Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - QQ ep 1 - Quick Question with Soren and Daniel

Episode Date: May 16, 2019

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, a podcast where two buddies talk and sort of figure it out as they go along. I am Daniel O'Brien. And I am Soren Bui. Yeah, we were, so we should give the people some context, because we worked closely together for 10 years. We were buddies for a decade out in Los Angeles. I would say you were my best friend.

You would say that? Yeah. Take that, Soren's wife. Well, I mean, obviously, in the same way that a wife is supposed to be a risk-faring, all that counts. But you were like my best friend. Yeah, if I were to rank my best friends in Los Angeles,

number one, gotta be the fans. Two, the city. Three, Soarin'. I mean, that's a bronze medal. That's still on the podium. I'll take it. Yeah, we wanted to start a podcast, and then I did the stupidest thing I ever did,

which was accept a job that was 3,000 miles away for Emmy and Peabody and Writers Guild Award winning last week tonight with John Oliver. And we decided we weren't going to let distance keep this podcast from going because I think we can all agree that the world needs another podcast where two white guys talk to each other about things they observe. Finally, white guys getting a fair shake in the society. they observe.

Finally. White guys getting a fair shake in the society. It's really, if I had to figure out what this was, it was, I want to stay in touch with you and figure out what's going on

in your life because I miss you. But the realities of platonic male phone calls is still kind of a mystery to me. Yeah. I've talked to you on the phone before. You're not good at it.

Oh, thank you very much. Yes. I always think you a mystery to me. Yeah, I've talked to you on the phone before. You're not good at it. Oh, thank you very much, yes. I always think you're mad at me. Yeah. When you're on the phone. It's you, you don't sound happy. When somebody calls you, this is the way it goes. Somebody will call you and you'll go, yeah. That's right. And then we'll get to like

the meat of the matter and you have kind of like one word answers. And then it's like, okay. And sometimes there's a goodbye, which is nice. Sometimes it's just like in a movie. Like it's just the conversation's over. It's very rare that I'll say goodbye because it's clear to me that the conversation is over. And it should be clear to you as well.

And as far as answering the phone with yeah, they did a study. The average person wastes 12 years of their life saying the second syllable of hello. So if I could just cut that down, I've saved myself over a decade of time. That can't possibly be true. No, I said they did a study. Also, we should introduce the other voice you'll hear occasionally, and you'll hear chuckling in the background occasionally. Who's that?

Who you got there? That is our CFO and our guru, I would say. Guru is fair. What do you want your title to be? This is Michael Schroer. Anything but Bacon Business Daddy, which was... Oh, it's done. It's sealed.

I feel like it's going to be BBD. You's gonna be bbd i didn't tell it to you you guys made it up in the four other versions of us trying to do this bacon business daddy i think that sticks okay i'm gonna make the shirts let me get started yeah that's a that's a crazy this is a tangent and then we'll get back on to the rest of this podcast which is also in fact a series of tangents but that's a in a strange bit of parallel thinking. Cause we came up with business, business bacon, business daddy several months ago when we first started doing test episodes

of this podcast. Since then, one of my coworkers has written into the show that John Oliver refers to AT&T, our parent company as business daddy. And it didn't even occur to me, and we'd never spoken about it. But there are now two business daddies out in the world. That's a synchronicity.

This sounds like I've got a copyright claim. It's a John Oliver show. Oh, now he loves the name. So we talk about how I'm bad on the phone, even though I'm pretty sure I'm just efficient, and I'm only getting what is essential in any conversation apart from warmth and instilling a sense in the person on the other end of the phone that I care about them and I'm not mad at them. Any sort of human connection. Yeah, no, I get it.

I've also, this year by a couple of different people that are sort of new in my life, two separate people have criticized me on the way I text. I don't have any complaints in that department. Thank you. I appreciate that. One person was just a stranger that I met and started speaking in text form too. And she said, can I ask you something? Why do you text like that? She said, can I ask you something?

Why do you text like that? And I was like, hmm, why don't I let you go further before I say a single word? And it's because I text exclusively in complete sentences with proper punctuation and no emojis whatsoever. Yeah. And she didn't like that. She thought I sounded mad over text. You know what? I just got a criticism like that recently from my wife that I don't ever use exclamation points in my texts.

That like when she's like, when she'll ask me a question like, hey, can you pick up Ronan today? I say, yeah. And then I put a period. And she's like, are you upset about that? And I'm like no period no what is going on here it was and i'm not going to change this is a thing that i don't feel bad

about like i've i've heard your complaints and then i talked to another friend of mine that i knew a little bit better and i was like hey uh let me ask you something i just got this this this new person they just started complaining about something she goes, is it the way you text? I was like, fuck. It's a thing. Oh, no. It's not me. It's the world.

It has to be the world. Yeah, no, I'm the same way. It's because that's the, like, words make the world coherent. That's how we work but there's like these new agreed upon rules that i didn't agree to which are you gotta like you really gotta convince somebody you aren't mad at them at every single moment right because the argument that that came at me was this is just how people text it's how we communicate like no no no no we solved that already we figured it out we have a bunch of rules. We put them in books. We put them in emails. We sky write them and they work fine.

And if you just trust the system that has always been, I mean, you know, I'm an old person who's going to die. And this is what we sound like as the Titanic six. And would there, if I have one complaint about texting, it's that I'm not allowed to use italics in texts. Cause I feel like I can really sell some jokes better that way yeah you know what's uh are your so we're both tv writers you write for american dad very funny show thanks i write for last week tonight with with john oliver what awards is

that one uh i have won a writers guild award of america the show has won many many more awards and i cannot take credit for them. Wait, hold on. Did you really win it? Was it your episode that won? For Writer's Guild? Yeah. I mean, everybody works on every episode. Okay. So the way it works in my show is everybody just writes one character. So I'm like a Roger. I write Roger. And you don't talk about it in advance. No one, you never talk to each other. No, no. We just sort of write something out and then we just put it together and that's the show.

