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[00:00:00] Brett: Hey, um, this is Brett. Welcome to overtired. I’m here with Christina and our special guest, Aaron Dawson. Uh, first off, how’s it going, Christina?

[00:00:14] Mental health corner

[00:00:14] Christina: Uh, pretty good. I’m tired. Uh, which is good, I guess, for the name of the show, but yeah, I’ve had like three hours of sleep, so I’m, uh, I’m a little more tired than usual. Although I took my Dexedrine like right before we started recording. So in probably 15 minutes, I’m going to like, get my, you know, burst of like, you know, amphetamine, adrenaline or whatever.

[00:00:42] We’ll, we’ll be able to hear it. I’m sure. Once it kicks in on the show,

[00:00:47] Brett: I have you beat. I got two hours of sleep and I’ve been up since midnight. Uh, it’s not, it’s not a manic episode. I was just doing research for this podcast.

[00:00:57] So Aaron, how much sleep did you get?

[00:00:59] Erin: [00:01:00] Thanks for asking Brett. A solid seven, not to brag.

[00:01:05] Brett: God damn.

[00:01:06] Erin: Sorry.

[00:01:07] Christina: fucking fucking neurotypical people. Well, I’m sorry to assume. And I’m not, I’m not actually assuming, cause you’re on our podcast. So, uh, there’s gotta be like something that makes you, you know, like special because we’re special types of assholes, but uh, seven hours. Congratulations.

[00:01:26] Erin: thank you so much. Um, so what that seven hours though, it was a pretty shaky kind of sleep. So I went out last night, um, to a little cocktail bar and I felt okay about it because I got tested yesterday. I’ve been, um, doing a lot of travel recently cause I just moved from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh. So I’ve been in airports and I just wanted to be safe.

[00:01:50] So I felt okay about it. Um, so even though I got a solid seven, I’m a little hoarse cause we stayed out a little bit. So.

[00:01:59] Brett: [00:02:00] Um, Aaron and I had this really fun conversation once about an unnamed coworker. Like he has a name, but we’re not going to name him. Uh,

[00:02:11] Christina: like, like X.

[00:02:13] Brett: yes. Coworker X, uh, w we decided he was aggressively normal. Like speaking of neuro-typical, he was aggressively normal and, but it doesn’t bode well for either Aaron or me.

[00:02:29] I shouldn’t talk for Aaron. Aaron, how do you feel about aggressively normal people?

[00:02:34] Erin: It doesn’t bode. Well, if I could, if I can get into the mental health stuff, just right off the bat, uh, I have like a pretty quick like barometer for if I’m going to get along with someone and it’s completely vibe based. Right. And that, that sort of test is like, do I think this person has ever wanted to do this something harmful to themselves?

[00:02:57] Or do I think this person has [00:03:00] ever struggled mental health wise? And if the answer is like a no in a hard, no, it’s gonna be a bummer because that’s kind of like the fountain vein emotional foundation, um, that I keep with other people. So I don’t think there’s, I don’t think that Mr. X has ever, ever, ever wanted to do that. Okay.

[00:03:20] Brett: no, I highly doubt that.

[00:03:22] Christina: Whoosh, you know, I mean, cannot relate, uh, personally, but at the same time, I’m kind of like happy for you, Mr. X. Like, I, I, I, 100% see where you’re coming from Erin. And you’re like, I don’t think we’re going to vibe. Cause this is like a core part of who I am and like cannot relate with him. Part of me is like, I’m actually quite happy for you that you’ve never had to experience this.

[00:03:46] This is strange. I don’t know what to do with this information, but good for you. I guess

[00:03:52] Brett: There’s a whole world out there for normal people where they like hanging out with other normal people and do normal stuff and never think bad thoughts. [00:04:00] Well, if they do think bad thoughts, I imagine their bad thoughts are nothing like my bad thoughts.

[00:04:06] Christina: probably that’s weird to think about. We talked a couple of weeks ago about masking and, um, and then, uh, we did get some, uh, incidentally, we did get some like, uh, uh, listener responses to my other controversial stances in that episode, which I will not be re litigating. Uh, and I appreciate the responses.

[00:04:26] I’m happy that we can have those discussions, but, uh, we were talking about masking and yeah, it’s a weird thing for me. Cause like part of me I’m like, I think sometimes people have, who don’t know me. Um, and, and, and don’t like, listen to anything that I say, or like read what I write or whatnot. Like they don’t have those concepts of stuff with me.

[00:04:44] And so they make assumptions and then I’m like, Yeah.

[00:04:48] no, I, I, I’m not, you know, like, uh, a normal person, but, but people often who just like see the surface level stuff, like [00:05:00] I, most of my life I’ve kind of made those assumptions and I’m like, Nope, not, not

[00:05:05] Erin: Yeah. Yeah. One of the first things I. Brett when you and I met each other, uh, officially, and I’ve known of you for, uh, for a while before we started working together. But, um, I feel like one of the first things you mentioned in your sort of introduction is like, Hey, uh, sometimes I, I have this thing going on and, uh, I might act a little differently and my schedule might be sort of asynchronous with yours.

[00:05:32] Um, but usually I bounce back and it’s not a big deal. And that, that endeared you to me very quickly.

[00:05:40] Brett: That’s funny. I immediately regretted making that my like opening line. I felt like maybe that was definitely oversharing.

[00:05:47] Erin: I, yeah, I love oversharing. I mean, it’s, it’s the, it’s the sort of like, um, not evil twin of, of the thing earlier, where if you’ve never wanted to, you know, do [00:06:00] something harmful that I can’t relate to you, if you aren’t oversharer, especially about this stuff. Like, I absolutely love you already foundation.

[00:06:09] Unconditionally.

[00:06:10] Brett: uh, yeah, I like you’re the only person at work that I have openly talked about. My bipolar. Um, you, you, like there was an immediate, like, I felt like I could trust you and, uh, like disability laws and everything. I’m not scared that I like can’t talk about it to my manager. And if it ever becomes necessary to like explain something, uh, um, I’m not worried about it, but like, I’m not going to tell Mr.

[00:06:40] Rex, he doesn’t need to know

[00:06:42] Christina: No.

[00:06:44] Erin: to know basis.

[00:06:45] Christina: Yeah, I think that’s like, and that’s like the weird lesion of say, co-authoring right. Like when you meet somebody and you just know

[00:06:50] like you can trust them and talk to them and you can have that human moment of sharing, or even if you feel like it’s oversharing it, which I think is great. [00:07:00] And, uh, I’m glad that you have somebody that like you can talk to at work about that stuff.

[00:07:05] Right. I certainly have people that I can, although like to varying degrees and I’m sure I know I have colleagues and people who like listen to this, which is weird. So I’m kind of like, well,

[00:07:15] Erin: Okay.

[00:07:15] Christina: my whole life is out there, so whatever, but like, I know that like my managers don’t listen to this, which thank God.

[00:07:23] Um, but yeah, but that’s, that’s nice that you’ve had that, but I do also understand there are those people who are like, yeah, I’m not gonna be, I’m not going to have this conversation. Cause it’s. They either either may a may not understand or be it’s just like, not, not the best opener, because just don’t need to know like, just, it’s not something you feel like you need to share with them.

[00:07:45] Brett: You want her to know what else I did in our very first conversation.

[00:07:48] Christina: is that?

[00:07:49] Brett: I had put together some pieces of a kind of conversation and decided that, uh, that I understood Aaron’s sexuality. And, um, [00:08:00] instead of asking her like what her sexuality was, I just out and out said, Hey, are you and I, I think I threw you, Aaron.

[00:08:10] I didn’t mean to.

[00:08:12] Erin: No.

[00:08:12] Brett: then I made a crack about, about vegans and California. And the whole thing felt weird

[00:08:18] Erin: No, no. Um, there’s a sixth love language. Um, and for me that’s being like made fun of that’s the only way I feel sometimes, um, or affection, not just love. Right. Um, yeah, that, that, that felt really, really good to me. I, I think I kind of responded in kind by sending you some of my music, like band camp links, which

[00:08:46] I,

[00:08:47] Brett: said I had to, I had to stock you first. Like I found you on SoundCloud. I didn’t find your band camp. It wasn’t until we’d known each other for a few weeks, that you’ve shared your [00:09:00] band camp URL with me. We should put that in the show notes. Do you want that in the show notes?

[00:09:04] Erin: Oh, that’d be fine. That’d be great.

[00:09:08] Christina: yeah. Put, put, put her, put her camp stuff in the shutter.

[00:09:13] Erin: I actually shared. Um, so, so I was doing, uh, I had, uh, I had a call with someone at work recently and they needed to share their screen and, uh, while sharing their screen, they, they played a YouTube video. And when the YouTube video ended, you know, you get to see a bunch of thumbnails for suggested recommended videos.

