Overtired 311

[00:00:00] Christina:

[00:00:02] So how’s the weather?

[00:00:02] Christina: You are listening to Overtired. I am Christina Warren. Joined as always by Brett Terpstra and Jeff Severns Gunztel Gentlemen, how are you doing this? Uh, you know, Christmas Eve? Eve,

[00:00:18] Brett: So cold.

[00:00:19] Jeff: I’m lucky to be alive

[00:00:23] Brett: Yeah. Like I, I, I know, I know Christina’s got unseasonably cold weather in, uh, you’re in Atlanta, right?

[00:00:30] Christina: I am in Atlanta. Yes.

[00:00:32] Brett: And it’s like 12 degrees.

[00:00:33] Christina: It’s like 12 degrees.

[00:00:35] Brett: Our, we, when it gets this cold in Minnesota, we, we go by wind chill. Um, because that’s all that matters, how fast we will your face freeze when you step out the door. Uh, we, we have,

[00:00:46] Jeff: Fuck that. How fast will you die if you step out the

[00:00:50] Brett: Jeff and I have negative 30 degrees right now.

[00:00:54] Jeff: It’s beautiful.

[00:00:54] Brett: It’s crazy.

[00:00:55] Christina: So, so,

[00:00:56] Brett: warm up today. It’s gonna get up to negative 26. [00:01:00] So looking forward to that.

[00:01:03] Christina: it’s only the windshield here is only five degrees. So, uh, or, or, or is is, is actually, sorry. I was gonna say is actually five degrees. So, so we’re not as bad as you.

[00:01:12] Jeff: but that’s

[00:01:12] Brett: frigid. Nonetheless. That is still, that’s still frostbite in about 15 minutes.

[00:01:18] Jeff: What I

[00:01:19] Christina: we’re not used to this, this sort of, you know, weather,

[00:01:23] Brett: Yeah. Yeah, that’s what Jeff was saying. Like, we, us Midwesterners, we, we talk about like our, our, our cold and our snow and everything, but we have the infrastructure to deal

[00:01:36] Jeff: the constitutions.

[00:01:37] Brett: have, we have years of dealing with this. We’re, yeah, we’re, we’re used to it. This is almost expected for us, but like the rest of the country now is seeing whether that they’re not prepared

[00:01:48] Jeff: It’s scary.

[00:01:49] Christina: Yeah. So I left, I left Seattle on, um, what day was it? Sunday. No, Tuesday left Seattle on Tuesday and, uh, today’s Friday. And, [00:02:00] uh, it was like snowing, like right as I was leaving it to the point that our flight was delayed about half an hour because it started snowing fairly heavily and then we, they had to de-ice the, the tarmac had let us get off and whatnot.

[00:02:12] Christina: But even just the, the, the light, you know, pattern of snow is just so, such a weird comparison to snow in New York where, you know, the streets are salted and people are used to it. And the way that they design the roads and stuff are usually so that like, if it snows, you’ll be able to walk on it. Okay. And, you know, I have, I’m like, I have this cobblestone type of walkway outside of my apartment complex on this like one way street, which is in no way conducive cuz this has happened before when it snowed or, or iced over.

[00:02:48] Christina: Like you could fall on your ass and, and, and really hurt yourself. Oh yeah. Or. Like the University of Washington, this girl slipped on black ice and died, and they didn’t have any [00:03:00] signs up. So her parents sued the fuck out of the school, and I hope they got every single dollar in the universe because that was 100% the university’s fault.

[00:03:08] Christina: Like, fuck them for real, for not having signs up or anything when there was black ice. Also, Seattle, I’m gonna bitch about this for a second. They refuse to ice the, the sidewalks and it’s, it now it snows. They’re usually in February. And, and, and

[00:03:22] Brett: do you mean salt? The sidewalks?

[00:03:24] Christina: Yeah, they refuse to,

[00:03:25] Brett: You said ice the sidewalks. I feel like

[00:03:28] Christina: sorry, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So sorry.

[00:03:29] Christina: They refuse to salt the sidewalks. Wh the ice. Sorry about that. So they refuse to ice, uh, salt the, the sidewalks when, when they’re iced over because they’re worried about the fucking fish. And like, here’s the thing, for one or two days out of the year, Fuck the fish. Dude, I don’t give a shit. People are dying.

[00:03:48] Christina: No, when, when, when, when? When a girl, when a girl at UDub dies because they don’t have the proper way to, you know, de-ice stuff. Like, fuck that. Like, honestly, [00:04:00] like fuck that forever. I, I, I, I, like, I, the, the environmentalists can come after me, but the rest of the freaking country that also has big fishing things has figured out how to get rid of ice.

[00:04:10] Christina: I mean, again, Midwest, you know, you’ve got a lot of lakes and stuff there. New York, the whole, like East coast, they ice shit. So like, fuck the fish, man. Like they will adapt or it’ll be three days and it’s not the end of the world, but maybe like, maybe 19 year old girls won’t slip and die.

[00:04:27] Jeff: This is

[00:04:27] Brett: I finally bought crampons this year. Do you know what crampons.

[00:04:31] Christina: I do, I do.

[00:04:32] Jeff: so much. That sounds like tampon

[00:04:33] Brett: I know it’s, it’s a weird word, cramp and tampon and like, it just has all these like weird associations. But for anyone who doesn’t know crampons are, uh, cleats, metal cleats for your shoes. And, and I got some that are, they’re rubber and I, you just slip 'em on as if they were rubbers, not like condoms, but like, I know it’s so many.

[00:04:56] Jeff: It’s a really problematic topic.

[00:04:57] Brett: Yeah, but like I can, I can [00:05:00] flip 'em on before I go for a walk with the dog who now refuses, like, we get her all suited up, we get socks and boots on her. We put two coats on her, get her all bundled up, get her out into the middle of the driveway. We get her out to the driveway and she just plants, she plants her her paws and refuses she’ll.

[00:05:18] Brett: Like she does a hard look away when she doesn’t wanna, when she wants to let you know, like she does not like what’s happening. She hard turns away from you. And she does that in the middle of the driveway. And I’ve tried like just getting her, just getting her to walk a little ways cuz she won’t poop unless she walks.

[00:05:36] Brett: So if she doesn’t walk, then she just barks all night and like goes outside for like 30 seconds and then she’s like, no, I gotta let me back in. So I’ve been trying and we, it takes like 10 minutes to get her all suited up and to get my park on and everything. And then she just plants her feet in the driveway and will not get, she won’t walk.

[00:05:56] Brett: It’s uh, I get it. I do, but it’s, [00:06:00] it’s been frustrating last night to try to get her moving so she would poop. I went to the basement and Elle stood upstairs and we called her back and forth and gave her a treat on each end just to get her to run up and down the stairs, uh, to try to try to move that poop out.

[00:06:16] Brett: And, and she did it about four times and then she just, I called her and instead she just ran to the couch and just like buried her head in the couch. She’s like, I’m done with this

[00:06:27] Christina: She’s like, I’m, I’m not. She’s like, I don’t like the cold. I’m not into this. I was not, I was not, I was

[00:06:32] Brett: into the stair climber

[00:06:33] Jeff: You are reminding me of all of my friends who have this experience but then also are like, fuck no kids . It’s like really? It’s a lot easier.

[00:06:44] Christina: See? And I’m like, fuck no to both, right? I’m like, I’m, I’m like, I’m like, I, I, I love animals and, uh, uh, some, some kids are cute, but I’m like, absolutely not.

[00:06:55] Brett: Yeah, I could, I could honestly live without the dog. Um, [00:07:00] I, I

[00:07:00] Jeff: I was gonna ask you, you’ve got both and like, cuz my thought when I hear that also is like, that’s why cats, but you’ve got both so you

[00:07:06] Brett: Yeah, no, I, I’m, I’m a cat guy. Uh, it’s el I had Emma the pit bull and I loved her dearly and she gave me so much love, like she was worth. And she, she really just, other than being dog aggressive, um, like she was fine with any person, especially love children and just like would curl up with you and love you.

[00:07:28] Brett: And she was not a pain in the ass. But Lulu, who, who is Elle’s dog? I mean our dog now we’ve been together long enough. I have to take some ownership of this dog. But, um, but Lulu does, she, she doesn’t lick. Like I love when dogs lick my face. I know a lot of people fucking hate that. Uh,

[00:07:48] Jeff: this, are we leading into your, um, rocket money ad

[00:07:51] Brett: But, but it, it, that feels like love to me.

[00:07:54] Brett: And, uh, and, and she doesn’t do that. And she’s very just [00:08:00] needy and prissy and also dog aggressive. Like we can’t take her to the dog part cuz she’ll fight everybody. And I don’t, it’s just not as much fun as Emma. And if I had to choose right now, I would 100% take my cats.

