Episode description

TOPIC: Not So Much

This week, Dan and Merlin eschew ““topic”” to freely discuss razors, beef, They Might Be Giants, prolapse, Genesis, dogs, Spider-Man (and -Womyn), pretender marteenies, truck butt, the lonely plaster casts of our youth, blind harmonicists, those awesome blue IKEA bags, ceviche, E.L.O., Goldenberg's Peanut Chews, bumping, hypoglycemia, how Merlin named his daughter, Hyman Roth, endive, and, of course, The Big Lebowski.

Then, they go and blow it all by unintentionally having a really useful discussion about Merlin's three key elements of optimal and sustainable workflows.

Links for this episode:

• [SPONSOR] Squarespace
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• Templates.scpt
  OmniFocus is an incredible piece of software. I and countless others rely on it every day to manage increasingly hectic lives and complex, multi-facetted projects.This script is an effort to reduce one of the largest sources of friction remaining in my OmniFocus setup: maintaining and creating projects that don't recur on even intervals, but occur frequently enough that their planning and capture becomes a time sink.
• Arnold Robbins - O'Reilly Media
  Arnold Robbins, an Atlanta native, is a professional programmer and technical author. He has worked with Unix systems since 1980, when he was introduced to a PDP-11 running a version of Sixth Edition Unix. He has been a heavy AWK user since 1987, when he became involved with gawk, the GNU project's version of AWK. As a member of the POSIX 1003.2 balloting group, he helped shape the POSIX standard for AWK. He is currently the maintainer of gawk and its documentation. He is also coauthor of the sixth edition of O'Reilly's Learning the vi Editor. Since late 1997, he and his family have been living happily in Israel.
• Arnold Rothstein - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Arnold Rothstein (January 17, 1882 – November 5, 1928), nicknamed "the Brain," was a Jewish-American racketeer, businessman and gambler who became a kingpin of the Jewish mob in New York. Rothstein was widely reputed to have organized corruption in professional athletics, most notoriously conspiring in the fixing of the 1919 World Series.
• Hyman Roth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Hyman Roth is a fictional character in the Godfather series of books and films. He was a Jewish investor and a business partner of Vito Corleone, and later his son Michael Corleone. He is based on the late Florida-based mobster, Meyer Lansky, and played in the movie by Lee Strasberg.
• Meyer Lansky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Meyer Lansky (born Meyer Suchowljansky; July 4, 1902 – January 15, 1983), known as the "Mob's Accountant," was a Russian-born American organized crime figure who, along with his associate Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the "National Crime Syndicate" in the United States. For decades he was thought to be one of the most powerful people in the country.
• 5by5 | Systematic #33: Merlin Mann - Failing gracefully
  Merlin Mann guests to talk about failure, success and self perception in an organic and enlightening conversation.
• Store Lemons in the Fridge to Keep them Juicier Longer
  The folks America's Test Kitchen wanted to see how to keep lemons juicy and fresh as long as possible, and the answer is simple: put them in a zipper bag and toss them in the fridge. [via Joel Housman]
• Open Compose Takes You Straight to Gmail's New Email Window to Avoid Inbox Distractions
  Chrome: Your inbox gets distracting […] and sometimes you just want to send an email without seeing everything else requiring a response. Open Compose lets you click a button and compose a message in Gmail, no distraction required. via: https://twitter.com/ledlow/status/307536687746134016
• Back to Work, so you can be creative and collect comics — PIE Isn't Easy
  Andy introduced me to Merlin Mann last year, and since then I kind of feel like we've moved in together.?
• Unix in a Nutshell, Fourth Edition: Arnold Robbins: 9780596100292: Amazon.com: Books
  Unix in a Nutshell is the standard desktop reference, without question. (Manpages come in a close second.) With a clean layout and superior command tables available at a glance, O'Reilly's third edition of Nutshell is an essential to own.
• Tarsier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Tarsiers are haplorrhine primates of the family Tarsiidae, which is itself the lone extant family within the infraorder Tarsiiformes. Although the group was once more widespread, all the species living today are found in the islands of Southeast Asia.
• Amazon.com: Avenging Spider-Man: My Friends Can Beat Up Your Friends (9780785157793): Zeb Wells, Joe Madureira, Greg Land, Leinil Francis Yu: Books
  Back in the team-up biz! He's been Amazing, he's been Spectacular, he's been Sensational. Now, Spider-Man is doing a little Avenging, and he's brought a few of his pals along for the ride. Ever the social animal, the wallcrawler has a proud tradition of fi ghting side-by-side with heroes from across the Marvel Universe. And now that he's a card-carrying member of both the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, he can't go far without swinging into a teammate or two. Step forward the rascally Red Hulk, the hotheaded Hawkeye and the legendary Captain America as Spidey bonds with Earth's Mightiest Heroes!
• Amazon.com: Panasonic ES8103S Men's 3-Blade (Arc 3) Wet/Dry Rechargeable Electric Shaver with Nanotech Blades, Silver: Health & Personal Care
  