Yeah. But are your scripts, when you write them, are they all capital letters? Of course. Yeah, ours too. And I can't do italics or anything like that. It drives me crazy. Well, yeah, because we write them as text to each other. Yeah.

Everybody's always like, why are your scripts so mad all the time? So the thing people should know about this podcast is it's called Quick Question because we're just going to ask each other a bunch of questions. And a lot of it is going to revolve around me having difficulty navigating the world, which is why I ask Sorin if I'm texting and making phone calls like a human,

like an acceptable thing. And he will generally ask me questions about pop culture because he owns a house and has a wife and a child and doesn't really have as much time as I do to just sit around and watch TV and internet all day. I had a realization the other day. There's a bunch of the Marvel Netflix universe that I've never caught up on,

and I've always thought it's one of those things in my life where I'm like, you know, eventually I'll learn karate or something. But I think, yeah, at some point I'll watch those shows. I'll catch up on all that. And I just had this realization. I was like, you know, it's not going to happen. There's just things. I'm not going to be –

they're just going to have to pass me by because I it's i don't have the time i don't have the bandwidth for it yeah as we're recording this podcast uh avengers is far and away the most popular movie of all time and the highest grossing thing and leading into it i was gonna ask you what your thoughts on it were and then i thought you, I bet he hasn't seen Ant-Man and the Wasp yet. So my, the order in which I've watched the Marvel movies, I guess like a, the most generous version of it is that it's perplexing. I have,

I, I think I have seen Ant-Man and the Wasp. I have not seen Ant-Man. Okay. I've seen the Civil War. I didn't watch the first two Captain Americas. Yeah, so I'm all over the place. I'm a real moving target.

But I will watch this last one when everyone else is done talking about it in August. Yeah, well, I'll talk to you about it then. We'll chat about it. Okay. I'll always want to talk about it. It's like even just your approach to these movies is strange to me. When you say, I think I saw Ant-Man and the Wasp

is like babbling to me. Yeah. Did you see a movie with an Ant-Man and a Wasp? Yes, but the Ant-Man is in all of them. He's in so many of them. But the Wasp was there. Is that Kate Beckinsale? No.

Oh, damn it. Wait. But that'sinsale no oh damn it wait but that's yeah that's evangeline lily but i think that's forgivable yeah but uh her dad is uh hpv in the throat guy yes michael douglas that's the one so so you're not completely flying blind you know some stuff you know the important stuff uh i wouldn't say that, but there's some things that have not passed me by. You know that Evangeline Lilly kind of looks like Kate Beckinsale and that Michael Douglas got throat cancer from going down on Catherine Zeta-Jones. Yes. I mean, I think we can close this podcast now.

You know all the most important stuff. I've caught up on culture. We'll do this again in a year when new things arise. What is, because I'm pretty sure you're watching Game of Thrones, but which we'll get into. But separate from that, what are you consuming right now, pop culturally? Yeah. So a lot of HBO, actually. So Barry, I watch and Game of Thrones, I watch and like the Leaving Neverland documentary, which just brutal and uh that that's pretty much it

i will also watch some stuff on netflix when it comes up like there's some comedies on netflix that i really like like um uh i think you should leave so it's yeah yeah yes yes it is and uh i watch pen 15 on hulu and um and then i watch a lot of cooking stuff because I usually watch TV at my lunch break. And so I'm in the mood to watch something that looks more delicious than the food I'm eating. And so I watch like street food or I watch Chef's Table. And I just love the pretension of those shows. See, I never watch any of those cooking shows. Oh, man, you're missing out.

They've locked in the bliss point of what it what it's like to consume food with your eyes like they know exactly what it should look like how the prep should look for you and then there's a lot of these like long panning shots that you're like in a kubrick movie like you're slowly moving across the table towards some food and there's great music under it and everything and a lot of slow motion and all that feels like it has a lot of gravitas to it until you realize that people are just making food yeah i i do know like if i have one on then or if one is on in the room i will be hooked on it the cooking shows and especially the cooking reality shows because they also have this

down to a science that just like gets into your brain and makes you makes the most important thing you've ever seen i asmr like it's asmr for your eyes basically it just feels good watching it yeah i was in uh los angeles hollywood california when and staying in a hotel when i was uh i had to fly back to get surgery on my wrist a few months ago yeah and it's hotel so you put on whatever you know power on the tv and whatever's on is on and it was like celebrity version of chopped and i watched like nine episodes straight i don't even know who any of these people are it's like oh it's this weird snake looking guy from pawn stars and it's and it's it's one of the real housewives of something and i i now have very strong opinions over which one of them wins this thing yeah

absolutely yeah you get invested so quickly. The Great British Baking Show is really the one that hooked me. Because that one, I'd never seen a contest show like that where there's just zero ego from any of the competitors. And everybody seems so earnest and good. Like, I want to be friends with all of them. I didn't know you were allowed to do that. I thought everyone had to be cutthroat. And at the beginning, every single person had to say, I not here to make friends and bake off there they're they're

explicitly there to make friends yeah they're there for the memories and that's it yeah because the end you win a glass dish and that's it which is very anticlimactic is it like an like a ceremonial award glass dish that you hang up? Or is it like a nice... I don't think you could hang it. It's a glass cake stand. And that's what you win. You can't... That kind of sucks. That's not a cookbook you can sell or anything like that. No.