[00:08:15] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. No, we, I was, I was gonna say I’m a dog person, but, but part of that is I’ve, I, well, I’m allergic to cats, not super, super bad. Um, my dad is like, incredibly allergic and like, like, like walks into a house where the cat might not even be there, but if there’s any whiff of the, the dander at all, then his face and his fingers and his glands and everything starts swelling.

[00:08:43] Christina: And, um, uh, like, like, uh, you know, probably be the thing. Or he could probably go into like a, uh, um,

[00:08:50] Brett: Anaphylactic shock. Yeah.

[00:08:52] Christina: Yeah, if you were around too many cats, uh, honestly, which makes it funnier that like the one time our family did have a cat is because my [00:09:00] sister wanted one. This is before I was born. And, uh, and he, he let her have a cat and then I guess she, you know, like everybody realized that it was just not for the best and, and something happened to that cat.

[00:09:10] Christina: I don’t know. But, um, so I grew up with dogs, so I, I’m not as comfortable with cats even putting some of the allergy stuff aside, which for me is mostly just like itchy eyes. Um,

[00:09:22] Brett: tried hairless Cats?

[00:09:25] Christina: but again, I’ve never been around cats that much. So cuz my, my whole thing too is that like, I, I think that personality-wise, there are parts of me that would appeal to me, and then there are parts to me where I’m like, oh shit, no, they jump on things and they get into stuff and like,

[00:09:40] Brett: love it.

[00:09:42] Christina: and I’m like, and I’m like, oh hell no, like,

[00:09:45] Brett: I love watching a cat get up on a bookshelf and just like test things to see what will move. And as soon as something budges a little, knock it on the floor, like I get that, like I that like, I’m like, I feel you man. I get that . So if it moves, knock [00:10:00] it on the floor.

[00:10:01] Christina: Yeah, and, and then, then I’m like, I’m like, what the fuck are you doing, man? I just spent all this time organizing this or like say outta my jewelry box. So.

[00:10:09] Brett: that’s what you get for organizing. I I get it. I get it.

[00:10:14] Jeff: That’s why I want, want a monkey.

[00:10:15] Mental Health Corner… Christmas is coming

[00:10:15] Brett: so for the mental health corner, I think we should mix it up with kind of Christmas plans. Um, we got a couple days till Christmas. I know all of us have very different situations when it comes to Christmas, so, uh, for me, my Christmas plans are pretty tied to my mental health right now, , and, and so I figured we could combine the two.

[00:10:37] Brett: But, uh, Christina, what are. What are your Christmas slash mental health plans?

[00:10:43] Christina: So I’m with my family in Atlanta. I had Covid last week. Um, and that was man, like, so my big, my big kind of takeaway on that was, um, I was just really tired. Uh, but it knocked my, knocked me on my [00:11:00] ass. Like it really, really did. I, I, I thought that I had it, uh, in January and I might have, but in that case it was not like this, like this, whatever, this strain, whatever this latest strain is for me.

[00:11:13] Christina: I had a, and here’s the thing, I wouldn’t have even known that I was positive, but my mom unknowingly had it. So did my dad. And I was like, well, I’m just gonna take a test. And my first test was positive, but I’d messed it up. And so I was like, well, I cured the test. Not a big deal. I took another one. I waited.

[00:11:31] Christina: I thought I’d waited the 15 minutes and it was negative. I was like, okay, cool. I’m fine. And then two days later I was looking at the bathroom counter. and I looked at the test again and I realized there was a very faint red line. I was like, oh shit. And then I took a test again and I was immediately red.

[00:11:48] Christina: And then Grant, I got it from him because he was sick first. And uh, and, and he was immediately positive and, and he was negative. I think as of like Sunday that I think it took me until, or Saturday it took me into like [00:12:00] Monday to be negative, but I was just like knocked on my ass for that. So, um, my parents likewise have been sick and so Christmas here are slash holiday plan.

[00:12:09] Christina: So I’m in Atlanta, um, with my family, but um, everybody’s just feels like a week behind because we all got knocked on our asses for a week. So, um, but the good news is, is this’ll be, not baby’s first Christmas, but it’ll be the first one that he is a little more aware of, cuz.

[00:12:28] Brett: for sure.

[00:12:30] Christina: Right. Cause he’s, he’s 20 months now, so, um, we have a, a Thomas, the, the tank Engine right on toy coming today that also has a track so he can both ride on it, um, like, you know, through the house or through the backyard.

[00:12:44] Christina: But there’s also like a circular track that it goes around too. So

[00:12:49] Jeff: is what it’s like when you get a job.

[00:12:52] Christina: Exactly. So, so, because, well, he really likes trains. He really likes trains and I wanted to get him a car of some sort. And then I saw this [00:13:00] Thomas thing and I was like, oh, this is actually even better because he is so little.

[00:13:02] Christina: Um, you know, like maybe get him the G wagon for a second birthday, but, and this way he can like, use it indoors in outdoors. So now that the fun part will be, you know, getting him all kinds of toys and stuff and in watching that unfold, cuz the rest of us have just been kind of on our asses. So that’s me.

[00:13:24] Brett: All right.

[00:13:27] Jeff: Uh, you know, I don’t have a lot of emotional, uh, sort of. I don’t know what chaos or trauma or anything around Christmas, um, like so many people I know and love do. Um, so we, every other year we stay home and, uh, on the flip side, we go to Indianapolis, where my wife’s parents are. And, um, I can just say I just love staying home.

[00:13:53] Jeff: I actually love being in her parents' house. They’re great, they’re wonderful people. Um, fun to be around. Uh, but [00:14:00] I just love to be home. I, um, I, uh, I come from on one side, a gigantic family, gigantic Catholic family. So we’ll go there for Christmas Eve and there’ll be about 45 people there. Um, and I find that exhausting.

[00:14:13] Jeff: Uh, it’s fine. It’s not terrible, but it’s exhausting. Uh, but I love a quiet Christmas morning. That’s like my favorite thing in the world. Uh, and, and we get that, get that all to ourselves this time. So it’s always hard to say out loud cuz I, it’s like, Hey everybody, listen. I like coming there. I like coming here, but I love, love being alone with my family on Christmas Eve.

[00:14:35] Jeff: So I’m looking forward to that. Um, and, uh, yeah, I don’t know. That’s, I don’t have mu I don’t have much to report on that front.

[00:14:43] Brett: All right. Okay. Um, I, uh, my, my whole family is in town, like my brother, my sister, my parents, all of their children. Um, and I am, my brother’s been [00:15:00] in town since like Tuesday and I haven’t seen him yet cuz I, I’m not comfortable around my brother. Um, I like his kids, but I don’t need to see a lot of them. Um, I, I have a lot of.

[00:15:15] Brett: Weird emotions around family in general. Um, I like my sister and her family better, but still not like, Hey, let’s all go out and get manicures or whatever. I don’t know what people do with their families. Um,

[00:15:33] Jeff: pedicure for sure.

[00:15:35] Christina: They, they, well, well, if, if you’re my family, my, my, me and my mom and my dad watched Little Lo Lord, um, uh, Fon Roy, uh, Fale Roy, whatever the movie is called last night. So, and then we’re watching Christmas movies all day today. So that’s, that, that’s what we do. But I, I, I feel you, you’re, you’re, you’re not wanting to, you, you like your sister, but that’s not your,

[00:15:56] Brett: we don’t have any tradition of watching movies. We will, [00:16:00] I will go over there Christmas morning and I will spend probably two, two and a half hours. Being inundated by small children and, uh, dealing with my brother’s sarcasm and judgemental nature, and my mom’s, uh, tactless interrogations.

[00:16:21] Brett: And, uh, it’ll be, it’ll be fun. Um, my girlfriend of like six years now, um, she, her parents are both deceased. Um, and, and speaking of Textless interrogations, my mom, like the first time she hung out with Al alone , she’s like, so at what age, what age were you orphaned,

[00:16:45] Christina: Oh my God.

[00:16:46] Brett: the weird, the weirdest way to ask that question.

[00:16:50] Jeff: Oh my

[00:16:51] Christina: one of the, also like one of the shittiest I have to say, like, just, come on mom. I’ve read like, what the fuck?

[00:16:58] Brett: is her mom died on like [00:17:00] Christmas Eve. So for her and her sister, it is.

[00:17:04] Christina: this is, yeah,

[00:17:05] Brett: Especially for her sister. Her sister dealt with that. Like Elle was the one who was like hospice care for their mother. Um, she, she had a lot more of a chance, I think to um, come to terms with and grieve like in the moment.

[00:17:24] Brett: Uh, whereas her sister was a little more removed from it. And, and Christmas always fucks her up a little bit. Um, it’s, it’s gotten better, but, uh, but I don’t have any in-laws to visit, you know, I only have my own family that I have a very contentious relationship with,

[00:17:42] Christina: right now. How now, how, how, how does L deal with being around your family? Because I know like

[00:17:48] Brett: she does her best, but my parents make her angry cuz she can see. In our interaction, she can see how they fuck me up. Like she can see, she can see like [00:18:00] all the things that are painful for me. Like she sees where they come from and she’s very cordial, friendly. Um, she makes a real effort cuz she knows my relationship with my parents as important to me to some extent.

