Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Lotta Places, Lotta Faces

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

Big Daniel's back on the intros BABY! And can you believe it, the guys talk about fast food again! Thanks BetterHelp.  Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/qq . Thanks Hawthorne. Take your quiz and get 10% off your first purchase at hawthorne.co with code QQ . Go to Shopify.com/QQ for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features. Shop with confidence — get Honey for FREE at JoinHoney.com/qq

I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright I wanna hear your thoughts, 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? Remember?

What's it out there? Word it all there What are we? 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. 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 comedy writers ask each other questions and give each other answers. I am one half of that podcast. A professional writer, an adult man who is just this second remembering his New Year's resolution was to sing more. Joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Bowie. Soren, say something I'm giving up on you. Hey, what's up friends? Or as you love being called the hold me closer, tiny answers. It's Soren Bowie from American dad from public school PTA, and also very likely from the Arby's

drive-thru. What did you end up getting by the way? I hope you got curly fries because there's like way more fry packed into every square inch of that container than with just straight up fries. It's like a, just makes financial sense. You can stretch them out like intestines. It's wonderful. Do you remember an episode or two ago

when I was defiantly talking about how I couldn't remember the last time I had fast food? Yes, I do. I had it a few days ago. I know. Well, you said you were going to break. I was not. I would be more shocked had you come on

and been like, well, I didn't eat it. I'd be like, oh, Daniel. It's so wild to feel like I'm not in control. Yeah. And I really felt that way. It was just a few days ago. I went to see my niece. I don't know if I have permission to say her name,

so I won't. My niece, she's a very talented singer and she had this showcase with her musical theater group where they all were going to do songs. She sang a song from 13. She crushed it. She was great.

I went to go see her sing and support and see my brother and sister-in-law and my other nieces and nephews and afterwards they invited me back to their house for tacos i said no i can't i don't know why i said that i could have i didn't have any plans at all because you needed to reward yourself i guess and like my body drove me to McDonald's. There was no, it seemed like the decision was made for me without my consent at all. And as I'm like driving home, I'm doing my Spanish lessons in my car, driving home. It's still an early night, plenty of time for me to cook something if I wanted to, and really like make a whole adventure of it. And I'm driving past the McDonald's and there's a huge line at the drive-thru of this McDonald's. And I'm like, God, so many people. And like my hands are like, no, yeah, I hear you.

But we're turning, like, look what we're doing. We're turning. We're going to be one of those people. Like, I would never wait this long for McDonald's. And then there I was waiting and then I got it

and then I went home and I ate it. Yeah. And I was so happy. Yeah, that's what I was waiting for then I got it and then I went home and I ate it. Yeah. And I was so happy. Thanks to BetterHelp for supporting Quick Question. For 10% off your first month, go to betterhelp.com slash QQ. Start living a better life today. Thank you to Hawthorne for supporting Quick Question. Hawthorne is a premium grooming brand that tailors your personal care routine to your unique profile with skin care and hair care made just for you. Take Hawthorne's quiz today and get started on your personalized self-care routine at Hawthorne.co and use promo code QQ to get 10% off your first purchase.

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 businesses. Thank you. From forgotten free trials to automatic renewals, when big companies keep charging you, Truebill is your secret weapon to save you money on subscriptions you don't need. Go right now to Truebill.com slash QQ. It could save you thousands a year. When you roll down the window and you're like, okay, I'm at the big screen now. And you roll down the window and you just like like smell mcdonald's yeah you're like this was the right decision it's it's it's really like it's like getting back with an ex that you know is bad where where hey how can i help you yeah two cheeseburgers add bacon and

a large fries my body's like this feels right doesn't it don't you remember this come on isn't this easy i've out of like necessity i've gone to fast food before and you know i'm at a point in my life where i no longer do this where if i if i will convince myself it's out of necessity where like there's like uh i'm like oh i can't i got just a short lunch break i gotta go get something fast i gotta you know a drive through will be great quarantine has been great for that too i've been like well i can't go in anywhere uh drive through i gotta go through drive through but every time that i'm like You know, a drive-thru will be great. Quarantine has been great for that too. I've been like, well, I can't go in anywhere. Drive-thru, I got to go through drive-thru.

But every time that I'm like out of real necessity, I have to go to fast food and I'm trying to eat healthier. And I'll be like, okay, well, I know that Wendy's has got salads. I know that like, I'll just get a salad. But like the minute you roll down that window and you smell the fries and everything, you're like, fuck that. Why would I, why? I'm here. Just get what you want to eat

i'll i i would sit there looking at those like fucking shakable mcdonald's salads on the thing and be like well i i read somewhere that actually the salads are are just as bad for you with the fries and my stomach is like yeah i read that too do get the burgers, you idiot. Say whatever you need to say to sleep at night. I will. The ways, the mental gymnastics I will do to convince myself that this is the only choice is phenomenal. I read the salad kills dolphins. Who can, just whatever it takes, man. I already know I'm going to somebody's birthday tonight for the first time in a long time

