Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Pet Peeve Time Bombs + AI Daniel!

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

The guys cover a lot of ground today - from a praying mantis infested Christmas trees to an introduction to the newest member of the podcast - AI Daniel. They also discuss the small ways in which they’re both ticking time bombs in their day to day lives.Get 15% off your next gift at uncommongoods.com/QQ.

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? When do I be remembered? Was it awkward? Where did all the good things 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. 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, senior writer for Last Week Tonight, author of How to Fight Presidents, and tired. Daniel O'Brien, joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Bui.

Soren, wake me up inside. Hey, everybody. It's Soren Bui. I am the other half of this podcast, and I'm happy to be here and carrying the load for the rest of the episode, it turns out. Can I tell you something? Didn't realize Daniel was tired, but I'll deal with it. I know.

I don't think you have to worry about that anymore because I wrote this intro and settled on tired about 20 minutes ago, a time when I was tired. But the on-the-fly decision to pronounce it podcast, it gave me a real jolt of life. I'm not tired anymore. I'm too pleased with myself for still finding magic in the minutia that I'm raring to go for another. I mean, there's no reason not to make this a shorter episode, but I'm raring to go for all of it. Okay. Fucking let's do it then.

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. Daniel. Yeah, what's up? Do you want to do a Thanksgiving update? How was your Thanksgiving? Oh yeah, we'll do a Thanksgiving. That's a turkey backing up.

It was great. That's a turkey backing up. It was great. Almost my whole family involved. And I made some, we made some Brussels sprouts and some great kale salad that went over really well. There was a moment where I rediscovered something that I think about all the time is that I must be just completely insufferable to be around for any length of time, because there was a very standard like icebreaker, not even icebreaker question, but we're all sitting at the table. We all do the things that we're thankful for. And then my brother was saying there was, you know, a bunch of things that you could say, like conversation starters to have at the Thanksgiving dinner table, and we're all gathered here. so we're like just talking and sharing ideas and uh the thought starter was what is the most overrated piece of thanksgiving food and i i bloviated for so long ultimately i don't think ever really having an answer because at first i said turkey

and someone else was like my man yes turkey that's right I was like well no hang on because the prompt was overrated piece of thanksgiving food and I don't think that qualifies because most people don't rate the turkey very high and anytime any other person was just trying to like politely answer the question I was still I would pop in with like yeah but see here again who rates cranberry sauce, I would still, I would pop in with like, yeah, but see here again, who rates cranberry sauce high? I would argue that that's an outlier and it might in fact be perfectly rated. And like, that's not how you're supposed to play with the question. It's like what sucks and what doesn't. Yeah. You're supposed to say stuffing and move on.

Um, well, yeah, that's, yeah, you are a slave to the rules. I will say that in the same way that my son is. And I like, I have a lot more patience for it now. I flashback to something. There was Chuck Klosterman, a writer I love and I've talked about on this podcast a lot, who also seems insufferable. He was on Bill Simmons's podcast years ago, and I was listening to them. And Klosterman is, if you don't know him, his mind works much like the way I just described my ruining of Thanksgiving icebreaker questions, where he will just overanalyze everything. That's part of his appeal as a writer, for me anyway, and part of what makes him, I think, potentially a terrible dinner guest.

And he was on Bill Simmons' podcast, not giving a straight answer for anything, as he often does. And Simmons at one point is like, I am a voyeur. Who's better, Michael Jackson or Prince? And Cluster just goes, the bass playing on Thriller is some of the best that I've ever heard in my life. And I listened to this podcast in, I don't know, eight or nine years ago. And I thought, don't ever be like this person. It's very, it would be really easy for me to turn into that person.

And now I think it's just happening. I think I'm just, I'm just, I'm sighing at the, the, the terrible burden of wanting to answer a question properly. I, you know what? We talked about this podcast already, but we mentioned search engine on here when, when Ezra Klein was on recently. And Ezra Klein, I think has like a, a hint of that in him. We're like, PJ would ask him these questions.

Granted, they were like tall orders. They were like, what's a healthy way to consume the internet? But like the way that he would answer questions, I was like, just answer the question. Just say, don't use Twitter and I'll do that. Right. Just say this. Right. You want, he gives a long monologue answer to that. And you want PJ to say, oh, I'm sorry. We were looking for on phone. 99% of Americans responded on phone. So that was the right answer. Yeah. I spent Thanksgiving with my in-laws here at our house and they stayed with us, which is always really nice because they are still, they're like in that sweet spot where

they're very active. They feel very young while being 70 plus and like they can keep up with my kids. So if we wanted to be like, Hey, we're going to go out to dinner. They're like, great. We would love that. We love to have a task while we're here. We will take care of your children and we can just go. And I, I'm so jealous of people who have family who live near them. Yeah.