Anyway, those are the things I watch. What are you consuming? Right now, I just burnt through Tuca and Bertie. Oh, man. Yeah. Is that good? It's so good. And I'm going to not spoil it, but like sort of thematically spoil it.

It's executive produced by Raphael Bob-Waksberg from Bojack Horseman and Internet Sketch before that. And it's created by one of his writers, Kate Hanlon, I want to say. And it's just silly and fun. Like this is the part where I'll spoil it because I watched the first few episodes and it was just joyful and all the characters are very warm and charming and silly and ridiculous. And I was talking in my group chat with my friends and I was like, watch the show. Silly, fun, pointless, mindless, great. By about midway, it takes a real turn. And I didn't know that until a day later. So I had to go back to my friends and I was like, update. It's not silly and pointless. It's very serious. And I just need you to know that I know that before you get to that episode.

Yes. I did that with sex education, but i watched it out of order i i don't know why but netflix started me maybe because i'm sharing my password with people but uh i watched netflix the third episode first by accident and i started just watching it from there and thinking this show is great and i started recommending it to other people and then i went back and watched the first episode which opens up with some pretty hardcore sex and i was like oh uh i need to call some folks. Yeah. You know, I got a couple of things I have to say about this. It's possible that people are sharing your password and that's why you're seeing it out of order. But it's possible not because I don't know if he knows, but Netflix is doing this thing where they're

testing out randomizing episodes of shows to see what that does to their algorithm. And I don't know if they would do that with sex education I think they're starting with The Office because that's still the thing that people watch the most on Netflix right now and they were just gonna set it so you play an episode of The Office and normally at the end they say do you want to go to the next episode and it would be the next one sequentially but now they're gonna test out their algorithm to see if the experience is better or keeps you in the app longer if they just take you to any random episode of the office can i just say i i don't care for that i don't know if i care for that or not like i i it's like watching

in syndication yeah which is why i don't know if i if i care for it or not like i i seinfeld's on tbs all the time and uh unless it's like the two-parter with keith hernandez or the two-parter with los angeles i don't know if i'm going in order or not yeah well then you put i don't mind it you can have it out of order you just have like the series page you put a little dice on there you roll that you can go to a random one hey that i just solved it for netflix let me call them. What's the president's number? Sarandos? Sarandos?

You could get his number by me saying his name twice? Yep, I did it. It's fine. I texted him. He seems very upset with my text. He thinks I'm angry at him. The other thing I wanted to say about Sex Education is that I enjoyed that show, but I don't... I'm at this weird point in my life where I know that show, but I don't... I'm at this weird point in my life

where I know that the actors playing the teenagers are in their 20s and maybe even 30s, but they're still playing high schoolers, and they're all very hot and often naked. And I don't know. Like, I don't feel like dirty or like a pervert when I'm watching that show. I also don't feel comfortably horny or anything like that. It's just a strange thing that I never used to think about with movies starring 20-year-olds playing teenagers.

Yeah. Hold on a second. I'm writing down a quote. Dan doesn't feel comfortably horny. Yeah. Okay. Well, I don't feel uncomfortably horny. I should be clear. Yeah. I think, I mean, I kind of agree with you because it's a little unnerving that it's glorifying the sex of high schoolers.

But I think all media has done that forever, right? I know. I think I just finally reached an age where it's noticeable and uncomfortable to me. Yeah. Okay, well, that's fair. Yeah. You know, we brushed past something earlier that I think you should explain to our listeners because I imagine they're curious.

You had surgery on your wrist. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you want to tell everybody what happened to you? Is that what you were teeing up? Yeah, so our show goes on hiatus from November to January, and I used that time to go back to Los Angeles briefly and finish packing up my old apartment. I feel like you're about to be arrested, by the way. Yeah, I know. This story is like too scary.

I went back to Los Angeles to finish packing up my apartment and saying goodbye to a few people. And I had a planned like two or three day trip to Catalina Island that I wanted to follow through on. And so, yeah, I was back in Los Angeles and, uh, it was a Sunday morning and I had, my plan was I'm going to go to church to get together with my church folks. And then my friend Nick and Crystal and I, we we were gonna go down to Malibu and have some brunch in Malibu and I was gonna have a nice nice old wholesome Sunday and on the way to church car made an illegal u-turn in the middle of the road and then lingered in the bike lane this is on Westwood coming towards Santa Monica. So it's this big steep hill. And, uh, I just couldn't,

the car ahead of me, wasn't making a decision one way or the other. And I'm just, I'm doing that math in my head where I'm just like, if you're staying in the bike lane, I can go around you. But if you, if I make that choice and you suddenly dart out, then I'm going to run into you. So just like, I'm waiting on him to hopefully make a choice. And then he doesn't. And I hit my brakes and I go flying over the bike. And I land on my wrist and it's bad. And for a while I have adrenaline. And like I know my wrist hurts, but I lift my hand up and I wiggle my fingers. And I'm just like, that means everything's fine.

And so I continue walking to church. And then I text Nick and I'm just like I might be we might be late for for brunch just like I just took a bad fall so I was like I'll keep you posted but I think it's gonna be fine and I was still just thinking like let me get to church and let me sit for a while if I have an hour to figure this out I'll know what I'm doing and then I walked a little bit longer and then I I called my mom who was a nurse I'm like hey no big deal I think I broke my mom, who was a nurse. I'm like, hey, no big deal. I think I broke my wrist. Is that an urgent care thing or an emergency room thing? And this is why we have a podcast, Soren. I wouldn't have to bother my mom.

