Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - The Desert Docent

Episode Date: April 1, 2022

The guys deep dive on Aprons, and Soren changes the format of the show to BIG questions only!  And as always big thanks to our sponsors. Thanks  Avast.com! Thanks to Honey, shop with confidence — get Honey for FREE at JoinHoney.com/qq . Thanks, BetterHelp.  Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/qq 

I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright I wanna hear your thoughts, wanna know what's on your mind I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favorite? Who did you get? What do I be? What's it out there? Oh, forget it. Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien.

Two best friends and comedy writers. If there's an answer, they're gonna find it. I think you'll have a great time here. I think you'll have a great time here. So hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and commentators ask each other questions and give each other answers. I am one half of that podcast, author of books, runner of races, and guy who is so fresh from dinner right now, he is still wearing an apron, Daniel O'Brien. Joined as always by my co-host,

Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, say hello. Hello, I'm Soren Bui. I'm a complicated man. A man whose t-shirt collection is almost exclusively Colorado themed, despite the fact that I haven't lived in Colorado in over 20 years.

And I have no intention of ever moving back there again. And yet still, when people ask me, where are you from? I instinctively say Colorado due to some like stale leftover loyalty, I'd hope. But more likely and far worse, in some desperate bid to piggyback on the ethos of a state so that by association, I might seem more interesting. A culture like I can just put on or take off at will. Like, I don't know, a fucking T-shirt. Wow. Also, I write cartoons. Oh, I don't know, a fucking t-shirt. Wow.

Also, I write cartoons. Oh, neat. Yeah. Just trying something new. Trying to be very honest. Thanks to Avast for supporting Quick Question. Avast's new all-in-one solution, Avast One, helps you take control of your safety and privacy online through a range of features.

Learn more about Avast One at avast.com. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy. For 10% off your first month, go to betterhelp.com slash QQ. Start living a better life today. Let's thank Honey for sponsoring this episode. These days, it feels like online shopping is the only shopping we really do.

That's where Honey comes in. It's the free browser extension that scours the internet for promo codes and automatically applies the best one available at checkout. Go to joinhoney.com slash qq. Did you... How planned out in advance was that? Pretty planned.

I'm going to try a couple of these. What inspired me was that our theme music is so honest and good that i'm like i'm gonna try and match that energy can i tell you what was uh simultaneously one of the the best and worst moments of my life recently absolutely uh my friends jamie and scott shout out jamie and scott jamie uh a childhood friend group down the street from me. I love you with all the energy in my body. You're the best.

Jamie and Scott had a little dinner party last weekend. We had some dinner and some board games we played with friends. And Jamie is easily one of the coolest and most interesting people I've ever met in my life. And for some

inexplicable reason listens to every episode of this podcast. My friend in real life, so she doesn't need to do that. And actually, it hurts me because sometimes the stories that I tell on the show, I want to recycle in real life and I can't. What am I supposed to do? Just engage with you in the

present? I don't know how. I've got like a set. These are polished this is gonna these are good ones these are the good ones but so we're having dinner at jamie and scott's house and uh playing board games and jamie brings up the the theme song to the podcast and uh some of my other friends haven't either listened to it yet or at all. And so she was like, Oh, you guys got to hear the, the, the new theme song.

It's so great. Siri. And then she's like instructed her music thing to, to play the podcast theme song in this party in front of me in, in, in front of our friends and in front of the Lord. And she was like, I'm not going to have it play the actual podcast.

Don't worry. I just want them to hear the song. But still she ambushed you. They're getting ambush podcasted yeah and like i it's it's simultaneously great and terrible because like i love our theme song so much and i love our friends so much but i like there's also part of my brain that was like what if what if this never stops what if she what if it keeps going i can't handle that it was like, like very heartwarming and also beet red and sweaty. And like, I have to go now. Yeah.

Shout out, Jamie. Love you, Jamie. Why was, why was Scott a part of that story? Scott is Jamie's husband and also my friend. Oh, okay. Okay. Jamie and Scott's house. I see.

Yeah. Okay. Sorry, Scott. I didn't mean to come down on you. You and Scott's house. I see. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, Scott. I didn't mean to come down on you. You got a great name. It's my coffee name or my Starbucks name. So I can't fault you, Scott. It's also, there are enough people that fall into this category in my life now where I've known Scott for years.

