Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - A Legally Correct Fever

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

Daniel's recording through day three of what his urgent care doctor insists is "just a sinus infection," but the guys still manage to spiral into a surprisingly coherent discussion about climate change, insurance companies, and how capitalism has convinced us all that working-while-sick is somehow a technological achievement. Plus: the slow evolution of nice sweaters into cleaning sweaters.Follow the guys on Bluesky:https://bsky.app/profile/sorenbowiehttps://bsky.app/profile/danielobrienThanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. Sign up for a $1/month trial period at www.shopify.com/qq

I always feel like, yeah, there are smart people who are working on this, who are fixing it, or not fixing it, but like... Mitigating. Mitigating it. I've lived all over the country and I've met lots of people, and I still haven't met someone who is like definitively working on climate change and can tell me what they're doing. Hahaha. Who did you get? Who do I be? Don't you remember? What's it out to? Word and order? Guide and order? Oh forget it!

Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here. I think you'll have a great time here. So hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel. The podcast where two best friends and co-writers

ask each other questions, give each other answers. You sound awful. Good Lord, just say, Soin, will you do the intro? Thanks to Shopify for supporting Quick Question. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs like myself the resources once reserved for big business. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period

at Shopify.com slash QQ, all lowercase. I feel like before we record, we get on and we talk for a little bit just to say hi and everything. And I think I sounded better even in that brief catch up before this because I tried to put some energy and life into my voice. Well, yeah, you know, like when you're in a car and you're like, well, let me creep in it.

Like it hasn't been working lately, but like, let's just see if it doesn't overheat. And then you go 20 miles an hour and you're like, this is fine. And then you get on there, you get, start going at 60 miles an hour and you're like, oh, fuck, this whole thing. The doors are falling off.

Yeah. That's where I'm at right now. The doors are falling off. I'm at day three of low but legally correct fever. And it's going to become pretty apparent on this podcast. I'm having tremendous brain fog from the fever today. I think exhibit A, as I said, legally correct. And that's not what I wanted to say.

It would be fun today for you to, like when you can't come up with a pop culture reference, it's just like not available at this time. You throw to me and I will give it to you. Like I'll take the reins today for one of those, for that job. Like I think I could, I won't give you the right answers, but what I'm saying is like, I could come up with something.

Yeah, that's all we need is answers. We gotta just fill space on the podcast. I thought I was having a bad day. So you've been taking a fever for three days? I've had, yeah. Sunday, I started getting, we're recording this on Wednesday. Sunday, I started getting a cough. And by Sunday evening, I could feel the cough morphing into something else. And I just,

like, there's, there are very few times where I know like 100% I'm about to get very sick. And this is one of those times where I was like, there's no way I'm waking up better. This is, this is going to be bad. And then was up at about two in the morning, Monday, technically, vomiting and just not sleeping. And that's been going on. Not the vomiting anymore. Welcome to the podcast, folks. But just like fever and coughing and chills and overheating and just like can't get my body temperature in line. I went to... This is my annoying urgent care story, or maybe it's not annoying. Maybe I should just trust doctors more.

But I went to urgent care and had this interaction twice in a row, first with the admitting nurse and then with a doctor where they asked me for my symptoms. And I said flu-like symptoms, because I'm trying to put my thumb on the scale a little bit. I said, flu like symptoms, coughing, vomiting, cramps, fever, headache, chills. And she is writing things down as I talk. And then she said, any vomiting? I said, yes.

That was in my list. And she's like, okay. And then the doctor did the exact same thing, except he was, when he asked any vomiting after I'd already said vomiting, and I said yes, he acted surprised. He was like, oh, vomiting too. It's like, yeah.

And then he was, huh? Yeah. And he was testing my breathing and going, doing all the stuff that doctors do. And said, after I gave them all of my list of symptoms that I'm dealing with, he said, what is the thing that is bothering you the most right now? I was like, right now, I guess the- You can't fucking remember I said vomiting. The cough is the worst. The cough hurts and I'll get into the coughing fits and I think it's the cough that's keeping me up.

And he said, all right, open your mouth and open my mouth one eye. And he said, well, you have a cough hurts and I'll get into the coughing fits and I think it's the cough that's keeping me up." And he said, all right, open your mouth and I opened my mouth one eye. And he said, well, you have a sinus infection. That's why you're coughing and that's why you're feeling like crap. I'm oxycellin, you'll be good. And I was like, that's it? It was yeah. And he sent me away.

