Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - QQ ep 89 -Next Door Nuts

Episode Date: May 14, 2021

In this episode Dan talks about his new running club, and we learn that the Bowies' are natural puzzlers! And as always big thanks to our sponsors. Thanks to Skillshare, go to Skillshare.com/qq and get a free trial of Premium Membership. And Thanks to BetterHelp.  Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/qq

Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cash back, the most savings on your shopping. So join Rakuten and start getting cash back at Sephora, Old Navy, Expedia, and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cash back. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save money at over 750 stores. Join for free at Rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. So hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers separated by 3,000 miles ask each other questions and give each other answers to find out who's the best one and who's a better dancer. I used that one already. Don't care. i am one half of this podcast author of how to fight presidents tv writer for last week tonight

with john oliver and third thing daniel o'brien joined as always by my co-host the scary soren buoy soren say hello hey everybody i'm soren buoy i assume that's what you meant by scary. I've got to tell you, man. No. Oh, okay. Yeah, all right. I'm a writer for American Dad, a father, a focused driver. I think that's important. Obviously, Dan, that won't make much sense to you.

And as of late, a puzzle put together. Oh, let's dive right into that. Are you making puzzles with either of your small children? Yeah, my son is really into puzzles and shows a real proficiency for it that I don't know how to harness. I don't know what good that's going to do him in the rest of his life, but his spatial awareness of the puzzle pieces is really great. That's good. I wonder what that means also for like your future money making schemes. And I wonder how that happens. I guess I never knew if like puzzle awareness is a learned thing or a felt thing. at and i think that they're related is that he understands maps really well um from an early age like we had a blueprint we were getting our backyard redone and so they did like a blueprint of our house and you can't if you're not familiar with a blueprint you don't know quite what you're

looking at because it's all from above and so he doesn't read either but like he was like there's our front door and like started going through it and like saying where all the things were in our house i'm like oh yeah like you understand the idea of this without even being told and i can't i think that that's maybe like a sister skill to puzzles um but he's really good at like looking at the individual pieces knowing where it can go and then he's also never just like finding a piece and being like trying to put it in one way turning it around putting it in the other way he looks at it for a little bit and then puts it in the right way i'm like all right you do this one that blueprint thing does seem like you can get him started early uh like casing places so he wouldn't do any of the actual stealing or anything you would just sort of drop him off

at a bank or a rich person's house and he would come home and tell you where everything is and then you'd be like we're proud of you son and then you go and you steal it and ah but then he'd get a taste for it wouldn't he yeah this i mean he'd want to be part of the family yeah well maybe i could get him good at that too ah and then no here's what sucks is because your your daughter she becomes a cop and she's gotta she's gotta. Oh no. They meet on a rooftop and she realizes it's him that she's been chasing the whole time. And now she's got a real predicament because does she turn in her brother?

Oh boy. That's going to be really tough for you guys. I feel bad for them, honestly. My involvement, I understand because at this point I'm working from prison. Yeah, and you're proud either way. Yeah this point, I'm working from prison. Yeah. And you're proud either way. Yeah.

They're both doing a great job. They're both at the top of their fields. But I want them both to succeed, you know? And one of them has to fail for the other to succeed. What a situation I've created. Ah, damn. Thanks to BetterHelp for supporting Quick Question. For 10% off your first month, go to betteratlp.com slash QQ. That's betteratlp.com slash QQ. Start living a better life today.

Thanks to Skillshare for supporting Quick Question. Skillshare empowers you to accomplish real growth. Do something today you couldn't do yesterday with classes designed for real life. Explore your creativity at skillshare.com slash QQ and get a free trial of premium membership. Explore your creativity at Skillshare.com slash QQ and get a free trial of premium membership. Well, let's get into the show. Let's start off. We haven't done any COVID check-ins lately. And today is a pretty big day. The CDC announced that you don't have to wear masks outside or inside if you're fully vaccinated anymore.

Which is, it's one of those things that is like immediately very exciting. But also if you are a person like me who lives on the internet, immediately very exhausting because Twitter wastes no time in turning it into a battle for who has the more correct, self-righteous response to this. And it's just all nonsense bullshit it's all anyone can react to that news however they want but there are a lot of people who are like i'm going to continue wearing a mask even though i'm fully vaccinated and i'm healthy and here's why and here's why i'm brave for doing it other people are like i'm not going to wear my mask

and here's why i'm brave and a victim. And everyone is just like trying to out-correct everybody else on Twitter as loud as possible to be for, I guess, the rest of Twitter to be like, yes, this is the only correct response to this news. It is the most correct response to it. And we should all applaud this person. And it was like god damn it if you're excited that you can take off your mask you be excited about it if you're still nervous still

be nervous about it i don't know i i hate that i've i've reached an age where my reaction to every bit of news is like just live your life and shut up and let other people live their lives but that's sort of where I'm at with everything. Thanks to Twitter now. Yeah. I mean, lately I've been, as I'm scrolling through Twitter and I'm getting sort of overwhelmed because

I, I'm just not, it is, it's too exhausting to hear the self-righteousness. I'm like, I don't have to do this. And I, and I stop,

I stop and it feels really good. And then I go back and I don't know why do this. And I stop. I stop. And it feels really good. And then I go back. And I don't know why. I always go back. But I'm realizing that everybody's always had these opinions. They've never not existed. It feels very good to, like, derive some power from your victimization. Like, we all do it.

