Peace, Love, and WTF

[00:00:00] Brett:

[00:00:03] Hey listeners, you are tuned into Overtired. I am, uh, Brett Terpstra. We are back after a week off. Uh, I’m joined by Jeff severance. Gunzel and Christina Warren, how you guys doing?

[00:00:18] Jeff: Two in good high.

[00:00:19] Christina: Yeah. Doing well, doing well. Glad, glad to be here. Uh, glad to be back with both of you, cuz it’s been a while since we’ve, uh, done a pod together because you were gone Brett, and then we took some time off. So yeah.

[00:00:33] Jeff: Yep,

[00:00:33] Brett: Yeah. And, and before that we took some time off. We’ve been a little, um, scattered for a couple

[00:00:40] Christina: I,

[00:00:41] Jeff: summer schedule.

[00:00:42] Christina: I was about, I was gonna say it is the dog days of summer. Like, I, I don’t know if this is how it is at Oracle prep, but I know that like at, at Microsoft and, and also GitHub, like basically people don’t work the entire month of August. Like, that’s just one of those,

[00:00:54] Brett: that would explain. So it seemed really strange to

[00:00:58] Jeff: you? A bunch of Europeans over.

[00:00:59] Christina: [00:01:00] basically.

[00:01:00] Brett: So, so like Oracle had a bunch of layoffs, uh, like huge number of layoffs. And I don’t even know the full extent of it, but, um, I was on vacation when the big round of layoffs happened and I got back and things were so quiet. I was wondering if I had been laid off and they just didn’t tell me, like, kinda like edged me out.

[00:01:25] My band did that to me back in college.

[00:01:28] Christina: Okay.

[00:01:28] Jeff: know what? Sorry. Go ahead,

[00:01:31] Brett: just stopped inviting me to rehearsal.

[00:01:33] Christina: that’s how you found out you were out of the band? No, I was gonna say like, like genuinely, like, is everybody on your team? Okay. Like,

[00:01:39] Brett: Yeah. My entire team is like, we met stretch goals like all through last year and like our team. Shows, uh, real results. And I’ve been told by, by the like second in commanded Oracle, we’ve been told we’re safe, [00:02:00] uh, which is a big, it’s a big relief. I, I need, I need to have a job right now,

[00:02:04] Christina: Totally totally. Uh, no, that, that’s why I was asking before we got into any other, like jokingness stuff. I just wanted to like, make sure like, cuz cuz when I saw that and I, I, I knew we were gonna be talking and I was like, if something had happened, like I would’ve seen something, I would’ve heard something, but I, uh, I wanted to make sure that everybody on your team was, um, was okay.

[00:02:23] Jeff: According to a obscure, uh, business newspaper called the wall street, something, something the layoffs primarily hit Oracle’s advertising and customer experience. As company emphasizes cloud and healthcare, it services, healthcare, it services. Well, all right.

[00:02:40] Christina: I didn’t even know they did that, but, but

[00:02:43] Jeff: That’s a big company. Isn’t it?

[00:02:45] Brett: What’s healthcare, healthcare, like they just bought Cerner. So why are they laying off? I don’t what’s the

[00:02:53] Christina: another part it’s, it’s probably another, I, it’s probably another part of like a healthcare thing who knows. I mean, I’m just thinking [00:03:00] like, you know how it is with giant companies. Like there are, I think there are two or three different health divisions at Microsoft that are in different parts of the company.

[00:03:08] So who even knows.

[00:03:10] Jeff: Yeah. Well, but Brett, you and your basement are unattracted.

[00:03:16] Brett: Right,

[00:03:16] Christina: is important though.

[00:03:18] Jeff: it is important. Yeah.

[00:03:19] Mental Health Corner

[00:03:19] Brett: here in my bomb shelter. So, uh, let’s, let’s talk a little mental health. Uh, if you don’t mind, I’ll kick it off. Cuz it’s kind of short for me. Um, I, uh, I’ve been hypomanic for. A little over a week, uh, which is extremely long for me for a manic episode, but also I’m sleeping every night.

[00:03:43] Jeff: Will you explain for people who don’t know the difference between hypomanic? I mean, you’ve talked about being manic a lot, but hypomanic

[00:03:49] Brett: well, so I’m, I’m kind of, I’m probably misusing that phrase, but what I mean by it is, um, I’m sleeping like four to six hours a night. I’m [00:04:00] waking up. I’m not overly obsessive, but I’m definitely, um, uh, easily, easily get like one track mind on like a coding project in a way that I don’t when I’m stable.

[00:04:15] And honestly, it’s been overall very productive. I’ve had a lot of fun. Uh, it’s kind of that sweet spot of. Uh, being able to create new things, uh, with while still getting some sleep and not killing myself. Um, I do need to get back to getting eight hours of sleep. Uh, it is wearing me down. Um, but in general, like I’m not, not talking too fast.

[00:04:42] I’m not, uh, I’m not hiding in my office while I should be like hanging out with my girlfriend. And, um, yeah, like it’s, it’s kind of a it’s, it’s the sweet spot. I just, if I could combine this level of productivity with [00:05:00] eight hours of sleep, I’d actually be really happy.

[00:05:03] Christina: Well, that would kind of be the dream though. Wouldn’t it like if you could have like that amount of productivity and like eight hours of sleep, isn’t that like, like isn’t like the plot line of the, of like the movie slash TV series. Like

[00:05:12] Brett: yeah, exactly. Exactly. Oh my God. When I saw that, when I saw that the movie and the show, I kept thinking that it was basically like the drug was focal in. Except without like, like a perfect version of Focalin. I was like, I need that. I want that drug

[00:05:30] Christina: yeah, no, I, I felt the same way. I was like, oh, this is like Provigil, but like better. I was like, hell yeah, I want this. Give it to me.

[00:05:38] Brett: Yeah. So that’s, that’s my mental health update. I’m I’m doing okay. I’m, I’m looking forward to kind of crashing and hopefully the, any, any depression that follows it will be equally as mild and, and I’ll just kind of, yeah. Anyway, I’m kind of relieved to know. I can still have mania a [00:06:00] little bit on my new med schedule.

[00:06:03] Um, I do like, I, I sadly rely on it. Yeah. It, it’s kind of disgusting. It’s sick. It’s sick. How I kind of rely on my bipolar to succeed in the world.

[00:06:18] Jeff: It’s not disgusting. It’s like a part, a part of your like core identity in the most pure sense. It’s like how you know how to live and how, you know, the experience of living has gone.

[00:06:30] Brett: I have found that since I’ve started being more open about bipolar, I get a little embarrassed to publish like new projects because in my head, I think everybody knows that me publishing this means I’m having a manic episode. Um, but

[00:06:46] Jeff: No, you know why, you know what hides it, you are incredibly well, um, sort of reasoned and pace, documentation and blog posts. You’re the way you write is [00:07:00] so just sort of con you would never guess this is someone who’s experiencing mania. When you, when you release something and write it, you can tell by the content like how much you are sharing that there’s been a lot of work happening, but it’s like you have such a calm and collected way of talking about your software and your

[00:07:18] Brett: quantity and quality.

[00:07:20] Jeff: That’s right.

[00:07:21] Brett: Thank you. All right,

[00:07:24] Jeff: There’s my, for the day Brett’s

[00:07:27] Brett: go? You want to go? You want to tell us your mental.

[00:07:30] Jeff: Um, yeah, sure. I mean, I, one thing I’ve been really grateful for this past couple of weeks is just, you know, something that I think you can learn it a couple ways. You can learn it by dabbling in Buddhism. Um, and, uh, like white liberals love to do like myself, you know?

[00:07:48] Um, and you can, and, and I have learned it through therapy, this idea of rather than, um, really just like banging on myself about some pattern of [00:08:00] behavior or way of being, and just going through these sort of like shame cycles, just having help to kind of step outside my myself and just be curious, like, that’s like a really key word to be curious, like, huh, I wonder why.

[00:08:13] I do that, or like, I wonder, I wonder like a big one that comes up for me is like, okay, so this thing I do clearly served me at some point, right. And probably even helped me or saved me at some point, but I don’t really need it anymore. And my, my body and my mind just didn’t get the message. Right. I don’t, I don’t need this behavior pattern to protect me, uh, anymore.

