Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - GIFT UPDATE! + Food Youtube, Daryl Dixon Recaps, Weird Media Habits

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

The guys convene to talk about why it's actually good to prepare for Christmas early and have a conversation about their weird media proclivities - from reading recaps of shows you don't watch to the wonders of the BeardMeetsFood YouTube channel. All that PLUS Soren's got a substantial update on the status of Daniel's highly anticipated birthday gift.Get 15% off your next gift at uncommongoods.com/QQFollow the show on socials: https://www.linktr.ee/QQPodcastSoren Bowie: https://twitter.com/Soren_LtdDaniel O'Brien: https://twitter.com/DOB_INC

I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright? I wanna hear your thoughts, I wanna know what's on your mind I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright? The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favorite? Who did you get? What do I be? What was it I could wear? Did all the boys 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 So, hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where our two best friends and comedy writers ask each other questions and give each other answers. I am one half of that podcast, senior writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, author of How to Fight Presidents with Daniel O'Brien, and we are one week away from Thanksgiving, and you know what that means.

It's Christmas, and I am the Christmas boy, Daniel O'Brien. Joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, say ho-ho. Ho-ho. Ho-ho-ho-ho. Why, hello, everyone. Why? Why is a weird word that we, you know, I know your fascination was so, but why is also one

of those ones that like, you shouldn't be allowed to start a sentence with it, but you can start any sentence with it. I would love to, as soon as this podcast is done, get into the history and usage of why in the context of why, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you're up to something. Yeah. Like, I don't know what function that does in that sentence. And I think you can leave it. Why?

Why? Hello. Yeah. I have to put some more thought into it. I'm not prepared to talk about that. I just- Wait a minute. You think you need to put more thought than no thought?

Well, I don't generally for most things, but in this case, I'm willing to make an exception. Usually, if I think about it for five seconds, I'm like, well, exhausted that. I'm tired. This episode is sponsored by Uncommon Goods, an online shop dedicated to unique and high quality gifts made by artists and independent businesses. To get 15% off your next gift, go to uncommongoods.com slash QQ. Are we really thinking about Christmas? Are you already buying Christmas presents? I am already done buying Christmas presents.

Oh my God. When did you start? I started in October. I think this might be the habits of someone who grew up lower middle class with not a lot of money, rearing its ugly head again. I was on strike and not making any money for 148 days. And then in October, I started making money again. And if you're poor and you have money, you spend it because you think, what if I never have money again? I'd

better spend it now. Because when you're poor, no one teaches you how to be financially responsible. So as soon as I started getting paychecks again, I was like, great, now I can take care of Christmas. And what am I going to do in the future? I won't be Christmas in the future. Right. Also, like you don't know that that money is going to stick around. Like money is so much more ephemeral when you don't have it, or when you grew up without it. Sometimes money would show up and then someone would make a bad decision or something and be like, oh, the money's gone. Right. And so you're like, well, just spend it. And when you grow up without, and I keep saying this, but I don't want to like

overstate our situation. We were a comfortably lower middle-class family that we were never like completely struggling. But I certainly didn't feel like a person who had money for most of my life. And when you are a person who fits that description, and then you do get money, you don't really think about what could happen if you lose that money, because you know that already. You can live on ramen noodles and nothing. You've survived that way. So that is more comfortable than, oh my God, grandpa gave me $50 for Christmas Christmas I'd better buy a Charlotte Hornets starter jacket or else this money is just going to keep

sitting here and I don't know what's going to happen to it. Collecting dust. Yeah I guess that's right. Well congratulations on having bought your Christmas presents. Thank you and I'm very excited. I'm getting super into Christmas very early

on. I think as soon as summer died and fall becomes winter and I took the last fishing trip, I'm probably going to take this season. Then it's like, all right, we don't get trick or treaters in my building. So Halloween doesn't mean too much to me. And then it's just like, let's just, let's get on with Christmas now. Let's, let's, let's get hyped for christmas now let's let's let's get hyped for for christmas my our place smells like all the christmas candles you could you could imagine and we're as soon as this podcast is done we're gonna decorate the apartment here on friday

november 17th okay that's pretty early you going to have it decorated already before Thanksgiving. spend a week or two in Jersey because you could work remotely and most work shut down in our industry for the weeks around Christmas and New Year's. So I was like, well, I'm not going to dick around LA. I'll spend a good chunk of time with the people I grew up with and my family and all that. And when you were looking at a Christmas that saw you out of your home from like sometimes Christmas that saw you out of your home from like sometimes December 14th until December 28th. You're like, why am I going to decorate my place at all? So I wouldn't decorate shit when I lived in LA because I wasn't going to be around there for peak Christmas time to enjoy it. Uh, and this particular year we are going to, uh, a little town in Illinois for a big chunk of time around Christmas. And then day after Christmas, we'll be with my family. And there's just a bunch of other stuff going on at the end of the month.

