Always Sunny Girl

Introduction and Birthday Celebrations

Brett: [00:00:00] Hey, it’s, it’s overtired. I’m so tired. Oh my God. Um, we all, all three of your favorite hosts are here today. We’ve got me, Brett Terpshire. We’ve got Christina Warren. Hey, Christina. And we have Jeff Severns Gunsell, who is. Fresh off of a birthday celebration. How’s it

Christina: Happy birthday, Jeff.

Jeff: Thank you. Thank you.

Reflections on Turning 50

Jeff: 50, 50, 50. The last day of the rest of my life.

Christina: You know, 50 is the new 40 is what they’re saying. So like,

Jeff: Yeah. I,

Christina: the start.

Jeff: it’s a weird number. I don’t, it’s a weird one. I was like saying to somebody, maybe I wrote this, that like, I feel like I, turning 20, turning 30 felt like skin in my teeth, like I barely made it, and, uh, 40 felt like inevitable and kind of, uh, disappointing, and, uh, and 50 feels [00:01:00] good, weirdly, just feels good, feels like, yeah, I made it, it feels like I made it, like, uh, it feels like a, not a finish line, but like, alright, cool, I made it this far, everything else is bonus.

Brett: I’ll turn 50 last year. I uh last year I started dating a 50 year old woman, which is weird because Or a 50 year old person. Sorry Um, which is weird because I still think of myself as like 25

Jeff: Did you just say last year you’ll turn 50?

Brett: last year last august. Yeah 50.

Jeff: My God, start over. I’m so tired. I, and I know you, you’ve been up beginning sleep. I got sleep and still I’m just hung over from not, I didn’t even drink at my party, but it was, we had it at a venue and, uh, and, and it was so much work getting ready, bringing everything over there. It wasn’t even that much stuff, but like, it was enough.

It was like a mini van load [00:02:00] and then like, get it. We had an hour for setup and then we did the party and then we had to break it down and. For some reason, maybe it’s cause I’m 50. That was exhausting. And I felt hung over the next morning despite not drinking at all.

Christina: No, I think that that’s fair. I think that’s fair. I think that that’s one of those things where it’s like, um, you’re totally like allowed to be, um, what was it going to say? Like tired and, and all that other stuff. Like, it’s just, just one of those things.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. And also it’s a tiring day.

Inauguration Day and Mental Health

Jeff: We don’t have to get into it, but it is inauguration day. Um, and we can. Probably

Christina: Yeah. And, and that, and, and that’s basically all we have to say about that.

Jeff: no, but it is, I do think it’s, it’s lending to a sense of, um, of malaise.

Christina: Oh, for, for sure. For sure. No, I, cause it was one of those things. So like, um, uh, I’ll get into it with, with, when we talk about mental health corner, but like, I’ve got like some stuff going on myself and, um, I, um, you know, it’s a, it’s technically like a [00:03:00] public holiday today because it is, um, Uh, Martin Luther King Day and so it was just like one of those like things where I’m just like, okay,

Brett: the, is the inauguration always on Martin Luther King Day?

Jeff: No,

Brett: Okay, that’s just such a fucked up coincidence then that we’re,

Christina: I mean, I’m sure it’s happened

Brett: inaugurating a racist on MLK Day.

Jeff: we’ve inaugurated our fair share

Christina: say, I was going to

Brett: on MLK Day? Come

Christina: Oh, I’m, I’m sure that that has also happened before. I

Jeff: On my birthday.

Christina: and yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah, no, I mean, the irony is, is. Is right there. And then of course it’s happening like a week after two weeks after Jimmy Carter’s funeral and they had to have it indoors because of the, the cold or whatever.

And so like I made a comment that got way more viral than I expected it to be because the joke was in the comment, but I was like, you know, it’s kind of fitting that this is taking [00:04:00] place, you know, indoors because it feels really claustrophobic and like a funeral. And then everybody responds is, well, it is a funeral for democracy.

And I’m like, yes, that was the joke. Literally. Literally. That was the

Jeff: uh, I find, I find discussing it, for the most part, I’m not referring to this. I find if I am in a small group and somebody brings up the moment, I find it deeply unsatisfying to engage because it’s just like. I don’t know, I can’t even put my, my finger on it exactly, but it’s like somebody says something intensely obvious, and then everyone else shakes their head and we do need to vent and we do need to like, have some sense of sort of solidarity and community but there’s something about this moment that that’s not quite what it is, it’s like we’re all just Prepared, including myself to just like blurt out the, the last terrible thing we heard or thought about.

And it’s, it’s very exhausting right now. I was like, when you need that, when you need me for the resistance, call me. [00:05:00] Uh, but I don’t want to talk about it. Just assume I’m in.

Christina: Right. Right. No, but this was, this was just like a one off, like a knock on innocuous post that

Jeff: Well, you know, Christina, it is a funeral.

Christina: and I’m like, right, that was what I put in the post anyway. It has like 425 reposts and like 7, 200 likes and 401 responses. And all the responses are the same. That’s what I’m saying. Like this, this, this got, this was like blue sky viral.

I was like, okay guys, I’m like muting thread because I don’t. This is too much. Um, also it’s like, again, yeah, that was the joke. Like,

Brett: Well,

Jeff: Well, in case you missed it, Christina, someone was there to help you see,

Christina: I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m so glad that like people were able to like explain my joke to me. Like, I’m really, really

Jeff: And if you need us today to explain anything to you that comes from you, we’ll do that. Because you got, you got two men here. We’re ready.

Brett: just say it and we’ll jump in and we’ll tell [00:06:00] you

Jeff: we’ll tell you what you’re saying, why it’s funny, why it’s wrong.

If it’s wrong. I mean, we’re here

Brett: We got you, we got you.

Christina: repeat what I said back to me. Oh,

Brett: we’ll just

Jeff: Yeah. Just repeat.

Christina: what you mean is this. I love

Brett: so I do want to talk about why I missed Jeff’s birthday party. But first, uh, well, let’s do a mental health corner.

Christina, you alluded to some stuff going on. You want to start?

Christina: Yeah.

Christina’s Career Transition

Christina: So, um, as we were recording this on, on Martin Luther King Day, um, on a January 20th, 2025, God, 2025, that sounds so weird to say, uh, this is my last day at GitHub. Um, and, uh, so after almost three years there and, uh, seven and a half, um, little more than that, um, within the Microsoft family, I, I’m done.

Um, I’m not going to announce where I’m going, um, for my next job. I’ve got, um, two weeks off. Um, but, uh, that news will be coming up. But that has been the thing that has kind of defined my mental health for the last couple of weeks is trying to kind of figure out [00:07:00] like, am I going to take this new job, this opportunity that I’m excited about?

Um, but with that excitement comes like the sadness of leaving a team and a company that has been fantastic to me and people that I just adore working with and, and people that I couldn’t be more proud to, or honored to have had the opportunity to be with. Um, you know, I was a GitHub fan long before I ever joined.