[00:08:33] And like being able to just be curious, that’s all, I, that’s kind of my mental health update is like, I, I have had those opportunities, especially through therapy over the last couple weeks to step outside of the, like the shame cycle and, and beating myself up and, um, thinking about all the ways in which, you know, behavior patterns make things worse for me or for others.

[00:08:54] And just to be kind of curious, and when I can step into that space, I’m so much. [00:09:00] Self-compassionate um, and that window is sometimes really short, right? Like you could be curious about yourself, maybe inside the hour of therapy, and then you walk it back into your world and you are not curious anymore.

[00:09:14] You’re just mad at yourself or whatever, but just my, my, uh, my gratitude for, um, for people and things and, and, and books and whatever that helped me to step outta myself for a minute and be curious has been, uh, a big deal for mental health over the years and definitely in the last couple weeks, um, otherwise cats before we recorded, I was like, I was actually like, not like running and trying to get ready to record.

[00:09:43] I was just sitting on the couch and my cat walked over and just like laid in my lap. And I’m like, this is what you’re fucking supposed to do. When I sit down, come over and lay in my lap and it was so chill and calm. And so I came into this podcast feeling good, but. That’s that’s a mental health update of [00:10:00] sorts.

[00:10:00] What about you,

[00:10:01] Brett: wait, wait, do you, when you, when you, when you do therapy, do you do, um, video therapy or do you go see people in person.

[00:10:10] Jeff: I do video therapy and, and, and something really important about the curiosity piece is I have, for the last several years, my therapy has been with a, a practitioner who can do EMDR, which is a sort of trauma therapy, eye movement therapy that like, um, essentially you go through these interesting, um, cycles where like you’re having normal seeming therapy, you’re kind of identifying an issue or something that’s particularly hard.

[00:10:41] Um, I’m gonna do the really quick version cuz I’m not, not licensed. So I can only speak from my experience. So, you know, you start your therapy as you would. Maybe over one or two or three appointments, you identify sort of a, something really sort of crystalline something. That’s like, yeah, this is a, an event or a, an [00:11:00] image in my head that is really sticks with me.

[00:11:02] Maybe it’s literally something that’s traumatic or it just maybe something that, um, causes you disturbance. Right. And with EMDR, there’s this kind of interesting, um, thing you do, that’s almost like a dream state a little bit. So the eye movement part is handled on video by literally two dots that just go left and right.

[00:11:22] And left and right. And the idea is your eyes just follow them. This is a very old, I mean, a trauma therapy, I think goes back to the seventies. Um, and I’ve used it for some big stuff. Um, and what happens is you identify the most troubling part of the thing you’re thinking of, right? Like what’s the most troubling part.

[00:11:41] It could be, you know, an image. Uh, it could be, um, a thought, right. And you sort of like lay that out. And then you’re asked to sort of, you’re asked to like come up with a negative, um, cognition. Like what’s a negative statement that you feel is true about you when you imagine yourself in this situation.

[00:11:59] Right. [00:12:00] Um, I am da, da, da, right? We all have, I am statements that are just things we’d rather not even say on a podcast, but we, we believe to be true about ourselves. Right. Um, and then you go through, um, this kind of series of, you know, all right, I’m gonna, you know, the, the therapist will do the eye movement thing.

[00:12:18] It can be done with fingers. It can be done with lights, uh, in your hand, if you’re in person and it can be done as I do it online, um, with just these two dots that bounce back and forth. And you’re just, the idea is just sit with it, sit with whatever the last kind of feeling you had was. And they do that for about, you know, 30 seconds, maybe a minute, What are you feeling?

[00:12:39] You know, you kind of just, you go through this like, um, repetitive thing where it’s like, you’re working your way into this image and what are you feeling? What are you thinking about? And. And this is the curiosity, right? It’s like it, it says, okay, so this is the thing you’re really stuck on this one image.

[00:12:54] Right. Um, now let’s just like go inside that image as like deeply as you’re [00:13:00] comfortable going. And you go through this cycle of like eye movement. Okay. What are you feeling that usually leads to something slightly new? Uh, okay. Let’s go with that. And, you know, eye movement, and it’s just this nice, really nice cycle and my experience of it.

[00:13:15] And that’s the best I can explain it, but others could do a good job. My experience of it is whatever I’ve brought to EMDR as something I need to work on. And it could be something like a major trauma. Or it could be. I mean, I, I once brought a certain kind of nightmare that I had repetitively, um, and, and whatever you bring to it, it just gives you the space to just be curious about it.

[00:13:38] And when you’re curious about it, in my experience, I always end up coming out on the other side, understanding it in a very different way than I did going in. Um, and so anyway, I do therapy by video and I do EMDR two things that I didn’t think would be possible therapy by video and EMDR by video before the pandemic.

[00:13:56] But I’ve really loved it.

[00:13:59] Brett: Yeah, I’ve been [00:14:00] like the, the brief foray I did into video therapy. Uh, it was, it was productive. I, I didn’t hate it. Uh, Felt like I would ha I would be more open and comfortable in like, you know, on a couch, uh, in someone’s office. But, um, I was just curious, uh, if, if it worked for you, so that’s good

[00:14:23] Jeff: well, what I dislike is, um, I almost always have to do it in my office. And it’s just hard to go from work to therapy, to

[00:14:31] Brett: right. Yeah. Same,

[00:14:33] Jeff: seat and the same, you know, like that. I don’t like that.

[00:14:37] Brett: Yeah. That was my, that was pretty much that’s what bugged me too.

[00:14:42] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:14:42] Brett: like I, I would, I would feel like opening up more if I weren’t also in the place where I conducted all of my business.

[00:14:50] Jeff: Mm-hmm

[00:14:50] Brett: Um, anyway, anyway,

[00:14:53] Jeff: yeah. And I recommend finding a way to switch locations if you can. I can’t always, but it makes a big difference for me.

[00:14:59] Brett: could [00:15:00] take my phone out into the woods and have a therapy session.

[00:15:03] Jeff: Christina, how about

[00:15:05] Brett: Yeah.

[00:15:05] Christina: Yeah, no, it’s actually funny. We’re talking about this because as soon as, uh, our podcast ends today, I’m actually, uh, gonna be talking to my shrink, um, and, uh, having my, my monthly, um, appointment with him. Um, but even though I’ve been seeing him for like 20 years, except for like the period of time that I ghosted him, um, more for more than a decade, like I’ve been seeing him, um, Remotely, like we’ve done stuff over the phone, so I don’t even have in person stuff.

[00:15:33] So it’s interesting. Kind of like hearing that experience. I think, uh, like I obviously wouldn’t be able to do the sort of, um, uh, some of the, the therapy that you do, um, uh, Jeff, where you need to see someone and like, you know, they’re, they’re looking in your eyes and, and you’re having that type of, of, of like, you know, that type of therapy.

[00:15:51] I wouldn’t be able to do over the phone. Uh, and he’s not really technic. Technically savvy enough for us to do a FaceTime or Skype thing

[00:15:58] Jeff: a thing

[00:15:59] Christina: that that’s like, [00:16:00] not him, like he’s in his seventies and, and, you know, he’s very, very good at what he does, but like not a tech guy. And so, uh, so yeah, so it’s interesting cuz I also have dealt with that over the years of like, okay, am I in a space where I can feel like I can be free to actually say what I wanna say?

[00:16:17] And, and sometimes that’s meant, you know, walking around outdoors and doing other things. I actually, this was nice back. Um, I, uh, I worked at Microsoft proper. I had an office and I had a private office for most of my time there. And that actually wasn’t terrible. A, it was nice because I could podcast from it.

[00:16:37] If I had to, like, I could either go in earlier or late and like had a nice like podcasting space, but B it was honestly nice sometimes because you know, like you’ve got the door closed and you’ve got something else going on. You know, somebody sees you on a phone call, like they’re not gonna bug you. And, you know, You can kind of like feel a little more free than you might, like if you’re at home and there are people, you know, around, you know, your [00:17:00] family and stuff, which can make things a little more awkward, um, when you’re doing a therapy appointment, right?

