Yeah. Now they're disappointed in you. But yeah, I mean, I never asked for this. Okay. And then the next day you have to do it all over again.

Even just young married couples, now they have one other person who they have to consult about what they have for dinner. Say they haven't lived together. Say they get married or they haven't really spent any time living together. Now they're married, living in the same house.

And one of the first things that occurs to them is how difficult it is every night to figure out what you're going to eat and then figure out how you're going to eat. Well, and let's go ahead and put another coat of paint on that. There's the old joke about... You know, whether you've lived with somebody before you're committed to them and like, you know, or whether you've just slept on a mat and then got married or whatever. And like there is stuff. Can I just toss out one that you are very.

I don't know. I don't know what modern relationships are like or contemporary relationships. Neither do I. Actually, no, I'm learning this from Love Island. I know all about it. Oh, I learned so much from people in Rhode Island. Love Island, not Rhode Island. Oh, no, that's my love island. Yeah, I know. Is it? Yeah, they're skint with their cheeky... The... Writing things on a calendar?

Like some people just don't do it because they're young and they remember things and they haven't. And again, I just, it's so difficult for me to frame this in a way that makes it useful to people. But like, I'm honestly not trying to help you. by saying you should start writing things down because you'll eventually have to write things down. They're not going to hear that. What I am trying to say is like, there's a benefit in knowing not only when things are going to happen.

You ready for this? There's a huge benefit in knowing when something previously happened. So what if you treated a calendar not simply, as I like to put it, as a contract with your future self that you decide to honor, but what if that also become a reliable way for you to know when stuff happened?

in the past and you throw all of that away when everybody's just like oh it's so confusing and people are running around and i don't know who has who has 30 seconds to write down when something's happening and like it It drives that the part of my mind that you can easily envision drives that part of my mind crazy, but it also drives the normal part of my brain crazy, which is like, is your life really that chaotic?

that you cannot capture two hour blocks of when things are happening. Is it anyways, it's only for me, I guess nobody else. Maybe, uh, the, uh, remember like the book, the selfish gene was like trying to like reframe, um, reframe life as a.

as a side effect mechanism for the replication of dna or whatever right like you just you just look at it from a different angle and it's like well all this whole life and things and you know uh what is it the sound and fury signifying nothing really is just a uh side effect transport mechanism are replicating DNA.

It may be. If you need to feel really good about your place in life, read some Richard Dawkins. Yeah. It may be the refusal of young people to use calendars and write things down and stuff. Maybe the. reproduction mechanism for anxiety dreams. Because if you don't...

you know, fail to write things down and inevitably forget some important thing? How will you have stress dreams about, you know, forgetting that you had a final or showing up and realizing that you hadn't attended a class entire semester if you don't do that when they're young? it could be that stress streams are the, well, honestly with my kid, my kid, I mean, and whatever, I'm trying to talk about my kid, but, um, he really does. See, I can't talk about my kid, but.

I have to say he's empirically good with time management. All young people are until they're not. Well, no. And especially since they have parents kind of watching their back a little bit. Well, and that's why it's not fair for me.

My kid is so good at this stuff that it is, as you say, an exception that proves the rule. Just stare him in the face every day and say, this is half your genes and just point at yourself. And just keep repeating that until he gets it. I think he's so aware of that. He's watched me try to put a treadmill together.

He knows me better than I know myself. He watches and he looks. He's not old enough to say I'm becoming my father, but you know, it's out there. I'm waiting. Aren't you supposed to be a portrait in the attic? slowly aging yeah you just every day wake up just point at your face and go huh huh huh huh yeah enjoy it enjoy it while you can enjoy that memory yeah and if you're feeling bad at that go look at mom she's no prize either whoa

Wow. Yeah. Kids think their parents are so dumb. And then it's like, if you're not adopted, some bad news for you about genetics. Oh, yeah. But like, here's to here, John. Here's to here. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's like yelling at a dog. It's just the dog doesn't hear it. But...