The whole thing was less than two minutes of an examination. And again, like maybe the doctor is, is he could just tell immediately. And maybe I'm the one who doesn't know anything about medicine. I feel like it's not a sinus infection, especially because there's been like a big thing that's been going around everywhere. That isn't a sinus infection, but I don't know. Well, okay.

I'm certainly getting medicine for a sinus infection. I have a lot to say about this. Great. One, it's rare that you have both like expector, like a cold symptoms and vomiting at the same time. I agree. That's not super common. I think that, I mean, people have always talked about

the flu is such like a wide catchall. Like people use it for everything. And sometimes people say like there's vomiting associated with that. I think generally those are like different tracks. Like you've got a science track and you've got an intestinal track. And like when those two things are not,

both of them are fucked up at the same time, it's entirely possible you have two things at once. You just have a cold, which would be, that's what all the sinus stuff is. That wouldn't be knocking you out like this. You're getting knocked out by whatever this stomach bug is that you've also got. And so he's treating something, and this is, okay, there's two sides to this that I want to address. One, I don't like either when I go into a place and I'm like, hey, I'm feeling like shit, like, can you help me?

And they're like, they just kind of like look at me over and they're like, you got this. I'm like, no, you don't fucking know that. If you're wrong. And they give you, when they prescribe you, he prescribed you amoxicillin because he was like, I gotta just move through these patients. And amoxicillin's not doing shit for you. A sinus infection doesn't even you amoxicillin because he was like, I gotta just move through these patients.

Yeah. And amoxicillin is not doing shit for you. A sinus infection doesn't even need amoxicillin. Like it is an infection, but it's still not one that you're gonna succumb to or anything like that. Like a sinus infection, you get over on your own. He's just like, same way when you take your dog to the vet and the vet doesn't know what to do,

and the vet's like, feed him chicken and rice. Like that's going to be your solution. I think that you got looked over. But I'm going to also say now, I have a new found sympathy for doctors at both urgent care and ERs because of my brother-in-law who is an ER doctor and like a completely overwhelmed ER doctor with the amount of people that come in. And he would probably have just said to you, go home, you don't belong here. Which is like, I think a really hard thing to hear when you're not feeling well,

but he sees so many sick people a day and people that should not be at the ER that I was like, oh, okay, I get it. I understand that. I understand why you've lost patience for all of people. I talked to a few other people, like some friends of mine have been sick with something that sounds very similar to what I have for a full month. And some who are medical professionals have said like, we're completely overwhelmed because of this thing that's going around. And it's like filling up our hospitals, filling up our waiting rooms. It's a real

menace right now, whatever this, this virus is. Even if, if the doctor at urgent care had said that to me, that would have been great to hear. If he was like, look, you have this thing probably that everyone has and it's just got to take its time and get through you. That would have gone a long way to explaining to me why he was so quick to get me out of there. Although I do kind of respect, I give him a list of symptoms and he's like, all right, what's the one that bothers you the most?

That's how I think I would be as a doctor too. If someone gave me a list of things like, oh, that's a lot, all right, what's a, give me your top two and I'll see what kind of medicine I have in the old drawer. Let's tackle this one at a time. And when I say that, I mean, let's tackle the first one. Yeah. And then you go somewhere else. That's yeah, poor guy.

Are you saying that other people are having the exact same symptoms? Like they're having both the vomiting and what the fuck is this thing? I don't know. If I say norovirus, is that a thing that scans for you? Yes, but this is not norovirus. It's not that? Okay, sick. No.

Anyway, one of the things that I was thinking about as we were preparing for this podcast is and just like knowing that I was going to do it, even though I sound and look like this and feel like this is just how quickly we as a society, separate from podcast and even before COVID when so much work went remote, we adopted so quickly and without question the practice of working while sick as soon as remote work became possible and and popular. Like this is back in the in the crack.com days when we had remote offices and, you know, we were spread out across the country. No one even thought for a second, like, oh, I'm sick. I'm so sick that I wouldn't go into an office. That means I shouldn't go to work period. No, we would all just work kind of sick if we were sick.

And no one forced us to do it. It's just a weird, and no one forced us to do it. It's just a weird, horrible side effect or direct effect of capitalism that there was all these amazing tools and innovations made in the field of going to work under terrible circumstances. Yeah, it was like, everyone at least took a turn during the pandemic where they were like, you know what?