It feels good. You know it works. But, man, do I – I don't need to listen to every single person do it and i don't know why i've chosen to do that for so long yeah yeah i i had a real uh i'd like to say it was a moment that that changes the trajectory of my life but i know that it doesn't but i was watching this happens to be a week where uh chrissy tegan is uh she's been back on twitter after like a very dramatic three-week break where she announced i'm not gonna be on this website anymore and i delete my account and then came back three weeks later and was like i love you guys i

can't stay away for too long and now she is uh publicly apologizing for actions that she had taken 10 years ago to cyberbully then teenager Courtney Stodden. Courtney is in the news recently because they have gone public and on the record with horrible abuses that they've suffered, including this cyberbullying from Chrissy Teigen. And Chrissy is using Twitter to loudly apologize and talk about how all she wants to do is be loved by people. And she's going to try to do better and even this even though i like i think it's good that you're apologizing you're trying to learn i'm sitting here thinking like hey get the fuck off twitter like reach out to the person you want to apologize to and apologize to them yeah be an example for your

family but like completely separate from this current drama that you you you have fought your way into it seems like you have a really bad relationship with twitter and you shouldn't have that anymore and i'm sitting here thinking like man if i was chrissy teigen i wouldn't be on twitter right now. Scroll, scroll, scroll. What else? What else? What else? Yeah. I mean, we have, if you and I have an interaction on Twitter, I immediately begrudge anyone else who jumps in and is like, bit, bit, bit. Like I'm doing bits. I'm doing bits.

And the people that I don't know, they're just strangers who are just like, listen, I like you guys. I also want to play. And that's like a natural, very instinctual thing to do. And I immediately hate them for it. I like begrudge anyone who does it. And I thought, I think like, why can't they just stay out of my conversation oh because i'm having the conversation on the loudest platform it's like i went and stood on a stage and just was like

wanted to have a talk with you we did this podcast at like just like out loud in the middle of the street and people passing by were like hey what what the what do you guys do what are you talking about none of your business look hey i spent 10 years asking you to follow me on twitter so you would leave me alone it's now shut up buy my book watch the show i i end up getting into these altercations with people all the time. We're like, I'll do a joke. And then I'm like, I,

you know, I shouldn't read the replies to this. It's just going to make me mad. And then I'll go read the replies and I get mad because somebody inevitably will like take it seriously or somebody will misconstrue it or just, there's so many fundamental ways to piss me off. It turns out. And so then I will like write back to them and I'm not nice.

I'm like snarky and like not gentle or like hey thanks for for following me in the first place and it's kind of accosting i think to the person and then they their hawkles are up hackles hawkles hackles hackles are up and so then we just like we we just sort of go back and forth for a little while, and then they block me. And I'm like, good. Wait, why am I here? What am I doing? Right, I've never actually figured out what my ideal interaction with a stranger on Twitter is. If I did codify that in some way for both myself and the public at large,

if I was just like, hey, these are the rules for Twitter that I would like everyone to follow, A, I don't think that those rules exist, and B, I think I would get angry about that too because Twitter is a broken, poisoned, terrible thing. Well, and the real bitch of it is that any sort of like friendships that i made on twitter i did doing that exact same thing i did like jumping into i jumped into somebody else's conversation i was not invited to and just was like doing bits of like people that i respected and that i liked and eventually they either begrudgingly followed or they were

like oh this is working like this is, we're all having fun here. And it became like a fun bit. But I never want anyone to do that thing that I did that gave me followers. Please don't do that to me. Let's get into the show. I have actually, this is another update and here's a- Oh yeah, your COVID update. A thing that's happened to me.

No, my COVID update was, I told you about Twitter. Oh, oh yeah. Did you have a COVID update? I mean, other than that, on Thursday, this coming Thursday, I am 100% vaccinated. And the last puzzle piece for me in terms of what I want to do most of all just fell into place with the CDC notification because I want to go to a dine-in theater, and I'm about to do that. What are you going to say? It doesn't matter.

It literally does not matter. That's very exciting. We have a few of the writers who are New York-based. We're renting out a theater. We'll all be fully 100% faxed up. And it's like such slim pickings the movies that are available right now and like like the even the newish blockbusters are mostly things like Kong vs. Godzilla and Mortal Kombat movies that if

you have HBO Max you've already seen like I have but it's still like yeah I'll watch I'll watch Kong vs. Godzilla or i'll watch i'll watch spiral i don't give a shit oh you don't like horror fine what else there the tom and jerry movie fuck it i don't care i'll see it twice let's go the problem is you can't like as a group go see something like news of the world together and be like no that was fun that's exciting well i'm excited for you i'm so pumped that you're going to a movie with your co-workers like that you guys are going to be buzzing with just like the the opportunity to talk to each other to shout shit over the movie like oh jealous yeah you should come man okay get

on a plane i did actually just book two different flights for the summer too. It's like, where are you going? Minnesota and Colorado. Oh, that's cool. What's in Minnesota? I got two weddings. Ah, two weddings in Minnesota or one in Minnesota, one in Colorado.