[00:09:33] And they were all tool videos, like tool covers, tool drumming, uh, live tool sets. And I said, oh, you like tool. And he lit up and we talked about metal for awhile and. I, you know, I mentioned that I’m a musician. I actually went to school for music, this kind of thing. And afterwards slacked him, uh, you know, uh, a link [00:10:00] to some of my like more metally stuff and immediately deleted it cause I was embarrassed and he called me out.

[00:10:07] Um, and it’s weird. It’s, it’s sharing this really personal part of yourself. When you talk about your mental health at work or you show someone your art, um, it’s, it feels like, you know, the stigma about mental health is, is sort of eroding over time and like pretty quickly, um, except this, except when there are power dynamics at play, especially in the workplace blase, blase.

[00:10:34] Right. Um, so I

[00:10:37] Christina: No, that’s a great point. And, and it’s weird right? Because there are certain mental health things you can talk about at work. I think that are accepted. And then there are ones that aren’t right. Like, um, and I think this is like totally fucked up, but like, if you have anxiety or ADHD, that’s more understood.

[00:10:53] But if you were say in the middle of like an actual major depression, or if you suffer from bipolar or if you have, you [00:11:00] know, some sort of other disorder, then that’s like not quite as, as understood. And it’s, so this weird thing, like at this point, I think, especially in the industry that we work in there, it. feels like everybody is, is ADHD, which, um, uh, is nice. right.

[00:11:17] I have to say it and people like have actual diagnoses and, um, and a lot of people are on medicine for it. Uh, like, uh, I shared this on the show before, but it was remarkably easy maybe to, uh, No, I’m not going to say 80 to a scary degree. Cause actually it should be like this, but, but it was remarkably easy when I hadn’t been on my ADHD meds in a couple of years because I had ghosted my shrink and did stupid stuff and I moved to Seattle and I went to the doctor on the Microsoft campus and I was talking to her about stuff.

[00:11:51] First I’ve ever met her. I told her the name of my doctor. She didn’t actually like check stuff. I told her I had a diagnosis and she wrote me a script [00:12:00] for my Dexedrine that I got filled bad day. And then I was even able to get another refill. Um, and then I needed to like get back in touch with my shrink and get stuff done, um, with that was like my first visit.

[00:12:12] And that was. That was a really easy way of getting access to drugs where you didn’t actually, like, you took my word for it, which I think is great and the way it should be, but not the way it usually goes. And I’ve known like I’ve had like coworkers who’ve come into the office and I’ve like gone to the on-campus like health center and have like, gotten like an Adderall prescription like that day.

[00:12:37] Um, again, like, I’m sure, like, without them, you know, calling like to confirm with their other doctor or anything or whatever. Um, so it feels like that’s an accepted thing, but there are other things that it’s like, there is more of a stigma around it. And I don’t know if it’s that it’s not accepted because I could be wrong.

[00:12:55] It could be more open to talk about it, but like I have, I’ve had like managers and like executives [00:13:00] who will talk about being ADHD, but I don’t hear the same thing about like depression, you know,

[00:13:07] Brett: Or bipolar?

[00:13:08] Christina: bipolar? Absolutely

[00:13:09] Brett: No One’s up front about bipolar.

[00:13:11] Christina: No, not at all. I mean, the, the bipolar stigma is still there. I think it’s important.

[00:13:14] Like people like Catherine Zeta Jones, there’ve been some other, like, you know, celebrities who’ve been open about it. Well, Yeah. but Kanye is a bad example, right? Like, like Kanye, like, I’m sorry. But like, frankly, like, Oh, it was hurts some of the stuff more. Um, and, uh, w which is sad.

[00:13:32] Brett: he’s a bad representative for bipolar.

[00:13:34] Christina: Well, I mean, the, the art is great, but like, you see like the pain and like, this is why I had to stop, like, engaging with his Twitter stuff.

[00:13:40] Cause I was like, oh shit, this is like, honestly not a good thing. This is not okay. But yet, but bipolar.

[00:13:46] you don’t see people open about that, even though it’s, you know, more common. Um, it’s not a super common thing, but it’s, it’s more common, but yeah, like there’s still a stigma attached to that. Like I don’t think I’d be having a conversation about that with like a corporate [00:14:00] vice-president.

[00:14:01] Erin: I have a theory about this, which is, um, you know, some of that, there’s like an Overton window of mental health here and bipolar ADHD they’re included. Like you can talk about that stuff. We’re still coming off of like bipolar and ADHD. Uh, we still kind of consider them like quirky or something, but not diagnoses for troubled people.

[00:14:25] Um, they’re quirky where, as we’re asked something more serious, um, like a capital D depression, um, and this is where the like theoretical, uh, bar comes in, it distracts from. The capital from production, from labor, from work and air go there’s the, there’s still that stigma around it because especially, you know, places like, uh, like if you work in an open office and you’re gone for periods of the time period, long periods of time, like not a good look at [00:15:00] some places, depending on how the vibe of the office is.

[00:15:02] And so the, the, the, the diagnoses that, and, and, and, you know, I guess illnesses that distract and prevent you from actually working are still stigmatized or as the quirky ones. Yeah. You got a pass or you’re, they’re not, they’re seen as, not as serious.

[00:15:21] Brett: Why are managers so obsessed or some managers so obsessed with the hours you work? Uh, our managers are pretty cool. You know, as long as you get your shit done and you do good work, they don’t really care when you come into work. Or when you leave work, no one checks my clock, but I, when I quit my last job, it was like the, the straw that broke the camel’s back was I refuse to make my team work on a Saturday.

[00:15:54] And, uh, and that w I was reprimanded for that. And I, my contract [00:16:00] said we don’t work weekends. And I S I stood my ground and it didn’t go well, and then I quit. I wasn’t fired. I got, I got pissed about it. And that was, I mean, I was already pissed, but then I got, and then I was just done.

[00:16:15] Christina: yeah. Although in retrospect, maybe you should have quit removing should have let them fire you. Cause maybe the severance would have been better.

[00:16:21] Brett: yeah.

[00:16:22] Christina: That’s always the weird thing to know.

[00:16:24] Brett: when I offered my resignation, the response was that’s weird. I was just about to give you a raise. I’m not sure if that’s true or not. The guy was a snake.

[00:16:35] Erin: That’s what they all say.

[00:16:38] Brett: I, I spent the rest of the next five years kind of regretting not having a stable job. It’s good to, it’s good to be back in the workplace.

[00:16:45] Christina: We’re glad you’re back, but yeah, it is. That is like, uh, I don’t know. Um, I’m lucky that unless we’re on like deadline on something, like, we’re not super obsessed with, with ours, but it’s also been weird the last year and a half. [00:17:00] Cause we’ve all been working from home and it’s all been this weird fucking pandemic bullshit, um, that thanks to the anti maskers and anti-vaxxers, we’re going back into more lockdown stuff, which is fucking terrible.

[00:17:13] Um, so it’s been easier, but yeah, I don’t know, like, it is a weird thing cause I’ve been on so many, I’ve been on a number of different teams at Microsoft and some of the teams are definitely more like you need to be in the office and make FaceTime sorts of things, but they’re not, but like it’s for appearances.

[00:17:27] It’s not as if they’re actually like looking to see if I’m doing anything. In my, in, you know, in the office, it’s just, I need to show up at, you know, 20 hours of meetings a week. Um, so yeah, I don’t know. I, I, uh, before that, you know, I was in, I was in news and that’s probably one of the like least good careers in terms of like a work-life balance you can have.

[00:17:55] Brett: You’re slave to the headlines at that

[00:17:58] Christina: Yeah. Because it never stops. [00:18:00] And if you’re following something, it doesn’t matter if it’s like three o’clock in the morning, like you have to get up and, and cover it. So if it’s like your story, your beat or whatever,

[00:18:12] Brett: yeah, I wouldn’t have made it in that profession. You know what we gotta, we gotta get rid of the zoom bots in slack. It is way too easy for people to start zoom meetings. Like you can just pop into someone chat someone’s chat type slash zoom meeting and boom. You’re in a zoom meeting with someone and there needs to be a barrier.

[00:18:33] You should have to schedule that shit anyway.

[00:18:36] Christina: do people actually do that to people like not say, Hey, can we have a call? And, and instead they just like randomly started meeting, like it started meeting.

[00:18:44] Brett: Well, there, there will be one chat message prior to it. Uh, Hey, let’s have a call. And then the thing pops up with the link to join the zoom meeting. Yes. People all over my place of work. Do

[00:18:56] Erin: Okay.

[00:18:58] Brett: I hate surprise meetings [00:19:00] anyway, Aaron, uh, um, I’m gonna, um, I’m gonna shut up soon, but I I’m curious about this thing you put on to our shared show notes document about dud, uh, therapy sessions.