We should be more considerate of others when we're sick. We shouldn't be in spaces with other people. And that was the first time that it even occurred to a lot of humans. Yeah. They're like, you don't go, you don't power through. You don't go into work anyway, even when you're sick. And like the idea that people should be fucking washing their hands and shit like that at work,

like that wasn't happening either. And that's good. But you're absolutely right that as soon as we all got home and we just could go to work by opening a laptop, the tacit understanding was, oh, well then you should be working all the time for this thing, no matter the circumstances. You're on the road, that's fine. You have the laptop in a hotspot. We have given ourselves entirely to the job and to the podcast, it turns out.

I got to say, Dan, thanks for being here. Hey, man, man. It's not the podcast. I don't want to complain about the podcast any more than I usually do. It's a very easy job, and it's a fun job to do. But unlike any other job, when I start to get sick and I consider the possibility of calling you and canceling the show, a part of me is just like, well, well, and then what? It's our business.

We own this business. We have to do an episode at some point. Yeah. That's, I agree with you. We could have canceled, but I, you know, this thing's not going away. It doesn't sound like it. No.

So what would we have done? It's tomorrow when you feel exactly the same. Because other times where one of us had had to like cancel or push a record, we also, again, because it's our business, we have to come up with some kind of solution or alternative where it's like, we're not going to do this episode, but we will do two on Friday, or we will get a guest to come in. And I was not prepared to come up with those solutions. I'm a little jealous that you have what seems to me to be a sick uniform. I think I would feel better if I had a sick uniform. If I had a cardigan that felt like a sick cardigan, you know, like you see them in depression

commercials. Yeah. I don't have one of those and I'm realizing now that I think I want one. That's pretty great. I want something cozy to get into. It's unfortunately, and this is true of a lot of my clothes, was not originally purchased to be a sick cardigan. Like a lot of my clothes, it was purchased to be

like a normal outside piece of apparel. But so much of my stuff, as my wife learns often, gets stains on it and then it becomes cleaning clothes and cooking clothes and stuff that's allowed to get stains on it. It's like, what happened to your nice sweaters? Like, I spilled like a, like a liter of pasta sauce on it. So now, now it's my cleaning sweater. I'll tell you, ladies and gentlemen, I am in my forties and still when I am at a party

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Go to shopify.com slash qq to start selling with Shopify today. shopify.com slash qq. Yeah, I have those clothes as well. But I but I've been again, I don't wear like, I don't have sweatpants or things like that. Like I don't even when I'm sick, I'm like, getting up to go do the thing I need to do work or this podcast.

And I'm just like putting on cold jeans, cold stiff jeans. Yeah, hard pants, like a lunatic. But I've been enjoying, not enjoying, being sick and having my wife at work, I've done a lot of sitting on the, more sitting on the couch than I ever do in my life. I'm not, I'm not a, I'm constantly in motion in general.

And I'm really trying to beat the sickness and not push myself by like trying to run it out or anything like that. So I've just been staying on the couch and enjoying the comfort watch of Marvel movies that I've seen a million times. Yeah. And also on Monday, I got to stay up

and watch your latest episode of American Dad. Hey, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Bam, bam, bam, bam. Do you wanna talk about it for a while, please? Yeah, sure. Great. First of all, what an honor that you watched my episode on your birthday.

It was very kind of you. But now I also see that there was nothing, there were no other options for you. You weren't doing anything else. I felt a little bit bad because I knew I was going to watch that episode live when it aired and I wanted to send you a picture of the screen with your name on it as the written by. Yeah. And because that's still always a thrill for me. And I don't know if you could tell from the picture, but I'm taking the picture while

fully horizontal on a couch and like the frame is not great. It's a terrible picture. It's the best I could do. You did. So I also really still enjoy, I mean, worked on the show for six, this is my seventh year. I still really enjoy seeing written by, a whole screen dedicated, just written by and then my name. And whether or not that's true is debatable. Like whether the episode's actually written by you or not, because so many other people are like working on it. And by the end,

so many people have touched it and made it so much better that it's really unfair to be like, this is my episode. But I still get a real thrill out of that. I love seeing it. And when you said to me that was very helpful. One thing I noticed when you said to me, not the framing, that was fine. I did not care. I noticed that I know what scene that came up in. That is not the first scene. That's not the cold open, obviously. But then there's a cold open, then there's credits and the credit sequence. Good morning, USA. And then there's a bunch of extra credits you see on the screen going into the next scene. Because we're overflowing with people.