Like that was never part of my thinking. I was always like, get as far away as possible. Right. And then didn't realize like, Oh no, that's a huge mistake. Once you have children,

because they're so helpful. It makes like a show. Like everybody loves Raymond where I was like, oh no, that's a huge mistake once you have children. Because they're so helpful. It makes like a show like Everybody Loves Raymond where I was like, what an idiot. He lives down the street from his parents. You can't do that. Now I'm like, oh, you know what? Ray really had it figured out. Yeah. Look at how much golfing he gets to do.

He works on his sports column all the time and isn't bothered by his kids. And his mom makes him food. Sure, it's hell for his wife, but it's great for him. So it is really nice to have them do that. But it also meant that when we were cooking Thanksgiving dinner, it was way easier because they just went into the backyard and like played with the kids. And I could focus on the meals themselves. So we did like an elevated version of a couple of different dishes.

Now, I know that as soon as people hear that, they roll their eyes and they're like, just put the fucking celery in the stuffing. Yeah. I'm with you. I'm with you. Except when you find a thing that works and is different than you've had,

like I've had 40 Thanksgivings at this point. This is like a thing I'm sticking with. I, for stuffing this time didn't do celery i did leeks and fennel and like grilled it up for no not grilled it fried it up first and then put it in and it was so good and it made the stuffing infinitely better i suggest it for everybody i there was a major change this year, and I don't know how it happened, but there was no green beans at all for Thanksgiving dinner as one of the sides. And it was becoming clear in conversation that I don't think anyone really liked green beans or looked forward to it,

but we had just like consumed it because that's what our parents and their parents did forever and ever and ever. And it was just a wonderful realization to be like, oh, we can actually make every part of it the stuffing if we want. We can make all of it good. Right. Oh, man, you guys don't like the green bean casserole? No. Interesting.

I mean, of course, I don't want to speak for everyone, but. It's got a ton of like, you have to put a bunch of whipping cream milk in it. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. That makes perfect sense. No, but even if a kind relative was like, look, we made dairy-free for you. I still don't want green beans.

No. I do. I really like it. I love the little French onions on top. Although this time we did shallots, crispy shallots. No big deal. Just like a step up. Sure.

Step up. Yeah. And then immediately the next day, decorated for Christmas. Yeah. Well, that's always fun. I think the last podcast was talking about decorating for Christmas. We got our tree. And this was a rare moment for me where,

where I know how to decorate a tree, but you still, I go to my favorite website, youtube.com just to see if there are any life. Oh, the old watering hole. Yeah. YouTube.com. So I go,

I typed www.youtube.com and I hit enter and I go. For Daniel. Yes. And then I, we were just searching around for, for like life hacks. Cause there's life hacks for everything now. And the, a lot of YouTubers were like, here is how you can string lights on your tree where you're not just wrapping it around thing at a time, passing it from person to person. I, there was one hack where it was like, you just take them and you start at the top and you just like pull the long string

down and you do it like that. You still get a tree covered in lights. And there was another one who was saying, you know, those things you can, you can just like buy these nets of lights that you throw over your, the bushes in your front yard. I just put them in my tree and no one can tell. It still looks like it's a tree covered in lights and it takes me like 15 seconds to do it. And Shay and I both were like, no, it's supposed to be hard. Shut up with that.

I want to get really frustrated untangling last year's lights. And I did. And that's what I'm supposed to do. This isn't supposed to be easy and done in 15 seconds. Yes, absolutely. Part of the reason, like with my children, I gave them apple cider, like I made some apple cider on the stove with cinnamon and cloves and stuff. And part of that's because I like the idea of them getting into the Christmas spirit

and looking forward to something, getting it in their minds that next year they're excited for it. But part of it's also a pre apology for what's about to happen, that I know what's good. As soon as I start setting up the tree, I'm going to start getting angry and very short tempered. And they're going to catch a lot of the brunt of that. I'm going to be like,

you're in my way. You got to stop running around like that kind of shit. And, and, but fortunately Ronan was so helpful. Like he was my guy for when i was doing the wrapping around the tree you have to hand that bunch of yeah tangled mess of wires to somebody he took it and was very cool about it and just held it in place and didn't

try and do too much didn't do too little he was just the best helper that's great. Yeah. At what age do children learn don't talk to daddy right now? Yeah. Colleen and I have on several occasions said to him, Ronan, read the room. And now he thinks he finally gets it. He does know to back off. Our daughter is oblivious. She does not get it at all. But he knows and it's it's almost worse because when he knows and then doesn't pay attention to it i get even more mad because i'm like yeah i can sense you sensing it and you're still not doing it yeah you still want to tell me about this string hanging from your hat it's not even a hat we're gonna be wearing for another month because it's not cold enough yeah uh you do right? Yeah. So we've got a, we, we bought a balsam hill

tree, uh, which is like top of the line, Dan, that's like putting shallots in your green bean casserole. Okay. And it's, we got it two days after Christmas once. I think I remember that. I remember you telling me what a, what a great coup this was for you. The financial decision to buy a tree at about 70% off. But it's been great. I love pulling it out of the attic, fluffing it up. It's great. Yeah.

