Ep. 295: "Big Mike"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
John: How's it going?
John: Good.
John: Good.
John: How's your jackhammer?
John: Oh, it stopped jackhammering recently.
John: Man.
John: Yeah, I had a little jackhammer this morning, but there's not that much pavement out here by my house.
John: So it doesn't take that.
John: It's not like somebody on a New York City street where the jackhammer is just going all day.
John: Because they got so much pavement.
John: Yeah, here it's mostly, you know, it's just mostly dirt.
John: You just have to jackhammer out a little corner or something.
John: What are they doing?
John: They got to dig up dirt.
John: Lord only knows.
John: I mean, it's not like the city really cares or does any maintenance on this neighborhood.
John: So it must be something really serious.
John: Maybe they found some pirate gold.
John: I had a donut, though.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Yeah.
John: What kind of donut do you have?
Merlin: Well, I had a chocolate donut.
Merlin: A chocolate all the way through or a frosted glazed?
Mm-hmm.
John: I don't like donuts.
John: I like cake donuts.
Merlin: You like old-fashioned cake donuts?
Merlin: Cake donuts.
Merlin: It's the only kind I like.
Merlin: I'll be hornswoggled.
Merlin: I like, my daughter and I both like the glazed with the frosting on top.
Merlin: I also like, you got to be careful when you go to Dunkin' Donuts.
Merlin: I've eaten the booger on this one a few times.
Merlin: Uh-oh.
Merlin: Uh-oh.
Merlin: Where you say you want a glaze, chocolate glazed, and they'll give you another one that I like, which is a very cakey, all-chocolate donut with a real jizzy sugar coating on it.
Merlin: Oh, I know that one.
Merlin: I know that one.
Merlin: You ever have the jizz donut?
John: Oh, for sure, for sure.
John: Yeah, that's a good ass donut.
John: It's a good donut.
John: I'm trying to go ahead.
John: Well, typically, you know, somebody will say like, oh, I'm going to bring some donuts.
John: And I say, you know, make sure you get lots of cake donuts.
John: Mm hmm.
John: And they're like, huh, yeah, sure, or whatever.
John: They give me some donut-tude.
Merlin: Oh, that is so dismissive.
John: And they bring, like, let's say they get a dozen donuts and it's got two cake donuts.
John: Well, that's fine, right?
John: That's fine.
John: But then they open the box and then they eat one.
John: And then it's like, oh, okay, now there's one cake donut.
Merlin: Oh, that's intolerable.
Merlin: And then there's 10 other donuts.
Merlin: They know better going into this.
Merlin: If they're going to take one, three is two, two is one, and one is none.
Merlin: If you take one of the two remaining donuts, then there's really none left.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: One boy does the work of one boy.
John: Two boys do the work of half a boy.
John: And three boys do the work of no boy at all.
Merlin: That's so good.
Merlin: I did not know that.
Merlin: It's like that with horses.
Merlin: I learned from a bim-bam that horses, horses, many horses work more than the sum of the horses.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Two horses are more than two horses?
Merlin: Two horses.
Merlin: It's a horse gestalt.
Merlin: And the horses are more than the sum of their horse parts.
Merlin: Interesting.
Merlin: Oh, so if you have 10 horses, what is that like?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I'm not good at the maths.
Merlin: But I think something happens.
Merlin: Maybe they forge a bond.
Merlin: It's like a Voltron, except for a horse.
Merlin: I think horses are very, very interesting.
Merlin: They're majestic creatures.
Merlin: They are majestic.
Merlin: But that's okay.
Merlin: So, you know, I think we stipulated a long time ago.
Merlin: You had a real good beef that has entered the lore, which is the whole we can all agree on cheese problem.
Merlin: Now, I just want to clarify.
Merlin: I think when you're asking somebody for an opinion about something...
Merlin: And you kind of know they actually have an opinion.
Merlin: Them not giving you the opinion is very frustrating.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: We've covered this.
Merlin: We covered it with the we can all agree on cheese problem.
Merlin: I've covered this separately with the what do you want for dinner problem.
Merlin: Because I'm asking you because I want the help.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Now that I've got a kid, I'm here to tell you one corollary to we can all agree on cheese is don't get cute.
Merlin: When you order donuts or when you order pizza, don't be cute.
Merlin: Half of the donuts you get should be something that almost anybody can like.
Merlin: Always get more cheese pizza than you think.
Merlin: Don't get clever.
Merlin: Don't get the vegan margarita deep dish.
Merlin: Get a bunch of fucking cheese pizza because anybody can eat cheese pizza.
Merlin: All the cheese pizza will be gone.
John: That's right.
John: Lay it down.
John: And I say that over and over.
John: Do you think that's the exception that proves the rule?
Merlin: Is that a contravention to Roderick's cheese pizza observation?
John: Absolutely not.
John: The difference between always get more cheese pizza than you think you're going to need, and I refuse to agree on cheese, is that we can all agree on cheese differently.
John: It was a conversation between three adult men where one of them had a plan and was trying to make it seem like it was that his plan was the best plan.
John: He had a secret pizza plan because he was a duplicitous diner.
John: He was.
John: He did not want to put his neck out there and offer pizza.
John: his choice what he wanted was to do what he wanted to do was to phrase his choice as though it were the inevitable jesus christ behold the centrist voter exactly you're not helping fucking anybody buddy whereas what are you the pizza cop the all the uh the all more order more cheese than you want that is i mean that's basically like pizza for the table
Merlin: I like large pepperoni for the table because my feeling is and I realize that I am a partisan because I like pepperoni.
Merlin: I'm a pepperoni partisan.
Merlin: I feel like you could pluck off the pepperoni pieces unless you're an ardent anti pepperoni person.
Merlin: You could probably roll with that.
Merlin: Yeah, I'm just saying that like if you go galaxy brain on this, you're going to realize there are a lot of options.
Merlin: If it's a multi pizza setup, there should always be a cheese pizza.
John: I was at a party not very long ago, an event, not a party.
John: It was an event where we were, there were multiple paid performers.
John: Okay.
John: And the promoter got pizza for everyone.
John: There were 10 of us there that were doing the show.
John: This was like backstage pizza.
John: And all of the pizza was vegetarian.
John: It was like, veggie combo, vegetable medley.
John: And I was like, did you get a pepperoni?
Merlin: And he's like, oh, no.
Merlin: That way everybody can have seven different pieces of fucking pizza and it'll all be vegetarian.
Merlin: I was like, wow, that's weird.
John: And so I said, oh, and I guess there was cheese.
John: And every single person back there took one slice of cheese and then there were four untouched vegetarian pizzas because nobody wants vegetarian pizza.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: This goes so much deeper than I realized.
Merlin: Here's another problem.
John: Even vegetarians don't.
Merlin: Well, okay.
Merlin: Well, here's the problem.
Merlin: There's a concept I feel like I don't know where or from whom I learned about this, but the concept of the – what do they call it?
Merlin: The low ceiling and the high floor.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: So the problem is like there are very good vegetarian pizzas.
Merlin: They are often quite costly.
Merlin: And it's not just a bunch of fucking watery vegetables aspirating on a regular cheese pizza.
Merlin: The problem is if you get a cheap ass vegetarian pizza, it's going to be a bunch of like weeping broccoli.
Merlin: It's going to be fucking burnt broccoli and weeping peppers.
John: And that's not making anybody happy.
John: You're talking about the pizza that's like green sauce, that's got artichoke hearts on it.
Merlin: That's like, those are good vegetables.
Merlin: My understanding of the low ceiling on the high floor, it applies in politics and voting and stuff like that.
Merlin: But the way I think of it is there are some kinds of food that are a little bit hoity-toity, but no matter how hoity-toity they get,
Merlin: They often can only get so good.
Merlin: Whereas there's other kinds of foods.
Merlin: You take something like a stew.
Merlin: I would consider a stew a high floor meal.
Merlin: We're like, it's hard.
Merlin: It's pretty hard to fuck that up.
Merlin: A meatball.
Merlin: The worst meatball you've ever had is still better than a lot of the fancier foods you've ever had.
John: High ceiling, low floor.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: Does it make sense?
Merlin: Be careful who you're ordering from.
Merlin: And listen, let's apply some science to this.
Merlin: If you're getting multi pizzas, you know what?
Merlin: They're available in different sizes.
Merlin: So if you want to get, you know, if you want to get the real crazy ass pizza, maybe get a small or a medium of that.
John: Yeah.
John: But it's, you know, what it is, is it's virtue enforcing, right?
John: Virtue enforcement.
John: This guy wanted everybody in the group to be a vegetarian or he wanted them to all know that he was a vegetarian or something.
John: I don't know.
John: I don't know what it was.
John: You know that the ultimate expression of pizza for the table is pancakes for the table, right?
John: Like if you go to a group – if you go to breakfast with a group of people –
John: Talking about any size group from bigger than three.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And whenever three or more of him are gathered in his name, there should be pancakes for the table.