I could have just asked you. That's why I brought it up. And Nick picked me up and took me to the hospital. And they did a bunch of, you know, they do weird stuff in emergency rooms. They, like, suspended my hand from this medieval looking thing so that the, uh, muscles would, would relax, and, like, gravity would pull things down so they could, once that's all done, shove my bones back into place and wrap it up, and they did that, and it was bad enough that I needed to come back a few weeks later for surgery, where they put an eight-inch metal plate and like 12 screws.

And it was, it's finally, it was good, good surgery. I mean, Kaiser Permanente fucking blows as a hospital factory and an insurance organization, but they don't operate in New York. Those stupid candy ass dipshits. So I'll never have to deal with them again. And yeah. And you still have metal in your wrist? I do. I'll have metal in my wrist forever, but it doesn't set off metal detectors.

But can you bend it? Like, would you have the ordinary flexibility of a human being? Yeah, it's not 100% yet. It won't be 100% until probably December of this year. But I can do any of the normal stuff that I do. I had a detachable splint for a while when I first got back to work. a detachable splint for a while when I first got back to work. I'm actually lucky that all of my moments of least mobility fell during the hiatus.

So it didn't – I mean, I'm a maniac. The good news is that I didn't have to miss any work. That's why this is fine. My bright side is, thank God, it only happened during Christmas here i know you're not asking for advice in the situation but here it is uh there's one thing i would tell you dan it's that you you have to at some point get over your unwillingness to inconvenience other people that a lot of what followed after the bike well even the bike accident itself like like, I can handle this. I'm just going to go around him.

The guy's not the problem. I can figure this out. And then also, afterwards, texting Nick, not like, hey, I have a compound fracture. I can see my own bone. You're texting him like, I don't know if I'll make brunch. Well, they're expecting me at church.

I should still be there, obviously. And I wonder, my mom, maybe I'll wait till after she's had lunch heading heading to church even though lunch still going to church even though god was trying his best to tell me not to this was a sign yeah there's ever been a sign uh it's very fun now to me in in retrospect uh I think, is, is, is a wild thing, because I had surgery once before on my eyelid when I was in, like, fifth grade, and don't remember it too much, but this, I was, because they tell you not to eat, like, 24 hours in

advance, and I was flying from Jersey to, uh, LA sort of overnight, so that expanded my 24 hours, just because of, of because of of time difference so i was very hungry and i was just lying in that hospital like the the prepping for surgery for a very long time you just wait around for hours and i'd been warned that the anesthesia when you eat afterwards it might make you nauseous and i kept asking about the nausea and about what i could eat and the anesthesiologist kept kept, yeah, I mean, don't be nervous about it. I know you're nervous. I'm like, no, you don't understand. I've had fucking 29 hours to just think about food and I'm going to come out of this and I want to

know, I want to eat and I want to know what I can eat. And I, and like, it's not about nerves. What is going to, what can I have? Please just tell me what can I have? I'm going to point to some things on a Chili's menu. And I need you to tell me if it's not about nerves what is gonna what can i have please just tell me what can i have i'm gonna point to some things on a chili's menu yeah and i need you to tell me if it's okay if i consume them they also i was i'm uh told that the very first thing i said when i woke up after the surgery was i ordered a beer i because i really wanted one way from one of the nurses you're just like yeah because that was another thing like i like i i get nervous flying and i get nervous Wait, from one of the nurses? Yes. Yeah. Because that was another thing. Like, I get nervous flying, and I get nervous before surgery, and I hadn't had anything to drink for all those nerves. And I just woke up and was like, oh, good, I'm allowed to drink.

Allagash Cheerio, please. Oh, that's so funny. I'm like, yeah, I could tell you where they sell them around here. I know the area. There's the Bristol Farms, the one where I got my accident. They sell it there. It's $22, but you can get it there. Please, I will give you $1,000.

Wow, yeah. So you had God actually telling you not to go to church, and you went anyway. Yeah. I don't know if he would be mad, or if it was like a Job situation, where he was sitting with the devil, and he was like, hey, watch this shit. I'd say it's a mutual respect thing. That'll be the one that sends me right to hell. When I talked to the doctor, because you don't need to get this surgery with the plates.

Like I could have just done the longer healing with the cast. But he's A, that you're in a cast for a very long time and i didn't want that and b he said yeah you might want the metal plate in there because your bones otherwise will just fall out wait what what that was the only explanation he gave me was that they would fall out what into where like i don't know cereal that's what and that's when i when i got back to work and it was actually crazy because we had our first meeting of the year and I had a cast and one of the other writers, Owen Parsons, had like a medical boot for a foot injury and one of our producers also had a

cast. And so we just had to go around the room and explain what happened. And John was like, what happened to you? And I was like, well, I was on my way to church. And he's like, no, no, no. What happened? I was like, I broke my wrist. He was like well I was on my way to church and he's like no no what happened I was like I broke my wrist like okay can you what's going on now it's like there's a metal plate and uh I need to keep it in there or else my bones will fall out and he said they'll fall out and I go yeah uh wandering bones syndrome and so I was just that was my nickname for a while was wandering bones which I which I'm fine with that's a great nickname I love it yeah um it's gone now I did was Wandering Bones, which I'm fine with. That's a great nickname.

I love it, yeah. It's gone now. I did, so when I was in high school, I'm not high school, in college, I sprained one ankle and broke the other one simultaneously. Doing something dumb. Like trampolining or a drunk stunt? So in my dorm, there were a set of stairs that would go down, and then there'd be a platform landing, and then another set of stairs down the other direction.