[00:19:13] Erin: Yeah, right. Okay. So I it’s been about three years since I’ve seen a therapist, um, and over the pandemic, which is not over, I felt like I needed to come back, needed to come back to the fold. And I found a young Ian with whom I wanted to work and her name is Wendy. She’s great. Um, and, and. We’ve had really huge breakthroughs and it’s been so good for me.

[00:19:44] Um, I never cry. Um, but during some of these sessions, like I get weepy. Um, and, and so they’ve been historically really good, but recently [00:20:00] there there’ve been a couple sessions where it just feels like, you know, why am I here? It feels like I’m at a Tiki bar talking to a good friend about some issues that I just, that are like dear to me and are painful to me.

[00:20:18] And it feels good to just talk to someone about them, but there aren’t a lot of like, There’s not a lot of moving the needle, mental health wise, or trying to unspool a lot of this stuff that’s been, you know, for years been like this, this really naughty with a K uh, thing thing for me. And so last session this week, it just felt like it felt like that again.

[00:20:47] And. I, I turned that kind of in words, where I felt like I failed my therapist and I feel like I fail her when this happens. And I feel like that because [00:21:00] I don’t know, I maybe I’m like too professional about therapy. Like I want to come with notes. I want to come with stuff to talk about rather than let it, you know, be this like natural con unscripted.

[00:21:13] Conversation. And I find that when I do prepare notes, we don’t talk about any of the stuff that I really wanted to, but it’s stuff that we needed to talk about. But when I don’t prepare notes, it’s this weird thing. When I don’t prepare notes, we, and trust that it will be an organic kind of conversation, uh, leading to, you know, these, these breakthroughs and moving the needle, nothing ever happens.

[00:21:40] Um, and I feel like I fail my therapists when that happens like that. I didn’t do enough prep that I didn’t do enough work to say, like, this is what I want to get through today. And in the next couple months, and I feel like I need therapy for failure. It makes me feel really terrible, [00:22:00] but yeah, it’s just died just a dud session.

[00:22:03] Brett: I like, I, the times I’ve gone to therapy, I’ve found that I do not let myself be genuine. Like I put up this, like, here’s who I want to be, and I’m going to describe things the way I kind of wish they were. And it’s really, I’ve never gotten to a point where I feel like I’m being honest and then the session ends.

[00:22:31] And I feel like, well, they probably have a great impression of me, but they have no idea who I actually am.

[00:22:36] Erin: Oh, my God sing it sister. Yeah. Like I, I’m pretty flirty and that’s, that’s not necessarily a romantic thing for me. Right. Like, I like to have fun with people and yeah. And like play and charm. And I, my therapist is no exception. Uh, and we bring that up in therapy. Like I want [00:23:00] you, I don’t want you to think ill of me, and I’m not scared that you will because it’s your job to, to sort of not analyze me, but we’re all explainable.

[00:23:11] And I would like you to explain me, but I do also need you to like me and I want to impress you and I want to make dumb jokes with you. And it feels good when there is no reaction to those jokes. And when that kind of charm doesn’t really work because. And, and not really reacting to that stuff. She’s sort of like communicating with me like that.

[00:23:38] We’re not here for that. And, and, and sometimes that’s a defense mechanism, right? Like a nervous laugh or, or that kind of thing. So I’m, I’m actually heartened. Bye.

[00:23:48] Christina: It’s interesting. So I’ve been with my therapist. Who’s also, so he is both a psychiatrist and he does therapy, which is a rare combo, but, um, um, uh, and I’ve been [00:24:00] seeing him at this point for other than like the, the two year like dark period. I’ve been seeing him since I was 19 or 20, so like half my life.

[00:24:11] So more than half my life, um,

[00:24:15] Brett: You’re not 40.

[00:24:16] Christina: not 40. So anyway, but, but, but approaching, so I’ve been seeing him for like 18 years. So, um, uh, stayed like that, that two year kind of like dark period. So he knows me pretty well, and he’s seen me through some shit. Right. And, and we used to have it in person, although it’s been over the phone for the last 10 years.

[00:24:34] Um, and now he’s actually because he’s in his seventies. Um, and God, I hope he doesn’t retire, but I know that it’s coming. Um, he, uh, with dependent against stuff is probably only going to be doing like, you know, phone conversations. And look, if you can charge $300 an hour or whatever it is that he charges.

[00:24:53] Um, and of course he does not take insurance, um, for being on the phone with people. I’m, I’m sure that that, that, [00:25:00] uh, suits him just fine. Um, so I’m pretty honest with him and he definitely has seen like the real me and I think he likes me and I think he’s proud and that makes me feel good. I think he’s proud of like, who I’ve become and like, cause he’s watched me, you know, like. You know, my, my whole adult, I basically, which feels really good and that’s really nice. And so I totally like relate to the whole wanting them to like, like you sort of thing, but I will say, and this is what’s interesting. I do have the same sort of thing where if I don’t come with like a plan of a thing that I need to talk about, we will just have more general conversations.

[00:25:35] And sometimes that can be helpful and he’ll come up with, with things that we can kind of work through. But sometimes it’ll just feel like, okay, well, what did I just pay for? And so I do have to, like when I was earlier, when I was younger and things, and I think we were probably getting, like, he was getting to know me and we were getting to kind of.

[00:25:53] Try to figure out, you know, approaches, uh, to both medicine and, and, and my, um, my mental health and things like That [00:26:00] Like there was probably more exploration where that sort of general talking was probably really good, but now there are times where I do have to come in and be like, okay, this is.

[00:26:11] what I want to talk about today.

[00:26:12] And this is what I need to try to work through. And these are things that I’m trying to approach. Um, but it also, and I’ll be honest, sometimes in some cases there are situations where I’m just like, I don’t want to talk about this. I know that I should, but I don’t want to. So we’ll just talk about the other things that are going on and the other stresses and, and, or not stresses.

[00:26:34] Brett: You pay $300 an hour out of pocket.

[00:26:37] Christina: Oh yeah,

[00:26:38] Brett: It must be good.

[00:26:40] Christina: yeah, yeah. No, he’s, he’s excellent. He’s excellent. No, I mean, and, and I’m looking. But not to like, I’m, I’m very fortunate and I’ve been doing this. Like I see him, I see him monthly at this point. So it’s, it’s not like a weekly thing. Um, when I was younger, when things were really bad, when I was like in college, there were some times I would see him like [00:27:00] weekly or every other week.

[00:27:01] Um, but obviously, uh, that’s not a super, uh, uh, economical thing. Um, and then, um, when I was in New York and, uh, I made less money and, and whatnot, like it wasn’t the easiest thing always to do, but yeah. Uh, I, I’m not saying that didn’t have anything to do with why I ghosted him. That was just my own mental health and stuff being bad.

[00:27:26] And like, don’t go to your shrink, but yeah. Um, Yeah,

[00:27:30] $300 an hour.

[00:27:31] Erin: Yeah,

[00:27:31] Brett: you ready for this? I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna segue into a sponsor break before I shut up for awhile.

[00:27:37] Christina: Okay.

[00:27:38] Sponsor: Sanebox

[00:27:38] Brett: Speaking of mental health, you know, what can really make you crazy too many emails?

[00:27:44] Christina: Boom.

[00:27:46] Brett: Inbox. Zero is a thing of the past. We’re also inundated with email now that it’s no longer about responding to everything.

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[00:28:13] So you know what messages to pay attention to now and what stuff you can get to later on it also has nifty features like the same black hole, where you can drag messages from annoying senders. You never want to hear from a gun and sane reminders, uh, to ping you. If someone hasn’t replied to your email by a certain time, Best of all you can use SaneBox with any email client on any computer or phone anywhere you check your email I’ve been using SaneBox for ever.

[00:28:40] And I recommend it to everyone. My entire email workflow is based around it. Uh, one of my favorite add on features is snoozing. Instead of relying on various apps to, uh, with, with their own snooze buttons, I can create custom mailboxes with custom timers, like three hours tomorrow or next week. And then I’ve [00:29:00] just move a message from my inbox to one of those folders.

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[00:29:42] Christina: Yay. Thank you. SaneBox

[00:29:44] Too much about the Bachelor

[00:29:44] Brett: So I’ll let you guys either continue with the mental health discussion or move on to something, uh, that I would hate, like, you know, the bachelor or whatever.

[00:29:54] Christina: you watching bachelor in paradise?

[00:29:57] Erin: You know, I am, uh, [00:30:00] I’ve, I’ve inhaled it. I have, uh, have you been watching?

[00:30:03] Christina: Oh, yes. Yes. Bachelor in paradise at this point is the only reason I’m kind of still watching the franchise because I want to know who the players in bachelor in paradise are.

[00:30:13] Erin: Wow.

[00:30:15] Christina: I kind of hate all the leads of him being honest.

[00:30:18] Erin: Okay. Yeah. Very, very relatable. I, I started watching pretty recently. Like I started with Hannah bees season.