You've got to introduce all the executive producers and stuff. And I saw what you sent me and I was like, man, this is not even the second scene. This is like deep into the episode and we're still doing credits. There's a lot of credits on your show. I am glad you can talk about that because I know as that's,

I had my phone out for a while. I think like any minute now I'm gonna you can talk about that because I know as that's, I had my phone out for a while. I think you're like, any minute now, I'm gonna see written by. And it was like, there are a lot of fucking producers on this show. My hands getting tired. Let me put this down for a second. We're already through the first act

and we haven't even gotten to the written by screen yet. Yeah, I'm surprised to see that because I also, when we finish, when we like get the episode all done, everything, one of the last things we're doing is the mix where you're doing all the sound. And I'm there for that, but I'm also, I'm not seeing a lot of the credits come up. In fact, I think we have placeholder credits throughout that.

So I don't see it until it's on TV. And then I'm like, oh man, we should do something about that. And then the other thing is if you have an episode that ends and you're gonna run up the adventure or the excitement up until the last scene and you don't have this kind of fall off of everything's wrapping up and getting back to zero moment, then you also have credits over that at the end

because credits start over the last scene. And so again, we're just like sandwiched in by all this text on screen. And it was just surprising to see. Well, thank you for watching it, Daniel. I appreciate it. Yeah. Our show will do the same, not the exact same thing, but we have our credits at the end

of every episode. And my parents will take a picture of the screen and they will send it to me as a cute little tradition every week that they have. And normally, if it's just like a standard episode, the credits will run on like a shot of John at the desk, waving to the audience or something like that. But every once in a while, they try to make it more dynamic. If like the episode ends with a sketch, they'll have like some B-roll of the sketch, or if there's some weird in-studio thing, B-roll of the in-studio thing,

or a call back to some random thing. We as writers never have any, we have never have any say in what is going to be on screen over the credits. And in any of the rehearsals that we attend or stream on Zoom, we never see the end credits. It's always a complete surprise to us. So sometimes my parents will send a picture of the TV.

And it's just like a slow push zoom on a stuffed alligator written by Daniel O'Brien. I'm like, what the fuck is that? Like, it's a callback to something that I don't even remember in the episode. What is the show? That's great. I have an important question to ask you, Daniel,

about your sickness. Okay, I hope the question is long. I hope the question is 42 minutes long. And I'm hesitant to ask it because I don't know, you seemed very nervous the last time I brought this up and I talked about it in my own life, but now I want you to like be aware of it. How's your, while you're sick,

has your penis been polite? You explained to me what that meant before. I'm saying, I had noticed that during my sicknesses, how polite and out of the way my penis would get. Got it. How it would like, it would like blend up against the testicles in a way that was like, hey, I'm not, listen, I get it,

you're dealing with your own thing, I'm not gonna be an issue for you today. And it would like, it would just, it was so good at like staying out of the way during a sickness. And I was also commenting that you really acknowledge it because the testicles are not, they're like bad roommates. Yeah.

When you're sick, like they are, they're terrible. They're all over the place. Sure. And so I want you to just, you don't have to like say whether it is or not, I'm just saying, hey, be aware of it, notice it, and then just give thanks. Okay. Okay, great.

it and then just give thanks. Okay. Okay. Great. Do you want to hear about my bad day, Daniel? I would love to hear about your bad day. I'm so excited. It's not, is it related to the fires in Los Angeles? Yeah. Damn. I, so for anyone who doesn't know, it's very windy in Los Angeles right now, and like 90 mile per hour winds, and there are fires everywhere you look. In every direction, there's smoke clouds. The sun, usually when there's fires in LA, you get kind of like this red sun that is very apocalyptic, but right now we don't even have that. It is such an impenetrable cloud of collective smoke that you can't see anything. It just looks like a cloudy day, a really cloudy day. It's dark outside. Now, I was walking from my tea to do this podcast. And it's so windy out. And so fiery that a leaf blew into my tea. And when I looked at the leaf, it had ash on it. I thought not like

a cindering, it's almost like on fire, but it was like the ash that you get all over your car when you live in Los Angeles during fire season. So I was like, well, I can't drink this. And it made me think, Daniel, that this whole global warming thing has become a real headache. Oh. A real, it's very inconvenient for me. We don't talk enough about how global warming ruins a midday tea. It's terrible.