No, two weddings in Minnesota. Huh? I know. I thought I had aged out of weddings in general. And then I think what happened is that there are a bunch of people who had to put off weddings over this last year. And then now everyone's getting married at once and it just so happens that I know some of them.

And so I'm back on the wedding circuit, baby. That's fun. I've got like a destination destination wedding, not one of those destination weddings where it's it requires travel because I know people all over the country like an actual like vacation destination wedding. Yeah. And I was shocked at how much, how quickly that has come back to being an inconvenience to me.

I think a child would really help you realize what you have now. So maybe like you could have a child for like two months, Dan. And then afterwards you could be like, give it to me. Uh, well not mine. No.

I, and otherwise I can't like biologically. Right. Um, but, uh, I think you having it, cause like even now I also, not only in addition to not even caring what I would go see it in a movie. If I got to go fly on a plane across the country by myself right now, I would be thinking about it every night and getting very excited. Just like the flight itself where I'm alone at the airport, I'm alone in the plane, I'm alone at the other end where like that time is all mine. It doesn't matter what I do in it. And because it's also, you know, it doesn't,

I don't have to be doing anything constructive because no one affects that on a plane. So that time is literally just time to be wasted. And that is, oh, I want that so bad. Yeah. Our lives are very different because by the time I get to the airport, like even before I left my apartment, I've already done, I know it's going to sound strange, everything on my phone. Everything that a person can do with a phone, I did it. I looked at it all. Yeah.

It's gone. I did the cross did it i looked at it all yeah it's gone i did the crossword i looked at instagram i yeah i mean i can't even imagine i feel sorry for you because you also are going to get on the plane you're going to scroll through the movies that are there and you're going to be like i have seen every single one of these there's i watched every movie that's been out for six months that would even they bother to have on a plane. Yeah. I get on there and it's I don't even I haven't heard of these movies yet. Like big stars are in them.

And I'm like, what is this? There's a new Spider-Man homecoming, you say. Is this one about like a dance? Man, you don't even know you're going to get on that plane. You don't even know what celebrities are canceled or anything like that. It doesn't matter. I can watch a Kevin Spacey movie and enjoy it. Introducing the Miller Optics 2KW Handheld Laser Welder. It's so simple to use, even a rookie can weld like an expert, allowing you to boost your shop's productivity up to five to ten times more

than with traditional arc welding processes expand your workforce so you can start doing more and making more get the optics laser advantage now and start changing the welding game um i speaking of watching bad movies i watched tenet last night and loved the shit out of it. That movie was great. I had heard so many bad things about it. And I was like, well, but I want to see it. And I watched it and I was just like, I don't care that I don't understand what's going on. This is so rad.

Yeah. It's, I, maybe because it was one of the only new things that was created and like presented to me during COVID. But I was so on board for everything and there's a scene in the beginning where uh melanie laurent is is like hey don't try to understand yes how time travel works and i'm like got it that was for me thank you i'm on board yeah and like i can't exactly tell you what happened in that movie like even divorced from the mechanics of time travel. I never knew why anyone was anywhere and it just didn't matter. They were just like suddenly scaling down or up a building. And I'm like,

yeah, you got to go in there and get the thing. I don't know. I, and Robert Pattinson, I find so compelling on screen. Like he's somebody I really like watching and he's in it so much more than I anticipated. Cause I knew he was like in some of the previous and stuff. I was like, he looks like maybe he watching and he's in it so much more than i anticipated

because i knew he was like in some of the previous stuff i was like he looks like maybe he's a bad guy in it or something but no he's just so much fun to watch in it and uh oh god i enjoyed it so much yeah you can be happy and you should be what is preventing your happiness better help will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. You connect in a safe and private online environment so it's convenient and you can start communicating in under 48 hours, all without ever having to sit in an uncomfortable waiting room. If cost is your barrier, then you should know that BetterHelp is more affordable than traditional offline counseling and financial aid is available. BetterHelp offers a broad range

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Thanks, BetterHelp. Well, I want to get into the show now, Soren. Now that we've been talking for a while. And I don't actually have a quick question this week. I have a... I'm just going to talk for a while. I have a life update. I think I understand

mansplaining true to form because it happened to me. And I think my whole journey with mansplaining. First of all, are you okay? Yes, thank you. Okay, good. I won't completely throw you under the bus with me, but I do think we're similar in that when mansplaining as a concept was first presented to me, I moved through three all incorrect impulses.

And the first was, I don't know, it sounds like these guys are just being helpful. That was my immediate knee-jerk reaction when I would see people complaining about mansplaining on Twitter and presenting it as if it was a new thing where it was like this this epidemic of of mansplaining happening i was like i don't know i like i sounds like someone is just giving friendly advice that was the wrong impulse and and so i stopped having that and then i learned and and grew and then when I heard an example of mansplaining, my second also wrong impulse was that's really awful when guys do that. And it's meaningly different than when I do it. That was a crucial component to me.