That's like, if I want a period of time where I'm like enjoying a tree and enjoying Christmas decorations, let's just do it now. Let's just have the pleasant things up now because they'll be wasted just sitting here in the week and a half that we're not in the apartment. Wow. Did I successfully with logic convince you that it's sane to decorate November 17th? I think it's fine. I mean, honestly, I want to. I'm like itching. I've got like my finger on the trigger and I'm just waiting to pull it because I get to the grocery store and Christmas music is on and I'm like, yes, it should be. This is great. I, there's a whole section of seasonal section of target. And I'm like, yes, perfect. We're I'm ready. I'm ready,

but I have to pretend there's like, there's the, the element of society where, you know, you, everyone wants to be like, it's too early for Christmas. It's way too early. I'm like, it's never, I don't, I don't know. I was ready before Halloween. I don't know what those people are so upset about when they start to see Christmas decorations come out. And they're like, no! Just don't buy it. Just what? Were you still looking for pumpkins?

Shut up. Get a life. Yeah, quick question. How do you explain the passage of time to young children because they surely recognize uh signifiers of christmas more than they recognize patients and and and uh corporate america's rush to get decorations out way too early like they're not like your children are too small they're not going to look at the, the target covered in Christmas trees and think, man, that's earlier than last year.

They're going to think it must be Christmas when it's Christmas. And you have to say, you know, 38 sleeps from now. Yes. Uh, it's, it's complicated because also like time, the passage of time is different for them. So my daughter is three. Last Halloween when she was two, she was a witch and then immediately was so enamored with Halloween that she was like, let's do Halloween again. And I'm like, you got to wait a year.

And she's like, how long is that? And I'm like, it's a third of your life. Or like at this point, she was two, so it was like it's half your lifetime. You have to wait a half a lifetime before we have it again and like it just that's a year is so incomprehensible to them because they change so much within that time and you can remember like being in school where you'd be like teachers would be like it's almost the end of school you'd be like it is and you're like yeah it's two months away you're like that's fucking forever why did you do that to me um and so they they're this is the first year that like she's gotten to she's like looking forward to holidays where she understands something coming up and she's

anticipating ronan is he's like perfect age for christmas and the minute we start seeing all that that christmas stuff stuff around Ronan was like, you know, confused. Cause it wasn't, we hadn't even did that daily savings time yet. So his first response was, it's not even dark when you pick me up yet. And I'm like, yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. You remember. So we're a ways away and Gilly is every time we go anywhere. I mean, we could be in target and we're over in like, we're not even in the toy section. We're in a place where there's hair care products

and there happened to be some scrunchies on a unicorn. And she's like, could I have this for Christmas? We're like, yes, because you will forget in two minutes what that was. If any of these stick, like if you throw all these at the wall and one of them sticks, they'll be like, yeah, okay. That'll be a thing I get her for Christmas.

But for the most part, it's just her. She knows we're close to something where she's going to get a bunch of stuff. And so she will say, is this for my birthday? Is this for Christmas? Because she also can't remember which is which. But yeah, it's hard. It's hard to get them to understand. Must be difficult for her to see all those other kids opening presents on her birthday.

I think it must be a little bit. Yeah. Well, also, she may understand it better because on Ronan's birthday, she becomes insanely jealous to the point that we were like, all right, have a present. You can have one too. Now you guys each on each other's birthday, you get one gift. I have a question for you, Dan. Great. Do you remember in, I think it was probably now about 2017, when I said I had a gift for you?

That is, it's very interesting because you said that on the podcast, right? Yeah. No, that predates the podcast. I think it, no, it was on the podcast. It was like, what's like some exorbitant amount of money you spent? And I was like, it's funny you mentioned that. You had a gift that you thought would be raring to go for me very soon. Yes.

And for most of my professional life, the dominating question that I would get from strangers on the internet was, when are you going to make more after hours? And that has been usurped by what did Soren get you? And there were things like, I will, I'm an old man now

and I will post, I'll like retweet the season finale of the show that I work on that I'm very proud of, or like a picture of us at the Emmys, me and the rest of the writers holding trophies. And someone will reply. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What did he get you?

Do you, did he just like tell you when you're not telling us on the podcast? And so like, first of all, uh, everybody leave me alone. Second of all, we would, well, that's might not be true. I was going to say we would never not reveal what the gift was, but now that I'm saying it out loud, that'd be pretty funny. If we never, it'd be very funny. If you never got me anything, it would be very funny if you did. And we never told anyone what it was. I think people have mostly given up because now the question is not, you know, like, what did you get him? It's for a while it transferred into, was that even real?