We go to the Poconos together every single year. Scott's great. He go to the Poconos together every single year. Scott's great. He's a tremendous person. It's just so, it's his unfortunate luck that I met Jamie before I met him. So no matter how much adventures we share, it's like, this is Jamie and Jamie's husband, Scott. Jamie's husband. Yeah. Also my friend, Scott.

It's so clear. Like if a couple ever broke up in the friendship draft who would go to who i and sometimes like you could see it alters sometimes yeah like it throughout the relationship where you're like oh yeah no uh sally's like one of my really good friends oh now she's calling his really good friend i see what's happening here i will not talk to sally about calling and uh and then at a certain point yeah you just realize if we broke up oh you get sally that's i get it that's fine uh well let's see i was hoping you would you were gonna hang on to

me talking about wearing an apron in the intro because i yeah and then i went on my own shit sorry about that i okay you went on you went on t-shirts and I thought you were going to bring it around to aprons. You were like, oh, it's just something that I can put on and take off. Like, I don't know. And I was like, bring it home, daddy. And then you just didn't. I brought it back to my own shit. What?

Uh, first of all, kiss the cook. What's it say? Nothing. It's just like, it's like a black serious, uh, apron. It's got an ampersand. With a single chili in the corner and it says chilies no oh it's god i thought for sure that's what you would have i gotta say have you ever cooked with an apron no never i uh i didn't for the longest time and then a couple years ago

my brother and sister-in-law got me an apron for christmas they had me in secret santa and uh it might at scene it might seem at first blush like, wow, you must not talk to your family because it feels like you like cooking, right? I've seen you on Instagram cooking. So here's an apron. Here's a chef's hat. My brother Tommy also cooks a whole lot and loves it. And so it's something I would like and also something that I'm sure he's gotten tremendous equivalent use out of his own apron. And I really got it thinking, yeah, I'll try this out. Like you're due with gifts.

You try it and you see how it goes. I can't think of a single gift in modern times that I have gotten more use out of than this fucking apron. I tell them every time I see them them i wear it almost every time i cook it travels with me when i go places oh i i hate to be a bridesmaid about this but does it have pockets it has three oh that's great and they're like the ones that they're not diagonals they just sit straight up yeah yeah are you putting shit in there oh yeah there's like a a shirt pocket that i sometimes put my my phone in but i bend down so much to get like the oven and everything that it was falling out of the breast pocket so i don't

usually keep my phone in there but i keep like spoons and shit and uh i usually hang a towel from one of the pockets now i when i cook i trust myself generally and and that trust has been earned because i don't i don't generally get messy when i cook are you just like you're doing stuff you're wiping off the edge of a bowl with your finger and being like, ah, gotta get rid of that, and you're just wiping it on the apron? Yes. Or what are you using this for?

The wiping stuff on the apron has been the best change for me as far as not having to have a towel handy all the time or waste paper towels that I can just, like a child, rub shit on my person. It's the best. I'd be so nervous about cooking meat with it. Cause I would, I know for sure that I'd get some raw meat on it somehow. Well then wash it.

Gotta wash it every time I use it. It's just another thing. I have a, I have a very big question for you. Okay. When you. Well, bring it onto our show. Big question. When you take the little tails, do the tails tie in the back or do you wrap them all the way around and tie them in

the front wrap all the way around tie them in the front when did that technology take off because when i was a kid when i was a kid i i definitely like put on my mom's apron just to you know give it a shot and um and like aprons in, all like the kiss the cook ones and everything like they're, those all tied in the back. At some point everyone was like, we're, we're wasting our time. And you just like twist it around tight in the front. I don't remember when that happened. I had, um, this is, this is adjacent when I was taking my scuba classes a couple months

ago, uh, we were all getting in our wetsuits and I went to one of the other people taking the class and I was like, do you want me to zip you up and then you zip me up? And she says, no, there's like a cord that attaches to the zipper that I can just pull from where I am. And I was like, there is? And I watched her do it. There's like a long cord that hangs from the zipper that is specifically for this purpose. And I was like, wow, does mine have that too? She was like, I'll check. Yeah, this purpose and i was like wow does mine have that too she was like i'll check yeah it does like okay great i'm gonna do that too then do you still want to do it

it's one of those uh really great inventions that you had to ask you couldn't just reach sorry go ahead yeah no no i got it really i couldn't hear just reached me? Sorry, go ahead. Yeah. No. No, I got it. The only reason I couldn't hear you is because I... Oh. It was only my computer. I'm sorry. It's the internet where I am. Can you hear me?