[00:30:28] Christina: Okay. Okay. So, okay, so you are definitely newer. Okay. All right.

[00:30:31] Erin: definitely, definitely, but I’m, I’m in the, I’m in the fandom now, I guess like really hard.

[00:30:37] Christina: nation. Yes,

[00:30:39] Erin: Yes, of course. I’m in the, I’m in the nation. Um, I wasn’t there a lot of podcasts about it.

[00:30:45] I’m on the sub Reddit. Um, and like I’m finding that among a lot of queer people, there is a special place in the queer heart for, for this stupid [00:31:00] show. It’s really, really the tie that binds us all.

[00:31:04] Christina: Well, it’s a great show and some of the podcasts. So I think Nick vie, ally, I love him. He’s like one of my favorite contestants, like ever. And I think his podcast is good. There’s some other really good podcasts. Um, and is this weird thing in the last like five or six years? Like the show is like taken on a new, I think audience where like, you still have like the like Midwestern or Southern, like middle-aged like white Christian women.

[00:31:30] Like that’s still a contingent, but there’s also like this younger queerer, uh, like more alternative, like more like just, you know, people who are watching it started ironically and then were like, God damn it. This is actually really

[00:31:45] Erin: No, I know it’s

[00:31:46] Christina: And, and this is, yeah, this, this is a terrible show, but yet it’s fantastic.

[00:31:50] Have you watched, um, FYI.

[00:31:53] Erin: you know? Yes. Uh, so I, I, I seen like the first two episodes and I had [00:32:00] to note out and the reason I knocked out is because, you know, you need at least one redeemable person and no one on F boy island besides the host is, is like likable in any way. Um, so I, there are too many like Chad energy dude’s that I had to, it was to testosterone.

[00:32:24] I had to know about.

[00:32:26] Christina: Got it. Got it. Okay. Yeah, Cause I, I do enjoy FYE island, which is from, um, I think like the, I think it’s like, uh, also a Mica Fleiss, um, production, and then, uh, there’s a, you know, in the, in the UK there’s love island, which is just fantastic. Uh, and, and, and I think a bachelor in paradise is the closest thing that we really have to a, to a love island.

[00:32:46] I’ve had like many conversations with my, um, British colleagues about these sorts of things. And I’m like, okay, if you need like the American equivalent, you have to watch bachelor in paradise because it is just the trashiest, but like best thing. [00:33:00] And yet shocky Lee, like there’s, I mean, every couple of years there’s like a wedding.

[00:33:05] Um,

[00:33:07] Erin: it works sometimes.

[00:33:08] Christina: it works sometimes. um, uh, Tanner and Jay’s still seem to be together, um, uh, from, from years ago and, and Carly and I can’t think of the dude’s name, but yeah. Um, it’s uh, yeah, so, uh, Connor, I saw this in the, I saw it. I saw you put this in the show notes, um, uh, Connor, uh who’s uh, we should, uh, let people listeners know who I’m sure most of you do not listen to the BA do not watch the bachelor.

[00:33:37] Uh, he’s a cat, um, and a

[00:33:42] Erin: Yeah.

[00:33:43] Brett: Wait, there’s a cat on the bachelor. I find that that’s a sympathetic character to

[00:33:49] Erin: do you want to explain this, Christina?

[00:33:51] Christina: well, he’s not like quite a furry, but like, he’s like dressed up as, as, as like a cat [00:34:00] Yeah. But he does have like, strong, like, like, like cat.

[00:34:03] like. A gut, uh, energy. Um,

[00:34:07] Erin: So, so the way this works, Brett, um, and, and I hope you you’ll forget this and I hope you do because you had such little sleep such as so few hours of sleep. Um,

[00:34:18] Brett: already forgotten.

[00:34:20] Erin: oh, thank God. But, but. This works is when contestants for the bachelorette, all men get out of the limousine and meets

[00:34:28] Christina: like an intro.

[00:34:29] Erin: the bachelor ad for the first time, they try to woo them by doing some kind of novel thing that is designed to be memorable.

[00:34:37] So like one bro from this season, uh, James who looks like a villain, Christina, um, stayed in a box for a while and, and revealed himself later at one of the cocktail parties. Someone had like a bouncing, like a, like a bouncing castle or something like this. And Connor came out in a cat suit [00:35:00] because he has a strong meta-game.

[00:35:01] He found on the internet that Katie Thurston, the bachelorette was a big cat fan. And so he donned a cat costume. Um, so,

[00:35:11] Brett: It’s a bit on the nose.

[00:35:13] Christina: It’s very on the nose.

[00:35:14] I’m sure that actually a producer came up with it because the producers are highly involved in these shows. In fact, there was a whole, uh, series on, um, on lifetime and then on Hulu, um, about the behind the scenes thing, um, of, uh, uh, kind of like a show like the bachelor God, what was it called?

[00:35:29] It was good. Um, shit. It was with the girl from Broswell Sherry. Fuck. What was her name? Uh, This is going to bother me. Um,

[00:35:41] Brett: I might just leave a gap here and I’ll explain that Christina is madly searching the internet for

[00:35:48] Christina: no sh Sherri Applebee. I came up with her name really quickly, and then I forgot the name of the TV show, but it was because it was a good show. It was nominated for Emmys. It was, it was, uh, unreal. Okay. So there was actually a [00:36:00] show on that was three seasons that was quite good, uh, called unreal, which was all about like, kind of the insidious nature of the way the producers on the bachelor and the bachelorette, like work with contestants.

[00:36:10] So the producers totally like told Connor to put on a cat suit and, and like encouraged him to do that. And like, the thing is is you almost never want to actually do that. Like you, you don’t want to do the stunts. Cause the stunt people think that they get the airtime, but you’re usually not going to get a rose.

[00:36:26] So he actually did better. Cause he’s a hot guy and has a really good body. Like then we would have thought despite that the catsuit, but he’ll always be known as Connor, the cat. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, But

[00:36:41] Erin: Yeah, the button, the button down shirts with like the first, like four buttons. Not, not like, like showing his chest, like some real Miami vice, but like not in a, like retro, like what’s old is new again way. Um, but

[00:36:57] Christina: yeah. No, you’re, you’re not [00:37:00] wrong, but, uh, I do enjoy his Instagram and he has a really good body. And I enjoy him on bachelor in paradise because you know, really, really good body, uh, don’t mind seeing him like shirtless the whole time, which is like the whole point of this show. So, so people who aren’t familiar, so you have the bachelor, you have the bachelor, right.

[00:37:16] Which is like 24 or 20 contestants or whatever. Looking for love with, with, uh, with a bachelor bachelorette who is almost always someone who was on the previous season, who the audience knows and who often got to the finals and then was, was heartlessly, you know, like, like, uh, love was not allowed or in some cases there was like maybe a, a proposal.

[00:37:36] And then like, after the fact, the guy was like, yeah, actually I’m not into this. And, and, and we’re all like watching, uh, you know, uh, Becca get broken up with and, and, um, feeling pretty terrible about everything that we’re in a we’re enduring. And, um, so. Um, they take, uh, so what happens in bachelor in paradise is they take the people who probably didn’t get all the way maybe they did, but [00:38:00] usually didn’t, um, from past seasons and they put them on an island where they’re there for like two or three weeks with lots of alcohol and food.

[00:38:12] And they basically just hook up and fuck, and then there’s like an elimination ceremony. Like if you can’t find a partner to fuck, um, although they don’t like explicitly say that, cause the bachelor is this weird place where it’s puritanical, where they’d like to pretend that sex only happens in the fantasy suites.

[00:38:27] But, uh, the, the, the, the, the goat of the franchise, uh, Kaitlyn Bristowe flux, Nick vow on their first one-on-one halfway through the season, they had to extend production in a foreign country for several days because of that decision. No one knew that was coming Kaitlyn. Bristowe all hail our queen. She is the greatest bachelorette of all time for that reason.

[00:38:51] Um, uh, but, uh, but bachelor in paradise, uh, where’s the bachelor or bachelorette. I try to like sell this vision of a fantasy of love. [00:39:00] Bachelor in paradise is like, no, we’re going to make fun of all these people because we know they’re all ridiculous. It’s way more about the drama and the fucking impairing off.

[00:39:09] And it’s it’s truly sublime trash television.

[00:39:12] Brett: I cannot fathom liking this. You, you want to know what you want to know that the last reality TV I watched.

[00:39:20] Erin: bar rescue.

[00:39:22] Brett: first season of survivor. Uh, like I, I gotten through, uh, what was that re the real real world?

[00:39:31] Christina: Okay. Shut up. Don’t don’t pretend like you don’t, you didn’t watch the railroad.

[00:39:34] Brett: I did it.

[00:39:34] Christina: X or fuck

[00:39:35] Brett: did, I watched the real world and, and I wasn’t, at that point, I wasn’t as down on reality TV, but then I was in rehab and like inpatient rehab.