Okay, so the cooking part, yes, and again, we're restricting ourselves here to talking at first about cooking. Yes, if you're the captain of the project, you need to be a good captain. I watched a very long video about Nelson, about, you know. I heard Shane Nelson today. And like, um, if you're the captain, like you're responsible for everything, you know? And sometimes he, you know, he was a little bit, he took, took bigger risks than I would have liked, but you know,

I'm really attached to having an eye and a right arm. But he does have a column of himself in London, which is nice. But if you're the captain of the cooking ship... If you're making dinner, you do get to pick, but like you still try to make it the way people want because, and you and me, I think I'm starting to realize, have some aligned ideas about how the food goes out.

in some ways maybe we disagree on how to sauce the pasta but we agree that like when it's dinner time everything comes comes out piping hot you want it all to come out at the same time needs to be hot not not warm not lukewarm just yes it's very important

What do you do differently when it's you? And also, probably, my goodness, do you get many times alone? Yeah, also, we have actually discussed this before when talking about sort of bachelor food, but there are certain dishes that I only make. when I am alone and the only person eating.

The most obvious of which is my garlicky pasta, which people can't stand so much that even if I make it and eat it entirely when no one is home, they still give me grief about it because, of course, when they come back home, the whole house smells like it and then I scream. You smell like it.

garlic juices for a day and a half and i don't mind it but they all sure do so that's one where it's like sometimes i feel like they mind it too much right i don't understand why do you mind this so much it's really weird yeah Well, I mean, like whether or not, but it's like, I don't know. It's nevermind. I can't get into it. But like, there are times where I think like, you know, if, you know what? Unlike fish, garlic smells good. I've said enough. I'm not going to say.

Anything else. I'm not going to say anything else. But if you're really concerned about a stain on the sink, why don't you grab a sponge, some hot water and soap and try to make the stain go away and then you won't be sad anymore. There's a solution for that. That's very good. Very good. Out, Dan, spot, out. Good dog. It's one bad hat, Harry. Yeah, and so there are dishes that only make when no one is there.

uh there are a few dishes like i said because i'm so if there's a dish that i'm making i'm either going to not make it or going to make it the way i want to make it so there's not a lot of ones that i make differently for myself than i would make for others

But there are dishes that I don't make for others and only make for myself. In fact, a lot of my dishes, I realize this whenever we have like, which is rare, but whenever we have like company over, right? Yeah. I realize how many of the things that I routinely make for myself and my family, I would never make.

guests really because because i feel like they're too weird perhaps reversing a weird thing like combinations or in terms of like choices just it's like i feel like it's more of like a you know

I get into this mindset that my dad always gets into. It's just like, well, Italian, everyone eats Italian food and all we eat is Italian food and everyone likes Italian food. That's not actually true. Not everyone likes, believe it or not, for strange reasons, not everyone likes Italian food. So if there are dishes that I feel like.

have very prominent, like one of my favorite dishes that in the entire world, including one of my favorite dishes that I make is a very classic Italian dish, pasta with sausage and broccoli rabe, right? Broccoli rabe is a very bitter green. The bitterness is part of the dish. And the only other ingredients in it are Italian sausage, pasta, cheese, right? And garlic, right? Right. It is a very... If you... That's a grown-up taste.

It's it's a more forceful dish than most. When people think of Italian food and they're not actually like Italian American and they just think of, oh, like spaghetti, meatballs, pizza, whatever. Like they're not thinking pasta, sausage and broccoli rabe. And so it is. I wouldn't make that for a bunch of guests because it's like, you know, here's this weird thing that you've maybe never had before. That doesn't feel like a crowd pleaser. Yeah, because it's like...

It's just, it's not, maybe they've never, you know, want to feed someone something they've never had before. If you don't think this is something that like, that is right up the middle. That's just within line with like the cultural taste that everybody likes. Right.