[00:18:14] Brett: Um, and she will make the effort to, to be friends with them, but we will never go out of our way to hang out with them

[00:18:25] Christina: No, no, that, no, that makes total sense. Yeah, cuz so my grant and I, it’s sort of a similar thing. I mean, not that his, uh, well only his father is, has passed now. Um, his mom as, as I talked with the last episode I was on, um, is not doing well, although, um, they are all together right now, um, in, in Florida. Um, but, um, I grew up like, not to say my, my family life was perfect because it certainly was not, but it’s a lot more like normal and, uh, or not normal, but like stereotypical.

[00:18:57] Christina: Like, I, I don’t think anybody has normal families, but like I have a much [00:19:00] more stereotypical like, you know, two parent household thing and whatnot and, and, and my parents, like everybody’s parents fucks them up like mine, to be honest. Like, you know,

[00:19:08] Brett: That’s course of life. Sure.

[00:19:10] Christina: other things fucked me up more than my parents did.

[00:19:13] Christina: But, um, so for him it, it, it’s like this, this weird thing where like if I, when I have to like be around like his family, sometimes it’s the same thing where like I see all of his traumas and stuff and I’m like, okay, how do we, how do we deal with this? You know? And, and, and wanting to be supportive. But so I, I totally understand.

[00:19:31] Christina: Like, um, and then, uh, yeah, and I, but I definitely understand too the experience. Like my immediate family, I don’t have this, but, so my extended family, I definitely are similar to, to, to you Brett, where I’m just like, I don’t care anything. Like, at least with some of them anyway, I’m like, I need to hold my tongue or, and this might be different from you cuz like, you do want, like a relationship with, with your family.

[00:19:56] Christina: There’s some members of my extended family who I do not give a shit. I

[00:19:59] Brett: Oh [00:20:00] my, my entire mom’s side of the family I haven’t talked to in 20 years.

[00:20:04] Christina: But like, but, but I have to, but, but, but I have to see them sometimes and then I have to like, you know, put on the face and I’m just gonna but it, but internally I’m like, you literally mean nothing to me. So this is awkward now because they’re are judgmental and, you know, like the type of people who

[00:20:21] Brett: Yep.

[00:20:22] Christina: make, make it difficult through that process.

[00:20:24] Christina: I’m just, I’m just fortunate enough that, that my, uh, my parents are, are, are good. And my mom has even stopped asking me if I wanna go to church. So,

[00:20:33] Brett: My two

[00:20:33] Christina: I appreci.

[00:20:36] Brett: they, they, for years, they’re like, do you want to at least come to like Christmas Eve service with us? And I did one year, probably like 15 years ago, I went to church with them and I walked out. Like it was so uncomfortable for me to be in an evangelical free church. And, and the way it made me feel was so awkward that I had to leave, um, , [00:21:00] I got angry.

[00:21:02] Brett: Um, but yeah. Uh, I hit a soc, I hit like, I have a social time limit. Um, I’m really good and gregarious, even for about half an hour. Um, if I am forced into social situations for more than an hour, I get sarcastic and a little bit grumpy and mean. Um, and then the case of my family, that means like lashing out and saying like, intentionally saying of offensive things, uh, to try to like push buttons.

[00:21:32] Brett: And that do, like, it doesn’t happen until I’ve like hit my time limit. Um, and Elsa actually, she understands like what’s happening and will like work to get me out of a situation if she senses. Like I’ve hit that like whiplash moment where I’m gonna start, start lashing out at people. But anyway, yeah, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be interesting.

[00:21:58] Brett: It’ll be over soon. We [00:22:00] got a couple days.

[00:22:01] Classic Lit

[00:22:01] Jeff: I feel like we shouldn’t let this, uh, segment end without, uh, the Tolstoy line from the beginning of Anna Carina. All happy families are alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. the opening lines of that book, which I recently started rereading

[00:22:19] Christina: I, so I can’t remember if I read it or not. I don’t, I might, I think I would’ve remembered that line. So I guess I did not read that in high school, but that’s amazing. And now I kind of wanna read the book to be honest.

[00:22:30] Jeff: Well, also, even if, and anybody out there that did read it in high school, I, I did not read it in high school. I read it about two years ago, um, at like 46 or whatever that is. It’s like, it, it’s, it’s, it’s at a point of adulthood that you need to read that book. That’s where it really hits beautifully and wonderfully.

[00:22:46] Jeff: Like, I don’t understand, I think of all the people I know that read that in high school and I think of that book and I’m like, how did you even have any kind of resonance at all with any of this shit?

[00:22:54] Brett: Yeah, I tried to read it. I thought I tried read in fifth grade because I thought it would be [00:23:00] like smart, like I was, I was, I wanted to be smart, so I was like, I’m gonna read Tolstoy and I, it, it sevki and Tolstoy. I just, I I couldn’t, I couldn’t do it.

[00:23:14] Jeff: At

[00:23:14] Christina: Well, you were 11.

[00:23:15] Jeff: Love it. Yeah.

[00:23:16] Christina: were 11, so I mean, like, I, I did dickens then. Like Dickens you could do, right? Like I, I, I did Dickens then. Absolutely. Dickens is perfect for that stuff. Get some great

[00:23:26] Brett: I was, I was really into like Anthony Burgess at the time. A mouthful of

[00:23:33] Jeff: I read nothing, nothing on my own. Uh, all through high school and elementary school except Hammer the gods, the, the largely falsified biography of Fled Zeppelin. Um, I, you know, the reason I, what, what I did that worked so beautifully is like, I legitimately wanted to read all these kind of classics that seemed like just part of the cannon, that for some ridiculous reason, everybody was only reading in high school.

[00:23:58] Jeff: And so I, I initially [00:24:00] wanted to just, I wanted to read Warren Peace really bad. I’d started it every New Year’s resolution for three years. And finally I put out ano, I didn’t say Warren Peace, but I put out a thing on Facebook. I’m like, who wants to read Tolstoy short stories? It was a, it was a manipulation.

[00:24:13] Jeff: Uh, cuz I figured anyone who enjoyed the short stories, I could, I could get him at the right moment and be like, how about we do war and peace next? And sure enough, man, this group is such a beautifully random group. Um, and we read Warren Peace just over the course of a year. We took our time, we just like a little bit at a time, right?

[00:24:30] Jeff: And then we were like, this is a great concept. And so we did fucking, um, we did Moby Dick, we did Crime and Punishment and a Karenina Frankenstein. Amazing. Frankenstein is

[00:24:41] Christina: Oh, Frankenstein’s so good.

[00:24:42] Jeff: Oh my God. It’s just

[00:24:45] Christina: now.

[00:24:45] Brett: Mary Shelly and have you guys read other Mary Shelly’s stuff? Like she’s brilliant. She’s like un under underrated, like for sure

[00:24:56] Christina: Oh, 100% agreed. No. So no, Frankenstein is great and, and a [00:25:00] lot of those books are good. Now here’s my question for you, cuz this is the one that, and I’ve read a lot and, and I, I, I consider, I don’t consider myself like to be like a upscale, whatever, reader, but I read a lot and I read a lot of different things.

[00:25:12] Christina: I have never been able to get through Ulysses and I have

[00:25:14] Jeff: No, it’s on our list to try,

[00:25:16] Christina: but, but, but, but, but Joyce kicks my ass every single time and, and I, like Ulysses just fucking kicks my ass.

[00:25:27] Jeff: Right. Well, and I,

[00:25:28] Christina: been able to get through it.

[00:25:30] Jeff: and I want to be clear here. I’m not talking to you as like a clean fingernail, uh, liberal who’s done all the right things. I did not graduate high school, so I’m like, I’m, uh, I’m, I’m not going. Some people react that way. I was like, I’m not going for social capital. Like, I really wanted to read these books and they were all phenomenal.

[00:25:45] Jeff: Now the experience I’m having, I’m curious if you guys have had What’s that? Go ahead, Christina.

[00:25:50] Christina: No. I was gonna say now I haven’t gotten through Ulysses. I did read Finnegan’s Week and I liked

[00:25:54] Brett: Oh my God, that’s a hard one.

[00:25:55] Jeff: I’d love, I

[00:25:56] Christina: It’s a hard one, but, but,

[00:25:57] Brett: it’s a hard

[00:25:58] Christina: but I, but I, I was able to get through Finnegan’s [00:26:00] Week, but Ulysses was the one where I was just like, I can’t,

[00:26:02] Jeff: Two big ones for me that I’d like to read are Ulysses. Ulysses, and then obviously completely different era, infinite Jest. Um,

[00:26:10] Brett: Oh, I haven’t read Infinite. Just

[00:26:12] Jeff: because it’s

[00:26:13] Brett: parents bought, my parents bought one of those, uh, like bookshelf, uh, like all the classics, right. And it looks like an encyclopedia set. And it has like, in gold, gold lettering, the names of all the authors. And I worked my way through that as a kid and a lot of, like, that was where I discovered how fucked up, um, Allison Wonderland.