[00:17:05] Like, not that there’s like, not that anybody’s like judging or listening in or whatever, it’s just, you don’t always feel as free to be able to be open in that way.

[00:17:13] Jeff: for sure. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, man. So you do yours by phone and this is someone you’ve known since you were a kid, probably. Right? Like got it.

[00:17:25] Christina: I was like 18. Um, and, um, and so I trust him a lot and he does, you know, like, uh, you know, medicine, but also does, you know, like normal therapy. He’s, he’s like a rare, like, you know, shrink who also does like, like therapy. And there have been times in my life where I’ve definitely, um, uh, gone to him more frequently than monthly.

[00:17:46] It’s been, it’s been monthly for a while and sometimes I have to do it more frequently. I am gonna go on a tangent. Now my mental health is, is incidentally. It seems pretty fine. I am annoyed with this though. So apparently the DEA [00:18:00] just passed some new thing where to fill like, uh, like certain types of, of schedule, like, you know, two or schedule three drugs or whatever.

[00:18:07] Like you have to have like the, if it’s out of state, like your home address has to be on the script and the birth date and all this other stuff. And it totally fucked me because I went to get my Dexter. And they gave me this thing. It apparently went into effect on, on July 26th. And they’re like, yeah, sorry, we can’t fill your, your meds for you because it doesn’t have this stuff on it.

[00:18:29] And it has to be written by the doctor. And I’m like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, and then it was at a, doctor’s like a, I couldn’t, I don’t feel like I’d be confident in forging his, um, handwriting and, and style. Be which look, I, it, it, for certain doctors, I would totally have like, we’re all, we’re all friends with this podcast.

[00:18:47] I would do it, but also like the area, like if I were in like one of the rich neighborhoods, maybe it’d be fine. But in this case I’m like, I don’t wanna be like, somebody think I’m like a drug seeker. I’m like, no, I’m actually just trying to get my fucking pills filled. So, so [00:19:00] now I’m, I’m in like this frustrating thing where, um, I’m glad I have a call with him.

[00:19:04] And a little bit, actually, I was supposed to have a call with him last week. It, I would’ve been really pissed if he’d written me scripts last week that I, and mailed off that I wouldn’t have been able to use, but I’m like gonna be running low on meds. I’m leaving for Atlanta on Thursday. Cause my mom’s birthday is next week.

[00:19:20] So I’m hoping what I’m gonna have him do is just write it out, put all the shit that he has to put on it, according to the da sheds and then, um, uh, have him mail it to my parents house.

[00:19:33] Jeff: Oh my God.

[00:19:34] Brett: uh,

[00:19:35] Jeff: That sucks.

[00:19:36] Brett: Yeah, good luck.

[00:19:38] Christina: Yeah. That’s just the downside of like having an out-of-state shrink. Like if you were in state, it would be a different thing. But, but when it’s out of state, there are these different things. And apparently like it’s never been, um, discussed before. Like it’s literally like they print something out and they gave it from, from Walgreen’s.

[00:19:53] It’s dated 7 26 it’s like select field leaders. The drug enforcement administration has recently rescinded previous [00:20:00] guidance that allowed pharmacists to modify or add missing elements to controlled substance prescriptions. Because in the past, like the pharmacist could add that stuff effective immediately, all controlled substance prescriptions, all elements required by 21 C four, blah, blah, blah.

[00:20:13] Must be present on the prescription when it’s received, like just complete and utter bullshit.

[00:20:19] Brett: what problem is this solving?

[00:20:21] Christina: It’s not, that’s what I’m saying. It’s like, look, if you’re, because here’s the thing, like if you, if, if I guess that they’re trying to be like, oh, well, if you’re getting somebody out of state to write you a, I mean, I, I exact, I don’t know what they’re doing, cuz I’m like, if you are really that hard up for it, you’re just going to buy it on the street.

[00:20:38] Brett: Right. Yeah.

[00:20:39] Christina: you’re just going to buy it on the street and,

[00:20:42] Brett: and making things harder for people to get prescriptions. It’s just gonna make more people buy it on the

[00:20:46] Christina: 100%. No, that, that that’s the thing with this. I’m like, okay, well, thank you very much for like, making this really more complicated than it should be. And, and just like making me feel like I’ve done something wrong when again, like they said, oh, the [00:21:00] DEA has rescinded, you know, previous guidance.

[00:21:03] It’s like, but it’s also one of those things, like, could I have had an email Walgreens? I don’t know, you know, cuz this literally this happened like 10

[00:21:11] Jeff: dude, Walgreens is, I mean, I get all my stuff to Walgreens. It’s such a mysterious black hole. What do you know? And what do you not know? I don’t understand.

[00:21:19] Christina: right.

[00:21:20] Brett: so. My, my doctor, just to talk about Walgreens for a second. My doctor accidentally called in two of my scripts to Walgreens instead of my usual pharmacy. And, um, immediately like Walgreens contacted me to, to clarify some things and let me know when I could pick it up. And then like, uh, I just let it be.

[00:21:45] I was like, fine. Okay. Uh, I let it be for a month. And then like a week before my scripts were due, they like called to like, make sure that like, uh, the, to call to renew any scripts that needed to be renewed [00:22:00] and to, uh, and just to verify that they would be ready to pick up. And these are services that I have never had available through my, my mom and pop pharmacy that I usually use.

[00:22:10] And I gotta say it was it’s nice.

[00:22:14] Christina: Okay. It here here’s, what’s even better. They’ll send you text messages when you need to refill, and then you can use the app or the website and just like, have it, have it go through. It is really nice. I, um, my favorite pharmacist of all time, she, she left, but she was, uh, like the, the head pharmacist at, at Publix.

[00:22:30] Um, when I lived in Atlanta for a long time, Ray, who more than. Did some shady shit to make sure I had my, my meds and that stuff was covered when insurance wasn’t wanting to cover certain things like, like gray was the shit, but I will have to

[00:22:43] Brett: why I go to the mom and pop

[00:22:45] Christina: totally, totally. I, I agree. I was gonna say, well, cuz Publix, obviously, you know, big supermarket chain, you might not, you’re probably not familiar with it, but it’s a big supermarket chain in the, in the south, um, in Georgia and especially Florida.[00:23:00]

[00:23:00] Um, that was me rolling my eyes saying Florida. Uh, but, but this is like, can typically be like the benefit, like. Get a good relationship with some of those pharmacies. I don’t have a good pharmacist here. Um, in Seattle I did at the Walgreens that was on campus, but I can’t go to that one. I mean, I could, but I, I can’t really go to that one anymore since I, I don’t work at Microsoft proper, so I don’t, I can’t use their, their health clinic now, but there was a Walgreens on campus.

[00:23:26] It was great, but you’ve understood. Like you might not get the, the, the love and care, but you get like the ability. You get so many benefits, like they’re, they’re gonna like take care of you and, and, and prescribe things. Plus I will say the one nice thing, like, even though I agree, like it’s a, it’s a black hole of stuff.

[00:23:46] The great thing with Walgreens is that if it’s not like a controlled substance or whatever, you can, you can like move that shit to any Walgreens in the freaking country. Any Dwayne Reed, any Bartels, like whatever millions of things they own, you can just like, move it over and be [00:24:00] like, I’m in this city and I’m picking this up now.

[00:24:02] It’s pretty.

[00:24:03] Brett: I, I once ran out of meds, uh, out of, out of my ADHD meds while I was in San Francisco. And, um, I had the prescription, I actually had the written prescription, but it was from Minnesota and I had to go to, uh, six or seven different pharmacies in San Francisco, uh, before CBS finally, they were like, oh yeah, let let’s just call your pharmacist at home.

[00:24:33] And they called and they verified everything and they filled it for me. But holy shit, that was, that was a lot of walking. Uh,

[00:24:41] Christina: I bet. Especially cuz especially cuz like a lot of Hills, you know, lot, lot of places where you’re trying to find it. Yeah.

[00:24:48] Brett: And I was staying at the Mosser.

[00:24:50] Christina: Oh yeah, yeah,

[00:24:51] Brett: Uh, and they had like an on-call doctor and that was where I started. And, and he was like, cuz I was taking, I think [00:25:00] 40 milligrams of focal in a day at the time. Um, and, and the doctor was like, I can help you out with a few, but that is way too many. You and he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t fill the script.