You could have said not trampolining. No. And I figured out that I could run down steps, grab the railing in the middle, run up the wall of the landing, and down the next set of steps. And I was going on a date, and I was like, she's going to love this. And did it. Like, she's going to love this. And did it. And because I was so enthusiastic and I had that adrenaline pumping,

I overshot it and landed all the way at the bottom of the next set of steps and broke one ankle and sprained the other. When I went to the doctor, they did x-rays. And they're like, well, you have a bone at the end of your, very tip of your, at your ankle. And you can see on this x-ray you've broken it off and i was like okay do i need a cast or anything like no no no um it won't ever reattach it's just in there and i was like okay well what's gonna happen to it they go it'll it'll move in your body and eventually your body will absorb it and i was like get it out

so maybe that might be wandering bone syndrome. And did you, so these are our differences. As soon as you hit the ground, you knew you needed to go to a doctor? Yeah. I told her, I need to go to the ER. Can you drive me? And she said, no. Oh, damn.

Well, she had other things going on. She also had a meet the next morning. And so, but I got somebody from my dorm to take me and that's when they were like they felt the first ankle because i showed them the other one first because it looked worse because it was all black and blue and they're like yeah this is a grade three sprain and they're like trying to get a feel for the structure of my ankle and they're like well we need to feel the other one it's like funny story and i showed them the other one they're like jesus how are you walking around and this is i the reason i say that you you need to learn is not as to to be willing to inconvenience

people as i have lived a life very similar to yours i think and in college i was not willing to do that and so uh i spent that whole i didn't wear cast i didn't have crutches i just gutted it out and it was a huge mistake like i can still hear when i run upstairs my ankle clicking jesus now is this er or was this like campus hospital no this is er wow yeah uh well yeah so that i think that's that's it's good that you're better now i remember you having being a little dark for a little while there where you were very unhappy that it happened and when anyone taught when we'd like we'd have texts or things like that we'd be talking about something else and someone would casually forget that that's

what had happened to you and ask if you were going out or something like no i broke my arm yeah it was i i was pretty unhappy because i had a whole thing built in my head that I was going to finish my first season on this dream job of a show, do some celebrating and partying parties at Los Angeles, and then use the rest of the hiatus to move into my new wonderful apartment in

New York and start this next phase of my life. And it's moving sucks with one arm. Christmas shopping sucks. Everything sucks with one arm christmas shopping so everything sucks with one arm it's really bad and i mean even brushing your teeth and shampooing your hair is everything yeah so i can't even imagine actually having to do those huge things yeah but now it's uh now it's in the past and it's fine yeah and it's good that you you actually look back on it fondly that's nice yeah nice but i you mentioning falling in college

reminds me that I've had many opportunities to learn this lesson. I fell playing racquetball with my friend Nancy in college and got a concussion and kept playing racquetball. Like,

blacked out for like a second and then got right back up and she was like, are you okay? And I was not. I had like tunnel vision. And I was like are you okay and i i uh was not i had like tunnel vision but i was like good enough to kick your ass yeah that sounds about right we played for a while and then she was like do you want me to take you to canvas hospital i was like no it's totally

fine i just have a headache and uh i got in my car and i drove her to her house and we get to her house and i say nancy i think you should take me to the hospital. She said, why? I said, because I don't remember how we got here. And I drove us here. And that was a dumb thing to do. And I should have learned then and there to go to the hospital when things go wrong. And then a few years later, when I got hit by a car in New York, I went to a bar and drank with my friends because that was the plan. And don't want to inconvenience Ben.

Don't want to bother Ben Joseph having to take me to the hospital. That's why I forgot you got hit by a taxi and ran away. I was very embarrassed and I didn't want to bother anyone. Yes, I know. Well, I think we should start this show. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, we, I think we should start this show. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, we've sort of been doing it. We've been asking each other questions.

Yeah, well, I have a quick question for you. Oh, go ahead. I have been watching Game of Thrones, and I don't know if you kept up with the hubbub after the most recent one, but there was a coffee cup in Winterfell. Yeah. It looked like maybe a Starbucks coffee cup on the table in front of Daenerys at the Grand Feast.

Yes, you're right that it did look like a Starbucks coffee cup, but it was not a Starbucks coffee cup. It was a different brand. Oh, I'm sorry. See, I don't drink coffee, so... No, that's fine. I mean, and that's not a thing that I would, like, correct you about in real life, but I'm trying to establish our different brands on this show as me is like pedantically thorough and you as uh aggressively

normal yeah you can't spell pedantically without dan no you can't can't spell daniel either no you can't spell pedantically without daniel for dan okay yeah yeah yeah yes Yes. Yeah, so... Can't spell Daniel without Dan. Hold on. I got to go through the whole list of words that have Dan in them. Rodanth. Hotel Rwanda. That's it.

Those are all the words that have Dan in them. You got them. So a lot of people... You and I have been on sets before through Cracked, the site we used to work for. And we did a lot of sketch comedy and videos and series for them. And I was baffled by the complaints that I saw online. People saying, this show has this big a budget and no one could have caught that. That in Winterfell there was a coffee cup.

It's like this big assumption that when you're on a set that entire set like that the all of winterfell nothing that's anachronistic is out there when in reality it's just the shot in which that's the case there's that shot is littered with water bottles and coffee mugs and yeah all kind of people's jackets and shit like that that you just it's barely out of frame right and you have to know that like every actor who's on there, two things. They've been sitting there for a very long time because it takes a while to even get, even if the shot is like two seconds of Tormund raising a glass and you see Danny at the table with a cup in front of her, even if it's two seconds, she's been sitting there for a very

long time. And she probably has a water bottle, probably has a coffee, maybe script and you don't know when you're gonna you're gonna start and you just have sort of a vague idea of where the frame is like you could see her in that shot that she's not only is there a coffee cup there she's barely doing any acting yes because we are supposed to be looking at torment right now and the directors know that, and the DP knows that, and the actors all know that. Like, Danny, this is not your shot. And small corner of table, this is not your shot either. In an ideal world, like, I think people would be surprised how many stray coffee cups are probably in your favorite movies.