And then now it's like, why did you do that? So I think they're feeling a little hurt by it in a way that I assume you are because I promised this thing to you for so long and have not delivered yet. Also, how can anything possibly live up to it now that it's been years? Well, here's a regret that I have is that because I had, I don't know, nine years in the mind palace to think about what this could be, I successfully guessed one aspect of it. I guessed who you'd commissioned to create, to forge this thing. And if I were less obsessed with my own cleverness and my ability to guess things, I would have just let sleeping dogs lie,

because I think it would be, if I had never guessed that, that I could still live in the world where you were lying. And this was a bit, and it would be a really really good bit you famously uh turned my birthday into a bizarre spectacle with pranks uh just for everyone's more accurate yeah we could summarize all of the pranks that soren has pulled but i think the easiest way to sum it up is that my birthday is january 6th so you can all figure out the kind of prank he does what he thinks is funny um and this i did the insurrection that's right that's right i had the insurrection done for your birthday got out of hand i didn't understand that one as well as some of the other ones but like i appreciate the work that you put into it thank you also not out of i mean that's exactly how i wanted it to go. That was pretty much like from the, from the jump, that was the plan.

Oh, interesting. Uh, but at any rate, uh, I thought this could have fallen to the greater pantheon of Soren pranks, which if you would promise me something elaborate seven years ago and kept dropping bizarre hints as you done for a while, as you were like, I talked to the artist and it's not ready yet. Or at one point you had an update that was something was delivered, but it wasn't as good as I thought it could be. And so he is back in the lab working on it some more. You could have done that for years and it would have been a really fun gift for me. I have done it for years. Well, I want to let you know, and I don't want you to get your hopes up too much because I've gotten messages

like this before, but I got a message on Sunday, November 5th that said, Wow. Remember, remember. Just about done and have booked an appointment to have it photographed on the 15th. So, ellipses, that's when it will be done.

Wow. I don't know if you, so for our audience at home, because we record these early, it's past November 15th. That's right. It's November 17th. Crickets. And so I don't, at this point, I've also lost a considerable amount of faith that this will ever get done.

So all I ever do is I just say just say great tell me when it's done can i and like please don't tell me uh what it is exactly but um it gets so much funnier if this was something that you commissioned that made sense in 2017 if it's timeless it'll be timeless that's great but if it's timeless, it'll be timeless. That's great. But if it's 2017, uh, specific, then I might like that more. What can you tell me? Like, is it timeless? Yeah. Here's, here's the deal. I, and I think that you're probably like me in this respect. I'm not going to let that happen. Like I'm going to drop the seeds in our life that keep it relevant long before. So it never has an expiration date. Like, I've quietly worked to make sure that this doesn't have an expiration date.

But had I not done that, absolutely it would have. You would have gotten it and been like, oh. And I'd be like, do you remember? And you'd have been like, oh, okay. It would have been so, so funny if it was something that commemorated that time at the Oscars where they

said the wrong name for best picture, where the guy is holding up, actually, it's Moonlight. Moonlight won. Forgive me. And I just had to be like, oh, yeah, I guess that was a pretty holding up. Actually, it's Moonlight. Moonlight won. Forgive me. And I just had to be like, oh, yeah, I guess that was a pretty big moment. Yeah, I remember that. I don't know if I would hang that poster up. I thought it was going to be a bigger deal than it was. I thought we'd all still be talking about it.

Yeah, that would have been great. Yeah. Like White House Down down like me like doing something for white house down it's like yeah that's the movie that we're all going to keep watching annually yeah we'll get together and watch it together let me just say 2017 while i'm thinking about it not great because i i went through 2017 pop culture moments for some comedy specifics and i had to settle on that moonlight thing because it was just, I don't know,

stranger things season two, not a year that not a great year, not one of our better years. We were all pretty feel. We were all feeling pretty blue. We were, we were bummed about something. I think.

Yeah. We were all feeling pretty, pretty down in the dumps about it. We had no idea what was to come though. We had no idea what was to come, though. We had no idea what we were in for. Biden. It's officially time to kickstart your holiday shopping, but there's no cause for panic.

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all the time. And we love to support local bee professionals. And it's so cool. We love puzzles. We love bees. We love supporting people. And so we have it and we're going to do it when it gets a little bit colder out. But that's just one thing that I got from Uncommon Goods. I also, they have these, you can order a book that has the front page of the newspaper every day for every year of someone's birthday. You pick a random crisis-free birthday like mine, January 6th, for example, and you can get every newspaper headline that happened on that day. There's a couple that I'm not stoked about, but I'm curious. You want to know what happened on January 6th, 1990 or January 6th, 1970, 1972, and so on. We all know how numbers work. This book will tell

you those details. It's a fun and fascinating conversation starter and a great gift for kids. I'm getting one for my nephew who is not allowed to listen to this podcast. And that's why I'm saying it now. To get 15% off your next gift, go to uncommongoods.com slash QQ. Don't miss out on this limited time offer. That's 15% off at uncommongoods.com slash QQ. Did you want to ask me a question? Oh, yeah. Another question? Yeah. So you're fully done with another in your series of non-updates about the fake gift. the angles or like whatever but uh i want to i think it's gonna be i don't know i don't know i have more hope than usual that this will be done by your birthday okay yeah well we'll see uh i got