[00:25:14] So

[00:25:14] Christina: Totally.

[00:25:15] Brett: the, the adventure began.

[00:25:18] Jeff: Can I tell you little quirk about my Walgreens? Uh, well, first of all, in Minneapolis, after George Floyd was murdered, um, some opportunistic folks decided to just start raiding all the pharmacies as part of the. Uprising and, or like sort of the, the ripple effects of the uprising. And so every Walgreens in my area was Lood.

[00:25:41] Most of 'em were burned and, um, , I’d not gotten my prescriptions ahead of time. And so I now have this tendency to try to, if I can get like three months worth of my prescription, cuz I don’t know when, while my pharmacies are gonna disappear, but my actual Walgreens, which I am so loyal [00:26:00] to, even though my wife has been trying to get us to switch across the street to this grocery store, uh, got shot up about a year ago, somebody was trying to shoot through the Bulletproof window to get in and, and, and you know, do the thing and there’s so they got a lot of the framings.

[00:26:15] If familiar driving up to a Walgreen’s like a big window, then you got the drawer that comes out. You got a speaker that never really works that. Great. Anyhow, these fucks shout out that speaker. There are bullet holes that I can put my finger through in the framing and fucking Walgreens took until about two weeks ago to fix that speaker.

[00:26:33] So we were having to like, and let me tell you, I know a little bit about electronics. That’s like a $3 speaker. And, and so we were having to communicate with them through the drawer. They’d open the drawer and like stick their face in the drawer.

[00:26:47] Brett: oh,

[00:26:47] Jeff: that’s the south Minneapolis Walgreens problem.

[00:26:50] Brett: speaking of uprisings,

[00:26:53] kinda, I want to, I want to talk about Woodstock 99. However,

[00:26:56] Christina: I was gonna say that that’s a really good segue.

[00:26:59] Brett: want to give [00:27:00] a brief recap of max stock before we get to Woodstock 99. Um, so max stock, it was a couple weeks ago now. Uh, it was, it was fun. It was very small this year. Uh, it was about a third, the size that it had been, uh, last time that there was an in-person max stock.

[00:27:17] It’s been a couple years due to the, you know, pandemic. Um, but first of all, Aaron, uh, who’s been on the show before a friend of the show, Aaron Dawson

[00:27:27] Christina: Front of the pod. Aaron Dawson. Yes.

[00:27:29] Brett: best presentation of, of the weekend. Uh, like there’s this tendency at a conference like that, to talk about your favorite apps and every white guy on the, on the docket talks about their favorite apps for doing this or that.

[00:27:46] Uh, and, and it, you get audience interaction. Everyone wants to talk about their favorite apps and, and it’s just the easy go-to thing. And Aaron didn’t do any of that shit. She did a presentation where she talked about, [00:28:00] uh, how to make music using logic or garage band to soundtrack your videos, uh, without having any musical

[00:28:11] Christina: love

[00:28:11] Jeff: Awesome. That’s a great one.

[00:28:13] Christina: I need to, and, and, and she, she recorded it right?

[00:28:16] Brett: she, she record it. Max stack puts it behind a paywall, uh, that you have to get like the digital pass, which I can help you guys get. But that’s a little frustrating for Erin who made the 14 hour drive, uh, to speak at a conference that was pretty low attendance this year, and now doesn’t have a public video.

[00:28:37] She can show for it. So I wanna, I wanna see if I can work with, with your organizers

[00:28:42] Christina: yeah, yeah. I, I would say so. I mean, cuz I, I, or, and especially like, If they wanna have a paywall for like 30 days or something

[00:28:51] Brett: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[00:28:53] Christina: but, but it shouldn’t be in perpetuity, especially like it, cuz if they’re not paying speakers and, and, and, and, and I get that, it’s like an indie conference and [00:29:00] whatnot, driving 14 hours to come.

[00:29:01] It’s a small thing to do that. I don’t know. Like, I, I think that would be something that I

[00:29:07] Jeff: Oh, that’s the, I mean, if they’re not paying, I, I have very strong feelings about not paying people. No matter how Indy you are, you can pull together some money to pay someone, right. Like ask your mom. Um, but, but then, then to put it on a, on a paywall, that is a shame. They can’t even make that much money off of it.

[00:29:23] Sorry,

[00:29:23] Brett: we have,

[00:29:24] Jeff: who you are, but.

[00:29:25] Brett: we had, we had some, some, some talks, uh, Jay Miller, uh, who happens to be like the only black guy at max stock. Um, Jay Miller, myself, uh, a couple of, uh, people representing the queer community. There was a lot of conversation about what max that could be versus what it is.

[00:29:49] Um, and there’s some resistance from the organizers. Uh, and I can’t quite pinpoint what it is that, that there’s, that [00:30:00] he specifically is, is scared of losing. If, if you bring in a committee, if you actually have max sack run by a committee of people representing, you know, a, a more diverse population. And there, I mean, a good portion of the attendees this year were, uh, mug people by which, I mean, 70 plus white guys, like

[00:30:27] Jeff: I’ve never heard that term mug people,

[00:30:29] Brett: Mac, Mac, user group.

[00:30:31] Yeah. Um, which,

[00:30:33] Jeff: I just got led in a little deeper.

[00:30:35] Brett: which these days skews much older.

[00:30:38] Christina: Well, yeah, cuz anybody who’s go well look, cuz anybody who’s gonna go to a user group. Like let’s be honest, like is going to be older cuz. Like, I’ve never, I’ve never purposely gone. I mean, like I I’ve gone to a couple of Matt. Like there was, um, a Omni did a, a Seattle, um, Mac user group thing that I, I went to a few times and then they had layoffs and then I felt bad cuz I was like, well, a lot of [00:31:00] the people that I really liked at Omni don’t work there anymore.

[00:31:02] And so that feels awkward if they’re doing stuff like, you know what I mean? Um, but that was nice. That was nice to meet people in the Seattle area and is a big area. But yeah, in general, it it’s like, it goes back to like use net days, I think. Right? Like, isn’t that the whole like mug and lug thing, so

[00:31:19] Brett: old, the graveyard persona

[00:31:22] is who shows up for

[00:31:23] Jeff: Mug and lug Linux, user groups and, and Mac user groups. Oh

[00:31:26] Brett: Wait, and, and, and no, no hate for, for that community. That’s fine. I just, I don’t pay to go to a conference, uh, to hang out with those people. I go to hang out. People my age, uh, with similar interests and I mean, it does serve as kind of a, a family reunion of sorts, but it also like max has the potential to be an actual conference, uh, that, that reaches out well, that’s one of the [00:32:00] things

[00:32:00] Christina: Well, yeah,

[00:32:00] Brett: like there are certain things they need to change.

[00:32:03] Christina: well, and maybe they, I mean, you know, the organizers, you can talk with them more, but it might come down to like, I, I, I don’t know. Cause I understand what you’re saying and I, I would be like you, like, I would, it would be good to have it. Like more committee have more open, you know, bring in a more diverse group of participants.

[00:32:23] Um, but I can also think that if it’s, if it’s people who you have, who’ve been coming to this thing and what your conference is, is a certain group of people. Who’ve always done things a certain way, even if it’s not expanding, like to your own peril, maybe like, that’s just what it’s going to be.

[00:32:38] Brett: that’s just a meetup. And if you’re just gonna have a meetup, call it a meetup.

[00:32:42] Christina: I mean, I don’t disagree, but I mean, what, what I’m saying is what you might have to come to terms with is that it’s possible that the idea you have, and the thing you’re thinking of is that if max stock doesn’t wanna do it, then maybe that’s another event. You know what I

[00:32:54] Brett: So, so that is absolutely something that’s been on my mind is if, if [00:33:00] max stock isn’t open to reshaping itself, um, I’m happy to keep going to max stock and perpetuity, but I would want to maybe like in Chicago, proper start, uh, like at first a meetup that could become a mini conference, but just a way to bring together all of the people that I would wanna see once a year, uh, and, and have a couple talks, but mostly like social time and just, I, I need to figure out how to make that appealing enough to get people from say California to fly in for a weekend.