When do you want me to start talking? Just a second. Wait till it slows down. Hold on a second. So what happened before? Wait till what slows down? What happens is the internet cuts out at my house, and when it stops, it kind of freezes up, and then whatever you've said just speeds right through.

And so I don't always know if there's just dead air or not. And so we can go right back to where we were. I didn't mean to interrupt you. Okay. What should I say? I kind of want to keep all this in. All right. Makes it easy for Gabe.

It's one of those inventions that uh is a very simple thing that i'm sure took us way too long yeah and i don't know if you could incorporate it into like fancy dresses probably still don't want a big honking rope hanging off the back of your fancy dress that's genius though just like a delicate chain or something like that um you could put whatever you want on it the same way a clutch like the the strap on a clutch matters yeah just a little strap like that something cool we did that technology where we got those little clear straps that we hid inside women's clothing so you can hang it up i feel like you strap one of those on the back of a dress and nobody's going to balk at that. We've already seen those.

Yeah. Hmm. You might be a smart man, Daniel. We might be rich. We. This is our idea. Yeah, no, that's fine. Okay.

That's good. And this is a good tease for a future episode where I'm going to, my quick question for you is going to be to figure out how we get rich. Okay. Well, we would have off of the electric toothbrush if somebody hadn't swooped in and stole the idea from me. Yeah. All right. I got some plans. I got some big plans for us getting rich. And I'll pitch to you like you're one of the sharks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I love that, yeah. Okay, that's a great feature episode. Because what I'm bringing to the table is, in a lot of ways, the hard work. I'm inviting you to come up with the next big thing. I'm the idea man. Yeah, and like you wouldn't, you didn't have permission from the universe

to do that previously. And so now by me taking the big step of really putting myself out there and saying soren what's our million dollar idea i mean like the stone's all the way up the hill man you just gotta just like nudge it over the side we're basically done i think you're right okay i to bring you, every single one of mine will be some variation of the electric tube, right? Mine are going to be just some variation of scuba where it's like it's a toothbrush, but with a really long cord so you can like do it from anywhere. All the stuff you have to do behind your back.

Yeah. That's long cords. Handcuffs, long cords. Avast is a global leader in cybersecurity for more than 30 years and trusted by over 435 million users. Avast empowers you with digital safety and privacy

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And I'm like, ah, but those are all connected. You see, it's all connected to your unhappiness. Stress shows up in all kinds of ways. And in a world that's telling you to do more and sleep less and grind all the time, here's your reminder to take care of yourself, do less and maybe try some therapy. People don't always realize that physical symptoms

like headaches and teeth grinding and even digestive issues and the anxiety you feel right now when I ask you what's getting in the way of your happiness, those are all indicators of stress. And let's not forget about doom scrolling. Gosh, who could forget about doom scrolling? Our favorite habit. BetterHelp is customized online therapy that offers video, phone, and even live chat sessions with your therapist, so you don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to. sessions with your therapist so you don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to better help is much more affordable than in-person therapy too do you feel stressed all the time uh what are the things that stress you out is it work is it bills is it's life is it family do you lose

sleep due to your stress disrupt does stress affect your appetite if you're like everyone else then yeah probably it probably does give betterHelp a try and see if online therapy can help lower your stress. Our listeners get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com slash QQ. That's B-E-T-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P dot com slash QQ for 10% off your first month. Well, I guess we should start our show. All right. Is that all right with you? Yeah, that's fine with me.

Okay. Well, I have a quick question for you. Shoot. You know what a docent is, right? A museum docent? I do, but a lot of our listeners don't. Okay. It's the person who...

Nope, I did not. Docent is the person who's like... I'm not talking about like an art museum. I'm talking about, well, I guess they'd have docents at those too. But it's like the person who knows the shit at the museum and they kind of take you around and like, they're the ones who would be like, over here you see that in 1850, they used these butter churners or whatever it is and like they can like or like these ovens the only way to tell what temperature it was was to actually put your hand inside of it

now is this uh is there at the heart of this an insecure schmuck who decided that he's too good to be called a tour guide or is there like a material difference between those two things it's a great question that thanks docent is so much cooler oh i agree with you i mean i just i think that maybe you're right uh step immediately below the professional rank a person who acts as a guide typically on a voluntary basis in a museum yeah so this is what i'm getting at it's it's i think it's usually a volunteer who does this it's not even a person who's like getting paid or they're getting paid peanuts at a museum because there's there's so many museums even in the united states they like outnumber fast food chains uh they're

oh yeah they did a museums in america did a bigger business than games for every major American sport combined last year. It's wild. It's wild how many museums there are in the world and that they can stay afloat. Um, and I guess it's cause they're not, there's no overhead with your docents, but, um, we went to a museum in the middle of the desert cause we were on our trip to Idlewild. We were going up into the mountains. And the only way to get to the mountains is to go through hell. You go through the Palm Desert, which is like this low squat, very, very hot area. And there's an old museum there in a town called Banning, which is this place where it's basically like shows you what an old ranch looks like.