John: Everybody wants pancakes, but nobody wants to blow their order on pancakes.
John: You know, like everybody's looking at the menu.
John: They're like, oh, what if I get on the face of that?
Merlin: That already makes so much sense to me on both accounts.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Because you think you want pancakes.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But then you get this six-inch stack of flapjacks, and all of a sudden you're headed for nap country.
John: Sure, that's not what you really wanted.
John: What you wanted was a Benedict or even a veggie omelet, or you wanted a little something, a little something savory.
John: And so you walk in, just lean over, just like the pizza for the table, you just lean over and just say, large stack of pancakes for the table.
John: What is that, six bucks maybe?
John: Nothing.
Merlin: It's nothing.
John: Table steaks.
John: And then pow, it arrives in the middle and pancakes are very shareable.
John: Everybody cuts a little slice of pancakes for themselves or as little as you want.
John: And I guarantee you a stack of pancakes for the table, there will still be pancakes left over.
John: So good.
John: And if you really want pancakes, you can get more pancakes.
John: You can get silver dollars and get strawberries on them.
John: You can get pancakes with your omelet.
John: You can say, can I get pancakes instead of hash browns?
John: And the person will say, let me ask.
Merlin: Breakfast is a movable feast.
Merlin: It will always say yes.
Merlin: You can get anything the way you want.
Merlin: Now, my family, when my daughter and I go out to breakfast at that little diner near our house that you've been to many times, what we frequently do is like, so I want my own bespoke savory breakfast.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: She wants what's called the breakfast special, which is two pancakes, usually scrambled eggs, and two link sausages.
John: Oh, she likes the sausage, not the bacon.
Merlin: She likes the sausage, not the bacon.
Merlin: She's real picky about bacon.
Merlin: When I make bacon, she makes this face.
Merlin: And then she strips off the meaty bits and leaves behind the fatty bits.
I see.
Merlin: So if she could have – but then I can't convince her that that's actually what makes it good.
Merlin: So that's fine.
Merlin: But what we'll do, though, is then for the table for me – so I'll get – because it's a diner and it's a high-floor, low-ceiling situation, I will get two eggs over easy with home fries, not hash browns, and usually ham.
Merlin: I'll get a ham steak.
Merlin: Oh, that's nice.
Merlin: And what we get for the table is the corned beef hash.
John: That would not fly at my table, but that's a personal, that's a family thing, it sounds like.
Merlin: Well, that's what makes every family is different.
John: Yeah, every family is different.
Merlin: But there are some, boy, the ordering for the table is such a great move.
Merlin: It's so good for everybody.
John: The thing about ordering for the table is a stack of pancakes shows up there and you don't have any?
John: Nobody notices, nobody cares.
John: It's there for the table.
John: You can just tear off a little strip, you know?
John: The thing about the donuts, here's the thing about the donuts.
John: And this is a tricky one because there are a lot of people that don't take home the leftovers.
John: And then there are some people that do.
John: And I'm a take home the leftovers type of person.
John: Now, if there are four people, if there are less than four people, but someone's buying a dozen donuts, which happens, right?
John: Oh, I'm coming to the thing.
John: I'm going to stop.
John: I'll get a dozen donuts.
John: But there's only three people at this meeting or something.
John: Anytime there's going to be leftover donuts, typically I am going to want those donuts later.
John: I'm going to look at, I'm going to survey a scene.
John: There's going to be like six donuts in a box.
John: I don't want to throw those donuts away.
Merlin: This is even setting aside the fact there are very rarely leftover donuts.
Merlin: Well, but in a situation for a little while, they're going to go someplace.
John: But any, you know, in Seattle, at least you can't eat two donuts.
John: The donuts up here are like one donut is four donuts.
Merlin: For me, for my problem, and I know this about myself.
Merlin: And so I tend to just say you guys enjoy yours because for me, it's either zero donuts or six donuts.
Merlin: Well, I very rarely eat a donut and a half.
John: Six donuts.
John: Because that's how they get you.
John: My kid would eat six donuts.
John: She'd sit there right in front of you and eat six donuts.
John: Shit, dog.
Merlin: I do that in New York Minute.
John: Six donuts right to your face.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: But for me, what happens is I say, get cake donuts.
John: And the person goes, eh.
John: And they get a thing with a couple of cake donuts.
John: And then there are six donuts left because nobody wanted the four maple bars.
John: But if those four maple bars were...
John: were cake donuts I would take them home but they're not they're maple bars I don't want those so what the person does is they say I'm not going to get cake donuts because nobody likes them then they get a couple which immediately get eaten and then there's all these maple bars that they thought they were doing the world a favor by ordering maple bars and then I got right now at this very moment I have a box of maple bars in my kitchen
John: Because everybody ate the good donuts out of the dozen donuts.
John: And all you got left is maple bars.
John: Who eats maple bars?
John: You have to be a truck driver to eat a maple bar.
Merlin: Yeah, like a Canadian truck driver.
John: You have to be there to fix the copier.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: To be the one that.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I think a lot of people, this is not, I don't mean this to sound like a judgment, but I think when a lot of people buy food for a group, a known group, or maybe an unknown group, maybe it's a plus or minus thing, you're not sure how many people are going to show up for this talk or what have you.
Merlin: I feel like they buy too much based on a combination of variety and visual appeal.
Merlin: And that leads you into your bear claws.
Merlin: It leads you into your, what do you call them, maple bars?
Merlin: Maple bars.
Merlin: You know, and you end up getting these ones that when they're all on a plate, because you're buying visually.
Merlin: You're not thinking, I'm not going to eat every one of these donuts.
Merlin: So you end up buying, oh, here's a few everybody likes.
Merlin: Here's a few other ones.
Merlin: And then you get some wackadoo ones.
Merlin: And then that's going to look good on a big platter.
Merlin: But the truth is, if you're going to Krispy Kreme, just get two dozen glazed donuts and they will go.
Merlin: They will go.
Merlin: I used to work for a guy who used to like to be a hero.
Merlin: He'd go out to Krispy Kreme on the weekends for his family and get donuts.
Merlin: And I found out at length that he would buy two dozen donuts and he would eat a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts on the way home and still look like a hero.
Merlin: You ever have a Krispy Kreme donut right after it comes off the line?
Oh my God!
John: Krispy Kreme opened a store up here about 10 years ago with great fanfare.
John: There had never been one before.
Merlin: Donuts got big.
Merlin: Krispy Kreme!
Merlin: In the time before the Atkins era, Big Donut got big.
Merlin: Krispy Kreme grew and grew and grew.
Merlin: And it became like, like you say, it's like an event.
Merlin: There's a Krispy Kreme in town.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
John: Yeah, it was an event.
John: And people lined up, lined up to go to this thing.
John: And, you know, like in most things like that, I kind of wait.
John: I wait for the hullabaloo to die down, but not so far down that standards began to slide.
John: And so I went to the Krispy Kreme.
John: Did the thing.
John: I paid the field tea.
John: Had a Krispy Kreme donut.
John: It was fine.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: I hate to be that guy.
Merlin: I don't mean to be Philly cheesesteak guy.
Merlin: It was a hot off the donut donut and you were just merely normal donut for you.
Merlin: No big deal.
John: Because what I like is a cake donut.
John: You like a cake donut.
Merlin: We're back to this.
John: I like a cake donut with frosting.
John: And so this was just like, oh yeah.
John: Or if I went to the supermarket and got a donut that had been sitting there all day, I would enjoy it about as much as this because this isn't the kind of donut that I like.
John: You ever microwave and done it for five seconds?
John: I have.
John: It's pretty magic.
John: You know, I have microwaved almost everything for five seconds.
John: I mean, I've never put a living thing in a microwave.
Merlin: Do you have a sense of the wattage you're working with?
Merlin: I think I have a high wattage mic.
Merlin: I have a very, very, very high wattage microwave.
Merlin: So I take that into account.
Merlin: It takes less than you think.
Merlin: Like if we're going to defrost ice cream, even like a chocolate, we'll do 10 seconds.
John: Yesterday I made a little bit of a microwave error, which was I was making grilled cheese sandwiches.
John: But it was a series of steps, a cascading series of mistakes.
Merlin: Like so many.
Merlin: It starts out simple.
John: At one point during the school year, my daughter said, I don't like your peanut butter sandwiches.
John: And I said, I make the best peanut butter sandwiches in the country.
John: And she said, your bread has too many seeds and nuts and stuff in it.
Hmm.
John: Which, if you recall from your visit to Seattle, my bread does have a lot of seeds and nuts in it.
John: You like a substantial bread, a Germanic bread.
John: I like a bread that's got everything you can put in it.
John: Like a Prussian loaf.
John: Everything but the bread.
Mm-hmm.
John: And so I said, that's the best bread.
John: And she said, I, you know, because she's at school, right?