[00:39:45] And the only thing that was ever on the TV in the lounge was survivors. So I, I, I rolled with it and, and I got into survivor. And then I got out of rehab and never watch reality [00:40:00] TV again.

[00:40:01] Christina: Well,

[00:40:02] Brett: That’s just me.

[00:40:03] Christina: No, no, but I mean, I get it. You missed a lot of truly terrible television in the two thousands during the reality TV, boom of the two thousands. However, so I am sorry that you missed some truly, truly terrible television, like Jim millionaire and, um, uh, uh, uh, do you want to marry a multimillionaire and, uh, and other like truly abominable, um, uh, stuff by the bachelor.

[00:40:28] Like is a little bit of a wink and a nod. Um, the franchise itself proper has started to lean more into kind of acknowledging like who many of its fans are. But bachelor in paradise when it started was unique because it was in it’s like, I think five or six years old at this point, maybe a little bit older in that it was the first time that this cause of the series and part of my initial appeal, which was ironic.

[00:40:52] I have to admit at the beginning, um, was that it took itself like so seriously and was so chaste and some of its [00:41:00] approach to things, even though you always knew that stuff like went down and, and, and second greatest bachelorette of all time, uh, uh, Courtney Robertson, um, um, Rachel Lindsay, who is truly the greatest bachelor at, of all time, the reason I’m not putting her number one is she was too good for the show.

[00:41:14] Then she’s too good for it now. She doesn’t like count, like she went on that show and was great for a presentation, but she was too good for the show when she went on, she’s a, she’s a lawyer. Um, uh, her dad is a federal judge. She’s also the first black, um, um, lead on the show, which was stupid that it took that long.

[00:41:35] But anyway, before bachelor in paradise, the show would always have like this very like highly stylized kind of regimented thing. And with, with a couple of very dramatic exceptions, like they really, you know, pushed a certain kind of way of editing and whatnot. And you didn’t see any of the messiness, whereas a bachelor in paradise, like they just lean into the messy and it’s just fantastic.

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[00:42:04] Christina: Okay.

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[00:43:55] Christina: Okay,

[00:43:56] Brett: Can I tell you,

[00:43:57] Somehow, more about the Bachelor

[00:43:57] Christina: go on. No, no, I was just going to, [00:44:00] was just going to say, Aaron, did you have anything else? I just want to know if she had anything else to add about the bachelor. Yes, she does.

[00:44:05] Brett: I’m done. Okay, go ahead, Aaron,

[00:44:08] Erin: close the loop to close the loop. Christina, I want to talk about your very quickly, your attraction to Connor. Um, so, so Connor, he’s a Hottie, but he’s like a nice guy. He’s like, he’s a normie, which is, I don’t know if that’s the word we use to describe Mr. X earlier, but strong, like aggressively

[00:44:28] Brett: Aggressively normal.

[00:44:29] Christina: a math teacher.

[00:44:31] Erin: So w okay. But he’s also a

[00:44:34] Brett: known a lot of weird math teachers.

[00:44:36] Erin: Connor is also a musician. What does that mean? That means he brings his ukulele to the island to the beach. My, my question to you, Christina, is, does the cringe factor of Connor’s ukulele and singer songwriter, Jason morass for 2021 vibe like. [00:45:00] How does that play with his, his attractiveness to you as a presumably straight person?

[00:45:05] Like, does it offset it? Does it enhance it? Like how do you

[00:45:08] Christina: Oh, no way diminishes it 100%. Like I like, like again, like I just want to see him with his shirt off, like to be clear and, and I would prefer to not even hear him talk that much. Like I’m kind of wanting him to just be at Himba if I’m being totally honest. No, the music is totally cringe, but he’s also a nice guy.

[00:45:24] He’s sweet. He’s enduring. Like there are so many assholes on that show. And, um, I have to say Lance bass, who I don’t love anyway, I don’t, um, he was on Nick vials, uh, podcasts, and he was like bitching about how like Connor was only on the show, like to get his music on. And like, dude, you’re not wrong. And you look, he, he has a certain point look, almost everybody in the bachelor this point, like, there’s this weird, like direct through line between the bachelor and bachelorette, adjacent people at people in that bubble.

[00:45:56] And then like Nashville, like it’s weird. They all go to live in Nashville [00:46:00] afterwards. They, they find a lot of people in Nashville. It’s a weird thing. Um, uh, what’s a space Wells, uh, you know, one of the hosts who’s, who’s great. Like, is, was, it? was a radio DJ in Nashville, Wells, uh, who famously, like he got fairly far in his season just because he had a good personality, but he had like, didn’t have chemistry with the, with the contestant, like not really romantic chemistry.

[00:46:21] He was just a really fun guy. And he has a great personality and he clearly was kind of odd. He was like, yeah, you could, you could tell that he was like, Yeah. my radio career will probably do well. And you? want a bachelor in paradise, had a great time. And now I think he’s engaged to like one of the stars of, um, uh, modern family or whatever.

[00:46:36] So like, he’s, he’s doing well for himself. Like that was Seuss. I was like Lance bass. I was like, Yes. he wants to get his music on, but I don’t actually think that was the whole reason he went on the show And of all people to talk, dude, like the only reason you’re guest hosting, this is because you want people to listen to your shitty podcast or Sirius XM show, like, honestly, fuck

[00:46:57] Erin: he’s not,

[00:46:57] Christina: bass.

[00:46:58] Erin: he’s not a great host [00:47:00] either. Uh, no, Chris

[00:47:02] Christina: That’s what I’m saying. No, also. Yeah. He’s no, Chris Kirkpatrick. Sorry. Like he’s the weakest member of Insync. So like don’t come in here as the weakest member of Insync. Okay.

[00:47:12] Brett: He’s also, he’s also one of the, the second, most famous member of Insync. So

[00:47:18] Christina: he’s not, He’s not more famous than, than

[00:47:20] Erin: famous member of in-sync with the fish last name.

[00:47:23] Brett: we, can, can I know, I promise to let you talk about like the bachelor and

[00:47:28] Christina: we can move on. We can move on.

[00:47:30] Ok, we’re done with the Bachelor. Nerd time.

[00:47:30] Brett: I really want to tell you about how I solve my VPN woes.

[00:47:34] Christina: Okay. Okay,

[00:47:35] Brett: that too, is that too harsher transition?

[00:47:37] Christina: it’s not, this is a perfect transition. I’m really glad we’re, we’re making this transition? and that we’re, we’re done with bachelor talk. Uh, Aaron and I will be starting our own podcast. I will be restarting the basic bitches guide to life with Aaron is my cohost. Um, Aaron, you’ve just been voluntold for that.

[00:47:52] Um, uh, Brett, go on. Tell us about your VPN.

[00:47:55] Brett: Like I was a good sport, right?

[00:47:57] Christina: No, you were,

[00:47:58] Brett: Okay. Cool. [00:48:00] Cool. So our

[00:48:02] Christina: he hated this so much.

[00:48:04] Brett: work, uh, what makes us use, uh, Cisco, any connect to get on the VPN? And you know, all of the stuff like confluence, confluence, sorry, Aaron confluence, and, uh, and, uh, JIRA. And then all of the internal documents and everything, you gotta be on the VPN, but when you’re on the VPN, everything else is so slow and, uh, the VPN times out, and you have to enter your password every time because it doesn’t store credentials and every time your computer sleeps, it logs you out.

[00:48:39] So it’s a constant, it’s a hassle. I hate it. I put my password on a key binding, uh, to save some time, but still annoying. So, uh, my manager turned me on to a Docker, uh, container that runs. Uh, it has like its own proxy debt [00:49:00] PAC filed that it can serve up to, um, Macco us, uh, auto configure for the proxy. It targets all of the, uh, possible Oracle in internet domains and ignores any non-Oracle traffic.

[00:49:17] And then you route your, uh, your ports through the Docker image. And it’s, it’s seamless. You have to research it every 24 hours, but you can put that on a launch D job, but I didn’t want to run Docker on all my machines. So I’m running Docker on my old 2012 Mac mini in the corner of my basement. That’s like my home automation server.

[00:49:45] So Docker’s running there with a launch D that that re restarts it every 24 hours. And then I just have launched D on each of my other computers that uses SSH to create a [00:50:00] tunnel to forward those ports so that the proxy dot PAC file, which redirects stuff to local host ports,

[00:50:08] Christina: Right?

[00:50:09] Brett: then when it redirects the local host host ports, it actually goes through the Mac mini and it is flawless.

[00:50:16] I have never been happier. Well, I’ve never been happier with a VPN setup. I I’ve been happier, but they’re just really cool.

[00:50:24] Christina: No. Okay. So basically, so you’re running Docker on this 2012 Mac mini and then your, um, SSH to launch D to basically run the, uh, the config file.