and it's at a bar. Wow. I know. And I'm afterwards i already know on my way home i'm like already like okay well let's see it's over in this part of a town and i know in between there there are two jack-in-the-boxes a popeyes there's one wendy's it's a little bit out of the way like i know which fast foods there are and i know i have like the opportunity to stop at any one of those and the the entire time at the party, I will be thinking that too. I'll be like,

on the way home, maybe I'd get a milkshake too. Yeah. You don't really have a chance tonight. Yeah. I know. I've, I've, I've succumbed. I know my weaknesses. I know that. And I've prepared for that. Like I've, uh, I knew this was coming. I know that I have days planned where I'm like, it's going to be an okay day to do this. Because I've started to regiment my life a lot more. I've started to pick out, determine how to ensure that I don't get to lunchtime. I know that I have half an hour and have no plan. As long as you don't get to that point, then you're fine.

I think I would feel better if I had penciled in my calendar McDonald's on a Monday night every once in a while. But I didn't. I just appeared there. I waited in a long line. It was one of those McDonald's where there's so much overflow that there's two drive-thru lines. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to be one of these people. I'm going to eat dinner 20 minutes later than I planned because I'm waiting for McDonald's. And there's nothing anyone can do about it, especially not me.

There are moments where you're driving and you end up at the place you were going and you're like, oh, God, I didn't even think about driving the whole way here. It just sort of arrived. And I've done that before with fast food where I didn't plan on it. And then I will show up. I will just show up at a fast food line and be like, I was going to go to Whole Foods. What happened? Well, I'm trapped, obviously. No.

And then the person at the window is like, we've been expecting you. Like, how? And you look up and there's one of those like staff pictures, like The Shining. And you're there in the middle. You've always been there. You're right there. You've been the caretaker. Yeah, I just I love it.

It's why I made that. I told you I made like a whole playlist about it to try and keep me from it. None of that shit works. It's it's clearly an addiction, you know, and I don't want to belittle anyone who has real addictions. No, I don't know what else to call it. This is I'm it's not in my hands. Yeah, it's it's it's not in my hands yeah it's it's it's not in my hands and and like the scary thing is as i'm eating it i'm like i'm gonna feel like shit tomorrow and then when i

didn't i was like oh no i'm like that's yeah like i'm i'm one of those high functioning mcdonald's people uh-oh that's why i was supposed to learn a lesson from this, and I didn't. Why it's been such trouble. I've had experiences at fast food where I've been like, oh, I feel awful, and I don't go fucking back there. I haven't been doing like a Wienerschnitzel

in like 11 years because I walked out of that place once and was like, I don't feel so great. But the problem is that I eat McDonald's and afterwards I was I'm like I feel fucking great that was the best choice I feel good and then like wake up the next word I'm like yeah that was great I remember that moment that was really fun and nice and I don't ever feel the consequences and so it's never gonna work out that I will not just stop going it really it sounds like the language

that addicts used to justify being on something. And like, well, I made it through a whole workday and no one noticed. Like I woke up after going to McDonald's and like I ran six miles in the morning. I don't usually do that. Maybe I could just do this. Maybe I could just maintain this lifestyle forever.

Here's the worst part. There are people in my life who I will eat the same thing as them, not fast food, just like in everyday life, and they will get food poisoning. And I don't. And I think that fast food is the reason. My stomach is calloused to like anything that could hurt it because it's had to deal with this it's been battle tested every single day you're that drunk who fell off the titanic and then swam home and it's like i i mean i know people who have cleaned up their diets and stuff and then as soon as they have something that's not good for them they're like oh i feel awful and i'm like oh

that sucks for you i will never have to deal with that maybe you should have been training better yeah so I've got nothing but rewards from it and I and or at least that's all I've chosen to focus on and I will never stop yeah

and I got a I got a quick question for you yeah shoot um that's not really a question it's not quick um have you ever what's a good way into this have you ever this is a question uh in pursuit of a bit done something that you had to live with in like your real life for any amount of time yeah i mean i've lied in bits all the time and then been like all right well now i now i have to live with the consequences of this lie oh yeah yeah i'll try to think of like an actual example of that but i i'm confident that how it's happened in my life where i'm like oh this will be funny it doesn't go over and i'm like okay i just got to mentally remember that this is something that i

did that is part of my life okay i think so i bring it up for two reasons it reminded me of something that our our dear friend michael swain did years ago where he thought it would be very funny to in the middle of the night, shave his eyebrows off so in the morning when his partner woke up, she'd be like, ah! And he was successful at that. She was unhappy and surprised. And then he was just a guy who didn't have eyebrows for a while and just had to live with that as his decision.