[00:33:39] Christina: You need to talk to guy English as who you need to talk.

[00:33:42] Brett: Yeah. I have a list of, I have a list of people. This is, this is actually, uh, I’ve put a lot of thought into

[00:33:48] Christina: No, I’m sure you have I’m I’m I’m sure you have. I’m just saying, cuz like what, what it seems like you’re describing is single 10 and things like that. And, and so which, which was

[00:33:57] for, for people who don’t know, which was an amazing conference.[00:34:00]

[00:34:00] Brett: If there are like current meetups happening that are big enough, like I’m happy to tack on my ideas to something else that already is established. Uh, so I need to do a little more research and I have a few zoom calls set up with people just to find out like what they’re into, what exists already, uh, without reinventing the wheel.

[00:34:24] But anyway,

[00:34:25] Jeff: me know. No, let me add one thing ne not on the planning committee. Okay. Chicago is lovely. City lived there. Love it. Great. Like tech community, Minneapolis, hell of a lot cheaper to get to and stay in.

[00:34:37] Christina: And also better airport, frankly.

[00:34:40] Jeff: better.

[00:34:41] Brett: oh my God. Way better airport.

[00:34:44] Jeff: tech community. There’re already a couple of good tech conferences that come here every

[00:34:47] Brett: Oh, that’s really smart. Yeah. I,

[00:34:49] Jeff: that out there. Just don’t go to the Walgreens on HYA waha, cuz they shot up the speaker.

[00:34:57] Brett: Yeah, I lean towards Chicago just cuz it’s that’s where we [00:35:00] go for max stock, but you’re right. Minneapolis would be a better choice than Chicago. Um, alright. Alright. I will keep you all posted on progress there. Um, so, uh, last night Christina texted the group and said, uh, please watch this documentary on max stock.

[00:35:20] Max

[00:35:21] Jeff: next stock Woodstock

[00:35:23] Woodstock '99

[00:35:23] Brett: Woodstock 99 and I had actually already finished it and uh, to watched it in horror. Um, Christina, what did you, uh, what did you wanna, how did you wanna present this?

[00:35:36] Christina: Well, okay. So first of all, um, did you ever watch the HBO max documentary on Woodstock from last

[00:35:43] Jeff: Okay. Thank you. This is different because fuck that one. And I, I thought we were dealing with the same thing and I was like, I am not gonna watch a movie that a documentary that talks about sexual assault and shows tits for the first five minutes of the documentary.

[00:35:58] Brett: Let’s be clear. This [00:36:00] is, this is, this just came out. I believe it was on

[00:36:02] Christina: it’s

[00:36:02] Jeff: gonna settle down.

[00:36:04] I just said tits for the first time online. I couldn’t forgot. Do I say boobies? Do I say,

[00:36:09] Brett: there,

[00:36:09] Christina: you can say whatever you

[00:36:10] Brett: this, this

[00:36:12] Jeff: This I wanna see then

[00:36:13] Brett: this did have some boobs and they didn’t talk about the rampant sexual assault until the end of the second half of it. So the end, they didn’t talk about exactly how much rape happening.

[00:36:27] Jeff: Well, can I just, uh, then, because it’s a serious subject, obviously did, does that something that anybody else like, like, felt like was an issue in the HBO one, because really it was in the first moments, it was in the first five minutes and they do the montage and you know, the voices talking about it and they’re just showing like topless women.

[00:36:49] And it’s like, what the fuck are you doing? You’re doing the thing.

[00:36:51] Christina: Right. I, I think this one was better than the HBO one in that regard, because the way that it progresses. So it’s three episodes. So it’s, it’s like, you know, I [00:37:00] guess it’s probably two and a half hours. If you were to, to add it all. Um, but they do it in three parts and, and the way that they kind of, you know, tell the story.

[00:37:07] A lot of it is, is told through footage that people on the ground were taking. And some people who were, you know, part of the festival, they have talking heads with performers, but also with some of the MTV, you know, people who were there and

[00:37:19] Brett: even a couple of attendees BVIs and Butthead on in attendance.

[00:37:23] Christina: and Butthead. Oh, my, these, these two guy, these two 16 year olds who were like, one of them seriously, like sounded like he was stoned.

[00:37:30] He had a mullet, like genuinely looked like, like, like, like, like live action BVIs, um,

[00:37:35] Brett: Totally

[00:37:37] Christina: it’s amazing. Um, But no, I think it was better than the HBO one, but I think to tell the story, like you have to, like, they, they went through like day by day, like hour by hour, basically like how the event unfolded. And in that regard, I think that it was okay to not lead with the sexual assault stuff, because that’s not like that happened at the beginning.

[00:37:56] Like it started out as this great thing. Everybody’s having an awesome time. [00:38:00] Then it starts to get crazier like the first night with, with corn, right? Where, where, where things start to get a little bit outta control. And then like Bush, Gavin is able to calm things down because he’s a pro and he knows how to handle a crowd, but then they have their first rave and shit kind of gets wild again.

[00:38:15] But then the second day, you know, it’s like people start to get a little more, well up a little bit bigger. That’s when you have like li biscuit come in, then you have like, like, you know who Fred Durst. Fuck him. Fuck. Right. Like when he is, you know, doing that thing and, and then you have like, you know, the people literally like commandeering cars and trying to drive through the rave area and like that boy having to like end his rave set and people that is when they first talk about like sexual assault.

[00:38:40] And then the third day when it just devolves into chaos. So like, I actually thought that the way that they told the story was really good, because you felt the emotion of. This thing, which seemed like, I think for a lot of people, even people who were there who witnessed a lot, the horror, like they said, like they had a great time.

[00:38:58] Like if you weren’t, you [00:39:00] know, somebody who was like a hurt or whatnot, like you could see that it would be this crazy ass thing, but you could still maybe have had good memories with your friends, but how this, this event that was just mishandled by the, the, you know, um, the, the people who were running it, the, the promoters, the fucking fucking criminal, right?

[00:39:17] Like they’re, they’re the ones who, you know, really.

[00:39:19] Brett: intentionally obtuse in my opinion.

[00:39:21] Christina: Absolutely. Absolutely like, like this one fucking promoter, like the guy who’s dead. I don’t give a shit. The guy who created Woodstock fuck off dude. Like he, he, he like, like, he, he can seriously, like, I don’t give a shit, but this other guy who was like the money guy, cuz they’d lost money on Woodstock 94.

[00:39:35] And they were like, okay, we gotta make money on this one. And when he’s asked about the sexual assault stuff at the end, He’s like, well, I’m not saying that it’s good, but this was like a small city. And if you look at the number of rapes that happen in a small city, this is actually less than that. And I, and I wanted to reach through the, through the television screen and like kill the guy.

[00:39:55] Right. Because it’s just not the response. Um, but,[00:40:00]

[00:40:00] Jeff: you docked him instead.

[00:40:01] Christina: Well, I mean, you know, but, but, but, but, but what I was, but like, what’s, I wanna get your thoughts. Right. But what I thought was really interesting about it was like a, I was brought back to that time and I remember wanting to go to that concert so badly.

[00:40:13] And obviously my parents wouldn’t let me go. Right. There was no way they were gonna let me go, uh, to, to, you know, upstate New York to go to a concert, like never in a million years, I was in high school. I was like 15 or 16. They would never let me go. But I remember watching it and I was brought back to like, The way that it unfolded and the way that, like, not only that they have the pay review, but like MTV was, was playing stuff live and like was reporting on stuff.

[00:40:37] And the fact that you saw it as that weekend went on, you saw the same shift that you could feel the crowd have, where it like went from this thing. That was great into this thing. That was just terrible.

[00:40:51] Brett: Yeah. I, I feel like in general, the media coverage did not, like, I don’t remember my impression of what I [00:41:00] saw on the news. Matching what I saw in this documentary. I mean, yeah. We all knew it went to shit. We

[00:41:07] Christina: Right. We didn’t see all of that. Yeah. Cuz I, cuz I think that they, I don’t think that they knew like, I think that as soon as it was clear, like, like I think that the Sunday stuff, I think it was clear, but I definitely think that like MTV cuz like Anand Lewis who still looks amazing by the way, like she looks fucking fantastic.