[00:26:35] Brett: Was the, like the actual book and Wizard of Oz that was in there, like the original version, like the actual book of Wizard of Oz was pretty fucked up. Like especially when you’re, especially when you’re like nine, 10 years old, like reading, reading obvious drug references through and through. Yeah.

[00:26:55] Christina: totally, totally. And then, and then, and, and I don’t know, I don’t know if it’s ever been decided or not. [00:27:00] I’ve always taken the interpretation that, uh, the Allison Winterland guy was a total pedophile. Um, I don’t, I don’t think there’s any, I don’t, I don’t think there’s any interpretation.

[00:27:09] Christina: I don’t think there’s any interpretation you can have of, of that book and of his life that is not, he was a complete pedophile. Um,

[00:27:16] Brett: me that way as a nine year old, but I, I believe if I read it, if I read it as an adult, I would probably be like, oh shit.

[00:27:24] Christina: well, I was in high school when I read it, and, and I, I was like, okay, this is, something’s not right here. And this is before everybody was like, You know, having the really problematic discourse we have now, you know, about like the groomer that’s groomer that No, like, I’m sorry. Like I read Alice Wonderland, I know there are a lot of people who defend Lewis Carroll, but I’m like,

[00:27:46] Jeff: You’re not

[00:27:46] Christina: bros fucked up bro was fucked up and in, in a way that wasn’t like, you know, ed Garlin Poe marrying his 13 year old cousin, which gross but not like out of context for the time.

[00:27:58] Christina: Like, that was not an [00:28:00] uncommon thing to happen in, in the 18 hundreds. Whereas like Louis Carroll, I’m like, I don’t know bro. But yeah, you’re right. A lot of those kids books like Alice, uh, not Alison, no Wizard Oz, cuz that was a whole series of books. Right? And, um,

[00:28:14] Brett: I, I read it as, I read it as one piece. I don’t know if it was

[00:28:17] Christina: well, no, no, no. But they

[00:28:18] Brett: serial.

[00:28:19] Christina: no, no, no.

[00:28:20] Christina: They had, they had one and then there were subsequent books

[00:28:22] Brett: Oh, okay. Yeah, I

[00:28:24] Christina: And, and, and so, and, and, and if you’ve ever seen, uh, return to Oz, which is the ill faded, uh, Francis Ford Coppola produced, uh, sequel, uh, with the far bulk, uh, from the eighties, um, you see how fucked up some of it gets. And, and that to me probably like, was more true to the, to the books than, um, than the the 1939, uh, MGM Classic

[00:28:52] Jeff: You know something I realized, I, I had no idea that, um, Frankenstein was not the monster, [00:29:00] you know what I mean? Because that’s how, that’s how it became. But, and, and so I was reading Frankenstein and I’m thinking about all the ways in which he’s been, or Frankenstein’s been represented as Frankenstein, the monster, not the doctor.

[00:29:11] Jeff: But then I realized Motley Crue was telling me all along, cuz they say he’s the one they called Dr. Feelgood, he’s gonna be your Frankenstein. So they’re telling me Frankenstein is the doctor. Right? How many times did I listen to that song And I still didn’t get it. I also never knew what happened at the end of Moby Dick.

[00:29:28] Jeff: Uh, uh, the rest of my book club was laughing cause I’d be like, don’t spoil it. I don’t know what happens with the whale . But anyway, I, I just wanna say that having a group to do that with, um, was just incredible. And, and for, for that reason, I’ve read all these books that I always wanted to read and now I’m reading them the second time through and I’m finding for the first time, cause I’ve never read a book twice, I’m finding how much, um, Enjoyment.

[00:29:54] Jeff: I get out of reading a book when the part of me that’s worrying and wondering about what’s gonna happen is [00:30:00] just not there. I already know what’s gonna happen, so I can just like go for the ride. And I’m finding that amazing. I know everyone else figured that out, probably in college or earlier, but it’s new for me.

[00:30:10] Brett: So, uh, speaking of classic literature, I would like to take a quick sponsor break.

[00:30:17] Christina: Yes.

[00:30:20] Sponsor: Rocket Money

[00:30:20] Brett: Uh, there, that is not actually a good segue because my, my read for Rocket Money is anything but classic literature. But a while back I subscribed to the robot Hallmark channel, uh, which is like BattleBots, but with Meat cutes. And, uh, every synopsis starts with Sparks fly when, uh, it was fun for a little while, but I, I got bored with the repetitive storylines, like it’s always the same plot with different robots and varying professions.

[00:30:47] Brett: So I decided next month I’ll cancel it, but then I forgot and I kept paying for it for seven years. Um, I need a quick way to see all my subscriptions and cancel the ones I’m done with. That’s why I love using [00:31:00] Rocket Money now, formerly known as truebill. The app shows you all your subscriptions in one place and then cancels for you whatever.

[00:31:07] Brett: You don’t still want. Rocket Money can even find subscriptions you didn’t know you were paying for. You may even find out you’ve been double charged for a subscription. I did actually find that out. Uh, I, I accidentally signed up in two different ways for back Blaze. Um, uh, I was paying a monthly and a yearly subscription and Rocket Money helped me find that.

[00:31:29] Brett: Um, to cancel a subscription, all you have to do is press cancel and rocket money takes care of the. Get rid of useless subscriptions with Rocket Money now. Go to Rocket money.com/ Overtired. Seriously, it could save you hundreds of dollars per year. That’s Rocket money.com/ Overtired. Cancel your unnecessary subscriptions right now@rocketmoney.com slash Overtired.

[00:31:54] Brett: If you’re no longer interested in sappy robot love stories, stop paying for them. [00:32:00] Check out Rocket money.com/ Overtired.

[00:32:04] Jeff: Hmm, man, you got a whole life I don’t know about until you

[00:32:09] Brett: Yeah,

[00:32:09] Christina: I was gonna say

[00:32:10] Brett: it’s, uh, it’s rich. It’s a rich

[00:32:12] Jeff: some, for some people it, it takes booze to loosen 'em up a little bit, but for you, it just takes a sponsorship

[00:32:18] Christina: it just takes sponsorship. Also though, like I feel like we do need like the robot, uh, hallmark channel though.

[00:32:26] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:27] Brett: Well, so last time I made it about robot dominatrix is, but it turns out that’s actually a fucking thing. And, and some people didn’t know if I was joking or not. And so I tried, I tried to find,

[00:32:41] Jeff: You googled this one a few times.

[00:32:43] Brett: find the line where people would, it would obviously be a joke. Um, I did not actually Google Robot, robot Hallmark channel.

[00:32:50] Brett: It does feel like that might be a thing that exists. Um, maybe in Japan. I

[00:32:56] Jeff: I bet, I bet nobody’s asking ftx dude from him anymore, and I bet he’s [00:33:00] willing to try to, at least on the, on the sly, give some out

[00:33:06] Brett: So, uh, uh, Jeff, do you wanna, who wants to do the, uh, the promo swap this week?

[00:33:13] Jeff: Oh, doesn’t matter to me. I can do it.

[00:33:16] Brett: Rock on.

[00:33:21] Jeff: Yeah, no. Okay.

[00:33:23] Christina: I like it.

[00:33:24] Jeff: Thank you very much.

[00:33:25] Christina: I’m a fan.

[00:33:26] Promo Swap: Self Esteem Party

[00:33:26] Jeff: Um, promo swap, self-esteem party. Do you ever look at your favorite comedians and think, wow, they’re so successful, they must be so confident?

[00:33:35] Jeff: Well, guess what? They’re all hanging by a thread just like us. I would actually say in my experience, more than

[00:33:41] Brett: Yeah,

[00:33:42] Jeff: um, thanks to social media. Self-esteem is a huge part of our everyday experience. The same goes for people who make us laugh. Self-Esteem Party is the perfect blend of comedy and honesty Each week, comedian and self-proclaimed superstar, Alana Johnston, self [00:34:00] proclaim.

[00:34:00] Jeff: That’s nice. I’m gonna start putting that in my deal. Self-Proclaimed Superstar interviews one of her show Biz Pals and dives right into the core of who they really are and how they feel about themselves. Alana playfully guides her friends through their own self-exploration while simultaneously cracking them up.

[00:34:17] Jeff: Each guest reveals a different struggle with their own self-esteem, self-image, and self-care, and their powerful, relatable conversations interspersed with Alana’s exuberant comedy. So next time you’re feeling down on yourself, check out Self-Esteem Party and let Alana cheer you up. New episodes every tuesday@thesonarnetwork.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:34:41] Brett: Thanks, Jeff. Actually, like I, I looked that podcast up before we started recording and I didn’t have time to listen to an episode, but it is one that I added to my podcaster because it looks, it, it, it does look both funny and I feel [00:35:00] like it’s a lot like our mental Health Corner , we’re, it’s a combination of, of things that make you laugh and things that, that you can relate to, so it looked good.