I don't know if you remember that i don't where michael didn't have eyebrows oh you didn't no no i don't remember that oh that sounds like michael though yeah it definitely happened and i'm thinking of that specifically not that dramatic but uh i was shaving last night face, and it just so happened that the last thing I was shaving was my mustache. Like that was left till last. And I caught myself in the mirror with just a mustache at like this hair level in my life and this age in my life. And I just saw the mustache and i just started laughing and like that's kind of interesting i don't i don't think it looks good at all

and it's not like over the top funny the best word i could i could come up with for it was interesting yeah and it just so happens that i'm about to travel and visit most of my family for an extended period of time and i really just thought like that'd be kind of funny if i showed up with a mustache i guess and so now i have a mustache yeah i don't i don't even i won't even see them for two days so i've just been like wandering around my life with a mustache this thing that was funny to me last night or i get like quirky to me last night even if i i still even like baked in some room for myself or was like maybe just like it'll be funny for you in the morning to wake up and see a mustache and remember oh yeah

last night i kept my mustache and then you can get rid of it if you want i don't think i'm going to and now i've just been like wandering about my day and it's it's a very strange thing i'm gonna get rid of it once my family sees it i don't want to be a guy who has a mustache. But, like, at my coffee shop, the barista, because I'm there every day, and the barista was just like, oh, I like your mustache. And reflexively, I was like, oh, no, I'm just kidding. Are you willing to turn on your camera for a second so I can see it? Yeah, let me do all the things that I need to do.

Show cam. Yeah, it's not. Oh, I don't have my glasses. Can you see me? Of course, yeah. It's great. It's like a little mustache. It's not like, wait, are you saving something?

On the bottom lip, do you have a little something? Or is that shadow? Soul patch? That's shadow, yeah. No. It's just mustache. And I'm going to like. Oh, that's great. You can already No. It's just mustache. And I'm going to like... Oh, that's great.

You can already see some stubble has come in. I'm going to get rid of that stuff too. Good. Yeah, clean it up. Clean it up. Just so there's no doubt. This is an intentional mustache. And I think like it's been really sunny.

So like I put on sunglasses before I leave my house in the morning to walk jackson and just like seeing me with sunglasses and a uh an approaching full mustache like who's who's this let's let's get this guy some gum to chew huh who's this character with with sunglasses and a mustache you need a beach cop yeah you're you need like a bomber jacket yeah to go with it um i think the only other times in my life that i've had a mustache was when you and i were doing november yeah where like you can lean into it being a pretty crummy mustache that you're not like super invested in because you're doing it for charity and then otherwise my facial hair has always been like i try to grow as much of a

beard as i can and now like like mustaches is is such a choice that i just have to like walk around and live with because i guess i think it's gonna be i don't know what what reaction do i want what i don't have a plan here well most of want but I don't have a plan here well most of my bits I don't have a plan with either I'm just like maybe this will be interesting for the world maybe maybe somebody will catch some magic from this I I've seen a lot of people recently with mustaches and I don't think they're kidding like they're younger I think that there are some 20 year olds who are growing mustaches now in a non ironic way. And I'm,

I'm, I don't get it. I don't know. I don't like, I want to be absolutely clear about this, that I'm not going to be a guy with a mustache. And every time I see anyone with a mustache, I'm like, what are you doing?

Why are you doing that? You don't have to do it. You don't have to do it for a bit. Like I do. I'm contractually forced to show up to my parents' house on Monday and be like, look, get it? Look. Hey, I know you don't want to hear from me. It's Soren again coming to you to say what's interfering with your happiness. We talk about it every single week and every single week you say, I don't want to think

about it right now. I got a lot going on. And I say, I can't hear you. I'm, I'm in your headphones. This isn't how conversation works. Although it seems to be going pretty well. Well, I want to know what's getting in the way of your achieving. I want to know what's getting in the way of you achieving your goals.

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I have to like cut them pretty short. Like it has to be pretty much parallel with where my lips end. Because if I don't and it grows too long right there, it gets really painful. They think somehow that the blades of hair just dig into the bottom. Yeah. Underneath it. And it gets really uncomfortable right there on the corners. I don't know how you avoid that.

I mean, just, yeah, you're doing it. Maintenance. Just cut the ends. And then, but then you don't get any sort of like the style of a mustache that obviously there's a lot of very variance there's a huge spectrum but that just straight like it looks like a brush basically or like a comb that type of mustache is just straight across really not a not a cool look no good i'm glad you're doing it yeah i'm having so much fun i feel a little stupid walking around the world i feel stupid in like zoom meetings at work all day yeah and i and

i'm not it would be weirder if i explained to my boss john oliver don't worry about the mustache it's i'm not I'm just playing. That's weirder than just pretending I'm a guy with a mustache. God, sometimes there's a bit where you get the initial reaction you want, but then you have to live with it for a little bit. And you have that decision on, do I just give it up now? And everyone's like, oh, he's not even going to commit to it. Or do I keep it and then run the risk of everyone being like, why is he still doing that? And that's like a really tenuous moment to be in.

I, I'm sure. So they've all seen it at this point, right? People at work or? Yeah. Yeah. And no one said anything, which isn't super uncommon for work people i am this might this might put a real strain on my family if they very reasonably don't assume it's a bit and they're like nice mustache we've been waiting for you to grow one or whatever i like i i don't know i don't i i hope they're honest with me

well you also can't trust their opinion on this kind of thing. Did your dad at any point in his life have a mustache? No. Not in my lifetime. Okay. But since she met him? Yeah. Okay.

