Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - QQ ep 63 - Camp Daniel and Soren, We Hold You in Our Hearts!

Episode Date: October 30, 2020

No guests this time, just your favorite olllll Daniel and Soren. In this episode the guys talk about the great outdoors, and chat about how quarantine fatigue is affecting them.  And as always big thanks to our sponsors. First off Hawthorne. To take your quiz and get 10% off your first purchase with code QQ, go to hawthorne.co. And also thank you to Jiminy's. To learn more and save 15% on your first purchase, go to jiminys.com/QQ and use code QQ15 at checkout.

Hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, a podcast where two best friends and TV writers ask each other questions and give each other answers. I am one half of this podcast, writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, author of How to Fight Presidents, student of the sea, and guy who in a job interview chose to eat food he was allergic to knowing it would make him very sick later because he wanted the interviewee to think that he was a team player, Daniel O'Brien, and I am joined as always by my co-host Mr. Soren Bui.

Soren, say what's up. Oh, what co-host, Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, say what's up. Oh, what's up, everybody? I'm Soren Bui. I'm a homeowner, small business CEO, a SEP IRA investor in the streets, and a high-yield bonder in the sheets. In high school, I had no prom.

Instead, I had a dance in a barn, and then a bonfire in the middle of a cattle ranch where no one, to my knowledge, had sex. But the boys did melt their shoes by trying to jump over the fire to impress the girls. Do you want to know the name of that ranch, Dan? I would love to. Flying Dog Ranch of Flying Dog Brewery fame started in Aspen. And now you know the rest of the story.

I feel like someone has started writing down his intros in advance. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Jiminy's, maker of sustainable dog food made with cricket protein. Cricket protein is a superfood, delicious, nutritious, sustainable, humane, and prebiotic. To learn more and save 15% on your first purchase, go to Jiminy's.com slash QQ and use the code QQ15 at checkout. Thanks to Hawthorne for supporting Quick Question. Hawthorne is a premium tailored

personal care brand that's making it easy for guys to feel and smell their best. Take Hawthorne's quiz today and get started on your personalized self-care routine by going to hawthorne.co and using your promo code QQ to get 10% off your first purchase. And using your promo code QQ to get 10% off your first purchase. We're going to get into the show, but we're going to start as we've been doing for seven months now with a check in to see how each other is doing with the COVID-19 crisis. Do you have any updates on that front? I didn't write this part. Well, who could have seen it coming?

No, I'm really worried. It's just not ever going to end at this point. Like I've given up on the possibility of even going back to like a dine-in theater, which is something I adore. And any sort of thing that I, of the old world, like that I tell my son about, and I'm like, no, we just don't,

we don't do that anymore. Yeah, it's, I feel the same about and I'm like no we just don't we don't do that anymore yeah it's um I feel the same way I'm really I've reached like an unreasonable mental stage for myself it's the the same feeling I get if I'm at a red light that I think is going too long or if someone is in front of me in the store I could be a patient person but like something in my brain clicks in and just goes no I've waited long enough this person should be done now or this light should change now so I'm gonna just drive through it I never do that obviously but I'm very much at the this is no longer acceptable so I'm gonna go through this light even

though it's red and there's danger there. That's how I feel about the coronavirus thing right now, where I'm just like, I think I've been more than patient and responsible on my end. Frankly, the virus is being unreasonable. So I'm going to just start living my life again. Well, it's so sad. The trajectory is all wrong. They opened up parks here, which is nice. You can actually go to a park and your child can play on the playground. so sad the trajectory is all wrong hey like they opened up parks here which is nice you can

actually go to a park and your child can play on the playground but you look at the numbers and the numbers are bad the numbers are like worse like everything's getting worse everybody's still getting infected and it's like this is not there's no set plan for what to do here and we're past the point of a plan yeah i did had a ended up with a little bit about this uh i went to the the catskills to go backpacking um we could talk about that in a little bit but uh ran into two other backpackers who were both from manhattan and uh we were just talking i was like hey i just i just moved here like a year and a half ago and guy says so how do you like the city how are you enjoying manhattan and i was like oh my god live music the theater great restaurants what's not to love and we all laughed and then we were all sad yeah i mean even i i take my son to school in a little carrier on the back

of my bike and there's room for two kids my my neighbor goes to the same school he's another little boy who i could easily take both of them. And it would be a cool thing to do and ride them to school on the bicycle. But they're in different classes, different little pods. And so we can't do that. There are about five kids that are all Ronan's age that live on our street. And every once in a while, we'll see one of them playing out in the street. And Ronan's just his face is on the window like a child looking at a puppy in a pet store i've got a lot of peas today

i've noticed yeah um but uh he it's like he just wants to play so bad he just wants the interaction with other kids and sometimes we just break we just give it to him we put a mask on him and he gets to go outside and play with the other kids but But it's like, there's just so much you can't do. Well, Catskills was fun. Yeah. So I want to hear about this. Is that all right if I start with that? Yeah, sure.