I went to the same place that I went last year and sought it down myself, which is a fun tradition that I enjoyed. And I Googled how to prevent bugs because last year did i talk about my tree last year on the podcast how i don't think so you got bugs it exploded into bugs um that's perfect like i was i was just about it it made it through all of christmas it was just before new year's i was about to to fly to Cancun for New Year's. And I was like, I think I could leave my tree up. Let me just look at it one more time. And it was like that morning, a sack had exploded on the back of the tree. And it was just tiny praying mantis babies, I later learned is what they were but i just saw like like a million little alien bugs and so i i sprayed and got rid of as many as i could and immediately

stripped that tree down of all the stuff that i wanted to keep and threw it right in the garbage outside and uh then very bravely left for my trip just She's like, all right, if I come home and it's more bugs, then I will have wasted that vacation. I will not come home relaxed. I didn't realize you got a praying mantis tree. Yeah. And I didn't know what that was at the time. But then just like doing some Googling this time around to find out what kind of insect typically lives in Christmas trees. And praying mantis is a big one. They lay their

sacks in Christmas trees. And then, uh, when you move the tree indoors and it gets warmer for them, they assume it's spring and they, they hop right out. And luckily, if it happens to any of our listeners, it's not too bad. Most of them will die very quickly or kill each other. Yeah, they eat each other. They're not the infestation kind of bug problem. You could just get rid of the ones that you see and then they'll be gone. But I didn't even want to deal with the possibilities. So we just inspected the tree as closely as we could and like shook it a whole bunch outside. Because when you Google things to

do with your fresh cut tree, the advice makes me very annoyed at how unrelatable it is. Because it's just like, well, the first thing you're going to want to do is when you put it leave it in a big bucket of water at the trunk in your garage and I'm like hang on what do you mean big bucket of water I'm not even at garage yet you think I have room

in my apartment for a big bucket you freaks where would it go now when you went out into the woods to saw this tree down did you also just take a peek around at like some of the the the trees that weren't of age yet and be like oh next year i'm gonna cut you down so hard when you're you're of age jesus man no oh you don't have a plan? That would be a funny bit to do, to go to that farm and reserve one that's there now. And it's just like, no, I'll pay for it now, but I'm going to put a little ribbon on it that says sold. And you leave it there.

You don't let anyone else take that. I'll be here in 2026. Yeah. When it's ready. I'm going to come back and check on it a little bit. Yeah. I just want to come back and see how it there. You don't let anyone else take that. I'll be here in 2026. Yeah. When it's ready. I'm going to come back and check on it a little bit. Yeah. I just want to come back and see how it's doing. You're grooming a tree for Christmas

and five years from now? I think this is a really funny bit, Dan. I think so too. Yeah, we do plastic. You know, it's touch and go ecologically Dan. I think so too. Yeah, we do plastic. It's touch and go ecologically because obviously cutting down trees for Christmas is in the short run

not a great idea, but in the long run, all that plastic when you throw away your tree is also not so great. So I think the sweet spot is if you buy a fake tree, get a good one that will last you like 30 or 40 years, and then you'll be fine. Don't ever get the ones that have lights built into them. I know it feels much easier because you just set up the tree and then boom, it's done.

You don't have to hang the lights or anything. But the minute one of those lights goes out, you can never replace it. It's like this built-in obsolescence on those. You are a few miles further down the road of being a good progressive human than I am on this score because I hadn't even... I'm not even mentally ready to start thinking about the carbon footprint of any Christmas tree decision. Well, no, you don't have the space for it. No, of course not. But even just like- You can't have a bucket. you don't have the space for it no no of course not but even just like a bucket you can't have a whole tree in your house i've i've shifted on a lot of issues in the world and as a person in it where i i consider what is like the

the morally correct thing to do and considerations to have. And Christmas trees, I'm just not there yet. I'm so sorry. And I was like, no, I'm going to keep myself in the dark on this one for just a few more years before I finally take out the old internet and Google is Christmas good? And then... it is i mean there's such a relief this this time of year because everything is particularly bad and like your own indulgences are make you complicit in like the destruction of the world just your general life like the way that you live it means that you are pretty morally complicit and then you have this time of year where like,

it's basically just saying it's okay. Just let it go for a little bit. My college roommate and still one of my closest friends, he didn't celebrate Christmas. His family didn't celebrate Christmas. And we had a long talk one year where he was just like, yeah, it's, I don't want to take anything away from anyone. But I, as a kid growing up, it's just, it's very difficult. We didn't, there's no replacement for it. There's no, it's not like there's Christmas and Hanukkah. They're just completely

different things serving different functions. It's not a one-to-one swap. And it was just very alienating and very difficult. And I was like, yeah, I can imagine. I'm not going to change. I'm so sorry. I'm going to decorate our apartment for it. Everything you're saying is making sense. It's just not in the cards for me to change on this thing just yet. And actually, if you wanted to celebrate, maybe you could change.