It was like, yeah, some of those guys are really shitty, but like I'm helpful. I need everyone to agree that I'm contributing whenever i talk about anything yeah uh and then my third impulse after i learned and grew which was also stealthily wrong um is that i would hear about it and i would say that sucks that's awful and that happened happened. And then I would, I would just stop talking because as long as I'm not wrong out loud, it's fine. But I was still like in my head think, I don't know, I think people are just being helpful. And, and, uh, folks have latched on to mansplaining as a thing that we can all rally around and hate together. And the distinctions between rudeness and helpfulness are getting blurred in a way that i thought was unhelpful yeah but i i learned enough to know that i

shouldn't say that to anyone and then no one got mad at me which was which was good but then soren this thing happened to me i'm gonna tell you about it and it happened weeks ago and i'm still mad all right and uh it's so on next door on my favorite app of all time next door oh daniel you're on next door i love it so much it was really fun for a while um this is a tangent but so was the show it was fun for a while i don't really consider myself but so was the show. It was fun for a while. I don't really consider myself a New Yorker, but I live here and it's been there. There's like a certain New Yorkness that I find really endearing. And it was on full display on Nextdoor because people would would post on Nextdoor. They would say, oh, look at the news in Texas.

next door they would say uh oh look at the news in texas they opened up restaurants and they lowered mask restrictions ah in utah they're not wearing masks in utah anymore how about that wonder if our limp-wristed governor will do something like that here and all the the comments are like that's really good for ut. I'm so excited for Utah. Here's an idea. Why don't you take your cowboy hat? Why don't you pack up your fucking shit and get out of New York? We don't want you here.

It was just like post after post of people wanting to run everyone out of New York and just end to... Whenever anyone complained about anything, that was attacked. It was attacked was like ah this is just me or the rats worse this year you know what if you don't like the rats here's an idea why don't you take your shit and go leave your brownstone open we'll fill it we'll fill it with a real New Yorker you son of a bitch my family died on these streets and I'm gonna do it too with the rats that's part of it you can get out

of here if you don't like New York rats the rats will subsist off of my body when i am dead in my apartment and they will live on through them yeah and it's that like new yorker spirit that indefatigable new yorker thing that i i'm just really charmed by anyway that was my my most of my next door experience was just like enjoying these, these strangers fight each other. Uh, but then a little while ago I started using it, um, to start a little local run club because I, I, as things have been opening up, I just want to be more community focused. We've talked about how much I love community on this podcast before. And I just want to like, I wanted to create a little thing where it's like, Hey, you can run. It's very low stakes.

Every speed is welcome. Every skill level. It doesn't, you don't need to go as long as anyone else or as fast as anyone else. You stop when you want, you start when you want, you don't even need to show up. If you do, it's good. And you'll have a group. Uh, and I started posting that once a week. It was like an identical post every week tuesdays with some basic information and where to meet and when we would take off and it was a very positive thing people join me it's like a successful run club that people go to now and yeah it's it's been very nice and i've been doing it for weeks and a couple weeks ago this guy posted on it and normally the poster like this is a good idea and I hope to join you or I can't this week basic stuff that you'd expect and one guy and I'm gonna

I'm gonna read it in how I heard his voice hey thanks Daniel what a friendly and neighborly idea I run to the north and south I prefer North longer distance, since you can get up to the little red lighthouse at the foot of the GWB pretty much unimpeded and can continue to go beyond. South is nice, too, but I find it somewhat congested and several traffic lights. Anyway, I hope to join the group one day. Enjoy the run.

Okay. And every bit of... Here's... Here's what makes me really mad about this. It's not even just... i'm instantly livid that he closes with the fact that he's not going to be running with us yes so he is just passing through and wanted to give tips on where we can run and i want to be absolutely clear about this that my post didn't open with like give us advice i'm i'm new to running what are some good directions because then i could understand him popping in and being

like oh yeah north and south but i started this post like i do every single week somewhat strongly hello i'm daniel i go for a run along the hudson every single night rain or shine and i thought it might be fun to do so with a group on tuesday nights and then more details followed after that so not only was i not asking for any advice on this i'd made it pretty clear that i know what i'm doing on this thing that i that i I feel like I run along the Hudson every night. It's pretty clear. I know what's north and what's south. But even if that hadn't been clear, again, at no point am I or is anyone

asking a question about what direction is better. direction is better. Uh, and I, there's no way that I can let this guy know that he is not part of this, that he didn't help anything. And that's what I want him to know. I, I, I want to track him down and be like, Hey, don't, if you see a group of happy neighbors running together, we did it without you no one needed you to come in we weren't like fucking babes in the woods lost and you were like ah these these these poor silly children they need to know the best ways to run and let me tell them the best ways to run while also subtly making it clear that I've run the entire perimeter of the state. Right. So that's what this is all about.

It's not, he had, he had no intention of helping in any way, which is clear because he's only named you can run North or you could run South, which we're like, okay, great. Thanks for your help. He just needed a reason to post so that he could wave his credentials in your face as he runs past because he just needs to feel like he's proved that he's a runner to everybody who will listen so he's like here's why I like

this place I go for longer runs there yeah shorter runs here it's and then like naming things that he ran to in the north like you got to this fucking, whatever the acronym lighthouse was. And he's like,

these are things that, uh, I'm proving to you that I am a good runner by all of this. And the rest of the email is just like collateral. It's just like filler of like, I need some sort of reason to have written this in the first place. So go, uh,

I don't, I don't know, fucking North or South. And did you know that I'm also a very good runner? I run long distances. Okay, goodbye. And like, that's all it is about this guy. Like, that's all he wants is for somebody to know that he is a runner.