Something I was really looking forward to. I was barely outside at all. And global warming came and was like, not today. Yeah. So I also last night with my children, obviously I'm making light of a bad situation. But last night, I went to go pick up my children. Obviously, I'm making light of a bad situation. But last night, I went to go pick up my daughter. Now, the first fires that started here in the Pacific Palisades, if people don't

know where that is in relationship to Los Angeles, west and north, it's up in the Santa Monica mountains basically. But we're getting these things called the Santa Ana winds, which blow from the north. And so it's blowing all of that kind of our direction, but mostly kind of like over Santa Monica and all the fires over towards Santa Monica. So it felt very much like a, even though it's very close to us, it was a not my problem right now. I have some other things to deal with kind of situation. We also didn't know how big the fires were yet. You could just kind of see them in the distance. You see the smoke. I went to go pick up my daughter from school and it was like twilight.

Twilight. Flush. That was good? You got it on the second time. Okay, twilight. Yeah. It was twilight out and I was driving to pick up my daughter and I get, make a turn on one of this road

that her school is on and then it becomes like this big long straightaway. I didn't realize, basically looking directly at those mountains where the Palisades are, and I just see this looming fire coming down the mountain. I was like, oh, that shit, that's a lot closer than I thought it was. Also, it's huge.

We can see it from Culver City. That's Palisades, It's miles, miles away. Yeah. And I can see the actual flames. I can see how big they are. And so that was fairly unnerving in a way that it was much closer to me than I anticipated. And then three more fires started since then.

So things aren't great here. Some people I've had to evacuate that I know. But we are pretty safe where I am. Except for this goddamn tea situation. I know. That really sucks, man. It's global warming. It's bad, bad stuff.

Fire season when I lived in LA a million years ago, seemed like it was the latest it would get would be November. Yeah. So it's so charming to me that you still can't talk about fire season. Okay. Because there's no such thing anymore. There's no such thing as fire season anymore. It's all fire season now.

Okay. Because there's no such thing as fire season in most other places. That's true. When I came to LA and they were like fire season, I was like, you guys have most of the year, you've got the weather on point. But this fire season thing that you invented, I don't think you realize it that we don't have it in New Jersey. And you're not doing it in other places. Yeah.

So yeah, we used to have a fire season, which was like a very dangerous time because everything was dried out. We hadn't had rains in forever. It doesn't usually rain here until like December, sometimes late November. And then during that little period of time, it's a real problem. That went away. Now we don't get rain even through December. We haven't had rain yet. We haven't had rain into January. And so everything's super dry. And then we get these darn things called the Santa Ana winds that dry everything out even more. And everything went up at once this time. And it's like houses, like entire streets of houses. And it's very easy to get depressed about this kind of thing, because you see also, you're on social media, so you're following

what's going on with the fires, because you're curious and you're concerned and fearful. And then you see people who are going into evacuated zones to go take selfies, and you're like frustrated and mad. And then you find out that people just not even in those evacuation areas panicked and just abandoned their cars out on the road. And so emergency vehicles can't get through.

And that also makes you feel pretty bad about the state of things. And I was talking to Gabe before this podcast started because he was lamenting the fact that it does sort of feel like we're in decline as a species, like things are going wrong. And it's become well-trod territory to say that over and over again that, oh, we're all fucked, like we're doomed, we're all fucked. And he's saying it feels more and more true every day.

He's a little worried about the current circumstances, especially. And I was trying to explain to him that I don't generally adhere to that. I don't think that it's the case. I don't think that this is all just headed in one direction and there's no stopping it. And we've got 10 good years left or whatever. I think that every time in even modern history, like we've always felt that way. I think that people, there's always like a sense that it's just in us that like, that this has got to be the last couple of years. Like all these changes and everything that have been made, the industrial

revolution, you got to think about like soot all over everything and like everyone's coughing up black mucus and they're like, I think we did it. I think this is gonna be it. I gave him the example of like 1968 or 1969 when there are snipers in clock towers and Nixon is president and there's a war going on and like nobody can trust anything and how hopeless that must have

felt. And I think that there's just, it's new things all the time, but there's always something that's making it feel like, no, this is the worst it's ever been. This has to be the worst that it's ever been. And I just don't think that that's true. I think that there may not be precedent for what you're dealing with, but this isn't the... As Alex Goldman would put it, the wolves are at the door. I don't think that's true. I think that we're going to be fine. We're going to come up with solutions and we are like your doctor. We're going to take it one thing at a time. We're going to come up with solutions. And we are like your doctor. We're going to take it one thing at a time. We're going to be like, let's figure out what the worst symptom. And we're going to deal with that right now.