I think they're probably going to like it. I think that that generation, I'm trying to think what to equate it to. I don't, from ours, I think maybe like a bowl cut on a kid that i'm fine with that i think that's a cute little look on a kid but it's so dated now like nobody else will do that to their child generally yeah but because it was part of my life at a crucial moment, I'm fine with that aesthetic. And I think that our parents are the same way. If we just grew mustaches, our moms would be like, oh, you look very dapper. It's like, well, yeah, every single person in the late 70s had one of these. Yeah.

I hope my my my hope is that someone. In my family calls me out and tells me not to do it because. I'm I'm relying on someone to do that like like if i can't trust my brother to be like hey you shouldn't have a mustache then who can i trust yeah like what if i what if i really do go off the deep end at some point no one will bring me back this is a good of like, who are the yes men in your life? Like Chuck Klosterman wrote years and years ago that if you're a man wearing leather pants, that's a way to find out if you have no actual friends because a real friend would tell you, hey, you can't, you can't, you can't do that, man.

You can't walk around like that. You're not in a band and you're not young. That's a really good litmus test. Oh, man. This is going to end with a screaming fight where I ask him to put my nephew to bed early so I could yell, You let me walk around all over North Carolina. We went to the movies. We went to the clubhouse. You let me walk around.

You were seen with me. Your neighbors think your son has a mustache i have an intentional mustache you have to call it that the whole time an intentional mustache um i thought of one that i've done uh at work which was that i uh i talked about that i really talked up the decimal channels. Do you know what the decimal channels are? Nope. When you have, when you don't have cable and you just plug into like a, now they've got like these boxes that are technically your antenna, but because that the waves are in the air anymore, where you're like, your TV stations are coming in

through rabbit ears. They come in through like digital antenna, which is just a box. And when you get your broadcast television that way, you don't just get the normal channels where NBC is on four or CBS is on two or whatever it is. you also get 2.1 2.2 2.3 which are like these decimal channels in between which are all kinds of crazy weird shit which i don't know what their affiliation is maybe even with cbs but like uh a good example is i get like these kids channels from canada called cubo uh there's i on television which is i think another canadian thing which plays almost exclusively law and order and criminal minds and then on top of that you've got these other channels that are all technically There's Eye on Television, which is, I think, another Canadian thing, which plays almost exclusively Law & Order and Criminal Minds. And then on top of that, you've got these other channels that are all technically on the same station that are like Cubo for Kids. There's another one that we're – I can't remember what they play.

Some other syndicated show. That's all they do. Oh, it's Frasier. Pretty much all they played was Frasier. Then there's like criterion ones. There's like some that were, you just see old movies. Some of them all have like old talk show, uh, old talk show episodes. Like there's all kinds of weird shit on the decimal channels.

And so like, I started really talking up the decimal channels cause it was clear everybody else there had cable. And I was like, I was the guy who didn't. And I was trying to sell them on, on my system and i thought this is a funny joke and it was at a point in at in my career where no there was no no one wanted me to be joking and uh and so i became the decimal guy and now i like to this day and now i don't even watch that i don't even watch that. I don't have that kind of television anymore because we have a big cemetery hill in our way where I don't even get that kind of broadcast television anymore. But I still will like, I'll still go to town on the decimal channels and defend them wholeheartedly because there was a bit at one point and now I'm the decimal guy.

Right. You have to be sincere about this. Forever. at one point and now i'm the decimal guy right you have to be sincere about this forever there's a real chance that someone will ask your sincere advice on this at some point like hey you talked it up so much so like i've reserved an hour of time for you to really sell me on this oh no i mean that's kind of thing would happen it cracked a lot too where we would in after hours it was like we'd talk all about how much we loved harry potter or whatever and then in real life people are like you're a big harry potter fan i'm like no yeah i don't i don't i don't know the first thing about harry potter i'm sorry i ended up falling into an opposite trap at cracked and

not even like through after hours or anything like that. It's just when I moved to California, it seemed like all of the first friends that I met there through Cracked, Abe, Michael, and Cody Johnston were all super into space and NASA and all the stuff

going on up and out there. And I just wasn't. It was like one of those things that I didn't, that wasn't exciting to me. And I like slowly dilapidated into the anti-space guy. Cha-ching! Oh, that sound makes me smile. Mostly because it's antiquated at this point. There aren't really a lot of cash registers that make that noise anymore.

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I use Truebill. You should too. Don't fall for subscription scams. Start canceling today at Truebill.com slash qq go right now truebill.com slash qq it could save you thousands a year truebill.com slash qq like i at first i i think it probably was just an outburst like you had an outburst about star wars that you hated it you didn't know why anyone liked it and and you didn't want to talk about it anymore I don't get it you don't understand it you'll drink coffee too

and I don't like that I think I was just at one of the many parties where people were standing around talking about space and and I was like, just stop it! Not everyone reads the same things about space as you all do, and I don't like it. We never talk about the ocean. And I think once you plant your flag somewhere, you can't walk it back. So when pushed, if A would just be like, you don't like space?