a quick question for you soren okay shoot what is the strangest piece of media or content that you consume regularly. And I can go first if that's helpful because strange is very vague and media and content is very vague. I will regularly read recaps of television shows I don't and won't watch. And there are some that it makes a little bit of sense. Like I've read every vulture recap for the walking dead spinoff on Daryl Dixon, because a long time ago I was watching

walking dead just like everyone else was. And then I've stopped for years. I don't know how that show ended. And there've been several spinoffs that I didn't watch, but I've been reading the recaps of this Daryl Dixon show, a show that doesn't sound good. It's an actor that I think is cool. Yeah. Uh, but I don't know that he's given much to do with this character that makes him a dynamic lead. And I, I, I want to want to stress this again. There's no part of me that would find something in these reviews and then later watch the show because of that. That's not the itch that I'm scratching. I don't know what itch I am scratching because it's also not about being a completionist because if it were, then I would have been reading recaps of The Walking Dead and the other spinoffs. This is just a thing that I do.

I can't even imagine what that show would be. He is that character. I'll tell you. Okay. Exterior, the sea. Daryl Dixon wakes up. Oh, shit.

Chained to a boat. Okay. He finally breaks free and lands where? France, Soren. Oh, my God. Ooh, la la. Can you believe it?

No. And they're experimenting on the zombies to make them faster for some reason. What? Uh-huh. And he has to take around a little kid that someone believes is the second coming of Jesus. And they think this kid has the cure to zombieism because his pregnant

mother was zombie when the kid was born, but the kid is immune. You're right. It is like Last of Us, but worse and in Paris. Are they walking through drizzly Paris and he's got a crossbow and no sleeves on? He doesn't have a crossbow anymore. He has one of those long, you're going to know the name of this medieval weapon that has like a pointy at the end. Not spear, but like fancier than that than that oh something with a long sharp end yeah oh cool okay it's like some

martial arts weapon maybe i think more medieval but whatever oh this is exhausting okay so is he interacting with people and is part of it the joke is there at least some like lightheartedness in there where like how how is this fucking bumpkin going to deal with the sophistication of the French? I could tell you that whatever humor there is on the show doesn't translate into recaps written by someone who doesn't seem to like it. Read by someone who's not going to watch it. Okay. I have another question. Go ahead.

I don't mean to take us off of Daryl. I'm assuming that's the name of it. Daryl Dixon. Is this called Daryl Dixon? Yeah. Oh, fuck this show. Okay. That is a sitcom title.

Right. It's a show that's not even trying to attract new viewers at this point. That's like somebody had a standup career and then aged out of it and started a sitcom and now we're going to name it after them and just squeeze the last little bit of juice out of them. Yeah. Okay. Are you also reading recaps for shows like The Real Housewives and stuff that's not narrative? I will occasionally read recaps of, well, this makes slightly more sense than Daryl Dixon. I'll read recaps if it seems like everyone is talking about a thing. I will read a recap of Golden

Bachelor or when Tom Sandoval was inescapable in the news. I was like, all right, fine. I guess I'll see what this guy's fucking thing is. Oh, okay. He's a reality sociopath. That's fine. Now I know that. I mean, how could that not read like absolute gibberish? I think it's got to just be chaos to try and read a synopsis of that. It is, especially for recaps for reality TV, where there's a whole beautiful language and an encyclopedia of inside jokes that i am not privy to because people who've been writing they're the most uh fun and enthusiastic recaps you can read on anything but it i i have not been there long enough to really get all of the references that they're

making uh but i'm really happy that they're being made and this community has has found each other uh but it's you might as well be reading something that occasionally dips into another language entirely. Yeah. I can't. So there are people in my office who love these shows, love the bachelor, love, um, all the Vanderpump shit. And it's, it's when they try to give me like a plot line or like something that happened

in it, it's impossible. We're not speaking the same language because they have to start so far back for me to understand what's going on that it's like not worth it. Like there's Vanderpump rules, but Real Housewives predates that. And that's where she comes from. And you have to know that she also has a restaurant and then started another restaurant with Sandoval, whatever the fuck his name is. And like there's all these details that you have to know about Stassi and stuff. Fuck. I do know some of their names now, but that like, I don't have, I don't have like the

glossary of terms anymore. And so, or never did. And so I can't even participate. Like, it's not fun for them to try to spend time telling me what's going on just to get to like this one piece. Yeah. And I'm just like, Oh,

well, okay. We're just, this'll be a thing we never share. Well, good for you for trying to understand it, I guess. Yeah.