All right, Dan, quick question. Go. Did you go alone? No, I went with my brother, David, who is doing all the social distance things that he's supposed to be doing. Neither of us are worried about each other. We've had our tests and we were showing no symptoms. And even if we were, well, it doesn't really matter. Even if we were asymptomatic, we wouldn't be able to do this kind of climbing because it would just destroy our lungs.

And it didn't't which is nice but uh i did learn um that i can't really do this anymore oh really it was i i i mean i i want to train and get better at it but it was like i i backpacked yosemite years ago and then my brother and i did uh the rockies in in October six years ago, which like I started too far ahead, I think. Those are the first two things that I did is jumping a few spaces in line. And when we did Colorado, it was like at sometimes blindingly snowy up there and we're so high up and it's like raining and sleeting and that gave me this real sense of confidence that i can i can still do this anytime i want i can strap 45 pounds on my back and walk up a mountain because it's just one

foot in front of the other and the the elevation changes just wrecked me. I know it's nothing that, it's not the kind of things that you're used to because Colorado, you're way up there. But there was, on our second day, it started out with 2,500 feet jumping up to 3,940 in nine-tenths of a mile. So you're really just walking what feels like straight up a mountain, and it's very steep, and it's just hard. And my brother's in much better shape than me, so he's just zooming up the mountain. Oh, that's frustrating. And I'm like, I'm going to count my steps, and when I get to 100, I'm going to take a little break and just breathe and drink my water, and then'm gonna do that again and i just had to like count my steps the entire trip and like psych myself up for it because there were times when i'm halfway up this fucking mountain and i'm like wistfully thinking maybe i can break my ankle and then they'd have to send a helicopter because I

don't want to go up or down I want to stay here and have someone save me but you know you can't do that and I think the only reason I got through it was because you don't really have an option which was you know yeah what it is I guess it was still I'm focusing on, what it is, I guess. It was still, I'm focusing on how difficult it is for an out of shape person to climb, but it was beautiful. It's, I'd never been to the Catskills before. We, we climbed three different mountains and we saw amazing views. And it's like, you're looking at the Catskills and the Hudson Valley down below and all the

leaves are changing at like the perfect time of year to do this. And I had a great blast. And as difficult as it was for me, I like the day I got home was texting my brother and was like, you know, there's this thing called the 35 club where you climb all the 3,500 foot mountains in the Catskills. And then you can join this club. So I've, I've,

I'm already doubling down on this thing that I'm not good at because it was so much fun. But that's, I mean, you, it's, it's amazing how quickly your body acclimates to that type of thing. If you continue to do it, you would, you'd feel much better. I think. Yeah. The thing that you described though on that, you're like taking it in those small chunks like that is exactly what you're supposed to do i don't know if you know have

you ever seen or heard of a movie called touching the void um i feel like maybe you've talked to me about it before that's uh refresh my memory there's these two climbers simon yates and simpson joe simpson uh who i think they're on their way up everest or and they got stuck some some mountain i can't remember k2 maybe i can't remember what they were on but they got stuck and uh and all of a sudden one of them fell off the edge of a cliff the other one just had his rope but like he couldn't haul him back up and so they just sat there on this edge of the cliff for a little while they couldn't talk to each other because the storm was blowing it was night and eventually the guy on top simon yates just cut his rope because he was like this is i have to save myself and cut his rope went back down to

base camp and was like telling the guy at base camp like no uh joe is gone he's gone and the next day or the next night joe with broken legs two broken legs crawls through their shit pit which is like where you you have like a set place where you pee and poop when you're camping on a backcountry like that comes crawling through that into camp and so he had fallen down into a crevasse broken both of his legs broken a bunch of bones and then crawled out and was like they he they talk about he doesn't by the way he doesn't like uh he's not doesn't think poorly of simon for cutting the rope he's like i would have done the same thing he had to save himself but he talks about how he as he was crawling across just like jagged scree he was like all i gotta do is i

need to get to that rock right there and it was like five feet in front of him he's like i can't i got there i got there now i just got to get to that one and he just did that for miles and miles down everest scraping up his stomach and his thighs and everything and crawled down everest with two broken legs oh yeah that's uh that's nice that they're still friends i know it's bizarre i feel like even if you like the emotion part of my brain would override the logic part of my brain because i would also think you did what you had to do i would have done the same thing you have to save yourself uh i still hate your fucking guts you can't come to my wedding uh i'm gonna train my kids to beat up your kids this is this is uh like a hate that will is part of my family now you understand

this is a generational hate it was it was in the peruvian andes i was wrong it's a sui la grande sui siula grand i don't know what that is uh some crazy mountain but still yeah like you how can you forgive that person ever? Yeah. It's like, you'd be hanging there dangling. You'd be like, that motherfucker hasn't pulled me up yet. Like, where's the adrenaline? I've heard of mothers lifting cars off of babies.