Um, uh, tech and, and I will remain one, you know, until the end. And so that’s been, that’s been it. Cause this is, you know, putting in all the time here. Like if you count the Microsoft and GitHub time together, this is the longest job I’ve ever had. And, uh, and so obviously there were like a lot of emotions around that.

So that’s, that’s, that’s my mental health corner basically.

Brett: Yeah. That’s, uh, that’s, that’s a, that is a long time in tech, um, to stick, to stick, even, even if you switch from Microsoft to get hub and still stayed in the Microsoft kind of umbrella, [00:08:00] that’s seven, seven years. That’s crazy.

Christina: Close to eight. Yeah. It’s seven, a little more than seven and a half. Yeah.

Brett: I did, I did the indie thing for that long, but I’ve never held a tech job for that long.

Jeff: So are you, what, like what combination, uh, sad, uh, excited, um, whatever grieving, like what is the, what is the stew right now?

Christina: I think that I’m now mostly, I think I’m at peace, right? So like last week was like the week that I had to kind of like make the You know, it was kind of, you know, telling people and kind of, you know, um, you know, just all that stuff and like there was a lot going in with that and we also had an offsite last week.

So my whole team was together in person, which was awesome, but was also makes it that much harder, right? Because you know, you’re talking about the things to me doing, you know, in the next little bit and talking about, you know, processes and whatnot and then seeing people and then knowing You’re going to be saying goodbye.

And so, um, I think peace is where I’m at now. So I went [00:09:00] through the grieving stuff and I went through kind of the sadness and I definitely cried a lot last week. And then I went and did karaoke with my teammates and, and we had, um, the final day of the offsite, which was actually, this was a great concept and shout out to, to Ashley for, she’ll never listen to this, but, but shout out anyway.

Um, Ashley Billis for, um, putting the whole thing together because what she did for the final day, and I thought it was really smart and if I ever have opportunity to do something like this, I would steal it was, we had like the first two days were traditional kind of offsite stuff. And then the third day, it was all just like board games.

Cause some people were flying out. Some people already flew out Thursday night, but some people were still there. People who were still around, we had like, we played like board games and like had movies and snacks and just like hung out. And it wasn’t, you know, it was just kind of like, um, like, like, like, uh, a rain day at school and,

Brett: not a big party, but like actually a more kind of quiet, intimate thing.

Christina: and it was cool because, um, like playing some of the board games and stuff, like we played this one called, um, [00:10:00] Spyfall, I think is what it’s called. And, uh, it’s like this British card game. It’s really fun. And, um, they have, um, a, um, uh, there’s a sequel, apparently to like, uh, um, uh, an online version would.

Would fuck would be really fun. But like, we played like games like that. And, um, uh, I can’t remember what the other one was called, but there was one where like, you’re either like spies or you’re, you know, like on the good team and you have to like, try to figure out like. If you can, you know, keep the mission or not.

And, and it was, um, I don’t know, games like that. I feel like you get to know people better and there are also some really like fun opportunities from a bonding perspective, you know, getting to see how people work and whatnot that can actually be really good for, for team building, but also for figuring out like, okay, well.

How can we think strategically or like how, you know, I don’t know. I feel like there are like non interpersonal corollaries where like doing these interpersonal types of games can pay off. Anyway, I thought it was great and it was just really nice to be chill. It was just kind of like, you know, like I said, kind of like a snow day sort of thing, even though it [00:11:00] wasn’t snowing.

And that was, that was a really nice way to be able to say goodbye to folks. And, and I really appreciated. That so, so I think I’m, I’m, I’m at peace. Yeah. It’s been, it’s been sad at goodbyes and, and, and endings, even when like they’re for the right reasons. And even when you do it, like out of no sense of malice or anything other than it just being like, I had an opportunity that I, that I, you know, that is the best thing for my career.

And that’s all it is. It’s nothing not indicative of, of, you know, how happy I am with the company that I work at or what they’re doing or anything like that, like. It’s, it’s literally just about, you know, what’s, what’s best for me right now. Um, and, um, so, so I, I’m feeling okay, you know, but like, it is also one of those, like I went through all those grieving process steps, you know, the sadness and the fear and the excitement and all that other stuff.

And so, um, but I think the good part of that is I feel like I went through all of that and now like we’re here and I’m like, okay. Now I can just be, you know, I have two weeks off. [00:12:00] Um, I’ve never had two weeks between jobs before.

Jeff: That’s awesome.

Christina: Yeah. Like when I moved across the country, I like, my final day at work was like on a Friday.

And then like, the movers came or something I think like on Tuesday. And then I think we flew out on Thursday. Or Friday, um, to, to go to Seattle. And then I started work on Monday. So I, I had, I had a week off. That is insane, right? So I had a week off, but the week off was spent like literally moving across the country.

So, so I’ve never had two weeks between jobs in my life. So I’m, I’m a little bit unsure what to do.

Brett: are you not moving for your new one?

Christina: I’m not. I’m at least not right now. Um, uh, you know, so, so, so, so staying put, so I don’t know. I’m, there’s like a part of me. I’m like trying to find these things like last minute is, is hard, but I’m like, I’m kind of like, and I’m, I would love to, you know, take someone else with me if I could, but it’s way too last minute for that.

But I’m like, can I go on a cruise? So I’m [00:13:00] trying to see if I can get on a cruise next week or

Jeff: Oh, nice.

Christina: Yeah.

Jeff: Nice.

Brett: All right.

Jeff’s Birthday Party Recap

Brett: Well, Jeff, how are you?

Jeff: I am doing good. Yeah. Doing good. I, it was, it was nice to have a birthday and have a birthday feel good. That’s nice to have a party. It’s nice to see a lot of people. I haven’t had a party since I was 33. Um, and, uh, that was a kickball game. It was really fun. Um,

Brett: Wait, what? Oh, not, not, not today

Jeff: no. Cause here’s the thing when I had a kickball game when I was 33, someone broke a rib, someone else broke a finger.

And I was like, all right, when I’d be getting too old to be doing this stuff for birthdays. Um, so I kept it real, real simple.

Brett: Tell us about the party though. I like, I got the invite. It said it was a like TV party and I didn’t know if it was a black flag thing or what was happening.

Jeff: No, I okay. I’m going to tell you what it was. And then I’m going to tell you, [00:14:00] uh, my reflections on the difference between sentimentality and nostalgia.

Brett: Okay.

Jeff: basically what I, I’ve had this idea forever. Like the original idea, like a couple of years ago, it was like to do, to do three straight nights in my, in my living room on the TV with different guests every night of watching some primetime show from my youth.

Um, and, uh, so I had this idea of like one night it’s like grizzly Adams. He served like meatloaf next night. It’s like Barney Miller and you serve TV dinners and like that kind of thing. And I really liked that. Um, but what I, what it finally became was like, we rented a space, really lovely kind of open space near our house.