And I know these other ones are much bigger and looming. But let's just figure this first one out. Let's get one under our belt. And then we'll get a good running start at the others. Yeah. I was trying to find the name of a comedian who has something very relevant to say about climate change, but I can't find it because my brain's not working. But James A. Castor and is this what she was talking about in her special about how she is

going deaf, but she decided she was not going to work on, she's not going to learn sign language. She was not going to get a head start on sign language because the doctors told her that advances in hearing aids and hearing replacement surgeries were coming along so fast that she's not even going to have to worry about sign language because they're working on it and it's going to be great. And she took great comfort in that and that's why she was not working on sign language at all.

And then she asked the audience, but just like real quick, does anyone in here work on hearing replacements or anything like that or hearing aids and everyone in the audience said no. I was like, okay, do you know anyone who does? And everyone in the audience said no. I was like, okay. Now, here's the part of the show where I reveal that I'm not talking about deaf. I'm talking about climate change and how that's a very similar approach to things that I've taken comfort in for so long is that I

always feel like, yeah, there are smart people who are working on this, who are fixing it, or if not fixing it, but like... Mitigating. Mitigating it, doing something is what I've taken great comfort in. And the older I get and the more people I'm around, I start to think like, is it crazy that I've lived all over the country and I've met lots of people and I still haven't met someone who is like definitively working on climate change and can tell me what they're doing?

I listen to so many podcasts. Yeah. Well, there's no money in it. That's the problem. There's a lot of turnover and it also is like being on the front lines of a war. You're not allowed to stay out there very long because it just destroys you. Coll. And so Colleen works on it. Colleen works on it, but from more of a policy standpoint. So a lot of the spearheading that California does in terms of climate advancements and trying to mitigate climate change,

she's worked on a lot of those. A lot of those policies that get implemented, she helped start them from the beginning. And it's such a long and slow and arduous process those. A lot of those policies that get implemented, she helped start them from the beginning. It's such a long and slow and arduous process where everybody has their hand in the pie for a different reason and not all of it's good intention. There's so much politics around it that she really does every once in a while just like, burn out. She's like, I can't deal with this. burnout. Sure. Like, I can't deal with this. And it's really hard. It's hard for her. And she's not even one of the ones who's like, I'm actually out there putting those black inflatable balls on top of Silver Lake reservoir to make sure that it's not, a bunch of it

isn't getting evaporated. Like she's not even doing, she's not doing that stuff. She's doing the stuff that's like all big theoretical and broad strokes types of stuff. And it gets really, really tough and overwhelming. And I think that there, you see a lot of other people that just leave, just don't do it anymore because they're like, I can't deal with this. So that's not great. It's not great that that's happening. Yeah. It's great that your wife is actually working on this

and is one of the good ones and hasn't gotten completely burnt out on it yet. This can't be what the episode's about, Sorin. I sure can. We can talk about climate change. We're allowed. Climate change, we're allowed. I feel like, I can't remember if I've complained on this podcast before about the house buying process

and insurance specifically. Yeah. Have I complained about it? No, but I, hold on. You're already at the point where you have to get home insurance? Yeah, we're getting the house, spoilers.ers. I wanted to be healthy when I was talking about that. Yeah, yeah. Everything's great. But it took a bit of time to get insurance because we are,

because of proximity to the coast that there were some like the, all the insurance companies that you heard of, they're like, no, we don't wanna touch that because it's near the coast. And it's like, well, we're not really near the coast. We're like a Jersey shore town, but the coast coast itself is a certain distance away. And like, we're not technically in a flood zone and the insurance companies are still like,

yeah, no, I know it's not technically a flood zone. We don't care. We don't want to touch it kind of thing. And, uh, there's a lot of things that are going on in California that are similar where like places in the Palisades, places in Malibu insurance doesn't want to touch because of the fire risk. And as a, as a buyer, it was very frustrating to me, where it's like, I didn't choose to get insurance. I'm not allowed to have a house without insurance.

I'm being forced to do that. I should just be able to have options for it. I don't understand this system. Now, as a citizen concerned about climate change, it's a problem that's only going to get bigger and more relevant to more people, that insurance companies, as it gets literally more difficult to live on all coasts everywhere, insurance companies are just like not

going to insure your homes homes because they just can't. You can't insure Malibu homes. You can't insure coastal towns against fires and floods. And that's just the reality of things. Yes. It's become, yes. So you know this from living in Los Angeles, but for a long time, earthquake insurance was separate from normal insurance because normal insurance wasn't crazy enough to cover

earthquake damage. And earthquake, so this separate industry arose called earthquake insurance, which was essentially a scam. It was like, with the understanding that you would pay into this thing and maybe you would get money back if there was an earthquake, but if there was actually a bad enough earthquake that it did significant damage to your house, everybody else would have had the exact same damage. And there's no way an insurance company could have dealt with all of that at the exact same time, like the same day. And so it would have just bankrupt the company and then they would never

have to pay out. So a lot of people just forwent it, had foregone it. They just didn't choose to have- Forwent? I love that. I hope that's a word. Forwent. They forwent it. And so we didn't for a long time have earthquake insurance. And since we've had children, I've actually gotten it.