Right. Same thing for like, I can imagine for other cuisines, like Indian cuisine, there are the crowd pleasing ones that you think most people will like this. It's kind of right up the middle versus the ones that you actually really like that you wouldn't serve to guests with any expectation that they, because, because people will eat it to be polite. You don't want to.

serve somebody something they're like well i mean like i know it's i know it seems like a strange thing to say because you don't cook it let alone for company but think about sushi where there's some kinds of rolls and nigiri that almost everybody can get with. And there's other kinds that I find pretty challenging. You know, the ones like the sea urchin.

um the one that looks like a tongue and stuff like that or i don't really love i think seafood in general is pretty fraught just forget about sushi just any kind of as you're as you know any kind of seafood some people i basically don't eat seafood at all And if you are like a seafood family, maybe you'd be like the right up the middle kind of seafood and maybe you'd hope people would like it. But if like the sort of off to the side things like, you know, so there's so I feel like that is like.

When cooking alone, you don't have to worry about that at all. When cooking for the family, you have to worry about it a little bit. When cooking for guests, you have to think way differently of just like, hopefully you know the people who are coming to your house. What do I think will be okay? This is why Rick and Devin have dinner parties with no food. Right. And that's how you end up in a situation where you're like, we've had people over too much.

We have to start repeating things because we literally, I don't know how to make anything else that I think people would like. So you end up making the same things for the same people and just like, you know, it's, it's tricky. But yeah, cooking for yourself gets rid of all that because all you have to worry about is what you think. And the other thing you can do with cooking for yourself is try things you've never tried to make before. Maybe try things you've never eaten before.

That's something you wouldn't do when cooking for anybody else. Yeah, and to really overstate the obvious, you have a curiosity about it. I can... pivot this to a real world example there are a lot of things where i know this is kind of lame as the the sort of ersatz host but there are things where i'll say to my family look um this is a thing i've been wanting to try

And it's not a normal way, it's not a normal thing we make, or it's not a normal way we make it. We do things a little differently here. Yeah, is this your first? But sometimes I'll say that to them. Usually it's a little bit of false modesty because I am from Ohio, and that's... we always enter apologizing title. Like always, like as soon as you enter the room, you're already apologizing for everything that's wrong.

You know, I got to say completely off topic, but like, don't do that. If you can avoid apologizing for your food. That's what Julia Child says, right? Yeah. Well, the phrase I learned from my ex, great phrase, just in general for stuff like this. It sounds counter-revolutionary in this age of fake care, but never explain, never apologize.

When it comes to hosting. It was just straightforward. Like never apologize about your food. Just serve it. And it's like Christmas morning where you're like, oh, I was going to get this. Like it doesn't help people. But like I will sometimes take a little bit of a flyer. do something weird. Now, Madeline and Billy both, all three of us have New York times subscriptions and we all use it a lot, but those two use it a ton to get recipes.

Right. So like they make, they find and make, Billy started making this thing that is just, I don't know where he came up with this, but it's a kale salad that also has, he like, have you ever peeled? Chickpeas, like garbanzo meats. He peels them and then like sautés them so they're crispy. It probably came from TikTok.

oh yeah that makes sense i get a lot of recipes from youtube there's a lot of youtube cooking channels i make and yeah i'll watch i'll see the recipe on youtube and i'll make it that night well yeah i'll see kenji kenji you know kenji got divorced and he's really hot now and very slender and uh and kenji kenji will do like a thing with like how to how to do this

or how to make these eggs or whatever, and I'll try that. But no, I would do that. But like, I would never have the ambition to try that for strangers unless it was... not strangers, but like if it was people who were close to us and that was part of the joke is like, Oh, we're going to have a fun. Like we used to have a, um, you're at raclette. It's kind of like fondue. Like we used to have a raclette set.

that we used, I think, exactly once. But you can do fun stuff like that. It's not so fun because it's like fondue except you melt cheese in this little dish and then slide it onto bread. Is it like petty for us in terms of pronunciation? Is that what you're saying? I said raclette wrong. I don't. Well, petty four is what we call that thing, right? Really? I thought petty fours were kind of pastry.

yeah right but no i said petty i'm saying that's how we pronounce that we pronounce it petty for us because we're from the 70s oh instead of like what petite flowers right exactly we totally americanized it they're just petty for us i think raclette sounds to me like a totally americanized version of however that's the second time this week i will say aloud christian dior my butt yeah um uh but

And, you know, and like the thing is, but there is like, oh, we don't have time for this, but there's a whole separate thread of this, which is how to be a good host. And I have a lot of thoughts about how to be a good host. I have a lot of thoughts about how to be a good host. Never have people over. Step zero. Yeah, the zeroth. No, but like, well, you know, for example. Second rule is don't have people over. I can't even tell you the first rule again. I'm sorry. You wouldn't understand.