[00:50:35] Brett: Yeah. I, I have a launch D job that, that runs SSH in the foreground. So the launch D job just keeps running until the SSH fails or crashes, and then it has a keep alive. So it just restarts the tunnel. So basically it’s always, always running and I never have to think about whether I’m on VPN or not. In fact, I’m on VPN right now and [00:51:00] it’s not affecting my, my bandwidth at all.

[00:51:02] Christina: Nice. Nice. It seems like, have you ever looked at tail scale? Are you familiar with

[00:51:07] Brett: have no idea what that is.

[00:51:08] Christina: Okay. Tail scale is. bad-ass. So it’s basically kind of like a zero config, like VPN sort of install and it helps you get like wire guard basically installed or, or things similar to that. But without having to do the difficult configuration that wire guard entails, but you can install it on any device you can share with. How much people in your local network, and then you can basically kind of create like host names so that you could access like your home machines remotely without having to, to like manually configure like your or firewall stuff or, or, you know, like, like figure out like how you’re like handling like the DNS and all that stuff.

[00:51:45] It’s really, really good.

[00:51:46] Brett: What’s it called?

[00:51:47] Christina: It tail scale. T a I L S C a L E.

[00:51:53] Brett: Yeah. Okay.

[00:51:54] Christina: It’s really good. My, uh, my friend, Brad, um, uh, works on it and, um, [00:52:00] uh, it’s awesome. Um, I don’t know if that would do anything for your setup, but it’s been, I would definitely encourage people who might need something similar to look into. And I don’t know how it would work with the Cisco AnyConnect thing.

[00:52:13] For some reason, I thought that you were able to get around some of this by using a different VPN client. Did that end up not

[00:52:18] Brett: so, yeah, like Shimo was kind of working for a little while, but then, uh, like it got to a point where it would, I could get to intranet sites while it was active on the VPN, but I couldn’t get to the rest of the internet. Like I couldn’t do it simultaneously. Uh, the only way I ever got that to work was with Cisco AnyConnect while I had that fucking over-protective profile, that MDM, that Oracle pushed onto my personal machine.

[00:52:49] Uh, and for that period of time, the VPN was bearable, but I still had to do that logging in and out, but Shimo still like, I couldn’t get [00:53:00] this. I don’t know what I’m doing with networking and VPN stuff. Like I beat stuff until it works. I spent the weekend, uh, getting all of the port-forwarding right on my Synology so that I can get remote access.

[00:53:18] And I built a, uh, so Synology has dynamic DNS built-in and Namecheap can add dynamic DNS to any domain you register there, but Synology can’t update Namecheap. So I wrote a blog piece

[00:53:36] Christina: brain? Did, did you write a thing like for their API to basically,

[00:53:39] Brett: Well, I, yeah, I just, I wrote a, uh, service that I added to their like default services. So now the dropdown includes names.

[00:53:47] And now I have my custom domain that I won’t share publicly because it’s all, you know, private, but I have a nice short, custom domain. That’s very personal to me because I’m vain [00:54:00] and I can access my, my Synology, my local web servers, uh, everything my home automation server.

[00:54:09] Christina: So you’ve kind of created this mesh VPN thing, similar to what they’ve done. Um, and I’m not wanting to undo your work, but I really want you to look at tail scale cause they have a technology package and, um, it just, it makes so much of the configuration stuff, especially on mobile devices so much easier.

[00:54:27] So I want you to, I want you to like, especially next time you go into like a, a manic, like deep dive space. I want you to go into tail skill. Also their documentation is really good. Um, Aaron, I don’t know how much you fuck with networking stuff. I fuck with it enough to be dangerous, but not enough to like really understand things.

[00:54:46] Um, uh, but uh, I like, uh, I liked history.

[00:54:51] Brett: I will check that out.

[00:54:53] Erin: Speaking

[00:54:53] Brett: I don’t think errands. I don’t think Aaron’s into this stuff. Are you into this stuff? Aaron?

[00:54:58] Erin: No, but here’s what I have to offer [00:55:00] here is a question. Maybe I, what I started at hour an hour at our workplace, Brett, I wanted to be, you know, like a device separatists where like I have my, you know, MacBook pro, but I have my iMac where like I do things, um, and pretty quickly learned that that’s like not a super tenable thing because I much prefer using my main machine, my iMac over the, over the laptop.

[00:55:28] So I’m just going to sometimes VPN in to my iMac. Here’s, here’s my question. I’ll, I’ll have to VPN and to access confluence or JIRA or whatever, and then we’ll forget to disconnect from the VPN in the meantime. And here’s where the question is. I might, I might go to some unseemly things, not necessarily NSFW, but you know, a little, a little racy does, you know, [00:56:00] VPN does a lot of things.

[00:56:01] But one thing that it does for our place of work is probably I’m guessing surveillance. So if you go to an unseemly website, um, not that that’s going to be flagged, but is that, uh, does that display on the, is it logged on the other end?

[00:56:19] Brett: Okay.

[00:56:19] Christina: So I don’t know about your policies. Do you know the answer to that, Brett?

[00:56:22] Brett: I know that there is no policy that says it is not logged.

[00:56:28] Christina: Okay. So. I know that for instance, at Microsoft, if I’m on the corporate network, like the sub-net, I can basically guarantee that any traffic that I’m visiting is logged. somewhere. Although I also know those logs are purged, and I also know that they’re 160,000 employees or whatever. And so, you know, that likelihood of them seeing anything is minimal.

[00:56:53] I know that at least for us, like my managers can’t see anything. Um, th th th the trust and safety team might be able to, [00:57:00] or whatnot. I do also know that they have, um, that they block certain websites and they actually block certain connections. Like I can’t use bit torrent on the corporate network, um, unless I, use a different VPN on top of the corporate, like hardwired VPN, which yes.

[00:57:19] Um,

[00:57:19] Brett: I, I got bit too hard for my Synology, so I’m glad I figured this out.

[00:57:23] Christina: Yeah.

[00:57:23] no, I mean, and in my case, I mean, I was actually ironically doing the thing that I always make fun of people for claiming to be like, don’t let your Linux system. I’m like, no, you’re not in this case. I actually was downloading some sort of like large thing where like the main distribution thing on there on the project site was like, not through a CDN, but was through a bit torn link.

[00:57:41] And then I realized, I was like, oh, they won’t let me have this sort of. Makes sense that because people would abuse the, the very fast, uh, corporate internet and also they probably don’t want Microsoft servers coming up in the logs of those places. I totally understand. Um, you are more than likely logged.

[00:57:58] I don’t know if it would, [00:58:00] I don’t know what it is. Like if you were on your personal machine, like, do you have, is it like MDM managed, so on your personal machine or you basically your SSH then, so, okay. So if I’m understanding the scenario correctly, your personal machine doesn’t have any sort of like device management on it is your personal thing, but you are then SSH into your, um, like your titling through to access your other machine that is connected to your corporate VPN to then access resources.

[00:58:28] Am I understanding that.

[00:58:30] Brett: Right, but it has basically a grip that searches for only internet sub domains. And if it doesn’t match one of those, it sends it right back to be handled as, as usual.

[00:58:44] Christina: Right,

[00:58:45] Brett: the only traffic that I can possibly send through

[00:58:48] Christina: No, no. Right. No, super. No. So for you, you’re fine. But I’m asking for, for Aaron, like when you’re doing this art in this scenario, are you SSH into like your other machine access that stuff? Or are you [00:59:00] like, are you meaning that you’re actually using your VPN on your like iMac

[00:59:04] Erin: exactly dummy, simple, open any connect, you know, connect through the

[00:59:09] Christina: access a work resource and then you’re doing other stuff? Yeah. It’s okay. It’s probably, Yeah. it’s probably being logged somewhere, but again,

[00:59:21] Erin: But also who cares?

[00:59:22] Christina: Right. I was going to say the one, like this is like, cause I’m like, uh I’m. I would like to be a separatist. I can’t be completely, our policies are pretty clear about what they will and won’t monitor, but I’m aware, like if I’m connected to like the VPN, like the bacon do stuff, although for personal machines, I think some of the stuff is slightly different, but I don’t know enough about the intricacies.

[00:59:43] Murder. We’re talking about murder.

[00:59:43] Christina: Um, I assume that they can monitor what websites, at least the URLs, like if not the content. Cause if it’s, you know, it’s HTTPS that can’t see what you’re, what you’re doing. They could at least see the domains. In which case, you know, like I said, like Oracle has how many, you [01:00:00] know, like they have over a hundred thousand employees.

[01:00:02] Um, I’m sure that the logs expired a certain period of time. They don’t keep them, you know, forever people have better things to do that said. you murder someone, um, make sure you’re not connected to the VPN. And if you’re going to be Googling, like how do I hide the murder weapon? Don’t be locked into your Google account. Ideally be using different, you know, VPN service that has a no locking policy, uh, or, you know, um, like a burner laptop. That’s, that’s my advice for how to get away with murder, by the way, free advice for the audience there. Use a

[01:00:37] Brett: to get away with it. Should that be the title of the episode? I was going to go with fuckboy island, but

[01:00:43] Erin: Yeah.