[00:35:09] Jeff: Yeah,

[00:35:10] Christina: No, it looks great. I really do hope that that, uh, um, offspring self-esteem is the theme song though, because that would be really, really good.

[00:35:18] Brett: Did you ever hear Kay Flay do that?

[00:35:21] Christina: Yes, we talked about it. I know. Yeah, we talked about it. It was fantastic. I was actually,

[00:35:26] Brett: to that song that I never appreciated before

[00:35:30] Jeff: awesome.

[00:35:31] Christina: Play is just fantastic and she, she’s, she’s a, a, a bright discovery for me, so yeah, big fan.

[00:35:37] Brett: you saying that. She’s a favorite of mine. Um, Christina, do you want to do the text expander?

[00:35:43] Sponsor: TextExpander

[00:35:43] Christina: I will definitely do the text expander read. So get your team communicating faster with a text expander and keep your team’s knowledge at their fingertips. Put information in the hands of your team outside of silos. Your team could be sending a unified message to your [00:36:00] customers without reinventing the wheel.

[00:36:02] Christina: So here’s how it works. Store it. It means you can keep your company’s most used. Emails, phrases, messaging URLs, and more, right? Within text expander. Share it. Get your whole team access to all the content they need to use every day. And. Expand it. Deploy the content you need with just a few keystrokes on any device across any apps you use.

[00:36:25] Christina: It’s that easy. Text Expander is available on Mac, windows, Chrome, iPhone, iPad, Overtired. Listeners get 20% off their first year. You can visit text expander.com/podcast for more info. That’s text expander.com/podcast. We are huge fans of Text Expander here at Overtired, and so whether you wanna use this, you know, individually or I think actually in a team scenario, this would be a great way of like having kind of a wiki kind of, uh, uh, but with everyone having access to it don’t have to, to, you know, remember what [00:37:00] little things needed to type in.

[00:37:01] Christina: And, and Access Text Expander is, uh, is great for that. Text expander.com/podcast.

[00:37:08] Y2K and You

[00:37:08] Brett: Awesome. Cool. All right, so we got, we got a couple, a couple of topics. Uh, Jeff, Jeff has a book we do need to talk about. Um, I feel like that that might be the next, next topic on the list here.

[00:37:24] Jeff: Yeah. I have, um, in my hands, I bought this in, I bought this in spring of 1999. It is a little booklet published by the Ney Reader where I would later serve as editor, but God, it was a lot wackier then, um, , and it is the Y2K Citizens Action Guide. First of all. Each of you, give me a little something of your memory of Y2K or the, the, the approach to it.

[00:37:51] Jeff: Was it on your mind? Were you worried? Were you blowing it off?

[00:37:55] Brett: I was excited. Like I was an anarchist kid. I was [00:38:00] looking forward to, uh, chaos, the world falling apart, and I was just going to drink and sort my way through it, and it was gonna be a really good time. And I was, I was a little disappointed.

[00:38:15] Jeff: Did you worry about your own little computers

[00:38:18] Christina: Oh.

[00:38:18] Brett: I mean, no

[00:38:20] Jeff: Me neither.

[00:38:21] Christina: No, I did not. And, and I, I’d also, I’d set forward the clock a couple of times and saw that nothing happened. And yeah, I also even like reset like the CMOs like thing. At one point I was like, this is not a big deal. Um, but I do remember like my aunt, um, uh, who, who’s sadly, um, uh, no longer with us, but she, um, worked at a csx, the, the train company as a software engineer.

[00:38:46] Christina: And she, uh, was, uh, I mean, she, she switched into other languages, but she got her start programming in Cobalt.

[00:38:54] Brett: Yep.

[00:38:54] Christina: so, and so her, her skills were very much in demand and like the train company, you know, [00:39:00] like they needed to update a billion old mainframes. And so my underlying like memory of that honestly was just like how much she was working around the clock to update all of those like mainframe systems from the seventies.

[00:39:15] Christina: You know, to be able to, to accept, you know, for um, letter, uh, uh, for, for, for, for character rather, um, dates. But yeah, I mean it’s sort of weird cause what’s, what’s the next big one that’s gonna happen? It’s like 2036 or whatever,

[00:39:29] Brett: Oh, I thought it was 30. 33. Is there one in 2026?

[00:39:33] Christina: 2036 I believe is there, there’s a date problem. Um, and uh, cuz I think that there’s like a, yeah. Uh, cuz there’s like another, uh, the 2038 problem that, that’s what it is because it’s another bug in

[00:39:46] Brett: Unix or Windows?

[00:39:48] Christina: Unix, the problem existence systems measuring in Unix time, um, because the number of seconds entered since Unix epoch, which is 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 U [00:40:00] UTC on January 1st, 1970, because that’s stored in 32 bit as an integer.

[00:40:06] Christina: The 32 bit namespace will be ex uh, will be ended in 2038. And so this is actually,

[00:40:13] Jeff: more fat

[00:40:13] Christina: a very similar. Right. So this is Well, no, that’ll be fine. But this is just like for systems

[00:40:19] Jeff: No way, man. You

[00:40:22] Christina: and, and it’s not fat 30 and it’s not fat 32 now it’s, it’s, it’s whatever it is, it’s, it’s, uh, X fat

[00:40:28] Jeff: fat. Yeah,

[00:40:29] Christina: or X fat.

[00:40:30] Christina: That’s what it is. Yeah. But, but, um, it, anyway, it’s very, very similar to the year 2000 problem. But in this case, there is still, and you are shocked, right? Cuz we’re now, we’re, we’re 23 years past y2k, you would think that we would’ve learned some things, maybe gone back and started updating crucial systems to deal with, like, you know, like namespace problems.

[00:40:51] Christina: No, we haven’t. And there are, there’s a ridiculous amount of infrastructure that’s very important that I don’t think anybody’s worried [00:41:00] that like the world’s gonna end or planes are gonna fall out of the sky. But a lot of billing systems and, and nuclear reactors and things like that. Oh, nuclear reactors at this point are all usually window space, actually.

[00:41:11] Christina: So, uh, I think that they were okay, but there, there are a lot of other, yeah. Well,

[00:41:17] Jeff: like you’re having a meltdown.

[00:41:19] Christina: Ba basically, actually, actually, fun story. The reason that it took them so long, just brief tangent. The reason it took them so long to replace the terminal in the command line in, um, windows and, and now it’s, it’s, uh, you know, the Windows terminal is, uh, available in the, in the window in the Microsoft store, and you can download it and it’s great and it’s open source.

[00:41:41] Christina: But the reason that they couldn’t just like pull it out and replace it years ago, and the reason they had to do it the way they did it is because a lot of, um, like oil refineries and, and nuclear things like rely on very specific quirks within older version of Windows. [00:42:00] And because Microsoft is actually committed to backward compatibility, unlike some companies, um, they can’t make those changes.

[00:42:09] Christina: Uh, but anyway, needless to say, we’re gonna have the exact same thing. Like I, I’m, I’m looking forward to in 15 years, For us dealing with like Y Y2K 38, like, you know.

[00:42:21] Jeff: Well, there’s actually, go ahead, Brett.

[00:42:24] Brett: How do you feel about backwards compatibility? Because Apple, apple is able to introduce a lot of new, solid features because they are willing to say, oh, that was five years ago. That won’t work anymore. Uh, we were ditching, in fact, our computers from 10 years ago can’t use our latest operating system. We, we don’t care.

[00:42:48] Brett: And that gives them the opportunity to push forward, in my opinion. Um, sure. It’s annoying, especially if you want to keep, if you wanna keep a 20 12

[00:42:57] Christina: Well, well, no, it was expensive. [00:43:00] Well, it’s expensive. Here’s the thing, my opinion, I think that it’s fine for consumer devices to have that approach and, and I do think that Apple has an okay track record, although they’ve gotten worse and I do think that it is unfortunate. , you know, they, they’ve made decisions to not support things.

[00:43:19] Christina: Maybe it’s because they, they don’t feel like they can offer full support, but there’ve also been ones that feel very arbitrary, like, this fits the minimum specs, but we’re not going to allow it to be updated. And, and people are able to find shims and get it working. I’m okay with it on a consumer level, although I do have questions about device preservation and whatnot, which is separate.

[00:43:36] Christina: But I think when you’re talking about enterprise, and I think when you’re talking about industrial use cases, I think it’s a completely different scenario. And to Jeff’s point, from a cost perspective, I don’t think you can necessarily expect, you know, systems that, that work to constantly be, you know, refactored and, and updated just because we wanna introduce the latest features.

[00:43:58] Christina: Like, I think that’s, that’s a cop [00:44:00] out. Now, is there a happy medium between being where you are forced to, Have a lesser experience because you have to support things from, from 50 years ago. I’m sure there is, but I, to me, I don’t think you can compare, like Apple has no presence and will never have any presence in industrial enterprise.