They've preserved this ranch. And there's a house there too from the 1840s, but not exactly because that house burned down. So they tried to replicate it based on pictures and stuff. But we went to this museum because we're, my daughter's freaking out. She wakes up from a nap and she's freaking out. She wants to get out of the car. And we're like, well, just the thing needs something to do. So we get out and we go to this museum and there's a docent there who's just- Get out of the car. Look,

this is what houses used to look like. Crazy, right? Yeah. It was really hard to impart on my son the concept of time and how this is interesting because he's just like, he has no context for what 1840 means. He's just like, I'm like, do you know when 1980 was? And he was like, I don't know, a hundred years ago? Yeah. And especially with the context of recreations and restorations where it's like, even if you did get them on the same page where it's like, right, so this house has been here since 1840? Well, no, this one probably about 1970. They looked at photographs. Yeah.

So she was like, this docent who has, there's just nobody there. It's us. There's a parking lot for the only people there. I thought we might literally be the only people there. I walked into this wagon museum, which is part of it. And there's a woman sitting at a desk with a cash register. I'm like, surprised to see another human being. I'm like, can I pay for the museum? She's like, yeah, sure. It's your whole family. I'm like, yeah, surprise to see another human being. I'm like, can I pay for the museum? She's like, yeah, sure. It's your whole family. I'm like, yeah. And she goes, okay,

that's $4. And I was like, okay, yeah, uh, sure. I didn't know anything was that cheap anymore. And, uh, and she's like, well, the music, you can't do the tour because the, uh, the woman's already out, the docents already out on a tour. And I was like, that's fine. We're just going to walk around. And I'm like looking around like, where is she on a tour with? There's no other cars here. And we kind of like, we just walk around the grounds for a little bit. There's an orange tree and my son picks some oranges.

And because wherever we go, we just fucking take. We're just like, this is mine now. Yeah. This $4 is suddenly a real steal. We get into the house and she's there and she's there alone and there's nobody else there. And so now I'm like, what was the tour? Was it just like, it was time? And she's like, well, no one's here, but I'm going to start the tour because we got to keep on a schedule. Yeah. And so we go in there and she's eager to talk.

She just wants connection, like human connection. And I realized like, that's a very specific thing to docents and tour guides everywhere I've ever gone. They love human interaction in a way that is like, I don't trust. There's no skepticism. There's no jadedness.

I'm sure that they get terrible people on their tours who they have to put up with. And yet every single time they meet a new human being, they're like, oh, I bet this person's rad. And like, they just want to talk and like find out what you know and hang out. And so she's doing all of that. She's like, just kind of like walking with us.

She's like, if you have any questions, just ask me. And she's kind of like, as we talk about different things, she's telling us these little unique facts about it. She's just excited about the property and excited about her, I assume volunteer job. And then she, she's like talking to my son and stuff. And she just wants to know about us. Like she's asking us questions about our family and like where we live and how old he is and how school is for him. And she's not just being polite. It's like she genuinely wants to know. And I start getting very, very jealous of this woman because she's so content and so happy with her job. She loves this place. She loves this museum. It's's her baby and then she also just loves human interaction and like I I genuinely think we all kind of retire

like graduate into docent nests for like that's we're like that as old people we're just like craving human interaction it doesn't matter what it is just like let's just talk anybody let's talk let's talk but she's got she's young and she's got it and i'm like getting really kind of mad at myself because i'm like why don't why can't i just like people why can't i just trust people or like open up like i the minute somebody starts a conversation with me i'm like on guard yeah i'm just like waiting i'm like at some point there's gonna be a red flag here and then i gotta walk away and sometimes people they can disarm me if they're like very funny or they're they're interesting right away and then i'm like

oh okay all right this is actually if this is a good interaction um but she's just like there to make lifelong friends and she's so open i was like i gotta figure out how to do that yeah that sounds right that sounds it seems like it's it's a very specific type of person that would be attracted to that kind of work that is important and very thankless and i'm sure there's not a lot of money in it if there's any money at all if it's if it's volunteer and it's just you've got to just be a person who likes preserving knowledge and being helpful and being personable with strangers that's a very

you're not going to get like a couple of grouch docents you know there's no one like where like yeah he's rough around the edges but he's like he's good when he gets to know him but he just fucking hates art it's everybody who's drawn to it is really happy to be, he's a little rough around the edges, but he's like, he's good when he gets to know him, but he just fucking hates art. It's everybody who's drawn to it is really happy to be there.