I'm like, no, I don't. And in fact, if I follow my thought to its logical conclusion, I think we're spending too much money on space. And we should stop sending shit out there. It was just like a trap that I fell into that anytime there would be space news, I would have to be against it. fell into that anytime there would be space news, I would have to be against it. And it's, we're actually doing a podcast shortly at first,

um, secretly incredibly fascinating where we are talking about space and you're going to have no choice. The reason Alex has brought you on that I think is because he's like, Oh, Dan's a total curmudgeon. I'm a, I'm a clear antagonist about it when like my, my honest feelings are,

I don't really, I don't care about it, but like, but mostly in a, it's, it has nothing to do with me sort of way. I can see that people like space and I'm sure it's as fulfilling for them as my love and appreciation for underwater stuff is for me. for me um but that kind of nuanced understanding there's no place for that in friendship or in a podcast about space yeah it's it's your it's this is gonna be for life for you i did this

accidentally well not even entirely accidentally i did this on an early podcast you had done uh which is like defend your shitty taste, basically. And I I defended the saint. And I was like at the time, I was like, yeah, it's a great movie. I was a movie. I saw a lot of movies. I saw the seminal age. And since that point, like everyone, somehow everyone in the world is like, oh, you know, saints on streaming.

Did you know saints? The saints back on Netflix. It's back on Netflix. Did you know that? And I i'm like i i'm not i don't want to watch it every single day it's fine it's fine it's a fine movie and it's a movie that i think was underrated but please stop it's not my favorite movie of all time you have to understand my role on the podcast was to pick a surprising thing and pretend i liked it a lot i was fulfilling my duty as an entertainer well dan i have a quick question for you go you've lived in a lot of different places seen a lot of faces yes um what percentage of the like the places that you've lived would you say that the bathroom towel rack fell off the wall?

100%. That's great to hear. Okay, good. Same thing for me. Where last night it happened again. All of them, I think they're all naturally vulnerable. There's one I can completely blame myself on. And it's...

I think it's just embarrassing enough that it makes for good podcast fun. Sure. Have you ever been sitting on the toilet shitting and you have your hand on the towel rack not like you need it to brace yourself for anything like that i'm just you need to put your arms somewhere and one of my hands was on the towel rack and so like part of my body is already working and then on top of everything i sneezed and just the force of so much happening I ripped that thing off the wall sounds like something with with sneezing and shitting and needing to be on this toilet something's gonna give drywall yeah it's got to be

that good that's incredible yeah it's possible you have super strength but only in those very specific moments. I'm trying to think of how you could use that. But I, like, I don't know. They just need to, the system is fucked.

The system doesn't work. The, the, I, every place I've lived to the towel rack has come off the wall and it's always like one hinge comes off on one side and pulls off. And if you think about like the anatomy of a towel rack, they're all the same. They have a plate that you screw into the drywall and then around the plate sits the ornate like holder thing that holds onto the rest of the towel rack. They're two points away from each other. Almost all of them are like, uh, you can get some that are shorter which are usually about like anywhere from like 12 to 14 inches and then you get the bigger ones that are 24 inches

houses in general the studs are 16 inches to center which means that between the studs it's 16 inches to the center of each one there's no conceivable way that a towel rack will ever be in two studs. Like just because of the math, the towel racks just don't work out that way. You can't find a stud in your wall, put the towel rack in, and then there's impossible for the other side to also be in a stud. So eventually what happens is that these things, even if you put like an anchor in there, these things just pull out of the wall or they loosen in the wall. And then that little plate in the back kind of

moves around. And as soon as it slides to the side, even a little bit, it unlocks the, the thing that it's connected to. That makes so much sense. And so it's like this, they just don't function. They don't function properly and everybody deals with it everybody has yeah yeah and i've certainly had them where we're like they broke in an apartment and i'm not going to do a tremendous amount of repair in an apartment that i'm renting so we'll just use like you know wood glue or rubber cement or whatever just like get it back into its spot so i can hang towels and then i do like the sheepish embarrassing thing whenever i have guests where it's like yeah that towel rack over there that

don't um use it yeah there's a very gentle towel on it but like if we take the towel off it falls apart if we put another towel on it falls apart it's really it's just there so i don't get embarrassed when i move out and then it becomes someone else's problem it's it's honestly it's just there so I don't get embarrassed when I move out and then it becomes someone else's problem it's it's honestly it's so aggravating and I'm at like a point in my life where I've lived enough places where I'm like this is not my fault because early on you're like oh fuck I broke this how do I keep breaking these like this is some sort of cosmic curse I've developed right no it's every single person deals with these because they all fall off the wall. And when they do, if it's like, if that's whatever it is, if they, you put an anchor, do you know what an anchor is? It's like a little piece of plastic that you can like pound

into the drywall and then you screw it to that so that it stays in. But if you, as soon as that anchor pulls out, then you've got like a bigger hole to deal with in the wall and you've got nowhere to put your towel rack anymore because it had because of the points uh like they're exactly fixed a fixed distance from each other because the metal rod going through them you can either put it up at an angle so the towels just all slide down to one side and like try and re-screw in the wall or you got to fix it somehow yeah you got to like fix your wall somehow and then drill directly into the area where you just fixed it. And it drives me fucking insane. I hate it. It's so many steps of repair for a really stupid thing,

but you can't leave it in disrepair because then it's ugly and disgusting. Right? Yeah. Even if you're like, all right, well, I scrap it scrap where I've been pulling this. I'm going to put the towel rack in a new place.