John: And she looks over and she sees some kid who's got Wonder Bread on a sandwich.
John: With the crust cut off.
John: Yeah.
John: And she's like, that's, you know, that's deluxe.
John: And I remember this.
John: I was the same way.
John: So I was like, I want my daughter to be happy.
John: I want to be a good dad.
John: Maybe I'm failing her because I'm
John: I work weird hours.
John: You know, I've never taught her how to how to how to shoot a crossbow like I'm doing a bad job.
John: And so I was at the store and there was some white bread.
Merlin: There were trains to catch.
Merlin: There were bills to pay.
Merlin: He learned to walk while I was away.
John: And I said, all right, I'm going to get I'll get a loaf of white bread for you.
John: So I got a loaf of white bread and I made her a sandwich on the white bread and it was fine.
John: It's just it's just trash bread.
John: But then the bread, you know, sat out on the counter for a while.
John: And because it's nobody wants it.
John: I don't want it.
John: You know, like the seedy bread.
John: I go through a loaf of it every few days.
John: Keeps it fresh.
John: But this bread just sat there.
John: So then eventually I put it in the refrigerator because it was sitting on the counter.
John: And it eventually ended up in the freezer.
John: And then it ended up.
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John: And so then it sat in the freezer for a long, long time.
Merlin: That's where things go to get freshened up.
John: That's right.
John: They have a second life in the freezer.
John: It ended up that I was out of seedy bread this weekend.
John: And I kept thinking like, oh, I got to go to the store.
John: I have all these things on the list to get.
John: I never made it to the store.
John: Last night.
John: So our across the street neighbors, the ones that moved into Jamaica's house, they're extremely, extremely wonderful people.
John: And every Sunday.
John: Are they back?
John: Are they back and like live in there now?
John: They're back and live in there.
John: And it turns out that Sundays they have.
John: what they call... What do they call?
John: Family dinner, I guess.
John: But it's like a come one, come all Sunday dinner.
Merlin: Oh, that's so nice.
John: And this was the thing where the cars... This is an African-American family, right?
John: They're an African-American family.
John: And this was the thing where the cars were parked all over everywhere on Sundays.
John: And I thought it was a church thing.
John: But as I've gotten to know them and gotten to be good friends with them, it's not a church thing.
John: They're just having Sunday dinner and it's a come one, come all.
John: That's so cool.
John: And the husband...
John: Big Mike says, um, sometimes I'll look around our Sunday dinner and I'm like, who are you?
John: How did you, who are you?
John: Why are you in my house?
John: How did you get here?
John: It's like Caddyshack.
John: Yeah.
John: He's like people come and it's just, it's fun, right?
John: I love to cook.
John: So I'm out cooking and we have a thing.
John: Well, recently, um, Big Mike has decided that he's going vegan.
Ooh.
John: yeah and so you know big mike used to do a big barbecue he used to do a big uh like fish fry there was a lot going on uh on the on the on the barbecue there uh but now it's uh things have things have taken a a dramatic turn and you really start limiting your options it seems to me but you're you're going into like mushroom country
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: If you're going to, when you're grilling for, I mean, isn't that right?
Merlin: Like when you go into grilling for the vegans, that's that you're kind of talking about a different sort of thing.
John: Yeah.
John: Right.
John: And, and, and, and so, and Casey has decided that she's going to try to be vegetarian since big Mike is going vegan.
John: Okay.
John: So we showed up to family dinner, uh, my little girl and I, and this is like a couple of weeks ago.
John: And Casey was like, well, we're kind of getting a little bit of pushback from our family because, you know, we're not really making any barbecue this time.
John: And I was like, oh, wow.
Wow.
John: This is confusing.
John: And, you know, and I've run into Casey a couple of times.
John: I'm like, how's the vegetarianism going?
John: And she's like, well, I slipped a little.
John: I had a hot dog.
John: But I'm back on it.
John: I'm back on it.
John: Like, I don't know 100% how sincere this project is.
Merlin: A lot of it is practicality.
Merlin: The times that I've been a vegetarian is because the person that I was with was a vegetarian.
Merlin: And especially when you don't want to do a lot of shopping or don't have a lot of dough, it makes sense to get things that the household can use.
Merlin: It doesn't make sense to have pork loin sitting around.
Merlin: No.
John: Well, so yesterday afternoon,
John: My baby and I are out in the garden and we're doing an art project.
John: And she says, are we going to family dinner at Casey and Big Mike's?
John: And I said, yeah, let's go across the street and see what's cooking over there.
John: So we ring the doorbell.
John: Does she mind going?
John: Who, Marlo?
John: Yeah.
John: She prefers it.
John: Oh, that's so cool.
Merlin: Wow, that's so cool.
John: What a great thing.
John: I'm so glad you're doing that.
John: Yeah, she loves it.
John: She loves them.
John: They're wonderful.
John: And so we go over and Casey opens the door and she's like, Mike's not here.
John: I forgot to tell you we're canceling family dinner.
John: Um, her little boy was on a, on a ragged tear.
John: Uh, but she's like, you know, I hate to leave you stranded.
John: I was like, you're not responsible for feeding us.
John: She was like, no, but you expected.
John: And I'm like, we didn't expect anything.
John: We live across the street.
John: She's so gracious though.
John: She's like, well, I could make you a chicken pot pie.
John: And I was like, but you're a vegetarian.
John: And she was like, yeah, I know.
John: But
John: And I'm like, you don't need to make me a chicken pie pie.
John: I have a whole house that's right across the street.
John: And so we stood there and we spent like an hour standing on the porch talking about what we could possibly feed our kids.
John: She says her two kids do not eat macaroni and cheese.
John: They refuse to eat it.
John: What?
John: I was like, this is one of these like alternate universe.
John: Situations down 9-1-1 that's something's not right, but so I so so Baby and I came back across the street.
John: We're a little bit like no, no, no No family dinner over at Casey and Big Mike's What is there to eat at daddy's house?
John: We're going through the refrigerator.
John: We're looking at things.
John: It's really pretty bleak I went too far before going to the grocery walk right up to that line.
Oh
John: So I pulled the white bread out of the freezer and I was like, what about grilled cheese sandwiches?
John: And she said, great.
John: And I said, what about grilled cheese?
John: And I'm going through the cupboards.
John: And I'm like, what about grilled cheese sandwiches and clam chowder?
John: And she was like, amazing.
John: And I was like, those two things together are disgusting.
John: Like grilled cheese sandwich and clam chowder together.
John: That's disgusting.
John: That's going to be an evening of family loogie hawking.
John: She's like, I'm in.
John: So I'm like, oh, why did I agree to do this?
John: Like, this is a terrible, terrible meal.
John: But I do it.
John: I make the clam chowder.
John: So I tried to dress up the bread a little bit by taking the frozen white bread and toasting it first, then buttering the toast, and then making a grilled cheese sandwich by frying the toasted bread.
John: And it almost...
John: pulled it off.
John: Like the bread is so stale.
John: So the, the freezer has sucked whatever moisture was left in it.
John: It's just like, it just has the consistency of cardboard, but like with enough butter and enough different, like, like twice.
John: It's a vehicle for savory at this point.
John: Yeah.
John: And she's super happy with it.
John: You know, she's a kid.
John: She's just like, Oh, this is at least there's no salad.
John: Yeah.
John: But I made one for myself and I got it.
John: made.
John: And I'm looking at it and I take a bite out of it and it just, the bread just doesn't have, still lifeless, you know, still like, still just cardboard.
John: And I said, you know what it needs?
John: Just 10 seconds in the microwave.
John: The final level of reanimating this dead bread is going to be that 10 seconds that's just going to, you know, it's just going to like, I don't know how the microwave does it, but it just sort of like wetens it up.
Merlin: It's like throwing your jeans in the dryer.
John: It's like throwing your jeans in the dryer.
John: You give them a little hop off, a little freshen up.
John: Yeah, a little freshen up.
John: They're warm to pull on at first.
John: They're not clean, but they're not as dirty.
John: And so I did it.
John: But the problem was 10 seconds was too long.
John: Oh, no.
John: And then the cheese in the grilled cheese sandwich, which was already melted from the pan...
John: It just like, I turned my back on it for a second and I looked in and it had just like work.
John: Did it lose its structural integrity?
John: Yeah.
John: So I pulled it out and I put it on the, so I walk over to the dining room table where my little girl is waiting for me to arrive.
John: And I put this thing down in front of me and she said, you made pancakes?
Merlin: Oh no.
John: And I said, no baby, that's my grilled cheese sandwich.
John: And she was like, it looks like a pancake.
Yeah.
John: I said it does.
John: It does look like a pancake.
John: Don't worry, sweetie.
John: You have a good one, and we have half a can of clam chowder each, and Daddy's going to eat his grilled cheese sandwich with a knife and fork.
John: And, uh, and in the end, we're both alive today.
John: Like we both survived the night.