Maybe you can start celebrating Christmas. Did you ever think about that? Yeah. You could start with celebrating the spirit of giving and give to me this one fucking thing. Yeah. It is like, with my children, it's so great with kids because you can really, every other day of the year all i'm thinking about is them 20 years down the road and whether what they're doing right now is a good thing for them or a bad thing for them and just trying to nip things in the bud constantly and at christmas i

let it all go and i'm like whatever you want yeah what do you want let's go to target and just look through the aisles let's just play like we are going on a Toys R Us speed run. And let's just walk through the aisles and be like, what are the things that I want? And you'll get probably half of those and you won't even remember the others. Yeah. Christmas is great. Should we get into the show? Let's do a show. Yeah. We have a special thing or should we do questions? What do you think? No, let's do a special thing. From art and jewelry to kitchen, home, and bar,

Uncommon Goods has something special to choose from for everyone. And with every purchase you make at Uncommon Goods, they give back $1 to a nonprofit partner of your choice. They've donated more than $2.5 million to date. Uncommon Goods is here to make your holiday shopping stress-free by scouring the globe for the most remarkable and truly unique gifts. That's the most important part. They buy these from small vendors. Unique gifts for everyone on your list. Whether you're shopping for your Secret Santa or your entire family, Uncommon Goods knows exactly what they want.

I started scouring through Uncommon Goods because I wanted to find something for my wife from my son. We ended up getting her a really great pair of earrings that I really liked. But in doing so, I also found about six other gifts for other people that I know without even meaning to. You basically, you cannot walk through the website without stumbling on something for somebody you know. It's wonderful. It cleared up all of my shopping, gave me a good opportunity to get everything done in one fell swoop. 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. Daniel, I'll make it a quick question. Daniel, quick question. What? Do you ever wonder what you would sound like as a robot?

I'll make it a quick question. Daniel, quick question. What? Do you ever wonder what you would sound like as a robot? No. I don't think I'm too far off from a robot currently. I feel like in all the pauses in my speech, I would not be surprised if I listened back to this podcast and heard like worrying from inside my brain, just like buzzing of different wires going as I slowly malfunction on this every episode. It's, I mean, obviously I'm talking about AI right now. I have like mixed thoughts about this because our producer and sound engineer and editor

Gabe Harder has figured out that he can basically do, because there's so much of our voices already out there, he can do an AI version of us. Right, which he, go ahead. I'm of two minds about it, because obviously for my job, that's the most terrifying thing in the world, and I never want that to happen. But for this podcast, which I want to spend as little time on as possible. Right. I'm like, what if we, all right, let's just, let's run it for 16 episodes and just see. Right. I'm like, what if we was unavailable, which is a thing I say when I don't want to do something. And I was just hoping you would jump in and you would do it.

But you were silent for a while, which is an Aplus move. And then Gabe texted us and he says, if you guys wouldn't be opposed to this, I could also just use AI to generate what it would sound like to have Daniel read the ad. And I didn't respond because I genuinely didn't know if he was joking or not. Like, A, because I don't know if the technology exists to make an ai me and b because we just spent five months protesting against among other things ai taking our jobs it would be a pretty funny game joke yeah yeah uh but ultimately we didn't soren came in and and recorded the ad like an adult and uh I felt good about that and that I'm not being replaced by a robot. But Gabe had the audio made already. And I know nothing about it other than it's an AI doing me.

And we're going to play it for the first time for both of us to hear on this podcast. My hope is that you learn some things about yourself you didn't want to learn in like a 30 second bit. Like the words that you use as a crutch, the pauses that you take that you didn't realize until you hear it, somebody else mimicking you where you'd have to be like, oh, fuck me. I got to reevaluate how I speak. Right. I mean, there's the main thing.

The top terrifying thing is going to be if it's very realistic, just how unsettling that's going to be for me. Yeah. Then there are tiers of other things beneath that. And one of those is going to be the same reactions that everyone goes through when they hear themselves recorded and they think there's no way I sound like that. And then I'll get very self-conscious about that. A third fear I have is that it won't sound anything like me, but there will be like two or three things in there that clearly Gabe thinks I sound like. Those are his parameters.

Right. Just someone like, just the entire audio is a stuttering mess of a person flubbing their words. And Gabe hears that and is like, yeah, that's perfect. I can't tell them apart. That's what he sounds like to me. Gabe puts in, there has to be at least's perfect. I can't tell them apart. That's what he sounds like to me. Gabe puts in,

there has to be at least one of my ex-wife jokes. Right. That would be, there we go. That's Dan. All right, should we play this? Yeah, please. Yeah, I want to jump in with some context for the listeners here. So sadly, Daniel,

it is true that it is impossible to get an AI to listen to your voice and then give it any kind of enthusiasm. So the version of what you're about to hear is actually a it's called a speech to speech AI. So it has the data of your voice and then an audio file of me and my own voice recording what I want you to say. And then it translates that to your voice. Okay. This is how they did that Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan fighting about Ratatouille. So yes. So let's play it. Hello again, and welcome to Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers cover true crime.