That's a great persona. Like that. I think we can make a lot of money with that museum where it's like, because those two are always going hand in hand, where it's a person who both loves other people and the material. Where if you just take away one of those things, it becomes a very funny situation where somebody who like really loves other people, but could not give less of a shit about this place where they're working you're like uh no there are a bunch of sticklers here look if anybody wants to smoke outside that's cool with me we could go do that um he's honestly he's the best in the world of what he does but like left to his own devices he'd burn every pyramid to the ground hate some things they're ugly really despises them at night we catch him throwing rocks um or somebody who is just like somebody who loves the material like loves gettysburg but just fucking hates people and when people show up it's always just like

all right all right let's. Let's go look. And going through it and just the minute someone shows an interest, they don't trust it. I feel like that would be a great museum. A little kid asking the docent how long was the Gettysburg Address. Like, oh, it's really interesting. It's actually, you can find it at just fucking google it dot com. Oh, you don't care. You don't care.

You're doing this for a clat. What is this, extra credit for you? Yeah. Oh. See, we have some questions that look like a lot of people like the sound of their own voices. All right. Yeah.

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That's joinhoney.com slash qq. Speaking of stuff we know um i thought docent was a podium just a type of podium just like a thing a little column that you put a bowl on on in the in the museum okay the just those displays yeah yeah um museum okay the just those displays yeah yeah um i'm gonna try and i gotta now figure out where that those wires got crossed i gotta figure out with a thesaurus what you you thought that was what did your how did your kids like the museum they loved it oh um despite the fact that they had no historical context at all um they really liked it. Because we walked around, there were all these wagons there. Inside, they showed there was like an old male wagon and a female wagon. No, there was an old male wagon.

Not like the wagons after that. No, not. Jesus. It was very cool. And it was cool for me, too, because I play a lot of Red Dead Redemption. Right. That's my only context. But just walking around the Wagamuseum was very cool, because there was also a lot of,

they have all the flint knaps and arrowheads that they'd found around the property from before, before tragedy. And then they had the old guns and the old china that they'd eat with you know not the same time yeah as these are the guns but uh and then walking through the house was very interesting because there's like clearly a writing desk and it's it's just folds out of the wall in this way where you're like oh yeah you didn't need a lot of other shit on your desk. You had an inkwell and you had paper or maybe a pen at that point. But like there was nothing else to put there. And then, um,

the kitchen was fascinating because you know, you have to pump water in the kitchen. There's pipes to the kitchen, but you have to pump these from the well. Uh, the sink is just, you kind of roll up your sleeves when you want to use the sink and like really get to work. And then the stove, of course, is really interesting because it's, you got to put wood in the bottom of it, keep it going. And so you've got wood all next piled up next to the stove too.

And then you got to cook real fast on it because you want to keep an even heat. And all these things where I'm like, man, life was, it's not like it, you could do it. You could do it. I want to keep an even heat and all these things where i'm like man life was it's not like it you could do it you could do it i want to want to say harder it was just so much more inconvenient and time consuming to do any little thing i got made me feel good so mad at one of those recreation museums they they uh rebuilt roosevelt's apartment or house or whatever in new york because because they didn't have anything from the original and they had like a couple of props from it and then like some other like donated fake props and and remade props and they i i did this tour i was doing in in as a tie into a promotion for my book how to fight presidents when that book came out um this i was doing uh getting a story done

on me for esquire um i read it named matthew kitchen and he was like let's let's grab a meal and then let's do this roosevelt tour go to this old house i was like yeah sure i've never been that sounds great um and we did it and they were very clear that none of this is the real shit. None of this was stuff that Teddy or any of the Roosevelts like had or used. So I picked up a thing and started playing with it. Not in like a loud, obnoxious way. Just in a I'm bored on this tour