Pull me up, motherfucker. But yeah, you did the right thing. I also am curious, is it backcountry camping that you did? Or were you guys at a campsite? Backcountry camping. Hell yeah. So how long was the trek in totalcountry camping that you did, or were you guys at a campsite? Backcountry camping. Hell yeah. So how long was the trek in total? Was it a big, like?

It was 20 miles. We wanted to go for longer, but A, I was getting pretty worn out, and B, we knew on our third day that we were going to wake up in the rain, and I was just like, we cut it short because we thought, like, let's just get out of this while we're ahead we had a perfect you know 70 degree day and a little bit cooler day the next day the sun was always out it was very nice um let's let's not mar this trip by waking up in the rain and having to put a tent away in the rain and then just be miserable and cold and wet for what was supposed to be the easiest

part of the hike but still would have tacked on another i want to say nine miles and and how did you sleep on this trip daniel uh the same way that i've always slept in a tent when i've ever been backpacking is is i'm lying there uncomfortable with my eyes closed and like, I don't really think I sleep, but my body gets the rest that it needs, if that makes sense. Yes, totally. I'm sure I'm dozing off every once in a while, but mostly I'm just sitting there trying to count myself to sleep. But also just like, this is, I'm relaxed.

I'm not like, it's not like a restless time or anything. I feel the same way way even though i'm just recently all i've been doing in a tent is like camping in my backyard with my son to try and like mix things up a little but even when i do that now i'm i'm on a thermo rest i'm like an air mattress back there you know like a little camping air mattress but still like it's there's distance between me and the ground there's some level of comfort and when i was younger i could sleep like a baby on that kind of thing and now it's just like it's the worst thing in the world i think i'm awake the entire night but that can't possibly be true yeah and then the next day i'm like well i'm alive so obviously i got something

but that's just how camping is now it's like yeah it's there's no way that i go to sleep at night and then wake up in the morning with the sun and i'm like ah time to do it all again that was great the other thing about uh backcountry camping i mean like camping in general this is gonna sound like an ad but it's not i got to go to rei for the first time in a long time that's a camping store for anyone who doesn't know it It's like hiking and rock climbing, all kinds of things you would do for camping. And I used to go a bunch more when I was in California and doing more of this stuff.

And I haven't in, it's got to be six years now. And REI is so fucking cool. It's the closest thing to the kind of feeling I had walking into a toy store when I was a kid that I can muster. They're always building new shit for camping, and it's always smart. All of it is just like, I don't know who's designing this stuff, but they just know, like, this needs to be durable, this needs to be compactable, and this needs to solve

a problem that you have when you're camping. And so it just feels like it's designed by rocket scientists, how perfectly everything fits into each other. And they also solve problems that I don't need, which is a dangerous thing about REI, because I walk in there and I'll see a specific spatula thing that is just for making s'mores. Like you enclose the s'more ingredients in this like

Steel box that's attached to a stick and then you roast that over the fire. I'm looking at that like Well now that I see it. I can't imagine How I've ever made s'mores without it Surely this is the technology that I need because what am I gonna use a stick like a fucking idiot? Yeah, it does it you very quickly feel like this could become your personality when you walk into an REI. You're like, maybe I do wear these types of shirts that are just like these button-down fleeces.

Maybe I wear these three-quarter length prana shorts, like pant shorts that are just exclusively for climbing. I think I could get away with that. But I know what you mean i love i love an there's a place called summit mountain uh in colorado and gloan springs that's like it's when i used to go there in there as a kid i was just like i i just want all this stuff there's the at the front of it there's ice picks and things like that i'd never ice climbed in my life and i was like yeah i think i should be an ice climber no i did the same thing i was looking at uh the ice climbing stuff because a co-worker of mine does that kind of stuff and uh

it seems really scary but he seems really into it and i i'm looking at it and like i've never done this before i don't know where i'd go but maybe a good first step would be buying all this stuff. Then I'd have to, right? And so did you get a stove specifically for this or did your brother already have one or how did you guys do it? He already had one. He had one of those very small,

I think I've always called it a pocket rocket, but I don't know if that's what anyone else calls it. Did you have to prime it at all or did it just immediately light up like with a blue flame? It immediately lights up, and it gets so hot so quick. That's a whisper. That's an isobutane stove. Yeah. And we made those just like those camping meals, you know?