But it's the same thing with like flooding here. Like flooding, flooding isn't accounted for in your normal insurance. You'd have to get something separate for that. And it's just like this out essentially because insurance companies are like, I don't wanna say to their credit because I don't think they owe them any credit.

They know that it's impossible. It wouldn't be possible for them to ensure that kind of thing. So my mom is dealing with that in Colorado where it's getting drier and drier. There's beetle kill. All the trees are dying to beetles because of climate change. So there's more and more fire danger there. And she lives in a log cabin in the woods. And so every year she has to do this remediation of trees

where like you move trees further and further back from the house. You have to get them a certain distance before they'll even consider you for coverage. And it does feel like the industry, the bottom's about to drop out on this whole thing because you're in like hurricane area. That's probably what I'm assuming why they won't insure you, because you're in a hurricane area. That's probably

what I'm assuming they, while they won't insure you, because they're like worried about hurricanes. And so those are happening. Those are more and more prevalent now, especially in areas where they didn't used to be up further north on the coast, like New Jersey. And so you've got all these places that maybe there's a housing market and like places people want to live. But if you can't insure them, no one can live in those houses. And then the housing market drops. The housing market dies.

And then we're back in 2008 all over again. And it does feel like that's possible that that will happen, that just insurance becomes so untenable that nobody has the money to really buy a house anymore. becomes so untenable that nobody has the money to really buy a house anymore. Yeah, it is one of the rare times where, uh, the, the cold ruthlessness of capitalism

aligns with how I feel socially and morally that the insurance companies are like, no, we're not going to ensure this. What are you fucking crazy? Insure Malibu? No, come on. Look at the, it makes no sense. Have you seen the news? Climate change is real. Like we're insured, come on. All we care about is money. This is a bad bet. Right.

It's really hard to see now on, as the fires are raging here, seeing people on the news, wearing their masks in front of a burning house, being like, my mom has lived here for 75 years. They just cut her insurance like a month ago. So you've been buying into insurance all this time. And that's like the point of insurance, right?

You've bought into it all this time with the expectation that at some point I'll get that money back and maybe more if I need it because of my house. That was the gamble I was taking. But you buy into it and buy into it and buy into it. And then the insurance is like, oh no, it would be too expensive to do that. I'm gonna not do that. I'm not gonna give you any money.

And then you have to be like, not only did you buy the millions- Don't just give me back the money I gave you then. Well, no, we're not gonna do that. We're not doing that. Yeah, it's such a, you're so helpless in that situation. It's really, it's scary. My mom has asked both my brother and I, she's like, do you want me to hang on to the

house? Because she doesn't know she wants to keep living there. And she wanted to know if it was important to us, did we want it someday? And both my brother and I were like, that sounds like such a nightmare to have to deal with insuring that place. And I like, I love this is the house I grew up in. It's the only one I've known. My dad and my mom built it together. But I'm like, I don't think I could handle that. I don't think I could handle the headache

of having a place that I know could just explode at any minute. Yeah. Oof. Oh boy. It's okay to talk about things like this on the podcast. No, I don't. Yell at me. I'm sick.

We're talking about sad things. I rewatched The Martian. That was, you know what? That might be part of my optimism right now. Okay. Is it, you know what? That might be part of my optimism right now. Okay. That's a bad situation. If you're not familiar with the book, The Martian or the movie, The Martian, it's a guy who gets stuck on Mars for a very long time. He's stuck up there for two and a half years or something like that. And it's a very realistic look at how both on the ground, NASA and this man on Mars would be working together to try to get him back home

and keep him alive long enough to do that. And the way that the book was originally written, as far as I understand it, it was very much like John Dies at the End where the author was releasing a chapter at a time online. He garnered an audience of people who were into this kind of thing, especially scientists. And every time he'd release a chapter where something would happen that was unfeasible, they'd fucking tell him about it. They wouldn't shut up about it. And so he'd change it. He'd be like, well, how could it work? And they'd be like, like this, or like this, or like this. And he'd be like, okay. And he'd change it. So it's like this peer reviewed almost novel. And then he made it, and then it got turned into a movie. and it's really, really fun to watch.