[00:44:21] Christina: They never will. And they, they are a consumer company through and through, so they don’t have to worry about those problems. But I think that that, and that’s one of the reasons why they never had a chance in the server market and why they would never be able to do anything in a lot of the industrial markets because they like to move too fast.

[00:44:39] Christina: So that, that’s kind of my take. I think that there are trade offs to both

[00:44:44] Brett: I always appreciate your insight. You’re smart.

[00:44:46] Jeff: I just remember my mom just like bouncing back and forth to these cities and it was just like all they met about for a whole year. Just like ki especially, it’s the government, you know, so they’re just, It’s going crazy. They’re crazy, they’re nervous. I am rambling like a motherfucker.[00:45:00]

[00:45:00] Jeff: Um, can I just tell you about this amazing, uh, uh, financial opportunity we missed out on? This is from my Y2K guide. It says, item Colon on September 14th, 1998, the former c e o of United Press International, James Adams, no kidding, announced the creation of the world’s largest Y2K website. In order to sound a public wake up call dubbed Y2K today.

[00:45:28] Jeff: And here’s from the promo material. It will feature a daily feed of some 500 stories from a special reporting team. What plus wire reports. It’s , it’s time the public worldwide had access to accurate and timely information. Said, said Adams, did you hear any, does this, did you ever hear of this? Because where are these, where’s this story?

[00:45:48] Jeff: I want to know the story of this operation.

[00:45:50] Brett: this book came out pre y2k.

[00:45:53] Jeff: Yeah. Spring 1999.

[00:45:54] Brett: Okay.

[00:45:56] Jeff: So that was a 1998 effort by the former U P i,

[00:45:59] Brett: So [00:46:00] this book is not ironic. This book is actually saying,

[00:46:03] Jeff: No, this book is like, it’s coming. Here’s, it’s called the Y2K Citizens Action Guide. So it has a whole section on how to organize your community. I mean, honestly, when I read it now, it looks like a great plan for the early days of covid.

[00:46:16] Jeff: Um, it’s like, buy your toilet paper up. They even say that,

[00:46:19] Brett: a disaster preparedness

[00:46:21] Jeff: it’s a disaster. Yeah. And then it has sort of like how to lobby your politicians to care more, um, about Y2K and all this crazy shit, which we haven’t even explained. I mean, h what is the simplest

[00:46:33] Christina: Oh yeah.

[00:46:34] Jeff: what it was?

[00:46:35] Christina: Okay. So in, um, back in, in olden times, in, in early kind of, you know, Unix and, and, and, uh, other systems, a lot of the, the way that they would code in dates was, would be just to use the last two characters, uh, of the year. So, so the only integers you would have would be, you know, like, like, you know, like 77 0, or, or, or nine.

[00:46:58] Christina: Nine. Well, when the [00:47:00] clock hit January 1st, UTC time, you know, the year 2000. There was a big concern about what would happen to those systems when the clock was going to be reset, and when you’re going to now have to go from, from two into zeros to four. And, um, so there was a lot of strum and drum about, uh, banking systems, aviation systems, uh, nuclear reactors, uh, and, and, and other things, many of which, like the infrastructure again, was like built in the seventies, uh, and hadn’t necessarily been kept up well, uh, whether or not those things would function.

[00:47:33] Christina: Uh, and, um, so you had, uh, a mass of, uh, engineers, uh, usually in, in no longer invoke languages, having to be like dispersed out to issuing patches and update the code, um, to use, uh, four integers rather than two.

[00:47:51] Jeff: Yeah. So crazy. It’s just this little bit baked in, right? And it’s not, not nothing . So if you look at, [00:48:00] if you look at the Wikipedia page, there are some super interesting, uh, reported problems that have been verified. The first one was that I loved was 150 Delaware Lottery reino slot machine stopped working.

[00:48:12] Jeff: Shit. But right next, but right next to that, this is street straight from the Wikipedia page. Okay. So right, right after that, as a direct result of the Y2K glitch at midnight, computers at a ground control station ceased processing information from an unspecified number of spy satellites. The military implemented a contingency plan by 3:00 AM nice work and restored all normal functionality, and the empire was saved.

[00:48:38] Jeff: Um, . And then there’s the last one that’s on here that was interesting was the US Naval Observatory, which runs the like master clock that keeps the country’s official time for just a moment. Gave the date, uh, on its website as January 1, 19 100.

[00:48:54] Brett: Okay. So I mean, I think based on surveys we’ve done, most of our [00:49:00] listeners were sentient in in the year 2000, but, but for anyone who was born, like if you were born in the nineties, you may not have fully been cognizant by the time 2000

[00:49:15] Christina: Of like, of like Oh, oh. Even. Even, yeah. Even if you were, say born in 1990, you’re like 10 years old, you might not have realized, like you might not remember what a big deal it was in

[00:49:26] Brett: panic, the sh the sheer panic, the media ran with these stories that literally Armageddon was gonna happen, uh, when all of these computers fritzed out

[00:49:39] Jeff: Nonstop, nonstop coverage. Probably the 500 articles that U P I guy said his apparent his team’s gonna do that. That was definitely happening. It just wasn’t. His team

[00:49:49] Christina: Oh yeah. No, no. It was, well, well, it it, I was talking about this before, uh, we started recording, but if anybody wants to watch, um, I think one of the, the best episodes of, um, [00:50:00] uh, television about this whole phenomenon, it’s also one of the best episodes of what is, in my opinion, one of the best animated sitcoms ever.

[00:50:07] Christina: Uh, the, the, the season four, um, holiday episode of King in the Hill called Millennium, um, deals with this exact same thing where, where Hank, um, gets kind of caught up be, be because of some computer issues. He’s, he’s basically brought into the Dale, who’s his conspiracy theorist, friend’s side of being worried that.

[00:50:29] Christina: The whole grid is going to go down and the systems are going to be overtaken and things are gonna be really terrible. Uh, when the millennium hits and, um, uh, basically ruins Christmas for the family, um, it, it ends up having a nice ending, but it’s a very, very, very funny episode that I think really encapsulates and, and the great thing about it is that it aired on December 19th, 1999.

[00:50:51] Christina: So it was written, uh, you know, uh, probably in the early, you know, uh, uh, uh, 1999 because, you know, they have to do several months [00:51:00] of, of animation production. Um, and uh, it really did kind of predict exactly, uh, a kind of the, the, the fury and, and kind of the insanity that was happening. And then be the fact that like nothing happened.

[00:51:13] Jeff: I mean, they were saying planes might fall out

[00:51:15] Brett: Yeah,

[00:51:16] Christina: I know, I know

[00:51:18] Jeff: I actually remember opening the door and being like, I don’t see any That was intense . But I, I was like, you, Brett, I was in something of a nylas stage. I had been, I had been going back and forth to Iraq, uh, and, and seeing like in the, the effects of what happens when our country, what happened, uh, when our country bombed most of their infrastructure and then, uh, and then laid sanctions on them so they couldn’t rebuild.

[00:51:46] Jeff: Like I was already, yeah. Half, half of my time was already in a post Y2K environment and I was like, fuck it man. Just bring it

[00:51:54] Brett: bring it.

[00:51:57] Christina: Yeah. Um, I, I, I mean, I, [00:52:00] I was, I, I, I was not at all concerned, but I was, I was like 15. So it, there was, you know, it just, it seemed overblown to me, but yet we didn’t know it was gonna happen. So there was this bit of excitement that was like, well, maybe some shit really will go down, right? Like, I don’t think it ever occurred to.

[00:52:15] Brett: you gotta consider the possibility

[00:52:18] Christina: Totally. I was sort so as always with me, I was in for the drama, but I also like, I I, I, I, I was all about the drama. I was like, oh, hell yeah. But I was also like not, I don’t think it’d ever even occurred to me that planes would actually fall out of the sky. Um, I was just like, I, I, I just, I had faith in our institutions that I perhaps should not have had that.

[00:52:38] Christina: I was like, no, clearly the f a a is is gonna have this shit under control. The Boeing and Airbus people are gonna have this shit under control. Like, it didn’t even occur to me that they wouldn’t, but it, you know, there was always, there was the drama and the intrigue of, well, what’s gonna happen? You know?

[00:52:54] Jeff: right.

[00:52:55] Christina: like my computer, I was, I was on the internet, I think like when it happened, I was either on the [00:53:00] internet or I was drinking underage, one or the other. But, um, uh, regardless, like I, you know, got back home. I think, I think I was drinking underage, but I think I got back home and, um, You know, everybody like my computer was fine.

[00:53:15] Christina: I was like cool. I was like on I C Q or Ale Instant Messenger, you know, probably like chatting with people. Be like happy, happy 2000. Everyone like

[00:53:24] Jeff: Yeah, right.