A lot of people misunderstand that, including, according to you, Blank Check. Yeah, totally. Wait, did you go back and do the Fincher series? Yeah, I'm jumping all over the timeline there, so I was in the middle of the Fincher one. Did you ever listen to the Carpenter series? I think you'd really like it.

No. Well, here's the thing, John. I wouldn't recommend it to you unless I thought it was worth listening to. They're all in the queue. I've got a lot of John Carpenter. We're talking about the show blank check with Griffin and David. And a terrible new artwork. It's not as charming. It's terrible. Why? Is it too plain? It's too purple. I mean, now you don't like it. I'm asking you why. It's not as charming. It looks plain. It doesn't look good at small sizes. It's not good.

Hmm. It's interesting. So you're aware of how something can look okay at one size and not as good when it's smaller. I am aware. Huh. Anyways, um, we're talking about food. Um, so another thing of being a good host, all there's all kinds of tricks. We should do a whole special on this. Maybe it'll be a challenge some week, but like, for example, um, we both have so much experience entertaining. Never. I used to entertain a lot.

Did you ever tell you about how I put dirty dishes in the attic? Throwing someone a beer, as I said, on your couch is not the same thing as entertaining. I did not ask you to beer me. I did not. Uh, you can give people jobs, people come early and never make people feel bad. Like there's all kinds of ways of like helping to put, put people at ease. But, um, anyways, but you know, food, food can be an adventure, but I guess maybe another question then is like.

Do you have more to say about the cooking part? But my question really is like having introduced the idea of like you get to watch any movie tonight by yourself, how you want. That's one of mine. Are there other things like this? Are there other things where left to your own devices, where you get to run the entire experience?

I think we've done a good job of talking about the ways that we sublimate our desires to try and barely please other people. But when you get to do your own thing, okay, you ever have your wife go out of town and you get to bed to yourself? Have you ever, or like for that matter, everybody's out of town. You get the bathroom to yourself. This sounds weird, but like I sleep in the bed differently when I get the bed to myself. I cook differently. I choose differently.

for whatever reason, anytime my family's away for one or two nights, I watched Dr. Strangelove really loud in a dark room with the phone off. Like, are there other things like this for you? Am I touching a nerve with any of your... by yourself things. So interestingly, uh, having a dog really.

Changes that because having the bed to yourself, do I have the bed to myself or has my dog just taken over the position my wife was formerly occupying, right? Don't throw me the briar patch. A beautiful dog. Being able to set your own schedule. Yeah, except for the four times a day you got to take the dog out. A dog is something, just to be clear, a dog is something you would like me to get. Is that correct?

Yeah. No, you need the structure in your life. I need the structure in my life. There is some minimum amount of structure provided by the dog that means like, oh, if everyone's gone, you can sleep real late. Well. Can't sleep that late because you got to take the dog out. You can go back to bed. Sometimes you get to do things the way she wants. Yeah. Well, I mean, she does have her vacation. She gets, you know, she stays with her.

doggy friends when we go away on vacation and stuff. She gives like a doggy Marriott or something. Yeah, no, we have someone who takes care of her. I just read today that you need spa treatments for your dog at hotels. I should show you some videos. The guy posts videos sometimes. I would love that. I would love anything you want to send me about Daisy because she's a precious angel. Who knows what she gets up to when she's over there.

Well, it's good. It's like how Billy used to try new foods. Billy's much more likely to try new things when he's with his aunt in particular. And maybe your dog is making some friends, you know, and being willing to try some new spicy foods, dog foods. Right, but most importantly, I'm not the one who has to take her out when she's there. That's a real problem for you. You really don't like taking your dog out, do you?

I do, but it does provide, like, it's unfixable. It's the hard landscape, as you would say, of the calendar. It's like, whatever else you think you're doing today, I can tell you four things you are doing today.