It's very good. It's very, it's compelling to watch. You know you have a movie star when you can watch a single guy on another planet just talking to himself and you're like, I'm in. I love this. Yes. Paul Miscau could never. But it made me very optimistic about what we can do and how people collaborate. When the threat is immediate, I should say, people still feel like climate change is not the top priority and that sucks, but it's the case. And as things like this happen, it does make it more immediate for everybody and they're forced to deal with it.

And when we actually choose to sit and buckle down and deal with something, I think that as a society, we are very good at doing that. Yeah. I agree with you. And I, speaking of movies, I can leave a little preview for what I want to talk about in future episodes because I also rewatched a movie recently, Soarin', and I wanted to talk to you about it in this episode, but I'm too sick and I don't want to waste it so listeners

Stick around Sit on your podcast app for a week and wait for a new episode to drop next week We're gonna talk about drum roll, please The 1992 Rodney Dangerfield comedy ladybugsugs. Soren, have you seen it? I love Lady Bugs. Oh, I can't wait to talk about it. I have a lot of thoughts. That's a dangerous banger.

I haven't seen it in a very long time, but that was a, I don't even know why it was so seminal for me. I think I was, I was emulating Jonathan Brandes in a lot that I did when I was young, because I thought he was- I think I've seen your, your headshots from, from high school, I think. I see, I could trace a straight line there.

What an embarrassing thing to have, headshots in high school. For everyone to know about me. Yeah, I had headshots in high school. It was a different time. I was confused. But yeah, I think I was trying to be... He seemed like a dude who had it figured out.

He seemed like a cool kid and he seemed like he liked suffocating himself with a belt in a closet and I was into that. Yeah. I'm curious if... You can decide this for yourself. If you think it would be better for you to re-watch Ladybugs before our next episode to talk about it together, or if you want to discuss it with your half memory and my full memory.

Okay, I think it's gonna be the latter. I'm pretty good with this movie. This movie is one of the ones that stuck with me. In fact, I remember the first time I saw it and where I was and everything. I don't know why this is... This movie is seminal for me, but there we go. Well I was just trying to hang on until we reached the 40 minute mark and here we are at 43.

That's got to be enough episode, right? Yeah, we can be done. We can be done. All right. Daniel has, oh, slowly slipping out of frame, everybody. This has been quick question with Soren and Daniel. You knew that. You can find us anywhere you stream your podcasts. You can also find us on Apple and you can get an Apple subscription and then you'd have access to our bonus content. We do a little untucked after dark version of this podcast. It's a little shorter, but it's a lot of fun with Daniel and I just kind of talking to each other, really fulfilling on the original promise of this podcast, which was two best friends really catching up. You can find that on Apple Podcasts if you have the subscription or you can do that through our Patreon if you want to give us money for doing this podcast, which I'm not going to

be opposed to anymore. I think that that's fine and a good use of your money. I also want to- You know what's crazy, Sorin? So I do a sub stack that listeners can check out. It's my book club. You can find it by Googling Daniel O'Brien's sub stack. And it's a free sub stack that goes to your inbox once a month with book recommendations and my thoughts on them. And even though it's free, you can sign up with the option to pay

if I ever turn payments on. And you could pick how much money that is. And someone signed up for $80 that I could just turn on whenever I want. Whoa. $80 for the whole year? Yeah. That's crazy that someone was willing to, I like that person, find that person. It's a little strange because like I understand

like a $5 or a 10-dollar option for it, but 80 really seems like someone has thought about the value of a year's worth of my thoughts. Somebody crunched the numbers. That's wonderful. Yeah. So you can subscribe to our Patreon. You get extra bonus content.

You can also find us, Daniel and I on blue sky, just doing jokes, nothing political, nothing out of, nothing about the actual world. Just doing jokes. And you can't find Gabe Harder, but he is our sound engineer, editor, producer, and the glue to the show. And other than that, we have a theme song by Merex that if you enjoyed, you might find their music

anywhere you stream music, or go to merex.bandcamp.com to find full albums. That's it. That's it, bye. Daniel, I hope that you feel a lot better. Thank you, me too, man. All right, bye. I've got a quick, quick question for you, all right.

I wanna hear your thoughts, wanna know what's on your mind. I've got a quick, quick question for you, all right. The The answer's not important I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favourite? Who did you get? Who do I be? Do you remember? What's it out to?

Where did all the goings go? Oh forget it! I saw a movie Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here