[00:53:26] Christina: yeah,

[00:53:27] Brett: All right. We’re, we’re coming up on an hour, but I want to give, Jeff, I want to give you a chance to, is there, are there any other pearls of wisdom you wanna drop from the citizens guide?

[00:53:38] Jeff: No, just that it’s interesting to read it now and think back. Um, you know, that wasn’t too far before September 11th, which is a, an unfathomable event similar to what we were describing in y2k.

[00:53:52] Christina: oh, okay. Actually this is what I was worried about now, now that I have memories back. Okay. Cuz I was in Model un, so I was 15, 16, [00:54:00] so I

[00:54:00] Jeff: You’re in Model un Nice.

[00:54:02] Christina: Yes. So I was actually concerned because I had been studying OSA Bin Laden and the Taliban. I was actually concerned that he was going to bomb times Square.

[00:54:12] Jeff: Oh, I remember that. That’s right.

[00:54:14] Christina: So that, that was, that was like my big concern was actually way less the, the things calming out of the sky and the Y2K of it all, but more that it was going to be a time that like massive terrorism activity was going to happen.

[00:54:29] Jeff: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.

[00:54:31] Christina: So, so me as, like, me as like a a, you know, you were obviously aware of those things too because you were doing, you know, you were in Iraq and you were, you know, um, in those parts of the world around that stuff.

[00:54:42] Christina: But most people, Certainly no one else my age. Um, I don’t even think the other, uh, model UN kids were like that concerned. Certainly not my

[00:54:53] Brett: that wasn’t

[00:54:54] Christina: or, or other people. I was gonna say most people were not even thinking that at all. But yeah, my concern was never about like, [00:55:00] oh, the infrastructure is gonna go down.

[00:55:02] Christina: I was like genuinely worried that as, so Bin Laden was going to bomb the Times Square. Like that’s what I thought was gonna happen.

[00:55:08] Jeff: I’m seeing a headline in the newspaper model UN Warns of Possible Times Square Bombing

[00:55:15] Christina: Well, okay. I did write an essay that fall fucking terrible. It’s called Don’t Hate Me because I’m a Terrorist. Hate Me because I’m Confused. Bio. So Bin Laden, that was a parody sat satirical essay about how he was like mad at the Bush family and that all of his stuff like stemmed from like never feeling good enough in, in high school

[00:55:38] Jeff: contracts. Oh,

[00:55:38] Christina: again.

[00:55:39] Christina: Again, I, again, I was again. Exactly. Again, I was 15 years old. So this is. . I

[00:55:45] Jeff: you’re like you, you’re like, email to your editor from aol.com. Lemme take a crack at this

[00:55:49] Christina: we get no like, like, like two, like two year, two years, two years later, I’m like, oh my God, Christina, this is no longer funny and satirical at all. Like, please no one find this essay, [00:56:00] because it’s gonna really come across differently than it did in the fall of 1999. But like, yeah,

[00:56:07] Jeff: You’re like, thank God Angel Fire crashed.

[00:56:10] Christina: yeah, exactly.

[00:56:11] Grapptitude

[00:56:11] Brett: Should we, uh, should we do some gratitude?

[00:56:14] Jeff: Sheila.

[00:56:15] Brett: You guys, I have my gratitude. I know it’s a holiday weekend. You guys might, you guys might not be down. Uh, we’ll see. Um, but

[00:56:24] Christina: no, no. Start us off.

[00:56:25] Brett: so it wasn’t too long ago I talked about affinity, uh, products as, as a gratitude. Um, but I recently got back into astrophotography. Um, and I use a service called i telescope.net, which lets me remotely control about 24 different telescopes around the world.

[00:56:49] Brett: And, and I can set them up and I can take a bunch of, uh, different color, uh, filter photos, and then you have to [00:57:00] composite them and color balance them and, and turn like basically mult multiple plates into a single color image. And. I had always used some shitty Java apps to do this. Um, it turns out that affinity photo.

[00:57:22] Brett: Uh, and Affinity Photo two now have astrophotography features and it has blown me away how I’m able to stack. I can take like five exposures from each color lens, stack them together, create something where I can just do basic, like turn them all into add, add, add layers. Like when you set your, uh, opacity type, uh, change it to add, add colorization filters to them and come out with some pretty fantastic images.

[00:57:53] Brett: And I’ll, I’ll drop a link in the show notes to a blog post I wrote about this, but, um, [00:58:00] it is, it, it’s fantastic and it’s something Photoshop can’t do. It’s like somebody, somebody took the time to add full, a full astrophotography persona. Two affinity photo as well as filters that do things like removing background and reducing excess stars in.

[00:58:25] Brett: Because when you shoot a long exposure of a nebula, you’re gonna pick up thousands of stars that, that get, kind of get in the way of viewing the nebula itself because, you know, you’ve done a, an hour long exposure and so like affinity photo has filters that will just automatically detect excess stars and remove them from the photo.

[00:58:49] Brett: Uh, it is, it’s just, it’s outstanding. It, it, it, it’s bizarre to me that a, an app that was designed for [00:59:00] photo manipulation put this much effort into what is very much a niche area of, of photo editing.

[00:59:10] Jeff: That’s amazing.

[00:59:11] Christina: That’s awesome. I, I, uh, I, I’m huge fan of, of the Affinity products as we’ve mentioned before. Uh, also we will note if you’re interested in like trying them out, they still have a deal right now where the US price, I think is like a hundred dollars for, to get the version two of all three of their apps.

[00:59:30] Christina: Um, and now it works. It, it’s a universal license. It’ll work across platforms, Mac, windows, and um, iPad os. So if you’re looking for something that is gonna get you, at least in my experience, about 90% of the way that Photoshop and Illustrator do, like, there’s still gonna be some like, look, if you’re doing certain professional things where you’re having to exchange files, I’m gonna be completely candid with you.

[00:59:53] Christina: You’re probably still going to need to have a creative, um, suite, um, a creative Cloud account. Um, but if you [01:00:00] are just doing like the sort of stuff that, that Brett is talking about, or if you’re wanting to get into photo editing, or if you’re wanting to do other types of, um, you know,

[01:00:08] Brett: publishers. Amazing app too. Like

[01:00:11] Christina: Okay. I haven’t used that.

[01:00:12] Brett: if you have to share, if someone, if someone needs you to share an InDesign file with them, you’re gonna need your creative suite. But if you are, if you are creating for print and you need to send to a professional printer or you’re just creating your own to print at home, like publisher is everything I’ve ever used in InDesign I can do in publisher.

[01:00:35] Brett: It’s really good.

[01:00:36] Christina: That’s awesome. Yeah. So, uh, I, I, anyway, I can’t recommend those apps highly enough. Um, people, uh, are still complaining about the fact that after five plus years, you know, they, they had the temerity to, to have a very good upgrade plan and to not move to a subscription when they could. And like, look, because if Affinity said we wanna [01:01:00] charge five or $10 a month for our suite of apps, I would pay it because, because, because I, I, I get more out of it than, um, I do, um, like frankly the, the Adobe Suite.

[01:01:13] Christina: Cause at this point I’ve actually canceled my personal Adobe, um, uh, subscription and I just rely on my work one, which I did not do for a long time. Um, but I’m now at the point where I’m so frustrated with some of the things that Adobe has done, and I do like some other tools, but I’m so frustrated with some of the decisions they’ve made and, and frankly also the frequency of the updates where you never know, like what feature you’re going to have or what, what version you’re at or whatnot.

[01:01:38] Christina: That I’m kind of like, you know what? For personal editing of stuff, if I don’t have to collaborate with others, I’m, I’d much rather use the, the affinity tools. They’re also really good on iOS.

[01:01:49] Brett: And to be fair, like a, uh, like affinity photo can import and export, uh, p s d files, uh, so you’re not completely cut off [01:02:00] from the Adobe world by using affinity photo. Um, but there are like, sometimes layer translations don’t come across the same. And each, each app has its own version of like live filters and non-destructive filters that don’t necessarily translate between the apps.

[01:02:18] Brett: But for your basic, for a more basic P s D file, you can export

[01:02:24] Christina: Oh, yeah.

[01:02:24] Brett: file and send it out.

[01:02:26] Christina: totally, totally. But it’s, it’s sort of like, you know, using like open office to interact with Microsoft Office files, right? Or or to use, if you’re trying to use pages or, or, or Excel. Yeah. Or, or if you’re trying to use, you know, like, like pages or numbers to open like Excel or, or Word files, right?

[01:02:41] Christina: Like there are gonna be slight differences. So it’s just one of those things, if it’s for professional reasons that, that’s what I’m saying, like if you have to collaborate with other people, but if it’s a basic file that you’re just needing to open that you’ve downloaded off the internet, or if, you know, you just wanna need to make a quick change, you know, to an InDesign or a Illustrator or a Photoshop file.[01:03:00]

[01:03:00] Christina: Yeah, I’m, I’m a big fan. Cosign that, but that’s also also the, your, uh, your photography stuff. That’s very, very cool. Do you, do you have one? Do you have one, Jeff?