Right. I started to think, like, is his ideal response to this me going, wow, the Little Red Lighthouse lighthouse i've never gone that far i didn't think anyone's ever gone that far you must be a superhero and then the more i thought about it the more i thought he doesn't there is no ideal response to him the ideal thing was just him showing off and then leaving yes that's what this game is to him it's just like presenting this information about himself and then being above your run club as well. Absolutely. Yeah, I think the problem is that there's no way to punish this man.

No. And that's, I know how badly you want that. Right, especially because my brand on Nextdoor is all positivity. It's unrecognizable, Soren. You'd hate it. Yeah, no. I mean, I've seen you experiment with that on twitter before um i i don't know man i it feels like there's some way to to bring him down to earth if you can get him around again like i will he see responses i don't remember because i never post on next door he'll see responses yes

um i wonder if you could be like well we go along the hudson you should come join us sometime but then you gotta deal with this guy i know uh yeah i know there's there's no good solution to this i think that he's already gotten what he wants, and he took it from you. No, yeah, there's no version of this where, like, he comes to run club one day, and I race him and win. That's not the right answer, right? No. You know what I'm also just realizing is that you told me a story,

and then I went, well, here's what really happened, and I mansplained to you what I think actually happened with no other context than what you told me. Uh, I gotta be better about this. No, I mean, well, I, uh, I do think, uh, we're, we're, we're all constantly learning. I think you're, you're, you're cleared to do that on a show that relies on us asking each other questions and giving each other answers. Okay. Like if we were both being super cautious and it was just a series of like one of us presenting information and the other one just being like, hey, I see you.

I hear you. All right. And then like moving on. That would be no good. Yeah. I don't like my instinct there though because i i don't think that that was just like well i know what this is i know this is a show and this is different i think i would have done that to anybody and now i gotta i gotta

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a really good idea i was thinking of getting into into running more i'm just uh i'm really curious or uh i'd like i'm kind of new to the area and i'm looking to meet more young professionals is that you and i was like well i i don't know if i'm a young professional. That probably means, the fact that I don't know probably means that I'm old. But I'm 35. And I've never heard from this woman again. I think that was the wrong answer. What was she looking for? Young 20-somethings.

But she was looking to network at your run club? I think she was looking to network at your run club i think she was she was probably looking for friends and like and i don't think 22 to 25 year olds uh think of 35 year olds yeah for that role right uh you're not on the same team um yeah what but professionals really throw me that's a dark horse word to use when you're looking for friends like uh i i assumed that meant college graduate so you're not looking for other college people and professional i think meant like seriously employed i i that to me was like as polite and as dressed up as you can clearly say uh i am a young 20 something who is looking to make friends with people who are in the in the workforce beyond like

i'm doing x until i could find my real job yeah yeah yeah okay oh boy god i forgot how scary it was to be 20. and young and yeah and trying to make friends okay that makes more sense now now i how how big would you say your run club is? How many people show up on an average basis? We've had, I think the most was three we've had, but there have been different groups of two to three runners across weeks. So six or seven people have joined run club so far. That's great. Yeah. i feel good about that i the impulse to even do that and the wherewithal to like write the the posts and everything i'm really proud of you dan i don't think i would have done that there's a there's there's one person um that we missed

forever because part of the posts that i do every week is I will be at this spot at roughly 620. And we will leave at exactly 630. And I got a notification when I got home after one of the Tuesday runs. A person who replied, 633, did you guys leave? And I replied like, yeah, man, at exactly 630. Yeah. Like, I think that aspect of Run Club is probably going to turn people off. But, like, we have to leave at exactly 6.30 because there have been nights when no one showed up and, like, I'm not going to waste my time, you know?

I'm going to get my run in. Could you... And I'm not, like, telling you what to do here with your Run Club because it's your Run Club. and I'm not telling you what to do here with your run club because it's your run club. Could you say that we leave every day, no matter what, at 625 and then just leave at 630 every day? No, why don't I just say 630, we leave, and then at 630, we leave?

Because everything in culture is telling you not to be on time for shit other than your run club. I've been to early to stuff before. I've been on time to stuff and been felt like a fool because i was on time for it why can't in just like this this one fucking instance the whole world bend to me well they can't at least three people can uh and maybe that's i mean you're obviously it's an up it's an uphill. It's going to be your entire time that you have this run club. But once people know the deal, then hey, maybe it'll work.

Yeah. And here's what's great about the deal is I've made the deal very clear. Yeah. So we don't even, there shouldn't even be a learning curve to the deal, Soren. Right. I'm not mad at you. I'm not mad at anyone. I love run club.

And I think people are great. And I think unreliability is charming. It's funny. As I've gotten older, my response to suffering unreliability has, has gone way down where I just, I don't suffer it at all. I don't, I get so mad at people when they are not reliable. And also I've become way less reliable because of children. And like, well, I guess COVID hasn't had a lot to do with that.