But in a funny way, Ted Bundy, more like Ted Fundy mentally, was a bad guy. Thanks for listening. Wow. So it morphed. So it was clearly Dan at the beginning of that. And then it morphed into Gabe. It did. Okay.

I couldn't tell if I was crazy or not, but it did feel like, oh, now I'm hearing Gabe talk towards the end of that and then it morphed into Gabe. It did. Okay. I didn't want to, I couldn't tell if I was crazy or not, but it did feel like, oh, now I'm hearing Gabe talk towards the end of this. Yeah. When it got to the crime part. Yeah. It was, but it was like, it was you. It was absolutely me. Yeah. It was terrifyingly me. I do like the bold future of AI still requires at least one human being in this case, Gabe to put a bunch of work and effort into a thing. So there will be jobs. All right, here's another one, Gabe. Hello again and welcome to Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers solve the Israel-Palestine conflict. Huh!

Well, why isn't our podcast that? It would be so fun. I've got a lot of opinions that I can't wait to get out there. Whatever you're thinking they are, you're wrong. They're the other. Yeah. They're the other.

No, that was Gabe. That was definitely Gabe. And we've got one more here let's do this one hello again and welcome to quick question with Soren and Daniel the podcast we're two best friends in oh no oh no oh no oh no Soren Soren you have to call the police there's there there's something Sorin, Sorin, help, help, fuck, fuck, Sorin. So, like, it's so interesting because, go ahead, Dan. That sounded the most like me out of any of them. it's got so much material when it comes to what it sounds like when Daniel says Soren, that it has a bunch of different versions of that that sound really plausible to be me. And stuttering and pausing and saying, fuck, fuck, over and over again. And you saying, oh, no, actually, the no's were like dead on.

It reminds me of somebody did a deep fake when Bill Hader is telling a story about Tom Cruz in which they map Tom Cruz's face over Bill Hader's. Have you seen that? No. Bill Hader is on some, maybe Jimmy Kimmel or somebody like that. And he's telling the story about Tom Cruz. And so he's doing an impression of Tom Cruz in the story. And somebody did deep fake where they map him over it. And it's like, it's eerie. And then every once in a while, you get like a hint of Bill Hader underneath it. And then it goes back into Tom Cruise. And I'm like, that's, this is the exact same thing, but just for my ears, like I can hear, it would be so surreal to hear that without the context, because it is kind of you, but not really you. It's like a ghost of you.

Yeah. And it's very terrifying that like, I mean, everything's terrifying, everything's bad, but this does give a window into scams that I don't even think are in the future. I think people are probably already doing this where you could just, someone could call my parents and have my voice make it sound like someone is breaking into my house or some other kind of scheme like that. And we're don't, we as a family aren't sophisticated enough to watch out for those type of scams. We're still very much at the, hey, dad, don't open the link that anyone sends you in any email ever no one is ever going to send you a link it's always scam like we we're just barely past that hurdle that there's no way that i mean we just have to add more layers of sophistication which

is like now if if someone calls you and they sound like me and they say uh soren and fuck very convincingly it's it still might be gabe i'm so sorry oh yeah hats off to you gabe is also gabe for uh creating those fun little vignettes where what we actually would do on the show that's those were good little bits. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And when I say little,

I'm not being demeaning. I mean like they're short and they're good. No, that was good. That was bits fun and appropriately terrifying for me in a number of ways. Yeah. I don't think I want it. I don't think I want it for me.

Honestly. I, and I, I guess i could maybe abe abe ask gabe about this off mic because i don't want to give our listeners a tutorial on how to do scams but i am very curious like the stuff that you are using could anyone do that? Could I just like go to AI.com and put text in the one window and put audio in the other window and

just like mess around for a while to for fun and eventually riches? Yes, it's very easy to do. This all took me maybe five minutes. Okay. Dan, have you ever heard the thing where Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro fight over whether they'd want a Ratatouille, whether they'd want a little rat control?

Yeah, I have heard that before. So I think it's got to be fairly easy. Yeah. Because that's, I mean, it's phenomenally done. It's like there's so much, I think, of those guys out there that it was very easy to match their cadence and everything. Yeah. And I think that Gabe's also, I think he's underplaying some of the work that he's doing where he knows your cadence. Right.

And he's kind of matching it, especially with the introduction to the show. And that really helps. Yeah. I do. I am still fundamentally ethically opposed to AI taking our jobs. But I was also opposed to my job being guy who reads advertisements on a podcast. Yeah. Oh, man. If we could get it to read the ads. Also, I mean, it'd be fun to have it do the intros to the show and then just for the rest of the show, figure out what the, what was going on there. Yeah. I mean, coming up with, with the third detail in the intro today's was tired.