Merlin: So I'm doing a great job.
Merlin: But you weren't, you know what?
Merlin: You were a man in a corner and you did what you thought was right.
Merlin: You know, tell her you're practicing for that novel, The Road.
Merlin: This is what the future is going to be like.
Merlin: You'll be lucky to have half a can of clam chowder.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: You didn't get eaten by Big Mike.
Merlin: So it's a good day.
John: We, uh, we're, we're going to be carrying around wooden spoons and, and fighting over a can of dog food.
John: Certain point.
Merlin: Uh, it's, it's a struggle and, uh, and there's no, there are very few things that you can always count on that will be palatable to a child.
Merlin: And this is, this, if there's any one story that runs through my adventure in fatherhood these last 10 years, it's that you never, you never really get it.
Merlin: You're always going to get it for a minute and then it's gone.
Merlin: So I mean, stuff like, you know, for a lot of kids, so macaroni and cheese is still a pretty guaranteed winner unless it's too fancy.
Merlin: She doesn't like it too fancy.
Merlin: Chicken finger type things are generally pretty good.
Merlin: Steak, what we call red steak.
Merlin: Red steak in small amounts is pretty palatable.
Merlin: Pasta, pasta almost always good.
Merlin: But so then I'll try to stock up.
Merlin: Like she got really into those fancy crackers.
Merlin: She went through this phase for two weeks where she liked brie on a fancy cracker.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: Yeah, because she's a fancy duchess.
Merlin: Oh, she's a duchess.
Merlin: And so I got her those fancy, not matzah, but you know those one kind of crackers?
Merlin: They're sort of, they look sort of rustic, those rustic crackers.
Merlin: And I thought ahead, and I got like three bags of those to have around in the pantry.
Merlin: Because, boy, I get to be the hero.
Merlin: Here's your brie and fancy crackers.
Merlin: And she cooled on that pretty fast.
Merlin: I've found a very limited number of things that can truly be a go-to.
Merlin: But they, I mean, how's your kid with pasta in general?
Merlin: My kid, I make her some angel hair and she puts cheese on it and she's pretty happy.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Can she roll with just regular old pasta?
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Don't you feel kind of bad?
Merlin: Don't you feel like you're being kind of a bad person?
Merlin: It's so easy.
Merlin: It's so easy.
Merlin: It's four minutes.
Merlin: It's four minutes, and then it's food, and it's really just wheat, wheat and water, wheat, water, salt.
John: Well, I say to her all the time, listen, here's what we eat typically, you and to a lesser extent, me.
John: Bread and cheese.
John: And she's like, uh-uh.
John: And I'm like, look at this.
John: What is this?
John: What is this cheese quesadilla?
John: It's bread and cheese.
John: She's like, all right.
John: Well, what is this?
John: What is this pasta here?
John: It's just bread and cheese.
John: What is this?
John: It's just bread and cheese.
John: It's just stringy bread.
John: It's all bread and cheese.
John: And we have to add one other thing to bread and cheese.
John: And she's like, beans.
John: And I'm like, okay.
John: Yes.
John: Okay.
John: Beans, bread and cheese.
John: You know, now we're up to prison food.
John: Okay.
John: You've reached like a Papillon level of dining.
John: Yeah.
John: Like, come on and push.
John: Let's push the envelope with one other thing.
John: And she's like, uh...
John: sour cream and i'm like that's not a thing that's just cheese you're just saying names of food and uh and so it's you know it's a constant she she didn't go to like broccoli or green beans no no and she will eat both things but that's not broccoli has always been a strangely goat i recently found out that my uh my daughter is a super taster
Merlin: that she and her, in accordance with another podcast I do, the challenge was to find out if you're a supertaster.
Merlin: I'm a recessive supertaster, and I found out both my ladies are dominant supertasters.
John: Really?
John: Supertasters?
John: There's been some suggestion that I am one, but I've never tested it.
Merlin: Where do you test it?
Merlin: Well, I'll send you some test strips.
Merlin: You can get test strips off Amazon, that's how we did it.
Merlin: And you taste these four different strips, you get it administered to you real scientifically, and then you identify, what does this taste, do you taste something or not?
Merlin: and uh i won't give it away but basically if you do if you do this and this and this and this tastes bitter and this doesn't it's a you might be a super taster and super tasters usually evidence as people who are picky eaters but especially don't like foods regarded as bitter you don't like a brussel sprout you don't like a broccoli that kind of thing or like in the case of my friend alex like all she wants to eat is white bread
John: Yeah.
Merlin: White bread and French fries.
Merlin: See, I don't like French fries.
Merlin: You don't like potatoes.
Merlin: You say to them, you say, don't even put it on the plate.
Merlin: Don't even put them on the plate.
Merlin: And if they show up, if they put the plate on the table.
Merlin: If you put potatoes on my plate, I'm going to send it back.
Merlin: I've been there.
Merlin: I've seen it happen.
John: See, I'm not my sister.
John: My sister will send something back.
John: You sent it back?
Merlin: I was with you and your millennium girlfriend and you sent back potatoes.
John: Oh, I guess.
John: And you were so polite about it.
John: Sometimes I say, can I have an extra plate?
John: And they're like, oh, sure.
John: And then they bring an extra plate and I put the potatoes on it.
John: My sister sent back a Benedict the other day, and it was one of those restaurants that wasn't doing a very good job.
John: So we spent, I mean, a Benedict takes a while to make, but it came and she was like, it's cold.
John: Basically, the sauce is out of the freezer.
John: Yeah.
John: Or out of the fridge.
Merlin: Benedict has a lot to mitigate against it.
Merlin: It has three of the primary food serving problems.
Merlin: It's got toasted bread, which gets cold very quickly.
Merlin: It's got eggs, which are easy to overdo and get cold very quickly.
Merlin: And then it's got a disgusting jizzy sauce that can get really gross if it's not served right.
Merlin: And the sauce breaks.
Merlin: You don't want your sauce to break.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: It's a lot to manage if you're not used to making a Benedict.
John: It really is.
John: And it's one of those things where you say, you want to say to somebody who's running a restaurant, look, man, a Benedict's hard.
John: If you can't do it, just take it off the menu.
John: Just don't like, just don't do it.
Merlin: Was it classic?
Merlin: Was it like a Canadian bacon or was it one of those BMW ones with salmon?
Merlin: It was something that fancied up.
John: Yeah, it was salmon.
Merlin: Sometimes they'll put a bacon for a quarantine.
Merlin: You put some spinach on there.
John: And those are delicious.
Merlin: I'll eat those all day.
John: I find that's a good room service meal.
John: She says, I can't eat this because it's cold.
John: Can you do this better?
John: And she takes it back.
John: And...
John: And it's one of these fancy restaurants, fancy breakfast places.
John: Were they there for brunch?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Okay.
John: Was it busy?
John: No.
John: That's a bad sign.
John: Brunch is usually very busy.
John: Yeah, not enough to justify this.
John: I think they were understaffed maybe.
John: She seemed busier than she needed to be.
John: Okay.
John: But so we ate our entire meal.
John: And my sister just sat there waiting for her Benedict.
John: Oh, no.
John: And then it arrived after everyone else had like...
John: pushed their plates away.
John: I kind of walked out of that experience going, you know what you want at breakfast?
John: Not fancy.
John: You know what you want for brunch?
John: Not fancy.
John: I bet Susan said, oh, it's okay, no big deal.
John: She was fine with it because Susan is a very, very... She didn't demand satisfaction.
John: She has a very good sense of calibrating...
John: When a person is when a person in a service industry is overwhelmed or above their pay grade, like she can sniff out when somebody is clearly not doing their job out of laziness and incompetence.
Merlin: And she weighs for that in her response.
John: Yes.
Merlin: I have so much respect for that.
Merlin: So much respect for that.
John: If a person is like super, uh, shitty, uh,
John: in their job, my sister will destroy them.
John: But if a person is just too dumb for their job or too like, or just, um, understaffed or some kind of jerky situation where it's not their fault, she's very, she, she saves her ire for the, for the place that it belongs.
John: So she'll find the manager and let them have it.
John: She's not just going to sit and be a,
John: be mean to a server if she feels like the server is completely underwater.
Merlin: I love the way she wields her power.
Merlin: That takes some class.
Merlin: That takes some class and some maturity to be able to set aside your emotions about what's happening from what you could effectively do about it.
Merlin: It happens so often when you're dealing with customer service people and you're talking to the messenger and it can be so difficult to not end up making dumb threats and acting like a dick.
John: Yeah, she was a waitress for a long time.
John: She's worked in all the services.
Merlin: It's a leavening experience to work in a kitchen and be a waiter, both of which I've done.
Merlin: It changes a lot about how you look at stuff.
Merlin: But it's certainly on the one hand, yes, it makes you very forgiving and it makes you pretty much a good tipper for life for most of us.
Merlin: But it also makes you keenly aware when somebody's just fucking phoning it in.