Yeah, just pour it in. Pour water over it. Pour water in this thing. Yeah, it's great. When I go camping with people who don't do that and they're like, we're going to make pancakes, we're going to make bacon and stuff like that. I'm like, please don't, please, please don't. Because then I have to be, I have to feel like I need to make something at some point.

And then I also feel like I need to clean the dishes and there's nothing worse than trying to clean a bunch of pots and pans in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. I'm like, just do it the very simple way everybody's responsible for themselves please one time i went uh camping with friend of ours friend of the show michael swain and abe everson and a bunch of other friends of ours and i was just like just had finished riding high off yosemite and like real backcountry backpacking and feeling like I can crush this. And I didn't really investigate where we were going.

They just said we're going to go camping for the weekend. And I showed up with like my full pack and dressed as I would if I'm camping somewhere in the summer where like the only clothes I brought are like, you know, shorts that that are breathable and like sleeveless shirts and everyone else there in jeans and t-shirts. And I didn't realize we were going like car camping where you just park and they set up at like a place with a full barbecue and people like grilling burgers. And I was like, oh, I brought beef jerky and rice. Is that not what we're doing? Yeah. I did a trip with them like that once. And Robert Evans, who, Robert Evans, when he came, set up what I can only describe as a yurt.

Like it was semi-permanent what he had set up. And inside it had no sleeping bags. It was just like a bunch of throw pillows. And I was like, I don't even know what this is. Are you moving here? What is going on? And they're one of those people who are like, we're going to make feasts. And I'm like, I don't want to make feasts.

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dog biscuit bundle. I got the original flavor and peanut butter and blueberry, and he absolutely loves them. He goes crazy for these treats. Peanut butter used to be like a special occasion birthday treat, and now he gets the peanut butter and blueberry flavor all the time and he just loves it. It made the best dog in the world even better thanks to Jiminy's and if you would like to learn more and save 15% on your first purchase go to Jiminy's.com slash QQ with code QQ15. That's QQ15. Another thing that I wanted to do at first, but I chickened out on was, because before we settled on Catskills, we were looking at the Appalachian Trail,

and I wanted to live out a dream of mine, which was catch a fish in one of their streams, clean it myself, and cook it right there. Like truly stream to table kind of thing. But I got nervous about that because it's not a style of fishing that I've done before. You just need to be a lot more accurate and like spot the fish and then catch the fish. It's almost like fly fishing.

And I've also never cleaned a fish by myself. And I didn't want the first time I did that to be the time that we are in the woods as it's getting dark, relying on me to provide food. Which brings me to a problem that maybe you could help me address, because I watch a lot of YouTube videos about cleaning fish, like filleting them properly and everything like that, and it seems pretty simple, but I, I, I want to go somewhere and, and, like, practice, you know? When I'm on the, the boat that I'm on, the, the, the staff will, will do it for you.

They do it on the way back to, to land, if you've caught anything. Um, so I can, I can also watch them, but really I want like, I don't know, four or five fish and a guy who is an expert next to me talking me through it. So I just like practice and do this thing. And I don't believe that's a service that exists, but it should.

I feel like you could ask those guys, right? They're your fish. Yeah. And be like, well, if I just cut, try and do this right next to you, will you just give me some pointers? I'm your fish yeah and be like well if i just cut try and do this right next to you will you just give me some pointers i'm sure they wouldn't be too pleased about it but you do tip on those on those boats absolutely yeah oh i mean i i tip everywhere okay then i can't i can't foresee why they wouldn't let you do that and like they'd talk you through it yeah maybe the next time i go

fishing it just here put me on the phone get call me put me on the phone and i will ask on your behalf thank you that's what i needed uh well that's very exciting they're talking to you like this is your what are you are you his ward no he's my buddy is he responsible for you in a lot of ways yeah i didn't i mean elaborate because i'm not sure i think i understand it totally what you mean but yes um i i think that's great that you went camping and i haven't been backcountry camping in a very very long time and i missed it a lot it's it's good. It's difficult, but like I said, I'm already gearing up for the next time I do this. It's fun to plan future trips. I should ask, sorry, Dan.