sort of way. I just like idly picked something up and started thumbing through it because I have this stupid idea in my head that if I can pick something up or open something, then I'm supposed to. Otherwise, it would be bolted down. So I picked it up and I started thumbing

through it and the docent I guess like, excuse me, you can't touch any of the parts of the museum, which when you say it is like a very obvious thing. Of course I can't. i've been to museums before of course i can't touch this stuff but i was so embarrassed and i got yelled at as an adult which i don't like and then i turn over to the guy who's writing a profile about me and i just see him like

no no no no no no don't don't write about how i got yelled at touching the stuff dang clumsily and sweaty thumb through a book at the museum Don't write about how I got yelled at for touching the stuff. Dan clumsily and sweatily thumbed through a book at the museum. Turned to me and said he was the greatest living writer in my life. This book is shit. I could write something ten times this better. Ten times this better. Dan.

Yeah. A dais. Dais. Is that possibly what you were thinking of uh dais is that how you pronounce it yeah oh i missed maybe this is a mario mario thing it's not called a diet uh maybe i'm thinking of like an archdiocese oh we're going we're like in the weeds at this point what word are we both trying to solve let's make sure that we're looking at the same deus deus deus deus yeah deus okay yes is that is that what you're thinking in terms of a dose nope okay i think it's just it's just my brain being stupid okay well i get that a lot yeah i'm to see, I don't know if I've just been going, speaking of my brain being stupid. I've been famously taking Spanish classes.

So for our long listeners, back in November when I was on hiatus from work, Soren said that he thinks I should get a hobby. And I have since gotten scuba certified and taken Spanish every single day for 80 days and counting today will be day 81 of my daily spanish lessons and uh i'm still really enjoying them but uh i have lost many of the words that i've learned in my 80 days of spanish classes like every once in a while because you're learning new words every day and I feel like I'm learning more and I understand Pretty well at this point and I like I can I if I hear people at the grocery store I can pick up No, I know what's going on here. You guys are you're talking about the weird guy who's standing too close to you

I see. Yeah, I I can I can pick up on that It's me. Yeah. It's Joe. There are some words, because the way the classes are structured, you're just like in certain scenarios for a while, and then you bounce out of them. Like in the beginning, there was a lot of like you're in a cafe and you're ordering coffee, you're ordering wine, beer, soda. And then there's a chunk of time where I was planning a trip. So we were talking about airports and airline tickets a lot. There was a chunk of time where we were talking about playing volleyball and playing tennis a lot. And then you move on

from these things. And it has now been like 15 lessons since anyone has asked me to play volleyball i know what's going to happen again and i i am just realizing as i take these classes that that play has fallen out of my head yeah and that's that's they'll they'll sneak up on you like that every once in a while the scenario i'm in now is all about booksellers and i'm just like talking about this work conference with booksellers and they were like okay now uh now one of the booksellers says forget about this meeting and they want to go out dancing i was like ah fuck we learned dancing back in february i didn't think i thought i was done with dancing it's i think this is the the pitfall of learning a language too fast where like you i i know there's a lot of different companies

that are like, hey, we can teach you Spanish in three months. And they can teach you like the basics of it and they can teach you conjugation and things like that. But the actual glossary of terms, it just, it's like filling a trash can, your brain,

where it's just, you get to a certain point and then anything that goes in on top of it just sort of falls off the side. Yeah. Like there's only so many you can hold at any given time. And occasionally you can be like, well, no, this should go in as opposed to this and then you have to remove something else and so it's you can't possibly keep a full glossary in your head unless

you are doing it every single day yeah for you like a year or two and and certainly the next time i i learn one of these languages i still want to do pimps app for life. Cause I think it's a great way to learn things. I'm going to do it with another person because one of the things that I'm definitely missing is like, there's no, because it's just me and I'm going back and forth with this app. There's no, you don't get to play the sport.

You don't get to, to jam out with a band once you learn the song. You know, I want a thing that doesn't feel like class. I want to feel like I'm having a conversation in Spanish with someone who's exactly at my level. I want to run a few laps talking about fucking

airline tickets and playing volleyball for a while. Yeah, there's no soloing when you're doing the app. That's true, yeah. I think we've talked about this before. This is going to sound like I'm while yeah there's no soloing yeah when you're doing the app that's true yeah and i can try a little bit i think we've talked about this before this is going to sound like i'm i'm gunning for thirst trap of the year but there's an older woman that i volunteer with at the food pantry blanca and i practice some spanish with her and that's that's good for scratching some of this