And, um, it was like a. It’s where they do music lessons and stuff, but it’s a big open room. And so they have all these sound baffles and they have a PA and I rented like a screen and a projector. And then I, I cracked in into Adobe premiere and I edited together like 40 minutes of essentially like simulated, uh, simulated, uh, 40 minutes of channel [00:15:00] surfing in roughly 1983.

Um, and, uh, and so it was like, you land, you kind of hover over a couple of shows that you land on for like an act. And then there’s commercials in between. So I had, um, the pornographic bakery episode of Barney Miller. Um, which for anyone that doesn’t know was an, a cop show that lasted like eight seasons that was only ever in one room.

Yeah. It was amazing. It just happened in one room in their filthy headquarters in what seemed like a basement. Really strong cast. Then I landed on, um, we hovered on Laverne and Shirley for a minute, um, episode where they’re training for a wrestling exhibition. Um, and then just a quick scene from WKRP in Cincinnati, uh, Johnny Fever and Venus Flytrap, uh, featuring in this particular one.

Um, and then ended on like the final act of an A team where like the oxy acetylene torch comes out and Mr. T is wrapping dynamite and, and they’re getting ready to make, they’re making their villain trap. Um, and then, but the really fun thing was, um, [00:16:00] I went looking for commercials to put in between and, um, and I found some amazing commercials that there was, there was a fair amount of like really great early computing commercials and the way that I found the ones that were kind of the, my favorite was like, people have posted like all these YouTube videos where it’s like two hours of, of VHS, like SP recording of television, 1983, 1982.

I mean, I don’t know if it would have been. It had to be VHS, but anyway, um, and so you can just scrub through it and pull commercials. There was an amazing commercial, uh, that was just a montage of people. Someone pops up and they’re like, they’re like CRT monitors behind them. And he’s like, I bought a computer, but then I found out.

I don’t like computing. And it’s just like back and forth between people who go, I love computing and I don’t like it. I hate computing. Um, and, uh, and then there was just like, it was like a great Commodore 64 ad that was like the, [00:17:00] the only computer you’re ever going to need. Um, and then like, there was a great, like Bell labs, like.

Uh, phone commercial, uh, advertising, one of those phones that has like buttons along the side with names of your people and you just press it. It’s like, imagine making a phone call by just pressing their name and like, as obvious as that is, because obviously tech has changed. I managed to find this like grouping of commercials that were kind of fascinating to take in and realize like.

It’s that thing where you’re like, Jesus Christ, like I remember when I was growing up, I was like, Grandma, you, you grew up when there wasn’t TV or like, Mom, you were there when it went color and like, we fucking, we’ve surpassed that. We’ve surpassed many of the horrors that like our parents experience, not our grandparents.

They had World War II. Uh, and it’s just like one of those. Things that helps you kind of mark time. And it was just lovely to have to go through a bunch of Laverne and Shirley and Barney Miller episodes and what charming stuff that was. Um, okay. So the nostalgia versus sentimentality part, cause I was like, I don’t [00:18:00] like, um, theme.

Birthday parties. I’m not against them. I just don’t like them. Um, and I don’t really like like era theme, uh, birthday parties. And so I was sort of doing that. Um, and, but it was just that, like, there was not really much else going on that was on sort of the theme of the eighties or something other than that.

I come from the seventies and the eighties, by the way, because that’s when I really started remembering TV. Um, but like, I realized like nostalgia, like star Wars fandom and things like that, like always feels like this. This like longing to go back to a time and a place or to go back to a you to embody a moment that you were in.

And I feel like sentimentality for me is like bringing the moment forward and just like enjoying the feeling of right now. And there’s like no longing in it. There’s no regret in it. There’s no desire to look back and that doing this with like that approach. Was really sweet and really fun and I didn’t get locked into, you know, like I was worried if I start going through old commercials, old TV shows, I’m just going to get [00:19:00] like, my stomach’s going to turn after some point.

Cause I’m like, I just want to be back in the now. Um, but I just found it. It was also, it was almost like an academic. Pursuit to go looking at these things as history and super fun. So anyway, and people loved it. It was really like delightful to have people laughing at things that I thought were funny and that I, like I very specifically ordered the commercials and both in terms of like in a commercial break, but then over time, and like, there was the empire commercial, everyone know the empire song, five, eight, eight, two, 300.

Christina: Empire! Yeah,

Jeff: So I put one of those in, I put one of those in and as the, as they were singing that you could hear it rising up in the group of people until everyone hit empire as like a crescendo.

Christina: just like, yes!

Jeff: delightful. Yeah. And then just because I haven’t had a birthday in forever, I invited widely.

And so it was also just delightful to see. It’s like a wedding or some easy people from different parts of your life that should not be in the room together. And, uh, and there they are in the room together and you could introduce people that [00:20:00] you always knew would kind of like, enjoy each other. And that was cool.

Cause I don’t go out. I felt like when I saw all the people accepting the invite coming in, I was like, I think I need to just get up to a microphone and say, I owe you all a call. Like, that’s how it felt. Like, these are all the people I don’t really reach out to enough. Um, but I didn’t feel, uh, obligated to do that.

So I just felt nice. It felt nice to celebrate like a moment and, uh, like allow a ritual or something. Cause I haven’t really allowed that at birthday time, including when I was 40. So it was great.

Brett: Well, happy birthday.

Jeff: Thanks. The most I’ve ever said about my birthday.

Christina: I love it.

Brett: right. Well, mine’s going to be a combination health, mental health, obviously.

Christina: Yes.

Brett’s Health Diagnoses

Brett: So I got some diagnoses. Um, which I’m pretty excited about. Um, I got, um, hyper hyper mobile [00:21:00] spectrum disorder, which is, uh, kind of like, I didn’t have enough hyper mobility to have hyper mobile. Eh, Ehlers Danlos syndrome. Um, so it, I’m more on a spectrum, but that spectrum can include a lot of the symptoms that I do have.

Um, also mass cell activation syndrome, um, which relates a lot to kind of the histamine reactions and burning skin that I have and Oh, what else? There was like a whole smorgasbord. Let’s see, thoracic outlet syndrome.

Jeff: Woo! That one sounds awesome,

Christina: Yeah, it does.

Brett: um, that leads to a lot of like numbness in my face and stuff like that. Um, geez, I’m, I’m totally, the reason I’m blanking is because I’m working really hard to stay conscious right now.

Um, I am

Jeff: Oh my god, it didn’t occur to me you could pass out while we’re

Brett: I, I’m not, yeah, I’m [00:22:00] not usually this faint when I’m sitting. Um, I don’t know what’s going on right now. Um, I, I ran upstairs to get more water and salt and realize that was a really bad idea, like halfway through. Oh, POTS, POTS is the other one. Um, uh, postural orthostatic techie. Tachycardia syndrome.