We're like these unexpected things come up. We're like, I've got to deal with this now. And I, I can't be on time for this thing anymore and so i've gotten way worse about my reliability and it's just it's not fair at all i'm a huge hypocrite uh daniel yeah i got a question for you it's a quick one hell yeah what what's an aspect or some aspects about you that are so boring that you feel like you have to lie about them? Because it's almost, it's like borderline embarrassing how boring they are. I can go first if you like to give you like a framework for this. Yeah, I appreciate that.

My food tastes are so boring that it's embarrassing. The best example of it is that people occasionally will be like, what's your favorite kind of ice cream? And that's like a conversation starter where everyone in the room is like rum raisin. Everyone's like, no, rum raisin, shit. It's mint chocolate. Mint chocolate tastes like toothpaste. It's bubble gum. What are you, six?

Like, you know, how the conversation goes. Yeah, no. With a bunch of people who hate each other. Yeah. No, I've been to straw man parties before. Go on. No, I've been to straw man parties before. Go on.

And I can never give my actual answer because then it becomes like the focal point of the whole conversation and in a way that's not very nice. But my answer is vanilla. Vanilla is my favorite type of ice cream. And sometimes people, even just given the option of chocolate or vanilla, they're like, no, I mean chocolate all the way. It's a no brainer. I disagree. Vanilla is like the perfect ice cream. And I would choose it over pretty much any other type of ice cream at any given circumstance. So here's my, my, my question for that. My quick question for that, because I am

famously bravely lactose intolerant. So this isn't a question that I engage with often. i engage with uh often and so i want to know when you when you have ice cream in uh in your dream scenario is the ice cream um just just the base and mostly a vehicle for the toppings no like i'm gonna have ice cream i'm gonna put i'm gonna get vanilla and then i'm gonna deck it all out i know what you're saying. And like, obviously vanilla is the best canvas for a Sunday or like a banana split or like a McFlurry or something. But no, I, while I do enjoy some toppings on, on vanilla, like I won't, I'm not going to turn them away.

Um, but, uh, if I just had, if I go to somebody's house and they've got some vanilla in the freezer, the straw straw man's house, uh, I uh i'd be like yes that's very exciting to me i will eat some vanilla ice cream in a bowl by itself i like that the straw man and the party and the straw man host in this house are the same are one in the same that the guy like had all of his friends who don't know each other and haven't met before for a clue style party and he asked now what's everyone's favorite ice cream and you were the only one you were like vanilla is correct sorry and you get it and then he just hands you a carton and i go oh look at you dumb motherfuckers no you guys wanted your stupid ice cream and now nobody gets any ice cream but me

um yeah i as soon as i said if i'm at somebody's house and I was like, what am I? 14? When was the last time I was just like at somebody else's house? And I was like, can I check your freezer for food? Do you have any, uh, sorry. It's, it's, it, I, I'm just fat. Do you have any treats? I know we're all adults here, but like, no, I don't, don't, you don't make a meal for

me or anything, but just like, do you have any treats? Any treats for me? Yeah. Okay. Uh, what kind of ice cream do you have any treats? Any treats for me? Yeah, okay. What kind of ice cream do you have? Birthday cake. Never mind. That's fine. No, no, no.

It's good. I'm fine. You know what? I'm full. I'm full. Yeah, vanilla and like, it's the same with like pizza. I will go to town on a regular cheese pizza yeah i don't want anything on it i mean if you put some stuff on i'm like okay well that's fine i'm i'm an adult i can eat these

things but if i just see a cheese pizza and i know that it's there among all the others i'm like yes because i know the only people that i'm gonna have to share that with are the kids yeah and you already got them beat they don't then what do they eat like a half a slice and they get distracted yeah i think vanilla is very fascinating to me uh just picturing you with a bowl with like a single scoop of vanilla in it eating it i would feel like oh it's one of those freaks from pleasantville before color got there someone's gotta help that guy someone's gotta jerk off in front of jeff daniels or something so he could fix everything calling something vanilla is like one of the biggest insults you can call it i hear like here's what you should be picturing soaring getting excited on his way home from the gym or being out some night

and being like, I'm gonna stop off at McDonald's and just get an ice cream cone and eating a vanilla kid's cone in my car like smiling about it being pulled over so that I can really enjoy it and

just like savoring this vanilla ice cream this is a scene where your wife meets with a private detective and is like, just this vanilla ice cream. This is a scene where your wife meets with a private detective and is like, just give it to me straight. Is he cheating on me? No, I think it's worse. It's worse. It's so much worse.

I have pictures. I don't know if you're going to want to see these. Look, as you can see, he dropped it and you'd think he would move on, but he just went back and got another one. And you'd think he would move on, but he just went back and got another one. I still think you can divorce him if you want. Yeah.

I've sat in my house with a bowl of just vanilla ice cream and like, you know what? I don't even want to watch TV while I'm eating this because it's going to distract me from the deliciousness. I'm going to sit at my counter and i'm gonna eat this my phone can wait so this was you you framed this question as uh a taste of yours that is so uh god help me vanilla yeah that uh you feel compelled to lie about it have you ever uh like lied at a party at this party yeah i mean the the straw man party is is a real thing that's happened where somebody has said, what's your favorite ice cream? We've done interviews before it cracked where people are like, what's a good joke?