That's like 90% of the work that I do for this podcast is, is banging my head against the wall, coming up with what I'm going to say to describe myself. So if we can get that outsourced, I guess I'm fine with it. Well, actually, it is really comforting that we have a lot of time with that. I thought it was going to be much scarier than it was. Right. There's an AI thing that's going around Twitter. I know you're not on Twitter anymore, but it's a song,

music, lyrics, melody, key instruments, all done entirely by AI. And there's like an AI avatar of a, an uncanny, uncanny Valley person who was like, my name is Anna Indiana or something like that. And this is a song that I wrote. And it's all, every bit of it, every tone, every note, even my design is AI. And it just sucks. It's so funny to me that it was released as a flex of like watch your six olivia rodrigo and

then i watched him like yeah this is bad this is not good this seems like it was written by a machine and not a human being this is that's what during the strike there was a lot of that where people are like their jobs are toast and they'd release stuff that was like, you think this is good. Yeah. You think this trash is good. Speaking of AI taking our jobs and writing in general, I got a quick question for you, Soren. Yeah, go ahead. Are you a ticking time bomb for anything? I'll go first because it's a strange question.

Explain it to me. It's something that has happened to you a lot and maybe it's it's it's happened to you or you've heard it a lot it's been said to you a lot and you can brush it off something that bothers you but that you don't feel totally correct and being bothered by it so you don't make a big thing out of it and you brush it off and brush it off but you just know that one day not the worst person in the world is going to say or do it to you but just the least lucky person in the world is going to say and do it to you and uh you feel like you might snap not in a violent way or violent if you feel like it i mean it's i don't want to i don't want to handcuff you on this for me it it's someone asks you what you do

and you tell them that you are a writer and then the response is, you know, I always thought I could be a writer. And that's a thing I've heard a million times. I know you've heard a million times. I could tell by your reaction that you don't like hearing it. And I want to get ahead of this for our listeners as much as I can,

because two things can be true. One thing, that is a bonkers insulting thing to say to a person. Second thing that can also be true, I completely get it. And it's not meant to be offensive or demeaning or whatever. Everyone in the world probably has thought at some point that they could be a writer. We've all got stories to tell. We're all interesting main characters in our own worlds. And writing is one of those jobs that doesn't require a specific degree to actually do. You don't need to go to a specific specialized school for it. Some people do. There are obviously programs, but you don't need it. And there are plenty of famous and successful

writers who came at it through different training or dropped out of school or what have you. So I get that people, when they say, I always thought I could be a writer, or sometimes I'll say, I still think I could be a writer, that they're not coming at it from a place where they're thinking, your job seems easy to me, and it requires no skill. So that's why, even though I studied whatever it is that I studied, I think I could do your job. They're not coming at it from that angle. They're coming at it from a pure, you know, everyone's got a story to tell place. And they're also probably coming at it from a like, this is a way to make conversation kind of place. You know, they're just a human being trying to interact with another human being, being based on the raw data that they've been given. So I get it.

And that's why I don't scream at everyone. But I feel it in my bones that one day, years from now, someone is going to say something like that to me and they are going to get everything that I've wanted to say for 25 years of professional writing or however long I've been doing this at this point that I, I, I just spared everyone else. And it's not, again, it's not like this person who's going to feel my wrath did anything worse than

anyone else. I just know, like I, there are a certain amount of pages left in my brain's book. And every time someone says that to me, another one gets ripped out. I don't know how many pages are left, but we're going to get to the end at some point. And it's not going to be great. It is a, it's, it's very, very frustrating to hear somebody like find out you're a writer and then immediately like wax about how I essentially saying I had a lot of talent too. I probably could have done what you do. Cause it's like,

yeah, it's such a demeaning thing to say to somebody. Cause obviously you're right. There is no, there's no metric for like how good you are other than being published, but you have, right. And even that isn't necessarily a good metric.

There are a lot of people who are, have so much skill and they're born with it. Like it's just something that came in them from the factory line and they're good enough that they could be a great writer. But man, the work that it takes along the way to do that and to also motivate yourself to write and to have these things in you that you need to say. There's just so much about it that's like, you can't just say that to me. because we've certainly talked about this on the, on the show before that when you're saying,

I always thought I could be a writer. What you're saying is I've had ideas. I've had stories to tell. That's fine. You're completely glossing over the fact that arguably the hardest part about writing is actually sitting down and doing it and committing to it. It's like, it's, you're,

you're not saying like, I would be a writer. If I went to school one more day, or I would be a writer. If something interesting happened to me, it's like, yeah, I would be a writer too.

I just, it's just a matter of like, you know, sitting down and actually get writing it all out. It's like, yes, that's the hardest fucking part. That's the, that's it hardest fucking part. That's it.

That's the reason my bathroom is so clean is because I don't want to do that part and I do other things instead. That's the scariest thing that I do all the time. Mine is actually also a literary microaggression. I mean, well, just in terms of like things that people don't mean any harm by, but it's based in like a, they just have no context for how many times you've heard this regarding your job.