Um, which is what makes me, you know, pass out when I stand up. Um, it’s why I’m wearing a binder around my abdomen right now, because I have to squeeze blood into my head and I have to drink three liters of water with five grams of salt a day. And five grams is a lot of salt. If you’ve ever kept track of your salt intake, um, we found this stuff called, Element L M N T that has a thousand milligrams of salt per packet.

So five of those mixed in [00:23:00] with four or five bottles of water. And I can stay hydrated. It’s not a matter of hydration that much water and salt increases your blood volume, uh, which makes it less work for your legs to pump. Your blood to your head when you stand up, I also had to raise my bed. I had to put cinder blocks under the front legs of my bed so that it’s at like, uh, maybe a 10 degree slope, uh, so that my blood pools in my legs while I’m sleeping.

Uh, it’s all very confusing to me, but because I got diagnoses, I was able to start some of these treatments and we were able to. figure out exactly what I needed to do. And I started a couple new meds, um, made a couple of changes to existing meds. And, uh, I’m just, I’m really grateful. I found this EDS clinic because of our friend, Brian Guffey. they posted [00:24:00] it on a Facebook thread. Um, and I, I immediately checked it out and got into, uh, Minneapolis or St. Cloud based doctor. And we did a telehealth session. Um, and I had just gotten some vitals from, uh, Gunderson that morning that I was able to share. And thanks to her, I was able to get a diagnosis that I could then go back to my primary care physician with, and I also got referrals to a bunch of like.

Uh, EDS aware physical therapy places. Um, and I had to, one of the meds I’m on had to come from a compounding pharmacy. Do you know what that is?

Jeff: No.

Brett: a pharmacy that can make drugs for you.

Christina: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I do know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because a lot of people have them for the, the, um, uh, like the, um, Ogilvy and, and things like that. Like you can get them cheaper than, um, paying for like Ozempic over the counter. Like,[00:25:00]

Brett: well, and there are, there are some drugs, like the drug that I’m on is used to, as it’s not Narcan, but it’s used to counteract opiate overdoses, um, naproxen, I think it’s

Christina: Yes.

Brett: um, but it’s not profitable enough that any drug company will actually make it. So the only way you can get this drug is through a compounding pharmacy.

Um, so that’s, I don’t know, it’s kind of fun to like have them manufacture my drugs for

Jeff: And are these from, I mean, are these for lack of any real terminology, like open source drugs that people are like, yeah,

Brett: Kind of, yeah, basically, um, uh, patent, patent

Jeff: patent free, DRM free.

Brett: Yeah.

Jeff: Um, interesting. So these diagnoses, are they things that typically are chained together or are they just

Brett: Yeah. So all of these fit under the umbrella of dysautonomia, which is what I knew going into [00:26:00] it, I knew that my symptoms like had to be dysautonomia of some kind, um, and that encompasses or comprises, um, I think probably 13 different, uh, disorders and syndromes. And so like generally, if you have one, you probably are, there’s probably coma comorbidities with at least one other.

Um, it’s really common to like EDS and POTS almost, I would say 90 percent of the time seem to go hand in hand, uh, based on people I’ve talked to. I know, I know one family where the daughter has EDS and the The sun has, uh, pots, but, but they don’t share the two. Um, anyway, it’s yeah. So like things are better than the last time we talked and in general, I’m functioning better today has been especially rough, partly because the insomnia [00:27:00] the night before I was up because I had like skin burning in the middle of the night and I couldn’t fall back asleep.

I don’t know what got me up last night, but out of the last. I want to say month, there’s only been two days that I’ve slept more than five hours, um, which has me super run down. And like two nights ago, I slept for like nine hours and I had a pretty good day.

Jeff: What’s your magic number for sleep? Like,

Brett: magic number is nine. I do really well with 10.

Jeff: yeah,

Brett: Um, but I can never get 10. Um, and yeah, that doesn’t, 10 hours of sleep doesn’t generally work if you want to have like family time and a day job.

Jeff: yeah.

Brett: Um, and I also enjoy a little TV watching at night,

Jeff: Yes. As, as we do in this day and age

Brett: I’m having, I’m having pretty severe histamine reactions, which means I need to [00:28:00] go on a low histamine diet and there are

Jeff: low histamine diet.

Brett: So things like raspberries and tomatoes, legumes, like all of these foods are high histamine. Um, and I, I could not explain histamine to you at this point. Um, I’m still learning. Um, but like, If I, I tried raspberry sorbet last night and, um, after I had some kimchi rice, kimchi fermented foods in general are high histamine.

Um, so I was, if I, I think I was having an extinction reaction to like knowing I was going to have to give up histamines. So I was like, eat all the histamines. And I got like, Multiple burning spots on my skin, like intense burning. And I went and took antihistamines and rubbed a bunch of aloe on myself and got through it.

Okay. But yeah, like that’s part of the MCAS, the mast cell stuff. Um, [00:29:00] Yeah.

Jeff: what, what, is this something that was dormant in you? Is it something? Okay. Yeah.

Brett: Yeah. It’s very likely that I’ve had the mass. So since childhood, like I’ve had that burning skin feeling since at least middle school, maybe earlier. Um, and I just had always. I’ve made a bunch of assumptions. The first I assumed everyone felt like that.

And then as I got older and I started getting into drugs and alcohol, I always associated that feeling with getting sober. So when I started to feel that I would go and do more drugs and it would help. And I thought. And I thought that feeling was just withdrawal and like, so I would go like two weeks without a drug thinking I was getting through the detox, but the feeling wouldn’t go away and it would just never go away.

Um, and yeah, and I would eventually end up doing drugs again, but, um. Yeah, now I, now I know [00:30:00] that feeling is, uh, mast cell and I can do things. I, I can, I have interventions for it. I can’t drink anymore. The, uh, drinking makes the pots pretty crazy. Um, and so like, if I, right now I’m blacking out, just sitting down.

If I had a beer. I, I would, I would be out, I would be unconscious and not from the alcohol, but from the effect of the alcohol on my blood flow. Um, yeah, so this is fun stuff. Um, making progress though, pretty excited, um, to actually be moving forward on this. Like, cause I had, like, I got depressed, um, just how my whole life kind of suddenly got turned upside down.

Oh, in answer to your question, my, my psychiatrist. Kind of your unspoken question. My psychiatrist, um,

Jeff: you can read my mind. I don’t like it.

Brett: uh, said that she, she and her daughter, [00:31:00] both their symptoms really began shortly after their COVID booster. And none of us want to be like a conspiracy anti vaxxer thing about it. Like none of us are anti vaccine.

Um, but her anecdotal evidence or her, and her story was that. Like it, it seemed to kick and she had heard from other people too, that the booster kicked off the symptoms. And I had the booster in October and my symptoms started in November. So just from an anecdotal standpoint, it is possible in my

Jeff: I don’t think those wonderings make you an anti vaxxer or conspiracy minded. I mean, it’s always, this is the problem with the moment we are and we’re in is like, there’s always a possibility that there’s something about this vaccine that we couldn’t anticipate and that we made a sacrifice in order to kind of like deal with an emergency.