Merlin: When were you a waiter?
Merlin: Let's see.
Merlin: I was a busboy for a couple years in high school, and I was a waiter for less than a year in college.
Merlin: And it sucked because A, I worked breakfast, B, in a tourist area where C, there were tons of Germans.
Merlin: Oh, dear.
Merlin: Now, listen.
Merlin: Listen.
Merlin: We've learned our lessons.
Merlin: We don't want to be insensitive about other cultures.
Yeah.
Merlin: German tourists are not big tippers.
Merlin: You ever been with somebody who doesn't tip on principle?
Merlin: You ever been at the table where you got to split the check and then one person's like, I just don't, I don't tip or I always tip a dollar.
Merlin: Not in 20 years.
Merlin: It happens.
Merlin: It happens.
Merlin: It was a tough gig, but you know, really also it was a very small place.
Merlin: It was one of those places that started primarily as a bakery and then became a, like a cafe bistro kind of place and
Merlin: And it was pretty shitty that wanted to be fancy.
Merlin: Like, we made cappuccino by having espresso with chocolate mix in it.
Merlin: Like, it was pretty shitty.
Merlin: But, like, it did make... Working breakfast is a different kind of experience.
Merlin: Working lunch can suck because people tip more at dinner.
Merlin: It's just a fact of life.
Merlin: They spend more.
Merlin: They get drinks.
Merlin: They pay more.
Merlin: And I was a breakfast and lunch waiter, and it was...
Merlin: it was like being in Mossad or something, not being in Mossad, it was like being in the Israeli military for a year.
Merlin: Like it was a hell of a learning experience about the good and bad of people, what I could expect of myself, what it felt like to be truly exhausted at the end of working.
Merlin: It made me learn a little bit about life, to be honest.
John: Well, so Susan used to work at the Ivers on the waterfront.
John: And she would, it was one of those restaurants that it had a couple of different things.
John: A couple of disadvantages.
John: One was it's the kind of restaurant in Seattle where people who don't normally eat out save up for a special occasion.
John: Like we're going to town.
John: We're going to go to Ivers.
John: It's like event dining.
John: Yeah.
John: Never been to a restaurant before.
John: Come to Conestoga.
John: They gave us these cloths.
John: Where are you supposed to put them?
John: On your head?
John: The hard tech's not hard enough.
John: My Johnny Cakes need more Johnny.
John: So there are people like that, because it's a big restaurant, and they turn over a lot of tables in the course of a night.
John: And then it's also the place where the German and Dutch tourists come for their, like, we are in Seattle and we are having, we are having a meal.
John: We're going to go to this restaurant.
John: The man in the hotel said is good.
John: And so there's like six of them and they, and it's the type of thing like, give her one Gilda because she gave us, you know, cause there are 14 of us and she gave us like all the service.
John: And so she has been – she spent a couple of years working there dealing with like how does a server act when a table of nine tips her $1, either because they're German –
John: Enough said.
John: Or because they're Americans.
Merlin: And sometimes there's one rabble rouser in the bunch who wants to send a message.
John: That's the other one.
John: Oh, the one who's like, oh, I didn't get enough salt in my salt shaker.
John: We would give them a cure, but we would put it at the bottom of the Vasa glass.
John: That just shows them instructional things about being a server.
John: Let me just, as a word to the wise, if anybody here listening to the program ever thinks about doing that, there is a .0001% chance that your server will be my sister.
John: Let me disabuse you of the idea of trying to teach her a lesson by giving her a small tip.
John: That's enough of a disincentive.
John: It should be, because she'll take the skin off your face.
John: But the tricky ones are the ones where it's American people who just don't know how to be.
John: Like they maybe don't eat out a lot?
John: Or they just don't know how to be.
John: I mean, like, you know, like never been in a restaurant before or whatever.
John: Don't know that in the city you tip or whatever.
John: And so she's got a lot of stories about like, because I think the staff, I think the management there supported a certain amount of
John: like following diners out and saying, did you, did you forget?
John: Was this an oversight?
John: Was this intentional or was this an accident?
John: Because there's just this kind of, it's interesting, you know, the management supported that, but then, then Seattle implemented the 20% gratuity.
John: automatic on everything kind of thing.
John: A lot of restaurants here do that now.
John: And so the problem just kind of went away.
John: In fact, I got a picture text message from a friend who's visiting from Australia.
John: And she took a picture of her bill and she said, it says here that there's a gratuity included
John: What does that mean?
John: Because she had asked me earlier before she came to America, what am I supposed to do?
John: Is tipping really a thing?
John: Is this a thing I have to learn how to do?
Merlin: That's so wild.
Merlin: This shows you how utterly American I am, that I'm so surprised, aghast, amazed that people actually think that it's some kind of a scam or an urban myth, that tipping is an urban myth.
Merlin: Is that really a thing?
Merlin: Are there really chuds in the sewers?
Merlin: Do I have to leave 10%?
Merlin: No, you leave 20%, dude.
Merlin: So wait a minute.
Merlin: So if I go and I buy a TV, I argue with my German girlfriend about this back in the day.
Merlin: So if I go and buy a television, call a television set, I don't have to pay 15% on top of that.
Merlin: It's like, that's true, but this is food.
Merlin: This is a restaurant and this is our system.
Merlin: It's a broken system, but it's a system.
Merlin: And you are being a homemade dick if you don't tip the server.
John: It's so strange to people who don't do it that they really.
John: So I do.
John: People write me on their way to America and they say, you know, and I think it's because like I'm the fatherly voice they can trust.
John: You're the anchorman.
John: And they say, seriously, though, is this like, can you walk me through this?
John: Do I tip if somebody makes me a coffee?
John: And I'm like, definitely.
John: Yeah.
John: Ironically enough, you're going to tip way more.
John: Never tip less than a dollar.
John: Oh, my God.
John: She's putting her kids through school.
John: Do I tip if somebody pumps my gas?
John: And I'm like, nobody's going to pump your gas unless you're in Oregon or New Jersey.
John: And so don't worry about that.
John: But also, no, you don't have to tip somebody that pumps your gas.
John: You can.
John: There's no one in America who won't accept a tip except maybe like a maternity ward nurse.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: We gave ours a Starbucks card, if memory serves.
Merlin: A Starbucks card is another thing.
Merlin: And it's also that thing of never tip the owner of the restaurant.
Merlin: I was like, really?
Merlin: When I go and get Chinese food pickup near here, they've never said, oh, no, please don't give me $2.
Merlin: I'm the owner, and you've insulted me by giving me bonus money for your chow mein.
Merlin: That has never happened.
John: I have taken it now.
John: I've gotten to the point where I just take a quarter of the bill, 25%, and then round up.
Merlin: Is that right?
John: That's the amount that I tip.
Merlin: That's the irony.
Merlin: For smaller purchases, I do that all the time.
Merlin: I frequently tip.
Merlin: I don't go to coffee places that much unless the coffee is actually really good, but I can make my own coffee at work and at home.
Merlin: But if I go somewhere, I will frequently tip near 100% on a purchase.
John: A hundred percent.
Merlin: Well, I mean, not if it's like $20, but if I'm getting a, if I'm getting a coffee, I will frequently tip, you know, near at least 50%.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: Well, no, I mean, that's not that, I mean, do you leave less than a dollar when you buy a coffee places?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: That's what I'm saying.
Merlin: I mean, how are you buying like $5 coffees?
Merlin: What kind of coffees are you getting?
John: Oh, well, here's the thing.
Merlin: I don't really get fancy coffees.
Merlin: Would you go for a pastry?
Merlin: It's okay.
Merlin: You don't have to say.
John: I will get a pastry.
John: I get fancy coffees.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Don't feel bad about it.
Merlin: You owe it to yourself.
Merlin: You deserve it.
Merlin: What kind of coffee do you like to get when you get a fancy coffee?
John: Oh, I just get an Americano.
John: That's as fancy as I get.
John: That's espresso with hot water, correct?
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: That's a good coffee.
John: I can't justify anything fancier than that.
Merlin: I don't enjoy it.
Merlin: It's just a lot of milk most of the time.
Merlin: It's a lot of milk.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: When we were in New Zealand, they don't have mostly what we consider American drip coffee.
Merlin: They are an almost all espresso operation.
Merlin: So two things to know.
Merlin: Number one, a lot of espresso.
Merlin: Number two, they're really fucking good at it.
Merlin: And maybe 2B, it takes forever to get coffee, but it's so good.
Merlin: The people are so nice.
Merlin: The coffee is so amazing.
Merlin: And then when I came back, I had kind of switched to espresso.
Merlin: It's...
Merlin: Because you can do a lot with it once you've kind of gotten the taste for it.
Merlin: You kind of don't want regular coffee with a bunch of milk in it.
Merlin: I think the milk thing started.
Merlin: I think about my dear family that I grew up with.