[00:41:23] She’s interviewed in it because she was, she was um, like she had to leave the beach house and go to fucking Woodstock 99. She was really pissed about that. I don’t blame her. Um, you. She like, they could tell that stuff was like, kind of like getting crazy like that first night, but especially the second day.

[00:41:40] And MTV certainly didn’t portray that to anybody watching at home. Like nobody at home knew until the third day when like the fires and shit started. Right.

[00:41:48] Brett: they handed out fucking candles,

[00:41:50] Christina: idiots were a fucking, and ironically

[00:41:53] Jeff: was it for? What were the candles for?

[00:41:54] Christina: It was for it,

[00:41:55] Brett: a vigil for gun violence.

[00:41:57] Christina: violence. They were trying to do a whole Columbine thing. Oh, look [00:42:00] how beautiful it is.

[00:42:00] Yeah. So we’re just gonna hand out, um, you know, a hundred

[00:42:04] Brett: they still thought this was Woodstock in the sixties. They still thought there was peace and love happening and everyone would settle down and hold onto live flames.

[00:42:14] Christina: it’s like in the sixties, they wouldn’t have done that shit. If you’d treated people the way you treated them. Right. Like it was, you know, it, it, it, the what, what, but I remember. Because I think you’re right. I don’t think that people knew how bad it was until the third day. And then when all the footage came afterwards and then everybody, and it was interesting to kind of see like the news division of MTV.

[00:42:35] I remember this like their take on it versus, you know, the entertainment part because cuz like MTV news, I remember being pretty critical about it, but yet like Kurt and, and Serena and, and anda were all there.

[00:42:49] Brett: Were trying to put this face on it. Um, like they knew things were fucked up and they were trying to be like, well, you know, it’s a

[00:42:58] festival and

[00:42:59] Christina: Yeah. Cuz they’re [00:43:00] live TV and I, I ki I kind of don’t blame them for that. Like if, if, if you’re like a live host, it’s a little bit different than like the ABC news guy, you know, who was able to kind of be a little bit better about things. But, but I do remember MTV after the fact.

[00:43:16] I remember they did a special going into all the horror and like focusing on that. I do remember that I do remember

[00:43:23] Brett: don’t remember that.

[00:43:24] Christina: yet, and they didn’t cover that in the documentary. But I remember that explicitly, because that was one of the first times I remember like, as a media student thinking, oh, that’s interesting.

[00:43:35] Cuz they were promoters of this and they were part of the hype of this. But then there has to be this other section of this organization where they have different standards. Right. Um, But yeah, it’s, it’s a weird thing, right? Where all the news media was kind of complicit in some ways, you

[00:43:53] Jeff: Yeah,

[00:43:54] Brett: Like during this period in, in my life, I was not at all [00:44:00] interested. I was not the kind of person who would go to Woodstock 99 and I saw the news coverage in passing. Um, I, I knew there were a bunch of people covered in mud at some point, and that there were some fires and I did not realize that the whole goddamn place burned with trucks exploding and people,

[00:44:22] Christina: I mean, it’s amazing that nobody died, honestly.

[00:44:24] Brett: hon. Yeah, it is amazing that nobody died. It was pure anarchy.

[00:44:30] Christina: anarchy. I mean, and it was the thing, like, you know, cuz like 94, I remember the mud and everyone remembers that stuff, but this was so much worse. This was like, they started tearing stuff down like on Saturday, but then like Sunday, they literally burned the place to the fucking ground and.

[00:44:47] Brett: the, the PA towers. They took down the food court. They started smashing ATM machines. Oh, sorry, ATMs.

[00:44:57] Christina: yeah,

[00:44:57] Brett: M the M stands for machine [00:45:00] ATM machine is redundant.

[00:45:01] Christina: there. There’s, there’s this, there’s this lady who, who would this, this old lady who was like yelling at, at the kids, trying to get them to clean up, cuz she was like part of the original

[00:45:09] Brett: Handing up, trying to hand out garbage bags.

[00:45:11] Christina: And, and, and they were like not having her, but she was kind of awesome because she like was like, what is this?

[00:45:17] And she was like, this is what we did. This was Woodstock 99. Like, she was like, very clear about, like, about like the, the complicit, um, like of the, of the, you know, organizers and the promoters and this. But, but yeah, I mean, this is, it was true anarchy. It’s amazing. No one died, cuz like you think about, um, uh, Astroworld, which, which happened, um, last year, uh, that where, you know, a couple people died and that from the crush of the crowds and, and that was being broadcast on livestream and people saw kind of this horror and how, how bad that was.

[00:45:50] This was so much worse. And it was being broadcast on a paper view that they were charging 60 freaking dollars for a 1999, you

[00:45:59] Brett: but [00:46:00] nobody had smartphones.

[00:46:01] It would’ve been a very different documentary. If that had

[00:46:04] Christina: oh, you’re not, you’re not wrong. Totally totally. But, but, but yet people did have cameras with them and other stuff, but again, this was being broadcast live. I mean, this is still what’s insane to me is that like, you know, uh, there was this one guy, like this was guy actually kind of, you probably appreciate this, Jeff, like there are these, these people who were like videographers, who they, they went back into the chaos because they’re like, we gotta get the shot.

[00:46:27] We gotta, like, we gotta record this. We go,

[00:46:30] Brett: saw the fire starting. They’re

[00:46:31] Christina: Saw the fire starting. They were like, no, we can’t leave. So they like went back into it, which had, I mean, you know, if, fuck, I mean, if you were witnesses, something like that, it would be,

[00:46:43] Brett: They, they had already evacuated fat boy slim and all of the camera people were getting ready to evacuate, like run. And they saw this tower starting to come down and this like young journalist, uh, who’s telling the story in the documentary [00:47:00] was like, we can’t miss this. This is something is happening here.

[00:47:04] And like FRA boys, man, like that was it’s this mentality. I’m not saying everyone, there was a frat boy,

[00:47:12] Christina: no, no, but,

[00:47:13] Brett: mentality of like,

[00:47:14] Christina: It was well, yeah, I mean, I think it was, I mean, I think that they put it in really good context. It was like the type of music. It was that the machismo that was happening, it was the fact that it was hot is the fact that they were charging ridiculous amounts of, of money even by

[00:47:28] Brett: $12 for a bottle of water even now

[00:47:31] Christina: Even now would be nuts, especially when they refused to let people bring water in. Like they made people like, like throw away their water bottles when they got into the venue, like just, just terrible stuff. And, um, but, but definitely I think the culture of the time, cuz I remember. You know, going to concerts and going to big festivals, not anything like there was a, there was a concert, it was like at the Atlanta motor Speedway.

[00:47:58] And it was, I think the week [00:48:00] before, or two weeks before Woodstock, 99 and many of the same bands at Woodstock, 99 were at this thing, but it was a one day thing instead of a three day thing. And it was. Up until Woodstock on United, it was like the biggest crowd for some sort of concert that had existed.

[00:48:15] And it was, it was like over a hundred thousand people. It was like, you know, 150,000 people or something. And I remember crowd surfing in that. And I remember, I remember being groped. I remember, you know, like kind of that whole thing. Right. And like in a way that I hadn’t ever really been like at, at other stuff, like I remember.

[00:48:32] So, yeah, I think it was very much kind of, of that time, you know, where just not frat boys, cuz the, a lot of these guys weren’t frat boys just like angry, like entitled

[00:48:43] Brett: spring

[00:48:43] Christina: spring break, just like white dudes. Right? Like that’s the thing. And that’s did you notice that too Brett? Like it was so fucking white.

[00:48:51] Brett: Oh, so wait. Yeah, absolutely. Almost a hundred percent. Um, you,

[00:48:56] Jeff: I’m

[00:48:57] Brett: by the way,

[00:48:57] Jeff: the lineup and it makes that, um, [00:49:00] evident without seeing it.

[00:49:01] Brett: You gotta, you gotta feel for Cheryl Crow in this whole situation,

[00:49:04] but should, should we try to fit in a gratitude before, uh, Christina has

[00:49:10] Jeff: sure. But hold on, I’m looking at the lineup. Where’s Cheryl Crowe in this picture. Oh yeah, here. She’s on Friday east stage about midway through the day before corn.