I honestly, it's show like walking dead. That feels like the perfect way to do it. I think that that's way better than watching the actual show. You'd only be mad at the end of watching it, but you need to know the gist of every single episode so that you understand where we are at any given point. I couldn't disagree more.

I feel like if there's one thing behind the process of every season and spinoff of The Walking Dead, it's let's come up with some really clever ways to kill zombies. Let's come up with some really clever ways to kill zombies. Let's come up with some really gnarly ways for, for humans to get in a pickle. And then let's, let's work backwards from there. We know that we want a scene where this person has a chainsaw strapped to his arm and he's in a giant gladiator pit with zombies who are inexplicably faster and stronger than humans have ever been.

Okay. So we know we're doing that. Who can we get? Oh, Daryl's available. All right. Let's make a show about Daryl then. Like they're doing it for these kills and these big stunts and spectacles. And I am making every writer and creator and designer and actor in that show, Furious, when I just say, yeah, and I experience it by reading basically a disgruntled TV critic talk about how I was like, yeah, I guess the kills were cool, but I don't see anything going on with these characters and they're just treading water. Yes. That's, see, that last thing you said is like why I think this is the best way of doing

it. There's so much filler. I watched season two of the walking dead. In fact, I know somebody who worked on it and then like they, I know that like you're, you don't have as much money this season. You're going to be stuck on this farm for a while. There's going to be so many conversations about what we do with this kid we found. Like, and, and also the kid we lost, like, what are we going to do with these two?

Oh no, Shane, Shane's getting angry. kid we found like and and also the kid we lost like what are we gonna do with these two oh no shane shane's getting angry and shane's it's gonna take a long time for him to get angry and angry enough that we have to do anything about it it's like you're just like these scenes just drag out and out to the point where i stopped watching when negan hit somebody with a baseball bat we didn't get to find out who it was. And I was like, well, fuck them for making me wait. I'll just read this from now on. And so at the end, I was like, how does Negan die?

And they're like, well, we don't know. He hasn't yet. And I'm like, oh, interesting. Okay, thanks. That's all I wanted to know. Let me know when he dies. Okay, well. I want to preempt anyone who's saying that I'm reading these articles instead of watching the show just to see if it's a worthy time investment to watch the show.

A, again, I'm not going to watch it. And B, how valuable is my time in the first place that I'm reading these recaps. Like, I want to stress that, that I think I'm doing a weird thing and I don't think it's a good or correct way to consume content, especially as someone in the entertainment industry. Like if, it's pretty insulting. Yes, a thousand percent. But I don't know. You don't owe them anything, man.

If you want to work on another show, you'll binge that other show and you'll do it in no time. And then you're like, okay. What a turn for the podcast character of Soren to make. You don't know creator's shit. I don't think anybody owes me anything. Let's just leave it at that.

That's fair. All right. So I watch a – this is a YouTube thing that I watch. Same way – so YouTube is almost exclusively what I watch. That's how I ended up finding Taskmaster. And there's a show that I watch called Beard Meets Food, but Meats is spelled M-E-A-T-S. Have you heard of this? No.

Okay. Beard Meets Food is this British guy who I say probably can't weigh more than 110 pounds. He's very skinny looking and has this gigantic ZZ Top type beard. And he goes, he travels around first England because that's where he's from, but then he also does a States tour where he just goes to different restaurants that have food challenges. Like you can't finish this burger in 30 minutes. And he just conquers them, just beats them.

And he, it's, it's, I have to say it's disgusting to watch because, you know, like whatever they bring out, he's going to tear it apart and then he's going to eat it in such a way that it's like kind of hideous to watch. Like he has like, he's like gulping it in. And then also it's getting all over his beard every single time. Cause he's insists on having this very long beard. And so the, a lot of it is spent. A lot of the thing is just spent with him using a napkin, vigorously wiping his beard, like wiping the hairs off of his face basically. And very,, I would say, hyper aware of the fact that he gets food all over himself because he does narration over the top of it and how hard the challenge was. And constantly talks about like how messy it is and how embarrassing that is. All right.

I am watching a video called Win $100 Cash if you can finish this pizza challenge in Maine. Yeah. And I need to say right off the bat, $100 is not enough money to do this to yourself. This is a very large pizza covered in meats. This man is alone at his table drinking water and dispassionately eating this pizza there's a cup of dipping red something and like other people around him that aren't his friends who are just a Paul

him do this yeah just other customers they don't want to engage because they don't want to get caught up in it he will engage with them to be like hey do you think i can do this and they're like no they're always like no please don't thank you i'm just here to get my normal amount of pizza please and he's very in the the narrations that he does he's so critical of himself too like he while he's doing the challenge he'll say things like oh i should have waited till it wasn't hot. He's like, how many times have I said that? I never learn. He's getting kind of mad at himself. And, uh, he's, he's so critical.