Merlin: And they smoked Winston 100s.
Merlin: And they drank coffee with sugar and half and half.
Merlin: But what kind of coffee was it?
Merlin: I'll tell you what, buddy.
Merlin: It came from a big can.
Merlin: A giant can.
Merlin: They were in the pocket of big can coffee.
Merlin: And so it's understandable that you put a lot of half and half in that.
John: I've been wondering about maybe I should, at the supermarket, buy a big can of Folgers and see what's going on there.
John: When was the last time you had a cup of Folgers?
Merlin: That I was aware of?
Merlin: I don't remember.
Merlin: We're the worst kind of people because we usually get Pete's.
Merlin: or uh to make it home like dark roast uh really super dark roast uh peats my wife has discovered a coffee that she really likes we get off amazon which is low acid coffee and she swears by that now it's got a really good flavor and it's not as hard on your tummy low acid she loves that but i was actually going to tell you earlier i have recently started a new thought technology for coffee and it's so far it's been real good
John: I'm also working with a new thought technology, but I don't know if it's good.
John: Okay.
John: I want to hear it.
John: Let's hear yours.
Merlin: Mine's quick.
Merlin: Mine's quick.
Merlin: Do you ever go through stages where you want coffee in the morning, you make coffee, you drink it, and you're like somewhere between, this is fine to, I'm kind of over this.
Merlin: You ever have like you just get sick of coffee?
John: Yes.
Merlin: And maybe start introducing more half and half, maybe do something cute.
Merlin: So I've realized that about myself.
Merlin: Sometimes I'm just not in the mood for coffee.
Merlin: Definitely when I got a cold, for example, I'm not drinking so much coffee.
Merlin: This is so fucking boring.
Merlin: But what I've been doing, what I want is I take the Pete's
Merlin: And what I realized is that over time, I keep making it stronger and stronger and stronger.
Merlin: So we'll do a little, so we got this Melita, we got one of those Melita drip guys, and I'll do a number four filter in there.
Merlin: And I'll fill it, I used to fill it like halfway up.
Merlin: And and then I'd be like, this isn't that good.
Merlin: You know what I do now?
Merlin: I take the amount of coffee that I think I should make, which is about a third of that.
Merlin: And then I put in a little bit less.
Merlin: I put in less.
Merlin: I put in a couple tablespoons of coffee and I make that coffee and I drink that coffee in a cup, not a mug.
Merlin: And then I might have another one.
Merlin: I might have a third one.
Merlin: But I feel like I'm regulating it much better now.
Merlin: I'm enjoying the coffee more.
Merlin: It's got more flavor to it.
Merlin: Aha.
Merlin: So this is just a thing that I'm trying.
Merlin: You de-escalated.
Merlin: I'm de-escalating and I feel like I'm enjoying it more.
Merlin: It's going to need more time if I want to get a longitudinal study of how this is working out.
Merlin: But so far, I feel like I got the eye of the tiger.
Merlin: Strong like bull.
Merlin: I really like this plan.
Merlin: Just try it.
Merlin: Just try it.
Merlin: Now, you know, as we know, you get most of your coffee from making public appearances and getting a guest bastic.
Merlin: Correct.
Merlin: What are you drinking for coffee these days as we speak?
John: Well, what happened was what had happened was I was I moved out of my old office.
John: and I found that Keurig machine that I hadn't been thinking about.
Merlin: You know, I didn't know you moved out of that office.
Merlin: I wondered.
Merlin: I'm glad to hear it.
Merlin: I think that place sounded like a jam-up.
Merlin: I'm just going to say in passing, that sounded like a jam-up.
John: Yeah, as time went on, I just... You're paying all the money?
Merlin: You're not getting good internet?
John: You got fucking birds outside?
John: Yep, yep.
John: And I just figured I would just...
John: I moved there because in the early days of our show, I was recording from the house here.
John: You had one podcast.
John: I had one podcast.
John: I had one computer and I would sit at the computer.
John: This is before I had Twitter on my phone.
John: I would do our podcast and then I would think up some tweets and I would put them on their computer and
John: And life was grand.
John: But as as as the years went by, I didn't.
John: I felt like I wasn't leaving the house and I needed I needed to figure out.
John: I mean, if you go back and listen to our show, I'm sure my rationale for getting us an office space is well detailed in our program.
Merlin: I feel like once you get the idea for an office in your head, you can see lots of upsides to it.
Merlin: Once you can put aside what it's costing you, there are so many upsides to having an office that you tend to set aside all the things that are going to be really inconvenient.
John: And, you know, while I was at that office, I I did my weekly show.
John: That was my that was my headquarters for my for Roderick's Rendezvous.
John: It was the it was my campaign office.
John: Right.
John: It was I did a lot of things out of there.
John: But then it was time to move back, move the operation back to the house.
John: Anyway, I found among other things that I found in, in, in taking that office apart, um,
John: I found the Keurig and I was like, Oh, that's right.
John: This was a thing.
John: I used to go down to the office and I would make these little, these little funny kitchen area there.
John: No, there was a utility closet.
John: I mean, there's, you could just go to the bathroom and get water, but there wasn't any kind of, I think maybe up on the fourth floor they had a microwave, but they were like, like in a lot of four story shared buildings, um,
John: Art buildings or dormitories the fourth floor really thought that they were kind of a kind of a notch above everybody else typical fourth floor behavior Yeah, it's just like oh the fourth floor kitchen needs to be cleaned It's like the third floor doesn't even have a kitchen
John: Check your privilege.
Merlin: Check your privilege.
John: The second floor doesn't even identify themselves as second floor.
John: That's not even how they think.
Merlin: It's like a steam liner.
Merlin: You're down in steerage.
Merlin: Yeah, well, the first floor.
Merlin: You're down there doing Irish dancing while the ship goes down.
John: Those guys even have their own doors on the first floor.
John: They don't even think of themselves as a member of the community.
John: No.
John: Like a fiddles.
John: So I brought the Keurig back home and I put it on the counter and it was jammed in between the coffee maker that you bought me
John: and the soda stream.
John: And I was like, I got all this shit up here now.
Merlin: Yeah, you got too many things.
Merlin: And you know what?
Merlin: You're doing that thing now where it's in the primary operating area.
Merlin: That's too many things in the primary operating area.
Merlin: You got to cull.
John: So I took the coffee maker, and I was like, look, I still get...
John: I still get swag bag coffee pounds all the time.
John: I can't throw the coffee maker out because what am I going to do if I go to an event and somebody's like, here's seven things of coffee.
John: I'm not going to say no.
John: I'm not going to say, can I trade these for a Keurig's pouches?
John: Can I speak to your manager?
John: I was at Target the other day for some other reason.
John: I was there as an accompanist.
John: I was first violin on this trip to Target.
John: First chair trip to Target.
John: And I saw this big box of Keurig pouches.
John: They make a lot of different kinds.
John: I was like, I'm going to get those.
John: I'm going to get some of those because I have one of those.
John: I have one of those machines.
John: So I threw them in the cart because you're at Target.
John: It's just like throw it in the cart.
John: That's how they get shit.
John: There's 40 packs of gum.
Merlin: It's a regular Costco type situation.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: If I get out of there without buying two pillowcases and a 35 inch TV, I'm lucky.
Merlin: There's no other place whose doors I enter in which I end up buying impulse housewares.
Merlin: I need a pan.
John: Look at these spatulas.
Merlin: I want a pan.
John: Oh my God.
John: It's $18.
John: Good pan.
John: So I got it humped.
John: Talk to the pan.
Merlin: Only British people can fly.
Merlin: I still watch Mr. Show so many times.
Merlin: Kiss the pan.
Merlin: The pan kisses you.
Merlin: Kiss the pan.
Merlin: Do you remember what flavor you got?
John: Did you get a variety pack?
John: No, no, no.
John: I don't want any variety.
John: I just got dark roast, whatever it was, whatever the dark roast was.
John: And as in all things, I said, what's the biggest value?
John: I'm the dad.
John: I'm the dad that buys 40 rolls of toilet paper.
John: I was like, give me the one that has 40 in them.
John: But then I sat and I did the math.
John: And there was one that was on sale where the per item price was actually lower than the bulk one.
John: So I got the on sale ones.
John: Ended up being 70 cents or less per cup.
John: And I'm sure on Amazon I could get it for a lot less.
John: But I was at Target.
John: 70 cents a cup.
John: And now I hooked up the Keurig.
John: And for the last week, I've been going through these little Keurig pouches.
John: And...
Merlin: It's very consistent.
John: It's consistent.
John: And I'm doing the thing where I do two.
John: Every time I make a cup, I make two pouches.
John: Okay.
John: And I feel what you're saying.
John: I feel like I need to, like, I should probably de-escalate a little bit.
John: Go back to one.
John: Just live on one.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, you could try.
Merlin: I mean, look, there's so much about the Keurig.
Merlin: You know, you do have a lot of options.