The doctor would call it a fixed point in time. Like, it's non-optional the dog goes out four times a day. Right. At very specific times, the dog absolutely knows about. Oh, because she likes when she makes brown at a certain time of day, you want to... her that well it regardless of what she's going to do out there she knows don't sugarcoat it john it's time for her to go what do you do when your dog has to take a you take it out

The dog goes out on a fixed schedule. It's like a kid, you know? You got a kid on a fixed schedule? First thing in the morning, and then noon, and then before dinner, and then once before bed. You haven't found a way to love that? I do like it. You should be able to find it. Well, yeah, but it seems like you could turn that into a game. We love games. But whatever. I'm not here to criticize your dog, but I do take your point.

So all I'm saying is that it doesn't actually give the freedom of like, oh, everyone's gone. OK, but you're also but like also let's just let's say another thing. You're also even when you're by yourself. we're calling this cooking alone because that's the branded name for this project, but it can mean lots of other things. But for now, let's just leave it to cooking alone. Like you still can't set the place on fire. You still can't, you know.

make over much. Maybe if you're in an apartment, you can't actually play your music too loud. Correct. Correct. Or like I think about like when we've, oh my God, there's this place we went on our honeymoon and we've stayed several times. I think it's closed now, but it's an amazing place.

called Olima Druid's Hall. I'll send you some photos. It's an amazing place. And there's one of, they have several of these rooms where you can get one that's like, oh my gosh, that's the nicest room in terms of actually living that I've ever stayed in. It's, oh my.

God, the place is extraordinary. And with all the best, like a Viking range and all the stuff. And like, if you're willing to go to some little like backwoods, you know, grocery store, you can get everything you need to cook there. That's where I would get very experimental. I would make, you know, the kind of comfort food things I like, like cooking.

stake inside like a person without setting off the smoke alarm but also like other things where like i'm not going to bother anybody by doing that but to take your point your dog related point you're always still constrained by something

But, like, I don't know. I take it, I enjoy it, and I bank it when I get to do something my way. And back to the other thing, which is not important, except that it is, writing on the calendar when people are going to be home. In this case, my wife. Like, I want to be out of her way. I don't want to be underfoot. But I do need my Thursdays. And to an extent, my Tuesdays. Tuesdays and Thursdays usually be my classic. You want your wife to write on the calendar when she'll be home? Yes.

I wish I knew my wife would be home. She has no idea whether she's coming home at all, ever. Well, no, I'm answering you honestly, so I would like you to honestly say why you think that's weird, because don't you get why I'm asking that? Oh, no, I get it, but I don't feel like the cat, like what I...

Here's my expectation, which is not met, which is... uh come home roughly the same time uh you know on each day and if you're going to vary from that time significantly before or after just give me a shout out text me or whatever that's fine but like but like you know the work stuff oh god i can't even talk about

what's happening with work stuff. Jesus, this poor person. But here's another example that only people like me think about, I imagine, until I find out other people. If I need to do a project. Because I've got, you know me, I've got projects. And let's say I've got a project like I, you remember my floor project from a few months back? And it involved lots of things and lots of steps. Here's the thing. There's...

For me to be able to do certain kinds of things, there's a fairly immovable, large amount of cleanup and finishing. If you like, you know, fit and finish idea. Like there's a fair amount of cleanup and finishing involved with those projects. So if I'm doing a thing where I've cleaned the floor, I've gotten all the gunk off the floor. I've like maybe more or like when I do the carpet cleaner, we've got a really cool carpet cleaner. that I like a lot. But like, I can't just do that in an hour.

I need to plan ahead. I need to like vacuum the steps. Are you kind of with me on this? And when I'm done, I need to make sure the steps are dry and I need to make sure there isn't splatter all over the walls. I need to allow like 90 minutes. of cleanup, at least, because whatever the job is, nobody will appreciate what job I did if it looks messy when they get home.

Right. So I'm not complaining, but I am saying like, when I say, when are you coming home? I'm not doing that because of something illicit. I'm doing it because I want to know when I have. A countdown to you coming home that I can then make the place nice. I could, in many cases, honestly, I have to wrap way earlier than I would have liked because there's just not time to wax the entire floor by hand.

and get it cleaned up before they come home. Do you know what I mean? That's why I put it on there. In addition to like, I respect, hey, hey, listen, listen. I respect my wife. And I do. I don't want to be underfoot while she's here and working in meetings and all the stuff. And like, anyways, that's a separate issue.