What's a good joke question? They're like, what's your favorite kind of ice cream? And I will give different answers every single time. And answers that you think make you seem more interesting. Every bit of any time, like one of your anxieties is put on display is very fascinating to me because like i i have no shortage of anxieties but this this one is is is not one that is felt by me that you think well i can't say vanilla everyone will think that's bad i'm gonna pick one of the good ones and like listeners and i would like to know what

the good ones are if i was to say peanut butter cup everyone would just move the fuck on like nobody cares everybody's like yeah good enough and then like they go into another one that's how i keep my that's my version of keeping my head down peanut butter chocolate yeah that checks a lot of boxes all right this guy's normal let's move on unless there's somebody there who's like oh peanut butter ice cream oh i hate that and then you're like oh i have to defend this thing i don't care about now it's going to be revealed to everyone that i've never had it it I guess mine is it's similar but not as specific I I feel very embarrassed at just how much I love chain restaurants and not even McDonald's cuz like

McDonald's was was made in a lab to trick your brain into thinking it's good but like I have made a whole big show of my love for chilies on Twitter and it almost seems like a bit. And, and sometimes I wish it were, but like, I, I really love chilies and I really love Fridays and Applebee's.

And when I, I, I briefly relocated to New Jersey and, and was out of hell's Kitchen for a while. I was within two miles of an Applebee's and I was stoked. I would get Applebee's to go once a week. That was like my cheat meal because I didn't have to cook it and I could get whatever I wanted and it could be garbage. And it was just Applebee's and I would just get just disgusting boneless apple bees wings with that apple bee sauce and like yeah this is fucking

this is so tight this is so good if i remember correctly uh every single one of your high school date went to uh chili's yes correct so two things were constant chilies is date number one and uh uh and my virginity both things were consistent throughout high school and so i've been to chilies with you before and like we i picked up a menu and you like rolled your eyes like how's this dude not know what he wants and And the minute that the waiter shows up, they're like, can I get you some chips? And you're like, yeah, with some ranch. Yeah. I know the right way to do chilies.

That's correct. And then we also went to some Italian restaurant together. It was like part of a mall. Yes, we went. Because Carrabba's Italian restaurant, which is a chain but it's not everywhere there weren't any in california the nearest was in vegas and we were never going to go there but i but where where did we end up was that chicago or ohio uh i think that was in chicago i think it was chicago yeah because cody and michael were there and i was so stoked that there was uh uh carrabbas

within driving distance so i drove us to to the mall and went to the crowd because you know how all the best restaurants are in malls red robin your volcanoes all the ruby tuesday yeah so we went to carrabbas and i and i was so thrilled to like show it off to you guys this very basic chain i mean it was fine it was good yeah it was it was exactly what i wanted it to be which was like very filling and i didn't ever take a bite and be like yeah it was just like yeah i could that's the appeal of these restaurants to me and that's why i i like them so. And also, it's the consistency. It's like I can go to any Fridays in the country, probably the world, and get the potato skins there.

And they're going to be the same. They're going to taste exactly how I want them to taste. They're going to give me the same fucking cheese poops afterwards. But it doesn't matter because that's also part of it. Now, I'm sympathetic to this on one very specific front. And I think you know it because after we did our, we did a, what was that thing called? A Tough Mudder? We did a Tough Mudder, yeah.

And afterwards, I was like, I'd insistent that we go to this one restaurant that is exclusively part of malls. Do you remember where we went? Red Robin. Yes. And you made a really big point of every time that I wanted to go to Red Robin, calling it the wrong name just barely. Just to piss me off. And yeah, we went to Red Robin and Red Robin is a place that I don't, I think the first time I went was we had a coworker back in the demand media days that, uh, her mom died. And for some reason,

all of us went to the funeral. I don't, I mean, not you, but everybody who was like worked on demand media, like all these young people, 20 somethings went to her funeral, like an open casket funeral. It was very strange. And then afterwards we went to Red Robin and I had never been there before. And they brought out some fries and I was like, who, who are these fries for? Like, no, no, it's just bottomless fries. And I was like, say that one more time. And there were just like fries upon fries and I could eat as much as I want. And then any sort of burger that they had there, I could get as a turkey burger.