Merlin: It is kind of costly.
Merlin: It does create.
Merlin: I'm not usually this guy.
Merlin: I don't like the amount of waste.
Merlin: Did you guys just get rid of straws?
Merlin: Is that you guys?
Merlin: We just made straws illegal today.
Merlin: We cut way back on our straws and I feel so much better.
Merlin: No straws.
Merlin: No more straws.
Merlin: We have straws sometimes when it is a need for the drink, but we're no longer grabbing bulk purchased six straws at a time because it's fun.
Merlin: Oh, I buy paper straws.
Merlin: I need to look at that again.
Merlin: The way my wife got on the Keurig train is at her workplace.
Merlin: And here's the thing about a Keurig.
Merlin: I mean, like, I mean, it's such a different mindset because you're so used to.
Merlin: The workplace thing, right?
Merlin: Yeah, I think so.
Merlin: But my workplace thing was, like, I was the one that always made the fucking coffee.
Merlin: Like, I would make the coffee twice or three times a day because I'm the one who wanted the coffee.
Merlin: And then you get all burned off and you get fucking coffee cookies and you get a stinky coffee pot because nobody's paying attention to it.
Merlin: The Keurig gets rid of that.
Merlin: The Keurig gives you a consistent product.
Merlin: I'll tell you what changed the game for my wife.
Merlin: She, her office Keurig, this is really high quality content.
Merlin: My wife's office Keurig has a dedicated bespoke water line unto it.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: So she doesn't have to go put water in when she wants her a Keurig.
Merlin: Don't say you what.
Merlin: She just goes slam, bam, thank you, wham.
Merlin: And she got her a Keurig in a cup.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: Hardwired Keurig.
Merlin: Oh, think about that.
Merlin: You know, like you're in a hotel room.
Merlin: I already do not feel great putting anything into a machine in a hotel room that's going to go in my mouth.
John: No, you won't touch the remote control.
John: How could you possibly?
Merlin: I made some Keurig when we were in Rhode Island, and I didn't feel great about it.
Merlin: What if somebody's having sex with that machine in some way?
Merlin: Somebody's fucked the Keurig.
Merlin: You know that somebody's not getting in there with bleach and cleaning the inside of the Keurig?
Merlin: A German came in that Keurig.
John: This is no good.
Merlin: That's a bespoke one-off, like a cum receptor.
Merlin: It's a cum receptor.
Merlin: It's a cum receptor.
Merlin: Well, that's the other thing.
Merlin: So the corollary to a man's assumption is that either something has been in someone's ass or it has been fucked.
Merlin: Almost everything in that room has been fucked.
Merlin: It has to have been.
Merlin: I mean, just the law of large numbers, John.
Merlin: Somebody's going to come in that room feeling a little bit randy.
Merlin: They're going to put on some pay-per-view, and they're going to come to the Couric.
John: Yeah, this is how hotels work.
Merlin: That's how they work.
Merlin: This is how they stay in business.
Merlin: That's why they're called hotels.
Merlin: And so my problem was we bought a Keurig and we started having mechanical problems.
Merlin: Ours would get jammed up and we'd have to keep cleaning the puncture nozzle, that big needle.
Merlin: We eventually left it on the curb, went back to the drip.
Merlin: Oh, no kidding.
Merlin: Left it on the curb.
Merlin: But you get options.
Merlin: If you're going to try the Keurig lifestyle, the nice thing is you do have a lot of options.
Merlin: You could try some various fancy coffees.
Merlin: But you need that pot.
Merlin: Like, what if you have brunch someday?
Merlin: What if you're making Benedicts for everybody?
Merlin: It'd be nice to have a way to not have to pay 70 cents per cup to make coffee for everybody there.
John: Yeah, it seems, though, it seems, though, like fancy and convenient are antithetical to one another.
John: it seems that way convenient and so how can you possibly have fancy it seems like it would be like the lunchables of coffee it does and every city every time i do it i'm i you know i have this picture of uh of all my friends who are like sitting there for 45 minutes doing their pour overs on a on an apparatus they get a scale john they get a scale and they weigh their coffee
Merlin: Yeah, they do.
Merlin: They weigh their coffee, usually in metric, and then they get metric water, and then they pour it over real slowly, and they got a method.
Merlin: There's apps.
Merlin: John, there's apps for this.
Merlin: There's apps for coffee pour over.
John: They have more glassware than a biochemist.
John: Then they got the little Pyrex and the thing and then the wood and all this.
John: And I think about them, as I said, and pop these little Target-bought little plastic glasses.
John: Containers in and I make a cup of caffeine grenade.
John: It's like that's fine This is just as fine as that I mean your thing that you spent 40 minutes making is just fine, too It's just like fine.
Merlin: Yeah that for me.
Merlin: That's a little bit of low ceiling I don't know definitely wine is like that but some coffee like and the thing is the thing that fancy coffee people like is a person who gets into coffee likes a lighter roast and then talks about it and
Merlin: That's not what I want either.
Merlin: I've had some lighter roasts that I think are fine, but I don't think... If coffee is fresh, I'm generally happy.
Merlin: You don't even need that.
Merlin: You'll leave it just sitting around, and you'll just have it through the day, right?
Merlin: Yeah, that's the other thing.
John: I'll leave it sitting around for three or four days.
Merlin: I don't think less of you for doing this.
Merlin: Target is intoxicating.
John: I've got a buddy that runs the concessions...
John: Which is to say he has the concessions contract for the for one of the big outdoor festivals here over the summer.
John: He doesn't actually touch any food or anything.
John: He just then subcontracts food trucks to be at the place.
John: But somehow it's one of the classic jobs where he's just basically skimming.
John: He's skimming.
Merlin: Oh, he's a food truck middleman.
John: Yeah.
John: He went to the people that are putting on the concert.
John: He said, let me have the contract for the food.
John: And they were like, great.
John: So when people say you got to know a guy, he's the guy you got to know.
John: He's the guy.
John: I mean, he's the guy in Seattle you got to know for everything.
John: And then he goes to all the food trucks and he's like, you want to be at this thing?
John: And they're like, yeah.
John: And he's like, great.
John: Here's the deal.
John: And they're like, great.
John: And then all he does is sit and just, I don't know what, just bathe in other people's money.
John: Cross my palm.
John: But I was hanging out with him at this thing the other day because I went to see Salt-N-Pepa.
John: I saw that.
John: Salt-N-Pepa.
John: And he's sitting there.
John: He's talking about his food concession contract.
John: And I was like, yeah, how's that going?
John: And he said, you know what my innovation was?
John: I was like, here we go.
Merlin: Really, that's a more general question about how it's going.
John: He said, I realized that we could be selling a lot more.
John: fancier bottles of wine than we're selling.
John: We used to just sell like wine in a cup here.
John: And, uh, and then I, and then I went to the wine people and I was like, let's start selling, let's start seeing, seeing if we can sell a hundred dollar bottle of wine at these events.
John: And, uh, and I was like, go on.
John: And he said, now we're selling 60 bottles of $100 wine every time we have one of these big shows.
John: Somebody buys it.
John: And I was like, somebody's at this stupid thing and they want to buy a $100 bottle of wine for their little blanket on the grass.
John: And it's another thing.
John: Like you're saying, it's the...
John: It's the wine and the coffee and the fancy.
John: And for me, like, I haven't had a drink of wine in 23 years, but I remember wine.
John: I remember what it tastes like.
John: I had good wine.
John: I had bad wine.
John: My uncle owned a vineyard, right?
John: So we had good wine.
John: We sat and talked about wine.
John: Also, I drank a lot of shitty wine.
John: I drank a lot of Thunderbird wine.
John: Sometimes you need to be a little more economical.
John: I drank MD-2020 in gallons, by the gallons.
John: And when you're sitting on a blanket at a Salt-N-Pepa concert, whether your bottle of wine costs $14 or $40 or $400, I just don't see it.
John: I don't see it being good value.
Merlin: It is smart to have available for a variety of reasons, especially with the innovation of the screw top.
Merlin: The screw top has changed a lot of things.
Merlin: I think especially after 9-11, never forget, you see the introduction of things that don't need tools to open.
Merlin: And the screw top has become, it's no longer, let's put it this way.
Merlin: I think a screw top is no longer a guarantee that this is shitty wine.
Merlin: Oh, I've heard this.
Merlin: And a 700, no, there's probably around 750.
Merlin: Well, a 375 milliliter, whatever the standard small bottle size is, they ought to take up the same amount of cubic inches.
Merlin: You might as well have some fancy ones around.
John: It does take up the same amount of cubic inches.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It's like those places that always have Dom Perignon, even though nobody ever gets it.
Merlin: Some guy's going to come in.
Merlin: He's trying to get laid.
Merlin: He wants the lobster and the Dom Perignon to impress this lady.
Merlin: Somebody will buy the Dom Perignon, one imagines.