And like, he uses the same word a few times, like, oh, this is delicious. How many times have I said that? And, uh, somebody go back and count. Oh, come on beard. And then he's also, uh, never prepared. Never. I will say he like for how unprepared he is, he usually does a pretty good job. But he's never prepared.

He always sits down. The first thing he does is bite into it and be like, I should have waited until it cooled down. Then he sort of like forces himself through some very hot bites. Then he's like, I don't have any napkins. Right. I'm watching him. I'm watching him now like desperately ask for drinks and towels from people. Get your kit ready first, sir. He doesn't have napkins. Sometimes he doesn't even have a water next to him.

And then like, as he's eating, he'll be like guaranteed, like halfway through it. He'll be like, could I have, um, uh, a Coke zero or a root beer or something you just grab the diet pepsi yeah and they're like sure because after quite a bit of conversation he needs soda so bad and he knows he needs soda so bad every single time but forgets to ask for it every single time and then like halfway through he'll be like can i just have like a soft drink he's just wasting valuable time being like trying to be very polite and give etiquette to the person who's serving him and be like can i do you have soft drinks knowing full well they do instead just be's serving him and be like, do you have soft drinks? Knowing full well they do. Instead of just being like, Coke, please. He's like, do you have any sort of, what do you have? We have Pesci products. Okay. Could I have a root beer? We don't have root beer. Okay. To watch him eat it is really appalling.

It's pretty gross. But he also does this thing where when he's getting close to the end, he is a slave to accuracy. So like if there's crumbs on the table around him, he scoops them all up in a pile and eats those. What about the stuff in his beard, Soren? Yeah. So occasionally, yeah, he gets stuff. Yeah. So occasionally, yeah, he gets stuff and like, if he finds it, then he will not use the napkin. He'll try and pull it out with his fingers so that he can consume it because he wants to do it right. Uh, and he nails a lot of these. I mean, like he gets there. He also sandbags everyone around him. Cause he looks so thin where like people like you can't do that. The waiters and

stuff. He's like, you want to bet me? And he'll play it up. And then eventually he does it and he conquers these things. Sometimes it's very easy for him. And at the end, he'll be like, what do you have? Do you have a dessert menu? Yeah. I'm watching him at minute 14 of a 30 minute challenge.

And he is, this is in the bag. He's going to walk away a champion. Yeah. He know a lot of times he knows, I think he knows his limits and stuff. He also won't, he has rules about like what he'll eat first and he will never eat mushrooms until the very end. If there's much,

it's really tough for these English breakfasts that he was cut his teeth on, so to speak, uh, because he would do these English breakfast challenges. They all have these cooked mushrooms. And he's like, oh, he's just like, oh, I hate mushrooms. And he just saves them for the end. Cause he also feels like if he eats the mushrooms, nothing goes down on top of them.

Like they get stuck up higher in his chest. And he does it when he's like really panicking on a challenge. Like when he's, it's close, you watch him wolfing down his food. And then he does these things to his body that I don't understand. Like he will stand up and jump up and down. Like he's compacting the food down further into his body. Wow. And he'll like grab his chest and push down.

That's how a, that's how a cartoon character eats. I know. It's, it's really hideous. And then throughout the eating of it, which is, he's already a mess. It's really hideous. And then throughout the eating of it, which he's already a mess, it's already a very visceral experience. He'll say things like, I'm trying so hard right now not to shit myself. And you're like, what? I know it didn't all go through you that fast.

Like, what is this all? Is this a new element that I'm not familiar with? I'm watching this without sound, obviously, as that i'm not familiar with um i'm watching this without sound obviously as we're doing the podcast so i'm here oh he's just ordered dessert um yeah yeah yeah does this does that a lot does the does the show does an episode end with him having learned something either about the challenge or or like is it one of those food shows where before he eats the food he's like we, we're here in Portland, Maine. Portland was founded in 17, blah, blah, blah.

The name of the big food here was lobster. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The people are blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's a very good question. No. In fact, generally, he doesn't know where he is. He will start an episode and he'll start talking and be like, so we're here in, what is the restaurant called? And someone off screen, someone from the restaurant will will say and then he'll say the name you're like

and so they're offering what do you offer if i finish this they're like we could have taken care of a lot of this beforehand he's gonna get a t-shirt you're gonna get your picture on the wall these are generally the things that come up but he's never like never prepared it's so funny. But as an eater, he's insane. He's so good at this. And finishes these. It never looks pretty. It's always disgusting and he's very hard on himself watching it. It's not the career he wants, I don't think.

And he finishes every episode about the narration stops about maybe like a minute 40 before he's even done. He's like, alright, so I'll let you watch the rest of this. I'll catch you on the next one. And then you're just like listening

to him eat and watching it in silence like you were there. And it's really rough. It's so weird. Yeah, he's like he's clearly in pain on a lot of them. And he's like, there's something going on in his stomach? He drops little hints about his normal diet when he's on these tours where he says, I think he probably eats like a snake, where he eats all this at once.