Now you got tools. Yeah. Those two holes, you gotta, you gotta spackle over that and paint over that. It's, it's a nightmare. And I think that there's gotta be a better solution out there. I, last night I was like fixing it and I was like, well, I know enough about home repair

at this point that I can just fix this. And so like, I take out the anchor that's in there and I put in a new bigger anchor. And as soon as I put a screw into it, the anchor breaks, like breaks into the wall, like into the back of the wall. And I'm like, okay, I'll find an even bigger anchor.

It's like I get a bigger one and then I start putting a screw into it. And as soon as I get the screw all the way in, it doesn't tighten all the way. It's just one of those ones where like, it's clearly threaded, but it just keeps spinning, like no matter how much you move it.

And so that means that the plate that sits on the outside just sort of like hangs limply there too so as soon as you put the that base piece on the whole thing is just it's that's how it all gets fucked up in the first place is that that base piece is all fucked and so there's just no solution and i'm furious yeah and it's one of those things that I feel like we're, there are so many things in our everyday lives that are imperfect from a design standpoint that we only have because it's been inherited down hundreds of years, generation to generation, on the whims of some stupid rich king a long time ago. Or some other like rich fancy person who was just like i like towel racks to look like this and uh i'm also the king so that's just what they are now this is pleasing to me uh it doesn't matter because i'm gonna be it's the past so i'm gonna be dead at like 35 but uh it looks nice while i'm alive all right bye i don't have to deal with consequences

and now we all just like have this thing like towel racks and like doorknobs are an imperfect design that we're all just stuck with and now too many things have knobs on them that we can't we can't turn the train at this point yeah we're all just gonna live with it this way i think forever i i'm trying to like think of solutions and one would be if you started your house before you even put your drywall up, you'd have to know where your racks are going to be. So you could put the two solutions. One is this. One is you don't fix the towel rack industry.

Instead, you just fix your house, in which case you put a horizontal stud in there between the studs. So you're guaranteed at that height, you'll always have some wood to drill into and you'd never have this issue ever again. Yeah. But if you're not willing to do that, then the towel rack industry has to change the size of the racks. Like I have, I'm looking at a measuring tape here and I'm like, okay, 26 inches.

No, let's see. It would have to be, I'm sorry. I'm doing math. 32, 32 inches. That's not a crazy long rack. You could fit two towels on that. It looks great. And that's 16 inches by 16 inch. Yeah. You'd, you'd be fine. You get in studs that way. Or a 16 inch rack is fine for a one size towel. Like we can change things. rack is fine for a one-size towel like we can change things the world could be better no no it can't um on a previous podcast dan i talked about how i was going to try and not think about negative things and try to like things think of things for the podcast that i enjoy a previous podcast of this show yeah i said that i i was getting irate about something and you had talked about meditation. Oh, hell yeah.

Again. And I was like, I should try to be more, I shouldn't, I should challenge negative thoughts in my life. I should acknowledge where they're coming from and why I'm feeling them. And I genuinely tried to do that over like the last week. And there are definitely moments where I, I found it was like, Oh no, this is nice. This is, this is making me happy, but also a lot where I'm like, no, this is just wrong. The world shouldn't be like this. This

is just wrong. I saw a guy while I was eating my lunch outside one day, feeling very good. I'm like trying, trying to feel good, like synthetically created as well. And this guy kept coming out of a store. Nero is eating with his dog and he would come out and he would just put his face up to the sun. He had these sunglasses on and he would just put his face up to the sun. And then he'd stand there for a little bit and then he'd go back inside. And he did this like five or six times.

And I was like, man, that guy really like, he's just loving the sun. He just wants to come out every once in a while and just feel it on him. And I was like, yes, that guy, he gets it. And then I look at the store and it's an optometrist and he's coming out there. He's coming out there in, I assume transitions are, is that what they're called? Transitions lenses. Yeah,

sure. And he's just like seeing how they work and making sure that they work well in the sun. I was like, Oh, Oh, fuck him. He doesn't know happiness. He has glasses.