Like I, I’m still, I remember like when we, when I got the vaccine first, my [00:32:00] attitude was like, give it to me like acupuncture, like you just put it all over me. I’ll take it. But I also knew in saying that, that like, Down the road. I don’t actually know what’s going to happen, and we’re probably just, you know, in that zone, the beginning of that zone where we start to see and wonder. Yeah.

Brett: But I’m past the depression now. Um, I am, I am on to the, um, just dealing with it. Uh, just learning to exist with whatever’s going on now. Um, it’s already become kind of normal for me to feel like this. And it no longer feels like I’m suddenly disabled. I’m actually. You know, I’m working. I’m, I’m functioning.

I clean the kitchen whenever I can. Um, but when I was getting ready to leave for Jeff’s birthday party, I was feeling well enough to, uh, clean all the litters, clean up, clean up the kitchen, put away all the stuff in the living room [00:33:00] around my little couch nest and leave the house so that Elle could enjoy.

The night of not having me in the house and, and wouldn’t have to do a bunch of chores just to feel comfortable in the house. Um, I tried to, I tried to make that work. Um, and then I think that was, that was the second big bummer for me about missing the party was like, I always get excited to give Al the house because.

Because they get the house so rarely. I am always home. Um, and it like, I got a hotel and I was going to like let them just for a night. Just it was one night and then I had to go home and then I ended up on the couch and then I had a really bad night, uh, to the extent that I was kind of glad that I didn’t go.

But anyway, let’s talk about, so I was going to take a train.

Travel Woes and Train Troubles

Brett: I can’t drive right now, but I was going to take a train to go to Jeff’s birthday party and Um, I’m in

Jeff: so sweet, Brett. [00:34:00] Which is so sweet. And say to the listeners, you’re about how far from us?

Brett: It’s a two hour drive. It’s a two hour train ride. Um, and I was going to take a train, uh, which I was also kind of excited about.

Jeff: Oh, it’s the best! It’s the best.

Brett: for the business seat, business class seat. Um, which I, I’ve never even ridden coach on an Amtrak. I usually end up in a sleeper car or business class.

And I’m from what I’ve seen, the coach seats are nice, like

Christina: I think

Jeff: really nice.

Christina: Yeah. I was going to say, I think, I think they’re fine. I mean, I’ve, I’ve never been in a sleeper car, so I’ve only been on the Acela or I guess like probably coach. I mean, they’re fine.

Brett: Yeah, yeah. And I was looking forward to it, but here in Minnesota, it was about, uh, negative 10 and, um, Amtrak canceled the two trains that were running after mine and [00:35:00] left a mine TBD on the app all the way up until departure time. And they never, they never put a departure time on it. So I showed up at the train station to see what was up.

And,

Jeff: this sounds like the beginning of a not terribly great train song. Keep going. I showed up at the train station. Sorry, I got

Brett: just to see what was up. Um, and, and a young woman had just gotten off the phone with Amtrak and informed me that they were going to send a bus, the train was, the train was gone. They were going to send a bus. It was going to be like an hour, but they were going to get us all to the cities. And I just.

Left because a I hate buses. I I bought a train ticket because I hate buses and Be like, I was already cutting it close to get to Jeff’s party. Um, [00:36:00] and waiting an hour for a bus that was going to take almost three hours to get there meant I was going to show up at a point in the evening where I was already going to be too tired to function.

And it just wouldn’t have been fun. And just party was the only reason I was going. And if I was going to miss that, then there wasn’t a lot of points. So I’m currently trying to get. Some kind of refund or credit for my hotel and my train tickets, but I haven’t had luck yet. .

The Romanticism of Train Rides

Jeff: I would love to take a long train ride. I’ve contemplated the Chicago line that they now have, Twin Cities

Brett: There was, they did a promo and Dave Chartier, who you guys may know, um,

Jeff: Who? I don’t know who that is.

Brett: He was a writer at Tua, moved on to Ars Technica. I don’t know what he’s doing these days. Um, he’s the reason I have my career. Um, he started writing, he started writing about Mood Blast. My first, my first app written mostly in Apple script.

And he started writing about it. He [00:37:00] was writing about every release I put out and he was writing about it. And I, I started getting more and more readers and more and more followers. And pretty soon it led to like job offers. And, uh, so, so I credit him with.

Amtrak’s Writing Fellowship

Brett: Everything I am today, um, but he took part in Amtrak’s promotion where they were paying people to write.

Uh, they would give them free, free train rides, cross country, and all you had to do was write about Amtrak now and then, but they wanted you to work on like a novel or your next big thing.

Jeff: That’s

Brett: they were just paying people to ride the train and write.

Christina: Yeah. One of my colleagues, one of my colleagues got, uh, Chris Taylor, um, got that too. And, uh, he got like, they call it like a fellowship or something, I think like the Antrec fellowship. Yeah. Chris Taylor was part of that as well. And I was like, that sounds really cool. Um, I would hate it. Like I would hate it, but, but I think for, for many types of people, there was something very romantic about like that.

Brett: Romantic is the word. [00:38:00] Nostalgic even. Um. Okay. So we’re going to skip talking about Metta and Zuck. And I don’t even want

Christina: care.

Jeff: No

Brett: to talk about, I don’t want to talk about the, uh, the inauguration or about Metta.

Jeff: Hey, I feel like if that’s what you want, there’s a lot of podcast options.

Brett’s Media Corner

Brett: I do want to tell you about the sunny and Philadelphia connection that came up for me this week. Um, so I, I, I watched all the way through, um, Abbott elementary. Uh, starring Glenn Howerton, who was Dennis on Sonny, um, that show is amazing. I’ve seen it through twice. I love it. Um, it’s, he’s a school teacher who refuses to teach AP bio.

Oh no, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not Abbott elementary. I’m sorry. AP bio. We’re talking about AP bio. Um, I get the two mixed up, but, um, he, he’s, he’s a, he’s a school teacher who refuses to teach [00:39:00] AP bio tells all his students, they’ll get an a, as long as they don’t tell anyone he’s not teaching. Um, and he begins using them to, he’s, he’s very revenge focused.

He always wants revenge on somebody. And he focuses this advanced student group on helping him come up with revenge plots. Um, And occasionally to help him come up with like the perfect date or whatever. And he, it’s this bunch of really creative, really smart kids and they help him. Oh, it’s, it’s so good.

So, um, so I’ve watched that and then I started watching, um, High Potential, which stars Caitlin Olsen, who was the sister on Sonny in Philadelphia and. Um, that show, I haven’t watched it all the way through. Uh, it’s, it’s new and I’m really enjoying it. She is a, uh, cleaning lady with a very high IQ that so high that it, they call it high [00:40:00] potential intellect and.

So high that she has trouble holding onto jobs because her mind is just always like churning and noticing. And, um, she’s so smart. She, she ends up being a cleaning lady and working low end jobs. And, uh, she starts accidentally solving crimes for the police department. Um,

Jeff: This is good.