And then he goes a week without eating. And then he goes to another one and does that challenge. And then he goes for a week without eating. I mean, it's got to be terrible for your body. But he eats all this eats. He consumes 6,000 calories at once and then is like done till the next challenge, which is four States over. Uh, that's what are you, what am I getting out of it? Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't thought too hard about it. And I'm sort of worried that if I did, I wouldn't like the answer. I do like gorging. I like the indulgence of like eating a bunch of something at once. I like seeing these meals when they come out, how big they are and all

the different things that are there. I like thinking about what any of the, like there's fries and tater tots and gravy and some sort of cheese on them. And I'm like, yeah, I want to try that. And so like the first part of it is like the same thrill you would get from watching. What's his name with his donkey sauce.

Guy Fieri. Yeah. Guy Fieri. Yeah. Like when he's like traveling around to diners and stuff and you're seeing a deep fried burger and you're like, oh, that's an interesting looking thing. I would like to eat that. A lot of that when he comes out, I like hearing him describe what's on the plate and all the different stuff.

And then after that, I don't know. I'm compelled to watch the entire thing to make sure he eats it all. watch the entire thing to make sure he eats it all. So that's where we diverge because I watch so much, shout out to YouTube, I watch so much cooking content on YouTube. It's probably the thing that I watch most. I didn't include it in this particular challenge because to me, there's nothing strange about it. in my in this particular challenge because to me there's nothing strange about it i think there's a uh agree a long proud lineage of people who watch food network and i am part of that i love watching uh for my part of the woods catch and cook videos where people will catch a fish

and then clean and cook it and they and prepare it in different ways um and i'll also just watch like general like there are some chefs that i like a whole lot. There's this guy who runs a channel called Sip and Feast, who is just like, I've talked about him before. He's just like a pleasant New York, New Jersey, Long Island, Italian dad, who just seems like a nice guy who cooks very simple food and is kind to you. And I'll watch his shit all day. And I'll watch his shit all day. When my favorite chefs eat, I click away. I don't want to watch people eating. There's the chef who runs Outdoor Chef Life, I think.

When he eats ramen, he makes the best looking ramen I've ever seen in my entire life from like fresh cut cut lobster and he eats it and i'm so uncomfortable it's so challenging for me to watch it and and i just can't bring myself to do it and i've never understood like i know uh mukbang is a thing it's a it's a style of youtube content that is specifically people eating vast quantities of food not not necessarily for like the challenge of it like you're trying to do a certain amount in 30 seconds it's just like here is a table full of food and you were going to watch me eat it and i've never understood who the audience is. And now once again, it's you, Sorin. I will say like, I'm sort of disappointed in the episodes where he's, he does it no problem. Like, I don't, there's, I want to see him in suffering.

I don't know why. Like, I want to see it hurt. I want to see him like eat so much. He's like, I really, like, and his narration to be like, at this point, you can see I'm still enjoying it. And then later he'll be like, this point you can see I'm still enjoying it and then later he'll be like this is where it got really tough and he's like it's clear on his face like he doesn't want to be there that this was like it's not fun and I'm like come on you could do it

just one more 60 more bites and has he you might have said this while I was watching the video has he lost I don't know. I haven't seen one where he does, but he, he talks about that sometimes. Like he'll be like, uh,

obviously you've seen that. I don't always get them done. Huh? And so I think that there probably are some where he doesn't win, but I, so far today, I've never seen one. Um,

there's one other thing I want to talk to you about because you reminded me of it with cooking. Uh, I, that's, that's a huge crossover for us. I love watching cooking videos. As you know, I don't eat beef, but I'll watch somebody dry age a steak for 45 minutes or like sous vide a steak before making it. And I'm like, I can't get enough of it.

There's one person who I think might be a huge crossover for us that I think is so much fun to watch cook. Do you know who Madty Matheson is? No. Did you watch The Bear? Yes. The guy who plays the... The guy who's always fixing the stoves and stuff, he's got tattoos all over his body.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's Matty Matheson and he's a chef. He's like a true Michelin trained chef. Yeah, I know. They brought in actual chefs and waiters and waitresses to work on that show as consultants and eventually cast members. Yeah. So Matty Matheson, he's a very big personality. He cooks. He's the sloppiest cook I've ever seen. In the same way that I enjoy Beard Meets Food, as he's cooking like he's just stuff slopping all over the place he's not careful his fingers are very clumsy he's like getting eggshells and stuff and things um but he makes really great looking food i mean by the end he makes something that's like presentation wise and everything he's it's clear that he's trained because like you watch him chop

up an onion or herbs or aromatics or something like he's so good at it but like for anything else his fingers are just giant meat sticks like he has no handle over and he's also very loud and abrasive in a way that i find uh charming great he's he is the definition of a slob but i think like he's he's steered into that skid. He likes being that. And his stuff is so fun to watch. This is going to be great. Yeah. There's also one that I want you to look at because he does like a... Let me...