Uh, I thought I had found a, a kindred spirit here. Cause that's a thing that I do all the time. I've never like left a store to feel the sun on my face thing that I do all the time. I've never left a store to feel the sun on my face, but I will when I go outside, especially around this time of year as it's starting

to get a little bit warmer. It's just flirting with the idea of being spring. I will just plant my face in the sun and I'll usually... This is a gross sound for podcasting, but I'll usually genuinely be like... Pretending I'm eating up the sun a little bit because I'm just so happy to be warm and in the sun. I don't know if I brought it up on the podcast, but I like felt I went to go get lunch the other day,

but on bike because I started doing that, I would be driving as little as possible. And I get these lunches that I don't particularly want. And I'm just like, everything about it is just sort of grouping together to become a big annoyance, but I'm like powering through it. And I'm not thinking about how, how high the hill,

the hill is. And I, at one point I was like unlocking my bike and it was cold. And I had not brought a jacket. And then all of a sudden the breeze just stopped. And the sun like was like hot on my shirt. And I was i just stood there for a second i was like this is a really nice moment and i was like this is like i'm really happy in this moment and uh and like sometimes the world is just so perfect and then i started to think about how well what like one of the

moments where i've been the most happy is usually some like reprieve from the general malaise of life, like the general awfulness of life. So like, is that what real happiness is? There's just like awful, awful, awful. And then like, oh, I'm not expected to deal with this for a moment. Oh, this is where I'm I'm happy. Like, it's just like you're getting some break, essentially. And I was like, well, that can't be happiness because there's a really big break at the end. And I don't want, I'm not looking forward to that one. And I was like, well, what do I do with this information? What if it like a really negative person,

I think would be like, well, obviously like that big break, that's what we're all aiming for. You just got to keep, you got to just end it. You get that big reprieve at the end. That's true happiness. I don't think I want to believe that that but i do think it's nice to maybe be happier for people when they die like hey you get it you cross the finish line like all those things that were that we just assumed were part of life and that you just piled on with your every single day and you're like no this is just the treasury this is how we do it you no longer have to deal with any of those things ever again and like that's sort of nice for them i think i don't know that i'm happy when i'm like asleep but i know i'm certainly when i wake up i'm not happy and so and that that might be it might truly just be like vacation goggles and and things are different goggles like that's what

you talk about when you talk about a reprieve where like the first time i went to hawaii it's like maybe i'm just happier here on this island it's like yeah maybe or maybe you're happy that you don't have to like go to an office every day maybe you're happy that someone else is going to clean your home that day. I can remember days in Los Angeles where it hadn't rained in a very, very long time to the point where it was getting very scary and like the droughts coming and this looming threat of dryness and fire. And then all of a sudden it would rain. And like that feeling of how nice it was like, oh, sometimes the world just works. Like this is great. And it's like a reprieve from that feeling of dread. And that's what happiness is.

Or like a rainbow or like a sunset. Like we get to see a really pretty sunset. It's a surprise. You're like, I wasn't expecting this. I'm so used to the usual shit, the usual like gray clouds in the way. What is this when i'm being offered uh and and then like you're you there you it just inspires happiness in you and i'm like well where else am i getting that oh nowhere okay great it's just these reprise from the drudgery perfect and i do think there are there are ways to mitigate that like towards the end of

uh like i've had bad jobs certainly and it wasn't until i had a good job that i realized that like oh you're not you're not supposed to just be like miserable for 90 of the time yeah and only happy for weekends like you can you can get a better balance in a direction that that you could shift that ratio a bit i don't know if you shifted a hundred percent yeah but it is that i know that feeling and we're like all of a sudden this load you've been carrying and assumed you'd be carrying your entire life somebody's like oh you don't have to carry that and you're like or they just shave a few pounds off it they're like oh well this you don't need and you're like

oh my god yeah life could be like this i feel like I remember starting at last week tonight be like yeah okay and so when are the when are all the meetings that where that happened every week that we hate like oh you don't have to you don't have to do like budget meetings every it was like no no but part of work listen I've been in the business for for 11 years at this point part of work is is you do a meeting that you hate every day with people you don't respect. When do I do that part? Those people come to you and they say, all that stuff that you were creating that you

thought was good, it's not good because nobody's looking at it. Right. And how are we going to make it good? And you're like, oh, okay. How are we going to make it good for less money? Okay. Right. Terrible news.

An executive at Cheetos doesn't like this video you made you've really pissed off the guy at cheetos that's a normal part of jobs when do we do that part right uh i i found that at american dad as well where i was just like i even even when i found out that you get a time off to work on your script yeah where you're not going into the office and then working on the script on your own time where they're like all right well now they're going off on script and i was like off on script well like they don't have to come in they're like yeah well i mean they're working they're working on their script i'm like but you but that's all? Like how excited I was. We don't care where they are, what they do, as long as they turn in the script.

Like, yeah, no, no, I get that. But like, but what about the morning meeting that I did for a decade? My son thinks it's very funny when I pretend to be a businessman and like tell him about year over year growth and things like that and an ROI. And luckily I have, I still have the, the glossary of terms where I could just like pretend that I'm talking about a spreadsheet very easily to him. And it all comes back so fast. And like, where you talk about how, how you're doing, uh, how the, like how we're doing on across social and how everything's going on in brand development and stuff like that, where it was just like, oh, my God, I'm so good at this. And it's so awful and boring. And he eats it up.