Brett: can’t, she can’t not fix something.

There’s like an OCD aspect to it, which she sees a mistake. So at night she’s cleaning and she’s crossing stuff out on the murder board. And be like, no, this is the victim. And, and they like, they’re mad at her, but then she proves she’s right. And she solves cases and they bring her on as like a full time consultant.

Um, and she dresses just like a trailer trash, uh, porn star. Um, like big, like zebra striped jackets with really like the, the pom pom pink cuffs and everything and the mini skirts. And it’s just, it’s amazing. Um, [00:41:00] and then, uh, I saw, uh, a movie called self reliance and it stars, uh, Charlie day. Wait, no, I’m kidding.

I’m so faint right now. It wasn’t self reliance. Wasn’t Charlie Kelly. Was it?

Jeff: If you pass out, it’s going to take me like three hours to get to you. You know that, right?

Brett: Yeah, I know cuz it’s only there’s only buses. Yeah. No, it’s um, it’s it’s not Charlie What did I watch with Charlie day?

Jeff: What do I look like, your roommate?

Brett: Oh my

Christina: I’m literally looking up his IMDb right now while I try to see, um, see, uh,

Jeff: Christina, way to be useful. All I made was a smart ass Kamak.

Brett: fools pair. Yeah. Yeah, that’s fools paradise That’s the one that movie was okay. Was it a movie or was it

Christina: that’s a movie. Yeah, that’s a

Brett: Yeah, that

Jeff: I even here right now?

Brett: The one, the movie I actually wanted to talk about, and now I’ve lost the whole, uh, Sonny in [00:42:00] and Sonny and Philadelphia connection. It’s actually a new girl connection, which kind of, I mean, for me, they kind of connect cause they were, it was an era.

Um, but, uh, their movie is called self reliance

Christina: Oh, this is the, okay, yeah. And it

Brett: it stars Nick Miller. Yeah. And it, it looks dumb. Yeah, it looks dumb, but I decided to give it a chance and it’s actually so the the premise and I won’t give the movie away. But the premise is that he is pulled off the street into a limousine and offered, um.

A million dollars to be hunted and stay alive for 30

Jeff: This is my specific fantasy.

Christina: So, so, so, so, so it’s, so it’s a Mr. Beast skit.

Brett: kind of, but the, the catch is they can’t kill him. If he’s with somebody, he has to be alone to die. And [00:43:00] so the whole his, he calls it a loophole, but it’s just the rule is that he has to be with somebody all the time. And that’s how you survive.

And he’s kind of a loner. He lives with his mom and his parent, his family doesn’t believe. That this game is real. So

Christina: So they don’t sit.

Brett: out with them.

Christina: Right. Right. Cause usually you just be like, bro, I will split this money with you. You just have to like stay by my side for 30 days. It’s fine.

Brett: Right. And, and so he meets Anna Kendrick, uh, who’s also ostensibly playing the game and they team up and what it ends up being is kind of a heartwarming, like. This, this is what this guy had to do to develop human connection, um, with someone that would actually stand him for that long. And by the end, you’re even the viewer is not sure, like he becomes an unreliable narrator and you’re not certain the game is real either.

You’re not certain. It’s going to be one of [00:44:00] those things where like the camera pans out and nothing else is there. And he’s just alone yelling at himself in a warehouse. And, um,

Christina: Like a Mr. B sketch. Sorry. I keep

Brett: Yeah. So, so it gets, it gets trippy. It gets heartwarming. Um, it it’s, it’s really well done. I really enjoy him as an actor.

Um, I love new girl. He was my favorite character on new girl. Um, yeah. So, okay. So it started as a sunny Philly, sunny in Philadelphia connection morphed into a new girl connection. And that my friends is Brett’s media corner for this week.

Jeff: Thanks, Brett.

Christina: Thanks, Brett.

Brett: Have you guys seen high potential at all?

Jeff: No.

Brett: I would, I recommend if you enjoy like. I mean, it’s, it’s a, it’s a worn out, um, premise for a show, but like the oddball police consultant

Christina: Yeah. No,[00:45:00]

Brett: style.

Christina: no, I, I, I, I like the concept.

Sponsor Break: 1Password

Christina: Um, I think this is probably a good time to segue into our, um, sponsor break.

Brett: Oh, we should probably do that. Oh my God. It’s 46 minutes in what happened to the time? Uh, this is our last, this is our last one sponsor, uh, one, one sponsor password ship. I’m so

Jeff: Yes! Alright, this is gonna be great. We don’t owe them anything. It’s the last read. Brett, I want you to bring everything you’ve got today or don’t have to this read. Go.

Brett: Okay. You got it. Let me, uh, I got to zoom my script in here. So it’s huge on my screen. Okay. I’ve done this before. It shouldn’t be hard. Imagine and

Jeff: Imagine in a

Christina: Imagine, in a world, your company’s security is like a quad on a college campus. There are nice brick paths between the buildings. Those are the company owned devices, IT [00:46:00] approved apps and managed employee identities. Brett take it away.

Brett: then there are the paths that people actually use the shortcuts worn between the what, what,

Jeff: I do Foley? Hold on.

Christina: Yes.

Jeff: walking. We’re walking. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead.

Brett: and then there are the paths that people actually use the shortcuts worn through the grass that are the actual straightest line from point a to B. Those are the unmanaged devices, shadow IT apps and non employee identities like contractors. Most security tools only work on those happy brick paths. Do you have a sound effect for happy breakfast,

Jeff: We,

Brett: but a lot of security problems take place on the shortcuts.

One password extended access management is the first security solution that brings all of these unmanaged devices, apps, and identities under your control. It ensures that every user credential is strong and protected. Every device is known and healthy, and every app is visible. One password [00:47:00] extended access management solves the problems that traditional I.

A. M. And M. D. M. Can’t it’s security for the way we work today and it’s now generally available to companies with Octa and Microsoft Entra and in beta for Google workspace customers. Check it out at one password dot com slash overtired. That’s one as in the number one one password dot com slash overtired.

And seriously, we’re joking around. But thank you, 1Password. It has been a pleasure and, and we are all big fans and don’t take it personally. We love you.

Jeff: what if we, um, and so thus ends the sponsor break of a demo. Okay.

Nostalgic Tech Talk

Jeff: What if, um, when we don’t have sponsors, we work our way through fake sponsorships for the various Linux distributions.

Christina: Ooh. Okay. So the very

Jeff: Today is brought to you by Linux Mint.

Christina: today, this episode is brought to you by Hannah Montana Linux,

Jeff: Hmm. Ooh, wow. I’m

Brett: I [00:48:00] remember that. Yeah, I remember. We talked about that one

Christina: We did. We did. I did. I shared it. I did. I did. And like, it has actually been my low key dream. Ooh, maybe that’s what I’ll do in my two weeks off. Maybe I’ll like come up with a new theme for like a more modern Linux system and be like, here’s a re spin Hannah Montana Linux 2025.