itch but you really i want to do it with someone who is exactly taking the class that I'm taking. Because Blanca, even if she is, God bless her, doing very basic conversational stuff, there's still a part of me that wants to be like, No, ask me about airport. Ask me about airline tickets. I don't know what I'm doing this week. Because I don't know how I'm doing this week because I don't know, I don't know how to say scuba yet. So ask me about airline tickets because we just

learned airline tickets. Trajetas, trajetas. I'm trying to think if there've been any fun scenarios. Oh, there's a lot of talk about like going to the movies in the Spanish class and you're sort of limited. They, they build it around movies with titles that are words that we would have learned otherwise. Like there was a, a, a week where we were going to the movies to see yesterday because a year was a word that we had learned for other purposes uh so we're always talking about real movies and the scenario uh a week or so ago was uh a woman had just seen a movie and you're like what movie was it she says a quiet place because because these are words that we're learning and you're like how how was quiet place it was too long quiet place was too long i didn't like it

you don't know what she you don't know what she said so you ask her again how was the movie and she says it was terrible a quiet place was terrible it was too long and it was terrible and then for just the strange quirk of where we're at in this lesson the narrator's like you notice that she doesn't look right. So you say, what's wrong with you? She says, I'm dizzy. And then the scenario ends. And it's just a weird scenario cobbled together with what we've learned. But listening to it, I feel like, oh, I see what happened.

She got really high and saw a quiet place and had a bad time. It was too long. She got freaked out in the theater. Now she's dizzy. Leave her alone. She got too long. She got freaked out in the theater. Now she's dizzy. Leave her alone. She got too high and saw a horror movie. It was mad about it. Sat in the theater.

Didn't know why everyone was being so quiet. Is there any dialogue in this movie? I'm freaking out. That's so funny. I don't know if you've ever seen videos that are the other direction where like somebody's for esl for they do the same sort of things where there's little vignettes and like a guy will be like hey do you know what time it is and someone will say no why don't you ask that woman over there and then you used to go like we walked like that's a good idea and walks over he's like hey do you know what time it is ah thank then he used to go, like, we walked, it's like, that's a good idea. And walks over, he's like, hey, do you know what time it is? Ah, thank you.

And then he comes back over, she knew what time it was. Like that kind of thing. But the weird thing is, and we wouldn't probably get this from Spanish because you're learning the language, but when they do it in English, it really, it's glaring. They talk so slowly. And like they enunciate everything in a weird, weird way.

Where he's like hello could you tell me what time it is you sound like um a guy who's telling you what movies are at a theater like a recording of that yeah it's it's so slow and stilted in a way and when it's a vignette that's video it's even weirder because you get to watch somebody trying to act through it it's certainly weird and i and i would love to play this for like a fluent native spanish speaker to see how weird everyone sounds because even without knowing how weird it would sound like how stilted it might be it's still just like boring ass conversations when i like step back a little bit like you walked into a

cafe and you saw a friend she says sit down we are having an important discussion we are talking about the countries we think the languages are different and that difference is importance what do you think tell her i think the languages are important but i also think so is the climate like hey this conversation fucking blows could you do like a second writing pass on this maybe how do you say in spanish i'm in an unconvincing matrix yeah uh well i i hope dan that it continues to go well for you by lars dance so you're all set there yeah and uh you know you got a county it's ar so it's real easy really easy conjugation i i think i actually uh texted you about this where there was the scenario was you were driving with a woman to a party and you were lost and then we're like very passive aggressively fighting over it where it's like

you tell her we're lost so you tell her and then she says I'm not lost and then you have to say well I'm lost and now we're going to be late to the party. And then she says, what time is the party? And in this scenario, instead of my character answering her, the answer that they want me to tell her, I already told you what time the party is. I'm like, oh, shit. These guys are fighting. It's like, tell her we are always late because of you. She says, not always, just sometimes. I really want to... That's a really honest one.

That was great. It is. It reminds me of a person that we both knew that I was frequently going to parties with in LA. And was like, we would just get in fights all the time that were just like this. Where I would get frustrated and say, we're always late. And she'd be like, not always. Okay, you win that part of the argument.

We are still late and we're still lost. I'm not lost. Well, you're in my car and I'm lost. And it's such a familiar fight to me that I want to reach out to the Spanish class and be like hey I know so in my experience these two characters fight a lot and then

eventually they work through it and they stop fighting and I'm just really curious if we're going to have that lesson they resolve their tension she was somebody who was very varsity at like spinning it like as soon as she was not right about something and started to realize she was not who was, who was very varsity at like spinning it.