There's tons of them. The reason that we're really going to catch it now is because everyone's going to watch game of thrones nine times the minute it comes out and analyze every frame of it looking for things not only that but you every single one of those people assume that you're that like that coffee cup was sitting there for the full two hours that they were setting up that shot when in actuality there's probably like a hundred shots that they have of her doing that little smile thing at John that, uh, that coffee cup is not there.

Yes. Um, but for some reason, you know, in the editing, they're just realizing, no, this is the better one.

This is, we have torment and then the rack to her is much better here. And we're just going to, we know the coffee cups there. It's a fuck up. We fucked up one on one shot. There was like 15 seconds of footage, but you know,

it's just the best shot. So this is the one we're gonna use and yeah and I'm sure that we're teaching when we yell about it on Twitter we're not teaching the DP that he fucked up he's like I know I know it was there yeah I'm probably they must have had a conversation they're like you know it'll cost an additional eight million dollars to edit that cup out or we could do another 15 million dollars to reshoot the scene and someone said you know if they notice the coffee cup we're not doing our jobs right and maybe we'll edit it out later and they did edit it out later but i i fully believe

that they knew it and we're just like yeah oh you guys noticed the coffee cup did you notice the dragons too yeah we're doing a lot on this show at the end of game of thrones i'd like them to go back through and say okay here's how much it would have cost to take that out here are the scenes you wouldn't have had had we done that here's a scene that cost the exact same amount that you loved yeah we would have taken the coffee cup out and then at the last episode there's be like oh and tyrian he moved to a farm sorry we didn't get to close that loop but he's he's at a farm now but yeah we i mean we would be on set it's underneath the table where you're sitting there is just a pile of stuff there's yeah everything you could possibly need because you're sitting there for four and a half hours red bulls and scripts and waters and phones yeah weather is changing uh the temperature in the room like yeah you need to eat and drink and

yeah uh it's all there your script is there and this even on a full set there's just gonna be stuff that you miss because if you if you were to pan back at all in that scene you'd see all that other bullshit that's on set and it's so easy to miss stuff with your naked eye unless you're you're really looking for it right Right. And also sets are exhausting. Like we filmed after hours. That would be a thing that we filmed overnight and we were very tired and only getting older. And it's very hot because you can't run air conditioning and you're under hot lights. And you're doing dialogue that is often very dense.

We were like an argument. It's just a half page monologue that you're memorizing at three o'clock in the morning and then someone will say oh of the three takes we got nobody realized the script was on the table the whole time and there are genuine moments where i was gonna be like but do you think we got it though yeah can we just leave the script on the table because i don't want to do this anymore and you have you know you have script supervisors you have people who are there to like look for that kind of thing but it's not always them who catch it sometimes somebody an actor on set will be like oh wait your script's out or like uh oh wait is this is this water

bottle and shot oh yeah i guess it is okay let's move it it's like everybody it's all everybody's kind of like working together man we're just trying to make this thing right and to watch everyone come down on twitter with this sanctimony it just pissed me off yeah good question Soren a common theme you'll discover is that all my questions are

hey have you heard about this thing? I really want to talk about it you just sit there I'm going to talk you got it Soren quick question this is also just a rare brief tangent You just sit there. I'm going to talk. You got it. Hey, Soren, quick question. Yeah. Oh, and this is also just a rare brief tangent. I feel like I've talked about the job that I have a lot, and that's not going to be a theme.

I'm not going to constantly talk about last week tonight with John Oliver. It just happened to come up a lot in this episode. Anyway, end of brief rare tangent. Are you familiar? How familiar with Bumble are you? The dating app Bumble? I know that Bumble is a site that works like a Sadie Hawkins

dance where the girls have to... Okay, I thought site was going to be the oldest part of that sentence, but go on. Where it's an app and the girls have to initiate the first move. Yes, that's right. It's like every dating app you've seen

where you swipe right if you like someone, left if you don't like someone, and if you match, you're allowed to talk to each other, but the woman has to make the first move within 24 hours, or if you want, you could extend it another 24 hours if she doesn't make that first move to let her know that you're extra interested. Oh, so she gets a notification.

If you were like, I'm going to, I'm going to prolong this. She gets a little notification that says he's really looking for you. Yes, but only, only 24 additional hours. Okay. And if she's not on the app for 48 hours or 72 hours, then this whole story will, will miss her. She'll never know. Okay.

Um, I got a, uh, a quick question for you about a thing. Cause you put your your name and your pictures and uh like where you went to school and your job like the first thing they'll see is your your main picture daniel my age job at blank and school and when i first got here and was on Bumble, I had my profile just said writer at last week tonight because that was my job. And my friends immediately gave me a mild amount of shit about it. And then I got it in my head because the shit they gave me was like,

oh, Daniel O'Brien at last week tonight, huh? And I was like, yeah, it's my job and I'm super happy to be there. And they were like, okay, no judgment. You're just trying to, like, get girls who are fans of Last Week Tonight, which I wasn't trying to do. But then I got in my head about that, that it would seem like I was trying to do that. So now it just says writer at TV. And I also feel weird about that because here's the thing.