Jeff: Oh man. Oh, I love this so much. I, okay. Can I, two things. One, my, my wife was working on a vacation that literally that was going to be like Japan and Montana in the same, uh, summer. And, and we called it Japan and Montana. And I’m really sad now because I wanted to get like matching family shirts that said Japan and Montana

Christina: Yes.

Jeff: Um. But anyway, very good. But also yesterday, so we have this amazing place called free geek here, which is like, it’s two things. It’s an electronics thrift store, they call themselves, but it’s also a place where you can go sit at a table and take apart electronics that you pull from a mountain of electronics to be recycled, basically, they split all the parts up, send them off to recycling anything that can be fixed or whatever goes into this thrift store, but [00:49:00] also things just people bring in there was.

And I swear to God, I was so close to buying it. It was 120. It was this, this beautiful pink enclosure, um, of a, of a computer of a CPU. And it was like a square and it was weird and it was gorgeous. And it was a Linux mint box. And like it was 120 was from 2016. My son and I were just staring at it and I’m like.

Do I bring this home? Do I bring this home? I did not bring it home, but it was gorgeous. And I, and I just, I want to, I wish I could meet the person that made it, because it was just the best. Anyway, that’s all. Linux Mint, thank you Linux Mint for sponsoring us today.

Christina: We, we appreciate it Linux Mint and uh, stay tuned Hannah Montana Linux because you’re, you’re, you’re next.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah. We could have a sweepstakes for Japan and Montana, where we give people, we could all probably, we could probably collaborate and, like, pool our points, and give a listener a trip to Japan and Montana. Maybe.

Brett: I don’t want to do that.

Jeff: [00:50:00] Oh, okay. All right. Okay. That’s fine.

Christina: Fine.

grAPPtitude

Brett: do want to do a gratitude.

Jeff: Oh, fine.

Brett: Who goes first? Do I go first?

Christina: You go first.

Brett: So I, I have owned a license for Devin think pro since I don’t know, fucking nineties. Um, like for as long as it’s been around, I’ve always been enamored with Devin thinking I used it a decade ago for a little while. Um, and it overwhelmed me and for the succeeding years, I always renewed my license.

I always owned the latest version and never really. Got into it. Um, and I generally would use like curio for brainstorming and I would keep all my notes in Markdown and NB ultra NB ultra. And, um, and every time I loaded up Devon think there are so many ways to organize information and so many [00:51:00] different kind of, um, approaches that you kind of have to design your own.

System and it always got so fiddly that I gave up on it. But this time as I’m doing all of this research on dysautonomia and my symptoms and trying to cross link and cross reference and I needed to store PDFs and I needed to store web archives and web locations, uh, mix in with all my markdown notes and I needed to be able to annotate and, and link annotations to other PDFs and other documents and.

Devon think was the only thing that could do all of that. So I finally got into Devon think and now that I’m into it, I’m really into it. Um, I loaded up, I loaded up just to look at the beauty of my research collection and every time I get to add a new PDF to it and link it and classify it and categorize it and tag it.

Um, I get really excited now because like so much of it is kind of [00:52:00] automatic. Once you have your system set up and and all of my keywords and tags from other systems import into it, and it works perfectly with like my LinkedIn, uh, RSS feed for bookmarking. It works with Envy Ultra. Um, I can access the same.

I can access all of my markdown notes and PDFs in Envy Ultra, add notes, edit notes, and it’s already automatically synced in Devon think and vice versa. Um, and when they. When you save a webpage, you can choose to mark downify it. And the tool they use for markdownification is my Markie, the markdownifier version 1.

1. Um, I gave it to them. They host their own, they host their own Markie 1. 0 and I just started talking with, uh, Eric, the CEO, and we’re gonna, we’re gonna upgrade them to Markie 2. 0. Uh,

Jeff: Ooh, that’s exciting.

Brett: it’s quite an honor. They’ve been using my software longer than I’ve been using theirs. So.[00:53:00]

Jeff: I love Devon Think. I’ve been using it since either George W. Bush’s first or second term.

Brett: Yeah,

Jeff: Yeah. Amazing. And it, and the man, it just gets better and better and it’s so solid. It’s never janky.

Brett: I, I’m

Jeff: so much at it.

Brett: I am under NDA, um, to talk about the next version. Um, so I can’t, I can’t tell you anything about it. All I can tell you is there’s cool stuff coming. It’s going to be cool.

Jeff: Excellent. That’s

Brett: should get on the beta. You should sign the NDA and get on the beta.

Jeff: Yeah, I could do that. I mean, yeah, I’ll

Brett: I’ll hook you up. I’ll hook you up.

Jeff: up with the beta, dude.

Brett: All right. That’s mine.

Jeff: awesome.

Christina: Okay. I will go next. Okay. Sorry. Give me one second. I’ve got to sign into my account, which this is going to be fun to see how this works in 12 minutes. Um,

Jeff: Do you want me to go?

Christina: no, no, [00:54:00] no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It’s just, it’s just like, cause I’m about to, I’m losing access to my GitHub accounts in, uh, uh, 12 minutes. Not my personal account.

Obviously they’ll, they’ll take me off of stuff. Okay. So this is, this is a cool app. So I’m sure we’ve all been in this experience where we download apps that, uh, don’t have a developer signature on them for whatever reason. And, um, you can obviously run terminal commands to put them in quarantine or de quarantine them or whatever.

I even, like, had, like, an alias set up at one point. But it’s annoying. And, um, and it’s, and it’s only getting worse with, with, uh, Sequoia. So, and, and it will only get worse. So there is an app that I, that is called Sentinel that is signed. Um, that is, um, UI gatekeeper configuration UI. And so all you have to do is drag your app, um, To either self sign it or remove it from quarantine, and it will do that for you.

So you can install it from homebrew, um, uh, if you, um, use this [00:55:00] user’s tap or you can get it off of, um, his, uh, um, uh, whatchamacallit, um, GitHub repo, um, the same developer also makes a app called pair cleaner, which is, um, very similar to app cleaner, but it’s apparently supposed to be better. So, um, I, I, uh, I don’t really know the differences there except

Brett: You know, like app delete,

Christina: um, no, um, the, um, uh, yeah, app, app, app cleaner, you know, uh, which is like the uninstaller app.

Brett: I thought, yeah, there’s, there’s a bunch. I

Christina: There’s an app. The one I’ve used is, is app

Brett: I use hazel now, but

Christina: Yeah, the one I use is AppCleaner, but, um, Hazel works well too. So anyway, um, this is, uh, one that, uh, so he has that pair, pair cleaner, which is pretty good. I think it’s basically AppCleaner, but it’s supposed to be more, more updated. And, but, but Sentinel is, uh, I’m, I’m a fan.