Are you a good packer? Do you pack your bag well? No, absolutely not. I could really help you with that. I bet you could. I also feel like you could help me um fit the pack better because i know there's there there's a way i've watched the way that you're supposed to like here's where you tighten the straps here's when you loosen the straps and

here's the the scientifically the best place for the weight to be yeah so it doesn't hurt you too much um but i also know just intuitively, there's no... It's never going to be completely painless. It's a bunch of weight on your back, so it's going to be uncomfortable while you're walking up a mountain. But I still feel like it's another one of those things where I watch tutorials on it, and my brother

explains it to me, but I think someone needs to put their hands on me and do this, because I gonna i'm gonna do what i think is right and then david is like how does that feel i'm like i don't know i don't know how i feel are you kidding me i can't answer that question yeah that's it's like so rei they will talk you through that stuff and like yeah there's just no ego there at all they're not like they don't have any expectation for like where you should be starting

they're just like oh okay here let me explain exactly what we're looking at like here's where the buckles are here's you should feel more bruising on your hips as opposed to like strain in your neck and uh i don't know there's yeah i could i want to like i've watched people pack i watch my wife pack sometimes even when we're not even going camping we're just like going to tucson and i'm like what are you doing your weight distribution's all over in this suitcase this is you gotta roll roll your clothes up take out all that air just for like like flying to tucson well i i'm a weird packer yeah okay like it's a point of pride to me that i bring the smallest uh suitcase possible or the smallest duffel bag possible so that when i get

there people like is this it that's like that's the sound i'm waiting for oh that's weird i want to be like yeah travel light and so what that means is that i cram every single thing down into the smallest amount of space possible i i think one of the things that certainly separates us um i i don't like to make the decision before i go somewhere and this isn't necessarily with with camping or anything but when i'm picking picking clothes for a trip to see my parents or I'm going to go on vacation somewhere, it's like I can't sit in my closet and stare at my clothes and just be like, well, let's see.

I'm going to be there for four days, so pack that amount of clothes and maybe something if it rains. That takes a lot of the fun out of it for me. I want to bring a bunch of my stuff that I like and see how I feel when I wake up in the morning. You, I imagine, are not that way. No. I know exactly what I'm going to wear every single day of the trip. And something is like a switch that flips in me when I go camping or travel.

Ordinarily, i'm not an anal person at all it's like i'm i'm pretty free and easy about stuff i don't like making big decisions but or like i put stuff back where it goes but when i'm camping it's very very different i'm not pleasant like i have i know where everything goes and it has to go there i know like at night when we're cleaning up the kitchen or the kitchen area like i want to put everything away and people like we're just getting up in the morning to eat breakfast again i'm like yes but we bomb proof every night i think we we make sure that everything is is away and i do it even a little bit when i just travel like by plane i think there's just some spillover i guess yeah oh um that's about

all i've got to say about camping and backpacking but uh i had a quick question for you yeah go ahead this is shaping up to be a pretty quarantine and quarantine adjacent heavy episode is there something a habit or habits you've developed in quarantine that was new uh that you hope to carry over when you're out of quarantine you want to go first yeah uh mine's a simple one i just do i do so much more completely silent walking now not not not silent to that like i'm i used to scream when I walked, but I don't have my headphones on anymore. Like, I'm not listening to podcasts or music, and I'm just going for long walks to, like, think my thoughts and organize how I feel, I guess. And, like, some of it is writing. I'm walking while I'm thinking of what I'm going to, what I want to write for a script or for a side thing or whatever.

And some of it is walking thinking about this podcast, believe it or not. But it's something that I started doing towards the beginning of this where I realized, well, I already went for a run today, so I can't do that again. And my gym is closed. Work is done. I don't want to just sit in the same couple of spots I've been sitting in the entire day, whether I'm watching TV or doing work on my computer, it's the same spot. And I can't go anywhere. And so the option was really just like, walk, just pick a direction and start going. And it's been very soothing. It's been very peaceful. And it's the kind of

thing that I hope doesn't eventually get replaced with going to a movie once a week or going to a restaurant a couple nights a week. Yeah. Yeah. Very meditative. I agree with you. I'm thoughtful now, Soren. I know I used to be a backpacker, but now I've decided my thing is I'm thoughtful guy. That was a quick move.

Although I think a lot of seamen are thoughtful men as well, thoughtful people as well. Like people, you always see those scuppers, I want to say, out there on the high seas in their yellow slickers just staring off into the clouds in the distance and thinking of their selkies or mermaids. Yeah, you're right. I've changed my mind.

I'm back to being a fisherman now. You could be both. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, there's one that I've got that I've been doing a lot more of, which is, so my son, generally when I would like hang out with my son, we're just going to be playing whatever game

he wants to play. And that gets really taxing after a while because kids are not, at four or five, like they're not good at making up games. So you're just doing the same thing over and over. His big game is we play construction site. And what that means is I cannot make it any more complicated than this or he freaks out.

You set up cones. That's the construction site. They've laid new asphalt or whatever. And then I am a guy in a car who comes by, rolls down his window and asks the construction worker what they're doing there. He tells me and then I drive away. That's got to be like that's the game. And so I hate it. And then after a while, it makes me begrudge having to play with him.