But I think it's related in the sense that, you know, there's stuff I only do when they're gone for at least a night. A famous one is doing anything with my cast iron pans. We're doing anything with like a big cleaning of. the range and the oven, which takes this surprising amount of work to get right. Like, what's the alternative, John? They come home and the top of the range is in the bathtub because they've been spraying.

crud cutter on it and cleaning it like by hand. I've spent my entire day, I guess I am complaining a little bit, but I don't get credit for that part unless they come home and it looks like we have a housekeeper. So that's why I ask.

Well, that's what I'm saying. Like the system that I feel like would be adequate for me, which I do not get to be clear, which would be fairly consistent return home time with any deviation. Give me a heads up. That's mostly what we do. And I mostly know it's mostly fine. Yeah. And I don't get that. I get wildly inconsistent time with no heads up. And the main concern I have about it is usually I'm safe doing like a.

A project, the big ones that I usually have are like cleaning the office, which is the thing that I undertake, which takes a surprising amount of time because there's so much crap in this office. If I could ask, what's the biggest part that's... What's the biggest hump in cleaning? The office is tiny. Because you've got to, I mean, also, anytime you actually clean something rather than just, quote, organize it, there has to be a lot of undoing.

Yeah. To like get it right. Taking things out of the room. Couldn't it be, couldn't it be minimizing like a project I've needed to do for two years, minimizing the number of cables that are attached to nothing in the credenza where the TV stuff is like anytime I want to like the thing. Jesus, John, that's maybe the best example. Any of that stuff, I need a block of like six hours to do that. It's not a thing where I can like, oh, I'll just remove one cable today and that'll be fine. Like, no.

Like in building toward this process of like, we want to try a thing where we move the credenza and the TV to the other side of the room, like baby steps toward that. That is not the kind of stuff that I can do in an hour or 90 minutes.

And I will get yelled at if they come home and the internet doesn't work and the house is upside down. Zero credit for that. I'm hoping those things mostly I do not on a regular basis, but cleaning the office, I do on a regular basis because things always get dirty.

Speaking of six hours, making ice is another thing that I do on a regular basis, which literally takes six hours. And it's the worst kind of six hours. It's like the there's a lot of programmer jokes related to like the hellish scenario of being interrupted every 15 minutes.

Like it's just as you get back into just as you sort of spool up again and get the whole program into your head and you're about to do work, you get interrupted again. Well, the ice machine needs to be tended on a fairly regular schedule, which it's not 15 minutes. It varies, but it's like.

It's just short enough that you can't actually do anything. You're Desmond. Yeah, so like, so for... No, no, you're Desmond on Lost. Yeah, because like, just when you think you're getting going on any other thing you're going to do, you got to go do the ice.

Right. And so it's just, and for six hours, this goes on. It just, because that's how long it takes to go through all the, so you're, you're, I'm due for my monthly cleaning right now. I can already see some of the goo accumulating in my ice maker. We've talked about this.

you really got to clean an ice maker. Like you really need to clean it or it's, or it's going to be bad. Yeah. And that's, that's the other one. Speaking of things alone, that's, you know, my wife says, Oh, I'm running out of ice. You know, you gotta, it's gotta be an ice day tomorrow or whatever. Right.

She's always telling me. She says to you, it's got to be an ice day tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow's got to be an ice day. And what I told her, and I think she was shocked. I just imagine looking like Baron Harko. I think she was shocked to hear the first time I said this to her. I said, tomorrow can't be an ice day. It's a week. And you're both home. And it's like, why can't you make ice with other people?