[00:49:19] Brett: Early on early enough to have people yelling, show your tits, but not so late that they were ready to tear down the stage.

[00:49:26] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. And Juju was attacked, you know, to, I mean, I thought I feel bad virtual. Well, you know, this was what’s weird too, is that like fucking little fair was also happening that summer. So, you know, I get, I get why you would go to Woodstock 99, but I bet that if they’d, if they thought about it a little bit harder, be like, you know what, even if this is gonna be huge, I’m I’m I’m headlining little fair.

[00:49:47] Fuck. Fuck. This thing.

[00:49:49] Brett: yeah. In, in retrospect they probably did.

[00:49:53] Jeff: anytime you look at the, the lineup and you go, I’m kind of opening for corn or insane clown posse or limb biscuit. [00:50:00] That’s not my place. I have not. That is not me saying they should not have been there so that they didn’t get, I’m not, that’s not my point. I’m just looking at if they had flipped these lineups.

[00:50:08] Cause a lot of the midday lineups are like pretty chill. The late, the late night lineups are like, oh

[00:50:14] Christina: the thing. It, it, well, that was the thing. Like, I think the first night was probably the only night they nailed it cuz they had corn go who killed it, you know? And, and, and, and they interviewed him. What’s his space from corn who was actually seems like a really cool guy. Um, but, but then they had Bush have to follow up, which, which sucked for Bush a little bit, but Gavin is a pro and like, Calmed the crowd down.

[00:50:38] Like it didn’t, it didn’t go off the rails, which, you know, like, because there was a ton of pent up energy and it could have gone really badly that first night, but, but he was able to, you know, like with his hotness, like kind of like bring it, bring, bring the

[00:50:53] Brett: Okay. So I never, I never followed Bush and I had actually never seen, uh, this, this [00:51:00] Gavin guy until this documentary. He is

[00:51:02] Jeff: seems like a good

[00:51:02] Brett: he, he is a beautiful man.

[00:51:04] Christina: well, okay. Well,

[00:51:05] I mean, other.

[00:51:06] Brett: in 1999,

[00:51:08] Christina: other than cheating on Gwen Stefani with the, with the, um, babysitter, uh, with the nanny guys know about that they were, they, they were married for

[00:51:16] Jeff: They didn’t tell me about that.

[00:51:17] Christina: They were married for 20 years and she found out because of, uh, he was using like the family iPad to like send iMessages to the nanny and then like, Bro can’t can’t use the same, um, you know, apple ID when you’re like sexting your nanny on like the family iPad.

[00:51:33] Anyway, she’s she’s now she’s now married to, to one of the boys dudes. She’s fine. But, but, uh, but yeah, they were the ultimate power couple though. Cause imagine like, like two of the most beautiful people on earth, like, you know, Gwen Stefani and, and Gavin Rossdale.

[00:51:49] Brett: all

[00:51:49] Jeff: Wow. All

[00:51:51] Grapptitude

[00:51:51] Brett: All right, Christina, just in case you have to leave early, go first.

[00:51:56] Christina: Okay. Um, so my [00:52:00] gratitude. All right. Um, I’m gonna talk about, have we talked, have I mentioned tables plus before.

[00:52:11] Brett: No, uh, by the way, by the way, I just wanna make it a rule that we can repeat shit. If like, if new, if new versions come out or we just have like excessive gratitude for some like we’re.

[00:52:23] Jeff: have excessive

[00:52:23] Brett: cuz I will forget. I will forget, but yeah. Tell us about table plus.

[00:52:27] Christina: So table plus is a really great, uh, uh, sequel, um, kind of a go kind of app it’ll it deals with my SQL deals with post grads. It deals with a bunch of stuff. It’s really, really good. It’s part of set app, but you can also buy it directly from, um, their, their website. They also have a windows and a Linux version.

[00:52:44] It’s kept up to date really well. And there used to be a couple of good kind of sequel visualization apps for, for Mac OS, if you wanted to use, like, you know, like a, a database manager that, that wasn’t like a, you know, a gooey web thing. [00:53:00] Um, but most of them haven’t been updated and, and aren’t, um, still kept up this one.

[00:53:05] Um, they, they handle their issues on, um, on, on GitHub, which is nice. It’s not open source, but, but the, the issues are handled on GitHub, which I really do appreciate. And this is, um, I’m, uh, trying to fix my website, which has been offline for a long time, uh, because of my fucking web host. And so I’ve been going through some stuff and this has been really, really helpful.

[00:53:25] Just in terms of app, like a, a way to, to deal with having to make a bunch of changes to a bunch of, um, um, tables and databases, but it works with my SQL works with, um, uh, Amazon, uh, Redshift SQL light, um, Oracle Mongo. Yeah. So, so I’m, I’m a big fan. Um, it, like I said, it it’s, um, you can get it, uh, directly from a, a table plus.com, but you can also, it’s part of set up, which is really nice.

[00:53:52] So if you’re a set subscriber, which we, we, they are not sponsoring this, but, uh, we are all fans. um, [00:54:00] wanna give, wanna give that a shout? Cause I’ve used it for a long time and, um, they’re also really responsive on Twitter and on GitHub, if you have like requests or other things, like they’re really, really responsive devs.

[00:54:09] So I wanna give them a shout out because this has been helping me with, with dealing with some, um, belated old crafty web shit.

[00:54:19] Jeff: I’ve been using, um, table plus for about 10 years, I think. And I’d totally have a wandering eye for other, um, similar apps and I have never, ever been pulled away from table plus. That’s

[00:54:35] Brett: It’s good stuff. I agree.

[00:54:38] Jeff: fantastic. Who else? What are you doing? You open a pack of smokes over there. Can’t tell what you’re doing. Okay. A screwdriver.

[00:54:46] I understand that happens in the

[00:54:47] Brett: My, my keyboard has a leg that’s loose and it’s

[00:54:50] Jeff: No, you go and you go and fix your fucking keyboard. I’ll just talk

[00:54:55] Brett: yeah. Tell

[00:54:56] Jeff: um, mine is, mine is an app called [00:55:00] ruin ruin R O O N. So I have this thing where I’m, I’m just looking always for the right music player. So I obviously have used apple music and iTunes before forever.

[00:55:12] Never liked iTunes, except for some of its interface. If I didn’t like what it did to my files and always frustrated me. And I finally decided to take a total audio nerd jump, and I still have a ton of my CDs. It mostly I’ve kept the ones that like. Really mean something to me as I’ve watched over the years, as I’ve watched them either disappear from streaming or never show up.

[00:55:34] And so I have this, like, I need to keep the ones I love, cuz I never know if they’re gonna be gone. And when, of course I could buy 'em on eBay anytime. But anyway, what I’ve decided to do before getting rid of them possibly is upload all of them as flack files, which. The audio nerd file, uh, format. And, um, I’m partly doing that because my father is my father who retired on a public teacher’s salary.

[00:55:59] [00:56:00] Um, but is like a master at electronics, um, is able to sort of buy all of this high end audio gear when it’s not quite working and fix it. And so he has this, what is probably like a $40,000 stereo system and one day I’ll inherit it. So I might as well have my CD files, my digital files in a good format.

[00:56:16] And so he kind of talked me into it. Um, and so once I did that, I had the problem of like, okay, so now how do I use these files? How can I like interface with these files? Because what’s actually cool to be an old man for a minute. What’s cool about having a CD collection still is like, It’s the last true curation experience of my of my like regular life.

[00:56:37] So vinyl is something that was, you know, I have tons of records and it is a curation thing, but vinyl is something where like I’ve bought records cuz they were $3 or whatever. But my CDs were always like very intentional, you know? And so it’s kind of fun to have uploaded all of them about halfway through and have this like curated library.

[00:56:56] It’s not for everyone, but it’s definitely for me. But the problem was how do I [00:57:00] see other music that streams alongside these and that is ruin R O O N is like this high end audio app that. Does not satisfy even half of my needs, but is the only thing that satisfies at least half of them. And what it does primarily is I use I’ve started to use title, which I really love also an audio nerd move.