Oh, really? Why? Because there's a whole, like, there are a lot of, like, sub-infuriating things that people do on these dating apps that, like, always piss me off. If someone will write, like, editor at none of your business or self-employed at wherever I want. And it's like, well, that's going to annoy me and I'm going to get out of here, like, be specific or whatever. that's going to annoy me and I'm going to, I'm going to get out of here, like be, be specific or, or whatever. But, but so that's where I'm, I'm at, where I'm, where I'm at now, where I'm, I'm writer at TV, even though Soren, if I got to be honest, Soren, it's not TV, it's HBO. So what, what should I put there for my job? so what what should i put there for my job um i will not writer at tv um i i would say so here's the problem

i don't think you should put last week's night either but there there are a lot of people who have ruined the term writer if somebody puts writer on there there's basically that's the same thing as doing a jerk off motion with your hand and rolling your eyes you're a fucking writer um so you can't put that that's tough because my first my main picture is a gif of me doing the jerk off motion okay is that bad too you know so i'm getting a lot of red flags from your profile i think we just go one by one here yeah but, but let's go back. Why do you say don't put last week to night? Because I kind of agree with that. Oh, okay.

So something that a teacher once said to me a long time ago, because I was a bit of a bragger growing up. I can't remember why I was bragging. It had been after PE. Maybe we had just done the mile or something like that. And I was like, I was locked into the fact that I had done it in eight minutes as a child. This is still bragging by the way and uh um and so she pulled me aside after class and she said you know the things that people learn about you by themselves will mean a lot more than if you tell them uh man i wish i had a single good teacher and so and i i really

took that to heart and i've tried to like live by that because i think it's absolutely true if people discover stuff about you on their own that's very impressive they are way more impressed than if you let it slip yourself or if you tell them um okay well then let me run another for instance by you if i just have writer and like i think i can bypass the at part so i don't need to put tv they what what are the what are among the first few icebreaker questions a person can ask if they see a profile that says writer and you want to find out does that person actually write is it just like is it waiter who also writes or is it writer at things so they're gonna say what do you write for and then i'll just tell them anyway yeah that's not fun for anybody um

yeah can let's see you're right i mean it's a tightrope walk dan you're not crazy this you're not like just missing the very obvious answer here but i think you have to be like i'm trying to think of the what what did you do it cracked like when people would be like what did you do what do you do i i told when i what do you mean you tell people you're a developer right yeah so yeah i guess you can't lie i think you could say uh i am a screenwriter could you say that i mean i I am a screenwriter. Could you say that? I mean, I'm not a screenwriter.

It doesn't count? Television doesn't count as a screenwriter? I guess. I don't know. It's on a screen. I just feel like screenwriter is screenplays in movies. Like you... So here's what you should do yeah you should say um you should put in there not a tv writer and when people are like when people when people ask like what do you mean not tv you're like well it's not tv it's hbo yeah that's gonna that's gonna start me off on the right foot i'm really glad that I found this for you

and solved it this is gonna make your bumble day so I got another quick question for you I'm trying to move towards a more chic lifestyle do you understand? hold on

what do you mean? oh chic is defined as uh living your cruel truth no matter what the cost okay go on um what what what's a reasonable amount of money to spend on a fancy candle oh my god wow okay the how big is the candle? Four inches. That's nothing. Five inches. Are you giving me a diameter right now, or are you giving me the height?

Height. Okay, it's five inches. Is it in a glass jar? It's in a glass jar. It's got the label on the front. It's the best smelling candle I've ever had. Okay, I'd spend $18 on that. That's probably going to be it for our show.

I don't think there should be any more questions. So, quick question, Dan. Uh-huh? Quick question for you. Mm-hmm? How much did you spend on the candle? Can you really put a price on chicness, Soren? And if you could, would it be $60?

Did you mail away for this? Yes. What's the smell? It smells like a match, to be honest. It smells like match burning. Like wood burning. It's like a very... It's definitely a match, to be honest. It smells like match burning, like wood burning. It's definitely masculine, but still a little bit perfumed to it. I really stand by it. Like a fragrant campfire?

Yeah. Okay. Bacon's a little bit fancy. Bacon, are you with me on this? Yeah, I think 60 is completely reasonable. Whoa, whoa. Dan, you're a chic guy now you're boho chic which is the thing i learned bacon bacon's enabling you right now daniel no you should bacon before you you you go any further you should know that i have a candle

that's sitting on like my windowsill because i don't have a table yet that i think that's fine um do you get i don't mean i don't have a like a candle table i don't have a table yet that i think that's fine um do you get i don't mean i don't have a like a candle table i don't have a dining room table that's terrible so that means that dan went out decided that in his list of priorities of things he needed for his apartment the first thing was the 60 candle yeah not the first thing first thing was a shower curtain yeah and then he mailed away for it he didn't go buy it dan do you feel guilty when you burn it though because of the cost sure do yeah that's my problem with everything nice in my life does that i just burn it you worry about the i just don't ever use in fact now i'm in my

head i'm gonna blow it out right now real quick yeah you should don't waste it that's my the theme of my life is if you get something nice for yourself, you didn't deserve it. So you shouldn't use it. Wow. Dan, we're, I don't even know if I want to ask where this is from. Cause other people might order $60 candles and then we like just live in

that world. I don't know if I could pronounce a single part of this candles name. The big part of the label in the beginning, it's three words that I think are in French. F-E-U is the first. Fouet. De. And then Bois.

B-O-I-S. Fouet de Bois. Fouet de Bois. Okay. It's from a company called Diptyque. Oh, man. Diptyques are nice candles, Dan. This is the most company called Diptyque. Oh, man. Diptyques are nice candles, Dan. This is the most pretentious candle I've ever heard. That's great.

No, you did a great job. Thank you. This is bumming me out. What's the most you've spent on a frivolous purchase, if indeed you think chicness is frivolous and not future futuristic yeah um well i can't tell you yet but i can tell you because is it a present for me yes really yes i got i've now i should just tell you we have to keep doing this podcast so people can find out. I wonder if I should just hold it like an Easter.