[01:00:44] Christina: get away with murder might be good. Uh, Yeah.

[01:00:46] no, that, that w cause I, I don’t know about either of you, I watched like the crime shows and my whole thing is, even though I know that I would never get away with crimes because I would do something that would be stupid, uh, more than likely, like [01:01:00] I would do something to get caught, but I always think about like all the mistakes they make and like the op sec things.

[01:01:06] And I’m like, man, okay. How would you do this to not get caught? Like that’s where my mind goes. Is does that make me like a fucked up person?

[01:01:14] Brett: no, that’s my first, that’s my first consideration.

[01:01:18] Christina: Yeah, because I always want to think about, go on.

[01:01:22] Erin: has analytical people. We can cosplay as any thing we want and explore all those kinds of options. Should something happen to us? Like one of the, one of the reasons we dream rights supposedly is that like our, our brain is like, this is, this would be a scary scenario for you. So I’m going to simulate it and watch how you behave so that if, and when this ever happens, you might know what to do.

[01:01:48] So I don’t think that makes you a weird person. I think we’re designed or a fucked up, I think we’re designed to do. However I did see, uh, online, um, uh, about this, like [01:02:00] about a way to, to get rid of a body that really struck me. And it’s really, really clever. The idea is that you would tell the police where a body is buried.

[01:02:11] And so they’ll go out to this, this forest or whatever, and dig up where you told them where you tip them off. They don’t find anything. They put the dirt back, they look elsewhere. In the meantime, that’s where you put something that you want to hide because it’ll look like the fresh soil was dug up by the police and not by the killer.

[01:02:34] Christina: Right, And then like, what is the likelihood That the overtaxed homicide department is, going to go back to the place they’ve already checked out? That’s clever.

[01:02:44] Brett: That is, I imagine that that could work. I will never get to test it. Uh, I’m a vegetarian, so I just, I, I, I, I wish I wish I could have proof that that [01:03:00] worked, but also, I don’t think anyone would talk about it if it did.

[01:03:04] Christina: Yeah, My only thing with that would be, you need to make sure you’re not a suspect because then you, cause if you worked and they probably are surveilling you and then they could like pick up on you, you

[01:03:16] Brett: Based on all the cop shows I’ve watched. Yes

[01:03:19] And then came Colombo

[01:03:19] Christina: Yeah. I was going to say, um, grant and I were watching, um, a, uh, a Colombo rerun last night. Um,

[01:03:26] Brett: One more thing.

[01:03:27] Christina: Yeah, this is our final thing.

[01:03:28] No, but it was really good. It’s called it was actually a really good episode. It was like written by Stephen J Cannell, the guy that went on to create the Rockford files in the team and, and, and shit. Um, and, uh, in this case, cause here, and then Greg is so annoyed with me because what I always do with, with these shows is I always root for the killer.

[01:03:45] Like I want them to get away with it. Like I don’t want Columbia to crack the case. And Colombo of course is always going to crack the case. That’s the whole damn thing. Right. But I’m always like, no, man. I like really like want like the killer to like get away with it. And this guy was really clever and, and, and had [01:04:00] honestly, if it weren’t for some pop science from 1973, that they’d interjected into it, the rest of it was all circumstantial and they never, it never would have been, the Columbia never would have solved the case, but, uh, but Yeah, um, that, that, that just was reminded me of that.

[01:04:15] Sorry.

[01:04:16] Erin: that, that Peter folk is a tall glass of water. Isn’t that his name?

[01:04:20] Christina: Yeah, I think

[01:04:21] Brett: James Garner was better.

[01:04:24] Christina: I, I mean, I don’t disagree. I mean, you know, James Garner was also on TV for fucking ever

[01:04:30] Brett: I did love, I did love Columbia though. I’ve watched so many reruns of Colombo,

[01:04:34] Christina: you see you and grant are like, so similar,

[01:04:38] Brett: birds of a feather.

[01:04:40] Christina: honestly. Cause like I, the Colombo shit like drives me crazy. Sometimes I’m like really Colombo and he’s like, no, it’s so good. And yeah, like, like, like you Erin, like I, I think grant is very into Peter Falk. I think that he thinks he’s of tall glass of water and uh, um, use very funny, um, actor, but, uh, yeah. [01:05:00]

[01:05:00] Brett: You know what show gets really good in season four.

[01:05:03] Christina: What’s that?

[01:05:04] Brett: Speaking of like mystery crime solving shows,

[01:05:08] Christina: Yeah, it does.

[01:05:08] Brett: like I was enjoying Chuck, but then season four came along and holy shit, like I’m hooked. Like I want to watch it every night now. It’s, it’s goddamn good. Like I got to season whatever, five of community and it just kind of

[01:05:23] Christina: It kind of fell off. Yeah.

[01:05:26] Brett: So now it’s like, Chuck is my comfort show. Watch it every night before bed. Crazy.

[01:05:31] Erin: if you, if you got to season and that’s the Sopranos for me right now, but if you got to season four, where you not already, huh?

[01:05:39] Brett: I, I was enjoy. Like I like to always have, uh, at least one just comfortable show that I can kind of play my phone, play on my phone while it’s on half pay attention to, it’s just kind of like a way to let down after a busy day at work. Uh, and that’s been everything from Frazier [01:06:00] to, uh, what was, uh, the, the Bob hope show we did for a little while.

[01:06:06] Like, it’s always just mostly old outdated TV,

[01:06:09] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. Um,

[01:06:11] Brett: yeah, Chuck, Chuck was that

[01:06:13] Christina: Um, have you watched either? Cause we just bought, we just recently got, uh, on our, um, Plex, um, all of 'em both a new heart and the Bob Newhart show and, uh, pop knew her as a fucking funny guy, man.

[01:06:26] Brett: he, yeah, that show had a lot of, a lot of brilliant moments in it.

[01:06:30] Christina: Yeah. But both of them were good. Right.

[01:06:32] Brett: I didn’t, I didn’t see the second. I only saw it. Like, no, I was watching what’s it called? The new hearts. There was like a,

[01:06:40] Christina: it was the, one of the N

[01:06:42] Brett: I don’t know.

[01:06:43] Christina: is the, so there’s cause there’s the Bob Newhart show where it was like, he’s a psychiatrist and any, he’s got his kind of, uh, you know, um, uh, you know, kind of, it’s like a kind of, you know, uh, sixties and like sitcoms and he’s a psychologist and, and, and. [01:07:00] It’s not dissimilar from Frazier in some regards, but it’s, it’s honestly very different and he’s very funny.

[01:07:05] And then there’s new heart, which is, he’s like running an Inn.

[01:07:10] Brett: yeah, that’s the one I’ve

[01:07:12] Christina: Okay. So, so the Bob Newhart show, which was a decade earlier is also great, but it’s very funny. And the thing is, is that if you watch the Bob Newhart show, then the series finale of new heart will make more sense because, and this is why this is a spoiler and I’m sorry, but it’s been 30 years audience.

[01:07:27] You’ve been whatever. And it’s at this point a known trope, but the series finale of new heart is considered one of the greatest of all time because it ends and in this was also a trope at the time in the eighties where like, it was just a dream. That was a thing that they did on Dallas and shit like that.

[01:07:43] He wakes up. And he’s in bed, not with his wife from new heart, but with his wife, from the Bob Newhart show in his character, from the Bob Newhart show. And he’s like, I just had the weirdest dream and starts talking about all these crazy people. They were in his life. And like that is considered like hands [01:08:00] down, like one of the greatest, like TD finales of all time.

[01:08:03] Like they didn’t do any how I met your mother ruining it. Shit. That’s like a, like up there with St. Elsewhere. And the Sopranos. Speaking of stuff that you, as your comfort show Aaron as like one of the greatest finales of all time.

[01:08:14] Erin: I can’t wait.

[01:08:16] Brett: All right. So I feel like I need we’re 20 minutes late for an optional meeting right now, but I feel like I really need to start both the Sopranos and the wire, because I’ve never seen either.

[01:08:27] Christina: Oh my God. I’m so excited for this. Okay. So Aaron, is this your first time watching the Sopranos?

[01:08:33] Erin: Yes, it is season five, baby.

[01:08:36] Christina: a season five. Okay. All right. So you were watching some of the greatest television ever. Um, so I’m, I’m excited for you to see how it ends because it, it does it very well. And unfortunately, because, um, James Gandolfini died, like it is, you know, kind of like the, uh, we won’t ever get like our revisitation with at least him anyway, but, but David Chase [01:09:00] who created, uh, well, he wrote for Rockford files, speaking of Rockford files, um, and, uh, um, Northern exposure and stuff, but Yeah.