• Amazon.com: Braun Series 7- 790cc Pulsonic Shaver System, Silver: Health & Personal Care
  
• Amazon.com: Braun Clean & Renew Cart Shaver Refills Frustration Free 4 Pack: Health & Personal Care
  
• Genesis - “Turn It On Again” (Duke; 1980) A very... | kung fu grippe
  A very painful confession. I often listen to this song on repeat literally all morning.
• The Tourists - "I Only Want To Be With You" (1979)
  Hit single promo video featuring Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart a mere 12 months before leaving the band to form Eurythmics whilst on tour in Australia.
• The Tourists - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  The Tourists (1977–1980) were a British rock and pop band, but are better known for two of their members (Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart) who went on to achieve great success as Eurythmics. The band formed around a nucleus of two musicians from Sunderland in north-east England, Peet Coombes and Dave Stewart.
• Wallace Shawn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Wallace Michael Shawn (born November 12, 1943) is an American actor and playwright. His best-known film roles include Wally Shawn in My Dinner with Andre (1981), Vizzini in The Princess Bride (1987), and Rex the toy dinosaur in the Toy Story animated film series.
• The Smart Set: Movers and Shakers - March 4, 2013
  What’s the difference between SkyMall and the Shakers? One creates products for comfort, the other for independence.
• Paleo Recipe: Robb Wolf’s Nor Cal Margaritas
  Ingredients: 2 shots (4 oz) of clear alcohol – we used Rum, Robb uses Tequila; juice of one lime; club soda; ice
• They Might Be Giants - "Ana Ng" (1988)
  Make a hole with a gun perpendicular to the name of this town in a desktop globe. Exit wound in a foreign nation, showing the home of the one this was written for.
• Amazon.com: Ultra Pro Resealable Current Size Comic Bags
  Stores current (modern) comics. Bags measure approximately - 6-7/8 x 10-1/2-Inch plus 2-Inch flap. Resealable tape closure on flap. Made from 2mil ultra clear polypropylene. Acid-free, archival quality, safe for long-term storage. Sold in packs of 100.
• SimplicityBliss
  BY SVEN FECHNER
• Cue - Know What's Next - for iPhone and web
  Cue enhances your existing calendar by automatically connecting your events to related phone numbers, people, and addresses. Cue makes it easy to contact the people you care about, get to where you are going, and stay informed.
• Noodlesoft | Hazel
  **Your Personal Housekeeper** Hazel is a System Preference pane that works silently in the background, automatically filing, organizing and cleaning.
• How I went paperless with Hazel and Evernote | Macworld
  That process isn’t necessarily difficult, but it is tedious and repetitive. Multiply it by the half dozen or so statements I receive in any given month, and it’s easy to see why I decided to automate the process.
• Flexibits | Fantastical for Mac | Meet your Mac's new calendar.
  Fantastical's natural language engine is expressive and intelligent so you can write in your own style. Even better, Fantastical automatically recognizes the location of your event and can even invite people from Contacts (Mountain Lion) or Address Book (Lion and Snow Leopard) to your event.
• [VIDEO] White Stripes - "Fell in Love with a Girl"
  She says, 'Come and kiss me by the riverside. Bobby says it's fine—he don't consider it cheating.'
• Led Zeppelin IV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  [Jimmy] Page has explained that the cover of the fourth album was intended to bring out a city/country dichotomy that had initially surfaced on Led Zeppelin III.
• [IMAGE] Baby covers et al. from Dan
  Nobody sends a CARE package like Dan Benjamin sends a CARE package.
• FRAKTA Shopping bag, large, blue - IKEA
  Easy to clean; just rinse with water and let dry.
• Rectal prolapse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Rectal prolapse (rectal procidentia) refers to a medical condition where a section of the wall of the rectum prolapses (falls down) from the normal anatomical position with associated pelvic floor dysfunction. This may occur while straining to defecate, or during rest.
• Urban Dictionary: docking
  
• Genesis - “Dancing with the Moonlit Knight” (Live;... | kung fu grippe
  
• Pentateuch (disambiguation) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  

This week's episode of Back to Work is sponsored by Squarespace (use offer code "CASH" for an additional 10% off).