God damn it, John, you're the only one thinking about how this all connects. Why can't you make ice with other people at home? Like, you don't understand what's involved. I cannot make ice with other people at home because I have to tend to the ice machine as my number one priority or otherwise it's going to take seven or eight hours and nobody...

wants to do that it's a thing that i can only do when nobody's at home because when other people are home they have things that they want of me well and like with me it's not just that i need 10 minutes to season my cast iron pans like again see also the cleanup time i need enough time to run all of the fans. So it smells like nothing has ever happened at our house. If you want pans to cook in, I need to be able to do that on

a somewhat regular basis, you're not going to notice. I think you're seasoning your pants too much. You're over seasoning. Am I? Yeah. I think if you do it once and do it well, it should last a real long time. Okay. Can I ask a question? What if somebody just put a pan somewhere that's still in water? Oh, no. What's going on in this house? No, no, no. The thing is not a lot of water. Not a lot of water. What is it about the walkaway with less than a shot glass of water in it? Yeah, yeah.

Did you see the, uh, the, so our, our AD vice president went up to Vermont and all the people who were holding out signs to insult him as they should. Uh, and there was two good insult signs that I saw. Did you, are you aware of the story? No, no. All right. So one, the one, he went to Vermont to go skiing. right after being a terrible person. And one of the good signs was JD Vance skis in jeans. Why is that a burn? It's a very strong Vermont burn because people from like, you know...

not from Vermont, let's say, come up there to ski and try to go skiing in jeans. That's like some kind of like suburban pose. It's a terrible idea because we have humidity on the East Coast and skiing in jeans is just terrible. Right. And the other one was J.D. Vance. is cast iron pot and a dishwasher. That's pretty funny. I think you can relate to the cast iron pan one. Skiing with jeans is the same thing, but Vermont. Okay, we should wrap this up. You know, there's that thing I say sometimes.

I say it to you. Sometimes I say it to my family. Somebody will say something to me and there'll be a beat. And I respond by saying, do you care? And I'm not saying that. to be a jerk but really no i'm not well okay but like hear me but like when but like okay but like let's take an extreme example that's completely made up which is Why is the house full of smoke? And my response to that would be, do you care?

Because I can tell you that like, oh my gosh, I'm so sad there's smoke. I know you don't like smoke and it should always be in my way. But if you care, I'll tell you why there's smoke, which is you did not write down on the calendar when you'd be home. And I... had set aside my entire day to do nothing of consequence except do this thing. It doesn't matter. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Listen, it doesn't matter what it is. All that matters is it's a thing you'll be pissed about.

If it's not taken care of someday, it's a completely thankless life janitor of life task. The thing that I've got to do where it won't matter today. Get my back on this, John. But like soon enough, you'll be bummed that this is how it is. Well, they might say, how about we just don't own cast iron pans? That would be their solution. What if somebody grabbed that wok?

Because they decided they wanted to make tofu. They grabbed the wok from the wok area, and suddenly it's a whole thing. Oh! It's rusty. See, I was trying to enjoy my night. I'm just I'm just as God made me. I'm sitting on the couch. I'm watching television. So it's great that we're doing a two old, two middle-aged white dudes podcast where we sound like 50s housewives. And you're the one who constantly wants speed. We're perfect. Just because it's unseen.

doesn't mean it's not real, John. Yeah, yeah. So now it's my job, I feel like, to go and take care of that because, you know, from the people who brought you, why don't you just use some soap and a... sponge in hot water to clean that thing that made you sad. Now I'm the guy who's got to go and deal with that. Because however that happened, and it doesn't matter how it happened, I don't actually care, but like, you're going to grab that.

And then that reflects poorly on me because the walk had rust in it. And like, I, God, there's a phrase, Scott Simpson. In walk. Wait, I should know this. Wait, is that, is that B-52s? Yeah. Wait, is it? Yeah. Tin roof rusted. Tin roof rusted. Ah, I got it. Tin walk rusted. That's what I was going for there. Boy, this went in a direction I really didn't prefer. Well, you know. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to everybody. I still, I do have a list, right?

I made a list here of the kinds of things, the worst kind of six hours. Some other things I want to talk about where I think my family's deranged. But there's a wonderful phrase we don't have time to talk about. wonderful phrase that I think we all need to spend some more time on is emotional labor and that idea of like who does emotional labor in your life you know what I mean because I think it's not

And of course, like, so, I'm sorry, I forget. You're watching White Lotus, right? I am. So the thing that I found, the thing that immediately, one of the things, numerous things, that immediately hit me with that show from S1E1. was how much, and especially with the relationship with Jennifer Coolidge and the African-American woman. I'm sorry, you told me in text that you're watching this. I apologize. But the emotional labor that all of those people have to do.