So instead, what I've started doing is involving him in more of my things. So if I can't find time to work out while I'm, uh, while I'm in quarantine, then I'll be like, well, I could start biking and he's heavier. I put him in the carrier in the back of the bike. I can ride up these Hills around Culver city. And, and he's down with it. Like he loves being involved in anything that I'm doing. When I built the bench, I was like, yeah, you can come help me build this bench and like he's there to like he wants to help so badly and in a way that's not it it's not making it even a tougher chore on me it's like he's gonna i'm like go get me this two by four and he will get it and bring it to me that's great and he's so all about it and painting like he's all about painting so just involving him

in the daily tasks that i do around the house is not something my dad ever did he would just sort of take care of stuff because he knew that it was going to be a harder process if we were there and uh i'm just involving him more and like the the curve has been steep where like he's learned so much immediately that he's actually pretty helpful and he likes doing it and then get shit done and i'm like i should just do this forever like i think he would look back on these moments and be like yes my dad and i used to build these things or we used to paint houses like the house or we'd putty up the walls yeah anyway he i i've really enjoyed that that's great especially like nowadays and even

in the future it seems like he's gonna have a whole bunch of skills that people his age when he grows up don't all have. Like there are a lot of things that I don't even get. I don't know how to do. Not because my dad wouldn't teach me. He would. I just like never showed an interest in how to fix a car when that breaks or how to build a thing. Because I was like, no, no, no, no. That's a dad thing.

I'll wait till you fix the car and then I'll wreck it again. Don't worry. We're both part of this in a way. Because I was like, no, no, no, no, that's a dad thing. I'll wait until you fix the car, and then I'll wreck it again. Don't worry. We're both part of this in a way. Yeah, I can remember as a child listening to my dad in the garage being like, now work, motherfucker, I'll tear you apart. Like yelling at the stuff that he's trying to fix and being like, I'm not going down there.

There's no way. And he wouldn't ask us to come, so it was like I didn't learn any of that stuff. And then he knew it all because he worked on a ranch for a while when he first graduated from college, like a dude ranch. And so they just went around like fixing everything on the property. But I learned all that later just watching YouTube videos. Yeah. Well, that's a really sweet answer. Yeah, I guess so.

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It's not very perfumey, which I really like a whole lot. It just fits exactly what I'm looking for right now in a smell. Yeah, I happened to put some on my wrist just to smell the different ones. And my wife walked by and was like, whoa, what is that? She really liked it. And I thought, ah, I see now. I see why people actually wear cologne. So do what we did.

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I usually leave around 9 930 or 10 and get back a little before 11. And there's an area that I run in that's, it's like the near the oil derricks. Do you know where those are or like what those look like? Nope. Those, you know, I know what they look like. Yeah. Yeah. So there's just, there's areas of LA where there are still huge oil fields and not a lot of people are around. And it's nice because it's completely silent. There's nobody there. Sometimes I see owls. came across a dead rabbit that I first thought had been hit by a car. And then as I got closer, I realized that his body was completely intact. And next to it was its head cleanly cut off.

Ooh. Like a severed, like just somebody had decapitated somebody. I don't know that yet. A rabbit had been decapitated and then left there strewn out in the road. And I was like trying to figure out if I should be there or not anymore if that's a place i should still run uh what are you afraid of i'm afraid that it's getting your head ripped off i think it's some sort of cult thing honestly that's my biggest fear is that some there's some animal sacrifice thing happening and they're like ditching the bodies there because nobody's there. And I don't want to run into that.

Yeah, you'd hate to run into that. I didn't go animal sacrifice immediately. I thought cat. I mean, there's no, oh, because they, there's no reason why they would eat the body. Yeah. Oh. And they, they are like notorious for leaving things places, I guess. Yeah.

Just like, I'm going to, I guess it usually happens when they're, like, a cat that belongs to someone. I don't know if they just do it in the wild as, like, this is the altar of my sacrifices or whatever. But, yeah, that was my first thought was a cat was playing with the rabbit the way that cats do and that resulted in the head getting ripped off and then i was like all right well this game is less fun now i go great this thing doesn't freak someone else out maybe it was i mean i'm hoping it was some sort of animal that did it that would i feel much better about that the reason i think i jumped to animalifice was that I shot a movie like a little before I worked at Cracked, a movie called Blind Ambition. And part of it was filmed up in Griffith Park, which is like a big forest area for people who don't know, in the middle of L.A.