Matty Matheson. He's in a scene from The Bear with John Mulaney that I've rewatched a thousand times. I love that scene. At the Thanksgiving, I mean the Christmas or Thanksgiving. a scene from the bear uh with john mulaney that i've re-watched a thousand times i love that scene uh at the thanksgiving the christmas or thanksgiving the five hundred dollar will you invest five hundred dollars in it it's just a perfect scene dang it i can't find it but there's one where he goes ice fishing okay and brings two friends with him to go ice fishing and is it maddie tries icelandic delicacies no it's not it I haven't watched it yet. I'm just going to say based on thumbnail, it looks like it might be, but you're the expert. That's fine.

Yeah, maybe. It might be it. Okay. He rides a snowmobile around a lot. He's a very funny guy. So there's like one point where he brings some friends up there who I don't know if they're chefs or not. I don't think they are. He's very critical of their food the entire time.

And then once they get the auger in the ice, they cut a little hole. He sits down with a buddy and they've got these like little kid fishing poles and it's very quiet and he turns to his friends like, so when would you say was the first time your dad disappointed you? And I was like, yeah, that's a great, I'm stealing that. From now on, I'm asking people that when there's a silence. He's so funny. All right. Yeah.

Check him out. Yeah. I'm going to as soon as I'm done with this podcast, but I swear to God, there was something earlier I said I'm going to do when the podcast is done. Fuck, I should have recorded this. Well, I think that's the end of our podcast. I think that'll do it for today. You can follow us on Blue Sky.

I'm going to lead with that one today. You can follow me at Soren Bui. I think Daniel is, I don't think you stayed with DOB. I think you're Daniel O'Brien over there. At Blue Sky? Yeah. Let's see. DanielO'Brien.Banksy.Social.

Yeah. Yeah. Daniel O'Brien. You follow us on Blue blue sky daniel i don't think to date has posted a single thing if you wanted to go follow us on twitter you can follow daniel at dob underscore inc or x you can follow him at dob underscore inc you can follow me not there at all because i stopped using it you're you're not on twitter anymore my account's still there because um i i'm so precious about jokes and things like that that i had on there but i'm i took it off my phone i stopped using it wow how do you feel uh pretty good actually i i took so ezra klein convinced me to stop doing it listening to search engine podcast yes that's when I stopped.

PJ Vote, Search Engine, if you haven't listened to it, it's a very good podcast. That's so funny. We both listened to that podcast. I listened to the episode that you're talking about and in that episode, Ezra Klein convinces PJ Vote to delete Twitter and PJ's like, and I'm very happy to tell you, I did delete Twitter

and I'm happier and my life's better. I was like, that sounds good. I'm going to do that too. And I'm very happy to tell you, I digitally Twitter and I'm happier and my life is better. I was like, that sounds good. I'm going to do that too. And I deleted Twitter for 15 days. That's a very good PJ vote. Oh, thank you. That's wonderful. You can follow Quick Question at QQ underscore Sorn and Dan.

Sometimes there are short clips of videos of Dan and I on there. You could check those out. Our email is QQ with soren and daniel at gmail.com you can also find us on youtube you can find full videos of us doing this podcast occasionally and that's at youtube.com slash at qq podcast our theme song is by me rex you can find their music anywhere you listen to music pandora his name Does anyone still use Pandora? Anywhere you listen to music, but you can also find their music at mirex.bandcamp.com for full albums.

You know where I saw Pandora? I'm going to just keep stretching this outro. The new car that I got, it's one of the preloaded apps on the screen and that's some good business doing there. When we were at Cracked, you really hope you can get a Cracked widget on like Spirit Airlines or

something. So we were just like part of their package. Yeah, it's a dream. Bacon, our CFO, if you're listening, get quick question on cars. Oh, that'd be awesome. Yeah. Cars and planes. Like good cars though. I don't want it on a, I don't want it like in an F one 50. I don't think we'd be at that demographic. No, I think you want the person who's like showing up the car to be like, this is your heated seats.

This is your heated steering wheel. As you can see, you've got GPS, you've got Spotify, uh, 138 episodes of this one podcast by these two guys. They'd have to listen. It's that you two album all over again.'d have to listen.

I know. It's that U2 album all over again. You have to listen to it. You can't take it off. All right. Bye. Bye. I've got a quick,

quick question for you, all right. I want to hear your thoughts on what's on your mind. I've got a quick, quick question for you, all right. The answer's not important. I'm just glad that we could talk tonight

So what's your favourite? Who did you get? When will I be remembered? What's it out there? Where did all that go? Oh, forget it I saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers

If there's an answer answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here