And it's this one. I'm sure you've heard this, Dan. Somebody says, man, I want whatever you were smoking when you came up with that. Oh, hell yeah. That one drives me bananas because for the same reason it's demeaning, but also it's giving credit to a drug as opposed to like the very hard work you did to make something good and interesting. And like what they're essentially saying is, I never would have thought of that. And that's a very nice thing to say. Like, I wouldn't mind

somebody saying that to me. I'd be like, oh, thank you. But they're saying like, I never would have thought of that. And there's no way you did either. You cheated and here's how you did it. You used marijuana. Right. We would get that question a lot from like interviewers in early crack days when we were doing weird sketches and strange articles and, and, you know, creative and funny things. It would be like an, like an honest to goodness interview question from someone who was writing about us or like when we were doing like a panel somewhere, a live panel thing, and people would bring up specific videos and ask what we were smoking. And it always, even before it feels like an

insulting question, I was like, well, the platonic ideal, you'll get one of two answers, and neither of them are good answers. One of them is, I wasn't smoking anything. We worked very hard on this and we thought, what is something that is funny and surprising that other people won't come up with and the audience won't be ahead of us? Yeah. And we landed on this thing. After sitting in a room for a very long time, trying out different ideas that were not as good. Yeah, a bunch of us sitting around, tired and angry at each other. Right. And the other answer, the other like only possible answer to the question is, oh, drugs.

Yeah. And that's not a fun answer either. No, I feel like Hunter S. Thompson ruined it for a lot of writers, honestly, because he was somebody who was like, no, I'm much better at writing when I'm on mescaline or like whatever he happened to be using at the time. And that very well might've been true. The thing is like people who have this idea in their heads that a writer's room is a bunch of writers sitting around smoking weed and telling jokes to each other is like, it's, it's so far off the mark because it would make them, it would make the show so bad. If that's what we were actually doing, if you're getting really high on anything and then writing an episode, it would be nonsense. And it would be, at very worst, it would be nonsense. At its very best, it would be the

dumbest episode of television you've ever seen. I had a cousin frustration of that, where it's not the what are you smoking thing, but it's something that I would see in interviews with actors in comedies all the time, where the interviewer would ask how much of that was improvised. And this is, this is, A, only in comedy, which is, you know, a whole separate level of insulting that we can get into one of these days. But B, the interviewer really wants it to be improv. And for some reason, those stories always really stick out. Like, oh, this line, this very funny Chris Pratt line in Parks and Rec, it was totally improvised.

I don't know why those stories gain so much traction. And I don't know why interviewers gained so much traction. And I don't know why interviewers like really push forward. Like, Oh, so, so this, this, this,

this scene in Barry, like, Oh, what was that? Was it written? Or did you just like, did you just go, you just go like,

why do you, why does it need to be Chris Pratt or Henry Winkler who came up with the thing? If, if what you're impressed by is someone came up with a funny thing to say, that can still be true if it was written by the writer first. Yeah. But nobody wants that to be true. They always want their favorite thing in Parks and Rec or

The Office, they want that to be the thing that- On the fly. Nah, that's Steve Carell did that. I mean, we still- Not one of the writers writers Michael Scott said that well because the writers are such an amalgamous gray thing in the minds of viewers I don't know who they are I have no connection to them

I want the funny person in front of me to have said it and I get that that's why we used to do articles on Cracked constantly that were like some of the best lines from movies were ad libs and those articles would go gangbusters because you'd find out these people just like were so immersed in the character that they were like, and now I know it better than even

the writers do. And like the dream of that I get is very enticing. It would be so funny if Cracked still existed to come out with an article that was like, top 15 best lines of dialogue in movies that were totally scripted. No one would want to read that article, but it'd be like, yeah, this iconic line, this make of an offer I can't refuse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was written. It was written down by the writer. And it was, I mean, that wasn't what they

started with. They started with nothing. And then they like, they worked on it for a while. They really... This is Robinson. You're trying to seduce me, aren't you? Yeah, that was written. That was the, I know it looks dustin hoffman says it but like someone else told him to after they thought of a bunch of other lines the other big big misunderstanding uh about the idea of a writer's room or like writing scripted television that i get a lot is somebody saying like who writes roger That person is a mad genius.

And I'm like, that's fucking all of us, man. You know, there's not an individual person assigned to each character that like goes through and like does all the jokes for them. We're just really good at writing for each character because we're writers. That's the whole, that's what writing is. That's the assignment. because we're writers. That's the whole, that's what writing is. That's the assignment. Writing is aping a style that already exists so that you can continue to predict,

so that no one sees the tracks in the background. Nobody sees that this is like somebody brand new doing it. I, some very well-meaning people have in the past said that they've noticed a change and just very flattering stuff. Like, I could see when you showed up to last week tonight, things are different. No, sir, you cannot. I would be doing such a bad job if you could. Please don't let my boss think that's what's happening.