[00:57:21] And so it, it can let my title and, and my flack files live next to each other in one interface. And it also has some bananas, uh, audio features in terms of EQing and doing all kinds of shit to make like a, you know, particular pair of headphones or whatever sound. Right. So I’m just having a lot of fun with it.

[00:57:40] Now I look, and I see, I have one day left on my free trial, so I don’t know yet if I’m gonna

[00:57:45] Christina: I was gonna say, cuz

[00:57:46] it, cuz it’s like $10 a month or something.

[00:57:49] Jeff: $10 a month. And then, you know, on top of that, title’s expensive, you know?

[00:57:53] Christina: Okay. So, so I’m gonna recommend that you talk to fed Rico, uh, fiche, because he’s been doing some similar [00:58:00] stuff with hi, like he’s, he’s put everything inplex and other things you should re you should read some of the stuff on Mac stories and see some of his take. Um, and maybe even like DM him.

[00:58:10] That’s that’s my advice to you because this looks great, but if it doesn’t do everything you want it to do, and it’s $10 a month, I mean,

[00:58:18] Jeff: know, but like at the same time, like music is for me,

[00:58:21] like I’m so such an obsessive, like it’s like kind of the one thing that’s worth spending money on for me. It’s like, I, I am so completely in love with music always. Wow. You just switched into pink headphones. Oh,

[00:58:36] Brett: She’s like, she’s on the phone

[00:58:37] Christina: Hey doc. Hello? Yes. Sorry about that.

[00:58:41] Brett: Oh my God. That would be amazing. I think I, I don’t know how okay. She’s on mute now. Okay. Christina is out. Uh, sorry. Um,

[00:58:59] Jeff: [00:59:00] gonna be almost like couples therapy for podcast hosts

[00:59:02] Brett: that was gonna, yeah, that was gonna be interesting. Uh, Jeff, have you heard of retro badge?

[00:59:07] Jeff: No

[00:59:08] Brett: Uh, it’s this app from flying meat who also makes acorn.

[00:59:12] Jeff: meat. That sounds like an awful scenario.

[00:59:14] Brett: Uh, he, it was named after he’s a rock climber. Gus is, and I believe flying meat is a reference to a specific, uh, like cliff, uh, on a climbing route that deer are known to fling themselves off of.

[00:59:30] Um, but anyway, retro batch is this image, hand image, manipulation automation app.

[00:59:39] Jeff: Ooh. This is cool.

[00:59:40] Brett: You get like these, you get a grid and you drag nodes onto it with things like read this folder of image, uh, images, uh, resize, every image to this dimension, crop it to this output JPEG and a, and a PNG file.

[00:59:56] Jeff: The interface reminds me of how Alfred’s workflows are built.

[00:59:59] Brett: [01:00:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Node based node based development of a workflow. Um, and then it can get like that alone is worth the price. Just like I have, for example, I have a template for designing header images for my blog and, and I put my, like the focal point of the header goes into a certain part of the grid.

[01:00:23] And then I run it through, I, I output a large JPEG and I run it through retro batch and it crops down and makes Twitter images, Facebook images, uh, two X and one X blog images and large and small. And it outputs them all from this one image that I save outta my

[01:00:44] Jeff: That’s great.

[01:00:45] Brett: Um, yeah, it’s amazing. Plus, you can get deep, like you can automate with apple script, you can write plugins with JavaScript, uh, screenshot, SIM link clipboards, like in [01:01:00] addition to all of the transforming and converting that it can do it is topnotch.

[01:01:05] Jeff: I just downloaded it. That is awesome.

[01:01:07] Brett: I’ve been on it since the beta, it costs, it’s like $20. It’s super affordable for what it, for the power it

[01:01:16] Jeff: like a one time thing.

[01:01:18] Brett: Yeah. Yeah. Just like straight up $20. Oh, okay. I just went to the buy page and it says we’re celebrating, flying meets 20th anniversary by lowering or raising the price of everything to $20. So I can’t remember what it costs normally, but now is the

[01:01:36] Jeff: that’s genius. Wait, this is

[01:01:38] Brett: Oh yeah. It’s it’s normally 30. So right now you can get it for $20.

[01:01:42] Jeff: app is not 20 years old, but flying meat is 20

[01:01:44] Brett: Correct. Correct.

[01:01:46] Jeff: So how, what did flying meat do in the oh, acorn?

[01:01:50] Brett: acorn is the, uh, the long, long running acorn was around long before pixel Mader, long before [01:02:00] affinity like acorn, if you needed to do image, editing on a Mac without buying Photoshop, uh, acorn was where you went

[01:02:09] Jeff: The name flying meet comes from a fun rock climb in Missouri. Uh, ready. The climb is named after an unfortunate deer that jumped off the top witnessed by the fellow who first found the climb as he was going up it and thus it was named flying beat. That’s a good bit.

[01:02:28] Brett: uh, I had pizza with Gus in San Francisco once and he told me this story and I had forgotten the details, but I still recall it had to do with a deer flying off of a cliff.

[01:02:40] Jeff: it’s good. And it almost seems like flying meat is like Gus Gus’s wife and Gus’s daughter, but.

[01:02:50] Brett: I believe they, they do like PR and customer support with him.

[01:02:54] Jeff: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Cool. I’ll check that out. That looks amazing. Actually looks [01:03:00] far preferable to doing it with, um, shortcuts, which are still so kind of annoying to

[01:03:05] Brett: man. I, I got into shortcuts this weekend, cuz I added shortcut commands to bunch. Uh, bunch can now bunch can call shortcuts, send text, and receive responses from shortcuts.

[01:03:18] Jeff: Damn.

[01:03:19] Brett: That you can then apply to variables and use in various ways. But, uh, as I hadn’t gotten into shortcuts yet, uh, I’m an automator guy.

[01:03:28] Everything I have is written an automator, it fit my needs. If I didn’t, if I wasn’t using automator, I was using tools like keyboard, moisture, et cetera. Um, but then I found out you can just drag an automate or workflow into shortcuts and it will turn it into a shortcut

[01:03:42] Jeff: Oh really?

[01:03:43] Brett: Uhhuh. And, and 90% of the ones I’ve tried worked great.

[01:03:48] Um, had some issues with ones that rely on Ruby scripting, um, and, uh, the using the system Ruby was different [01:04:00] than my ability to use what en returns. But anyway, um, I’m finally getting in shortcuts is better than automator. Uh, just the fact that you have loops

[01:04:11] Jeff: Oh, I don’t, I don’t dislike it. I just find that sometimes what I wanna do by the time I’ve achieved it, I’m like, this just feels clunky. I don’t really, if it breaks, I won’t know why I is how I feel. I don’t know that that’s fair. I just, you

[01:04:25] Brett: yeah. No, it’s everything’s fragile. I mean, anything in automation is fragile, but anyway. All right. Yeah, this was good. I’m sorry. Christina had to leave us, but some things are more important. I understand.

[01:04:39] Jeff: She kind of began and ended this one with the mental health corner. Let’s just, uh, applaud her for that.

[01:04:46] Brett: right, man. Oh, you know what? Let’s let’s recap. Let’s recap. What have we talked about today? We talked about, we talked about we get your mental health corner.

[01:04:57] Jeff: Mm-hmm talked about being curious, [01:05:00] talked about hypomania versus mania,

[01:05:04] Brett: Uh, pharmacies, uh, different Walgreens specifically. Uh, we got into, we talked a little bit about Macstock and the future of, of a small conference. Uh, we got into the Woodstock 99 documentary on Netflix. We actually spent a good amount of time talking about

[01:05:22] Jeff: And I was, I was happy to talk about it once I realized it wasn’t the HBO documentary, which I have real problems with.

[01:05:29] Brett: and then, and then we got, we got your Grapptitude. We got, we got some great picks and, and Christina had to ditch out before the end, but she had table plus it was a, it was a good episode, everyone should everyone, everyone who’s hearing this little bit as just a clip, you should tune into the episode. It was worth it.

[01:05:49] Jeff: Tune in,

[01:05:51] Brett: Tune in, get some sleep. Jeff.

[01:05:53] Jeff: some sleep, get some sleep.