And, uh, this is definitely something that like, I am appreciative of not having to, um, always remember, like, whatever the [00:56:00] hell the. You know, command is because the thing is that I might have, I have aliases on like one of my machines, but like not on all of them because I don’t properly, um, get repo all of my, um, aliases.

Um, I need to get on that, um, but this is just

Brett: Yeah, no, that’s awesome. I, I definitely run into that and I don’t know why people are releasing software without signing it, but it happens a lot

Christina: Well, the reason is because, you know, obviously there are ways where you can like sign without paying for the developer fee, but it’s, it’s complicated and, and I, I fully understand, especially for like open source types of stuff, like where people are like, I don’t want to spend, I don’t want to give Apple a hundred dollars a year if I’m not making any money on this, why do I need to spend a hundred dollars a year to do this?

I actually fully understand that. Like, I think

Brett: Yeah. Apple should have app. I mean, copilot gives. You get co pilot for free. If you develop open source, why wouldn’t you get your Apple developer account for free if you weren’t doing anything commercial,

Christina: Because you know that, that they would, they would view that as a [00:57:00] potential, um, like, uh, pri not privacy vector, like a certain security vector, like, that I think that, that they would think that there would be a lot of people who would come up with accounts for nefarious reasons so that they could have stuff, and it’s like, okay, but in that case, you just cancel

Brett: you revoke that. Yeah.

Christina: revoke,

Brett: you control the signature. Um, yeah. All right. That’s awesome. What you got Jeff.

Jeff: Mine is a piece of software that came out, um, 42 years ago next week. Uh, it’s called Lotus one, two, three. Um, and here’s why I’m not kidding. Um, I, we have a nineties PC here. Cause my, my two sons love like doom and quake and all these old nineties games, and they insist on playing them on a nineties PC. So at this electric electronics thrift store, I talked about, we picked one up.

Um, it’s that’s 46, not quite the Pentium yet. Thinking of building a Pentium machine over the summer. Talk about that later. Um, but I have all these [00:58:00] diskettes from back in the day and they start in about 95 and go through about 2001. And, um, so much of my journaling and things I wrote and stuff from the Iraq organization I helped to run and stuff like that are on these diskettes.

And I wanted to just like transfer them. And so we actually have like a five gigabyte drive on this thing. Like living in the future. Um, and so I, I pulled all these things in and what was amazing. So I also have, I got Lotus one, two, three off the free shelf at the thrift store and it was still wrapped.

And I was like, this is fucking awesome. This is going to be so fun. So like, I, I loaded it up. It’s great. And, and it’s so, I mean, it was so powerful at the time. So exciting at the time, uh, when I used, I didn’t use it at 83. I used it around like 92 or something like that, but like. There were all these files that I couldn’t open because I don’t have the software anymore or whatever else.

Um, yet I haven’t loaded it on and it was able to just like dig in there and pull the content out, not just be a spreadsheet program. Like it’s really got this amazing ability to just like [00:59:00] parse any kind of file and pull content out in a way that’s readable. And I was blown away. I was like, go. Get them Lotus one, two,

Christina: Hell yeah.

Jeff: and it, and it like saved, it allowed me to see like old journals and all like emails from the earliest days of email and like all this different stuff. And it was just like, so impressed. And I loved that. I got it wrapped off a free shelf because it was actually, I knew it could probably do that. And so I actually had the excitement of going through the, like four disc install, or it’s just like insert disc two of four, it’s just like, I fucking just to quote.

Commercial from the beginning of this. I fucking love computing and it was just the best. And then I transferred, the funniest thing was I transferred all my diskettes onto a folder on my windows 95 desktop and, and then felt secure, which is really funny. I was like, Oh, it’s all saved.

Christina: It’s wild.

Brett: how many of those blue, um, trifold windows 95 CD holders did you guys have with the, [01:00:00] each one with its own serial number on it that you had to type in?

Christina: I only had one, but, um, or, or, yeah, cause I had one for 195 and then I had one, I guess, for 98. And then, but I had a bunch for XP. Um, I had a bunch for XP and, and, and, and it was, um, green for home and it was, um, blue for pro. Because that was the first time they’ve needed that.

Brett: and you could buy like a five pack on like eBay

Christina: Yeah. Yeah.

Brett: know how legit they were, but

Christina: I mean, they were fine enough. Look, the, the key that I use.

Brett: collections of the

Christina: Yeah. I was going to say I use that, that one windows 95 key. Um, we find it, um, uh, five key. Um, it’s famous. It’s like the, um, um, what should we call it? Um,

Brett: God mode.

Christina: yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

, the quintessential, uh, Windows XP key, uh, was, uh, was, was the one like that, like everybody used for forever. Uh, that was leaked from like the, the gold master [01:01:00] or whatever.

And like everybody used that key, um, for, for years. And then finally like in like 2005 or something like Microsoft finally like banned it, but you know. It, it, it worked for a really, really long time.

Jeff: That’s awesome. Uh, by the way, just real quick. I’m on the Lotus one, two, three Wikipedia page. And there’s a, there’s an image for a sample macro. And the image is actually a picture of a, of like a yellowing dot matrix printout of macros code.

Christina: FCKGW. Sorry. Sorry. FCKGW. That was, that was the

Brett: I remember this.

Jeff: Awesome.

Brett: All right.

Jeff: Oh, can we do a, can we do a whole episode one time? Like it’s 19, like say 92 and we could just not acknowledge anything that came after it,

Christina: No, I love that idea. I love that idea. Like genuinely I’m, I’m, I’m completely there, right? Like

Jeff: All right. All right.

Christina: music, TV, movies, computing.

Jeff: tech podcast.

Christina: Oh my

Jeff: Oh, that’s our new podcast. The earliest tech podcast.

Christina: tech podcast. [01:02:00] That would actually be really, really fun to just, to just go back to a day in time and be like, let’s react as let’s react to what the news was at the time and like, talk about those things as if we have no idea what’s

Brett: and yeah, not acknowledge any, like we can be awed by, you know, like, like 256 megabyte hard drives.

Christina: Yeah, no, because we shit we would be right. Like in 1992, that

Jeff: I don’t even know why they call these floppy disks, they’re not floppy

Christina: They’re not floppy. Who would ever need more than 1. 44 megabytes ever?

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Remember when a floppy was floppy?

Christina: Yeah.

Jeff: Anyway. Alright.

Christina: games are, I don’t know, man. They’re, I don’t know if this technology is going to take off.

Jeff: Alright, I’m in. Alright.

Get Some Sleep

Brett: I gotta I gotta quit while I’m still

Jeff: Brett, good luck.

Brett: have to edit this

Jeff: it slow.

Brett: Yeah, we’ll try. Um Thanks you guys. Good to see you. We might be on break might be on break for a couple weeks here We’ll find out we’ll see we’ll see who shows up next week. Maybe none of us. All right.

Love you

Jeff: [01:03:00] Alright. Yeah, you too. Get some sleep.