Like if she, as soon as she was not right about something and started to realize she was not right to just like turn it in the trend and change the angle of the argument to be like, well, I'm right about this. And that's what we're arguing about. And you're like,

and you have to like pin her down and be like, no, no, no. And like bring her back to your angle and be like, no, this is where we were. I remember a night at your apartment where I got no one better at this

specific thing. I was, we, she and where I got in a yelling match in your apartment. And to this day, I don't remember what it was about. But she was really your friend. And then we started hanging out. And when I got in this yelling argument with her, just like the glimmer in your eye of seeing somebody else deal with it. To be a third party to that and witness that, no, it's not just you. You're not being a bad person.

She's just really good at this, was great. Was Hugh realizing, oh no, this is for everyone. I'm the good guy here. Look, now Soren's really sweaty and she still has not lost her cool. She's just racking up wins because she keeps changing the game. Another point on the board.

Yeah, she was excellent at that. I don't know how you learn something like that either. It's debate class maybe, but she would just, she'd pivot. She'd pivot so quick to the point where like at the end, you'd be like, hold on. How did we get way over here the original argument was this and i was right it's the problem is anytime you use just like a tiny bit of hyperbole she nails you down she's like oh really millions millions well no no not millions. Okay, then she runs a victory lap.

Yeah. We had an argument that started with us trying to figure out whether or not the tar pits were closed. And now I'm apologizing and saying she's right about when Amelia Earhart disappeared. How the fuck did this happen? It's, I think if you just, when those are circumstances, you just got to take the person and verbally drag them back to the very first part of the conversation.

No, you said this, and then I said this. Do you still think you're right? Okay, well, that's probably enough for a show. i'm going to uh tell you where i can find us on twitter mostly uh except for daniel daniel are you back on twitter yet i am back on twitter it's uh that didn't take long no i was going to leave it as like like i wanted a brief test to see like hey am i addicted to this stupid hate machine that brings me no joy that I, I spend so much time on. Uh,

and I think the jury is still kind of out on that because it was one of those like soft launch of, of, uh, a detox where I'm like, I'm going to like flirt with not doing it, but I can go back to it whenever I want. That's.

That's healthy, right? Knowing that it's completely within my control to just like take up Twitter again. And I did. I went like 25 days with no Twitter. And in the beginning was like, OK, it's not. The thing I feared was that I was going to need Twitter immediately. Yeah. And I didn't.

There wasn't like a thing that was missing in my life. And then once I realized it wasn't like this important load-bearing thing, then my stupid, I guess the addict in my brain was like, okay, good, so now give it to me again. Yeah. You almost took it to the edge, though. You went 25 days. That's almost to the end.

And then was there some event that brought you back where you're like, I have to see what Twitter thinks about this? It was the Oscars slap. Oh, yeah. Okay, that's fair. There, boy, were there a lot of bad takes to go explore with that. I was away from Twitter just long enough

that I had forgotten how bad Twitter has gotten at this point that I was like, oh, this will be the perfect time to like jump in for some jokes. It's been so long since we've had a good old fashioned Twitter just like run around the room doing jokes until we're all asleep kind of thing. But it's not it's not jokes anymore. It's it's it's takes and it's uh re-centering the narrative so it's about you now it's about whichever person is is posting a response to it now this is about them like oh we don't even that we need like a separate twitter just for jokes now i know that oh that would be so

nice um i guess that's kind of what twitter could. I don't have to follow the people who are doing takes. I could just never check the news feed and only go to the people that I follow. But I moose out a lot of the news that way. Yeah. I moose. I moose out. Yeah. You can follow Daniel at DOB underscore Inc.

You can follow me, Soren underscore LTD. You can follow Quick Question at Qq underscore soren and dan we also have an email address which is qq with soren and daniel at gmail.com i'm about her instagram i don't think anything's ever been posted to our instagram so uh instagram um you can you can well i'm just gonna tell you about him you can't find or follow him, but we have a producer, a sound engineer and editor, and he's great. And his name is Gabe Harder. And, uh, if you met him in person, he would just be, you'd, you'd be charmed. You'd be like everything that I was saying earlier about being a docent and like how you need to be open to other people. Boy, Gabe would really reward you for that. And that's it.

Bye. The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favourite? Who did you get? When will I be remembered? What's it over? Word it over 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