And you have to have a forest service person there with you when you're doing it. We're shooting in the middle of the night. there with you when you're doing it we're shooting in the middle of the night and as far as her service person is sort of like walking the perimeter of the shot and stops takes out a plastic bag a big trash bag and put something in the trash bag and then knots it up and we were like what was that she goes ah goat head and we were like what she said they drop them off up here sometimes and so i think that it's yeah it's some part of some sacrifice animal sacrifice type thing and then they just put the carcasses up there when they're done with them uh and so she just like had this goat head that she was completely unfazed by it

because it's so common so my first thought was oh no it's here too of course it's here nobody comes to the oil derricks people only only die here. And I'm nervous. And the other thing is I've been running. Before this, I had another running spot where I would run at night and had to stop there because I was running one time in the bushes. I saw a pair of shoes. And I was like, that's weird. And then I realized it was a fucking human standing in the bushes hiding from me. And I was like, I can't come back here that's did you even try to talk to this person

no like don't be scared of me no huh no i ran uh i was not i wasn't for it yeah that's i mean those two things are enough for me to say, no, maybe don't run there. There are two different areas, but these are two different areas. Uh, the, I just, I had to stop running at that first one when somebody was hiding in bushes as I ran past, but the, now the rabbit head thing has me a little freaked out. If it's human, I don't want to be there, but I, it does make me feel better that out if it's human i don't want to be there but i it does make me feel better that you think it might be a cat yeah well you know maybe i'm stupid or maybe i'm naive i think like just you telling me that that goat head story uh my honest reaction is like

people are still doing stuff like that like i know cults still exist but they got they just became like more sophisticated like the vow cults that kind of thing yeah where they're just tricking uh vulnerable highly susceptible people out of their money and and and their time in their lives i didn't think people were still doing like this requires a blood animal sacrifice i don't know they ever were i thought we found out that the satanic cults of the 70s and stuff were all a myth. But apparently it happens. Man, I don't know. We'll be wrapping this up soon, but we wanted everyone to hear a little, some housekeeping and some news.

This isn't really a scoop or anything like that, so put your pencils down, everybody. This isn't really a scoop or anything like that, so put your pencils down, everybody. But there's going to be another reunion of four people who you know from Cracked who sit at a diner. And I don't know legally if we can use the name. But it's a reunion of Michael, Katie, Soren, and myself talking about pop culture. We don't have a date for when we're going to release it yet, it's going to be a brand new episode written for uh quarantine zoom times and we had our first writing brainstorm meeting about it yesterday that was uh a really fun to see everybody and and b i think we're going to have a good episode out of this yeah i feel i was amazed at how we all just fell right back into it how easy it was to just talk about these pop

culture things that we're noticing and like start to develop the essay that you need for each one of these with everybody and like it was like putting on an old glove i don't know that's that's not a great metaphor but uh it did we just slid right back into it and it was very nice it was very nice to see everybody and that there was no uh there was no like weirdness or anything it was just great yeah um yeah so this is something that dan has uh sandbagged us into because we did a an event where we talked to some fans live during quarantine about the the days of after hours which is now started 10 years ago and then during it dan was like why don't we do a new episode and you know there's thousands of people watching we couldn't just be like i don't want to do that dan no i i i specifically was like

wow we're raising so much money for charity right now. If we get over 10,000, we will do another episode. And like, there was no room. Anyone would have been, um, it would have been clear what someone was doing. If they were like, Hey Dan,

um, a word off camera for a second. And then we come back and you're like, we're not doing an episode. I have decided. And then there's somebody just silently nodding. So, yeah, we're doing another episode, which is also very exciting. It's exciting for all of us, I think.

Yeah. Do you feel like, because I already started writing my part immediately after the meeting that we had do you feel like you've brought anything from your time at american dad into the way you think about this show or the way or the way you write it if you have started writing it i haven't started writing it yet um i bet i do i bet my dialogue has gotten sharper than it used to be because it wasn't like a huge chunk of our job previously our job our job was so more it was so much more focused on being smart and being like relaying a bunch of information in a very short period like a very short sentence or short paragraph and then also a huge chunk of it was writing our columns which was like a very different type of writing and this was a muscle i i was i kind of could flex a little bit but i wasn't particularly good at it and then just having been on a show that's exclusively dialogue like i think i've gotten

a lot better at it and watching people who are also very very good at it um so yeah i would say that the dialogue will probably be a little sharper. I say that now, having written nothing. I may turn it in and we're going to be like, ah, we can't use this. I think so. We've almost always written these episodes solo. And I feel like something that I've immediately taken from last week tonight is we write almost all that in a group. Like chunks of script are divided amongst multiple writers, and then it gets put together and smoothed over and rewritten a few times. And that's something that we never did at Cracked that I immediately thought,

let's do that with this episode. There's four of us, we're all writers, and there are, like, very clear, there's the this section, the this argument section, and then there's the this section that this argument section and then there's the you know this next essay and that was something that a few years being on this show was like oh this makes the writing much easier we should do that we should have been doing that at after-hours and yeah shared the burden of each episode a little bit there's some joy to be had in like soul authorship and feeling like you start to finish formed a thing but yeah it's way easier not to yeah yeah sure you feel good about it at the end but that's because it was a pain in the ass the entire you stressed out and cried at night trying to figure it out around your own right it's uh