Like they have to do so much. The woman who's tending to the Parker Posey family. What is her phrase? Oh, that's so wonderful for you. She's Australian now. Love her accent. Oh, God, I love her. She really just wants Jason Isaacs to put his phone back. God, that shows just magic. But emotional labor, and I extend that way beyond. the perfectly cromulent way that people use it, which is to say like, you know, the way that women end up having to do a lot of.

emotional labor that can include a lot of just stuff guys aren't good at or don't do, a lot of the support stuff that they do, it all falls on them to take care of that stuff. And if I can steal a little bit of valor, I think sometimes that falls on somebody who's not a woman. And you've got to do a lot of not very interesting, not very sexy, not very clean stuff.

to just keep the trains running. You know what I mean? And like, it's, I would love for it to be just seamlessly effortlessly invisible. But it's not. And sometimes I've got to say, like, if you don't want a rusty walk, you got to get the hell out of the house sometimes. Trying to make a National Lampoon's Vacation joke with Rusty as the kid. I didn't come up with anything.

Oh, let's see. First beer after the station wagon crashes. That's probably a line where Chevy Chase uses his son's name, where he talks to Rusty. Can I do my... I don't know if it's the exact line, but... That's the one I remember. I'll kind of give you my favorite line. Can I help you with that? Please? Remember when she stirred the Kool-Aid with her arm? Did every time my friend Michael Ferguson made out with her in New Jersey?

Problematic. In what sense? You don't like kissing? Daddy says I'm the best at it. And the side pony? Yeah, right? Mm-hmm. And what does it do? What is it called? Beef your bologna? What's it called? Do you ever... Bop bop. You ever bop your baloney? They went to a theme park in New Jersey where they both lived. Lived in, I forget the name of the town. Lived in New Jersey and they went, Michael and Jane Krasowski, I think that's her name.

You know, the woman from the TV shows, 30 Rock and whatnot, went to a theme park together. I think they kissed a little. Michael's like what I would look like if I was handsome. He used to be. Yeah, I know. Hey, wait a minute. Why is my D&D not on? Is this because of the president? Oh, man. Okay, I'll fix this. I'll have a good president joke for you, but I'll save it for the after show.

Well, if you want to listen to the after show, it's so easy. You go to relay.fm slash RD slash join. But in any case, thank you everybody for hanging with us through this. I like the sign off thing you're doing now. Really bookends the intro part. Keep going. I don't want to interrupt you. No, no, no, no, no. Now you ruined it. You ruined it. No, we've developed a relationship. That's fine. Nice pause.

That we've developed a relationship, that's fine. I'm the dad, I'm the dad, and you're the kid who thinks he's really smart. And I let you continue to believe you're really smart. And I say to you, I say, no, no, shh. We're both. And I say to you, what would you like to do?

And then you make some kind of quacking noise about how, no, I'm only good at discovering what's bad. I say, how would you like to begin? How would you like to end it? Is that what the quacking noise means? Nobody knows how to pronounce my name. You know what I realized watching Godfather? one again is it fair to say you would like it pronounced well you know i don't want to spoil the movie but the guy who kills apollonia is that how you would like your name said remember

He points to. No, they're saying it in Italian. I don't speak Italian. But do you like the way he says Syracuse in the movie? He says it like the Italian city, but that's not how you pronounce my last name. How do you say it? I mean, an Italian person can say it the way. I say Syracuse. You know I say Syracuse. You've said Syracuse. Everyone knows Syracuse. It's real easy to say. Everyone gets it.

Except for Leo Laporte, but it's fine. Laporte, sorry. See, I can't even pronounce his last name either. We're even now. Yeah, no. It's actually... Mm-hmm. He calls it... Petty Forrest, Bracklet, and Leo Laporte. He's Leonette Ports now. Yeah. From the people he trusts.