He loves how weird he does. Yeah, that's fun. Just like the like because it seems very adult. Yes. Yeah. Talking about like being in the black and stuff like that he's way into he thinks it's very funny because he's obviously he's got no anchor there he's got like that's it doesn't bring him anxiety at the same way it does every other

human and being on earth because he's never had to deal with it yeah maybe assumes he never has to maybe he never has to. Maybe he never has to. Ooh. Sometimes I wonder if everything I know about, if we're all working from the same business vocabulary that can be traced back to movies and TV shows where writers who'd never worked in an office

just wrote what they thought it was like, and then we've all just been copying it. We as writers have been copying it, but also we as business people have been copying it. You know? That's like Plato's The Cave there. Yeah. I just finished re-watching Six Feet Under,

and there's a whole arc in the last season where Claire is a temp in an office. And I'm watching all the stuff that happens in it, and I'm like, I don't think anyone who wrote this has ever worked in an office. Yeah. But I don't know if the people who wrote The Office have either. I don't know anyone who's worked in an office. I don't know anyone who's worked in an office, but we all agree that there's inhumanly annoying people who work in the office and say things about Mondays. Are we all just assuming that happened because of office space?

Was Kathy ever real or were we all just working from the same writer's imagination of what we think, what some guy in the 70s thought an office was like and we're like yeah office sucks according to what that guy thinks it is i it's entirely possible that's it i think that there's sort of like a a mirror reflecting a mirror situation happening in a lot of quadrants of our life with pop culture like that like uh the people who join the military like that that like brother uh vernacular like calling each other brother all the time stuff i think a lot of that like it the marines and stuff are cool in movies so when you join the marines that's your litmus like that's your starting point is seeing it from movies so then you can't help but reflect that onto the marines when you're there and then the culture represents like the culture starts to match whatever you saw in the movie.

There's like, or not even in careers. Like, I think that the idea of kissing somebody on a doorstep, I don't think that existed before movies. I think that in some movie, somebody was like, and now there's a date. And then at the end of the date, maybe there's a kiss at the end of the date. And everyone was like, that feels right. And then everyone was just like, at the end of the date maybe there's a kiss at the end of the date and everyone was like that feels right and then everyone was just like at the end of a date you kiss you're nervous for the whole first parts of it and then there's the good part at the end and then you go home and you pump your fist in the air

uh i i'm sure there's a just a ton of that that we don't even we don't even realize and that's fine i guess i can't i find that in my own life because i watch so many movies that when i have a genuine experience or should be having a genuine experience i'm immediately aware of how similar i'm doing it to a movie yeah or not any particular movie but like the way that they react in movies am i reacting the same way is that the right way to react yeah i remember when uh you were telling me the first time your wife gave birth you were like you can do it murphy brown and then you then you left the room because you remember murphy brown didn't have her husband with her she did that all by herself so you had to Yeah. Had to get out of there.

You told the doctor, this is wrong. Hold, please. Yeah. When I have my son, I gave him a cell phone specifically so that he could call me on it. Like Zach Morris calls his dad and they can have that moment where he says, is this the only way I can contact with you? Good stuff. That feels like enough time, right? Yeah. I think think that's plenty there's one thing that we need to certainly address the fact that we have a new theme song and we're very very excited about it and we want to give the band some love who made it because it's like it's just this a perfect piece of music that somebody made for us and that's incredible so uh we want to talk about uh their new album. This is a band called Me Rex and they've got an album out called Mega Bear.

It came out actually last year, but it's made up of 52 short songs and they're intended to be shuffled around to make one continuous piece of music. But the piece of music is always changing as you shuffle it. It's pretty incredible. And coming out on June 17th, they have a new EP called Plesiosaur. You can go find them on um you can go find them on you can go find their music at megabear.co.uk i think that's the mega bear album um and the other one you'll hear on june 17th but they're great yeah they're fantastic we love them thank

you so much for our brand new theme song it's got our names on it in it and everything we've loved them all along. Yep. Oh, you can actually listen to the first single from Plesiosaur right now. It's called Jupiter Pluvius. Oh, I'll check that out. Close enough. Thanks again to Merex for making our theme song.

We can be found on Twitter at twitter.com slash qq underscore Soren and Dan. You can find Soren at Soren underscore LTD. You cannot find me on Twitter. I am currently still taking a little Twitter hiatus that might be forever. You can email the show qq with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com. We do have our new theme song, but we are excited if you have other songs that say our names in them that's uh i guarantee you that's the quickest way to get your shit played on the air is mention one of our names send that to qq with sword and daniel at gmail.com find us on instagram at qq underscore with underscore sword underscore and underscore

daniel you can find and hire our editor producer engineer gabe harder.com but you can find and hire our editor, producer, engineer, GabeHarder.com, but you can't, and he's not here today anyway. We are blessed to be joined by Jacob. Jacob, can you plug anything? Jacob, following in the long, proud tradition of not wanting to be publicly associated with this show, we've come to expect from our engineers and editors. Thank you, Jacob.

We will respect your privacy. We also have a Patreon. You can support us and the show, and once a month we answer exclusive questions from you, our listeners. I think that's everything.

Thorne, you sound like you're really typing up a storm over there i've already i've already moved on to emails all right bye i've got a quick quick question for you all right i want to hear your thoughts i want to know what's on your mind i 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 favorite? Who did you get?

When will I be remembered? What's it up with? Where did all the bad weeks 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