the difference between i poured my blood sweat and, and tears into this. And yeah, I did the last part. Yeah. Also, I think it makes you much more amenable to criticism and to like changes when it's, you don't own the entire thing. I remember bringing in an idea, like not even pitching an idea at the beginning, just like I would be like, like the episode on stuff ruined with math, like sitcoms ruined with simple math, and how hard I worked on that and figuring out which ones to use

and then brought it in. And I was like, and it's here, and it's done. And people were like, oh, what if we change this? And I'm like, it's done. It's fucking done. This is as good as it will be. I wasn't looking for feedback. I was looking for praise.

Yeah, this should go to the library of congress right now because history is going to want to remember what happened here but yeah i i look forward to writing it i think it's going to be a lot of fun and we'll update everyone uh where they can watch it when it's going to be out and what charities they can support yes yes and if they and if and if and and and and if and if ten thousand dollars goes to the charity no daniel daniel can i word just like a word i'm gonna text you we're not fucking doing that um but yeah are you and then i also we should support like our other people we're

are you are you writing for anybody else are you doing like 1 900 hot dog or anything uh not yet we have a hiatus coming up and i was thinking of um they've sean has asked me to write about uh a very silly movie that i'm unreasonably attached to uh so i might do that i just you know need to get through this season first and then i'll have some time freed up yeah uh that 1-900 hot dog for people who don't know is sean baby who used to write for crack sean reilly and robert brockway have created their own website that's like just a throwback to the very funnest times of correct that we're they're writing some really really funny stuff um based on one of the only places uh for smart uh long form internet comedy right now i think that seemed to be

everywhere for a while and now it's just completely gone you can't find it anywhere they're doing it they're they're finding a way to do it and I think we're all everybody who was attracted to cracked from working there in the first place is really hoping this thing succeeds because because otherwise there just won't be this thing anymore you know long-form in their comedy will just be dead I refuse to believe there's no appetite for it out there is the movie that you're going to do tiptoes, Dan? No. Okay, good. I won't spoil anything. I'll tell you after. Okay. Well, that's an episode.

Yeah. I do need to go find some information about how to find us on Twitter and all that. But while I do that, I know that you recently started looking at buying a home, which I think is very exciting. And I know you asked for some help from me because I've done it in the past. And I can't remember what your price range is. Can you just tell me what range you're looking at, like what you can afford? That's a really great question. I was looking at a couple of places in New Jersey in like the 225,000 range.

And that seems like with some doing, with some saving, with some smarts, that will be certainly very doable. Wow, you really just answered that question. Yeah, I know. I really want to buy a house. All right. Well, you can follow me on Twitter at Soren underscore LTD. You can put in your application to follow Dan at DOB underscore Inc. I don't, I don't really know what the process is to be able to follow him on there, but please, please don't message me and ask.

Or you can follow quick question at QQ underscore Soren and Dan. We have an email, which is QQ underscore soren and dan we have an email which is qq with soren and daniel at gmail.com that's in fact probably the best way to reach michael uh i think he i think he knows how to access that now and you can follow find hire our producer and sound engineer and editor gabe harder at gabe harder.com, not today, but when the website's done. We also have a Patreon. It's just Patreon slash quick question. All one word.

Huh. What do, uh, I mean, I guess I could go to the Patreon and find out, but the people who donate money, what do they get out of it? I feel like we haven't done anything to thank those people people i think that there

was something like they could ask a question if they donated five dollars or something like that we would they would could ask a question and we would start answering those questions i think no one has decided to donate five dollars yeah i i certainly don't recall answering a question from a non-sorin um but yeah you're i think you're still welcome to do that. If you donate $5 and in your Patreon, you put in a question, we will answer it. Yeah.

Okay. I'm going to promise that. Yeah. And if, and if you, if you donate $10,000, Dan, we're not,

we're not, no. Torin's going to make a brand new season of dispatches from space. I would love to do that. Oh, there was another thing I wanted to bring up. Either email us at the thing that Soren said or tweet at MakeMeBaconPlease. As most of you probably know, we just did a run of four guests on the show. And I'm genuinely curious what everyone feels about that if they like the

guests or if they want it to be just the two of us we're still trying to tinker with the format and we'll definitely have more guests on in the future but uh i really want to know did you did you find them as fascinating as we i think very clearly did or do you just want uh just just pippin and jordan um jordan i'm pointing at my own chest yes yeah yeah oh that's very kind of you dan i don't think that's probably true uh all right thanks everybody bye