[01:03:11] Jeff: Yeah, I’ve been, I’ve been playing with, so I’m an obsidian user, but just kind of a light obsidian user. I mostly use it to do daily notes. Um, but they, um, they just added something called Canvas, which is like a, you know, infinite canvas on which you can organize your notes. Almost like a mind map or exactly like a mind map.

[01:03:31] Brett: Oh.

[01:03:32] Jeff: and I am just starting to play with it. I love the idea cause I’m someone in mind maps who has a tendency to make long notes. But I’m curious, like if I’m looking at it strictly as how would I create a note so that it would be useful in this canvas functionality, it’s kind of opened up my mind a little bit in terms of how I want to, or, or like to organize information.

[01:03:54] Jeff: I’ve talked about this on the show a lot where like I just, I really appreciate a tool that causes me [01:04:00] to think differently about information or taxonomies or whatever else because my head is always just full of things banging around out of order and, uh, and so any, any time I can kind of put something in order and it allows you to just drag a note on, or if you have images stored, you can just drag an image on.

[01:04:18] Jeff: Um, and uh, I think it’s just a really cool functionality and I just appreciate that obsidian kind of. I mean, even it’s not so like they have this great community, um, who build all sorts of extensions for obsidian, but they also are, are, they’re not just like resting on that, right? Which like can, which a company can do.

[01:04:37] Jeff: Sometimes they’re like continuing to give this like kind of backbone to obsidian as people then kind of come in and build off of that. And I just, I’ve been really impressed with that and I still haven’t, isn’t that cool? Are you playing with it?

[01:04:50] Brett: I’m watching this video and it’s basically, it’s curio inside of obsidian.

[01:04:55] Jeff: It’s crazy. Yeah, it’s crazy. Um, so anyway, just kudos [01:05:00] to them for continuing to not only like kind of hold space for a wonderful community of users, but also for just continuing to do things that surprise me.

[01:05:08] Jeff: Um, so that’s me Obsidian canvas.

[01:05:11] Brett: Nice.

[01:05:12] Christina: Yeah, I, uh, I saw that on Hacker News, but I hadn’t had a chance to check it out, so that is awesome. Um, so my pick, so I was, I was held up between two. Um, I do wanna, so I’ll, I’ll, because it’s the end of the year, I’ll, I’ll give. A brief kind of, uh, thing to both, so the first one, pixel Meter Pro. So speaking of alternatives to Photoshop, um, they announced a, a new version of their app, which now has like a, an AI filter to do D banding.

[01:05:41] Christina: And, um, it’s really, really impressive. So, um, basically it’ll get rid of color, it’ll get rid of color banding from photos and, um, pixel meter was, was one of the first, you know, cause it’s a Mac only app. And, uh, it was also on, on, on iPad, I think, you know, used a lot of, like G P U, the power of the G P U to do a lot of [01:06:00] filter effects.

[01:06:00] Christina: And, and they, I think they might even been a little bit ahead of Photoshop on, on some of that because they were using like the way they were using like open GL and core image and stuff. Um, and so the demanding, uh, feature is now part of Pixel Meter Pro. Uh, I also think that app is 50% off right now. So if you’re looking for other alternatives, that’s another one.

[01:06:18] Christina: I have both Affinity photo and pixel meter. I’ll be honest, I tend to use, uh, uh, acorn for basic things. Affinity photo for.

[01:06:26] Brett: you got

[01:06:27] Christina: Advanced stuff. And then, and then I’ll go into, um, uh, Photoshop if I have to do something very specific, um, that, that’s usually like, like my, my hierarchy there. But, um, but Pixel Meter is a great app and so I wanted to mention that.

[01:06:40] Christina: And then the other one I wanted to mention because I just realized that it, it’s just been added to setup, is Craft, which is, um, a really great, it’s kind of like a notion alternative, but it’s, uh, they have a web app and, and a Mac and, and and iOS apps. And it’s just a really great way of, of creating, um, formatted documents.

[01:06:59] Christina: So, [01:07:00] uh, honestly, the, it, it’s very similar to Notion, but I, I like it better than Notion. And so, uh, so it, it’s, it’s craft.do is is the website and it’s now part of, um, setup. I’m not exactly sure what plan comes with it on setup cuz I already pay for craft,

[01:07:15] Brett: Setup requires that you unlock all features. So if they’re on set, then you’re getting whatever quote

[01:07:22] Jeff: they do. Interesting. At least that makes sense, I guess. Okay.

[01:07:26] Christina: Well, that’s awesome. That’s really cool. So, um, so I guess you probably get the, like the $5 a month plan is what I’m guessing, um, from, uh, from craft, uh, which is, which is great if you’re a setup subscriber. Um, and, uh, but, but craft is, is really, really good. Um, and, uh, you know, let’s you like, kind of create an Instructured documents, but I’m, I’m, I’m a big fan of it.

[01:07:48] Christina: So tho those are my

[01:07:49] Brett: Obsidian craft, all these things that didn’t exist when I should have released Envy Ultra and have diluted the market to the extent where [01:08:00] Envy Ultra has to serve a very niche purpose at this point because there’s so many great note-taking apps out there,

[01:08:06] Jeff: sure.

[01:08:07] Christina: Well, well, what happened, Brett, is that none is good, but, but what happened is that everybody loved, uh, uh, envy, alt so much that they had to like build and in, in many cases, spend probably millions of dollars building a

[01:08:20] Jeff: are burying me.

[01:08:26] Brett: Uh, speaking of text expander, my most used text expander snippet has been, uh, because I, I, we talked Jeff about me doing the automators episode, and I also mentioned in my, the blog post that we did the lightning round from last week, uh, I mentioned if anyone really wants on the envy ultra beta, uh, just email

[01:08:51] Jeff: I use it every day.

[01:08:52] Brett: the envy ultra.com email address.

[01:08:56] Brett: Uh, and I have sent out at this point [01:09:00] over 200, uh, invites to the envy ultra beta. And if it weren’t for tax expander, oh my God, that would be such a pain in the.

[01:09:11] Christina: Oh my God. Yeah. I can’t even imagine. Yeah. Cause with Texas Banner, you can basically do like a red X to do like a, um, a what, what is it called? What, what’s, what’s the print? Um, mail merge. Is that what it’s called? The feature.

[01:09:23] Brett: Yeah, I don’t use that. I just like, I get the, I get the request in email. Uh, I hit reply, I type N V U B. Sometimes I’ll insert a a like, Hey Jeffrey. And

[01:09:38] Jeff: Hey, that’s me. He’s talking to me.

[01:09:40] Brett: only, only one person out of over 200 so far has written back to say, that was obviously a text expender snippet that you just sent me. And I’m like, of course it is.

[01:09:51] Jeff: Yes. It’s none of your business.

[01:09:53] Christina: it’s, it’s like, yes. Uh, would, would do, do you have the time to type this in manually? I’m so sorry. I

[01:09:59] Jeff: I didn’t [01:10:00] personalize this to, uh, you personally. I don’t

[01:10:02] Christina: I, I, I’m, I’m so sorry that this was not artisanally organically crafted like by noms, like,

[01:10:09] Brett: What do you want from me?

[01:10:11] Jeff: not like you were using like a, a signature,

[01:10:13] Brett: I think that guy, I think he was saying it out of appreciation though. I think he was like, oh yeah, I know. I know you love Text Expander and I see you using it and I appreciate that this is happening.

[01:10:25] Jeff: Do you know what’s been happening in my head ever? Ever since you said whatever. I’ve been hearing

[01:10:31] Christina: Ha ha.

[01:10:33] Brett: N vb. Oh, alright.

[01:10:36] Christina: See, see, there you go. Get, get get, get boys yours involved. Have a, have a, have a culture club, um, riff on this. Totally. I love it.

[01:10:46] Brett: All right. Hey, you guys have a Merry Christmas. Are we allowed to say that? I keep forgetting

[01:10:53] Jeff: I

[01:10:53] Christina: we’re allowed to

[01:10:53] Jeff: this circle we’re all Christmas.

[01:10:57] Christina: Well, Merry Christmas also. Awesome, but it’s also the week of [01:11:00] Hanukkah, so happy Hanukkah

[01:11:01] Brett: Yeah, happy holidays in general. Kwanza, Hanukkah, you know, like there’s a reason. Happy Holidays, it’s an accepted term, but nobody ever made it illegal to say Merry Christmas. So all of the things to all of the people and to all of you guys. Enjoy your, enjoy your holidays. Um, I look forward to talking next week.

[01:11:23] Christina: Likewise, take care of yourselves.

[01:11:25] Brett: Get some sleep.

[01:11:26] Jeff: get some sleep.

[01:11:27] Christina: Get some sleep.

[01:11:29] Jeff: Sleep. Are you awake? [01:12:00]