John: For sure.
John: Well, although if you go to those bars and you look up at the top and they have those 25-year scotches or whatever that are $180 a glass.
Merlin: That's definitely a thing.
John: I think about alcohol sometimes.
John: I went and toured a house the other day.
John: It must seem really strange to you.
John: It's, I mean, I want, like everybody in the world, I want to be off this planet.
John: It'd be nice to have a little break.
John: It would.
John: I would like to be off this planet.
John: I don't mind coming back.
John: I just do.
John: I want to like step through the curtain and be in an off world somewhere.
John: And there's so much of what,
John: drives us if you think about like here's here's uh like prehistoric merlin and prehistoric john and we're sitting on a dirt on the dirt bank of a little stream when are we gonna get fire and and we're you know we're like pounding nuts uh with a rock yeah that should do and we're chatting and we're wait we're basically waiting for a wildebeest to come along so we have something to do today to go we have something to chase yeah
John: And we're constantly in trouble with our spouses and the other people in our tribe because we're difficult to deal with even then.
Merlin: I got an opinion on everything.
John: That's right.
Merlin: How fine should we bang the nuts?
Merlin: You know, like you're doing it wrong.
John: That's not how you do it.
John: Let me show you.
John: And, you know, it would be nice to just take a little vacation.
John: um, from, from banging the nuts all the time.
John: And, and, and so much of what modernity is, is just variations on giving us, uh, giving us a little like opportunity to go behind a curtain from to, to just to escape the din of opinions on how we should be banging the nuts.
Merlin: Well, and so, so you can get a little, that's part of it.
Merlin: Well, or just so much, so much narcissism, a modern nut bang.
Merlin: Like there's so many ideas about how we should be doing this and what your opinion about the nut banging should be.
John: Well, even prior to that, like the, you know, the, the people, the woo woos and the, the, the, the spiritualities and the, the, the,
John: The kumbayas.
John: Yes.
John: The kumbayas.
John: You know, they want to say like, oh, well, sit and get in touch with your thing and astrally project yourself into the cloud, the clued or whatever.
John: And you're like, God, that's a lot of hard work.
John: And it is work for its own sake because all
John: Once you're there, it's just the work.
John: It's the journey.
John: It's not the destination.
John: And what you really want is a destination.
John: You want to go somewhere where the rivers run thick with mana.
Merlin: Maybe some wet bread.
Merlin: I just want to break from the things that need to be done sometimes.
Merlin: I just want to break.
Merlin: I just want to go to a cabin that's already got all the stuff and I just don't have to be places.
Merlin: I don't have to do things.
Merlin: It's such a first world thing.
Merlin: And then to just be away from the nut banging for a little while.
John: Yeah, but that's the thing.
John: After a week, you got to go to the store because you ran out of clam chowder.
John: You're going to meet people talking about banging their nuts.
John: But so getting high is what a lot of people do.
John: And it's what a lot of it is all about.
John: I mean, really, the vacation cabin for most people is not about going and sitting and thinking and being chill.
John: It's about going and drinking and being chill.
Merlin: The thing about getting high that I find so appealing, in a different world at this point, I would so be trying the marijuana.
Merlin: But a big part of it is like you just get out of your head for a little while.
Merlin: You don't have the nut banging in your own head going on.
Merlin: Do you know what I'm saying?
Merlin: I could use a break from that.
Merlin: That's why I like naps.
Merlin: Naps to me are a nice way to get away from the nut banging.
Merlin: Well, that's what OxyContin, that's why that's so popular.
John: Oh, sing it sister.
John: But you know, that's what television is too.
John: Not to be one of those like television is a drug people.
John: I don't want to be all Chuck D about it, but, uh, you know, like what, what, like how I, I discovered a few years ago that I could sit and play the guitar into my little, um, into my little three track recorder and it was better than television for me.
John: And I,
John: What a great relief it is.
John: And there's a I have a fantasy that it's about being productive.
John: Right.
John: Because I've made so many of these tracks.
John: When I die, I will I will give like the the the floodgates will open.
John: I'll put it in my will such as it is.
John: Say, make all these tracks open source.
John: Just put them all out there.
John: And maybe in the future, kids will be making records from my riffs.
John: They could do mashups and remixes.
John: For thousands of years.
John: But as it is, I'm like, oh, no, no, no.
John: I'm doing stuff.
John: I'm composing music.
John: But what I'm really doing is just... I'm just getting out of my head.
John: And sitting and going... But if I had...
John: And the problem is if I had pot or wine in my life, given how I am, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.
Merlin: Yeah, I get it.
John: I would have fucked this all up somehow.
John: Yeah.
John: But I do, I think about it a lot.
John: And, oh, the reason was I've been looking at these mid-century houses.
John: Yep.
John: And, you know, the thing about a mid-century house is it's, you know, the
John: The decoration is very specific.
John: You don't just get to wheel your grandma couch in there.
John: And one of the things that mid-century houses have is typically a place where you should have your little bar.
John: You should have your little stack of bottles.
John: Oh, so you can entertain.
John: So you can entertain.
John: So you can make cocktails for people.
John: And so I was looking at this house and I was like, no, wait a minute.
John: In my current house, here's the alcohol I have.
John: I have like three cases of different beer that people have brought to my house that I just ended up putting in the bottom of the pantry.
John: So if somebody – and I do it because I'm like, oh, well, somebody left this beer here.
John: I'm sure somebody will come over and I can offer them a beer.
John: But –
John: In 10 years of living here, I've offered people beer probably 10 times.
John: Want a beer?
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And they always kind of cock their head, raise one eyebrow, and are like, no thanks.
John: Oh, like you're testing them.
John: Well, no.
John: I think they just realize like, you know, having a beer, like just me having a beer while you sit there and watch me, that's not how having a beer works, guy.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Having a beer is like I'm having a beer.
John: You have a beer.
John: Right.
John: It's not like I'm just sitting here wanting a beer by myself.
John: So I've never been able to give a beer away.
John: These beers are 10 years old.
John: I don't know if they're skunky or what.
John: And then there's like three or four different bottles of booze that Hodgman has left here over the years that are like, well, I've got another half a bottle of booze now.
John: Can I unload this malort?
John: And then there are three or four different times when people have come through town and bought a bunch of weed and
John: And then they didn't want to take it on an airplane, even though I assured them that you can take it on an airplane from Seattle and no one cares.
John: TSA here does not care.
John: They've seen it.
John: No kidding.
John: Interesting.
John: TSA could give one shit about your pot.
John: They're looking for pocket knives and fingernail clippers.
John: But there's a certain kind of person that's just like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
John: I'm not going to risk that.
John: And so I've got this pile of weed here.
John: And it's all kind of up on one shelf that is above eye level.
John: So I never look at it or think about it.
Merlin: There's a pack of cigarettes up there, too.
Merlin: I was going to ask you about the cigarettes.
Merlin: You talk about the cigarettes on the doors.
Merlin: There's a part of you that likes having these around.
Merlin: I feel like you've said in the past likes or you choose to have these around because it actually makes you stronger.
John: I mean, it's up there just like, and I have said to people like, do you want this weed?
John: No, no thanks.
John: No weed.
John: Look, I'm not lacing your pot with like virtue juice.
John: Take it.
John: I don't want this stuff.
John: Yeah.
John: But, but I feel like part of being a good host is that you're not like, I don't want to be, I don't want to be a big Mike situation here where I'm like, come on over to family dinner.
John: I'm making mush.
John: I'm making giant fried mushrooms.
John: Yeah.
John: You know, and I, I'm sure that big Mike is going to, I mean, just talking to Casey, I know that she's going to make a chicken pot pie and I want to be that person.
John: I want to be the vegetarian that's making a chicken pot pie for you.
John: But I'm thinking about like, if I move into this place, do I get crystal decanters and put really nice booze in it?
John: And it just sits over there shimmering like little orbs of like little golden orbs.
Merlin: I see.
Merlin: I see your point.
Merlin: If it's expected of you, there's a room, there's place there for it.
Merlin: What do you do in that situation?
Merlin: Could you put board games there?
Merlin: Yeah, board games.
Merlin: That's a good idea.
Merlin: You know, get yourself some ticket to ride.
Merlin: You get yourself some Cards Against Humanity.
Merlin: Have a little fun.
Merlin: It would look pretty.
Merlin: Games would look pretty.
Merlin: Those are like mid-century activities, right?
Merlin: Yahtzee.
Merlin: Yes, you get some vintage ones.
Merlin: I bought a vintage Yahtzee.
Merlin: Still had the guy with the mortarboard on it.
Merlin: I'm not sure how to play Yahtzee.
Merlin: It's kind of like poker, I think.
Merlin: I don't really know how to play poker, but I know how to play Yahtzee.
John: Yeah.
John: But when you're playing poker, you never yell, poker!
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Wouldn't it be funny if Steve Albini did that?
Merlin: Poker!