No questions asked. And I was lit. And I ate like the whiskey river something some fucking chain bullshit and fell in love and i was like i'm coming here for the rest of my life and now whenever i drive on the road i'm always and i see a mall come up i'm like peeking around it looking around to see if there's a red robin in it that i could stop at that's so funny it's it's such a basic ass chain the bottomless fries is is a really great touch and they also if i recall have like uh like brightly colored non-alcoholic drinks that's very exciting it's like do you want blue something from a fountain it's like i do i absolutely want

blue with my burger that has a steak knife through it and like and like crispy onion straws fried to hell that has somehow it has jim beam on the burger i don't know how it doesn't taste like that you know maybe just named it that yeah but like you're absolutely right they've got like the watermelon strawberry lemonades and things like that there where you're like yeah i guess i i guess i do want that it scratches the same itch as when you're a kid in a candy store and you weren't going after the good candy you're going with the aesthetic stuff you're like oh god look at the look how long those licorice whips are yeah what is that a a one unbroken connected yard of marshmallow tube when am i gonna even see this again of course i want that you're telling me you'll sell me paper with little dots of candy on it that i have to pry off with my teeth

take all my christmas money sir it just unraveling it like toilet paper um yeah so that's i i'm i'm glad that yours is also a food one that i'm sure that there are other aspects of my life that are very boring but I sort of come to terms with most of those because they're food I can do kind of privately. Yeah. Food I can celebrate alone. But there's other things like when it comes to Christmas and stuff, I'm so, I'm a basic bitch, man. I just like want my celebration to be exactly like it was for my parents, exactly like I see it on TV. Like I don't want any i don't want

to stray from that at all and i will get upset with you if you try to if you're trying to put something else on my stuffing or anything like that and i i feel like my general love of the sun and beaches is pretty basic and and like bordering embarrassing when i'd moved to la and had been there for years and people would ask me about it, like, what do you like? And I was like, I like the sun. It's so, so my favorite thing about it is probably it's warm most of the time. Sometimes it's not as warm and that's a real bummer, but that part goes away pretty fast. And then it's warm again. Yeah. I like going to the beach. Cause I like, I like the way the sand feels in between my toes.

Is that weird? Is that weird, guys? What do you have, like a beach volleyball team? No, I used to, but now I go to the beach like once a week. Do you surf? What do you do? I sit there. I sit there and just like sit and bake in the sun for a while.

And then if I have to pee or if it gets too hot then i go in the water and pee and cool down then i go back and i sit some more and then it's nighttime so i have to go home and go to sleep until it's sunny and beach again yeah that sounds that sounds about right that was that was your persona yeah anytime anyone came to visit me from home in los angeles they're like should we do the the like that hollywood walk of fame like i i haven't done that shit i don't know yeah maybe when they're like a show at the ucb uh it uh hasn't come up there's been nothing more terrifying than when i have guests in town they're like well show us the real la and i'm like oh no i don't know what the real L.A. is.

I do all the shitty stuff. I had a friend from Brazil visiting me here in New York pre-COVID. And she was like, I want a real, what do real New Yorkers do? I was like, well, they get up early and they go on a fishing boat and they shut up and they fish. And that's it. That's what they, that's the New York experience. That's what they're, that's what they're all talking about on TV. Every single one of them.

If we pass the Statue of Liberty while we're on the boat, that's not part of my plan. It just happened out that way. You can look at it if you want. I'm not gonna. I insist on not doing it. I'm focused on the fishing right now well daniel i think we can wrap up here oh cool um i'm gonna look for all of our contact information and how people can get in touch with us on twitter which we just said specifically don't do and uh while i do that

we didn't have time to get to it in this episode and i but i want to give it a shot because i like the idea when you pitched it to me and uh i apologize that we haven't done time to get to it in this episode, but I want to give it a shot because I liked the idea when you pitched it to me. And I apologize that we haven't done it so far, but we should do Daniel's dating Darbazi, which is that little section of the site, I mean, section of the podcast you wanted to carve out where you tell us a little bit about your most recent date. So go ahead and do that now.

Can you, I really want to do that, but real quickly, Darbazi is that it's a is that a portmanteau of daniel benghazi and then like an errant r in there how did you know no darbazi is a real structure it's one of those uh it's any sort of domed like structure that then has like a hole or a glass sky window at the very top of it so light shoots down in one very particular area it's kind of like a spotlight so this is like a room in which you stand under that spotlight and you tell us about your date wow i thought i was gonna make you the fool but you made me the fool okay that's good to know i like learning something uh so this is less a date and more of well first of all hey uh mom and dad i love you i need you

to stop listening right this second because this is this is less a date and more of a thing that happened recently on uh a dating app that i i uh won't mention the exact dating app but i matched with someone and i reached out and the conversation went cold and we'd only exchange like I say a thing, she says a thing and then it went cold for days and I was like okay I guess nothing's happening here and

then she got back in touch with me and she said I'm so sorry for the radio silence and I was like oh you don't need to apologize that's that's totally fine what's up what's going on how's your week going and she said my father passed and that's why i've been away and i said oh my god how how is your family how are you what's going on and she's like it's good uh my mom is devastated my brother

uh is trying to be support it's all really new just uh if you could just you know any distraction any jokes or light distractions are great i said oh uh do you want me to eat your pussy and it got her laughing i mean like laughing like she that was a response that she enjoyed and it was i think in the family of uh light jokey distraction uh and we're still talking god that could have gone that was such a limb to go out on. I know. I'm really pleased that that didn't break under you. But that's like, what a risk to take. I know.

Big swings. I hope that that's the story you have to tell your grandkids. You can follow Daniel on Twitter at DOB underscore Inc. You can follow me, Soren, at Soren underscore LTD. You can follow our CFO, Michael, at Make Me Bacon Please, with a PLS for please. Quick question at QQ underscore Soren and Dan. You can email us at QQ

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