[01:09:08] uh, there’s a really good book that I need to find, um, that I think he attributed to, um, about the Sopranos.

[01:09:15] So the book is called, um, difficult men behind the scenes of a creative revolution from, um, uh, the Sopranos and the wire to mad men and breaking bad by Brett Martin. It came out in 2014. It’s a really, really good book. Um, and, uh, that is good. So you need to watch the Sopranos Bret because 20 years on, I’m actually mad.

[01:09:35] Well, now you’re in rehab in New York doing other stuff and you thought you were too cool for HBO. I get it. You thought you were too cool for HBO. You weren’t, but, but you thought you were, um, Aaron, have you watched the wire?

[01:09:47] Erin: I have I watched up to season two. Um, but yeah, kind of, kind of fell off and, and let me just say really quickly, the reason that I started the Sopranos is because I’m getting a pretty [01:10:00] major surgery next month and we’ll have a lot of like bed rest time to recover. And I wanted to start something with like a really steep catalog, lots hours to watch, but like I wanted to save like maybe 30 hours and I couldn’t do it.

[01:10:18] I had to keep watching. So

[01:10:20] Christina: Yeah, no. Which

[01:10:21] Erin: the wire too in recovery.

[01:10:23] Christina: should, you should both watch the wire. Um, because the thing is, is that I think Like because the wire, every season has like a different focus area. Um, Brett and, um,

[01:10:33] Brett: Like true detective.

[01:10:35] Christina: um, no, not really. It’s more like an investigation into a different part of like the city. Like there’s one season, like season four, I think is all about like the education system and, you know, some things are about kind of like the, you know, some of, some of the, and kind of the impact of, of drugs and, and that sort of thing, like on like, you have like similar characters who go throughout all of those seasons, but it’s, it’s focused on like a different area.

[01:10:59] [01:11:00] Um, I, I don’t know. I think David Simon is brilliant. The wire. It’s one of those things where I don’t want to, like, over-hype the show. I don’t know how much you will love it. I think it’s some of the best television That’s ever existed. Um, I mean, I okay. My, no, but I do like, okay, so David Simon’s book, I’m just going to.

[01:11:20] Like Christina out for a second. Um, clearly it drink kicked

[01:11:23] Brett: what we’re all here for.

[01:11:25] Christina: So in 1991, David Simon wrote a book called and I’m going on memory here. So I think it was 1991. You wrote a book called, um, homicide a year on the killing streets where he was embedded. I believe it was 1989 with the, um, Baltimore homicide division for a year.

[01:11:43] He’s a reporter for the Baltimore sun. And he was embedded with the homicide team for a year. And like, they let him basically see everything and like he’d lays out like the rules of what he was and wasn’t allowed to do at the beginning. And then like he didn’t interfere, but he was kind of a fly on the wall and he captured everything.

[01:11:58] And at the time Baltimore was [01:12:00] like the most deadly city in America and had like a ridiculous number of unsolved rates and whatever stuff. The book is a phenomenal piece of journalism. I just want to say it’s a phenomenal kind of like work of art in and of itself that went on to be the basis for what I consider one of the greatest network television shows of all time.

[01:12:19] Um, homicide, um, um, uh, life on the streets, which aired on NBC, the final seasons, weren’t quite as good because the network fucked it up, but it it’s tremendous television it’s unfortunately not on streaming. You can find it on other places because they released it all on DVD. Um, that was created by a guy named Tom, Tom Fontana.

[01:12:39] They shot it in Baltimore and, and used, you know, um, a lot of the actors who were in homicide, you’ll also see in the wire. You’ll also see in Tom Fontana’s other show Oz, which I think is tremendous, even though it’s very pulpy. Um, David Simon started writing for television on homicide. He came in, I think like the third season and then he adapted or helped adapt his [01:13:00] second book called the corner into a mini series for.

[01:13:02] HBO.

[01:13:03] And that kind of kicked off, I guess, the idea with HBO of, Hey, Let’s let’s do the wire and, and, and the wire is, is, uh, often lauded as like the greatest television show. You know, one of the greatest television shows of all time. I don’t know if I’d go that far. I think it’s certainly up there. Um, and, and it’s, uh, like it, it’s 60 episodes.

[01:13:27] So if you need like hours, Aaron, like that might be a good one to look at. Um, it’s on HBO max or whatever. It’s it’s really good. Have you watched the Americans? Aaron.

[01:13:42] Erin: Hell. Yeah, it’s so

[01:13:43] Christina: Okay. Okay. Cause, cause I, my opinion, the Americans was the greatest show of the 2010s. One of the greatest shows like of this century. Um, so if you liked the Americans, then I think that you would like, obviously other aspects, like you only got through two seasons, but I think like maybe [01:14:00] watch more of the wire because, um, it’s, it’s really strong.

[01:14:07] Erin: So we can start oh, with a bachelor in paradise in a wire rewatch podcast is what you’re saying.

[01:14:13] Christina: Yeah. 100%. Cause I really think that.

[01:14:16] that’s what we need. We need like really gritty, like drug, like drama and like, uh, like, uh, indictment of the system, which is what I love about what I love about all of Simon’s work and like

[01:14:28] Erin: Uh Bacchanalia and celebration of, of lust.

[01:14:32] Brett: Is that one podcast or two,

[01:14:35] Christina: I mean, it should

[01:14:36] Brett: to combine the

[01:14:38] Christina: I mean, I mean, it should be too, but I honestly feel like it should be one. Like, I

[01:14:42] Brett: can like a super bipolar, you could like split it down the middle, have a sponsor break in the middle and then you switch to like dark. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:14:50] Christina: we will have five listeners, but I kind of love this idea.

[01:14:53] Erin: A small, but dedicated nature,

[01:14:57] Brett: I’m working on a new podcast right now. That’ll [01:15:00] probably have five listeners. Maybe it’ll get off the ground.

[01:15:02] Christina: was that?

[01:15:03] Brett: It’s a, it’s a secret project for the time being, I will definitely hype it when it’s ready, but we’re, we’re recording a bunch of stuff in advance and trying to figure out exactly what our format’s going to be.

[01:15:16] And I think we’re going to do like a half hour podcast. It’ll be interesting. I promise. Um, but I will, I will give you more details.

[01:15:25] Erin: It’s about VPN. You can say it. It’s a podcast dedicated to your VPN project.

[01:15:30] Christina: Yeah.

[01:15:30] Brett: No, I’m I’m

[01:15:31] Christina: called, it’s called Bret P N.

[01:15:33] Brett: no, I’m doing a podcast with Mr. X. We’re doing like a turnaround hooch.

[01:15:39] Christina: You’re doing a Turner and hooch thing. Where, where it’s, it’s like normy normy and the

[01:15:43] Brett: He is, he is clearly hooch.

[01:15:45] Christina: clearly.

[01:15:47] Brett: Yes.

[01:15:47] Christina: wait, was, was hooch the dog or was, was hooch. Um,

[01:15:52] Brett: which was the dog, you know, I’ll be honest. I’ve never seen it.

[01:15:56] Christina: you know, I don’t think I have either. I just know it has Tom Hanks in it and, um, and [01:16:00] it was kind of a flop.

[01:16:01] Brett: Cause I heard, it

[01:16:03] Christina: You know, I don’t know. I,

[01:16:04] Brett: part of the zeitgeists

[01:16:06] Christina: part of the zeitgeists but, uh, but for some reason I thought it was a flop. I thought it was one of those that. didn’t do super well. I don’t know it. No. Um, no, it Did well budgeted 13 million box office, 71.1 million. They didn’t have a big marketing budget. No, it was a hit.

[01:16:18] Okay. I don’t know. I

[01:16:19] Brett: just flash like Chuck.

[01:16:21] Christina: no, I had to look that up on Wikipedia. Uh, I, I wish I could flashlight Chuck for that. I flashlight Chuck during the homicide, a wire like freak out. That was sadly completely from memory, um, that I did not actually reference Wikipedia at all for which is messed up. But, um, uh, I did have to look this up.

[01:16:41] Uh, I knew that it was, I knew it was touchdown. I knew it was Disney. That’s the fucked up thing. I knew. I knew that studio. I didn’t know the other details. Why did I know the studio? The movie came out when I was five years old. I have no idea, but yeah.

[01:16:54] Brett: We should go. Hey Aaron. Thanks for coming.

[01:16:58] Erin: Been an honor. [01:17:00] you.

[01:17:00] Brett: You’ve been, you’ve been a swell gas. We’ll have you back again.

[01:17:03] Christina: definitely have you back

[01:17:05] Erin: forward to it. You.

[01:17:06] Brett: All right. Well, Aaron, Christina gets some sleep.

[01:17:10] Christina: Get some sleep, Brett and Erin.

[01:17:11] Erin: Get some sneakers, CNN, Brett.