I need him to keep thinking I'm writing for his voice. Because that's what I'm doing. Because I like my job. Yeah. It's like, it would get you in a lot of trouble, I think. Yeah. I mean, Klaus totally changed since you've been on American Dad. I'd be like, oh, well, that means I'm fucking up.

No, no, no. I'm just steering the ship. And the ship pretty much steers itself. Please, please, that means I'm fucking up. No, no, no. I'm just steering the ship, and the ship pretty much steers itself. Please, please, please delete this tweet. Please don't text it. Why did you text Seth in the tweet? It is funny to me that as far as Twitter is concerned, or was concerned when Twitter existed and I was still on it,

that the only people that represented American Dad, it turned out, were Seth MacFarlane and me. When people had a complaint or they wanted to say something about American Dad, they would tag Seth and they would tag me. And I was like, what must be going through his head? Because he has no idea who I am. Every time that they get tagged, they're like, is this guy like a reviewer of our show what is going on um i was just the de facto i don't know why i think they're the whatever audience i carried over is the most

vocal right you were you were a visible person before you were a writer on that show um but yeah man if i'm seth i'm thinking where in what fucking tumblr blog did this soren guy say he gave me the idea for american dad where is he where is he taking all this credit it is it's it does make me very nervous every time it happens because i'm like that's not i'm not as important here as you think i am i'm just hanging on by a thread man don't put my head out there on the chopping block um but yeah those are i guess mine are for the most part i did encounter another one this weekend which was when someone says um i'm not, when somebody who is clearly sick says, I'm not contagious,

because they don't fucking know. Okay, good. I was biting my tongue on that a little bit, because I was about to ask a dumb guy question of, how do you know if you're not contagious anymore? And then I would feel like an idiot if you were like, well, there are three very obvious ways you could tell. And, and, and there are some, there are like, if you, I know that, uh, if you, when you get snotty and you have like a lot of expectorate, that is a sign that you have a viral load, which means that that's what your body's, your body's solution to the problem is like, it's fighting it at that current moment. But also like that's by design

from the cold itself or the flu or whatever, because that's the easiest way for it to get out of your body to other people. So like the sneezing, the snotting, the coughing, like if you have those things, you're sick and you're sick and contagious. I would always tell, go ahead. I would always tell my bosses at Cracked that I had a viral load anytime I uploaded new obsessive pop culture disorder. Because like load would be short for upload, I guess. Guys. Yeah. Got a new viral load.

Viral. Yeah. Sounds so disgustingly sexual. I know. Just let out this huge viral load. I gave her a viral load all over her face. All right. No, I'm not done.

I wasn't wearing a condom. I accidentally viral loaded inside my arm. Oh, it is still going. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're just joining us, we are still in this bit. More on this as it develops. And I don't know. It doesn't...

The sun's getting real low. I was shooting these viral loads like ropes. Every direction. Ah, I hadn't viral loaded in so long. God almighty. This started out as a Christmas episode. Oh, it did. Yeah, it was, people can't, and like, especially with kids, like, because kids also can't tell you how they're feeling or anything like that.

So if you see a kid that's got like snot coming out of their nose and a deep one of those chest coughs and the parents are like oh no he's not contagious anymore you you can never you can never trust that that parent is just trying to make you feel at ease because they really need you around at that moment yeah don't trust parents that's no don't trust parents don't trust kids and i'm trying to think of like i'm i'm certain there have been times in my life as an adult where I've said to someone, don't worry, I'm not contagious. Here's the, based on, based on nothing. Well, I mean, you can, you can do it if you've got like a bacterial infection, like pink eye or bronchitis or something where you, I actually don't know if bronchitis counts, but like if you,

or like pneumonia or something like that, where you take antibiotics and once you're through a certain day of the antibiotics you might still have some symptoms but you are no longer contagious and that makes sense for but anything viral no forget it you can't tell you're not a doctor you're doctors i don't think until no doctors don't know anything it's all it's it's all fake every job is like writing It's all made up. You know, I thought I could be a doctor. I still think I could be a doctor. When doctors made COVID, when they made COVID, I thought to myself, what were they smoking when they came up with that? Can we be done now? Yeah, I think this podcast is over all right that's a real that's some some genuine laughter you got out of me soren the show is quick question but you know that already we are recorded edited produced and soon will be replaced by gabe harter our theme song is by

me rex their digital digital album is available at merex.bandcamp.com. You can find me on Twitter for the time being at DLB underscore INC, and you can find the show at QQ underscore Soren and Dan. You can also email us with questions at QQ with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com. Gabe Harder can be found at GabeHarder.com, I guess. At some point he will be. We have a Patreon, and you can watch still images of our faces while the audio of this episode plays on our YouTube channel, which is YouTube.com slash QQPod. At QQPodcast. Great. Perfect. That'll do it. that does it for me

yeah bye bye 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 we could talk tonight So what's your favourite? Who did you get? When will I be remembered? What's your dad's name? Where did all the guys 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