Yeah, maybe I'll hold on to it. Oh, man. Because there's a really funny story behind it, too, of how I ended up with it and why it cost so much. But I did it, and it's done, and you will be getting it at some point. It was supposed to be for your last birthday. I think this is pretty special that the timing worked out that I just blew out a candle and now I'm getting a present. And now it actually should be done. It was supposed to be done in April and I can contact the person who is making it.

Holy shit. And ask where this might be. So yeah, I thought maybe I'll wait until the next one but now that i've told i spilled the beans man i should just give it to you so that and also so people aren't just the so the six people who listen to this aren't like whoa what the fuck is it that's you can hold on to it keep it a surprise it a surprise and we'll make a reveal of it in one of the later episodes. It's going to be what keeps the quick heads coming back. Yeah, I think... Quick heads.

We'll keep searching. I mean, we've... No, I think we got it. That's the first one. We'll find it. But yeah, that's it. All right. Well, Dan, I have a quick question for you.

Yes, Sauron. What is it? This is also sort of self-serving, so I feel comfortable doing it now. I'm going to read- What's self-serving about it? You got me a present. No, the Bumble thing and you talking about last week tonight. This only feels self-serving, but I'm genuinely curious if I a real uh complaint on my hands here um there's i'm gonna

read a description of a character to you okay and uh you tell me who it is okay the character's name is soren he's 5 11 and a half dirty blonde his eyes are blue and the description of the character is uh uh on the outside soren is brash and overconfident but with his friend he's a giant goofball his joke telling has a long way to catch up with his physical prowess and unfortunately the human brain is not a muscle that gets stronger with more squats. Zoran comes off as cocky and brash, but is actually charming, charismatic, and kind. Let's see. I don't want to give away too much here.

He enjoys making jokes, puns, and teasing others in a lighthearted manner, much to their chagrin. And it goes on like that. So if he was a character in all pop culture, who would that be? Sure. That feels like a you type. And also, if I could just throw out, this is a character description? This is a character description of an actual character from another media property.

From another media, not... This is not After Hours. This is not... That's like the character that we designed for After Hours of is it american dad nope oh i thought that that's fun if it's american dad if that's one of your like co-workers making a character basing it off on you just as a way to like say hey i get you and i'm like nudging you with my shoulder because because because pals. This is like buddies shit-talking each other. This is like genuine IP theft. What is this in?

This is a show called The Dragon Prince that's on Netflix. It's a cartoon. It's animated. somebody else brought this to my attention. They brought it up and like, hey, is this you? I was like, no. Oh, fuck, it it is me um you know anyone who works on that show nobody i don't know anyone holy fucking shit yeah and that that was that was the so i went

on the wiki for it and i've started reading the description and i was like this is the character this is soren from after hours like this is the character we made right that's why i thought for sure it was going to be like someone that you worked with had written in like a minor character to an upcoming episode of american dad knowing that you would read that description because that description is very much like i'm gonna pick on soren not all those things are true no like like like we would play up you making puns to our chagrin as characters as like a playful thing to do and the it takes a while for people to get his jokes is i don't know where the fuck that's coming from yeah that there was all that's the the things that we were like just really

developed along the way of who all those characters were but like who soren was in that show and i started reading this and i was like yeah man they nailed it that's it that's yeah that's the soren character a braggish dim-witted soldier yeah doesn't that feel right hey man i'm sorry really i'm not not too sorry yeah i'm for two years that's pretty cool that i i'm it's fine it's it's i started watching a little bit of the show just to be like well let me let me make sure that i this isn't i'm not just mistaken i'm just being arrogant or whatever and uh watch the first few episodes like oh no no yeah that's him that's soaring from after hours that's so crazy well if you don't mind i'm gonna poke around at this mystery for a while and i'll have something for you for the next episode yeah please do

well well do you have any other any other questions well i think someone based this on you i think it's just a matter of how we're going to track this down and no i'm in the green scheme do you want to end the show soon? Like, what do you think? Oh yeah. We've been talking for, for like three hours.

How, what has it been? Yeah. At least, at least an hour. Yeah. Um, I'm going to pull up our social stuff,

but Soren, why don't you say what we always say at the end of every episode? Yeah. You, if you reach for the stars, you'll end up at the moon. That's great. Uh,

you can follow me at D-O-B underscore I-N-C. You can follow Bacon Business Daddy at MakeMeBaconPlease, all one word except please is spelled like internet please, like P-L-S. You can follow the show at

QQ underscore Soren and Dan on Twitter. You can follow us on Instagram at QQ underscore with underscore Soren underscore Dan on Twitter. You can follow us on Instagram at QQ underscore with underscore Soren underscore and underscore Daniel. You can find our producer and engineer and editor Vincent at his website, siliconbeachpodcast.com. And you can find Soren where?

At Soren, S-O-R-E-N underscore L-T-D on Twitter. I hear now how it's better if you say it slowly and clearly. I hear that that's better. People have the luxury on their phones of pushing back 15 seconds. And if they do it 20 or 30 times, they'll eventually get all those site names. Man, we got a lot of underscores. How do we nail those?

How come nobody picked that up? Well, you know, something about we really overshot it on those underscores. Something, something, something. I don't know how jokes work. Thanks, everyone, for joining us. We will have information on this page that tells you references to everything that we talked about today and lets you know when the next episode is going to come out. And make sure you subscribe wherever it is that you subscribe to podcasts.

And rate it and tell your friends. And, uh, yeah. Soren, anything else? Bacon, anything else?

Yeah. Bacon, your signature. Goodbye. Shoot for the stars and you'll land on the moon. No, that's mine. Motherfucker.

All right. Well, we're working on it. All right. All right. Bye